Yes, I’ve been quiet here lately – wrapping up Ph.D. matters. But I’ve been busy with other things too. My article “‘Agonizing for You’: Christian Responses to Religious Persecution” is now out in the latest issue of International Journal of Religious Persecution.
Archive for the ‘Theological Musings’ Category
Religious Persecution Article (#3)
Friday, December 25th, 2009Religious Persecution Article
Tuesday, August 25th, 2009
My article “Minding the Gaps: Overcoming Misconceptions of Persecution” appears in the latest issue of the International Journal of Religious Freedom. You can access the entire journal along with previous issues (its premiere issue was last year) here.
Dialogue and Mission
Friday, August 7th, 2009
Several years ago I received a book edited by the convener of a conference at which my wife was presenting a paper. I have browsed its pages over the years, but only just now came across this well-written passage from Francis X. Clooney, S.J. (whom I had met at an earlier gathering with Andrew Walls):
Many of us instinctively think of evangelization (along with a steadfast commitment to and retrieval of the Christian tradition as enduringly true) as a mission prized by conservatives while dialogue (along with the range of interreligious issues and literacies) is a favorite of liberals, a friendly alternative to evangelization. But it never made sense to me to think that some of us were to witness to Christ and preach the gospel while others were to learn from people of other faith traditions – as if preaching the gospel were a kind of monologue where we talk but never listen and dialogue were conversation from-and-to-nowhere: Christian lite. But how can you talk and not listen? How can you converse if you have nothing to say? Surely we do not believe that it is conservative to talk and liberal to listen! I have found that dialogue and evangelization are necessarily interconnected. This is why dialogue – and the required interreligious literacy – is no less a Christian value and duty that is evangelization (246).
From Clooney’s chapter “Reading the World Religiously: Literate Christianity in a World of Many Religions,” in Theological Literacy for the Twenty-First Century, ed. Rodney L. Petersen with Nancy M. Rourke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002).
Image from Reuters
Doing or Doing Well?
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009At a memorial service for a colleague’s father-in-law, various family members were given time to reflect on their loss. One person did so by recalling a witticism often uttered by her late father:
If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing poorly.
This particular individual was a real pioneer. In his context, he risked mistakes so that gaps could (begin to be) filled. For him, it paid off. So, like his daughter, I honour his trailblazing spirit and pioneering efforts.
But understanding this context makes the quote no less provocative. And I heard it soon after viewing The Beauty Academy of Kabul. In this documentary, American beauticians (and one British, shall we say, administrator) travel to Kabul, Afghanistan to open up a beautician’s training school for Afghan women. Among the teachers are two Afghan women who left the country for the West over 20 years ago. They return to help a growing group of women apply their trade in Kabul.
In many ways, it is a touching story. There is a special need. A few precious souls recognize it and do what they can to meet it. Along the way they encounter a myriad of other cultural and social issues and wonder how their efforts might be more broadly applied. In many other ways, however, the story is troubling. The non-Afghan teachers are almost (and obviously) completely unaware of important cultural, historical, sociological, and religious issues in Afghanistan. They are brazen and cavalier in their efforts. Yes, they are quick to help, but they are also quick to judge and quick to apply their own Western remedies to unique, non-Western problems. While starting a beautician’s schools is a creative means to feel a unique need, they seem to, overall, not do well. Their efforts are certainly worth doing, but I’m not certain they’re worth doing this poorly. Or are they?
Hopefully other relief and development efforts will follow these ladies that are much improved. Is it enough that these ladies were trailblazers of sorts? Or will we have to spend valuable time doing “clean-up” because they trailblazed poorly? Or would fewer relief and development efforts have been carried out if they didn’t go at all. Obviously, the real lesson here is that one should do something to the best of their ability; they should acquire the right training, seek out the right advice, and explore the relevant historical and cultural issues connected to their issue. But if nothing is being done, is it worth doing something – anything – even if it must (must?) be done poorly?
For my late friend, his witticism worked out – his pioneering legacy attests to that. But what about your field – does his witticism apply in valueable ways? Does the beauty academy of Kabul of value simply because something was done?
Truth or Inter-Religious Dialogue?
