Interreligious dialogue impossible, pope says, but intercultural dialogue good

Irreconcilable differences among three “one true” Gods

On the same day voters elected Barack Obama the 44th president of the United States, Pope Benedict XVI convened the inaugural Catholic-Muslim forum. To no one’s surprise the pope’s forum, lost in the Election Day media frenzy, was largely ignored.

Benedict created a media frenzy of his own when in a 2006 speech at the University of Regensburg he referenced an obscure Byzantine emperor’s statement: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman.” Continuing to quote the emperor, Benedict went on to say, “For Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even rationality.”

While these references comprised only a small portion of a lengthy and scholarly speech on faith and reason, the media pounced. Benedict was derided for implying Islam is violent and irrational. Just one of many headlines of a similar ilk, the Toronto Star reported: “Pope makes mockery of engaging Muslims.”

The reaction on “the street” was swift and angry. Churches were firebombed in the West Bank and Gaza. Banners calling for his execution, “Pope go to Hell” and “Jesus is the slave of Allah” were on display in London. And in Somalia, a 65-year-old Italian nun was shot and killed as she left her job at a children’s hospital.

To his credit, Benedict quickly issued a formal apology – a rarity for any pope. “In no way did I intend to make the words of the medieval emperor my own,” he said. “I wished only to help explain that not religion and violence but religion and reason go together.” He then reiterated his “profound respect for world religions and for Muslims.”

Some observers, pointing to the violent reaction to his remarks as evidence of their veracity, argued that Benedict does believe Islam is violent and irrational. It’s doubtful Benedict, a renowned scholar, would intentionally paint Islam with such a broad brush. Still, his comments clearly touched a nerve.

In response to his Regensburg speech, 138 Muslim clerics, scholars and intellectuals sent an open letter to Benedict and the leaders of other Christian denominations titled “A Common Word Between Us and You.” It said, in effect, “We need to talk.”

Absent in Islam are the established hierarchies found in Christian religions. As a result, many in the West have complained that it’s difficult to know where the Muslim middle stands on a given issue. The fact that a diverse group of Islamic leaders came together for the first time to speak to Christianity with a unified voice was, at the very least, encouraging.

When the Vatican announced the formation of the Catholic-Muslim forum in March 2008 it was described as “landmark”, and the Muslim leaders’ audience with the pope “unprecedented”. It raised hopes that a new era in the long-troubled relationship between Christianity and Islam might finally be at hand.

In late October however, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, the pope’s point man on inter-religious matters, seemed to shrug off the forum’s significance when he underscored to the Synod of Bishops that this was not the first time the Vatican had held an important dialogue with Muslims.

Perhaps Benedict is still smarting from the violent reaction to his Regensburg speech. If the Vatican wanted to keep the Catholic-Muslim forum out of the headlines, scheduling it to coincide with the most important election in U.S. history was a good way to do it.

Press reports [mostly from the wires] described the closed-door sessions of the forum as frank. But the joint declaration issued at its conclusion, while condemning terrorism and calling for religious freedom, was what most have come to expect from interfaith dialog – religious leaders talking among themselves in language the press, and most of the laity, found easy to ignore. The potentially historic Catholic-Muslim forum ended up being a non-event.

A week after the conclusion of the forum, the New York Times reported that Benedict had praised Italian author Marcello Pera who, in a recently released book, “explained with great clarity” that “an interreligious dialog in the strict sense of the word is not possible…without putting one’s faith in parentheses.”

If Benedict questions the value of interfaith dialogue it’s probably due at least in part to the fact that when he attempted to address the important differences between Islam and Christianity at Regensburg all hell broke loose.

Benedict seems to have concluded that doctrinal differences must be set aside for dialogue to be possible. His fallback position was to re-brand the dialogue as being “intercultural dialogue which deepens the [understanding of] cultural consequences of basic religious ideas.”

With all due respect to the pope, whether dialogue is positioned as inter-religious or intercultural, putting one’s faith in parentheses all but guarantees that the ensuing dialogue will be unproductive.

As monotheistic faiths, Islam and Christianity share a belief in one God. However Islam’s definition of the one God, and Christianity’s definition of the one God, are not one and the same. Certain convictions regarding the true nature of the one God are unique to each faith.

For starters, Muslims reject the Christian concept of the Holy Trinity and therefore the divine nature of Jesus. Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet [and a great guy] but not heaven on earth.

