Religion and Ethics in a Globalizing World: Conflict, Dialogue, and Transformation

RELIGION AND ETHICS IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD

Palapathwala and Andrew Wicking

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RELIGION AND ETHICS IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD CONFLICT, DIALOGUE, AND TRANSFORMATION

Edited by Luca Anceschi, Joseph Anthony Camilleri, Ruwan Palapathwala, and Andrew Wicking

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RELIGION AND ETHICS IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD

Copyright © Luca Anceschi, Joseph A. Camilleri, Ruwan Palapathwala, and Andrew Wicking, 2011. All rights reserved. First published in 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–0–230–10462–4 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Religion and ethics in a globalizing world : conflict, dialogue, and transformation / edited by Luca Anceschi [. . . et al.]. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–230–10462–4 (alk. paper) 1. Religion and politics. 2. Religious ethics. 3. Globalization— Religious aspects. I. Anceschi, Luca, 1976– BL65.P7R4525 2010 201⬘.72—dc22

2010028077

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: February 2011 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.

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CONTENTS

Editors’ Preface

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Introduction Religion: Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution? Joseph A. Camilleri

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Part I Emerging Challenges for Religious Understanding 1 Re-envisioning Conf lict, Dialogue, and Transformation: The Imperative for a New Methodological Paradigm Ruwan Palapathwala and Andrew Wicking

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2 Surmounting the Wall: Religion and Conf lict Graham Maddox

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3 Virtues in a Globalized Context Neil Ormerod

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4 The People of the Book: Reconciling Religious Fundamentals with Universal Human Rights Michael Kirby 5 Holding Hands and Bearing Arms: A Continuing Challenge for Global Religious Communities Merrill Kitchen

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Part II Implications for Multifaith Dialogue—Assessment and Critique 6 Relationship Building in the Middle East among Adversaries: Israelis and Palestinians Dvir Abramovich

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7 Bejeweled Dialogue: Illuminating Deadly Conf licts in the Twenty-First Century Chaiwat Satha-Anand

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8 Christian Ecumenism, Other Faiths, and the “Peace of the World” Peter Carnley

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Part III Toward a Deeper Understanding of Islam 9 The Search for Communities of Peace: An International Ref lection on Christian-Muslim Relations James Haire

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10 How Muslims View the Scriptures of the People of the Book: Toward a Reassessment? Abdullah Saeed

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11 Broken Covenants and Broken Relationships: Guidelines for Cooperation in a World in Transition Ian R. Fry

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Conclusion Interfaith Interaction: Contradictions and Conf licts Chandra Muzaffar

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Notes on Editors and Contributors

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Index

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EDITORS’ PREFACE

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rom time immemorial, religion has been a point of reference for peoples of all civilizations and cultures in search of meaning and purpose to their existence. In this search for meaning and purpose, peoples have named differently a common cardinal referent—Atman, YHWH, Allah, Dharma, Dao, the Holy, and many others—in whom or through which answers to the human condition and the possibilities for transcendence and salvation were sought. This kind of encounter, which according to some theistic traditions is also facilitated by the revelatory character of the Divine, has led human beings to live meaningfully through the agency of culture despite being subjected to the vicissitudes, conf licts, suffering, and tragedies of existence. In many respects, it is the Holy Texts of cultures that embody and preserve this Divine-human encounter as the story of the peoples. Within these scriptural frameworks—which provide the meaning-giving structures in the subconscious of individuals, communities, and cultures— human beings determine their destiny on earth in the here and now and in the beyond here-after. From this perspective, religions and their Holy Texts can be considered foundational to cultures and their peoples. They are also sacred compendiums—the stories of cultures and peoples, their sufferings, conf licts, joys, hopes, loves, beginnings and ends; they tell how these stories interweave the human and the Divine, the sacred and the profane, and, ultimately, life, death, and timelessness. Underlining the imperative of these dimensions of religion and culture for human existence, the chapters in this book consider a range of conf lict situations and explore whether and how dialogue may play a pivotal role in bringing about transformation at the personal, societal, and global level. These chapters had their origin in the Seventh Annual Globalization for the Common Good: An Inter-Faith Perspective Conference: “From the Middle East to Asia Pacific: Arc of Conf lict or Dialogue of Cultures and Religions?” held at Trinity College, University of Melbourne, Australia ( June 30–July 4, 2008) and constitute a response

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to the vision of Dr. Kamran Mofid, the founder of the Globalisation for the Common Good Initiative. Given that the chapters in this book were written in a postmodern and globalizing context, in which there is a greater awareness of the world’s religious traditions and their various contemporary developments, as well as new advances in the methods in the study of religions, we have not limited our scope to a traditional notion of “dialogue.” Rather, we have re-envisioned dialogue. Given that our contemporary context is postmodern and globalizing, from the very first chapter we challenge our readers to examine the inadequacies of existing methodologies in the academic study of religion, conf lict, dialogue, and transformation and invite them to consider a new methodological paradigm that may be applied in such studies. The book consists of essays from both scholars of religion and scholarly practitioners of religions. We have included these two categories of authors because, on the one hand, in general, the serious study of religion tends to be the domain of two types of specialists: first, the scholars who have earned the privilege of studying religions with erudition and discipline-specific objectivity; and second, the sage and the practitioner who experience the truth embedded in the traditions to which they belong with subjectivity and a yearning to transcend the temporality of the experiences of truth. On the other hand, while the academic scholar masters the art of studying religion with dedication, skill, and the necessary detachment, the religious teacher or prophet may be more concerned with the salvific dispensation of theirown religious tradition. In our attempt to document the richness of both of these categories, we have resisted the temptation to strictly classify the wisdom and the skill that the specialist, the sage, the scholar, the practitioner, and the nonspecialist bring to the study of religion, in general, and the themes of religion, conf lict, dialogue and transformation, in particular. To maintain the integrity of this publication, all chapters have been peer-reviewed before they were accepted for inclusion. We have also resisted the temptation to restrict all the chapters to exclusively academic theorization that might prove inaccessible or irrelevant even to the wellinformed reader. To have done so would have been to exclude an important slice of human life as well as the situations and experiences that provide us with the reasons, contexts, and ‘codes’ to interact and engage meaningfully with the themes of religion, conf lict, dialogue, and transformation both inside and outside the academy. In these respects, this publication is of value as a textbook for both the scholar and the student of religion. We have edited the book to make it relevant and informative to the nonspecialist as well.

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In a world where neoliberalism and neoimperialism have been ascendant, drawing the globe into a vortex of control and exploitation, and where religious fundamentalism and international terrorism plague the face of the earth, demanding authoritarian, subjugating, and violent responses to brute force, this publication will, we hope, contribute to a widening and deepening discussion of the role of religion and the part it can play in conf lict, dialogue, and transformation. This publication is offered in the expectation that a dialogical frame of reference offers the most promising antidote to the disorder of present-day human experience. In the spirit of the admonishments of Shri Krishna to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gītā, the chapters in this book ask that we not betray our passion for justice and scientific honesty to such enslaving forces, but that we allow scholarship to foster the dialogue of cultures, religions, and civilizations in the interests of achieving a fully developed humanity.

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INTRODUCTION RELIGION: PART OF THE PROBLEM OR PART OF THE SOLUTION? Joseph A. Camilleri

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ecularization theory, as developed by the leading social thinkers of the nineteenth century—Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud—argued that religion would gradually fade in importance with the gradual advance of science and industrial society. This view generally held sway in the twentieth century. A wide-ranging consensus in the social sciences postulated that metaphysical beliefs, liturgical rituals, and sacred practices would gradually give way to a secular ethic that would rank with bureaucratization, rationalization, and urbanization as a defining feature of modernity.1 The global resurgence of religion in the last several decades has called this consensus into question and has led a number of authors to reexamine the relationship of religion to modernity and to international relations more generally.2 Much of the literature has focused, perhaps understandably but not always insightfully, on the upsurge of fundamentalist movements, particularly in the Muslim world.3 This line of argument holds some attraction to exponents of the secularization thesis in that it ascribes the resurgence of religion to vestiges of tradition and social irrationality that will sooner or later be swept aside by the unavoidable onset of modernity. However, as Scott M. Thomas rightly points out, the resurgence of religion is not confined to a few “traditional” outposts, but is global in every sense of the word, manifesting itself across different regions, political systems, and religious traditions.4 If the resurgence of religion is a global phenomenon, then it is appropriate to ask what has been the impact of this resurgence on the political

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process, both within and between countries, and on the incidence and intensity of both civil and international conf lict. This question has already prompted a number of useful studies,5 but the focus has generally been that of the academic observer drawing largely on conventional social science frameworks of inquiry and much less on the insights either of religious scholars or of social scientists with a stake in the outcome of these powerful religious currents. This latter approach constitutes the core of this book’s frame of reference. It brings diverse religious and ethical perspectives to bear on the same overriding question: Is religion a force for conf lict or for dialogue and transformation in the contemporary world? The contributions to this volume do not presume that the role of “religion” has hitherto been of the constructive kind or that it will be so in the future. Rather, they all wrestle, each in their own way, with the same normative conundrum: What resources, if any, can different religious traditions bring to the table of constructive engagement? To sharpen its analytical focus, the book has been organized around three key themes: first, the challenge posed for religion’s self-understanding of its own role in the face of rising tensions and uncertainty in human affairs; second, the degree to which the dialogue of religions (often referred to as “interfaith dialogue”) can smooth the path across these turbulent waters; and third, the implications of this challenge-response dynamic for the relationship between the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds—perhaps the single most troublesome fault line in the contemporary international landscape. To be able to advance along this path it is first necessary to disentangle a number of complex questions. To speak of the resurgence of religion is one thing; to be able to characterize the nature, let alone the causes, of this resurgence is quite another. Compounding the difficulty of interpreting current trends are two distinct but closely entwined considerations. The first of these is the obvious yet often-neglected reality that religion does not function in a vacuum. The religious domain is integrally connected to the political, economic, and cultural domains, which are themselves in a state of flux. Attention must therefore be directed to the complex interplay of religion, culture, and politics, of the sacred and the secular, and of the transcendental and the temporal in the context of rapid technological, economic, and social change. The second consideration has to do with our understanding of modernity, which until recently was viewed largely as a journey of “progress,” a reflexive record of human achievement, a graphic manifestation of the power of human reason. In keeping with this line of thought, the upsurge in religious fundamentalism, particularly in the Middle East, has been widely and simplistically portrayed as “a stalled transition to modernity.”6 The fundamentalist response to modernity—and the problem of interpretation that it poses—is crucial to our analysis and merits careful examination. The large number of recent conf licts with a religious dimension to Palapathwala and Andrew Wicking

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them (over half of the world total in 2001) and the steady rise in religiously motivated international terrorism point to a deeper ailment.7 Diverse local and regional inf luences are no doubt at work, but an important common factor has been the widespread disillusionment with Western modernity— and, in particular, with the role it assigns to technical reason—and its marginalization of religion, of the sacred or the spiritual.8 As already noted, the increasing importance of religious beliefs, practices, and discourses in personal and public life and, as a consequence, in local and national politics has spread across diverse religious traditions and regions of the world. The trend is not confined to Muslim societies, poverty-stricken countries, or failed states. It has become a significant factor in the life of many Western societies, where conservative and Charismatic Catholics, evangelical and Pentecostal Protestants, radical Christians, New Age spiritualists, and a growing number of converts to Islam and Buddhism are commanding increasing attention and inf luence.9 Gilles Kepel’s analysis is instructive in this regard. The religious identity movements of the latter part of the twentieth century, he argues, were a response to two interlinked developments: the growth of transnational threats to security and the collapse of communism and socialism. Reacting to the perceived confusion and disorder in international relations, they sought to revive “the vocabulary and the categories of religious thought as applied to the contemporary world.” Many of them viewed the modern secular city as “completely lacking legitimacy” and considered that “only a fundamental transformation in the organization of society could restore the holy scriptures as the prime source of inspiration for the city of the future.”10 Beyond this common denominator, religiously based movements have had widely diverging visions of social order and have been deeply hostile to each other as well as to the wider secular society. The resurgence of religion has given rise to new and sharper forms of contestation in multiple local, national, and international settings—a trend amplified by the rapid growth of large, religious, diasporic communities. Put simply, the return of religion to international center stage is one expression, albeit the most dramatic thus far, of the transnationally manifested tension between modernity and tradition. It would seem as if modernity itself is in crisis, with religious organizations, of both the conventional and radical variety, faced with the same dilemma, namely, that of navigating between the traditional and the “modern.” Dissecting the Religious Phenomenon At the outset, it is worth reminding ourselves that religion is a multifaceted phenomenon with wide-ranging implications for society,

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politics, and culture. The complexity and variability of what goes under the name “religion” must therefore be carefully considered if we are to make sense of religion’s actual or potential impact on ethical discourse and practice generally and on the handling of conf lict in particular. The religious domain is multidimensional in that it encompasses attitudes, beliefs, emotions, experiences, rituals, the ties that bind the community of believers, and a deep sense of belonging.11 An early conceptualization of religion proposed a four-dimensional model: (a) the “associational” dimension, which includes involvement in various forms of religious practice; (b) the “communal” dimension, which relates to primary-type relations privileged by religious affiliation; (c) the “doctrinal” dimension, which refers to belief systems; and (d) the “devotional” or pietistic dimension, which involves communion with the divine or the transcendent through prayer, meditation, or other religious experience.12 Taken together, these dimensions point to a crucial, though at times neglected, function performed by religion, namely, identity formation. As Hill and Hood have rightly observed, this function is all the more potent in that religion places “both personal and social identity within the cosmic or metaphysical background.”13 If we are to make sense, then, of the dynamic of religious commitment, we need to consider the cognitive, relational, behavioral, and ritualistic components of religion and situate these in the context of the social and political conditions of the time. We need, in other words, to examine the particular circumstances that presently bear upon economy, security, and environment (nationally and globally) and the unique challenges these circumstances pose not only for religious beliefs, but also for the fabric of religious communities and institutions and, importantly, for the personal and communal sense of identity and belonging that they inspire. This exercise in contextualization can help illuminate the many obstacles that have often impeded and continue to impede an effective religious response to the contemporary human predicament. In the current period of transition, these obstacles loom larger than ever before, which explains why religion is often perceived by outsiders (and even by insiders) as inimical to human emancipation. Can religion surmount these obstacles and play a transformative role in the era of globalization? Can it assist humanity to develop the international legal and political order needed to establish a peaceful and ecologically sustainable world? Many of the ensuing chapters grapple precisely with this question. In part 1 of this book, Palapathwala and Wicking do it by comparing the cosmologies of the Abrahamic and Dharmic traditions and the lessons offered by such a juxtaposition. Maddox calls into question the narrowly based secularism that seeks to exclude religious discourse from the public

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sphere. Ormerod stresses the contribution that religiously derived values, or what he prefers to call “virtues,” can make to the articulation of moral agency in a globalizing world. Kitchen draws attention to the competing interpretations of sacred texts and the need to adequately contextualize such texts and so ensure that they resonate with contemporary realities. Kirby addresses much the same problem, pointing to the serious consequences likely to f low from the rigid reading of religious texts, notably intolerance and disregard for basic human rights. Each of these chapters offers us a glimpse of the extraordinary yet often unfulfilled promise of religion. Why, one might well ask, is the contemporary balance sheet so disappointing? The elements that contribute to a religious worldview, in particular the sacred texts and teachings of prophets and sages, have a good deal to say about the way human beings should relate to one another. Over time, every religious tradition develops, whether formally or informally, a set of moral principles and rules that point to the good life, to a harmonious synthesis of the natural and supernatural worlds. A moral conception of life emerges, within which one finds notions of goodness, rightful conduct, harmony, respect for life, compassion, contentment, forgiveness, peace, and justice. This we may describe as the “inner content” of religion, which most adherents do not fully comprehend and often do not observe. In other words, we need to distinguish, as Ariyaratne does, between “the spiritual culture of religion” as expressed in the teachings of prophets and sages and religion and “the material culture of religion” as manifested in traditions, customs, and practices.14 Most religions find it difficult to apply their inner or spiritual culture to the concrete conditions of everyday life or to their own collective decision making, let alone to sensitive areas of statecraft. Part of the difficulty derives from the fact that the followers of any religion are unlikely to be animated by exactly the same worldview. More often than not, religions subdivide into distinct schools, denominations, sects, or tendencies. Contrasting and at times sharply conf licting lines of interpretation of texts and tradition and the ensuing contest for authority and inf luence militate against common or coherent responses to major national or international crises.15 To illustrate, within the Christian tradition, attitudes to peace and war oscillate between an uncompromising commitment to nonviolence at one end of the spectrum and a highly permissive reading of the Just War doctrine at the other end. In extreme cases, theological arguments have been advanced to justify the threat or even use of nuclear weapons in the name of deterrence or defense.16 The situation is made even more ambiguous by virtue of the fact that the ethical positions adopted by any religious grouping will normally ref lect not just a particular interpretation of texts, but the way in which

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religious ritual is understood and practiced. A community may be punctilious in its observance of religious obligations (fasting, prayers, pilgrimage, celebrations of religious events), but such observance may not in practice be well attuned to the imperatives of justice, peace, compassion, or any of the other virtues referred to above. Such a disjuncture between religious practice and societal concerns, whether or not it is the result of a conscious retreat into personal piety, cannot but militate against constructive responses to the challenges posed by widening economic inequalities, political corruption, refugee f lows, human rights violations, threats of war, or various forms of environmental degradation. In any case, the ethical dimension of religion cannot be separated from the institutional dimension, which has two facets, one internal to religion (religious institutions) and the other external (notably political and economic institutions). Religious institutions include the organizations, laws, and decision-making processes that govern the relationship between believers.17 They wield authority in the interpretation of sacred texts, organization of rites and rituals, application of the teachings of founders and prophets, and more generally the running of religious educational institutions (seminaries, monasteries, colleges, schools, universities) deemed essential to religious faithfulness. The question here is the extent to which these institutions, through their ethos, curriculum, and pedagogy, equip the community of believers to live harmoniously and creatively not only with each other, but also with people of other faiths, and with the wider community generally. This brings us to the external environment. People of faith do not live in isolation. They play a role in society—they produce, consume, raise, and educate children, and engage in a wide range of leisure, cultural, and other pursuits. Most importantly, they relate in one way or another to the political and economic norms and policies that shape the structure and distribution of authority, power, status, and wealth locally, nationally, and internationally. The question remains: Are people of religious faith, whether as individuals or communities, able to inf luence such norms, policies, and structures in ways that privilege the dignity of the human person, the satisfaction of basic human needs, and the peaceful settlement of disputes? Obstacles in Religion’s Path It is fair to say that, whereas individual scholars, seers, and practitioners have contributed useful religious insights to both the diagnosis and the treatment of the postmodern condition, religious communities as a whole have found it exceedingly difficult to devise authentic yet creative

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responses. Multiple impediments, some located outside (exogenous) and others within (endogenous) the religious domain, help to explain the limited success of religiously inspired endeavors. Though in practice these two sets of impediments have overlapped and often reinforced each other, the distinction remains nevertheless analytically useful. Perhaps the single most powerful constraint bearing upon the religious ethic is the state itself and the coercive apparatus on which it is based, both in its internal and external conduct.18 The actual or threatened use of force has been a constant feature of the political landscape. In both industrial and developing states, political repression has been widespread, with ethnic and religious minorities often the victims of wholesale discrimination by states, whether by commission or omission. As a general proposition, religious movements and organizations have seemed unwilling or unable to address the shortcomings of the modern state, to construct credible responses to the abuse or misuse of power and the attendant failure to integrate ethical principles into decision-making processes and institutions. How might we explain this widespread paucity of discursive and practical intervention? The operation of two deeply entrenched ideologies, each the antithesis of the other, provide a partial answer: the “separation of church and state” on the one hand and the “fusion of religion and state” on the other. The first principle is often interpreted to mean that God and politics do not mix, that religion is fundamentally a private matter, and hence that personal spirituality cannot or should not inform one’s role in the public sphere. Taken to its ultimate conclusion, this principle limits religion’s capacity to inform and inf luence collective decisions. It absolves religion from nurturing a social conscience, from articulating the ethical principles that can guide the affairs of state. The second principle is equally prejudicial because, by making religion and state virtually inseparable—at times by placing a religious or clerical class in charge of the state—they deprive religion of the capacity to evaluate the ethical propriety of state actions and institutional practices.19 Paradoxically, both ideological premises have the same practical effect: both clip the wings of the religious imagination and substitute instead a stultifying isolationism in one case and a constricting pragmatism in the other. Religion is more likely to uphold ethical standards if it intimately engages in the public sphere, contributing to the deliberations and decisions that vitally affect the human future, yet remaining true to the impulse of its spiritual impulse. A second factor that has appreciably curtailed religion’s role as a persuasive advocate of humane and legitimate governance is the widespread tendency of many religious establishments to intervene in the political

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sphere, but solely or predominantly in the defense of self-interested objectives. Here we have in mind the various causes that religious organizations often espouse with predictable vociferousness and, at times, intransigence. These causes generally fall into two categories: political pressure designed to protect and expand the physical infrastructure of religious establishments (not just places of worship but schools, hospitals, and fundraising arrangements) on which depend their authority and prestige; and advocacy of certain rules and regulations that form part of personal morality, with particular reference to sexual relations. A third tendency straddling the two categories is the attempt of majority religions in various societies to acquire or maintain privileged positions vis-à-vis minority faiths, with respect either to moral code or protection of physical assets, in particular access to public funds whether through outright grants; funding of religious, educational, and other institutions; or tax exemptions. The net effect of such narrowly based advocacy is to blunt religion’s capacity to be an effective voice on behalf of the “other” and in defense of religious and cultural pluralism. The net effect is to tarnish religion’s image and so feed a widespread perception that religious activism is no less self-interested or more far- sighted than other self-seeking pressure groups. To complete this brief overview of religion’s defective relationship with the state, mention must be made of the seeming inability of most religious organizations to develop a discourse and practice that address the challenges confronting regional and global governance. Yet one of the most significant trends in the evolution of governance of the last several decades has been the rapid proliferation and consolidation of regional and global institutions. Internationally, we have seen the expanding role of the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions, the World Trade Organization, the G7/8 and the World Health Organization, and the establishment of new agencies such as the G20, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the International Criminal Court. Regionally, the same trend has emerged, as evidenced by the steady growth and enlargement of the European Union, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the African Union, and the establishment of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, ASEAN+3, the East Asian Summit, MERCOSUR, and, more recently, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America ALBA. Though the World Council of Churches and the Holy See have made pronouncements on a range of international issues and have periodically supported with varying degrees of enthusiasm a number of international campaigns (the campaign against apartheid and, more recently, the Jubilee Debt campaign), these have been at best sporadic. They have generally lacked the deeper

