The Interfaith Pastor

Tag: interreligious

  • Why Christians Should Not Host Their Own Passover Seders

    “What to do, then, if you are a Christian who wants to be more like Christ, as well as to learn more about your cultural roots? Practice restraint. One of the privileges that comes with being part of the majority culture is that nobody is likely to call you out on your cultural appropriation. So, call yourself out. Don’t host a seder. Not even if you only invite other Christians. Especially not if you only invite other Christians.”

    A good (and timely) article about appropriate – not appropriating – ways of observing Passover.
    Read the full article here 

  • New Voices in the Conversation Part 3: Atheists and Humanists

     

    It is all too common for those of us in the church to disregard people in these categories. We might dismiss them with “There are no atheists in foxholes” and similar sayings. And while I struggle to find ways of communicating my understandings of the Divine to those whose unbelief is more of a reaction to the abuses of church and religion, I also recognize that there are many good, thoughtful, moral people who do not feel the need for a Higher Power. Yet more and more of them are joining the interfaith conversation (you see why interfaith and interreligious are problematic terms!).

    During the summer months, we welcome guests from different religious and non-religious traditions to speak at our church on a specific topic. Two years ago the subject was caring for creation. Most of our guests were easy to describe, e.g. Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim. But one speaker, was not so easy to categorize. He didn’t like using any labels at all, but finally settled on “free-thinking naturalist.” Beginning his talk, he jokingly said that he had deliberately avoided the “A” word when referring to himself.

    Atheism is a tricky subject. It used to be simple: an atheist was someone who didn’t believe in God. Then many of us read or heard Marcus Borg describe his many conversations with university students. He recounts,

    “Every term, one or more of them says to me after class, ‘This is all very interesting, but I have a problem every time you use the word ‘God’ because, you see’- here there’s usually a pause and a deep breath- ‘I really don’t believe in God.’ I always respond the same way: ‘Tell me about the God you don’t believe in.’” [1]

    As Borg tells it, the student then describes a version of God perhaps learned in Sunday school, from parents or simply from popular culture. When Borg says, “Well, I don’t believe in that God either,”[2] a space opens up for conversation about other possible ways of understanding the Divine.

    As more people discover that there are other ways of thinking about their concept of God, the old definition of “not believing” becomes more problematic. Also, we are becoming more familiar with religions that are non-theistic (hence a-theistic), such as Buddhism, which has no concept of a creator God or divine intercessor. It is not so much that Buddhists do not believe in God (as if a conscious negative choice) as the fact that those are simply not aspects of their tradition.

    Karen Armstrong has this to say:

    “Atheism is often a transitional state: Jews, Christians, and Muslims were all called atheists by their pagan contemporaries because they had adopted a revolutionary notion of divinity and transcendence. The people who have been dubbed atheists over the years have always denied a particular conception of the divine. But is the God who is rejected by atheists today the God of the patriarchs, the God of the prophets, the God of the philosophers, the God of the mystics, or the God of the eighteenth-century deists? All these deities have been venerated, but they are very different from one another. Perhaps modern atheism is a similar denial of a God that is no longer adequate to the problems of our time.”[3]

    Of course there are those who do not believe in any kind of Divine being, no matter how we might reimagine what that means. Many of these folks are also interested in being part of interreligious conversations. Henry, a long-time member of the board at the Interfaith Center at the Presidio is a co-founder of an organization in Berkeley called Ahimsa (the Sanskrit word meaning ‘nonviolence’). One of the goals of the organization is “to encourage dialogues and public forums on issues which bridge spirituality and science and society.”[4] Henry is also an avowed atheist, yet appreciates deeply the opportunity to work on projects together with others who want to be peacemakers in the world.

    I contrast Chris and Henry with militant atheists, such as Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher, who denounce the God they don’t believe in, but are never willing to listen to or discuss any other possibilities. I consider them to be as intractable as any fundamentalist of any religion.