Islam holds that God is absolutely transcendent. He is so great he exists above and beyond humanity’s capacity to know him. Muslims know God only through his actual words as recorded in the Qur’an, and through the words and deeds of Muhammad and his followers as recorded in the Hadith.

Christianity holds that man can come to know and even have a personal relationship with God. In his closing remarks at the forum, Pope Benedict declared: “God became visible, manifested fully and definitively in Jesus Christ. He thus came down to meet man, and while remaining God, took on our nature.” For Christians, the one God, a trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is interactive.

Christian scholars have argued that because God is absolutely transcendent, and the Qur’an his actual words, there’s little room for reason in the practice of Islam. Australian Cardinal George Pell has said: “In the Muslim understanding, the Qur’an comes directly from God, unmediated. Muhammad simply wrote down God’s eternal and immutable words as they were dictated to him by the Archangel Gabriel. It cannot be changed, and to make the Qur’an the subject of critical analysis and reflection is either to assert human authority over divine revelation (a blasphemy), or to question its divine character.”

Islamic scholars argue that they do in fact interpret the Qur’an through a historic lens that takes into account the language, culture and society of the time. Aref Ali Nayed, the chief spokesperson on behalf of the A Common Word [ACW] open letter explained: “Muslim scholars were always aware of the fact that the activities of interpretation, understanding, and exegesis (of God’s eternal discourse) are forms of human strenuous striving that must be dutifully renewed in every believing generation. Solemn belief in the eternity and divine authorship of the Qur’an never prevented Muslim scholars from dealing with it historically and linguistically.”

Even strict literalists, for whom sacred scripture cannot be “re-interpreted” in any context, have schools of thought that offer differing takes on their original meaning. This is true whether one reads the Gospel, Torah or Qur’an. All religions have fundamentalist factions, but no religion is devoid of reason.

Religious fundamentalism – defined here as the belief that sacred scripture contains the literal word of God as it was originally recorded -- is not in and of itself problematic. When read fully, sacred scripture of all three Abrahamic faiths extol peaceful behavior. In the case of the Qur’an, jihad is essentially a spiritual struggle for the eternal soul and justifiable as a physical war only in self-defense.

Fundamentalism becomes a serious problem however when scripture deemed literal is read selectively. A small but significant population of Muslim fundamentalists select passages from the Qur’an that support what they believe to be true, ignore the passages that don’t, and use the concept of God as absolutely transcendent to fend off any who might question their selective interpretation of God’s perfect word.

Especially troubling is that many of these radicals are among Islam’s learned - its clergymen, scholars, professionals and the like. The extent to which their motivations are political, religious, or some combination of the two, is unclear. What is clear is that they’ve convinced their followers [and apparently themselves] that the God of Islam is the one true God, and that violent jihad against all non-believers is God’s unquestionable will.

The issues raised by Pope Benedict at Regensburg were important ones; foremost among them was the true nature of the one God. Now is not the time to shy away from discussing differences. It should be possible to remain steadfast in defense of doctrine and still reach out to leaders of other faiths.

If only one can exist, faithful Muslims, Christians and Jews, by definition, worship the same God. However, certain convictions about the nature of the one God are unique to each faith. These doctrinal differences are irreconcilable.

The question then is whether religious leaders can believe that their faith is the one true faith and their God the one true God, and at the same time accept that there can be more than one path to heaven. That the answer should be “yes” is a no-brainer for most. The idea that a just God would damn good people to hell simply for choosing [or being born into] the wrong faith is anachronistic.

Benedict has been lauded for his ability to take either/or propositions and turn them into and/both ones. But this and/both is a tough one. How a given religion defines the true nature of the one God determines its correct path to heaven. In theory, when these paths are parallel, peaceful co-existence is possible, but in the real world, where these paths invariably intersect, conflict ensues.

If Benedict and his Muslim counterparts were to “agree to disagree” on the nature of their shared God, and set the one true God argument aside once and for all, they would be on separate but parallel paths that would resist intersection and enable active cooperation in the “war” against religious extremism.

Agreeing that the one God is just, and that no just God would deny salvation to a person who lives a good life simply because s/he chose the wrong faith provides a philosophical construct that would allow for peaceful co-existence.

Within this construct [multiple paths to one heaven], the ability to practice religion freely is a given. Despite agreement that “there can be no compulsion in religion”, the leaders of Islam’s fundamentalist schools of thought have been unwilling to clearly state that the persecution of those who practice a minority faith is sinful or that apostasy is not a criminal act.

