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Replacing the Other

18/5/2017

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A word that has come up in conversation more than once recently has been supersessionism. It’s the belief that a later religion supersedes an earlier one and has a more complete truth. Because of this the later religion replaces the previous one rendering it redundant and obsolete.  Perhaps there’s a touch of supersessionism in all religions. No religion stands alone and, while many of them claim a unique revelation and teaching, they have grown up in a particular culture, reflect that culture and have often emerged from a previous, earlier religion.

We reflect on supersessionism or replacement theology quite a lot in Christian – Jewish relations –because for many years the Christian Church claimed that because the Jews had rejected Jesus, God had rejected them and transferred the promise of being God’s People to Christians who were the true and faithful children of Abraham. I remember being taught about the idea of the anawim as I was growing up. The anawim were the faithful Jews (associated with Jesus, his mother and disciples), the small faithful remnant who were true to God’s promises and from whom Christianity emerged. Christianity, therefore, was a continuation of fidelity, not the legalism identified with the majority of Jews at the time of Jesus and certainly not those who had missed the coming of the Messiah. How arrogant it now sounds. Thank goodness we are now facing up to it. To believe that Christianity replaced Judaism led, in the past, to attitudes of rejection, a distortion of Judaism’s truth, marginalisation of the community and even violence. Today we are more aware of the Jewishness of Jesus and how the Christian scriptures reflect not conflict between Judaism and Christianity as established religions but tensions between Jews struggling to understand what it meant to be faithful to their Judaism while acknowledging the growing influence of those who chose to follow Jesus.  In the Gospels it’s important to remember that all the people are Jews (unless otherwise stated). The break between the two religions did come about when Gentiles were admitted to the community of those who were followers of Jesus’ way and no demands were put on them to accept Jewish customs like circumcision and food laws. For the Jewish community this was a serious threat to their identity and for Christians not to accept Gentiles and see Jesus as the focus of their identity was a threat to what it meant to be Christian.  So the two religions did go their own way, establishing separate identities with different practices and, when Constantine was converted in the 4thcy, establishing what we know of as Christendom, with different positions within society. And the superior and more powerful community made life difficult to say the least for the marginalised and smaller faith.

Nowadays we Christians are less likely to claim that God has withdrawn his promises from His Chosen People. It’s been suggested by Ed Kessler that as parents do not reject or stop loving their first born when another baby comes along so God does not withdraw his promises or lessen his love for his firstborn. If human beings love their children equally and completely, why would we suggest that God doesn’t?  In 2015 the Catholic Church published a document entitled ‘The Gifts and Calling of God are irrevocable’ which is straight from the letter to the Romans chapter 11:29. The document  states that Jews are on the path to salvation, are not the focus of Christian mission and are still in  covenantal relationship with God. What’s interesting about the document is that it was published by the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity and not the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue as one might suppose. This reflects the close bond between Christians and Jews who are seen as having a special family relationship.

Christianity is not the only religion to be accused of supersessionism.  Muslims feel the same with regard to both Judaism and Christianity. They recognise the followers of both religions as People of the Book but they believe that the revelation captured in the Torah and the Gospels to be inadequate, incomplete and even distorted. The complete, true revelation is contained in the Qur’an. There is much that’s similar in the holy books of the three faiths but different emphases and different versions of common stories. So Jesus is recognised as a prophet but not the image of the invisible God as Christians believe. Abraham was called to sacrifice his son but it was Ishmael, the son of Hagar and not Isaac, the son of Sarah. Theirs is the true story which takes precedence over other accounts. This can be difficult in dialogue.  If one partner believes in their own truth and rejects the truth of the others there can be no real dialogue. There can be no equality or openness which is the foundation for good interfaith relations. It’s important to set aside one’s own convictions, talking from the basis of what we each believe and being willing to share not only insights but the message behind the various stories for surely each religion has a truth to share.