    I will admit that I never got the consternation that many Christians had about humanists (or as one elderly church member called them hoomanists). I thought humanists were pretty good people. I do now understand why they are considered by some to be fair game for Christian conversion: they value human agency and critical thinking over faith and doctrine. It could be said that humanism is a kinder, gentler atheism. As Nathan Phelps has said, “What I am is a proud humanist. Atheism says what I don’t accept, humanism says what I do.”[5]

    But these terms are very fluid. Another guest in our speaker series was Vanessa, who is very involved in the interfaith scene and describes herself (at least for today, she said) as a Secular Humanist. However, she said that others have called her a “faitheist.” This was the first I had heard of the term, which comes from the book Faitheist: How an Atheist Found CommonGround with the Religious by Chris Stedman.[6] Stedman’s point is that atheists should be involved in respectful dialogue with those of religious persuasion. Vanessa said, however, that being called a “faitheist” was not a compliment. The Urban Dictionary defines it as “an atheist who is ‘soft’ on religious belief, and tolerant of even the worst intellectual and moral excesses of religion; an atheist accommodationist.”[7] For some reason, it gives me satisfaction to know that there are factions even among the non-believers!

    What I have learned from listening to those on the interfaith scene who describe themselves with the “A” word or with other isms is that these are people of good will and great love for humanity and the world. I welcome the opportunity to be in dialogue. Right now I have members in my congregation with family members who are declared atheists. I would love to have the “Tell me about the God you don’t believe in” conversation with them – not in order to convince them that they are wrong, but to see where they really fit in the wide range of what atheism means today. And what “God” means today.

     

    FOR REFLECTION:

    • Do you know someone who is an atheist? Have you ever had or could you have a conversation with him or her about what that means?
    • How do you think it is possible for an atheist, agnostic or humanist can participate in interreligious dialogue?

     

    SUGGESTED READING:

    • Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious by Chris Stedman[11]

      

    [1] Borg, Marcus, The Heart of Christianity. Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith. New York: HarperCollins, 2003, 68-69.

    [2] Ibid.

    [3] “A New Axial Age: Karen Armstrong on the History—and the Future—of God” by Jessica Roemischer, http://www.adishakti.org/_/a_new_axial_age_by_karen_armstrong.htm (accessed February 26, 2016).

    [4] http://ahimsaberkeley.org (accessed February 26, 2016).

    [5] Nathan Phelps is the son of Westboro Baptist Church founder, Fred Phelps. He responded to my inquiry that this quote was something he had posted on Facebook and now has become a meme.

    [6] Stedman, Chris, How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. 2012.

    [7] Urban Dictionary, s.v. “faitheist,” http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=faitheist (accessed February 26, 2016).

     

    [8] Trent, Dana, Saffron Cross: The Unlikely Story of How a Baptist Minister Married a Hindu Monk, Nashville, TN: Fresh Air Books, 2013.

    [9] Brussat, Frederic and Mary Ann. “Welcoming the Spiritually Independent.” patheos.com.
    http://www.patheos.com/blogs/dailylifeasspiritualpractice/2013/09/welcoming-the-spiritually-independent/ (accessed February 26, 2016).

    [10] Shapiro, Rami, Perennial Wisdom for the Spiritually Independent. Woodstock, VT: SkyLight Paths, 2013.

    [11] Stedman, Chris, Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious. Boston: Beacon Press, 2012.

  • New Voices in the Conversation Part 2: Multiple Belonging (Hybrid Spirituality)

    The phenomenon of “multiple religious belonging” is now deeply engrained in American Culture – Francis X. Clooney

    The first time I heard someone referred to as a Jewbu, I thought it was a pejorative term. But it’s not. Jewbu (or Jubu or Bu-Jew) is simply is the abbreviation for a Jewish Buddhist. This fairly recent term can refer to either a Buddhist who grew up Jewish but no longer practices Judaism (“This is true of a staggeringly high percentage of American Buddhist leaders; well over half by most counts,” according to Rabbi Julian Sinclair) or a Buddhist who still practices and identifies with Judaism.

    Sylvia Boorstein, a founding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, CA, is a good example of this category. Her autobiographical memoir, That’s Funny, You Don’t Look Buddhist: On Being a Faithful Jew and a Passionate Buddhist, places her squarely in the camp of those with multiple belongings. Her story of coming to terms with her identity as both a Jew and a Buddhist – and her deepened love for Judaism – is an engaging, easy read for anyone wanting an introduction to this phenomenon.