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analytical frame of reference needed to make sense of these new developments and offer useful guidance as to appropriate responses.20 Though its mode of operation is markedly different, the pronouncements and actions of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference have been similarly constrained. As a general proposition, the major religious traditions remain, despite their universalist ethic, strangely insular. They have yet to develop a coherent response to the emergent challenges implicit in notions of global governance and global citizenship. We have dwelt on religion’s relationship to public governance, notably the state, not only because of its intrinsic importance, but also because it is emblematic of the difficulty religious organizations have encountered on two other distinct yet closely related fronts. They have generally failed to recognize the critical role of the market in human organization, more specifically the logic and far-reaching social consequences of the unfettered globalization of market relations. Similarly, though periodically bemoaning the corrosive effects of the mass-consumption culture that has been the hallmark of late capitalism, they have been singularly ineffectual in articulating the principles that might form the basis of an alternative to the prevailing cultural and political ethos, and what the respective roles of advanced industrial, transitional, and developing societies might be in the construction of such an alternative. Despite notable exceptions, as with the development of Catholic liberation theology and base communities in parts of Latin America, various organizational expressions of engaged Buddhism and creative attempts to apply Islamic economic and financial jurisprudence to the contemporary contest, the religious response has generally lacked intellectual vision, organizational coherence, or sustained leadership. Faced with the mounting hazards of economic breakdown, environmental degradation, and cultural dislocation, mainstream religion appears to have played a largely passive role. As a result, the initiative in Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and even Buddhist societies has often passed to “fundamentalist” groups that seek salvation by appealing to literal interpretations of certain texts. They are able to capture the widespread sentiment of discontent either by preaching the politics of intolerance and chauvinism or by retreating into a privatized religious sphere in which personal spirituality is strangely disconnected from prevailing economic and political realities. In the one case, an extremist politics based on “religious correctness” leads to heightened mistrust, polarization, and, at times, violent conf lict. In the other case, religion, through silence and inaction, becomes, wittingly or otherwise, the defender of the status quo. Underlying many of these responses, especially by the religious mainstream, is the tendency of leadership structures to emphasize the

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uniqueness of their respective worldviews. More often than not the aim is to assert superiority vis-à-vis their spiritual competitors, whether these are located inside the same tradition or in a different tradition. Rivalries and conf licts, which can be sharp enough between Christians and Muslims or Hindus and Muslims, are sometimes even more divisive and lifethreatening when conducted between sects, schools, or denominations of the same religion (e.g., Catholic and Orthodox, Shī‘aī and Sunni). In both circumstances, those in authority see advantages in insisting on their distinctiveness, on shunning alternative readings of texts, on avoiding even the slightest display of uncertainty or self- doubt. The ensuing walls of separation erected within and between religions are meant to avoid anything that might provoke or fuel a crisis of identity among followers, or might weaken the authority of the leader(s). The psychology of “digging in and protecting turf ” is perhaps the single most enduring impediment to a spirituality of peace and reconciliation. The Prospects for Dialogue in the Era of Globalization Dialogue across religious and cultural boundaries is not a new idea. It has a long history, not least among the three Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The high points are the enormously rich and creative interactions that took place in medieval Islamic Spain and Southern Italy and at various times in places as far apart as Central Asia, Baghdad, Delhi, Cairo, and the Ottoman Empire. But as a movement with its institutions and full-time professionals and its networks of activists, intercultural, interreligious, and intercivilization dialogue is primarily a phenomenon of the twentieth century. It is the pressures of this century—in particular, two world wars; the horrors of the Nazi genocide in Europe; the tragic events in the Middle East; the former Yugoslavia, Sudan, and the Philippines; and, perhaps most dramatically, the rise of international terrorism and the “war on terror”— that have provided renewed impetus for the philosophy and practice of dialogue. By definition, dialogue is called upon to engage with difference. Each religious tradition has its own rituals and metaphysical conceptions, its distinctive ethos and symbolism, its customs and artistic and intellectual achievements, its perspectives on ethical conduct and personal and social relationships—in short, its unique gifts to contribute to the dialogue. There are, in any case, significant differences within as well as between major religions and traditions. This is not hard to explain. Societies experience over time the impact of diverse religious, cultural, and intellectual currents, some of which are internal to a particular society, some external

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to it (most commonly through trade, war, and migration as well as intellectual and artistic exchange). More often than not, these currents furiously interact with each other and in the process contribute to the slow but steady transformation of values, customs, and practices. Religions and civilizations are living entities; they change and diversify over time. The multiplicity of currents, both indigenous and external, that help to shape the culture of any society, furiously interact with each other, and in the process contribute to the slow but steady transformation of norms and expectations. The emphasis of much conventional analysis on “the primordial, essentialist, and immutable nature of religion or religiously based social identities, ideational communities, civilizations or culture areas” is at best questionable.21 As Pollis makes clear, “Norms and values are in continual contention and f lux in both the West and elsewhere.”22 Which strains are dominant within a given religious tradition at a given moment is likely to be determined by the interaction of multiple social and political forces at that historical juncture. Religiously based values and beliefs are the subject of periodic reinterpretation, which cannot but affect interreligious and intercultural communication. Given these important caveats, what useful generalizations might we make when considering the nature of religious pluralism and the potential of interreligious dialogue? First, as numerous writers have observed, the major non-Western religious and ethical traditions, notably Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Islam, share with Western liberalism and the Judeo- Christian tradition from which it springs a sense of the dignity of human life, a commitment to human fulfillment, and a concern for standards of rightness in human conduct.23 A striking commonality, derived from these bedrock principles, is a shared commitment to humane and legitimate governance, although the criteria of legitimacy may vary considerably from one tradition to another. There is, one may reasonably conclude, sufficient common ground between these religious and ethical worldviews to make possible an ongoing conversation about human ethics in general and social discourse in particular.24 The multidimensional though at times contradictory responses to economic and technological globalization suggest that a dialogue of global proportions is gradually emerging—global in the sense that it cultivates the sharing of insights across the major fault lines in the geopolitical and geocultural landscape, not least the fault line separating Islam and the West. Numerous steps have already been taken in this direction, including the establishment in several parts of the world of research and educational centers with a focus on the theory and history of dialogue. An expanding body of scholarly literature is exploring the deeper meaning, modalities, and practical possibilities of such dialogue, and the steps taken

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by governments and international organizations, including the United Nations and the Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM), to give added legitimacy and potency to the idea.25 In the course of the twentieth century, and especially over the last fifty years, interfaith dialogue has gained increasingly wider currency and legitimacy.26 Here it may be useful to dwell, however brief ly, on the nature and meaning of interreligious dialogue—a theme that runs through the second cluster of chapters in this volume. In its most fundamental sense, the dialogical idea has been succinctly and sensitively expressed by Mohammad Khatami: Dialogue pertains neither to skeptics, nor does it belong to those who believe the truth to lie solely within their own claws and under their own domination. Rather, understanding reveals its beautiful, albeit veiled countenance, only to the wayfarers of the path whose followers travel hand in hand, and in step with each other.

The phrase “dialogue of civilizations and cultures,” which should in fact be interpreted as the process of speaking and listening among civilizations and cultures, is based upon such an account of truth.27 In a similar vein, Hans Koechler has described civilizational dialogue as the process through which “the other serves as the corrective of one’s own understanding of the world and one’s system of values, and not as the adversary against whom to aggressively assert one’s identity and ensure one’s very survival.” 28 Dialogue is envisaged here as a communicative process, in which the “seer,” that which is seen, and the very act of seeing are reinterpreted in ways that are tailored to the needs of the present historical juncture, taking advantage of but also critically responding to the material unification of a shrinking yet fragmenting world. What, then, are the principal aims of the dialogical project? First, and most obviously, it has to break through the material and psychological walls that have been painstakingly erected to protect institutional interests and the politics of fear. Second, such dialogue must deepen not only the appreciation of diverse civilizational achievements and perspectives but also the awareness that such diversity is “the collective heritage of humankind.”29 To misunderstand, belittle or exclude any of the major civilizational strands is to impoverish the collective inheritance and to diminish each of its heirs. Third, dialogue needs to encourage and draw sustenance from an emerging conception of citizenship that understands the value of both commonality and difference, and enables them to co-exist, illuminate, and reinforce each other.

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None of this is to suggest that the theory and practice of dialogue and the wider normative framework on which it rests are likely to evolve without pain or confusion. The modalities of interreligious and intercultural dialogue must somehow ref lect the specificities of time, space, and cultural and political setting. Two important dimensions of the dialogical process are worth stressing. First, faith communities and their adherents face the difficult task of reconciliation. The history of each tradition is steeped in the experience of suffering at the hands of others. Many societies and communities have endured—some continue to endure—the violence and humiliation to which others have subjected them. Yet many of these same communities and societies have themselves been the perpetrators of violence. Reconciliation therefore requires communities to share their stories, to listen to one another’s experience of pain, to acknowledge past wrongs, and to accept responsibility for righting the wrongs of the past. It is this exercise in sustained mutual listening that facilitates reconciliation and makes dialogue a force for healing. This primary function is, however, closely connected with and supportive of a second function. Insightfully applied, dialogue can nurture a powerful ethic for reappraising the adequacy of existing forms of human organization and reinvigorating the advocacy of new ones. The dialogical project subjects the collective fatalism or determinism of powerful institutions, not least the apparatus of the state, to critical scrutiny, and allows the diverse religious and civilizational currents to nurture a potent normative impulse.30 Drawing on the insights of the three Abrahamic faiths, the contributions by Carnley, Abramovich, and Satha-Anand in part 2 and by Haire in part 3 elaborate on this dynamic set of possibilities. The rich possibilities opened up by the dialogical project may or may not materialize. The outcome will depend on a number of interdependent variables, two of which merit particular attention: the extent to which the national state provides civil society with sufficient cultural and political space for the expression of difference; and, conversely, the extent to which the discursive practices of civil society are able to draw on ethical and spiritual insights and bring these to bear on the political processes of states, as well as the international rule of law and the expanding network of regional and global institutions. The Role of Islam Within the larger dialogical enterprise, particular attention in this volume is directed to relations with Muslims, not only because of the centrality that Islam has assumed in contemporary geopolitics,31 but also

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because of the far-reaching implications of the relationship between the three Abrahamic faiths. The geographic spread of Islam is also worthy of consideration. Though Islam is often associated with the societies of North Africa and the Middle East, its demographic center of gravity lies in South and Southeast Asia, where its adherents account for the majority of the population in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia, and for significant minorities in India, Thailand and the Philippines. Perhaps most tellingly for relations between Islam and the West is the deepening polarization that has accompanied the growth of Muslim minorities in Europe, North America, and Australia. Aside from the Muslim-majority regions of Europe (principally Albania, Kosovo, parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and some Russian regions in Northern Caucasus and the Volga region), in 2008 Muslim communities accounted for more than 3 percent of the population in Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, and Britain; more than 5 percent in the Netherlands; and 10 percent in France.32 They already made up at least 25 percent of the populations in Marseilles and Rotterdam; 20 percent in Malmö; 15 percent in Brussels and Birmingham; and 10 percent or more in London, Paris, and Copenhagen.33 As part of this demographic shift, Europe’s architectural landscape, especially in urban areas, was rapidly changing, most obviously with the rise of mosques and minarets. The ensuing social tensions were compounded by the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States and subsequent events, notably the March 2004 train bombings in Madrid and the bombings in July 2005 on the London transport system. Terrorism and its link to radical Islam made European societies less hospitable to the Muslims living in their midst, and less welcoming of those hoping to migrate to or take refuge in their cities.34 Many Europeans became increasingly vulnerable to Islamophobic messages. Xenophobic political parties were propelled to the political mainstream, while the “securitization” of Islamic radicalism led European legislatures to pass draconian anti-terrorist laws. The debate surrounding the French government’s decision to ban the Islamic veil in schools, the widespread rioting that took place in Paris in October/November 2005, and the subsequent French and Belgian attempts to ban the wearing of the burqa in public were symptomatic of rising tensions. So was the controversy over the publication of newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, first in Denmark and then in Spain, Italy, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. The clash between Muslim sensibilities on the one hand and European liberal notions of free speech on the other was indicative of a deepening divide around

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the nature of the social contract and the very concept of citizenship. In March 2008, the Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders produced a short film, Fitna, which sought to portray the Qur’ān as requiring Muslims to hate those who violate Islamic teachings, hence inciting them to acts of terrorism, anti-Semitism, and violence against women.35 In Switzerland, a country of 400,000 Muslims, voters resolved in the November 2009 referendum to proscribe the building of new minarets, a decision with which the French president Nicolas Sarkozy sympathized, “calling on religious practitioners to avoid ‘ostentation’ and ‘provocation’ for fear of upsetting others.”36 The divide was as much cultural and political as it was religious. Yet there is no denying that the religious dimension was seldom far from the surface. Though journalists, commentators, and politicians were often highly visible, those dressed in the mantle of faith were also prominent. In September 2006, Pope Benedict XVI delivered a lecture at Regensburg, Germany, that once again drew attention to the longstanding animosity between Islam and Catholicism. The Pope’s primary purpose may have been to address the relationship of faith and reason, but the four paragraphs of his eight-page lecture that he used to refer to Islam could not but inf lame passions. The most contentious reference came in a citation drawn from a passage that originally appeared in 1391 expressing the views of the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaiologos: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”37 Subsequent explanations that the Pope had not intended to offend did not ease the deep disquiet among many Muslims: Morocco withdrew its ambassador to the Vatican, heads of state from Turkey to Indonesia voiced criticism, the Sheikh of Al-Azhar commented on the Pope’s ignorance of Islam, and leaders of Muslim organisations called for a public apology. The incident [has] also triggered public demonstrations, the burning of the Pope in effigy in Pakistan and acts of violence against both Christians and churches.38

This was but the latest altercation between the two Abrahamic faiths in a long history marred by persistent animosity, mistrust, and suspicion. We must nonetheless be careful not to homogenize the complex and still unfolding relationship between Christianity and Islam, between the Occident and the Orient. We are dealing here with finely interwoven religious, philosophical, artistic, social, and political strands that have produced over the centuries a bewildering patchwork of cooperative

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and conf lictual encounters. They defy simplistic categories. In the present period of extraordinary transition, the triangular relationship of the three Abrahamic faiths calls for profound reassessment. Central to this task is a clearer appreciation of the nature and significance of Islam’s legacy. Building on an extensive Irano-Semitic heritage (with a significant Hellenic component), Islam gave birth to a cosmopolitan high culture that spread its inf luence from the Latin West to China, ushering in the growth of citied life into frontier areas where only parochial and tribal identities had previously prevailed. In this complex process, perhaps the greatest Islamic achievement was to forge a new synthesis that was planetary in scope, assigning to the human person potentialities in every sphere of activity and in a real sense prefiguring the advent of a globalizing world.39 Muslims see themselves as the proud inheritors of a remarkable legacy of cultural, intellectual, scientific, technological, political, and military accomplishments that spanned the best part of a millennium. They are also acutely aware that the subsequent period of decline paralleled modern Europe’s ascendancy and the imposition of its imperial rule over the Muslim world. Put simply, the tensions that characterize relations between Islam and the West, most strikingly and acrimoniously over the last two decades, raise profound questions about the relationship between the religious and political realms as much as between religions. Muslims, it is true, are deeply divided between “modernizers” who see the need to adapt to new ideas and trends and the “traditionalists” who insist that the only acceptable response to Islam’s current predicament is a return to the strictures of the Qur’ān and a rejection of all accretions and innovations that are alien to Divine revelation. However, these debates are politically significant and acquire international resonance precisely because of their far-reaching implications for the state. The centrality of the state arises in relation to three considerations: (a) what kind of state is consistent with the demands of Islamic faith, especially in the case of Muslim-majority societies; (b) what is the appropriate relationship between the Western (European) state and Muslim minorities; and (c) what is the appropriate relationship between Muslim states and the West generally. In all three questions, the role of force and coercion is seldom far from the surface. These questions form the unavoidable backdrop to many of the chapters that follow. Collectively, they are concerned to explore the function and prospects for dialogue within and between faiths. However, such dialogue cannot be confined to the purely religious sphere. Nor can it entail the exchange of platitudes. It must address the most taxing cultural and political challenges of the epoch. Dialogue’s transformative potential will not be realized unless its participants are prepared to

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grapple with the backlog of historical misunderstandings and contemporary grievances, so graphically crystallized in the conf licts that currently beset the Middle East. The ensuing dialogue will need to give serious consideration to the norms and institutions needed to establish cultural and religious pluralism as a foundation stone of national, regional, and global governance. The next few decades may well be the historical moment that calls upon diverse faiths and civilizations to reignite in mutually transformative ways those spiritual resources that can reconcile the demands of ethnic and religious identity with the imperatives of a common human destiny. Notes This introductory outline draws in part on an earlier paper that appeared in Joseph Camilleri, “Constructing a Global Ethic: Religion’s Unfulfilled Promise,” in Religion Seeking Justice and Peace, ed. Chandra Muzaffar (Pulau Penang: Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia, 2010), 42–60. 1. For contemporary exponents of the thesis, see Peter L. Berger, The Sacred Canopy (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976); Karel Dobbelare, “Secularization: A Multidimensional Concept,” Current Sociology 29(2) (1981): 1–21; Bryan R. Wilson, Religion in Sociological Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982). For a reassessment of the debate, see Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 3–32; Steve Bruce, Religion and Modernization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 170–94; Alan Aldridge, Religion in the Contemporary World (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000), ch. 4. 2. See Scott M. Thomas, The Global Resurgence of Religion and the Transformation of International Relations (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). 3. Though a number of studies had already appeared prior to the events of September 11—see, for example, Bruce Lawrence, Defenders of God: The Fundamentalist Revolt against the Modern Age (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989); Martin Riesebrodt, Pious Passion: The Emergence of Modern Fundamentalism in the United States and Iran (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, 3rd ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000)—the steady stream has become a torrent in the last ten years: Gabriel A. Almond, R. Scott Appleby, and Emmanuel Sivan, Strong Religion: The Rise of Fundamentalisms around the World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003); Ralph W. Hood Jr., Peter C. Hill, and W. Paul Williamson, The Psychology of Religious Fundamentalism (New York: Guilford Press, 2005); Gilles Kepel, Beyond Terror and Martyrdom: The Future of the Middle East (Cambridge, MA: Bellknap/ Harvard University Press, 2008); Richard T. Antoun, Understanding

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4. 5.

6.

7.

8. 9. 10.

11.

12.

13. 14.

Fundamentalism (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008); Peter Herriot, Religious Fundamentalism: Global, Local, Personal (New York: Routledge, 2009). Thomas, Global Resurgence of Religion, 27. See Fabio Petito and Pavlos Hatzopoulos,eds., Religion in International Relations: The Return from Exile (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Eric O. Hanson, Religion and Politics in the International System Today (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Michalis S. Michael and Fabio Petito, eds., Civilizational Dialogue and World Order: The Other Politics of Cultures, Religions and Civilizations in International Relations (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2009); Fred Dallmayr and Abbas Manoocherri, eds., Civilizational Dialogue and Political Thought: Tehran Papers (Lanham, MD: Lexington Press, 2007). Martin Riesebrodt, “Secularization and the Global Resurgence of Religion,” Paper presented at the Comparative Social Analysis Workshop, University of California, Los Angeles, March 9, 2000, 2, http://www. svabhinava.org/friends/MartinRiesebrodt/SecularismReligion.htm (accessed March 15, 2010). Luc Reychler, “Religion and Conf lict,” International Journal of Peace Studies 2(1) ( January 1997), http://www.gmu.edu/academic/ijps/vol2_1/ Reyschler.htm (accessed May 2, 2007); David Smock, “Religion in World Affairs: Its Role in Conf lict and Peace,” U.S. Institute of Peace Special Report 201, February 2008 http://www.usip.org/files/resources/ sr201.pdf (accessed March 15, 2008); Robert Jackson, “Doctrinal War: Religion and Ideology in International Conf lict,” The Monist 89(2) (April 2006), 274–300. See Majid Tehranian, Rethinking Civilization: Resolving Conflict in the Human Family (London: Routledge, 2007), 153–63. See Thomas, Global Resurgence of Religion, 10–11, 26. Gilles Kepel, The Revenge of God: The Resurgence of Islam, Christianity and Judaism in the Modern World, trans. Alan Braley (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), 192. Talip Küçükcan, “Multidimensional Approach to Religion: A Way of Looking at Religious Phenomena,”, Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies, no. 10 (Spring 2005), http://www.jsri.ro/old/html%20version/ index/no_10/talipk-articol.htm (accessed April 15, 2010). G. Lenski, The Religious Factor, A Sociological Study of Religion’s Impact on Politics, Economics, and Family Life (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1961), 21–24. P. C. Hill and R. W. Hood Jr., Measures of Religiosity (Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press, 1999), 269. A. T. Ariyaratne, “Spiritual Awakening, Religious Co- operation and Human Progress—A Living Experience,” The Vision Project, http://www. thevisionproject.org/Essays/ariyaratne_at.html (accessed March 12, 2010).