While the irreconcilable differences between Muslim and Christian views of the creator can’t be ignored, they can be overcome. In practice, peaceful Muslims and peaceful Christians [and Jews], whether progressive or fundamentalist in orientation, behave in ways that are strikingly similar. However the true nature of the one God is defined, it should be possible for all to agree that he would never sanction violence committed in his name.

Can fundamentalists recognize that there is indeed an aspect of Islamic doctrine that leaves it open to manipulation by extremists, partner with progressive Muslims who strenuously strive to update their interpretation of the Qur’an, and call out the extremists whose regressive and sophistic interpretation of the Qur’an desecrates their faith?

It’s doubtful that Islam’s political leaders can get there any time soon. Islamic fundamentalists tend to reside in theocratic states where sharia law is the norm. But the religious leaders involved in the ACW initiative, by agreeing that the right to practice one’s religion freely is universal, can take an important first step.

When conservative Christians [and Jews] dismiss Islam as inherently violent and irrational, they are playing into the extremists’ hands. Interfaith cooperation is the terrorists’ worst nightmare. They have so far succeeded at driving a wedge between progressive Islam and fundamentalist Islam, and between Islam and its sister monotheistic faiths, Christianity and Judaism. They will undoubtedly continue to do everything in their power to derail interfaith cooperation.

The collective inability of religious leaders to openly discuss irreconcilable differences continues to impede progress in the fight against extremism. Respectfully spelling out these differences in practical terms and “agreeing to disagree” on the true nature of the one God seems like a good place to start. If the recent Catholic-Muslim forum is any indication, neither Benedict nor his ACW counterparts possess the will to do so.

Michael Gonyea

Check out this site. The Cosmic Citizen. on BlogTalk radio It's a couple of hosts talking with all kinds of religious people who are on the cusp of change. This guy Mark Siljander was on for about an hour with them. And his perspective on the Muslim-Christian relationship was amazing. You can listen to the broadcast if you like, but I believe his book will interest those who ARE REALLY interested in resolving the issue of violence between Muslims and Christians. I'm impressed with his POV. I think there may be a lot of healing for both sides in the things he says. I hope to read his book sometime. Hopefully soon. I'm studying Islam right now in my Religions Survey class at the local college. There are 1.3 billion Muslims world wide and Islam is the fastest growing religion on the planet. They expect Islam to pass Christianity in about 2023 as the most popular religion on earth.

The Pope said:
Particularly meaningful for me too is your analysis of interreligious and intercultural dialogue. You explain with great clarity that an interreligious dialogue in the strict sense of the term is not possible, while you urge intercultural dialogue that develops the cultural consequences of the religious option which lies beneath.

We better find some solutions soon and find a way to make interreligious dialogue NOT ONLY possible BUT IMPERATIVE if we want civilization to survive.

The Cosmic Citizen

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/cosmiccitizen/2008/11/08/Interview-with-Mark-Siljander

Mark Siljander returns to the airwaves for a more extensive discussion of his book, A Deadly Misunderstanding; a Congressman's Quest to Bridge the Muslim-Christian Divide.

With God's Love, Joer :-)

While the Pope likes Pera's perspective, I wish he would consider the unifying power of recognizing Muslims, Christians and Jews ALL believe in The GOD of Abraham, and we certainly shouldn't lose sight of that unifying principle. We ALL, Muslims. Christians, Jews and the whole world have the same Sprit of God within and without us.

The religions of authority can only divide men and set them in conscientious array against each other; the religion of the spirit will progressively draw men together and cause them to become understandingly sympathetic with one another. The religions of authority require of men uniformity in belief, but this is impossible of realization in the present state of the world. The religion of the spirit requires only unity of experience--uniformity of destiny--making full allowance for diversity of belief. The religion of the spirit requires only uniformity of insight, not uniformity of viewpoint and outlook. The religion of the spirit does not demand uniformity of intellectual views, only unity of spirit feeling. The religions of authority crystallize into lifeless creeds; the religion of the spirit grows into the increasing joy and liberty of ennobling deeds of loving service and merciful ministration

The more we discover how much we are Loved by God, the more we want to do God's Will

There is no fear, frustration, or hatred in Pope Benedict XVI's Roman Catholicism.
There is only truth, conveyed directly from Jesus of Nazareth to the Apostles, then spread through them to the peoples of the Greek and Roman world and beyond.
When one is certain of the truth in the way that Pope Benedict XVI is, then and only then can one be closed to dialogue with those who believe and profess something other than, and contrary to, that truth. Conversation or communication with those others is certainly possible and welcome, but not true dialogue.