    Unfortunately, Christianity doesn’t have a catchy term to describe its hybrids (Chrisbu or Bu-Chris is just not as mellifluous as Jubu!). But there are those who are multiple belongers. For example, Father Gregory Mayers, coordinator of the East-West Meditation program at Mercy Center retreat center in Burlingame, CA, is both a Redemptorist priest and Associate Roshi of the Sanbô-Kyôdan Religious Foundation in Kamakura, Japan. Catholic theologian Paul Knitter, author of Without Buddha I Could Not Be A Christian, considers himself to be an adherent of both Christianity and Buddhism.

    It may be that the popularity of Buddhism has not caused a lot of consternation in our churches because Buddhism is not a theistic religion (not all Buddhists would even call it a religion at all). So now we have to wade into deeper waters to examine more controversial examples of multiple belonging.

    Many years ago a member of my congregation told me that she had become a Muslim. When I asked her how she reconciled that with being a Christian, she said that she saw no problems with it. At the time, I couldn’t understand that. Now I see that she was merely ahead of her time.

    In 2007, Episcopal priest Ann Redding Holmes declared herself to be a Muslim after a profound experience of Muslim prayer. However, she didn’t abandon her Christian identity, saying that her acceptance of Islam was “not an automatic abandonment of Christianity. For many, it is. But it doesn’t have to be.” In response to those who said that the two traditions are mutually exclusive, she said, “I just don’t agree.” The Episcopal Church did not agree with her and she was defrocked in 2009. In interviews, Redding has argued that her views about Jesus “fit well in the range of Christianity.”

    As strange as this story may seem, there are more and more examples of multiple belonging on the religious scene, as S. Wesley Ariarajah puts it, “throwing spanners into the smoothly oiled works of religious particularities.” But, reminding us that we are looking through Western lenses, he reports that multiple belonging is not a new phenomenon in Asia:
    It has been a common feature among the peoples especially in North Asia. Many of them have fund ways of holding together two or more of religious traditions like Confucianism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Shamanism, Christianity etc. as tributaries that feed their overall religious consciousness and practice. 

    Catherine Cornille, editor of Many Mansions: Multiple Religious Belonging and Christian Identity agrees:
    It may be argued that . . . religion in Europe, America and Australia is just coming to terms with a practice or a form of religiosity that has been prevalent for ages in most of the rest of the world, and especially in the East.

    For many of our clergy and church members, learning how to relate to those who claim multiple belonging may seem to be a very steep learning curve. And to be honest, it is. It involves looking carefully at our assumptions about what it means to be a Christian, to listen to the stories of those who have different assumptions, and to participate in a religious quest that is ongoing and evolving.

    For example, a member of my congregation admitted that she considered herself to be a Christian-Pagan. When I shared her story with a friend who is a Wiccan elder, he laughed and told me that Wicca is actually losing some of its appeal among disenfranchised Christians. Once, he said, Wicca was attractive to those looking for an earth-based, environment-friendly belief system and practice. But as Christianity has been slowly leaving behind its earth/ spirit dualism and rediscovering its “roots” in theologians such as St. Francis of Assisi and Hildegard of Bingen, it is retaining some of those who in the past would have become Pagan.

    It is clearly a new day for Christianity!

     

    Sinclair, Rabbi Julian. “Jubu.” thejc.com. http://www.thejc.com/judaism/jewish-words/jubu (accessed February 26, 2016)

    Tu, Janet I. “Episcopal Priest Ann Holmes Redding has been defrocked.” seattletimes.com. http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2008961581_webdefrocked01m.html (accessed February 24, 2016).

    Zimmerman, Cathy. “Ann Holmes, A Christian and a Muslim, to Share Message at St. Stephens.” tdn.com http://tdn.com/lifestyles/ann-holmes-a-christian-and-a-muslim-to-share-message/article_de097bc0-1727-11e2-a92d-0019bb2963f4.html?print=true&cid=print (accessed February 24, 2016).

    Ariarajah, S. Wesley. “Religious Diversity and Interfaith Relations in a Global Age.” flinders.edu.au. http://www.flinders.edu.au/oasisfiles/chaplains/geoff_papers/ariarajah.pdf

  • New Voices in the Conversation Part 1: Spiritual Independents                                                                                         

    51UJ1PNsX6L._SX322_BO1,204,203,200_Those of us who are still in the church must accept the fact that for many people the old categories of Catholic/ Protestant, Episcopal/ Methodist, high church/ low church, contemporary/ traditional, etc. just do not matter. There are new voices contributing to the religious scene, although most of them would not like to be referred to as religious. These voices deserve to be heard. They may have left or never been part of the church, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have a lot to say about spirituality, the meaning of life and how to make a difference in the world.