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15. See Eric Brahm, “Religion and Conf lict,” November 2005, http:// www.beyondintractability.org/essay/religion_and_conf lict/?nid=6725 (accessed March 12, 2010). 16. See John Howard Yoder, Christian Attitudes to War, Peace, and Revolution (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2009); Roland Bainton, Christian Attitudes toward War and Peace: A Historical Survey and Critical Re-Evaluation (New York: Abingdon Press, 1960). 17. See Robert W. Crapps, An Introduction to the Psychology of Religion (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1986), 10–14. 18. See Jonathan Fox, A World Survey of Religion and the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 12–31. 19. For an analysis of the role of religion when it is placed at the service of the state, see Gerhard Besier, Religion, State and Society in the Transformations of the Twentieth Century: Modernization, Innovation and Decline (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2008). 20. Some of these failings are canvassed in Helen James, ed., Civil Society, Religion and Global Governance Paradigms of Power and Persuasion (London: Routledge, 2010) (one of the first attempts to explore the nexus between civil society, religion, and global governance and its significance for current debates in international politics). 21. Scott Thomas, “Religion and International Conf lict,” in K. R. Dark, ed., Religion and International Relations (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan 2000), 13. 22. Adamantia Pollis, “A New Universalism,” in Adamantia Pollis and Peter Schwab, eds., Human Rights: New Perspectives, New Realities (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000), 24. 23. Chandra Muzaffar, “From Human Rights to Human Dignity,” in Peter Van Ness, ed., Debating Human Rights: Critical Essays on the United States and Asia (London: Routledge, 1999), 25–31; Pollis, “A New Universalism,” 23. 24. Edward Friedman, “Asia as a Fount of Universal Human Rights,” in Van Ness, Debating Human Rights, 32–55. 25. The UN General Assembly (see resolutions 53/22 of November 4, 1998, 54/113 of December 10, 1999 and 55/23 of November 13, 2000) declared 2001 the Year of Dialogue among Civilizations. 26. D. Pratt, “Christian Muslim Encounter: From Diatribe to Dialogue, Australian Religious Studies 7 (1) (1994), 8–11; J. Baldock, “Responses to Religious Pluralism in Australia,” Australian Religion Studies Review 7 (1) (1994), 21–22; Scott Phillips, “Inter-Faith Dialogue, Inter- Cultural Dialogue: A Basis for Developing Global Security,” unpublished paper, 2003. Of particular interest in the Asia-Pacific context of MuslimChristian dialogue was the First Asian Gathering of Muslim Ulama and Christian Bishops in Asia, Manila, Phillippines, August 18–20, 2003 (see Info on Human Development 2003). 27. Mohammad Khatami, address at Florence University, March 19, 1999, http://www.persia.org/khatami/s_f loruni.html, January 23, 2004.

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28. Hans Koechler, ‘After September 11, 2001: Clash of Civilizations or Dialogue?’, lecture delivered to the Asian Center, University of the Philippines, Manila, March 14, 2002. 29. See UN General Assembly Resolution 56/6, November 21, 2001, Global Agenda for Dialogue among Civilizations. 30. This dimension is a frequently recurring theme in the work of the Office for Human Development of the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences. See Felix Wilfred, “Religions Face to Face with Globalisation: Some Ref lections Against the Asian Background,” INFO for Human Development, November–December 2002. 31. Ismael Hossein-Zadeh, “The Muslim World and the West: The Roots of Conf lict,” Arab Studies Quarterly, 27(3) (Summer 2005), 1–20. 32. “Muslim Population Worldwide” http://www.islamicpopulation.com/ Europe/europe_islam.html (accessed April 20, 2010). 33. Figures citied in Timothy M. Savage, “Europe and Islam: Crescent Waxing, Cultures Clashing,” Washington Quarterly (Summer 2004), 25. 34. “An Uncertain Road: Muslims and the Future of Europe,” The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, October 2005, http://pewforum.org/publications/reports/muslims- europe-2005.pdf (accessed March 12, 2010). 35. For a German assessment of the Wilders phenomenon, see “The World from Berlin—Wilders, Not Islam, ‘Is Holland’s Biggest Problem.’ ” Spiegel Online, March 5, 2010, http://www.spiegel.de/international/ europe/0,1518,681945,00.html (accessed March 15, 2010). 36. “Sarkozy Defends Switzerland Minaret Ban,” The Guardian, December 8, 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/08/sarkozysympathises-minaret-ban- switzerland (accessed March 15, 2010). 37. “Faith, Reason and the University: Memories and Ref lections,” Lecture of the Holy Father, Aula Magna of The University of Regensburg, September 12, 2006, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/ speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912 _ university-regensburg_en.html (accessed March 12, 2010). 38. John L. Esposito, “Benedict XVI and Islam,” Common Ground News Service, September 26, 2006, http://www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=2802 (accessed March 13, 2010). 39. Marshall G. S. Hodgson, Rethinking World History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 118–121.

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PART I EMERGING CHALLENGES FOR RELIGIOUS UNDERSTANDING

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CHAPTER 1 RE-ENVISIONING CONFLICT, DIALOGUE, AND TRANSFORMATION: THE IMPERATIVE FOR A NEW METHODOLOGICAL PARADIGM Ruwan Palapathwala and Andrew Wicking

Introduction The global cultural context of today can be characterized by two rapidly mutating phenomena. The first is the emergence of antifoundationalist “movements”—such as postmodernism, poststructuralism, and postcolonialism—that have occasioned a problematization of modernist epistemology, a breaking down of the Western metanarrative, and the rise of nationalist movements in postcolonial nations. The second is the major technological advances and transformations of the preceding three decades—cyber-technology, transnational communication, and the miniaturization and commercialization of machines (robotics, for instance)— which have radically changed the mode, means, and frequency by which political actions, financial transactions, and cultural exchanges take place across the globe. Together, these two phenomena are in large part responsible for the ways in which knowledge, in the first and now second decade of the new millennium, is conceptualized and represented and learning acquired, classified, and disseminated. What then is the relation between these new conditions of knowledge making and the urgent task of understanding conf lict, dialogue, and transformation in the context of globalized relations? In the chapter to follow we proceed from the premise that in the contemporary context of globalization, for example, issues relating to one’s identity, nationality, and nationhood are still largely shaped by

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culture; that global culture remains profoundly diverse, characterized by many knowledge-systems, often discontinuous between themselves;1 and that issues of conf lict, dialogue, and transformation must—indeed can only—be usefully understood in terms of the interaction of and relationship between the diverse and different cultures and the knowledgesystems that they represent. From this understanding, called here the “imperative of interdependence,” a threefold argument is advanced in three substantive sections. The first section of the argument outlines the relevant postmodern theories that problematize the dominant Western epistemological foundations of knowledge making. The second part presents the thesis that epistemology and soteriology (derived from the Greek word soteria, which means “salvation” or “liberation”) are intrinsically bound and that together they constitute the blueprint that determines and limits a culture’s knowledge making horizon. Based on this thesis we argue that there are as many epistemological- soteriological paradigms as there are distinct cultures and therefore knowledge-making systems. We suggest that each culture generates a specific conceptualization of every aspect of human life, including conf lict, dialogue, and transformation in this way. Further, we contend that while each paradigm may be complete within the traditional borders of its culture, in a globalized context, the claim of any one such paradigm to universal representation is questionable. Moreover, arguably, deeply implicated in such culture- specific paradigms is a mechanism by which each culture- specific epistemology is worked out; for it is the epistemological processes at work in a culture that lay foundations for its universal representations or claims. It is this which determines and limits the conceptualization of conf lict, dialogue, and transformation; that is, to the extent that any culture’s knowledge-making horizon is determined and limited by the paradigm that informs it. In the global context where engagement with conf lict, dialogue, and transformation is critical, a methodology must be sought that neither undermines nor elevates one epistemological- soteriological paradigm. Instead, what is required is a methodology that can facilitate new ways of thinking, understanding, and conceptualizing conf lict, dialogue, and transformation. We contend that in terms of existing scholarship—which, we observe, is largely determined by disciplinary or cross- disciplinary parameters2 —the epistemological- soteriological paradigm, as a postdisciplinary endeavor, represents a new scholarly point of departure for thinking, understanding, and conceptualization. In part 3 we propose three predicates we consider imperative for this new point of departure.

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Postmodernism and the Problematization of Epistemology Postmodernism is a subject that continues to be debated, talked of, and written about extensively in contemporary Western societies.3 Postmodern philosophy is associated with Nietzsche, Heidegger, Baudrillard, Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, and others—among whom the first two are considered the most significant precursors of the movement.4 The ramifications of postmodernity extend to all the fields of scholarly endeavor. Virtually every discipline has instantiated postmodern ideas and, as a consequence, each discipline produces books and periodicals based upon its own definition and emphases of postmodernism; thus it is true to say that there are several postmodernisms in existence, or at least many disciplinary varieties.5 The central themes of postmodern theory and discourse propose that the society, culture, and lifestyle of the present time is significantly different from what it was a generation ago. In contrast to modernity, postmodernity places greater emphasis on heterogeneity and difference rather than on homogeneity and standardization; on particularity and indeterminacy than on positivism and certainty; on intense distrust of all universalizing discourses rather than on ideal social orders and metanarratives. It is concerned with concrete issues such as developments in mass media, the consumer society, and information technology. It suggests that these kinds of developments impact upon our understanding of more abstract matters such as meaning, identity, and reality. Ultimately, it leads one to recognize that the tools used previously to analyze the situation are no longer applicable or useful, and that new approaches and vocabularies must be created to understand the situation of the present.6 Moreover, these emphases suggest a clear break with Enlightenment ideals.7 Given that postmodernism is an elastic critical category with a multitude of applications and potential understandings, for the purpose of this argument we focus on the impact it has had on epistemology. Thus, an emerging emphasis on the validity of other forms of human knowing in this postmodern discourse has challenged the modern domination and belief in the supremacy of reason. In the early twentiethcentury, Freud and Jung highlighted the importance of human emotion and the symbolic meaning of dreams.8 In more recent years, feminist movements have come to claim the validity of life experiences.9 Also, against the trend of orthodox modern scientific anthropology, the significance of myth is being reiterated.10 In this way such modes of thought and expression are not considered irrational or antirational but as important ingredients in the postmodern experience and epistemology. In the light of these developments, the concept of reality itself is considered

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contested and contestable, raising doubts about the very epistemological foundation on which reality is understood and represented. Among the many theorists who present different perspectives on the epistemological break of postmodernity, this section will consider four in the manner of axiomatic explanation: Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Jean Francois Lyotard. It will be found that, though selective, this presentation of some of the leading ideas of these thinkers provide a firm orientation to the consequences of the break, suggesting a significance for the central thesis of this chapter, which is to problematize prevailing conceptualizations of conf lict, dialogue, and transformation within an epistemological- soteriological framework. Concerning the description and representation of reality, relatively recent developments in mass communication—especially television— have presented us with a series of questions related to referentiality, representation, and reality. In his analysis of the problem of representation, Baudrillard comments that media culture is consumed by what he calls “an effect of frantic self-referentiality.” In explaining this effect he goes on to show that, since media now operate without necessarily making any reference to reality, we are faced with a situation in which the image “bears no relation to any reality whatever: it is its own pure simulacrum.”11 According to Baudrillard, all mediums of representation have saturated reality to such a degree that experience can take place only at a remove. In his work, he uses many terms, such as “hyper-reality,” “implosion,” “cyber-blitz,” and the “code” to describe this postmodern condition. As he explains, representation [s]tarts from the principle that the sign and the real are equivalent (even if this equivalence is utopian, it is a fundamental axiom). Conversely, simulation starts from the utopia of this principle of equivalence, from the radical negation of the sign as value, from the sign as reversion and death sentence of every reference.12

Thus, for Baudrillard, the postmodern age, the contemporary moment, is one where “it is now a principle of simulation, and not of reality, that regulates all of social life.”13 In Derrida’s work14 the “transcendental signified” to which all signifiers are supposed to refer, is radically put into doubt.15 The signifier, Derrida claimed, is not directly related to the signified—there is no correspondence between them—and thus, language is less stable. He demonstrated that a speaker and a hearer can actually construct different meanings from the same word because different frames of reference pertain and therefore different realities might proceed from those frames of reference. Derrida

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described meaning as taking place through signifiers, of which words can be one; however, these words are social constructs of historical, cultural, and linguistic meaning. Therefore, there is not one narrative in any one exchange; there are many.16 In his deconstruction, he also questioned the “metaphysics of presence.”17 This idea of presence is removed or denied by Derrida, with radical implications for the deconstruction of logocentrism—the belief that the first and last thing is the Logos, the Word, the Divine.18 Derrida uses the term logocentric to indicate that which has determined metaphysical systems of thought; that is, their dependence on a logos. In deconstructing this notion, Derrida challenges the very fabric of Western philosophy. He claims that Western philosophy had assumed that there is an essence which is the basis of all beliefs: “Hence there seems to be a disposition, a correspondence, to a secure stable ‘transcendental signifier’ that would directly relate, or correspond, to a secure stable ‘transcendental signified.’ ”19 Idea, Matter, the World Spirit, and God may be examples of such signs, which in return can act as “the foundation of a system of thought and forms an axis around which all other signs circulate.”20 According to Derrida, any such transcendental meaning is merely representation. Derrida thus holds that all such thought-systems, which depend on a first principle, can be deconstructed. Michel Foucault is another important challenger of modernist epistemology with his rejection of global theorizing. Emphasizing the Nietzschean tactic of critique through the presentation of difference, Foucault rejected the Hegelian teleological model in which one mode of production f lows dialectically out of another. He showed that the facts of history are subjective and are only interpreted facts filtered through the historian’s plausibility or sense-making system. The fundamental motivating principle in his work is hence to “respect [. . .] differences.”21 Foucault thus challenged the reductionist tendencies of modernism and raised the question of the interaction of knowledge and power by asking, “Whose narrative has legitimacy?” Jean-François Lyotard is yet another major representative who exegetes the postmodern condition. He describes the implications of the postmodern condition especially in relation to metanarratives and knowledge.22 He challenges the “legitimating myths of the modern age,” which he calls the “grand narratives.” The discourse that legitimates such narratives for Lyotard is philosophy. He questions and attacks the ideas that science can progressively liberate humanity and that philosophy can restore unity to learning and develop universally valid knowledge for humanity. Lyotard claims that one is no longer able to talk about a totalizing idea of reason because there is no reason but “reasons.” Thus Lyotard defines postmodern as “incredulity toward metanarratives.”23

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By metanarratives, Lyotard means transcendent and universal truths or any form of universal philosophy, whether it is that of Hegel or Marx, that underpins Western civilization. It is those metanarratives that function to give that civilization objective legitimation. According to Lyotard, the postmodern condition is the situation in which such metanarratives have all lost credibility. He points out that grands récits are master narratives in which humanity seeks its telos in the conquest of nature; however, when postmodernity signals a crisis in a narrative’s legitimizing function, metanarratives disintegrate or lose credibility. Lyotard presents these ideas with the analysis of what he calls “the conditions of knowledge in the most highly developed societies.”24 The condition to which Lyotard refers is postmodernism. He points out that, over the last 40 years, the status of knowledge has been altered, citing increased concern with language in the leading sciences and technologies such as theories of linguistics, problems of communication, computers and their languages, problems of translation, information storage and data banks, and so forth.25 Within this context of transformation, Lyotard argues that the nature of knowledge cannot survive unless knowledge is altered as societies enter the postmodern age.26 The Grammar of Poststructuralism One of the expressions of the postmodern condition as we have described it is manifested in the poststructuralist movement, predominantly concerned with the nexus of language, text, and discourse and by extension the way in which knowledge is generated—formulated, articulated, received, and applied. Therefore, we consider an orientation in poststructuralism—here called “poststructural awareness”—a fundamental requirement for understanding the ways in which conf lict, dialogue and transformation is formulated, articulated, received, and applied. However, this is not to suggest that one need subscribe wholly to poststructuralist discourse in all of its various manifestations, rather that one should take its methodological pivot seriously. The deconstructive function of poststructuralism has far-reaching implications for all religious discourse, Western or otherwise. For example, the fundamental perspective of poststructural thinking about the central preoccupation of philosophical theism is that philosophical theism proceeds as though the philosopher were an unproblematically free and rational subject. Such a preoccupation is, for poststructuralism,27 blind to issues such as the embodiedness and cultural embeddedness of the knowing subject, differences between subjects in terms of power and socioeconomic position, or the effects of ideology on claims to knowledge.

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Furthermore, with regard to the religious discourse that arises at the center of the Western metanarrative, poststructuralism finds the very binaries and terms that tend to characterize religions, such as God, the subject/self, history, and language to be deeply problematic.28 Thus, in this respect, poststructuralist thought stresses the unconscious, where longing, projection, and repression are of significance in any human relation and therefore certainly in religion (Lacan)29; the continuous play of signifiers in an ever-shifting constellation of meaning, and therefore the problem of reference or relation to the signified (Derrida); the interweaving of violence and the sacred and the all-pervasiveness of the sexual dynamics of masculinity and femininity (Hélène Cixous,30 Luce Irigaray31, Julia Kristeva 32); the inescapability of ideology and social construction and, therefore, the dynamics of power and dominance of religion (Foucault). We claim that the above thinkers provide the necessary grammar or idiom for an understanding of the context of religious discourses, fundamental for a nonnaive view of religion. Having stated this, it can be seen that two polarities emerge. One is characterized by the fact that one is always “already in the middle” of text, language, culture, and discourse; one always thinks, expresses, and acts within the ambit of or in relation to the religion of one’s culture. The other is characterized by the fact that against the reality of one’s own epistemological- soteriological paradigm there exist other such paradigms that fulfill the same function. It can be seen that these two polarities—of “one’s own” and of the “other”—must be held together in tension in order to enable one to transgress or “get between” different or diverse epistemological-soteriological paradigms. In doing so, one may understand and conceptualize the epistemologicalsoteriological function of religion in a manner appropriate to and required of engaged individuals in a globalizing context. Holding this tension we describe as “poststructural awareness.” The space or the “contact zone” created by doing so, where appropriate conceptualizations for a globalizing context might be developed, we call “interface soteriology.” The Epistemological- Soteriological Framework of Understanding In this section we argue that religion is essentially soteriological. Moreover, an appreciation of the epistemological- soteriological function of the religious and spiritual traditions of the world, we argue, is an imperative predicate for understanding the possibilities and limitations, the conceptualization and representation, of conf lict, dialogue and transformation. This is because, we argue, the religious and spiritual traditions of the world, and the soteriological visions that they impart,

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provide the foundational epistemology that determines the form, that defines identity, and the content, that gives meaning and orientation, to one’s existence. Soteriology as the Deepest Expression of Culture John Bowen, an anthropologist of religion, claims that the “definitions of religion are not just academic matters, but part of the very social reality we are studying,”33 that is, the way human beings interact with their surroundings, other people, communities, nations, and the world at large with an idea “that there is something more to the world than meets the eye.”34 What is this “something” that provides a reference point in one’s valuation and engagement with the world? We argue that this “something” is concerned with the ultimate meaning of a human being’s individual and collective activity; political, cultural, economic, or otherwise. In a similar vein, the philosopher-theologian Paul Tillich defines religion as “ultimate concern.”35 Ultimate concern for Tillich expresses both what the “religious attitude” of the human being entails, and what subjects human beings to that attitude or concern. According to Tillich, ultimate concern is the “religious concern” that excludes all other concerns from ultimate significance and makes them preliminary36; it is “the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern that qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and that itself contains the answer to the questions of the meaning of our life.”37 Elsewhere we have described this concern as one’s striving to know one’s “where from” and “where to.”38 This striving to know “where from”—motivated by the wonderment and angst human beings experience for having been born in this world, knowing that death is its natural end—entails, we have argued, the most fundamental question of meaning. One’s striving to know “where to” is the fundamental search for answers to that experience, so that we may overcome the state of angst and fear of not-being. This definition indicates that religion is not a “special function” or sphere in one’s life, but rather “the dimension of depth in all of its functions.”39 The word depth here points to that which is ultimate, infinite, and unconditional in one’s life. Therefore, what concerns one ultimately is the “religious concern.” The word “concern.” according to Tillich, implies the “existential” character of this experience—“existential” means asking for the meaning of being. From a philosophical point of view, for Tillich the most critical concern for oneself is one’s being without which one is not, it could be deduced that one’s ultimate concern is about one’s being and not-being. It is the “state of being concerned about one’s own being and

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being universally.”40 Since God is not a being besides other beings, but Being-itself, Tillich points out that the object of our ultimate concern is not God. It is about one’s being saved; for one is ultimately concerned about one’s being, since one does not have being. If one’s ultimate concern is about one’s being, it be could said with Tillich that the “religious concern” is soteriological—about one’s salvation.41 From this premise, that the religious concern is fundamentally soteriological—the quest for the “where from” and “where to”—we suggest two fundamental ways in which the epistemological- soteriological framework of a religion constitutes the basis upon which human beings conceptualize and understand the world around them. First, given the fact that every religion and spiritual tradition provides an answer to the question of being, or, as we have put it, the human striving to know the “where from” and “where to,” a “quest” for salvation sets the framework for one’s orientation in the world, which, we have argued, is fundamental for a religious experience. While the descriptions of this quest may differ in many significant ways, when the human reality is examined the undeniable facts of life—birth, old age, disease, and death—become obvious. If the human reality is such, the soteriological vision of religion is concerned with providing the following: first, an explanation of the condition; second, resources to live despite the condition; and third, resources to overcome the condition. It could be said that in providing these resources, the soteriology of a religion establishes the basis for authority to the orientation and the life of a culture or civilization.42 In doing so, a religious tradition assumes a privileged position of doctrinal authority on matters of life and perpetuates the view that only the religious tradition holds the “correct” or divinely revealed principles and methodology in providing responses that are consistent with the set of values, beliefs, and models of action that are necessary for salvation. This way, the religious tradition, or its teaching, assumes dominance over all other disciplines, which must collaborate in the exercise of its control.43 These functions of a religion, we argue, set the template of a culture—a subconscious meaning structure by which cultural life is regulated. Second, having established doctrinal authority for life, the soteriology of a religion establishes the bases for a cultural tradition to envisage an ideal community (for example, ekklesia in Christianity, sasana in Buddhism, umma in Islam).44 The foundation for such an understanding is the community’s knowledge of the original reception of the message of salvation. In many instances, this ideal human community has a twofold mythic origin, seen as either divine or supernatural in character. First, this ideal human community is related to the understanding of the origin