Too often dialogue is conceived on the analogy of a mistaken principle of hermeneutics which Bernard Lonergan named ‘the principle of the empty head’. Just as that principle mistakenly contends that the interpreter should forget all her prejudices and preconceptions, so a certain conception of dialogue—which apparently Benedict XVI espouses—assumes that participants should suspend judgment on what is being discussed, and wait for the results of dialogue. Only in this way could the latter be open and sincere. Dialogue and being convinced as to the truth of something are incompatible.
This view is so far off the point it is not even wrong. As hermeneutics rightly asserts that the more an interpreter is cultivated and knowledgeable, the more she will be capable of understanding what a text is conveying (hence the central role of pre-judgments and pre-conceptions), so dialogue will be the more fruitful the more the participants know the argument they are discussing. More to the point, it is precisely because one is convinced that something is true that one is ready to discuss it, to accept to put it under cross-criticism and examination. By not clarifying his understanding of dialogue, Benedict risks being interpreted as assuming the senseless position that dialogue can only exist among those holding nothing at all as true, those thoroughly sceptical, with no certitudes at all – an empty category I’m afraid. Worse still, he thereby appears to imply that dialogue among faithful of different religions is impossible to the extent that they are genuinely convinced of the truth of their religion. So instead of having genuine dialogue yielding the correction of the oversights and the purification of the sound insights contained in one’s religious tradition, we should limit ourselves to ‘cultural dialogue’. Apparently, Benedict does not even see that, on those assumptions, dialogues between cultures is as impossible as dialogues between religions: if something is true, it is true both at the cultural and at the religious level; if for Ratzinger to hold some aspects of one’s religion as true would discard any believer from dialoguing with other believers, then likewise holding some aspects of one’s culture as true would discard one from having any possible cultural dialogue. I suggest such a relativistic conception of dialogue may also be the reason why both as Cardinal and as pope Ratzinger has done and is doing little or nothing to foster the creation and development of a lively public opinion within Roman Catholicism.

Interesting. At first blush this rejection of interreligious dialogue sounds eerily similar to and equally fantastic as the Malasian "National Fatwa Council"'s recent edict against yoga. A BBC news release (BBC News, Nov.22, 2008) describes the Fatwa as contending that yoga smacks too much of Hinduism and worship which are inappropriate and could "destroy the faith of a muslim". It quotes one commentator as suggesting that the Muslim faith is all encompassing and needs nothing extraneous. Benedict's contention is that real religious dialogue, not referring to any specific religion, is impossible because it would require putting "one's own faith in paranthesis".

These sorts of expressions are on the one hand a reminder of the deeper and more pernicious roots and consequences of fundamentalism and on the other, I have to admit, a clear warning of the challenge to true dialogue between fundamentalist positions (or with fundamentalists), whether religious, political or even personal.

When one is absolute, one is closed to other. While Benedict does concede that dialogue on the cultural consequences of other positions has merit, I see that as a utilitarian and self-interested conversation which is inimicable to real dialogue, even on a cultural level- listening with the wary eye to the dangers and/or what I can get out of this. While I am convinced of Benedict's broad perspective of conviction, I am also convinced that his specific mind-set refers to the Muslim world as well as to what he would term secular liberals. Real dialogue is open to other and to the possibility, however miniscule, of personal change as the consequence of truth in the other.

I see his point. When one is a fundamentalist, or absolutist there is no allowance for truth in difference. I see his point that fundamentalism (whether of Christian, Muslim or secular liberal) has inexorable and escalating consequences - first,the exclusion of dissent within and without; second, judgement of other as wrong; third, recognition that contact with error is dangerous to the absolutist position; fourth, rejection of other; fifth, exclusion of other and ultimately, the need to remove the other by whatever means is required without compunction.

However, I must edit my previous paragraph. The essence of secular liberalism does not reject other, its danger is that it challenges other in its core and in its consequences and it dismisses other when either the core or consequences make no sense in a real world. Fear and frustration is the essence of the fundamentalist hatred of liberalsim.

There is more of a similarity between say, Benedict's Roman Catholicism, fundamentalist Islam, George W Bush Republicanism , racist extremists and Evangelical Right than we want to admit. There might be a bit of it in each of us.