    Spiritual Independents
    A piece of accepted wisdom among many involved in interfaith dialogue is that one must first be grounded in one particular tradition. This is reflected in the quote by Mahatma Gandhi that “. . . our innermost prayer should be a Hindu should be a better Hindu, a Muslim a better Muslim, a Christian a better Christian.” However, according to the Pew Research Center, the number of Americans who do not identify with any religion continues to grow at a rapid pace. One fifth of the US public – and a third of adults under thirty – are religiously unaffiliated today, the highest percentages ever in Pew Research Center polling.

    We often refer to these folks as the “spiritual but not religious” or “Nones.” But I agree with Rabbi Rami Shapiro, who has declared that these designations are too negative and has coined the more positive “spiritually independent.”  In Perennial Wisdom for the Spiritually Independent he says:

    “Most of these so-called Nones are not dismissive of God or spirituality but simply find religious labels and affiliation too narrow and constraining. This is why I choose to call this segment of the population by the far more positive and accurate term spiritually independent.”

    In another positive take on it, the Rev. Dr. Anne Benvenuti, a Board Trustee for the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, writes in “The Nones Are Off the Bus, and Many of Them are Alls”: “I know a lot of Nones and many of them are Alls. They celebrate the Winter Solstice, and Easter sunrise, they may do yoga or meditate, and they give thoughtfully to charities, all in no particular order, but depending on where they are, how they feel, what seems to be called for. They resist labels produced by media-saturated culture to represent certain predetermined sets of characteristics. They distrust such prepackaged beliefs, and also distrust religious institutions that are so often corrupt and hypocritical. Yet they value human spiritual heritage, often in great variety, and many of these people are more comfortable in a variety of religious settings than they would be in only one.”
    “The Nones Are Off the Bus, and Many of Them are Alls”

    In the new emerging community being formed by Mission Developer, Pastor Anders Peterson under the sponsorship of my congregation, First United Lutheran Church, we are finding the truth of these perspectives. Mission, defined as converting people to Christianity, does not work with this group. Openness to other religious traditions is essential. This is not to say that we deny or water down who we are; we do our work in the world as Christians. But we do it as Christians who have worked through the intrafaith questions that are raised by many as they are confronted with this population. According to the Rev. Bud Heckman, senior advisor to Religions for Peace USA in New York City:

    “A couple of decades ago this category accounted for no more than a single-digit percentage of the population. Today it accounts for one of every five people in the States, and one in every three amongst those under 30 years of age. The numbers are even higher in Europe and China. This means there is a great deal of fluidity in identity that is socially permissible in ways that simply were not true before.”
    “Five Things Changing the Way Religions Interact”

    We do not know what Mahatma Gandhi would make of our world today. However it is clear that, both within Christianity and on the interfaith scene, the spiritual independents must be part of the interfaith and intrafaith conversations.

    • Do you know someone who would be considered spiritually independent? If so, have you had or could you have a conversation with that person about what they believe?
    • Are you a spiritual independent? How would you describe your spirituality?

     

     

     

     

  • The INTRAfaith Landscape: A New Reformation

     

    imagesAbout every five hundred years the Church feels compelled to hold a giant rummage sale. -Bishop Mark Dyer

    Like it or not, change is happening within American Christianity. New ways of being church are springing up all around. Unlike the “worship wars” of previous decades, which pitted traditional and contemporary proponents against one another, the movement today is not so easy to classify. Terms such as “emergent,” “post-denominational,” “post-modern” and “progressive” attempt to describe the Christian scene and the movements going on within it. Each of these categorizations contains within itself a wide variety of interpretations of what it really means.

    All of these are taking part in a “giant rummage sale,” as Bishop Dyer so brilliantly describes it. However, it’s clear that we’re not all in agreement about what to keep and what to give away. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that we’re in the process of getting ready for the rummage sale. If you’ve ever held a yard, garage or rummage sale, you know the work that goes into putting it together. The first thing you have to do is look over all of your stuff with a critical eye. As you look at each cherished possession, you ask: Do I want to keep this? Is it still useful? Does it still fit? Does it still work? If the answer is ‘yes,’ the decision is easy; it’s a keeper. And if ‘no,’ to the sale it goes.