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of the phenomenal world or God’s intention to create humans. Second, it is based on the divinely inspired law or the revelation given through a divine being such as Jesus Christ, the advent of an avatar (a divine incarnation) or an enlightened being such as Buddha Gotama, or a divinely chosen prophet such as Muhammad.45 Therefore, the establishment of the ekklesia, the sasana, and the umma is directly related to an understanding of a community’s cosmogony (how it came to be) and the ideal community of humans established by the divine personage or a divinely appointed representative. Such ideal communities, we argue, become the templates for exemplary communities and agencies after which the organization of human communities—religious or secular—is modeled. In other words, for subsequent generations this mythic notion of ideal human community becomes the template from which they draw their energy and cohesion to live in the present world. This mythical vision of the ideal community—which is soteriological in its essential character—is completed by postulating an ideal transmission of all the events, words, and models known by the contemporaries of the law giver, the prophet, the guru, or the divine master.46 It is in this process of transmitting the vision of the ideal community that the ethics, the morals, and the values of a religion are stitched into the tapestry of a culture; in which a human being works out his or her place on earth and his or her salvation in this world and in the hereafter. It must be also added that the historical context and situation out of which the religion was born also has a bearing on how the soteriology of that religion is translated into the identity of a community.47 From the perspective we have developed it can be said that the meaning-giving substance of culture is the totality of forms in which the profound concern of religion expresses and manifests itself.48 It can be argued, therefore, that the different spheres of cultural life—the arts, medicine, politics, administration, education, and so on—ref lect the way in which the soteriological vision of that culture is regulated, to offer a holistic life for individuals while offering deliverance in life.49 It could be said then that the soteriology of a religion is the soul of a community through which its place on earth is determined. Thus, it becomes clear that a framework of understanding sensitized to the epistemologicalsoteriological function of religion might help us to foster more common visions, ideals, values, aims, and criteria that are drawn from the religious dimension of cultures, or the “depth-dimension”50 —the Divine or the Dhamma.51 This “depth dimension,” as George Newlands notes, manifests in a diversity of soteriological expression; there has never been an “authorized” version of soteriology. “The understanding of salvation has been

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and probably always will be,” he says, “as diverse as the humanity to which it comes.”52 This diversity is especially evident in the understandings of salvation in the world’s religions. For example, the soteriological visions of three great religions—Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam— present unique tapestries in the formation of their respective cultures and place distinctive imprints on peoples’ identities and their orientation toward the world. Thus, in one’s encounter with the world—how one thinks, lives, learns, and organizes—we argue that the soteriology one’s religion represents facilitates one’s conceptualization and understanding of the world and its events. This means that the soteriology of a religion provides the reference point for one’s orientation in the world and one’s negotiation of one’s place in the world. It follows then that one’s conceptualization of conf lict, dialogue, and transformation, like any concern related to one’s orientation and negotiation of the world, is conceptualized, understood, and mediated through the epistemologicalsoteriological paradigm at work in one’s culture. Globalizing Context and Soteriological Visions Building on the argument of the preceding section, we argue that, despite the radically globalizing context, there is one culture-specific foundation of epistemology and soteriology that remains the prevailing paradigm of negotiating conf lict, dialogue, and transformation. We refer to the dominant Judeo- Christian-Islamic theocentric paradigm, which, we suggest, determines the prevailing understanding and conceptualization of conf lict, dialogue, and transformation as a human activity. This prevailing paradigm is held in place by the large-scale cultural, political, and economic dominance of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The dominance of specifically Christian forms of conceptualization and representation is especially apparent and prevalent in Europe and America, and the dominance of Judaism and Islam is less apparent in these places, but very much apparent, and an inf luence on the world, in and through the conf licts of the Middle East. We suggest that the religious consciousness of this dominant paradigm, formed and maintained within an archaic structure of myth, dogmas, and theologies that are by definition culture-specific to the Abrahamic traditions, can no longer serve as the universal paradigm for the negotiation or resolution of global issues of conf lict, dialogue, and transformation. Therefore, to be most productive in understanding conf lict, dialogue, and transformation in a globalizing context, it is imperative to draw on the totality of human knowledge, without privileging any particular epistemological-soteriological paradigm. Indeed, where the traditional

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religions provide a universal representation of “where from” and “where to” complete to themselves, we contend that, in the present globalizing context, the validity of culture-specific universal representations of “where from” and “where to” is radically shaken, as any one representation exists as one among many other valid epistemological- soteriological paradigms. In response to the recognition of the relativity of the dominant paradigm, a number of initiatives such as interfaith and interreligious dialogue have emerged. A more recent development of this tendency is the “dialogue of civilizations” discourse.53 This discourse, enriched by the contribution of interfaith and interreligious dialogue, and focused on the serious analysis of the differences, commonalities, and complementarities that might be found among the religious and ethical traditions of the world, seeks to develop an approach to dialogue of genuinely global proportions. However, despite the important inroads of this particular discourse, a sufficient appreciation of the inf luence of the epistemologicalsoteriological function that underpins all representations and conceptualizations of conf lict, dialogue, and transformation has not appeared in scholarship. It is our argument that the reason for this insufficient appreciation has its genesis in the fact that these many initiatives are themselves a product of the knowledge-making matrices that broadly inform the dominant Abrahamic worldview. We concur with the words of the Native American scholar Vine Deloria Jr. that The body of human knowledge is not merely an instance of adding insights of non-Western peoples to the already constructed edifice of Western knowledge but that the full content of human knowledge must be a discontinuous arrangement of smaller bodies of knowledge derived from the many human traditions represented in planetary history.54

Therefore, since it is no longer appropriate or even possible for individuals, cultures, or nations to justify absolute independence from other individuals, cultures, or nations, or to lay claim to absolute or ultimately superior status to any historical revelation, belief, knowledge system, or conception of reality, it is necessary to envision a possibility where epistemologically and soteriologically different, disparate, and discontinuous knowledge systems might meet and engender meaningful dialogue. A Radical Methodological Shift The above analysis suggests that since the soteriological vision of a culture provides the fundamental framework of understanding, conceptualization,

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and arrangement of the world, human beings in various cultural formations in the past have negotiated conf lict, dialogue, and transformation through that framework. However, in the present globalizing context this framework of understanding, conceptualization ,and arrangement needs to be re-envisioned with reference to the discontinuities between cultural epistemological-soteriological paradigms. The argument we have developed does not suggest that the theocentric model of the Abrahamic paradigm is invalid or should be substituted for alternative knowledge systems. Rather, having demonstrated the reasons for the discontinuities between cultural epistemological-soteriological paradigms, we propose a new methodological approach for the conceptualization and understanding of conf lict, dialogue, and transformation in a globalized context as we have envisioned it. We propose a “contact zone” where such a methodology might come into effect. This contact zone is the zone “in-between” the two polarities referred to above. The “contact zone” itself is a statement of the conditions under which and the means by which the diverse epistemologicalsoteriological paradigms of the world might provide resources for more rational and productive conceptualizations and understandings of conf lict, dialogue, and transformation in a globalized context.55 This statement describes a hypothetical space we call the “contact zone.” We argue that the methodological predicates introduced below provide a new set of matrices for enabling new frontiers of conceptualizing and understanding these concepts—here called the “contact zone.” We suggest that the discourse that dominates the prevailing conceptualization of conf lict, dialogue, and transformation and the strictures of disciplinary precedent that reinforce the epistemological-soteriological bias of the Western tradition that determines, and limits that discourse, must be addressed. We do so with a scholarly methodology that consists of three clearly and consciously held predicates: (1) poststructural awareness; (2) transborder translation; and (3) postdisciplinarity. The organizing principle for these three predicates is here called “interface soteriology.” In this way we extend the implications discussed in section 2 of this chapter while also introducing a prototype necessary for conceptualization and understanding as demanded of scholarship in a globalizing world. Poststructural Awareness Of the three predicates that we propose, poststructural awareness stands as the necessary point of departure and therefore the first in the sequence of methodological predicates. Poststructural awareness is the necessary point of departure because it is both indicative and diagnostic of the

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symptoms which have given rise to the postmodern condition and the epistemological break previously explained. Such poststructural awareness carries within itself the incentive and resources necessary to transgress the boundaries of the prevailing or the dominant paradigm. Transborder Translation as Practice The second predicate in the sequence of methodological predicates is transborder translation. It is a conscious theoretical application of the tools provided by post-structural awareness to the process of knowledgemaking across different and discontinuous epistemological-soteriological paradigms. We argue that this application has two benefits. First, it problematizes existing concepts and brings to light the limitations and discontinuities of concepts employed in the global discourse. Second, in doing so, it enables new conceptualizations for theorization in global discourse. “Transborder translation” is a term deployed by the Indologist Rada Ivekovic in an article entitled “On permanent translation (We are in translation)” to describe a method that entails “border thinking” and an enlarged understanding of “translation.”56 The “border thinking” of transborder translation, described by Mignolo in Local Histories/Global Designs,57 represents a conscious departure from hegemonic epistemologies with an emphasis on denotation and truth58. Rather, it is aligned with subaltern epistemologies, which emphasize performance and transformation in full cognizance of the coloniality of power in a globalizing world.59 The theologian Nancy Bedford writes that border thinking is “an epistemology that avoids being entrapped within the logic of the dominant worldview while still able to make use of critical instruments forged within that world view.”60 The notion of translation in the concept of transborder translation has the privilege of an enhanced epistemological ambition in accord with border thinking—one that dislocates it from the simplistic “language meets language” axis to the axis of “culture meets culture.”61 On this understanding, translation is as much about the translation of cultural, political, and historical contexts and concepts as it is about language. Thus, the significance of this redefinition lies in its contextualizing point of view.62 On this understanding translation has become a most pertinent metaphor for our time, one that ties in with the challenges posed through cultural, political, linguistic, fragmentation in a global setting. This understanding informs Ivekovic’s invocation of a central term in order to explain “transborder translation.” That term is partage de la raison.63 “Transborder translation” is thus a term or application that seeks to deal with the dynamics and bifurcations of reason, of the mind and of

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conceptualization, where the “shared facts” of global life manifest.64 In practice, therefore, “transborder translation” is primarily concerned with the metaphorical interpretation and symbolic value of borders and boundaries; and in this way holds out a particular function for the scholar, not as a “go-between” but as a “get-between”; as an active interpreter who literally gets in the middle of, or holds the tension between, hegemonic and subaltern, denotative and enactive epistemological- soteriological paradigms. The Postdisciplinary Mode The postdisciplinary mode is the third predicate in the sequence of methodological predicates. It proceeds logically from the theoretical application of transborder translation. Rather than proceeding from modernist assumptions and constructs, or pursuing generalized or specific cultural values as though transparent or universally applicable, postdisciplinarity endeavors to respond differentially to the manifest and particular knowledge dimensions of various contexts. Whereas the term “interdisciplinary,” for example, signals a sense of a unified field, produced through the historical convergence of subcultures, social structures, and disciplinary practices, the term “postdisciplinary” retains nothing of the notion or presumption that a shared consciousness or a shared objective brings together a broad range of discrete studies. This distinguishes it from disciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity—terms for methodologies that are not interchangeable. In this way, postdisciplinary approaches are cultural hybrids,65 meaning that they retain knowledge of the specificities of disciplines and of their histories, but they are also inherently transgressive and capable of operating outside the limitations imposed by those disciplines.66 In a postdisciplinary mode of inquiry, therefore, conceptual tools and methodological strategies can be adopted with reference to the challenges of making sense of particular social phenomena and contexts rather than on the basis of traditional disciplinary divisions. Sayer explains: “Postdisciplinary studies emerge when scholars forget about disciplines and whether ideas can be identified with any particular one. They follow ideas and connection wherever they lead.”67 This condition has given rise to the inf luence of scholars with no clear disciplinary identity whose work in inf luential across disciplinary lines, such as Avital Ronell, Donna Haraway, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.68 Indeed, among postdisciplinary scholars one can observe new forms of scholarship and the entry of a new type of scholar into disciplines previously dominated by the

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white, middle-class, males theorizing from Europe and North America.69 Overall, postdisciplinary developments have generated multiple challenges to orthodox ontologies, epistemologies, and methodologies in individual disciplines. Consciously grasped then, the postdisciplinary mode instantiates the fact that it is no longer appropriate or even possible for individuals, cultures, or nations to justify absolute independence from other individuals, cultures, or nations. Nor is it any longer appropriate or possible to grant absolute or ultimately superior status to any historical revelation, belief system, or conception of reality. Thus, where deeply cultural and especially epistemological- soteriological inf luences provide a subconscious or largely unexamined meaning-making structure by which cultural life is regulated, it becomes clear that the organizing structures of disciplines themselves will not hold—meaning that only conditional conjunctions of social and intellectual forces exist, at which scholarship and performance may be produced. This implicitly upholds the notion that one cannot allow the “boundaries of disciplines to foreclose the movement of inquiry.” 70 Interface Soteriology as a Creative Principle It can be seen then that the three methodological predicates brief ly presented in the previous subsections each facilitate, in sequence, in a fundamental way, the task described at the beginning of this section, which was to confront the dominant discourse and disciplinary precedent that holds in place the prevailing conceptualizations of conf lict, dialogue, and transformation. “Interface soteriology” is a methodology that focuses on the question of posing relevant and important problems where in the present day, no religion, institution, or social movement has a proper claim to righteousness. In other words, proceeding from a Western context we must, as the elaboration of the “contact zone” demonstrated, establish a scholarly methodology that avoids being trapped within the logic of that dominant worldview while still able to make use of critical instruments forged within that context to make criticism of that world view. It is therefore imperative to frame arising questions and problems of global character at the right level of explanation—which means proceeding from one’s own context—to establish a scholarly methodology that avoids being trapped within the logic of that cultural context while still making use of critical instruments forged within that context to criticize that context. We conclude that interface soteriology might prove an important first step in rethinking issues of epistemological-soteriological import, significantly

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free of the conditioning effect of any one epistemological- soteriological matrix. Conclusion The attempt of this chapter has been is to situate globalization and the new conditions for knowledge-making occasioned by globalization, within a methodological framework predicated on the connection between epistemology and soteriology. The result is a mode of analysis that radically problematizes the prevailing and dominant paradigm for understanding issues of conf lict, dialogue and transformation, while nonetheless suggesting a new and positive way of thinking about these issues beyond present Western- dominant acceptances and discursive presumptions. If this argument is properly understood, then it should be clear that it represents a vital necessity of approach that must be undertaken before dialogue as philosophy, or practice, is contemplated. Notes 1. Two main objections to the idea of progress support this point. The most obvious is that “progress” is a highly selective narrative. Perhaps more relevant, a different kind of objection, going back to Herder—an early critic of the Enlightenment—is that progress, as we understand it, “is nothing more than a Eurocentric story prejudiced against the achievements and sophistication of cultures beyond.” Concomitantly, the narrative of universal history assumes the inevitability of progress across human civilization. See Brian O’Connor, “Retrieving the Idea of Progress,” http:// www.philosophypress.co.uk/?p=1090 (accessed April 11, 2010). 2. Two examples, one each of disciplinary and cross- approaches selected from a broad range of recent scholarship, are Michael C. Carroll, Local Economic Development: Analysis, Practices, and Globalization (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2008, c2009); Sheldon Anderson et al., International Studies: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Global Issues (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2007, 2008). 3. Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991); Eleanor Heartney, Postmodernism (London: Tate Publishing, 2001); Glenn Ward, Postmodernism (Chicago, IL: Contemporary Books, 2003); Willie Thompson, Postmodernism and History (Basingstoke and New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). 4. See Gregory B. Smith, Nietzsche, Heidegger and the Transition to Postmodernity (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1996). 5. Charles Altieri, Postmodernisms Now: Essays on Contemporaneity in the Arts (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998); Angela

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6. 7.

8.

9.

10.

11. 12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

McRobbie, Postmodernism and Popular Culture (London and New York : Routledge, 1994); Arran Gare, Postmodernism and the Environmental Crisis (London and New York : Routledge, 1995); David Jasper, ed., Postmodernism, Literature and the Future of Theology (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993); John Roberts, Postmodernism, Politics and Art (Manchester and New York : Manchester University Press; Distributed in the USA and Canada by St. Martin’s Press, 1990). Glenn Ward, Postmodernism (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1997), p. 3. A distinctive characteristic of modernity is its belief in its special progressive trajectory. Arguably, it was during the Enlightenment period that this belief gained its most confident and theoretical articulations. See, for example, Paul Kline, Fact and Fantasy in Freudian Theory (London: Methuen, 1972); Aniela Jaffé, ed., Jung: Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Trans. Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Pantheon Books, 1963). See, for example, Melissa Raphael, Theology and Embodiment: The PostPatriarchal Reconstruction of Female Sacrality (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996); Karen Baker-Fletcher, Sisters of Dust, Sisters of the Spirit: Womanist Wordings on God and Creation (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1998); Rosemary R. Ruether, Introducing Redemption in Christian Feminism (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998). In theology, this development is ref lected in the development of narrative theology, which has sought to find meaning in cultural myths. See C. S. Song, The Tears of Lady Meng (Geneva: WCC, 1981). Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings, ed. Mark Poster (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988), 170. Jean Baudrillard, Simulations, trans. Paul Foss, Paul Patton, and Philip Beitchman (New York: Semiotext(e), 1983), 11. Baudrillard, Selected Writings,120. Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976); Jacques Derrida, Speech and Phenomena, and Other Essays on Husserl’s Theory of Signs, trans. David B. Allison (Evanston IL: Northwestern University Press, 1973); and Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass, (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1978). Jacques Derrida, De la Grammatologie (Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1967). Ibid. Madan Sarup, An Introductory Guide to Post-Structuralism and Postmodernism, 2nd ed. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1993), 35. Ibid., 36. Ibid., 37. Ibid. Michel Foucault, The Order of Things (New York: Vintage Books, 1973), xii. Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984). Lyotard’s analysis

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23. 24. 25. 26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

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of the situation is not altogether original. He seems to be drawing on postindustrial society outlined mainly by Alain Touraine, Daniel Bell, and others. Ibid., xxiv. Ibid., xxiii. Ibid., 3, 4. Ibid., 4. This is so, in Lyotard’s opinion, because computerized knowledge has become the principal force of production over the last decades. Hence, knowledge is already ceasing to be an end in itself. It is, and it is being, commodified in order to be sold. Typical of the doubts about analytic philosophy is the late William Barrett’s complaint that “an ‘analytic’ philosopher . . . earn[s] this title by grinding away at the consequences of this or that particular proposition as if filing a legal brief. . . . [B]ut [p]hilosophy is a way of seeing rather than the tedious business of a lawyer’s brief ” (The Illusion of Technique: A Search for Meaning in a Technological Civilization (Garden City, NY: Anchor Press, 1978), 66. The impact of this critique is felt more severely in Western theology than in any other discipline. Mark C. Taylor, the first postecclesiastical theologian, shows that the postmodern experience “begins” with the death of God and “ends” with the death of ourselves. From this standpoint he goes on to show that “concepts are not isolated entities” but rather form “intricate networks or complex webs of interrelation and co-implication.” He shows that the terms “God,” “self,” “history,” and “book” make a network in Western theological ref lection. The deconstruction of these terms, he claims, calls into question the entire network of concepts that have traditionally grounded theological ref lection. Whereas in the modern form the death of God was expressed in humanistic atheism, in the postmodern form, Taylor claims, it points to a “posthumanistic a/theology.” He claims also that “the failure (or refusal) to come to terms with the radical implications of the death of God has made it impossible for most Western theology to approach postmodernism.” Erring: A Postmodern A/Theology (Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 7, 20. Grace M. Jantzen, “What’s the Difference? Knowledge and Gender in (Post)Modern Philosophy of Religion,” in Philosophy of Religion: The Big Questions, ed. Michael J. Murray (Somerset, UK: Blackwell Publishing), 457. See Hélène Cixous & Cathrine Clement, “Stories,” The Newly Born Women, trans. Betsy Wing (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986). See Luce Irigaray, An Ethics of Sexual Difference, trans. Carolyn Burke and Gillian C. Gill (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993); Democracy Begins Between Two, trans. Kirsteen Anderson (London: Athlone, 2000). Julia Kristeva, Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art, ed. Leon S. Roudiez, trans. Thomas Gora, Alice Jardine, and Leon S. Roudiez (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980); Catherine Clément and Julia

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33. 34. 35.

36. 37. 38.

39. 40.

41. 42. 43. 44.

45. 46. 47. 48. 49.

Kristeva, The Feminine and the Sacred, trans. Jane Marie Todd (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001). John R. Bowen, Religions in Practice: An Approach to the Anthropology of Religion (Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 2002), 5. Ibid., 4. By reference to “ultimate concern” we do not mean to essentialize different religions and their understanding of salvation or liberation. To the contrary, we acknowledge that even the constructs of “religion” and “liberation” are “Western terms rooted in the Enlightenment that are imposed on the traditions and beliefs of others throughout the world.” Miguel A. De La Torre, ed., “Introduction,” The Hope of Liberation in World Religions (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2008), 11. Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1. (London: Nisbet & Co. Ltd., 1953), 14. Paul Tillich, “The Present Situation,” in Christianity and the Encounter of World Religions. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1994), 3. Ruwan Palapathwala, Myths of Origin and End: Pathways to Interfaith Dialogue (Melbourne: CSIRID & Kerala, India: The Cosmic Community Centre & Dr. Alexander Mar Thoma Centre for Dialogue Kottarakara, 2005). Paul Tillich, Theology of Culture, ed. Robert C Kimball (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959), 5, 6. Paul Tillich, “The Lost Dimension in Religion,’ in Essential Tillich: An Anthology of the Writings of Paul Tillich, ed F. Forrester Church (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1987), 1. Paul Tillich, The Eternal Now (London: SCM Press, 1963), 94. Palapathwala, Myths of Origin and End, 34. For example, see Binyamin Abrahamor, Islamic Theology: Traditionalism and Rationality (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1988). Ruwan Palapathwala, “Soteriology as a Global Ethic,” in Journal of Globalization for the Common Good (Fall 2006), www.lass.calumet.purdue. edu/cca/jgcg. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Paul Tillich, Theology of Culture, 42. According to Tillich, “Religion is the substance of culture and culture the form of religion” (Theology of Culture, 42). Tillich’s basic idea of theology and culture was expounded in his famous 1919 essay: “Über die Idee einer Theologie der Kultur,” Main Works. Hauptwerke 2: Writings in the Philosophy of Culture, ed. Michael Palmer De Gunther (Berlin/New York: De Gruyter—Evangelisches Verlagswerk GmbH, 1990), 69–85. See also Tillich, Theology of Culture. An impressive anthropological exposition of the relationship between religion and culture is given by Clifford Geertz in chapter 4 of his book The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1973), 87–125.