Sunday, May 31st, 2009For some, inter-religious dialogue is the opposite of truth and therefore mission must exclude inter-religious dialogue. Arguments for and against this notion are common, but I found this passage from the late Fr. Richarch John Neuhaus’ Catholic Matters: Confusion, Controversy, and the Splendor of Truth provocative:
The circumstance was nicely summed up by a comment of Ted Koppel on ABC’s Nightline the night of [Benedict XVI's] election. The subject turned to interreligious dialogue, and I had referred to the radical Christocentrism of the new pope. “So which is it, Father,” Koppel asked, “Christ or interreligous dialogue?”
But, of course, it is interreligious dialogue because of, and upon the foundation of, Jesus Christ who is the redeemer of the entire world, including the world’s religions in which, as Catholic teaching holds, elements of truth and grace are to be found. The same confusion arises with respect to Dominus Iesus, a document issued by Ratzinger’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2000, which is regularly cited as claiming that Catholicism is more true than other religions and even other Christian churches. But of course. There is but one Christ and therefore, at the deep level of theological understanding, there can be only one Church, and the Catholic Church claims to be that Church most fully and rightly ordered through time. That is not in tension with ecumenism; it is the foundation of the ecumenical quest for full communion among all Christians.
…. The argument … that Benedict will undoubtedly be making, is that there is no tension, never mind conflict, between truth and love. The caricature is that liberals are big on love, conservatives are big on truth. As Ratzinger said in his homily before the conclave, love without truth is blind and truth without love is empty. Without truth, love is mere sentimentality and, without love, truth is sterile.*
Readers who aren’t Christian (or Christian readers who aren’t Catholic) may find this line of argument, particularly the second quoted paragraph, troublesome. If we set aside for the purpose of this post, the matter of the Catholic Church as the Church most full and true (no easy task, I realize, since it is so important to Catholic ecclesiology and so potentially troubling for non-Catholics), how can we apply Benedict XVI’s approach to truth and love, especially if we read love as inter-religious dialogue? There is quite a lot that lies underneath each of the statements quoted, but I find it very helpful.
*From Richard John Neuhaus, “Rome Diary,” in Catholic Matters: Confusion, Controversy, and the Splendor of Truth (New York: Basic Books), 237.
On Praying for Dinner
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
The Prayer before Meal (Chardin, c. 1740; Musee du Louvre, Paris)
As I walked back from the grocery store yesterday afternoon, the necessary ingredients for our dinner in hand, I found myself reflecting on the prayers we sometimes offer before meals. This weekend we will be sharing a few meals with friends; how should we pray for those meals, I wondered. I’ve long grown tired of the so-called prayers that roll off of our tongue’s without a moment’s thought. No sooner have the words left our mouths than we are jamming food back in them. I’m also uncomfortable with using the prayer-before-meal as an evangelistic soap box.
I remember sitting in a Wendy’s in Montana as a child and seeing a family at another table briefly bow their heads to pray before they ate. Someone at our table pointed at them, we all looked, and everyone quietly rejoiced that there was obviously another “religous” family present. Years later, my wife and I joined another couple in their Jamaica Plain home for dinner. Before we ate, the gentleman bluntly stated that there would be no prayer before the meal because such piety had become a meaningless act. I must admit that at the time I quietly rejoiced even as his wife scolded him for being a bit too blunt. Even more years later, my wife and I sat down with friends at a Balti restaurant in Sparkbrook, England. We explained that we had grown accustomed to saying “bismillah” before meals. It was a meaningful way for us to acknowledge God’s presence and provision. But frankly, this was too personal and few people understood it. Our friends didn’t really mind, remarking that they simply crossed themselves before meals. That too has become meaningful to me, many reasons for which are not relevant here.
In any case, all of this went through my head as I returned from my trip to the grocery story yesterday. Prayers are probably not meant to be a sort of cafeteria – pick one that looks nice to use (or not) before you eat. But I couldn’t help but wonder how all of this would unfold when we joined our friends for dinner later in the week. What would they do? What would I do? Why does this seem to really matter?
As “luck” would have it I returned to my office only to stumble upon two posts from Richard Mouw on … prayers before meals. Give them a read here and here. I found them helpful and am left pondering how I might take time throughout the day – whether I’m eating or not – to genuinely acknowledge God’s presence and to do whatever I’m doing “in the name of God” (bismillah).
On Pilgrimage and Baptism
Tuesday, April 14th, 2009
The Baptism of Christ by Master of the Life of Saint John the Baptist, tempera on panel, c. 1330/1340, Samuel H. Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art
N.T. Wright’s book The Way of the Lord is a very fine theological treatment of Christian pilgrimage. As a leading New Testament scholar one might expect a rather erudite approach by Wright, but the reader is instead met with a thoughtful, even inspirational, reflection on the importance and value of modern pilgrimage. Wright is also the Anglican Bishop of Durham, and so one might also be surprised to find him reflecting on the spiritual significance of an act pushed far to the margins by most Protestants.
