I have on more than one occasion recently (see here and here) argued that inter-faith dialogue provides an opportunity for the development of a broader understanding of interaction with those who are different from my or ourselves; that it can both provide a basis for a new approach to morality and give an insight into the nature of the Trinity.
The necessity for such understandings have been reinforced for me by the reaction to decisions made recently by the deputies and bishops of The Episcopal Church and the posts regarding CMS and Greenbelt. What passes for debate on such issues is often anything but, primarily because there is no real desire to understand, respect or value the other. So, in the CMS/Greenbelt furore, for example, those who understand themselves to be abused by their opponents as "bigoted, blinkered, homophobic, narrow-minded" etc. respond in the exactly the same vein by posting about gay bishop poster boys with a "sadly amaturish biblical hermeneutic" and equating gay christian organisations with the BNP.
Such positions are taken and abuse meted out because people have already made up their minds on these issues before hearing any argument from their opponents and, therefore, they believe that they have nothing to learn from their opponents. This is the reverse of what has to occur when real and meaningful inter-faith dialogue takes place, as can be seen, for example, in the ten ethical guidelines drawn up by the Christian Muslim Forum which set out how Christians and Muslims can talk about their faith to each other in a way that is just, truthful and compassionate:
1) We bear witness to, and proclaim our faith not only through words but through our
attitudes, actions and lifestyles.
2) We cannot convert people, only God can do that. In our language and methods we
should recognise that people’s choice of faith is primarily a matter between themselves and
God.
3) Sharing our faith should never be coercive; this is especially important when working with
children, young people and vulnerable adults. Everyone should have the choice to accept or
reject the message we proclaim and we will accept people’s choices without resentment.
4) Whilst we might care for people in need or who are facing personal crises, we should
never manipulate these situations in order to gain a convert.
5) An invitation to convert should never be linked with financial, material or other
inducements. It should be a decision of the heart and mind alone.
6) We will speak of our faith without demeaning or ridiculing the faiths of others.
7) We will speak clearly and honestly about our faith, even when that is uncomfortable or
controversial.
8) We will be honest about our motivations for activities and we will inform people when
events will include the sharing of faith.
9) Whilst recognising that either community will naturally rejoice with and support those who
have chosen to join them, we will be sensitive to the loss that others may feel.
10) Whilst we may feel hurt when someone we know and love chooses to leave our faith, we
will respect their decision and will not force them to stay or harass them afterwards.
These are guidelines which those on both sides of the current debates in the Anglican Communion would do well to study and apply. If we could begin to debate controversial issues from a similar starting point, our debates could be much more productive.
Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi, writes in The Dignity of Difference:
“We must learn the art of conversation, from which truth emerges not, as in Socratic dialogues, by the refutation of falsehood but by the quite different process of letting our world be enlarged by the presence of others who think, act, and interpret reality in ways radically different from our own.”
When we do this, when we “recognize God’s image in someone who is not in my image, whose language, faith, ideals, are different from mine” then we are allowing God to remake us in his image instead of making God in our own image. And to do so has moral outworkings, as Sacks notes when he writes:
“I believe that we are being summoned by God to see in the human other a trace of the divine Other. The test – so lamentably failed by the great powers of the twentieth century – is to see the divine presence in the face of a stranger; to heed the cry of those who are disempowered in this age of unprecedented powers; who are hungry and poor and ignorant and uneducated, whose human potential is being denied the chance to be expressed. That is the faith of Abraham and Sarah, from whom the great faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, trace their spiritual or actual ancestry. That is the faith of one who, though he called himself but dust and ashes, asked of God himself, ‘Shall the judge of all the earth not do justice?’ We are not gods, but are summoned by God – to do His work of love and justice and compassion and peace.”
Richard Middleton and Brian Walsh make similar points when they write that:
“in this covenantal worldview, all of creation is subjective, all of creation speaks. The task of human knowing, in all of its forms, is to translate that creational glossolalia into human terms … An epistomology intent on listening to our covenantal partners (God and the rest of creation) will decidely not silence the voice of the other … In response to the gift of creation, we are called as stewards to a knowing that opens up the creation in all of its integrity and enhances its disclosure. Rather than engaging the real world as masters, we are invited to be image-bearing rulers. Our knowing does not create or integrate reality. Rather we respond to a created and integrated reality in a way that either honors and promotes that integration or dishonors it. We are called to reciprocate the Creator’s love in our epistomological stewardship of this gift. Wright describes such an epistomology of love beautifully when he says, “The lover affirms the reality and the otherness of the beloved. Love does not seek to collapse the beloved in terms of itself.” In a relational and stewardly epistemology, “ ‘love’ will mean ‘attention’: the readiness to let the other be the other, the willingness to grow and change in relation to the other.””
Like Middleton and Walsh, I have also written (in Living with other faiths) that there is a biblical, theological and philosophical grounding for such dialogue in the Christian tradition. I believe that this grounding begins with the exchange that is at the heart of the Trinity, takes in both the conversations between human beings and God which repeatedly occur in scripture and the dialogical form of scripture itself, and accepts the philosophical perception that human identity is constructed through conversation.
Drawing on the philosophical thought of Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas, Rowan Williams has written that, “all human identity is constructed through conversations, in one way or another.” First, we have to become aware of someone other than ourselves. Jonathan Sacks says, “we must learn to listen and be prepared to be surprised by others … make ourselves open to their stories, which may profoundly conflict with ours … we must learn the art of conversation, from which truth emerges … by the … process of letting our world be enlarged by the presence of others who think, act, and interpret reality in ways radically different from our own.”
Second, by these conversations we become aware of ourselves. As people, we are not autonomous constructions. Instead, our individual identities are gifted to us by the people, events, stories and histories that we encounter as we go through life. If there was no one and nothing outside of ourselves we would have no reference points in life, no way of knowing what is unique and special about ourselves. In conversations we become aware of how we differ from others and therefore what is unique about ourselves.
Finally, in conversations we also become aware of what we have in common with others. Conversation is something that you can only do with someone else. Therefore, Charles Taylor has argued that, opening a conversation is to inaugurate a common action. A conversation is ‘our’ action, something we are both involved in together. In this way, conversation reminds us of those things that “we can only value or enjoy together” and is, as Rowan Williams has said, “an acknowledgement that someone else’s welfare is actually constitutive of my own.”
Recognising the significant changes which have led to religious plurality in our society, the General Synod as long ago as 1981 endorsed the Four Principles of Inter Faith Dialogue agreed ecumenically by the British Council of Churches:
• Dialogue begins when people meet each other
• Dialogue depends upon mutual understanding and mutual trust
• Dialogue makes it possible to share in service to the community
• Dialogue becomes the medium of authentic witness
Though simple and obvious when set out like this, as are the ten ethical guidelines from the Christian Muslim Forum, they nevertheless are easily and frequently ignored when debate and dialogue is supposedly occurring. These are then guidelines and principles for the art of conversation that we urgently need to re-learn in dealing with differences within the Anglican Communion, and inter-faith dialogue can show us the way.
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The Low Anthem - This God Damn House.
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