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50. Tillich, Theology of Culture, 5, 6. 51. The term Dhamma (Pali) literally means the “bearer,” the constitution of a thing. From this primary meaning the term connotes many other rich nuances in the Buddhist canon. It also means the liberation law discovered and proclaimed by Lord Buddha, summed up in the Four Noble Truths. 52. A New Dictionary of Christian Theology, ed. Alan Richardson and John Bowden (London: SCM Press Ltd., 1983), 546. 53. For example, Hans Köchler, “Civilizational Dialogue: Present Realities, Future Possibilities,” http://hanskoechler.com/civ- dial.htm (accessed April 20, 2010). 54. Barbara Deloria, Kristen Foehner, and Sam Scienta, eds., Spirit and Reason: The Vine Deloria Jr. Reader (Goldern,CO: Fulcrum Publishing, 1999), 5. 55. Andrew Wicking, “Unfolding the Dharma—Juxtaposing Foucault’s Late Work on the Themes of Religion and Spirituality with Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhyamikakarika,” Ph.D. thesis, Melbourne College of Divinity, March 2010, 18–37. 56. Rada Ivekovic “On Permanent Translation (We Are in translation),” Transeuropéennes, no. 22 (2001–2002). http://translate.eipcp.net/ transversal/0606/ivekovic/en#redir (accessed February 10, 2010). 57. Walter D. Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs; Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges and Border Thinking (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000) 23. 58. Ibid., 26. 59. Ibid., 17, 53. 60. Nancy Elizabeth Bedford, “To Speak of God from More than One Place: Theological Ref lections from the Experience of Migration,” in Latin American Liberation Theologians: The Next Generation, ed. Ivan Petrella (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2005). 61. Ivekovic, “On permanent translation.” 62. In Hindi, the common words for translation are rupantar (“change in form,”) and anuvad, “speaking after, following,” both of which derive from Sanskrit. 63. In this context, the term partage could be translated as “partitions of reason”; “the partitioning of reason”; “the split of reason.” 64. The French partage means two opposite things simultaneously, sharing and dividing, and both concepts should be taken together to understand Ivekovic’s notion. 65. Observers of the postmodern condition describe a major feature of postmodern culture by the terms “pastiche,” the imitation without irony of previous styles, and “bricolage,” the combination of previous cultural productions without concealing their origin. These features come to the fore in the eclectic and syncretistic nature of various New Age spiritualities that recycle and recombine signifiers and practices taken from a wider variety of sources, without concealing their origin, or trying to integrate them into a melting pot of a unified grand narrative.

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66. For example, feminist theory has already pointed out that if the disciplinary space is defined as autonomous and ahistorical, then the social relations of power and dominance that are inherent in that space remain unacknowledged. 67. Andrew Sayer, “Long Live Postdisciplinary Studies! Sociology and the Curse of Disciplinary/Parochialism/Imperialism,” December 2003, 5. http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/papers/Sayer- Long- LivePostdisciplinary- Studies.pdf (accessed May 5, 2009). 68. Donna Haraway’s well-known essay about situated knowledges Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (London: Free Association, 1991) is a veritable manifesto for post- disciplinarity. 69. This in turn has led to the decline of “area studies,” which originated in Eurocentric views of other civilizations and in classical imperialist expansionist interests; they grew after World War II, largely in response to America’s postwar security concerns and hegemonic pretensions. 70. D. Sholle, “Resisting Disciplines: Repositioning Media Studies in the University,” Communication Theory 5 (1995): 141.

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CHAPTER 2 SURMOUNTING THE WALL: RELIGION AND CONFLICT Graham Maddox

Introduction Since democracy accommodates a plurality of interests, opinions, and ideologies, it must be secular. The “wall of separation” between church and state, or, more generally, between religion and politics, needs to be maintained. This secularism, however, does not in itself make Western systems intellectually superior to polities that accord a central place to religion in public life. Indeed, attempts to open dialogue between “Islam and the West” are inherently condescending, because they imply an unbalanced encounter between a less-than-“rational” religious milieu and a more sophisticated worldview that has embraced secularism. A balanced dialogue can scarcely be restored until “the West” comes to terms with its own Jewish and Christian foundations of liberty, equality, and solidarity. In particular, the substantial elimination of religion from the public square in the West leaves the field open to narrow versions of Judaism and Christianity that are not ashamed to use force in pursuit of sectional interests: witness the righteous assaults on the “axis of evil,” an “axis” associating two Muslim states with one communist state. Therefore, the conceptual wall of separation must be maintained, but attempts, particularly by intellectual liberals, to exclude religious inf luence from public discussion and decision making are demonstrably self- defeating. Unless the West faces the decisive religious inf luences in its own history and brings them to the table in dialogue with Muslim countries, the

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encounter is unlikely to be mutually respectful and balanced. This chapter argues that the cherished democracy of the West owes much to historical religious encounters with the agents of power, and that the exclusion of religious dialogue from the public square is counterproductive in any attempt at meaningful discussion with religiously based polities.1 The “wall of separation” between religion and politics, between church and state, is a large stumbling block to a fruitful encounter with Islam. Yet it sets the paradigm for democratic pluralism and underlines the confidence that democracy rests in the freedom of mature individual persons to regulate their own lives and to formulate their own beliefs and principles.2 Democracy is a perplexingly broad concept, and discussions of the meeting between Islam and the West need to construe it at its widest measure. The term as used here refers to systems of government that accord the greatest possible respect and autonomy to individual persons while yet inviting their participation in the collective decision making of a community. It allows the people to keep their rulers under public scrutiny and gives the electorate ultimate authority to remove a government in favor of an alternative. This chapter argues that that a fruitful dialogue between Islam and the West is a more plausible proposition once the West acknowledges, and places on the negotiating table, the religious inf luences in its own background, including the growth of modern democracy itself, and indeed the erection of the wall of separation. The Wall of Separation between Religion and Politics The doctrine of the separation of church and state was designed to provide opportunities for experiment in religious worship without the interference of state power, and incidentally it established the model of political pluralism in the democratic state. Its most famous articulation came from Thomas Jefferson, who responded to those who wished to preserve their religious freedom, the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut.3 The doctrine could be traced back to English Baptists early in the seventeenth century, and in America its most forceful early advocates were the founders of Rhode Island, including the Baptist leader John Clarke and the sometime Baptist Roger Williams. In England, John Locke gave the doctrine firmer philosophical foundations in his Letter concerning Toleration (although in Locke’s case toleration did not extend to atheists and Catholics).4 None of this was intended to banish religious ideals from the public square. Ironically, over time the evolution of the concept turned it into a brake on religious expression in the procedures of public life. A growing skepticism about religious beliefs among public intellectuals led

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ultimately to an attitude that held religious language to be offensive to free thought.5 This was irony indeed, since the original proponents of the doctrine had spent themselves to exhaustion fighting for religious and intellectual freedom. Roger Williams held that it was a person’s God-given right to hold no religion at all, while yet the freedom came from God.6 Innumerable Islamic writings inform us that the “wall of separation” has no place in Islam. Islam insists upon the absolute sovereignty of God over all creation, including the everyday in human affairs.7 From the Ayatollah Khomeini’s declaration in Iran, to Abubakar Ba’asyir’s singleminded teaching in Indonesia, all legislation over human affairs belongs to God alone.8 According to Philip Jenkins, it is a deadly falsehood to impute any human agency to God’s revelation of himself in Islam, which existed before the beginning of time and was dictated to the last Prophet by God’s own angel.9 Traditionally, Islam has maintained an identity among all facets of life, so that religion is not one aspect, but envelops the whole. According to Ernest Gellner, the sociological consequence is “the absence of accommodation with the temporal power. Being Caesar itself, it had no need to give unto Caesar.”10 The product of God’s legislation, the sharī‘a law, is presented as the true path to living water, and regulates all aspects of life. It enjoins a far more active life of public prayer than would be accepted by most Westerners.11 “To Muslims there is no activity outside the scope of religious law. The sharī‘a is all-encompassing.”12 The point of difference was underscored in an exchange between a group of Saudi intellectuals who were responding to a statement by 60 U.S. intellectuals, “What We’re Fighting For,” justifying American military response to the 9/11 attacks on American targets. In their letter, 153 Saudi intellectuals declared, The separation of church and state that the American thinkers are calling for in their letter shows a lack of understanding how religion acts as a formative basis for culture in Islamic societies. We see secularism as inapplicable to Muslim society, because it denies the members of that society the right to apply the general laws that shape their lives and it violates their will on the pretext of protecting minorities.13

As God’s law, the sharī‘a “cannot be altered by parliaments constituted by humans; parliaments making law is tantamount to blasphemy.”14 This being so, forms of political organization—nationalism, capitalism, socialism, and indeed democracy itself—are the ideologies of unbelief and thus unacceptable in Islam. Sometimes Muslims recognize better than Westerners that the rise of secularism was indeed a Christian outgrowth.

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In Nigeria, the Council of ‘ulamā (the learned) claimed that the existence of a secular constitution prescribing a secular state “has more to do with Christianity than [with] Islam, since secularism as practiced by the government is an extension of the church concept of government. In Islam, politics and religion are inseparable.”15 Empirical studies by Western scholars that seek to write off alleged “clichés” about Muslim objections to secularism do little to undermine this widespread conviction.16 Ira Lapidus discerns a de facto secularization in the formation of Islamic nation-states, and particularly in the historic confrontations between the caliphate and widespread scholarly movements as the ‘ulamā. The weakness in the case is summed up in Lapidus’s admission that “Islamic society has evolved in un-Islamic ways.”17 While giving some encouragement about the prospects for democracy in Islamic societies by deemphasizing the differences between Western and Muslim countries, and emphasizing historical clashes among various interpretations of Islamic authority, Lapidus’s case boils down to a default position: Islamic communities have prospects of becoming democracies the less Islamic they are. To concede to this claim, however, would be to controvert our purpose in this chapter, which is, namely, to facilitate constructive dialogue between Islam and the West. The counterpart to Lapidus’s argument is that Western society relies far less on the separation of church and state than most observers assume. Alfred Stepan contests the centrality of the “separation” to democracy by reference to examples of established churches in the West—in Scandinavia or Britain, for example18 —but these do not dilute the fundamental tenet that democracy is for everybody in a community, regardless of race, color, gender, or creed. These establishments are not rulers, and in any case, Stepan substitutes the case for the separation with the cushion of a robust “civil society,” which is undeniably a constituent of genuine democracy. The truth of the separation lies in the democratic insistence that all may cleave to whatever religious beliefs that they like, or none at all. Neither do the militarily powerful’s demonstrations of a de facto “separation of state and religion” do much to undermine the foundations of Muslim society in relation to obedience to God’s will, to which “secular” rulers appeal in similar fashion to clerical rulers. In practical terms, a major difference between sharī‘a law and most Western codes is that the former is content to govern personal morality, whereas Western liberalism condones, and even encourages, conduct that is not actually harmful to another person, seeing eccentric behavior as conducive to an experiment that may advance civilization19. An apologist for sharī‘a law may well say that the boundaries of psychological damage and harmful example that may be caused by “immoral” behavior are

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notoriously difficult to set, but the overriding concern is God’s sovereignty, and immoral behavior may give offence to the Deity. In this light Islam observes Western societies giving offence to God, so that the basis of Western culture, its liberalism, its secularism, and its apparent toleration of much “indecent” behavior, is an insult to God and a threat to the purity of Islamic teaching.20 It is not simply that secularism is a mechanism for the “protection of minorities” in democratic societies, but that the permissiveness of secularism, established on constitutional principles, engenders impious behavior and atheism. At this point Western intellectualism is particularly insulting to Muslims, to the extent that belief in God is widely taken by Western liberal intellectuals to be a sign of naïveté or irrationality. Such liberals are often blind to formative forces in their own approach, which demonstrably derive from religious sources. Liberalism and the Legitimacy of Religious Discourse As a political concept, liberalism seems to have migrated into the English language from continental usages as a term of disapprobation for free thinkers, but it quickly became a badge of honor. If its formal provenance was the French Enlightenment, the emergence of liberal attitudes had an ancient past, available to all educated Westerners. The questionings of Socrates, the political struggles of hoi polloi and plebs, Roman private law—all gave impetus to the idea of establishing freedom. At the basis of liberal political thought is the free, autonomous individual person. Despite the skepticism of a secular academy, the history of modern liberalism is rooted in the quest for religious freedom (and this is also the case in Socrates’s defense of his inner daimon). In England, the absolutism of the Stuart dynasty was confronted by Puritan divines, for whom freedom of worship and devotion to God overrode all other political considerations. Those who escaped to the New World worked religious liberty into the fabric of political society, while those who remained to fight the king set the precedent for the French Revolution by executing the tyrant. Most credit for the upsurge in liberal thought is attributed to the Whigs of the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688. Some discerning studies, however, see how the Whig call for freedom took its momentum from the Puritan engagements of the 1640s.21 Puritan freedom literature survives, and it can scarcely be denied that the tracts of Samuel Rutherford and John Milton were landmarks in the rise of liberalism in the English-speaking world.22 And John Locke, the great liberal theorist of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, was a devout Christian (with Puritan

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antecedents) who based his theories of freedom and equality on divine ordinance.23 With such beginnings, it is remarkable that liberalism should have become so skeptical and often militantly anticlerical. A skeptical attitude is, of course, built into the questioning of authority, but the tone was set by those seeking redress against religious authoritarianism as much as against absolutist political rule. Thomas Hill Green, the presumptive founder of “social liberalism,” drew his inspiration from the Cromwellian era.24 Seeking to enlarge the concept of the individual person, he recognized the formative importance of community. Unlike those “classical” liberals who believed that the individual fared best when left alone by the state, whose sole function was to provide physical protection, Green advocated a positive role for the state. Steeped in Plato and Aristotle25 and devoted to the “idealist” philosophy of continental thinkers, particularly Kant and Hegel, Green recognized that the individual person was expanded and fulfilled in association with others in community. His inf luence spread far and wide, particularly to the English colonies, in the projects of “social liberalism” ensuring that the state provided education, health care, and income support for the needy. The skepticism of modern liberalism tends to demand that all religious belief be removed from political discussion. Perhaps the most famous case against religious expression in politics is that of John Rawls, whose liberalism seeks to protect the public square from the inf luence of “comprehensive doctrines.”26 The complaint is that if people bring predetermined attitudes or beliefs instilledby authorities outside the political sphere, rational discourse cannot proceed. Rawls’s theories have been treated with the utmost respect, but a little ref lection would suggest that the exclusion of certain points of view from an arena of free speech is selfdefeating, and this objection has been raised in many places too numerous to recount here.27 Given the intellectual skepticism about religion among many liberals, the question arises whether there is something inherent in liberalism that leads inevitably to a rationalist, antireligious approach. Liberalism clearly invests a great deal in the autonomy of the individual person (as does democracy), and interpretations hostile to religion seem to assume that obedience to God deprives the individual person of free choice. In this way, the credentials of John Locke as a founder of liberalism have been questioned on account of his Christian “fundamentalism.” Shirley Robin Letwin, for example, declares Locke to have accepted on faith that since humans are the product of God’s handiwork, their ultimate duty is to obey laws of nature decreed by divine will and discovered through revelation. This leaves no scope for individual moral choice, and involves

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Locke in denying “that human reason has a creative power to invent laws for itself.”28 On the contrary, the political philosopher Charles Taylor has suggested that Locke postulated a creation of interlocking parts in which humans, endowed with reason, participate in God’s will as “collaborator[s] in God’s purpose.”29 Further, Jeremy Waldron argues that Locke believed that to contend for human equality was insupportable without a “transcendent premise,”30 but that a transcendent premise does not deprive the individual agent of moral autonomy. A second cause of the aversion to religion among some liberals springs from the sustained intellectual assault on the idea of the existence of God. Prominent representatives of the Enlightenment believed that science and rationality had dispensed with religion, and religion’s God, for good. Some were motivated by impatience with the workings of the institutional church, while others, following Voltaire and David Hume, were convinced that human reason would assault and dismantle the bastions of faith, as science and philosophy unveiled mysteries that were previously attributed to the God- of-the-gaps. Powerful raids were mounted by Schopenhauer, Feuerbach, and Nietzsche, and the remnants mopped up by such as Sartre and Bertrand Russell. The sociologists, Weber and Durkheim, were convinced that religion would wither away once rationality took hold in the modern world. As it happens, the entrenchment of a secularist attitude is largely a contemporary European phenomenon, which is the exceptional case, and “the assumption that we live in a secularized world is false.”31 The survival of religion has been a puzzle to some intellectuals such as Norris and Inglehart, who now seek an explanation in “existential security,”32 whereas it is possible that the alleged irrationality of religion may be mistaken. Certainly, a new wave of militant atheists provides no hint of a rationality able to convince of the nonexistence of God, proceeding, as they are well recognized to do, in the manner of “fundamentalists.” The very term “liberal theology” indicates a conjunction between liberal philosophy and religion and, given the historical embeddedness of early liberalism in religious dissent, one could scarcely hold that liberalism entails the abandonment of religious belief. There is yet a paradox in the way a liberal society functions. To act as an autonomous and free agent under liberalism requires a level of maturity and sagacity not evident in every citizen of a liberal democracy. A degree of tutelage requires coercive measures. As Barry Hindess has shown, a liberal polity can deploy the criminal law against “outsiders.”33 He goes on to show how colonization by European powers greatly increased the numbers of dependent peoples “not yet ready” to exercise their liberty.

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The methods of colonists could be brutal, simply clearing undesirable people out of the way.34 The present disturbed relations between Islam and the West are a legacy from the colonial past: The liberal project of government in colonial settings rested on assumptions about the colonized, in particular relating to matters of sexuality, gender and morality. Contemporary Muslim interrogations of the liberal public sphere face off with forms of government and discipline that hark back to relations between the colonizer and the colonized.35

Colonial attitudes to Muslim society typically involved stigmatizing “inferior” and “irrational” customs, attitudes, and practices, often as embodied in forms of dress.36 Although the age of direct colonization is largely past, a fog of superiority hangs over relations between Western civilizations and neighbors who are “located at a lower stage of human improvement.” The postcolonial setting still sees the domination of the West through neocolonial mechanisms—the provision of aid with strings attached, the operations of international financial institutions and of “that fundamental liberal instrument of civilization, the market.”37 Where “rogue” states show a higher degree of indiscipline, they can still be tamed with gunboat diplomacy, the gunboats now reinforced with missiles and cluster bombs. Western countries are so used to nurturing their traditions of former hostilities and honoring their war dead in quasi-religious ceremony that their people are numbed to the threat and use of force to conduct international relations among unequals. To question the motives of politicians who send people to war is disloyal and unpatriotic. From the other side, however, people experience the cruelty of war as it strikes civilian populations and murders children. In the layers of action used against them by “civilized” countries, they can see little but the desire for domination and exploitation. Since Muslims tend to view their community as homogeneous throughout the world, when a Muslim country is attacked, it is an affront to Muslims everywhere.38 Appeals to Antiquity If one is convicted of an absolute truth, how can contrary opinion be tolerated?39 This paradox was confronted by Plato, who argued with persistence against those who would devalue it that justice was an abiding concept and not a mere hoax to conjure obedience to the stronger party. Plato’s realm of disembodied forms, or ideas, wherein he located such abiding truths as justice and goodness, represented a deep-set characteristic

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of ancient thought, that all is given, once and for all, and that the tide of historical f luctuation is merely a reordering of what exists.40 Aristotle made a brave attempt to account for change and development, arguing that the “forms” of things were their final, fully developed, shape, and that all things were destined to take their final form if they were to fulfill their purpose in nature.41 Nevertheless, his forms, no less than Plato’s, were a given, and all nature was laid out complete from the outset. This ancient mind-set was challenged by Augustine, who postulated that the mind of the Creator was not at rest, and that new realities could be fashioned to meet changing circumstances; but the more common attitude of the literalist is to take the Word as given for all time, with no modern interpretation allowed. Christian fundamentalism projects impossible claims of infallibility on the ancient Jewish and Christian scriptures, even in the face of textual contradictions that cannot be reconciled. At its worst, this approach takes proof texts and warlike stories to be a basis for persecution of the other, such as the homosexual or the infidel. Christian intransigence is met by a similar attitude on the part of Muslim salafiyya and wahhābiyya, which represent an attempt to take Muslim teaching back to its pure form as revealed through the Prophet. Salafism implies an appeal to “pious ancestors”—in effect reliance on the text of the Qur’ān and sunna, and rejection of subsequent learned interpretation.42 As Jose Casanova remarks, to insist upon an essentialist version of the scriptures is to deprive Islam of its rich history.43 While Lambert sees great benefit in Salafi social work, others question the attitude of rejecting scholarly interpretation of the texts.44 Wahhabis also mine the original texts for meaning, rejecting the received intellectual tradition of interpretation. “There is here the danger of reducing what is believed to be God’s knowledge to one’s own knowledge by saying that only one interpretation is the right one.” Theodore Gabriel thus notes the obvious resemblance to Christian fundamentalism.45 Scarcely can there be anything more misleading than to claim the authority of ancient texts without interpretation. This is as true of Christian fundamentalists in their relentless assault on progressive or liberal theologians as it is of Wahhabis. Without interpretation we are reduced to the prohibition of all exegesis; the only option is then to read the scripture aloud without any comment, for commentary involves interpretation; and this is no less true of the radical leader who goads followers into an act of terror allegedly in accordance with scripture—for every action on the authority of scripture is an act of interpretation. At the broadest level, the division into Shī‘aī and Sunni groups is evidence that Islam is susceptible of interpretation.