Wright is hesitant to give pilgrimage his wholesale approval, or rather he is keen to point out the ease in which pilgrimage might be abused. Of all people, New Testament scholars might be the first to highlight the shift from the Old Testament’s emphasis upon holy land to the New Testament’s emphasis upon a holy people. Nevertheless, there are some spots, some spaces, whether part of an official pilgrimage or not, that have the mark of holiness. There is little in (Protestant) theology to account for this. But as Wright himself concludes, “The only answer I have to this day is that when God is known, sought and wrestled with in a place, a memory of that remains, which those who know and love God can pick up” (5). And so Wright recommends pilgrimage to holy places because: 1) it has a “valuable role within the Church’s teaching ministry;” 2) it is a “stimulus and an invitation to prayer;” and 3) it can be “a time of real growth and depth in discipleship” (9-10).
In this light, The Way of the Lord will be most helpful to Protestants, but it contains some of the finest and most succinctly clear reflection that I have read in some time. This is particularly true of Wright’s thoughts on the relationship of pilgrimage to baptism. I’ve long grown tired of the in-house debates – sprinkle or immersion, infant or … non-infant. The son of friends of mine was recently denied baptism by a pastor who thought that the boy’s explanation of one aspect of Christian doctrine was inadequate. When I was told this, it was all I could do to not violently drown the pastor in the nearest baptismal. Indeed, baptism is a serious matter, but we so often miss the point. Wright masterfully reminds us of the point in a way that I’ve not come across before.
Reflecting on the Jordan River, Wright briefly accounts for its significance to Israel in spite of its rather meek appearance. It was at this river that the Israelites (not the Israelis, mind you) crossed over into the Promised Land. It was their baptism, of sorts, and Joshua, their leader, marked the occasion with two stone monuments. Wright comments, “The symbolism is obvious. This crossing of the Jordan was the defining moment for the twelve tribes of Israel. It made them who they were; and it made the Promised Land what it was” (27).
So it was for Naaman, the commader of the Syrian army (cf. 2 Kings 5). Struck with leprosy, Naaman heard of a certain Jew in Israel whose God seemed to specialize in curing just such a malady. He found the prophet Elisha, made his request, and was told to do something unthinkable. Go wash yourself 7 times in the Jordan, he is told. The Jordan? That measley, dirty, excuse for a river? What could it hurt, he concludes. He goes to the Jordan, passes through it as he is told (like so many Jews had done centuries before), and is healed. Even more, he is convinced of the unsurpassed power of the one God, Yahweh. As Wright reflects, “He has a new loyalty …. He has been given a new identity. He has been defined, for good, by that moment at the Jordan” (28).
Some time later a man named John baptized in the Jordan another Joshua, i.e., Yeshua/Iesous/Jesus. “And when he went down into the water and came up the other side, the Spirit descended on him, and God himself declared that this was his beloved Son. And just as the many streams of eastern Israel run down into the Jordan, so the many rich streams of Israel’s history were channelled into that one moment. This was the moment that would ever after define the people of God” (29). “In New Testament terms, an unbaptized Christian is an anomaly to be rectified as soon as possible. Baptism says what John was saying, what Elisha was saying to Naaman: here, washed in this water, are the covenant people of the one true God” (30).
For its clarity a rather long quotation is excused:
If we see baptism … as the defining moment at the formal beginning of Christian pilgrimage, we should be able to avoid some of the problems that have been associated with it. Much modern Western thinking has been deeply suspicious of symbolism and symbolic actions, seeing them as mere mumbo-jumbo. Baptism is often regarded as a useless ritual, more to do with social convention than with living faith. This is perhaps an inevitable reaction to the view which has so emphasized the sacramental validity of the action as to make it appear almost magical, as though by splashing water on someone and mumbling a few words one could make them a Christian and save their soul for ever …. In our generation, though, we are starting to be more aware again of the power of symbolic actions; and the time is therefore ripe to reappropriate the glory and mystery of baptism. Sacraments are not sympathetic magic; but neither are they mere empty signs.