    It gets a bit more complicated when you have an item that is tarnished, worn or outdated but you think there just might be some life left in it. You have to ask yourself if maybe, if it were cleaned up, restored or reworked, it could still be of value to you. A dusty old heirloom might just turn out to be a new treasure.

    So it is in present-day Christianity. We’re looking with critical eyes at social issues, liturgical forms, biblical interpretations, theological teachings and the use of language. However not all churches necessarily deal with all of these, nor would they all agree. For example, a few years ago I attended, along with some members of my current congregation, a conference on the emerging church. First United considers itself to be a progressive congregation, committed to the use of inclusive language for humanity and expansive language for God. At our rummage sale, we had examined patriarchal language and decided that it had to go. So we were quite surprised by the lack of inclusive language used at the conference and by the fairly orthodox theology. We realized that we are all making different value judgment about our treasures. This is the reformation that is happening all around us. Old ideas are being reexamined, transformed or rejected; new ones are emerging.

    Why is all this change happening now? Taking her cue from Bishop Dyer, the late Phyllis Tickle posited that we are in this current “giant rummage sale” simply because it’s time for one. In The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why, she outlined the upheaval that has occurred every five hundred years since the time of Jesus. The Protestant Reformation began in the 16th century. The 11th century saw the Great Schism, which split the Eastern and Western Churches. In the 6th century, the Roman Empire collapsed and Europe entered the Dark Ages. All of these upheavals included both societal shifts and theological issues, just like we are experiencing now in the 21st century.

    What I find most helpful about Tickle’s theory is that what we’re going through is normal. That means we can go about being creative and hopeful, rather than hidebound and anxious. This is good news because the church has been anxiety-driven for quite a while. Our outreach efforts have been fueled by the decline in membership in Christian congregations. Pundits have been writing ad nauseam about the reasons for this. The latest trend is expounding on the characteristics of the Millennial generation and how the church can reach out and reel them in. Some of these same “experts” also tell us how to appeal to those who are “spiritually independent” (a more positive way of saying “spiritual but not religious” or “none”) all around us.

    Don’t misunderstand me: I’m all in favor of doing outreach to those searching for a way to explore their spirituality and to those with no church home. However, as a veteran of the church growth movement of the 1990s, I know the pitfalls of easy characterizations and easy solutions. The experts told us then that we had to adapt to the needs of Generation X and that if we would just follow their instructions to the letter, our churches would grow. I learned an important lesson from those days: there are no one-size-fits-all answers to the questions of doing ministry in different settings. Another thing that I learned from the traditional/ contemporary worship wars is that for many the rummage sale included only musical styles, not language and theology.

    For instance, the popular contemporary Christian song “Forever”includes the lyrics
    Give thanks to the Lord
    Our God and King
    His love endures forever
    For He is good, He is above all things
    His love endures forever

    This one hits the trifecta: exclusively male pronouns, hierarchical imagery for God (“Lord,” “King”) and an outdated view of a three-tiered universe (“above all things”).

    Not that this is limited to recent contemporary music. One song, written in 1966, brought the interfaith/intrafaith issue home to me. One of my favorite songs used to be “I
    Am the Bread of Life.”That is until I sat with Kitty at a funeral. I knew Kitty from a women’s interfaith group, so when I saw her at a funeral at a neighboring Episcopal church, I sat next to her. As the priest read the familiar passage from John’s gospel, I heard it through the ears of my friend who is Jewish: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father but by me.” I was God-smacked. I had preached on that same text many times, but hearing it this time was such a powerful epiphany that I didn’t
    want to go up to receive Holy Communion. It felt rude, exclusionary, and offensive. The next time we sang the song I almost choked. I could not sing these lyrics:
    Unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man
    And drink of his blood, you shall not have life within you.

    That revelation widened for me a quest that had previously been one of interfaith exploration. I had been happily content to meet people who followed other paths, but I had not been confronted with the intrafaith question. But once it  entered into my consciousness, I had no choice. I had to look with a critical eye at my belief in Jesus as the only way to salvation and make a decision about whether to keep it, give it away or transform it into something new. And if I wanted to transform it into something new, how could I do that with faithfulness and integrity?

    Issues may change. Culture may change. The task of the church is to live out “ecclesia semper reformanda est” (“the church is always to be reformed”).In reaching out to Millenials, spiritual independents, the “church alumni society,” we must take up the challenge in our own time. The inclusion of interfaith and intrafaith is an essential part of living out this challenge.