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A Bush administration spokesperson, Daniel Pipes, was quick to associate “extreme” Islam with communism and fascism: [F]undamentalist Islam is a radical utopian movement closer in spirit to other such movements (communism, fascism) than to traditional religion. By nature anti- democratic and aggressive, anti- semitic and anti-Western, it has great plans [. . .] for global supremacy.”46

Interestingly, the Lebanese Sufi, Shaīkh Muhammad Kabbani, somewhat rebuffed by conservative American Muslim organizations after the September 11 attacks, equated Wahhabism with communist ideology.47 These responses were suggestive to the American establishment, which had been casting around for a successor to the collapsed Soviet Union to keep the industrial-military machine well honed and alert.48 In a suggestive article, Salla proposes that the triumphalism of the West following the breakup of the Soviet Union survived into subsequent politics. The success of America’s “containment” of Marxism-Leninism constrained later policy, which required that Islamic communities be targeted as a monolithic enemy. Just as the war of attrition against Russian communism was fought through “proxy wars”—“vicious little wars”49—such as Vietnam and Cambodia, so the United States continued the practice by supporting Western-leaning authoritarian governments against political Islam, then always characterized as “extremist.” The “axis of evil” therefore signified continuity in U.S. policy between the Cold War and the “war on terror.” The Bush administration sought to marginalize “extremists” by calling upon the support of “moderate Muslims.” In short, the term “moderate Muslims” meant little more than those who were prepared to accept U.S. hegemony and accommodate to the irreligion and “corruption” of the West.50 There was high-handed interference in George W. Bush’s commandment that moderate Muslims must reclaim Islam.51 If discovering “moderate” Muslims meant identifying the “true” religion, this was a fruitless task.52 All the great religions of the Book have a mixed legacy, and claiming the “true” religion cannot excise the warlike and exclusivist examples in the respective traditions, and indeed in the sacred books. The Qur’ān itself (5:85) is generous enough to acknowledge the humility of Christianity,53 but humility was little evident among the proponents of preemptive strikes and “just” wars. Islam and the Christian (?) West As we have seen, the increasing secularism of the West is an obstacle to Islamic reconciliation with Western society; for many displaced and

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alienated Muslim immigrants in Western societies, their religion is an “emphatic rejoinder” to a hostile and often exploitative secularized world.54 It is therefore questionable whether the “Christian West” is useful as a descriptive term.55 Descriptively accurate or not, some acknowledgment of the religious substratum of Western society would be useful in any dialogue between an intensely religious Muslim umma (community) and the West. To contrast Islam, a religious expression, to a secular West where skepticism sidelines religion, is to skew the terms of the dialogue, while a sophisticated secular society smugly if implicitly affirms its superiority over the benighted devotees of superstition. Philip Jenkins’s argument about “God’s continent” suggests that as Europe addresses growing numbers of alienated Muslim immigrants, to whom it must make legislative concessions, a resurgence of a public Christianity is to be expected as even “cultural” Christians tire of apparent discrimination against them when similar concessions to Christian sensibilities are not made.56 In any case, Europe is saturated in Christian symbolism, and Europeans would scarcely connive at secularist demands to dismantle, say, Cologne Cathedral or Notre Dame. They would not readily give up Christmas, Lenten, and Easter festivals, nor would Austrians and Bavarians cease greeting each other with Grüss Gott, while thousands of pilgrims would still journey to Santiago de Compostela. Whatever one thinks of Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis, he at least offered some balance to the encounter by promulgating the notion of “the Christian West.”57 Given the intensity of Muslim religious fervor, and the frequent denunciation of the “wall of separation,” it is necessary to make some concession to allow conversation between religious worldviews. Democracy cannot tolerate intolerance against private beliefs, and the political attempt to evangelize citizens is quite ruled out of order. At the same time, Muslim critics can be brought to understand that a secular state does not necessarily imply an atheist community. There are indeed grounds for reconciliation. Khaled Abou El-Fadl argues that a Muslim case for democracy cannot avoid the foundational argument that sovereignty belongs to God. Nevertheless, popular sovereignty may be seen, under the right circumstances (say, constitutional restraints), to express divine benevolence.58 Despite the incidence of terrorism among disaffected Muslims (which may well be declining59), there is much good will among Muslims toward reconciliation with democracy. Witness the work of the Washington Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, or the “Common Word Between Us and You,” an open letter from Muslim religious leaders to Pope Benedict XVI and other Christian leaders that, while dealing with common religious beliefs, expressed a spirit of openness to “the West.”

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This implies the possibility of an “encounter of commitments”60 rather than an assertion of supremacy. As in Christianity, there is a wide range of religious approaches within Islam, and William Zartman suggests an ongoing dialectic within the various dispensations, political Islam providing the antithesis to the general synthesis of Islam.61 Minority Muslims in Western Society If the term “moderate Muslim” has any force at all, it surely applies to those Muslims living peacefully as minority groups in Western societies. Their accommodation to the norms of secular society generates hope for a democratic reconciliation between apparently conf licting religious ideologies. At the end of the twentieth century, estimates of the number of Muslims living in America ranged between 5 and 7 million, of whom some 40 percent were African Americans.62 Those well-known black Americans who have publicly converted to Islam tap into a long heritage, since so many of the first slaves transported to America were devout practicing Muslims. In John Wesley’s white-hot condemnation of slavery (1774), which helped give impetus to William Wilberforce’s campaign, there are extended passages praising the peaceableness and cooperative nature of the African Muslims, and in scarcely concealed despair he wields this information to excoriate the savagery and brutality of “Christian” slave traders.63 Since only 3–4 percent of American Muslims attend Friday Prayers, there is a presumption that the majority are secular or cultural Muslims, although the fact that Friday is a working day in America undoubtedly distorts this picture. The September 11 attacks caused a crisis for American Muslims, who were compelled by circumstance to engage in a serious dialogue on their identity as Americans and Muslims. An upsurge in the wearing of the veil could have marked an assertive claim on American principles of civil and religious liberty.64 On the other side there is a serious dilemma, especially in Europe, for the state dealing with Muslim populations. European government policies are driven by the fear of terrorist attacks, yet these concern the tiniest fraction of the Muslim communities. Studies of these communities concentrate on secular—largely socio-economic—factors, yet policies are directed toward religious communities, poorly understood as such.65 The search for “moderate Muslims” with whom to cooperate amounts to little more than the state’s attempt at co-optation of Muslim communities. Haddad and Golson outline attempts to “domesticate” an “acceptable” Islam through fostering representative groups for state-community dialogue, providing funds for building publicly funded spaces such as schools, mosques, and cultural centers, and raising the profile of preferred

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Muslim clergy as community leaders. In short, “state policy currently seeks to manipulate even Muslims” private religious identity in the interests of national security.”66 They report Salman Rushdie’s concern for the “tragedy” of British policy toward Muslims represented as religious when the majority are in fact “secular.”67 The problem is then, who will speak for them? Moreover, the problem is two-sided: constructive dialogue between Muslims and Christians is not the stuff of sensational reporting, while in any case serious “moderate” Muslim overtures have been met with ennui.68 Yet many Muslims living in Western societies accommodate comfortably to democratic government, and integrate peaceably into secular society. The Prospects for Democracy and a “New Consensus” The present discussion clearly proceeds from the conviction that democracy is the most appropriate form of political organization. That proposition can be defended on religious grounds, namely, that all humans are children of God, and deserve to be treated with respect by those with the means of physical coercion, regardless of each person’s inner beliefs. Despite Islamic restrictions on human autonomy, the fact is that many Muslim societies have dwelt under tolerant, and often secular, regimes, as in Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.69 Apparently many Muslims are content to live within secular structures. There are encouraging signs for democracy in North Africa, Iran, and Malaysia.70 Islamic leaders on the international stage—Indonesia’s President Bambang Yudhoyono; Iran’s ex-President Muhammad Khatami, and Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan—profess their determination to advance the cause of democracy. The Prophet himself famously once said, “The difference of opinion in my community is a divine mercy.” 71 In the Muslim tradition, shūra (consultation) is the guiding principle, upheld by the first four Caliphs who insisted on the people’s right to be consulted.72 Strong voices now advocate the growth of political parties and independent judiciaries for the articulation of diverse interpretations. It is not only “secular” Muslims who are content with democracy, but a growing religious voice affirms an affinity between traditional Islam and democracy. The opportunity, and the necessity, of reconciling “orthodox” Islam to democracy remains, and the contention is here made that there are religious claims and concessions to be offered on both sides of the argument. Quite independently of Zartman, Michael Salla promotes a dialectical image in the encounter between Islam and the West: Islam meets democracy as its “theoretical critique.” 73 We have seen how Salla suggested

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that subsequent U.S. attitudes to Islam resembled its prosecution of the Cold War. The encounter would now be a conversation between rival discourses with universal appeal. The resultant dialectic could usefully recall Western democracy to oft-forgotten foundational norms from its past traditions. Salla proposes that [C]onvergence might be ref lected in terms of an incorporation, to some extent of (Islamist) religious norms in the domestic policy-making process. This would suggest that there is an underlying normative framework embodied by religious norms that cannot be ignored by policy makers.74

This proposal should not be too preposterous to secular Western minds when the historical foundations of democracy are recalled, and the “religious norms” would not have to be Islamic. At the same time, some concessions to a revised version of democratic history would need to be made by those whose devout secularism has made them reluctant to impute any rationality to religious underpinnings of democracy. Perhaps it takes a great crisis for democratic apologists to dig to the deepest foundations of their political creed. Such a period was the rise of Nazism and the terrors of World War II, which produced some of the deepest and most sensitive defenses of democracy we have witnessed. The great classical scholar Gregory Vlastos made an explicit contrast between the nihilism of Nazi authoritarianism and the Christianity of democratic liberty. At its base is democratic investment in the “pure intrinsic dignity” of the human person: “[I]n a shattering contrast [ Jesus] rejects the rulers of the empire and selects its slaves as the true archetypes of human greatness.” 75 In reaction to Nazi ideology, many such studies emphasized the religious foundations of democracy. If there is a present crisis of democracy in its encounter with Islam, it is not one to be met by sharpening the contrasts through conf lict. The election of Barack Obama in the United States, greeted with euphoria, continues to give hope for a rapprochement between the Muslim world and the West with his declaration that the United States is not at war with Islam.76 He has outlined a timetable for ending hostilities in Iraq, and has initiated moves to close the offensive prison at Guantànamo Bay, but his determination to escalate the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan may be counterproductive. It is clear that democratic ideals and human rights cannot be imposed top- down,77 and efforts must be made to persuade “the enemy” that another way is better. It is well understood that the rise in Islamist agitation has secular as well as religious causes, and that the failure of Islamic societies to match the West in prosperity and security is a root cause of resentment.78 The case is made powerfully

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by Benjamin Barber, who recognizes the American responsibility for resentment.79 The strength of the Taliban, on whom Obama has focused the wrath of the United States, derives from its ability to recruit young people, often frightfully maimed or otherwise dispossessed, who have no hope of a good life.80 With the unprecedented outpouring of funds to assist financial institutions during the economic recession, it seems not to be beyond the imagination of policymakers to provide serious funds to address the poverty that fuels the despair and hatred among such forces as the Taliban. Between Islam and democracy the dialogue may proceed not so much by stressing disjunctions but in identifying similarities. The first step is acknowledging that, as with Muslim social order, the foundations of democracy are set deep within religious traditions. In generations of Christian teaching, modes of civility have tended the soil for democracy. A willing admission of this truth came from a surprising source—the very Richard Rorty whose writing has strenuously denied the rationality of religion. It is part of our democratic tradition “[. . .] that a stranger from whom all dignity has been stripped [should] be taken in and re-clothed with dignity. This Jewish and Christian element in our tradition is gratefully invoked by freeloading atheists like myself.”81 The perplexing question is how the reservoirs of these traditions can be sustained while being undermined by “freeloading atheists.” As Rorty’s colleague, Jean Bethke Elshtain, plaintively asks, how long before the stream runs dry?82 A most disappointing aspect of secular Western scholarship is the widespread refusal to allow religion a place in the growth of modern democracy. Beginning with the Calvinist contribution to libertarian thought in the seventeenth century, and the trail-blazing practice of democratic procedures among the Puritan congregations of that era, there is a long history of not merely neglect, but of active exclusion, of religion from the historical account of the rise of democracy, for example by the “Cambridge School.”83 The writings of libertarian authors, such as Samuel Rutherford’s Lex Rex and John Milton’s Tenure of Kings and Magistrates attribute the freedom of persons as opposed to the tyranny of rulers unequivocally to Christian sources. To bring the story up to date, triumphalism in the Western academy’s reaction to the spread of democracy in the late twentieth century often heralds the victory of capitalism.84 Properly to analyze the events leading up to the democratization of Poland, East Germany, the Philippines, South Africa, South Korea and Brazil would be to discover the huge—if not decisive—inf luence of churches both Catholic and Protestant in creating space for nurturing dissent to authoritarian regimes. The case is unanswerable with regard to Poland, or East Germany, where the uprising crowds literally welled

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from the churches where they had been at prayer, onto the streets of revolution; or in the Philippines, where Cardinal Sin urged his “dear people” to protect in a human wall the dissident soldiers rebelling against the tyrannical Marcos regime. Jose Casanova attributes a good deal of the impetus for democratization to the change of heart in the Catholic Church following the Second Vatican Council, where the libertas ecclesiæ extended to a full assertion of human rights, not just for believers.85 It is unusual for contemporary secular social science to acknowledge the religious foundations of Western society. Yet recently, Jürgen Habermas declared: Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day we have no other options. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source.86

At the heart of Christianity is freedom of conscience, a freedom extending to Rorty’s profession of atheism. Again, one does not have to be atheist to be secular, and secularism can be recognized as a Christian project, the extension of a warrant for all free thought. If there is a crisis in democracy’s encounter with Islam, however, it would be as well to acknowledge common grounds for the conversation, which at the least could mean the acknowledgment of historical Christian foundations for democracy even by those who will not presently be persuaded by them. Westerners might hope that “the genius of the same people which gave arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, astronomy, optics, chemistry and medicine to the Western world,”87 might one day experience a secularizing “reformation,” but it would be insolent to urge transformation from an outside, “superior” position. Without at all sacrificing the necessary separation of church and state, Westerners might at least clamber up the wall to get a glimpse of future reconciliation. Conclusion It is unlikely that the formula, “Islam and the West,” implying contrasting approaches to civilization, will soon be abandoned. Yet the formula implies an encounter, or indeed a confrontation, between intellectually unequal parties. This chapter has argued that a more alert attendance upon the histories of both orders, sympathetic to the cause of reconciliation, would uncover a religious substratum to Western liberalism and democracy, while an open attention to Muslim history would bring about a more generous acknowledgment of the contributions to “secular”

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thought from Muslim scholars. Encouraging attempts at sympathetic dialogue have been noted, and there is great promise in the idea of a dialectic between democracy and Islam—one that avoids irreconcilable confrontation engendered by reliance on uninterpreted ancient texts, but that sees Muslim and Western societies as divergent branches from a single stem of civilization, ready to transform one another into a creative synthesis by the recognition of amendable incoherencies in each other’s tradition. The avoidance of mindless conf lict is imperative, and requires as a first step the mutual understanding of each tradition, the building upon similarities, and the peaceful acceptance of nonnegotiable differences. It is here contended that such differences would greatly diminish under the quality of dialogue proposed.

Notes 1. I am grateful for the assistance of Jeff Archer, Howard Brasted, Carol Maddox, Peter Maddox, Habib Zafarullah, Dr. Bruce Duncan, the chair of my panel at the Globalization for the Common Good Conference, Melbourne 2008. 2. Giovanni Sartori, The Theory of Democracy Revisited (Chatham: Chatham House, 1987), 288–290. 3. Thomas Jefferson, “Letter to a Committee of the Danbury Baptist Association in the State of Connecticut,” in Daniel L. Dreisbach, “Sowing Useful Truths and Principles,” Journal of Church and State 39 (1997): 468. 4. John Locke, A Letter concerning Toleration (London: Awnsham Churchill, 1869). 5. Stephen L. Carter, The Culture of Disbelief (New York: Anchor Books, 1991). 6. Roger Williams, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution (London, 1644). 7. Adnan Buyung Nasution, “Constitutional Values and the Islamic State,” in Islam beyond Conflict. Indonesian Islam and Western Political Theory, ed. Azyumardi Azra and Wayne Hudson (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 21. 8. See Manfred Werdhorn, “Islam’s Presumed Superiority to the West,” Midwest Quarterly 49, no. 1 (Autumn 2007): 90–107; Muhammad Sirozi, “Perspectives on Radical Islamic Education in Contemporary Indonesia: Major Themes and Characteristics of Abu Bakar Ba’asyir’s Teachings,” in Islam and the West post 9/11, ed. Ron Geaves, Theodore Gabriel, Yvonne Haddad, and Jane Idleman Smith (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 166–193. 9. Philip Jenkins, God’s Continent (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 267. 10. Dilwar Hussein, “The Impact of 9/11 on British Muslim Identity,” in Geaves et al., Islam and the West post 9/11, 123. 11. Norman Daniel, Islam and the West (Oxford: Oneworld, 1993), 231–243.

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12. Theodore Gabriel, “Is Islam against the West?” in Geaves et al. Islam and the West post 9/11, 13–26, 15. 13. 153 Saudi Intellectuals, “How We Can Coexist,” in The Islam West Debate, ed. David Blankenhorn, AbdouFilali-Ansary, Hassan I. Mneimneh, and Alex Roberts (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), 65–80. 14. Habib Zafarullah, personal communication, August 13, 2008. 15. Sanneh Lamin, “Shari‘ah Sanctions and State Enforcement: A Nigerian Islamic Debate and an Intellectual Critique,” in Blankenhorn et al., The Islam West Debate, 146–165, 152. 16. Ira M. Lapidus, “State and Religion in Islamic Societies,” Past & Present 151 (May, 1996): 27. 17. Ira M. Lapidus, “The Separation of State and Religion in the Development of Early Islamic Society,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 6, no. 4 (October 1975): 363–385, 364. 18. Alfred Stepan, “Religion, Democracy and the ‘Twin Tolerations,’ ” Journal of Democracy 11, no. 4 (October 2000): 37–57, 55. 19. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (London: J. W. Parker, 1859). 20. Cf. Bassam Tibi, Islam between Culture and Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 113–115. 21. See Mark Goldie, “Priestcraft and the Birth of Whiggism,” in Political Discourse in Early Modern Britain, eds. N. Phillipson and Quentin Skinner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 216. 22. See Benjamin Myers, Milton’s Theology of Freedom (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2006). 23. Jeremy Waldron, God, Locke and Equality. Christian Foundations in Locke’s Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 24. Denys P. Leighton, The Greenian Moment. T. H. Green, Religion and Political Argument in Victorian Britain (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2004), 16–17. 25. John H. Muirhead, The Platonic Tradition in Anglo-Saxon Philosophy (London: Allen & Unwin, 1931), 14. 26. John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). 27. Cf. Stephen Macedo, Liberal Virtues. Citizenship, Virtue and Community in Liberal Constitutionalism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 53–54. 28. Shirley Robin Letwin, “John Locke: Liberalism and Natural Law,” in Traditions of Liberalism: Essays on John Locke, Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, ed. Knud Haakonssen (St. Leonards: Centre for Independent Studies, 1988), 7. 29. Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self : The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 244. 30. Jeremy Waldron, God, Locke and Equality. Christian Foundations in Locke’s Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 240. 31. See Eva Bellin, “Faith in Politics: New Trends in the Study of Religion and Politics,” World Politics 60, no. 2 ( January 2008): 315–348; John Micklethwaite and Adrian Wooldridge, God is Back. How the Global Rise of Faith is Changing the World (London: Allen Lane, 2009).

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32. Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 7–9, 13–17. 33. Barry Hindess, “The Liberal Government of Unfreedom,” Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 26, 2 (2002): 94. 34. Ibid., 101. 35. Salwa Ismail, “Muslim Public Self Presentation: Interrogating the Liberal Public Sphere,” PS Political Science and Politics 51, no. 1 (2008): 25. 36. Ibid., 26. 37. Hindess, “Liberal Government,”108. 38. Jonathan Githens-Mazer, “Variations on a Theme: Radical Violent Islam and European North African Radicalization,” PS Political Science and Politics 61, no. 1 (2008): 19–24. 39. Fred D’Agostino, “Ethical Pluralism and the Role of Opposition in Democratic Politics,” The Monist 73, no. 3 (1990). 40. Charles Norris Cochrane, Christianity and Classical Culture (London: Oxford University Press, 1940). 41. David Ross, Aristotle (London: Methuen, 1949), 173–178. 42. Robert Lambert, “Empowering Salafis and Islamists against Al- Qaeda: A London Counterterrorism Case Study,” PS Political Science and Politics 51, no. 1 (2008): 33. 43. Jose Casanova, “Civil Society and Religion: Retrospective Ref lections on Catholicism and Prospective Ref lections on Islam,” Social Research 68, no. 4 (2001): 1054. 44. Hassan I. Mneimneh, “The New Intra-Arab Cultural Space in Form and Content: The Debates over an American ‘Letter,’ ” in Blankenhorn et al., The Islam West Debate, 208. 45. Gabriel, “Is Islam against the West?” 23. 46. Michael E. Salla, “Political Islam and the West: A New Cold War or Convergence,” Third World Quarterly 18, no. 4 (1997): 733. 47. Marcia Hermansen, “The Evolution of American Muslim Responses to 9/11,” in Ron Geaves et al., Islam and the West post 9/11, 85–86. 48. J. Philip Wogaman, Christian Perspectives on Politics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000), 114; Yvonne Haddad, “The Shaping of Moderate North American Islam: Between ‘Mufti’ Bush and ‘Ayatollah’ Ashcroft,” in Ron Geaves et al., Islam and the West post 9/11, 104. 49. Wogaman, Christian Perspectives, 351. 50. Cf. Geaves and Islam and the West post 9/11 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 69. 51. Al- Salimi Abdulrahman, “The Arab World and the United States: A Just War?” in Blankenhorn et al., The Islam West Debate, 291. 52. John J. Shepherd, “Self- Critical Children of Abraham? Roots of Violence and Extremism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam,” in Geaves et al., Islam and the West post 9/11, 41. 53. Gabriel, “Is Islam against the West?” 14. 54. Akil N. Awan, “Antecedents of Islamic Political Radicalism among Muslim Communities in Europe,” PS Political Science and Politics 61, no. 1 ( January 2008): 13.

