Keeping the Faith

I went to see the film 'Keeping the Faith' in  a church hall recently.  The film is about a rabbi and a priest who are good friends and are reunited with a childhood friend (a woman) and, as you might expect, they  both fall in love with her.  It is  a romantic comedy and very enjoyable.  It covers a lot of issues such as celibacy, Jewish - Christian relations, the difference between faith and religion, personal integrity.  The point of showing the film was to get people talking about these issues. The first comment in the discussion that followed was that friendship between Christians and Jews was OK in America but not here. And why not?  Because Jews in Britain are stand offish, keep to themselves and don't want to get involved with anyone else.  Then there followed a series of complaints along the lines of catholic schools are watering down the faith, Scotland's  no longer a Christian country, Christians are being too accommodating to other faiths. Not everyone was as negative - some people thought that it was good that Christians of the Catholic variety were more open than they were in the past.  But there was an air of elitism in the discussion, a subtle putting others down, a suggestion that they were not quite as good as we are. I found the whole thing quite disheartening.  I did try to  point out the good work done by the Council of Christians and Jews, the opportunities that there are to meet people of different faiths but I am not sure how seriously I was taken.  The final story of the night was of a visit to a Mosque and being given a Qu'ran (and we would never give anyone a copy of the catechism if they came to visit us), of being told about the greatness of Allah, how good Allah was, what gifts Allah had given us.  When asked repeatedly why Allah was so good the answer that God was merciful was not enough.  The correct answer we were told was God is Love  " and that's what's missing in Islam".  Obviously the speaker didn't think mercy a quality of love. Nor had he heard of the open letter from 134 Muslim scholars to Pope Benedict asking for mutual understanding between Christianity and Islam and suggesting that the basis for this understanding can be found in the common principles of the religions: "Love of the one God, and love of the neighbour". 

Diana Eck has said that people of every religious tradition depend upon one another to interpret one another fairly and accurately. "We are the keepers of one another’s image …. This is a sacred trust ". There was no sense of this in that Church Hall and an opportunity was missed to further understanding and respect.

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