    The reformation process is not only about the above-mentioned groups. Many members of congregations want to know how to navigate this “rummage sale” process. If we’re going to be part of this new reformation and we’re serious about relating to people of all ages in our congregations and to the spiritually independents, then the interfaith/intrafaith conversation must be part of our ministry.

     

     

  • What’s the Difference Between INTERfaith and INTRAfaith?

    This question keeps coming up. So here’s the best way I can explain it.

    First, the prefix matters. “INTER” means “between,” “among,” “in the midst of,” “mutually,” “reciprocally,” “together.”INTERfaith is different religions being together.

    “INTRA” means  “within, inside, on the inside.” INTRAfaith is one religion examining just itself in light of its INTERfaith experience.

    Here’s how John Dunne puts it. In his book, The Way of All the Earth, he describes the 2-way process of interfaith engagement:

    “What seems to be occurring is a phenomenon we might call ‘passing over,’ passing from one culture to another, from one way of life to another, from one religion to another.
    Passing over is a shifting of standpoint, a going over to the standpoint of another culture, another way of life, another religion.” (interfaith)

    “It is followed by an equal and opposite process we might call ‘coming back,’ coming back with new insight to one’s own culture, one’s own way of life, one’s own religion.”adventure of our time.”  (intrafaith.)

    Professor Judith Berling at the Graduate Theological Union also uses this kind of language in Understanding Other Worlds: A Guide for Interreligious Education.
    She describes the two poles of the interreligious learning process:

    1) understanding another religion faithfully (interfaith)

    2) reappropriating Christian tradition in light of new understandings and relationships.(intrafaith)

    I love how Dunne ends his explanation: “Passing over and coming back, it seems, is the spiritual adventure of our time.”

    I agree! And I hope others do too and will join in the conversation.

     

    Dunne, John, The Way of All the Earth. New York: Macmillan, 1972.
    Berling, Judith, Understanding Other Worlds: A Guide for Interreligious Education. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2004.

  • A Question of Identity

    imagesWay back in the 1980s, when I was doing my year of internship in a large Lutheran church, I had the opportunity to observe my supervisor conduct a rehearsal for a Jewish-Christian wedding. When the wedding party arrived, someone reminded my supervisor that he had agreed to remove the Paschal candle from the front of the church.

    I was appalled. I remember thinking, “But this is a Christian church; this is who we are. We shouldn’t deny that!” I never mentioned it to my supervisor and missed an opportunity to discuss the issue. At the time, I was forming my own pastoral identity, steeped in “correct” theological beliefs and church practices, so I may not have been open to a more expansive view at that time.

    Decades later, however, I look back and see the question of identity as a crucial one with which the church of today must wrestle. It’s part of both the interfaith and intrafaith landscapes. And it is an ongoing process! Even now, when officiating at a wedding at the chapel at the Interfaith Center at the Presidio, I flinch a little when we pull the drapes over the cross in the front of the church. It’s like telling Jesus to turn his back for a little while.

    Identity is important. How can I make my way in the world if I don’t know who I am? If I’m confused or if I allow myself to be swayed by someone with a stronger sense of self, I risk losing myself completely. Boundaries are a big part of identity. Part of an infant’s growth process is discovering where she ends and her mother and others begin. We’ve learned that poor boundaries lead to all kinds of dysfunction in individuals, families and organizations. So it is no wonder we become alarmed when we feel that our identity as Christians has been eroded. We feel threatened, under attack from all directions – secularism, science, a new generation that does not find the same meaning in the institutions in which we were raised.

    And then there’s the reality of religious diversity. Just look at the panicked responses to “the war on Christmas.” My Facebook page this past season was filled with challenges to dare to say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays.”

    This anxiety isn’t unique to Christianity. Sylvia Boorstein, who is Jewish, reflects on the popularity of Buddhism:
    “. . . I think the alarm people express about Buddhism has more to do with instinctive fears about tribal survival than philosophical error. . . Doing an action that another group does . . . arouses concern. I think it’s the natural, self-protective, genetic response of tribes.” [1]

    Our Christian tribe is anxious. We lament the decline in membership in our churches and try to figure out how to attract new people. We worry about how to pay for the expenses of the staff, buildings and programs we’ve come to expect as necessary parts of being “church.” We live in survival mode and when we can no longer afford these perceived necessities, we count ourselves as failures.