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55. Gabriel, “Is Islam against the West?” 13. 56. Jenkins, God’s Continent, 260–261. 57. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 28. 58. Cornel West, Democracy Matters. Winning the Fight against Imperialism (New York: Penguin, 2004), 138–139. 59. According to Andrew Mack and the Human Security Report Project of Simon Fraser University, as recorded in the Vancouver Sun, May 21, 2008. 60. Ron Geaves, “Who Defines Moderate Islam ‘post’ September 11?” in Geaves et al., Islam and the West post 9/11, 73. 61. I. William Zartman, “Democracy and Islam: the Cultural Dialectic,” Annals of the American Academy of Social and Political Science 524, Political Islam (November 1992): 181–191. 62. Yvonne Haddad and Adair T. Lummis, Islamic Values in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 3–5. 63. John Wesley, “Thoughts upon Slavery” [1774], in Political Writings of John Wesley, ed. Graham Maddox (Bristol: Thoemmes, 1996), 104. 64. Kristine J. Ajrouch, “Global Contexts and the Veil: Muslim Integration in the United States and France,” Sociology of Religion 68, no. 3 (Fall 2007): 321–326. 65. Scott M. Thomas, The Global Resurgence of Religion and the Transformation of International Relations (New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 23–24. 66. Yvonne Haddad and Tyler Golson, “Overhauling Islam: Representation, Construction, and Co- option of ‘Moderate Islam’ in Western Europe,” Journal of Church and State 49, no. 3 (Summer 2007): 498. 67. Ibid., 514. 68. Rita Ferrone, “Uncommon Opportunity: When Islam Moderates Speak, Who Listens? (Short Take) (A Common Word Between Us and You),” Commonweal 135, no. 1 ( January 2008): 8–10. 69. Cf. Bassam Tibi, Islam between Culture and Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 110–112. 70. Ousmane Kane, “Moderate Revivalists: Islamic Inroads in sub- Saharan Africa,” Harvard International Review 29, no. 2 (Summer 2007): 64–68; Kemal Ghozzi, “The Study of Resilience and Decay in Ulema Groups: Tunisia and Iran as an Example,” Sociology of Religion 63, no. 3 (Fall 2002): 317–335; Bruce K. Rutherford, “What Do Egypt’s Islamists Want? Moderate Islam and the Rise of Islamic Constitutionalism,” Middle East Journal 60, no. 4 (Autumn 2006): 207–232; Meredith L. Weiss, “The Changing Shape of Islamic Politics in Malaysia,” Journal of East Asian Studies 4, no. 1 ( January–April 2004): 139–174. 71. Richard W. Bulliet, “The Crisis within Islam.” Wilson Quarterly 26, no. 1 (Winter 2002): 11–20. 72. Samuel Rutherford, LEX, REX: The Law and the Prince. A Dispute for the just PREROGATIVE of KING and PEOPLE (London: John Field, 1644).

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73. Salla, “Political Islam,” 738. 74. Ibid., 729. 75. Gregory Vlastos, “The Religious Foundations of Democracy, Fraternity and Equality,” Journal of Religion 22, no. 2 (April 1942): 149. 76. Toby Harnden, “Barack Obama in Turkey,” Telegraph, April 7, 2009. 77. Leanne M. Smith, “Implementing Human Rights Law in Post- Conf lict Settings—Backlash without Buy-In: Lessons from Afghanistan,” Muslim World Journal of Human Rights 5, no. 1 (2008): 1–25. 78. Ousmane Kane, “Moderate Revivalists: Islamic inroads in sub- Saharan Africa,” Harvard International Review 29, no. 2 (Summer 2007): 64–68. 79. Benjamin R. Barber, “Terror is Inescapably Contestable,” World Policy Journal (Spring 2007): 55–56. 80. Sonya Fatah, “Taliban Recruiting Vulnerable Groups,” Toronto Globe and Mail, May 7, 2007. 81. Robert P. Kraynak, Christian Faith and Modern Democracy. God and Politics in the Fallen World (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001), 36. 82. Jeffrey Stout, Democracy and Tradition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), 307. 83. Geoffrey Robertson, The Tyrannicide Brief. The Story of the Man Who Sent Charles I to the Scaffold (London: Vintage Books, 2006), 125. 84. Paul Hirst, Representative Democracy and Its Limits (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), 1; Ulrich Beck, Democracy without Enemies, trans. M. Ritter (Cambridge: Polity, 1998). 85. Casanova, “Civil Society and Religion,” 1041–1082. 86. Jenkins, “God’s Continent,” 267. 87. Lamin Sanneh, “Shari‘ah Sanctions and State Enforcement: A Nigerian Islamic Debate and an Intellectual Critique,” in Geaves et al., Islam and the West post 9/11, 150.

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CHAPTER 3 VIRTUES IN A GLOBALIZED CONTEXT Neil Ormerod

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lobalization presents particular challenges to our moral sensibilities and performance, raising questions for us that are unprecedented in human history. This emerging challenge to our moral life in turn raises particular questions for the great religious traditions of the world. These traditions have always had a concern in one way or another with ref lecting upon and improving our moral life. While there are various ways in which the issue can be explored, in this chapter we shall consider the role of the world’s religions in promoting virtues that can contribute to global f lourishing. Over the past decades, some impressive work has been done on the issue of a global ethic. Particularly notable are the works of Hans Küng1 and the Center for Global Ethics. This work has gained considerable support from various religious bodies, including the promotion of a “Declaration towards a Global Ethic” from the Parliament of the World’s Religions.2 This approach seeks to develop an ethical framework for a global world through the identification of three levels of response: binding values, irrevocable standards, and interior fundamental attitudes that can be a basis for a global ethic. The methodology adopted by Küng was to develop a declaration that was capable of producing a consensus among the great religions, so that disputed positions would not find their way into the final document. As always, this leads to a minimalist rather than a maximalist approach, but it remains a substantial contribution to the debate on globalization.3 It is not my intention to analyze or argue with the approach adopted by Küng and others on the question of a global ethic. Rather I would like to pose the question in a different way. The questions I would like to pose are, What virtues can contribute to

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global f lourishing? and, concomitantly, What vices contribute to global decline? This form of the question presumes that there is some form of global f lourishing that is yet to be achieved, without specifying what form it might take. It invites consideration of different patterns of behavior that might promote human well-being on a global scale. It recognizes that different religious (and nonreligious) traditions will bring different perspectives to the table that can add to the debate as to the form such f lourishing might take. My own contributions will clearly be colored by my own Christian tradition. I pose the question this way so as to ref lect the growing interest in what is called “virtue ethics” in light of the work of Alasdair MacIntyre and others.4 Virtue ethics conceives of the human subject as a system on the move from the relatively unformed responses of a child to the more determined moral responses of an adult, in a dynamic dialectic of transcendence and limitation,5 who in the transformative search for the good finds ever new patterns of embodying the good in a dynamically changing world. The mean between transcendence and limitation is never a static “once and for all” given, but is constantly extended as we grow in virtue to embrace a larger field of responsibilities for the world. It also presupposes the existence of communities that practice, promote, and sustain virtue, that nurture virtues in their children, and that honor virtues in their adults. It recognizes that virtue is not taught so much as caught. Through the practice of virtue one learns to appreciate the “internal goods” that the virtue embodies, not just the external rewards and approval it may generate.6 Religious communities are particular communities that promote such practices. Globalization and the Scale of Values To speak of virtues that contribute to global f lourishing is also to assume that there is a telos operating in the process of globalization.7 There is a good to be achieved (or perverted) in the process of globalization and an obligation to work toward that good. That telos is grounded in the material unity of the human race, evident in our common genetic heritage. It is evident in the movement from tribe to village, from village to kingdom, from kingdom to nation, from nation to larger political, economic, and cultural structures such as the European Union, and so on. The material unity grounds the possibility of more formal union. The other issue here is that of identifying exactly what constitutes human f lourishing. Do we presuppose some thick account of human f lourishing, a substantial vision of what the good life contains, or do we opt for a thin or procedural approach that is more minimal in content

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but specifies procedures for maintaining and promoting individual freedom, for example?8 Rather than either of these I will develop a heuristic approach based on a scale of values found in the writings of Bernard Lonergan9 and further developed by Robert Doran.10 This has the advantage of being open-ended and dynamic, viewing the telos as an immanent principle of change rather than as some fixed goal to be achieved. I shall further use this scale of values to develop a taxonomy for virtues (and vices) in a globalizing world. Following Lonergan, we will introduce a scale of values distinguished as vital, social, cultural, personal, and religious. Vital values concern health and vitality; social values concern the proper ordering of society to ensure a recurrent supply of vital values for the whole society; cultural values provide the reason why a society does things the way it does them; personal values relate to the person as a moral agent and source of value; and finally religious values relate us to the transcendent source of being.11 Thus Lonergan develops an ascending, hierarchical scale of five levels of value: vital, social, cultural, personal, and religious. As I stated above, this is a heuristic device, since it does not specify the content of any of the levels, but it does place them in a relative ordering. The content is yet to be discovered, though the relative ordering is given. So it has some “thick” substantive elements in that the ordering is given, and some thin elements in the overall lack of specific content. Doran has further developed this scale of values by identifying dialectical structures within three of the scales of value. Specifically he elaborates dialectics: in the social level between spontaneous intersubjectivity and practical intelligence; in the cultural level between what he calls cosmological and anthropological cultures; and in the personal level between our bodiliness and our intentional orientation to meaning, truth, and goodness (the human spirit). Each of these dialectics is based on an analogy of transcendence and limitation. One pole of the dialectic presents a self-transcending orientation (practical intelligence, anthropological culture, the human spirit), while the other represents a principle of limitation (spontaneous intersubjectivity, cosmological culture, and bodiliness). For Doran, these three dialectics constitute the intelligibility of history. To understand human history is to understand their complex, dynamic, interactive dance. The “analogy of dialectic” refers to three distinct but related processes with analogous structures: the dialectic of the subject, the dialectic of community, and the dialectic of culture. Taken together these three processes constitute, I believe, the immanent intelligibility of the process of human history. That is to say, history is to be conceived as a complex network of subjects, communities and cultures.12

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Further, the transition from speaking of values to virtues can be justified on two grounds. First, a real holding of values will imply habitual patterns of actions that embody the value in question. These patterns are constitutive of the notion of virtue as a moral practice. Second, I have noted the dialectical structure of the social, cultural, and personal values. This structure is suggestive of the notion of virtue lying in the mean. This also suggests that it will be fruitful to explore the virtues that contribute to (global) f lourishing at the social, cultural, and personal levels. This taxonomy, I would suggest, is an alternative to traditional taxonomies of virtues, such as “moral and intellectual,” or “cardinal and theological,” and so on. Virtues in the Globalizing World Globalization presents us with a new moral context in which we must learn to act as moral agents. In the face of an emerging globalized world, each person must deal with choices and commitments unknown to previous generations. And so we must ask: What are my ecological responsibilities? We now know that our lifestyles are having a detrimental impact on the natural environment. Personal consumption patterns contribute to that impact. Do I have a responsibility to minimize my personal ecological impact? Does that extend to changing the social patterns of consumption as well? How can I respond to the fate of the poor in the third world? We now know the disparities between the first and two-thirds world in terms of wealth. Surplus income in the first world is used to fuel excessive consumption, while the poor of the world lack the basic necessities. What is our degree of responsibility in responding to world poverty? Should I boycott goods made in sweatshop conditions? We now know that many of the goods we buy, particularly some famous international “brands,” are produced in the most appalling conditions in third world countries by people who are paid minimal wages and denied the right to organize themselves to struggle for better conditions. We now know that many products we take for granted are paid for by the blood and sweat of the poor. Do we have a responsibility to purchase “fair trade” goods, even though they may cost us more? What, if anything, should I do about human rights violations in countries such as China or Zimbabwe?13 We now know that various countries regularly violate the human rights of their citizens. Should this be a matter of concern for us? Can we detach ourselves from the plight of those who suffer the loss of rights? Or are human rights integral to us as human beings, so that the denial of rights to one person, or to a group of people, has an impact on us all? Finally, to which religious vision, if any, shall I commit myself? We now know more

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about various world religions, not just through reading, but also through travel and migration. The Christian tradition in the West is now held up in contrast to Islam and the traditions of the East, such as Buddhism. Is my personal religious affiliation simply a matter of arbitrary choice? Can I drop it altogether? Thus I concur with Charles Taylor that the emerging reality of globalization is making historically unprecedented demands on our moral self-transcendence.14 No previous generation has had to face the range of issues we have just described above. Throughout history people have needed to transcend the limits of self-interest, of self-preservation, to embrace the family, tribe, local community, kingdom, and the nation. Now we are being called upon to embrace the whole human race as a global community. Each of these shifts requires to some extent the radical expansion of our spontaneous sense of identity, to embrace a larger and larger identity. Such a process is not automatic. It requires moral commitment, a determination on our part to go that extra step in responding to the question, Who is my neighbor? But it also requires a growing degree of psychic f lexibility, so that we can respond to new images and symbols, so that we can develop a new global imagination. To force the issue without respecting such psychic limits would be to risk becoming an ungrounded subject, to become simultaneously a citizen of everywhere and of nowhere.15 One might display a manic sense of overresponsibility for every moral issue the globalizing world presents to us, but have difficulty identifying one’s precise responsibilities in a more local and immediate world. Alternatively, to fail in this task is to risk the everpresent dangers of the group bias of nationalism and racism, of my nation, community, race, or tribe against the world, right or wrong.16 The refusal to expand our moral horizons will leave us prey to the forces of violence such a truncated response engenders. A globalized world demands the emergence of new and proportionate virtues to address the moral challenges such a world poses. Traditional virtues such as justice, prudence, and humility take on new aspects when dealing with questions of human rights and environmental concerns. For example, given the destruction of the natural environment, justice might now need to ask about justice for nonhuman creation, for the plants and animals that are also part of creation; prudence will speak of stewardship toward the earth and the prudent use of its resources not just for the present generation but for generations to come; and humility will practice proper respect for the limitations of the biosphere, recognizing that we too are “off the earth” (humus, from which humility is derived, is Latin for soil) and must respect its limits for the sake of our own survival.

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These new dimensions to the traditional virtues will stand in contrast to the pseudo-virtues of neoliberal consumerism: “Just do it” (Nike); “There are no limits” (Apple Computers); and “Where do you want to go today?” (Microsoft). These advertising slogans present as virtues the manic overreaching of the ungrounded subject, the universal consumer who never sees where food comes from apart from the supermarket and never knows where waste goes to except the garbage bin. Overconsumption in the name of an ever-expanding economy is presented as the key virtue, but its inevitable conclusion is a world laid waste, drowning in eff luent, sweltering in a blanket of greenhouse gases, and choking in smog. Social Virtues Social virtues are the practices which facilitate creating and sustaining social goods of the community. These include respect for the spontaneous bonds of the family and local community, and the virtues that encourage the development of the practical intelligence of the community and individuals within it. It also includes the virtue of social justice that must balance off these often-competing demands of communal sensitivities and the transformative effects of practical intelligence.17 The demands of practical intelligence often produce “winners” and “losers,” those who gain from the changes—be they economic, technological, or political— that practical intelligence produces, and those who suffer the adverse impact of these same changes through economic dislocation, technological redundancy, or political misfortune. Justice demands that those who suffer losses are compensated, or at least protected, from the worst ravages of change. Justice demands that those who gain from such changes keep in mind the plight of those who suffer the changes. The virtuous person grasps the value of a social order that sustainably produces and justly distributes vital values on a global scale, while respecting the intersubjective bonds of local communities, and acts in ways that promote such a social order. It is evident that such a global social order is not presently in place, so the virtuous person will act in ways that shift the present social order from its present plight to one that more closely embodies the social values of sustainability, justice, and respect for communities. Moreover, the dialectical structure of social values implies that virtue will “lie in the mean” between the excessive orientation to either practical intelligence or to intersubjective communal bonds. Love of Community18 In the concrete this means that while we must practice a love of our community and our nation, this love must not become a distorted bias of Palapathwala and Andrew Wicking

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“my country, right or wrong” or “my nation above all.” Excessive nationalism has been at the root of untold destruction in the twentieth century, and, if we are to survive, it must be tempered by an emerging practice of “love of our global community” precisely as global. Such love needs to be more than an abstract sense of commitment, but something built through global networks of relationships with other individual human beings and communities. In this regard modern forms of communication can play an important role in building and sustaining global networks of such relationships. International travel can also play a role, though here we must be mindful of the environmental impact of such travel. On the other hand, such an emerging practice of “love of our global community” cannot replace or substitute for a genuine love of and commitment to our own local communities. We cannot be citizens of everywhere and nowhere, without real roots in a local context. Problems in the breakdown of the social dialectic first manifest themselves at the level of the local community, through social dislocation, the breakdown in communal bonds, increasing crime rates, rapid shifts in levels of unemployment, damage to the local environment, and so on. Without a commitment to the local community, such problems are unnoticed, ignored, or actively denied, leading to social unrest, dislocation, alienation, and possible violence. Our citizenship of the global community cannot be at the expense of our local commitments. Justice Classically, the virtue of justice consists in rendering to each one what is due to them.19 The virtue of justice lies in the mean between giving too much and too little of what is due to others. That same tradition speaks of commutative justice in terms of justice in interpersonal relations and distributive justice in terms of the just distribution of goods within society.20 There is clearly a crying need for the practice of distributive justice. Globally this virtue needs not only individual generosity (which is of course commendable in itself ) but also recurrent mechanisms to ensure that distributive justice is addressed on a continuing basis, as a felt need within a global community. As global citizens, our personal commitment to such goals and our actively seeking political support from our own local and national communities is part of the practice of distributive justice in a globalizing world. In addition, as we have indicated above, it may be timely to ask whether the demands of justice extend beyond the human realm. The classical tradition spoke of justice between persons, human and divine. Can we extend the notion of justice to the nonhuman, to the animal kingdom, or perhaps to the biosphere more generally? Certainly, Buddhism has Palapathwala and Andrew Wicking

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a strong tradition of respect and compassion for all living things, not just human beings. Can other religious traditions also envisage justice extending to all living things? Christianity, for example, has no tradition of promoting vegetarianism (as in some forms of Buddhism, for example) as a form of respect for living things, though some might take this up as a moral option, not necessarily out of respect for animals,21 but out of a commitment to environmental sustainability. Ecological science is helping us better understand how complex the web of life is, in its interdependencies and interrelationships. Every living thing has its own unique place in that web of life. At the very least it is due proper respect for the part it contributes to the whole, for the role it plays in sustaining the biosphere. At the very least we cannot take any living thing for granted. At the very least we may have cause to pause when any living thing is caught up in our economic rules of supply and demand, that its life not be sacrificed frivolously, for ostentation, or for excess consumption beyond our realistic needs. Sustainability The third virtue for consideration is that of sustainability. Sustainability is a complex issue with many dimensions. There is the question of the sustainability of communities faced with social and cultural stresses; of economies in relation to the natural resources they consume; and of the natural environment as it deals with the inevitable by-products of economic production in terms of pollution and waste. There are short-term questions, measured in terms of years; medium-term questions, measured in terms of decades; and long-term questions, measured in terms of centuries and even millennia. Economies and the societies they sustain are complex webs of interactions and relationships that extend and modify, through the intervention of human intelligence, the already-existing web of living things in the natural environment.22 Sustainability demands that we view ourselves not as some alien existence tacked onto the natural world, but as a living and intelligent extension of a world that must use the resources present in the natural world wisely and sustainably, lest we undermine the very possibility of human existence on our planet. The virtue of sustainability does not mean adopting a Luddite stance against technology. But it does mean paring back on technologies that are beyond their sustainable limits and encouraging those that are sustainable, even at personal financial cost. Particularly at a time such as this, the practice of the virtue of sustainability demands a willingness to pay the necessary price for emerging technologies that will encourage the needed

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capital investment. This will bring down the price of such technologies so that they can compete with the more established but no longer sustainable technologies of the present. Cultural Virtues One might begin by asking what “cultural virtues” are. A classical taxonomy of virtues distinguished between moral and intellectual virtues. This taxonomy is based on a distinction between practical and speculative reason. What I mean by cultural virtues does bear some resemblance to the classical notion of “intellectual virtues,” that is, they are virtues of the intellectual life that allow us to “discover, express, validate, criticize, correct, develop, [and] improve”23 the meanings and values of our prevailing cultures and so promote cultural f lourishing. The classical tradition identified intellectual virtues in terms of science, art and wisdom. We can transpose these through a consideration of our fundamental orientation to meaning, truth, and goodness. One impact of globalization has been the relativization of culture. Exposed to the full variety of human cultures, their standards and mores can be very disorientating. In light of this experience we can identify two tendencies with virtue lying in the mean. The first tendency is to retreat in the face of the diversity of cultures, to seek to define strong and exclusive cultural identity markers, and to reascribe a strongly normative meaning to the term “culture,” with one’s one culture as the basic norm. This may then appear as a strong defense of “Western” or “Asian” or “African” values in a way that precludes dialogue and mutual enrichment.24 Cultures are inherently porous, prone to “hybridity,” and never static, fixed entities. 25 This tendency of making one’s own culture normative ultimately denies the dynamic and self-transcending drive of our orientation to meaning, truth, and goodness. The second tendency is to be overcome by the complete diversity we encounter and declare that all cultures are relative and even incommensurable in their diversity. There are no norms, no means of cross- cultural evaluation, and we should simply rejoice in the fact of diversity. This tendency rightly identifies the open- ended dynamism of our orientation to meaning, truth, and goodness, but in the process effectively precludes the possibility of our making any objective judgments of truth and goodness. Between these two tendencies lies the virtue of “cultural wisdom.” It is a personal disposition that allows one to hold on to the meanings and values of one’s own culture, without undue absolutizing of that culture, while being open to having a dialogue with and learning from other