I’m sure other religions also see themselves as somehow superseding the religion that gave them birth. In other contexts we don’t talk about it too much but it’s good to face ourselves honestly about our sense of superiority to see if it lingers somewhere in our psyche. 

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The Month of May

9/5/2017

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The month of May brings on a rash of nostalgia for people of my generation. It conjures up hymns we sang in primary school such as “May is the month of Mary, the month we all love so well….”, “the sun is shining brightly, the trees are clothed in green…”, “bring flowers of the rarest, bring blossoms the fairest from garden and woodland and hillside and dale….” It’s a lyrical description of May and the present good weather in Scotland shows gardens and countryside in all their beauty. The hymns were ways of praising Mary and devotion to Mary was central during that month.  We had what we called a May altar in the classroom with a statue of Mary in central position and we were encouraged to bring flowers to decorate it. I remember the pride of getting flowers from our garden and the smell of some of these flowers brings back memories of warm, sunny days, sweet smelling classrooms, processions and the wearing of blue ribbons to honour Mary, the mother of Jesus. It got me thinking about devotion.
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I was brought up on religious devotion. It enlivened my life, drew me deeper into religion and gave joy to my life. It taught me to love religion and to hear a call to spirituality that has never left me.  I suppose I also grew beyond it, probably thinking of it as childish and focussed more on meditation, reading of scripture - more adult religious practices, so to speak.  It’s easy to denigrate religious devotion as belonging to a simple faith but it’s a genuine expression of faith for some people and gives a sense of meaning to their life. After the Second Vatican Council there was a sense that the Catholic Church had thrown the baby out with the bath water when there was a lot of emphasis on learning from Church documents about the new developments in and understandings of the Church and less on traditional devotions. There’s now a resurgence of some of the more traditional practices, at least in this country, – they appeal to some but not others and some people can even be a bit embarrassed by them.


 Some religions are more devotional than others and sometimes people (probably Christian of course) categorise religions as reflecting the Catholic or Protestant traditions of Christianity. So Tibetan Buddhism would be regarded as more akin to the Catholic tradition because of its smells and bells, chants and rituals while Zen Buddhism would be seen as a bit more austere – akin to the Protestant tradition. It’s often said that Tibetan Buddhism flourishes in Catholic societies while Zen Buddhism appeals to more Protestant countries. Sunni Islam is rather more ‘protestant’ while Shia Islam is more ‘catholic.’  Hinduism manages to incorporate both aspects of religion. It recognises many different paths to God and to wholeness. There’s the way of good deeds, the way of knowledge and reflection on the meaning of life and the way of love and devotion to the one God expressed through multiple manifestations. Saints have composed hymns in honour of the various deities. Mystics, like Antal and Mirabai have devoted their lives to God, foregoing the traditional dharma of marriage.  Even great philosophers like Sankara who sought through meditation and contemplation the meaning of life and oneness with God composed hymns and had a personal devotion to God.  He was able to live with both aspects of religion. 


It’s possible to be devoted to many things. Artists, musicians, sportsmen, academics are devoted to their pursuits and are often only successful because of their commitment and devotion.  The kind of devotion I’m thinking about is the kind of religious devotion that cultivates a personal relationship with God, or some other religious figure. For Catholics this could be Jesus, the Virgin Mary, for Hindus the Lord Krishna, for Buddhists the Bodhisattva Kuan Yin or Tara. Often this devotion is enlivened by images which are venerated and respected, something that some religions like Islam, Judaism and reformed Christianity find hard to understand. Images can be seen as idols, taking the place of God and objects of worship in their own right. But this need not be the case and certainly was not what we were doing as children when we were honouring Mary. Images, religious practices can be for the believer what the Catholic tradition calls sacramentals – objects, rituals which are like windows into the Divine, that take us into the presence of God, that enliven in us a love of God which overflows into a love of others. If any of these objects, figures or rituals were to obscure God then they would indeed be idols. But for the most part they are seen as sacred, bringing joy, hope, confidence into religion and genuinely opening devotees to hear the silent music of God’s call to wholeness of life. Perhaps it’s also a question of temperament (or conditioning) but I think religion without devotion would be a very dull state of affairs. 