You cannot, then, turn away from the font like a latter-day Naaman and say, “I might as well have a bath at home in comfort.” You must abandon your cultural pride, and submit to the humiliation of sharing the death of Jesus, so that you may now be defined by that moment, that action, and set out on a new path of resurrection life. If you want to do business with Jesus, you must go down to the Jordan, and wash. You must publicly and visibly share his dying and rising, and be defined by that event for the rest of your life.
This enables us to understand the meaning of baptism for those of us, myself included, who were baptized as infants and who cannot consciously remember the event. Baptism is a beginning, not an ending. It is the start of a pilgrimage, not its conclusion. Think again of the children of Israel. They looked back to the wilderness and the Jordan as the moment when God had set them free, had given them a new identity. That didn’t make them perfect, any more than baptism makes us perfect. Precisely because God has set us free, we are free to rebel, to go our own way. We are free, like the Prodigal son, to go off into exile, to choose a way of life which will lead us far from our Father’s house. But even in exile we remain people who have been defined by that moment under the water. The death and resurrection of Jesus, to which baptism points, function for us like the … stone in the river, defining who we are. And the covenant love of God in Christ reaches out, yearning after us, urging us to return and be truly his people again” (31-32).
Athiest Praise for Christian Mission and Relief Work
Saturday, January 3rd, 2009
For an interesting read, see Matthew Parris’ recent Times column, “As an atheist I truly believe Africa needs God.” An Englishman born in Malawi, Parris returned to his birthplace to see the work of a British development charity. What he found surprised him:
It inspired me, renewing my flagging faith in development charities. But travelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I’ve been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I’ve been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God.
He goes on to discuss the contribution of Christian mission and development work in Africa noting that it seems to him to be “sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts.”
He concludes:
Removing Christian evangelism [and its concomitant relief and development efforts] from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete.
There are both positive and negative things to say about Christian mission, relief, and development in Africa both as realities and as a mission methodology. We can view these through rose-colored glasses and conclude that Christian mission, relief, and development cleansed (or are cleansing) the continent and making it clean. That would be inaccurate and wrong. We can disparage such efforts noting that many so-called Christian NGO’s are merely masks for ulterior motives. That can be true at times, but Parris’ assessment comes as a rather unbiased challenge.
Devotion on a Tuesday Afternoon
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008
I am presently writing from San Francisco having tagged along with my wife on one of her business trips. New environments in which to study often prove fruitful and so I am getting some needed revisions done on a chapter to my thesis. The rather luxurious hotel room is an added bonus.
For a break this afternoon I took a walk to pray at nearby St. Patrick’s Catholic Church. It’s interior is beautiful and welcoming amidst the hustle and bustle of the city. While sitting in one of its pews I observed others in their devotion. There was the usual bowing, crossing, and praying, but there were also those who took long pauses before statues, kissed icons, and even some who knelt clearly in a state of desperation. At one point, I heard shuffling just behind me. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a child in a snow-suit waddling up the aisle. But as the individual came nearer and passed me I realized it was a man on his knees shuffling his way towards the altar-rail.
All this devotion suddenly struck me as rather charismatic. But it wasn’t the extravagance of my church youth that, for me, seemed so disingenuous (emphasis upon the “for me”). It was, in a sense, an environment where one could go to most any length to express his or her devotion, thankfulness, or desperation without fear of reproach, without need to impress or show restraint.
And we all were so wonderfully representative of the diversity of the city as well.
Christian Instincts
Saturday, November 29th, 2008I recently read this musing from Dietrich Bonhoeffer in a letter he wrote to a friend while in prison. For whatever reason, I could write these very words for myself at this point in my life. I don’t know why.
I often ask myself why a “Christian instinct” often draws me more to the religionless people than to the religious, by which I don’t in the least mean with any evangelizing intention, but, I might also say, ” in brotherhood.” While I’m often reluctant to mention God by name to religious people – because that name somehow seems to me here not to ring true, and I feel myself to be slightly dishonest (it’s particularly bad when others start to talk in religious jargon; I then dry up almost completely and feel awkward and uncomfortable) – to people with no religion I can on occasion mention him by name quite calmly and as a matter of course. Religious people speak of God when human knowledge (perhaps simply because they are too lazy to think) has come to an end, or when human resources fail – in fact it is always the deus ex machina [god from the machine] that they bring on to the scene, either for the apparent solution of insoluble problems, or as strength in human failure – always, that is to say, exploiting human weakness or human boundaries (Letters and Papers from Prison, 281-282).