    For many in the Church, interfaith encounter seems superfluous or downright threatening. However, I believe that our tribe will be in trouble, not because of all the other tribes out there, but because we will not have figured out who we are in the midst of them. In family systems terms: we must be self-differentiated while remaining connected. Just as this is the way to health in personal relationships and families, so it is with the Church.

     

    [1] Boorstein Sylvia. That’s Funny, You Don’t Look Buddhist: On Being a Faithful Jew and a Passionate Buddhist. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997, 135-6.

     

     

     

  • Hidden Inheritance: A Lutheran Pastor’s Discovery of Her Jewish Roots

    51f-80kdFpL._AA160_I just finished reading Lutheran pastor Heidi Neumark’s book, Hidden Inheritance: Family Secrets, Memory, and Faith. And I was deeply affected by on it several different levels. Her story begins when, out of the blue, she learns that her grandparents had been Jewish. Not only that, they’d been sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp by the Nazis, where her grandfather died. The revelation was even more confounding because her father had been (she thought) a life-long Lutheran: baptized, confirmed, and very active in his congregation. Pr. Neumark, raised in this setting, went on to seminary and has served as a Lutheran pastor for 30 years. 

    The book is powerful, just on the merits of a heart-wrenching story of the Shoah (her preferred designation) and its aftermath. It also stirred things up for me personally, a Lutheran pastor with a name that had been changed generations ago from the “Jewish” spelling. I’ve never been able to get any good answers about this, just speculations, and any relatives who might have known more are now gone. Could there be a Jewish great-grandmother or great-grandfather on my family tree? Quite possibly. As difficult a journey that Neumark had to undertake, I envy her a bit in the discoveries and self-discoveries she experienced.

    The third level of interest is the intrafaith questions Neumark raises. Her first chapter is entitled “Crossing Over,” and I smile because I learned my intrafaith methodology from John S. Dunne’s The Way of All the Earth:
    What seems to be occurring is a phenomenon we might call ‘passing over,’ passing from one culture to another, from one way of life to another, from one religion to another. Passing over is a shifting of standpoint, a going over to the standpoint of another culture, another way of life, another religion. It is followed by an equal and opposite process we might call ‘coming back,’ coming back with new insight to one’s own culture, one’s own way of life, one’s own religion. Passing over and coming back, it seems, is the spiritual adventure of our time.

    Neumark certainly has had a crossing/ passing over and coming back experience, but I would call it a far deeper experience than a spiritual adventure. More like a spiritual earthquake.

    Take the sacrament of Holy Communion. While visiting ancestral villages in Germany, she learned that in 1510, Neumark Jews were expelled under the charge of desecrating the host. She laments,”How is it possible that I, descendant of these Jewish outcasts, stand at the altar every Sunday, saying prayers of blessing over bread and wine and repeating the words, “The body of Christ given for you” “The blood of Christ shed for you” as I place the host in the hands of my congregants? I’ve done it for 30 years now without thinking of those slaughtered Jews, my namesake Jews, who died over a perversion of this very sacrament. Now, I cannot do it without their painful presence beside me.”

    And on the sacrament of Baptism. “As a pastor who has perfumed hundreds baptisms, rejoicing at every single one, I find myself in a very unexpected and undesirable place. My grandparents drowned their Judaism so their children might rise as newly created Germans, pure as any Aryan. Baptism can even be seen as an assent to Nazi propaganda; being a Jew is no good. What can we say when . . . baptism itself is a demonic act that defies God? How can I unreservedly find my identity at the font?”

    At one point, she asks, “With this legacy, how can I be a Lutheran pastor?”

    Pastor Neumark does not leave us in the depths of this despair. She allows us to listen in as she works through this painful “coming back” to Christianity. But when she says, “I’m getting stuck here and I wish the Church would pause to get stuck with me,” I want to say that I wish we would, too.

    Recovering and honoring the Jewish roots of our Christianity is long overdue. For Lutherans, acknowledging and understanding the dark side of our history, is a necessity that should never be glossed over. We should view our scriptures and rituals taking these into account.

     I feel privileged to have read Pastor Neumark’s story. But I also believe that it isn’t necessary for all of us to have similar life-changing revelations in order to bring our “coming back” insights, questions, struggles, and learnings into our churches.