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The Tenderness Revolution

1/5/2017

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 Pope Francis is a man of surprises. This week he was captured by a photographer, dressed in ordinary black clerical dress, crossing St Peter’s Square to help out at a Vatican charity which helps people who are homeless.  He also made a surprise appearance (through a video link) at the TED conference in Canada. It was quite a coup for the organisers.  The Pope’s message was a powerful one that should, in my opinion, be shouted from the rooftops. Because of modern technology it’s one that can be accessed by many for many years to come.  What came across to me was his compassion that feels deeply the ills of all those on the margins of society, his desire for a world in which everyone is treated with love and respect, his belief in the goodness of people and his conviction that things can be better.  This is a man who does not live on the surface of life but plumbs its depths and speaks from the heart.

His message was three-fold. Firstly he spoke about the interconnectedness of all people and indeed of the whole of creation – a teaching found in all of the world religions and now shown to be part of reality through our new understandings of science.  He said” we all need each other, none of us is an island, an autonomous and independent "I," separated from the other, and we can only build the future by standing together, including everyone. We don’t think about it often, but everything is connected, and we need to restore our connections to a healthy state”. 
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His second point was about solidarity which he described as “a free response from the heart of each and everyone” that allows us to see others, especially those most in need of help, as persons and not statistics. “The other has a face. The “you” is always a real presence, a person to take care of”. It is this care for each other, the Pope suggests, that will make each of us a bright candle shining through the darkness of today’s conflicts.  This was a message of hope – not a naïve optimism as the Pope said, but a virtue of the heart that refuses to lock itself into darkness. “A single individual is enough for hope to exist and that individual can be you. And then there will be another “you” and another “you” and it turns into an “us” And so does hope begin when we have an “us?” No. Hope begins with one “you.”  When there is an “us” there begins a revolution.

And the revolution? – A revolution of tenderness, a path not for the weak but for the strong and courageous. “And what is tenderness? It is the love that comes close and becomes real. it is a movement that starts from our heart and reaches the eyes, the ears  and the hands. Tenderness means to use our eyes to see the other, or ears to hear the other, to listen to the children, the poor,  those who are afraid of the future. To listen to the silent cry of our common home, of our sick and polluted earth.”
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It’s this revolution of tenderness that has stayed with me – a love that comes close and becomes real. Solidarity, interconnectedness, hope are good religious and human values and we hear quite a lot about them today but I’m not sure I’ve heard about a revolution of tenderness. However  a trawl through the internet showed that Cardinal Walter Kasper had written a book entitled ‘Pope Francis’ Revolution of Tenderness and Love’ to mark the second anniversary of his election as Pope and the Pope has talked of tenderness in homilies so it’s not new. There’s a lot about tenderness in religion - God’s steadfast love for his creation, our love for God who is Love itself, as it says in the Christian tradition, and closer to us than our jugular vein as in the Muslim tradition.  Mystics in all the world religions have expressed their love for God in moving and passionate poetry  but this revolution of tenderness is one that’s for everyone whether we are religious or not. It’s practical, it’s real. It’s one that breaks down barriers between human beings, that influences the way we relate to one another.  Tenderness is a lovely word. It conjures up the unconditional love of a parent for a child, the care and concern for someone ill and suffering, the patience with those younger and less experienced. It’s non-judgemental and concerned for the good of others. We’re lucky if we’ve been the recipient of a tender look from someone who loves us and we know how good that feels.  How difficult would it be to look upon others with tenderness? If we could do it, it would indeed be the basis of a revolution that could change the world.  Just imagine how the world would look if we related with tenderness at a personal, national and international level? It’s a wonderful thought and surely not beyond the reach of any of us?

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    I am  a Catholic nun, involved in interfaith relations for many decades.  For me this has been an exciting and sacred journey which I would like to share with others.

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