    This is how I find I can be a Lutheran pastor. And I’m glad that Heidi Neumark is one, too!

  • Wheaton College: an Intra-faith Controversy

    If you haven’t been following the news from Wheaton College, an evangelical college in Wheaton, Illinois, the story is this:
    In December, Larycia Hawkins, a tenured associate professor of political science at Wheaton since 2007, decided to show solidarity with Muslims by wearing a hijab and stating that Muslims and Christians “worship the same God.”

    The college almost immediately placed her on paid administrative leave. They said that this would give them time to explore questions regarding the theological implications of her recent public statements.  On January 5, they issued a Notice of Recommendation to Initiate Termination-for-Cause Proceedings.

    Since then, there’s been a firestorm of protest against Wheaton’s action. Numerous petitions calling for the reinstatement of Dr. Hawkins (including moveon.org and change.org) have been circulating. Christian clergy of various denominations and leaders from other religious traditions have rallied in support.

    Which is all well and good.

    However, what we have here is a classic example of our need for an intrafaith conversation.  For some Christians, the statement that Muslims and Christians “worship the same God” poses no theological problems. For others, it’s an impossible statement to make. Members of each group consider themselves to be faithful Christians. Although I don’t know any of them, I seriously doubt that the administrators of Wheaton College are bigots. Dr. Hawkins herself has written on her Facebook page, “Friends, Embodied Solidarity is not demonizing others in defense of me” and asks for “prayers and actions that emanate love, grace, peace, and if necessary, forgiveness.”

    We are confronted with the question raised by Marjorie Suchoki in Divinity and Diversity: “How do Christians deal with this phenomenon (religious pluralism)? Our Christian past has traditionally taught us that there is only one way to God, and that is through Christ. But we are uneasy. Our neighborliness teaches us that these others are good and decent people, good neighbors, or loved family members! Surely God is with them as well as with us. Our hearts reach out, but our intellectual understanding draws back. We have been given little theological foundation for affirming these others – and consequently we wonder if our feelings of acceptance are perhaps against the will of God, who has uniquely revealed to us just what is required for salvation.”1

    There are a number of ways to answer the question. Within our congregations, we’ll find exclusivists, inclusivists, and pluralists of various stripes – all faithful Christians. How will we help them to listen to one another, respect one another, and come to some agreements of how we will love and work together? 

    As Kristin Johnston Largen of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg has written: “. . .issues of Christology cannot be avoided in an interreligious conversation that professes to take Christian faith claims seriously.”2

    We should be taking the theological position of Wheaton College seriously. We should be taking the theological positions of Dr. Hawkins and her supporters seriously. Petitions won’t solve the underlying problem. Only our intrafaith work will do that.

     

    [1] Suchocki, Marjorie, Divinity & Diversity: A Christian Affirmation of Religious Pluralism, 9.

    [2] Largen, Kristin Johnston, Finding God Among Our Neighbors, Neighbors: An Interfaith Systematic Theology, Fortress Press, 2013, 137.

     

     

     

     

  • Baptism in the INTRAfaith Conversation

    baptism_JesusThis Sunday , which commemorates the Baptism of Jesus, is a leap forward in time. Seems like we just celebrated his birth, and now here’s the adult Jesus down at the Jordan River getting baptized. They grow up so fast!

    What this Sunday does for progressive Christians, however , is raise a lot of questions about what baptism is. It also raises questions for those of us who have come to regard other religious traditions as equally valid. It was much simpler in the days before our interfaith engagements caused us to question how we Christians propagate an (often unintentional) exclusivism and triumphalism. Our theology of baptism should be a central topic in the intrafaith conversation.

    I am indebted to Pastor Dawn Hutchings, a colleague from the Lutheran Church in Canada. Her recent blog post, A Progressive Christian Wades into the Waters of Baptism, is a fine piece of writing on this theological task. I re-post it here as a conversation starter.

    A Progressive Christian Wades into the Waters of Baptism

    Then the next step is to broaden the topic into the interfaith arena.

    I encourage you to look over your baptism liturgies, hymns and prayers. But read them through the eyes of a person of another belief system.

    What are the issues, questions, and concerns that arise for you? How has your theology of baptism changed/ evolved through your interfaith encounters?

    How might you adapt these changes in the congregation?

    What is baptism to you?

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