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cultures. This is not a new virtue. People have been exercising this virtue for millennia—in fact, every time two distinctive cultures come into contact. The requirements for the exercise of this virtue are now simply more complex, because relationships between cultures are not just bilateral, but multilateral and globalized. The complexity of this multilateral conversation places extra demands on our cultural wisdom, and hence increases the likelihood that we will fall off toward one or other of the two opposed “vices.” Personal Virtues There are many personal values that take on an added dimension when considered from the perspective of a globalizing world. We have already mentioned how humility might take on an ecological dimension; selfrestraint is another virtue that highlights the need to act within certain limits, perhaps to shift from the multiplicity of material goods our economies produce to raise our sights to the cultural and personal goods that also need our attention. Globalization also puts increasing demands on our personal integrity as we struggle with the various questions we have already identified above: What are my ecological responsibilities? How can I respond to the fate of the poor in the third world? Should I boycott goods made in sweatshop conditions? What, if anything, should I do about human rights violations in countries such as China or Zimbabwe? To which religious vision shall I commit myself ? It makes extraordinary demands on our personal integrity to constantly raise and address questions such as these. Far easier to bury one’s head in the sand and “go with the f low” of the dominant consumer culture. Here we shall focus on three particular virtues: attentiveness, solidarity, and hope. Attentiveness We live in an age of distraction. The mass media bombards us with a constant stream of images and sounds. Our social lives are full of frenetic activities and what are little more than time-wasters. What passes for entertainment and leisure activities dominate our consciousnesses to the point where we can live lives of constant but superficial satisfactions. As Gordon Lynch suggests, the popular culture system “manages to pacify resistance by providing people with pleasures that may be superficially enjoyable, but which fail to promote genuine human well-being or a deeper sense of happiness.”26 Without special effort it is now more and more difficult for us to focus our attention on one thing, especially if that

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thing is not pleasant or would require from us some self-transcending response. In our globalizing world there is no shortage of information that is overwhelming to the point of being distressing. We know that there are starving children in the world, but do we have to see them on our television screens? We know there is significant environmental degradation taking place because of our extravagant lifestyles, but do we need to read about it every day in the newspaper? We know there is political and religious violence in various parts of the world, but it is easier not to know because it threatens our sense of security. Here again we are facing competing tensions. We do need to censor the data that f low into our consciousness. We cannot cope with every element of sense data, and so we have a process of internal selection or censorship. This process can be repressive of unpleasant images or it can constructively allow those images into consciousness which we need for the required insights to occur to meet our present situation.27 If too much is repressed we begin to lose contact with the real situation and our actions, becoming unintelligent, unreasonable, and irresponsible. If too much is allowed in we will be swamped with information, and the likely outcome will be moral paralysis, an inability to come to a decision because there is always more data to consider. The virtue of attentiveness lies between these two extremes.28 The virtue of attentiveness lies in a continual attention to our attentiveness. What data are we including and what are we excluding? Do we attend to the images of starving children or do we turn away? Do we allow ourselves to be constantly distracted by entertainment and the lives of celebrities or do we suffer the impact of the disturbing images that are all there for us if we want to seek them out? Alternatively, are we so captured by the images of global suffering and violence that we despair of any possible solution to the unfolding tragedies of our world? The virtue of attentiveness lies in the mean, in raising these questions in our own personal arena and working through the consequences of our questioning. In our globalizing world, where there is so much information and so much suffering, it is a challenging virtue to exercise. Solidarity The virtue of solidarity was a constant theme in the writings of Pope John Paul II. Born of his experiences in Poland and the Solidarity Movement, which helped bring an end to communist rule in his country, the theme of solidarity became a symbol of our growing interdependence, an interdependence that was taking on global significance. He regularly spoke of

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worldwide or international solidarity and of the need to globalize solidarity in our current context. It is above all a question of interdependence, sensed as a system determining relationships in the contemporary world, in its economic, cultural, political, and religious elements, and accepted as a moral category. When interdependence becomes recognized in this way, the correlative response as a moral and social attitude, as a “virtue,” is solidarity. This, then, is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all.29

A sense of personal identification lies at the heart of the virtue of solidarity. We begin to see things through the eyes of the other, to begin to feel what they feel, to suffer what they suffer. Yet, as John Paul II states, to be virtuous this sense of compassion must bear fruit in a commitment to the good of the other; and this is a commitment to their whole good, not just to their material well-being. It must develop into a genuine partnership with the other, a relationship of equality: [I]f the aid offered to others should no longer be alms given by the rich to the poor, which is humiliating for the latter and perhaps a source of pride for the former, if it is to become sharing between partners—namely, recognition of true equality among us—we must “start afresh from Christ.”30

It is perhaps fair to say that for most of us, the virtue of solidarity is lacking through a deficit of its main components. We find it difficult in the first world to identify with the starving and the poor, the oppressed and the downtrodden. We simply do not allow ourselves to feel what it must be like to be in their situation. We are afraid that we would be overwhelmed by their suffering and that a sense of powerlessness would overtake us. As we considered in our discussion above on attentiveness, we can easily be overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problems that confront a globalizing world. So both these virtues require a third virtue, that of hope, to be nourished to sustain us through the difficulties they engender. Hope We can focus upon the virtue of hope by a consideration of the two “vices” between which our virtue lies. In light of the multiple problems that beset our globalizing world, there are two opposed responses that

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one may adopt. The first is the naïve optimism that technology will solve all our problems, that we can just go on as if all our problems will just go away. Such a stance is present, for example, in those who deny the problem of global warming, or think that nuclear power is the big solution. The second response is simply to despair, to give up on the possibility of a solution. Indeed it is easy to be overwhelmed by all the problems we face globally: human rights abuses, ecological destruction, global warming, trade injustices, and continuing armed conf lict. The virtue that lies between these two “vices” is hope. There is, of course, a natural dimension to the virtue of hope. Hope is present every time parents welcome a child into their family; every time we make plans for the future. Without hope life becomes a hollow exercise, an endless repetition of daily routines with no larger possible horizon. We need to be able to hope that things can be better, especially for the next generation, that it will not experience the same round of problems and sufferings that we currently face. Such hope is reasonable because it builds on our past experience of gradual improvements whereby practical intelligence transforms the social order incrementally through technological and political progress. We need only consider the vast increase in medical technology and its impact on our life spans, and our growing material standards of living. However, the problem we now face is that intellectual integrity demands we face the facts of our present situation, and indeed that situation is grim, most notably in relation to global warming. In light of the facts, hope may appear naïve. In facing significant evil, we may need to face the unpalatable truth that natural hope is no longer sufficient to see us through the crisis. It cannot sustain us in the face of a rational grasp that evil is about to overtake us. Unless hope can offer us something that transcends our present worldlier hopes, unless it can provide us with a ground of hope that we can be assured is equal to any worldly evil, then despair may well appear to be the “rational” option. And so the Christian tradition has spoken of hope as a theological virtue, something that finds its ground not in merely human resources of creative intelligence and determination, but in the divine creator of all there is.31 From a different angle Charles Taylor explores the types of motivations that might inspire such a drive to universal solidarity and benevolence. Here he discerns three possible motivations. The first is a sense of moral superiority that our “performance to these standards [of solidarity and benevolence] has become part of what we understand as a decent, civilized life.”32 However this sense of superiority is a “whimsical and fickle thing” that f lits from one cause to another, as it is “vulnerable to the shifting fashion of media attention, and the various modes of feel-good

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hype.”33 The second is a lofty humanism that takes its stand on human dignity, meeting human need with philanthropic action. He notes, however, how easily this stance of philanthropy can f lip over into patterns of contempt and aggression. Are these people worthy objects of all these efforts? [. . .] perhaps the best that can be done for them is to force them to shape up. Before the reality of human shortcomings, philanthropy [. . .] can gradually come to be invested with contempt, hatred, aggression.34 Finally, people may focus more on a stance of justice than benevolence, fuelling a sense of moral indignation and hatred for those responsible for injustices. The stronger the sense of (often correctly identified) injustice, the more powerfully this pattern can become entrenched. We become centers of hatred, generators of new modes of injustice on a greater scale, but we started with the most exquisite sense of wrong, the greatest passion for justice and equality and peace.35 Again Taylor’s account is not directed to drive us to despair but to point out the limits of a purely humanistic response to our plight. Just as a rational hope in progress may falter in the face of the problem of evil manifest on a global scale, so too our moral sources of benevolence and solidarity may collapse under the weight they are being asked to carry. For Taylor the question becomes, How can we become agents on whom misanthropy has no hold, in whom it awakens no connivance?36 Taylor points toward a Christian solution: It can be described in two ways. Either as a love/compassion which is unconditional, that is, not based on what you the recipient have made of yourself; or as one based on what you are most profoundly, a being in the image of God . . . In either case, the love is not conditional on the worth realized in you just as an individual, or even in what is realizable in you alone.37

It involves a religious commitment to a transcendent reference point that cannot be reached through humanism alone. The possibility of generating such a hope is a major issue for all religious traditions. Conclusion I am not proposing that this shift to a virtue approach solves all our problems in relation to the development of a “global ethic,” but I think it does raise the question of globalization in a different way: What are the virtues that will contribute to global f lourishing? As Alasdair MacIntyre

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has argued that the question of virtue ethics focuses our attention on communities that actively promote such virtues.38 As communities of practice we can then turn our attention to religious communities of various faiths and interrogate their responses to the question of global f lourishing: What practices promoted by your community contribute to or impede global f lourishing? This would be an interesting question to raise within an interfaith perspective. It poses particular challenges to all religious communities facing the issue of globalization. Further to the question, What virtues contribute to global f lourishing? the taxonomy provided by the scale of values allows us to differentiate issues that we face in terms of globalization, by distinguishing social, cultural, and personal virtues. Similarly, the common good ref lects these same dimensions and to work for the common good means to personally seek to develop virtues that will promote global f lourishing. In the end, the greatest resource we have for promoting the common good is to be found in persons who embody these virtues and in the communities that promote such virtues. Notes 1. Hans Küng, Global Responsibility: In Search of a New World Ethic (New York: Crossroad, 1991). 2. Available at http://astro.temple.edu/~dialogue/Center/Küng.htm. 3. Of course, globalization is itself a contested notion. For my purposes here globalization can be understood as a heuristic label intended to encapsulate the complex and globally ranging set of experiences, relationships, structures, technologies, institutions, and cultural symbols that are determinative for life in a compressed world. See Neil Ormerod and Shane Clifton, Globalization and the Mission of the Church (T. & T. Clark, 2009), 11. The material in this chapter draws upon chapter 6 of that work. 4. Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984). For a critique of MacIntyre, see Martha Nussbaum, “Recoiling from Reason,” New York Review of Books 36 (1989), 36–42. 5. This is a recasting of the Aristotelian notion of virtue as lying in the mean. As Aristotle states, “Virtue is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, that is, the mean relative to us, this being determined by a rational principle, and by that principle by which the person of practical wisdom would determine it.” Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. W. D. Ross (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), II.6, 39. 6. See MacIntyre, After Virtue, 188–89. 7. As MacIntyre argues, virtues moves us from some empirical state in which we find ourselves to some good yet to be achieved, conceived teleologically or normatively. See MacIntyre, After Virtue, 53.

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8. For a discussion of thick and thin versions of ethical ref lection, see Paul Shankman, “The Thick and the Thin: On the Interpretive Theoretical Program of Clifford Geertz,” Current Anthropology 25 (1984): 261–80. 9. Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (New York: Seabury, 1971). 10. Robert Doran, Theology and the Dialectics of History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990). 11. Lonergan, Method, 31–32. 12. Doran, Theology and the Dialectics of History, 144. 13. The Amnesty International 2006 Report (published May 23, 2006) documents human rights abuses in 150 countries. See http://www.amnesty. org/en/library/info/POL10/001/2006. 14. Charles Taylor notes that “our age makes higher demands of solidarity and benevolence on people today than ever before,” in its demands for a universal, global justice. Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007), 695. 15. See Doran, Theology and the Dialectics of History, 211–53, for a detailed analysis of the psychological dimension of personal integrity. 16. See Bernard J. F. Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, ed. Frederick E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran, vol. 3, Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), 247–50, for his notion of group bias. 17. See Doran, Theology and the Dialectic of History, 355–472, for a complete unpacking of this account of social value and the dialectic of community. 18. Lonergan often speaks of love of community as a basic element of our moral self-transcendence. See, for example, Lonergan, Method, 105. 19. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II q101 a3. 20. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II q61 a1. 21. For example, the secular philosopher Peter Singer argues that “the case for vegetarianism is at its strongest when we see it as a moral protest against our use of animals as mere things, to be exploited for our convenience in whatever way makes them most cheaply available to us.” From http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/singer05.htm (accessed November 7, 2007). 22. And so Lonergan speaks of the economy as an “ecology.” See Bernard Lonergan, Macroeconomic Dynamics: An Essay in Circulation Analysis, ed. Frederick Lawrence, Patrick Byrne, and Charles Hef ling, vol. 15, Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 3, 89. 23. Lonergan, Method, 32. 24. Asian politicians have been particularly vocal in making such criticisms. For an analysis of these criticisms see Amartya Sen, “Human Rights and Asian Values,” New Republic, July 14–July 21, 1997, available at http:// www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/sen.htm. 25. See Jan Nederveen Pieterse, Globalization and Culture: Global Mélange (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004).

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26. Gordon Lynch, Understanding Theology and Popular Culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 71. 27. On repression, see Bernard Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, ed. Crowe Frederick and Robert Doran, vol. 3, Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), 192. On facilitation of insight see Doran, Theology and the Dialectics of History, 59–63. 28. Being attentive is one of Lonergan’s “transcendental precepts.” See Method, 53. It has parallels in the Buddhist notion of “mindfulness.” 29. Pope John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, n. 38. 30. Message of John Paul II on the Occasion of the 17th General Assembly of Caritas Internationalis. 31. It is significant in this regard that Pope Benedict XVI wrote his second encyclical, Spe Salvi, on the theme of hope. 32. Taylor, A Secular Age, 696. 33. Ibid., 696. 34. Ibid., 697. 35. Ibid., 698. 36. Ibid., 701. 37. Ibid., 701. 38. MacIntyre, After Virtue, 256–63.

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CHAPTER 4 THE PEOPLE OF THE BOOK: RECONCILING RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALS WITH UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS Michael Kirby

Introduction At a meeting of “traditionalist” Anglican bishops in Jerusalem in June 2008, Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria1 reportedly said that Anglicans who preach the inclusion of homosexuals in God’s church were guilty of apostasy.2 He is not alone in this view. In Zimbabwe, the former Bishop of Harare, an ardent supporter of President Robert Mugabe, withdrew from the Anglican province, saying that he could not co- exist with so many gays and lesbians in the church.3 Such views are generally justified by reliance on passages from the Holy Bible that have been read as declaring homosexuals an “abomination.”4 Those passages have affected the way three great world religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—the “People of the Book”—have responded to sexual minorities. Together, they constitute a huge portion of the world’s population—millions of people in every continent. What these religions teach about morality is therefore of practical importance for people everywhere. It inf luences the secular laws by which most people on the planet are governed. Only in a few countries is there a strict constitutional separation of religious institutions and the state. The source of the problem that Akinola, for one, exemplifies, is that those who believe in the inerrancy of religious texts often find it difficult, or impossible, to be tolerant toward those who deny or doubt their understanding of the truth—especially when the deniers and doubters

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were once adherents to the religious teachings proclaimed in those texts. Often the reaction against apostates is explained as being for the “benefit” of those affected. It is ascribed to obedience to a command from God himself. In the Deuteronomy,5 there are stern warnings against enticing people into serving “other gods.” The reader is told not to listen to such tempters. Nor are they to be spared; death is prescribed by stoning.6 No doubt there are some in modern Jewish society who adhere to such views. However, few Jews today would take such injunctions literally, as a command intended to govern contemporary civilian law. Yet it was not always so for Jews or Christians. In one of the first descriptions of traditional English law, Henry de Bracton in the 1250s declared that apostates were to be burned to death.7 An instance arose in the case of an unfortunate deacon who “apostatised for the sake of a Jewess.”8 His bishop handed him over to lay officials to be committed to the f lames. This was done without the help of any parliamentary law. English common law provided for the burning of heretics, and that was enough.9 Writing his inf luential Commentaries on the Law of England in the 1770s, William Blackstone described an Act of Parliament punishing apostates, being persons “educated in, or making a profession of, the Christian religion” who had denied it to be true or who suggested that the holy scriptures were other than the authentic voice of divine authority. Such a person was rendered incapable of holding any office of trust and was liable to three years’ imprisonment without bail.10 Certainly, imprisonment was an advance on burning. “Christianity,” declared Blackstone, was “part of the laws of England,”11 enforceable as such. The enforcements were sometimes subtle. For example, apostates could not make a will; their property passed on intestacy only to next of kin who had embraced Christianity; otherwise to the crown. However, apostasy laws have long since ceased to be in force in England. It is 60 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights12 (UDHR) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, based on a report of a committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt. It gave effect to one of the Allied aims in World War II upholding the right of everyone to “worship God in one’s own way anywhere in the world.” The declaration is now given effect by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and in national and international statements of rights. Even the Australian constitution, which contains no general charter of rights, contains section 116, which forbids the Federal Parliament from establishing a religion or imposing, by law, religious observances or tests.13

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For most Jews and Christians today, punishing people because they abandon or deny their religion, is unthinkable. The fastest-growing category answering the Australian census question on religion declares that they have “no religion.” So even hard-line believers tend to skip over the passages in Deuteronomy. Much easier to single out those of Leviticus and denounce sexual minorities. Still, in some countries, apostasy remains a live issue, and particularly so in some Islamic countries. The Qur’ān itself does not prescribe compulsory adherence to Islamic beliefs. On the contrary, it states that “there is no compulsion in religion.”14 God alone has the right to punish those who do not adhere to Islam or who turn their backs on its beliefs. However, the hadīth, a secondary source of Islamic law, records the Prophet as saying that whoever rejects Islam must be killed.15 This has become a source for civilian law and stern punishments in some Islamic countries. Occasionally, as in Sudan, those laws appear to be used as political tools for removing outspoken opposition personalities. In Malaysia, the constitution contains standard guarantees of freedom of religion. However, in 2007, a decision of that country’s highest court, in the Lina Joy case,16 by majority, denied the applicant the right to record on her identity papers a change of her religion from Islam to Christianity. Such a change was necessary to allow her to marry her Christian fiancé. Inevitably, it was noticed that the two judges in the majority were Islamic and the dissenting judge was not. One of the foremost critics of the Malaysian court decision on apostasy, Dr. Thio Li-ann, lives and works in Singapore.17 She is a professor of law but also a nominated member of Singapore’s parliament. She is a Christian. Recently, she took a leading part in persuading her colleagues in the Singapore parliament to reject proposals to repeal the old British laws against homosexuals. She invoked the teachings in Leviticus. For her, refusing to permit Lina Joy to enjoy freedom of religious conscience was an abomination, notwithstanding Deuteronomy. But the abomination in Leviticus had still to be enforced. Singapore rejected the reforming measure. Like most non-Western countries in the former British Empire, Singapore maintains its criminal laws against homosexuals.18 On the sixtieth anniversary of the UDHR, we need to promote tolerance and acceptance of diversity, including among all the People of the Book. We need to establish institutions that assist in this endeavor. For the sake of the planet and the survival of the human species, we must embrace universal principles of human rights. It is no accident that they were promised as a foundation stone for the new world order created by the United Nations. Without respect for the basic rights of all people, peace and security will always be at risk. The Nobel Laureate

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and religious leader Desmond Tutu recently wrote a foreword to the life story of Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly homosexual bishop in Anglican Christianity. Tutu declared his personal acceptance of the authority of scripture as the Word of God. But he had not forgotten that the Bible had been used in the recent past to justify racism, slavery, and the humiliation of women.19 The Oldest Human Right Having established the common way in which apostasy has been traditionally viewed in all of the Abrahamic religions, it becomes important to examine more closely that particular difficulty, as presented by texts in the context of reconciling insistence upon religious instruction and respecting the values of universal human rights. Freedom of religion and conscience may even be the oldest of the internationally recognized human rights.20 Protection was granted as early as the Peace of Westphalia, signed in 1648, to bring to an end the Thirty Years’ War in Europe over the Protestant Reformation in Christianity. The right to freedom of religion necessarily includes the ability to change one’s religion or, as Justice Lionel Murphy often reminded me, the right to renounce religion—freedom from religion. In several instruments, the international community has recognized that religious freedom is a universal feature of human existence. Essentially, it inheres in the inquisitive, ref lective, basically moral character of every human being. Although this topic will be illustrated substantially by reference to Islam, in practice the problem is by no means limited to that religion, as already demonstrated. Rather, it is a phenomenon that accompanies the exclusivist convictions that religious beliefs tend to occasion among their believers. To illustrate the following propositions, reference will be made to a number of recent cases decided in Malaysia, Australia, and the United Kingdom, beginning with the Lina Joy case21 in Malaysia. The Lina Joy Case in Malaysia Malaysia is a multicultural society and a nation exhibiting many attributes of religious pluralism. About 60 percent of Malaysia’s citizens follow Islam.22 Malaysia considers itself a moderate and pluralistic Muslim state.23 Although Malaysia is not a signatory to the ICCPR, it has endorsed the UDHR. The right to freedom of religion is expressly provided for in the federal constitution of Malaysia. This vibrant and much respected neighboring country enjoys many links to Australia. It has connections of

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friendship and association that go back to well before the Independence of Malaya, 50 years ago. Lina Joy is a young woman who was born in Malaysia into a Muslim family and given the name Azalina. In 1998 she announced her intention of marrying a non-Muslim man. Under the Malaysian Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976, she was not entitled to contract such a marriage unless her new status as a non-Muslim was recognized. Azalina applied to the Malaysian National Registration Department (NRD) to change her name on her identity card to a Christian name. She was successful in having the name changed to Lina Joy. However, in 2000, amendments had been made to the National Regulations. They came into force with retrospective effect. The amendments required that the identity cards of Muslims should state their religion. Therefore, when Lina Joy received her new identity card the word “Islam” still appeared on the card. This defeated the purpose of applying for the change of name. Effectively, it stood as a barrier to her marriage. Lina Joy therefore applied to the NRD to have the word “Islam” deleted from her identity card. The NRD rejected the application. Lina Joy then contested the lawfulness of the new policy of the NRD in the High Court of Malaysia. She argued that the amended regulations and the NRD’s insistence on its policy infringed her right to freedom of religion under the Malaysian constitution. Article 3(1) of the Malaysian constitution provides that “Islam is the religion of the Federation; but other religions may be practiced in peace and harmony in any part of the Federation.” Religious freedom is further strengthened in Malaysia by art. 11(1) of the constitution, which provides that “[e]very person has the right to profess and practise his religion [. . .] and to propagate it.” A significant amendment to the Malaysian constitution was adopted in 1988 with the insertion of art. 121(1A). Malaysia has both Islamic and civil courts. However, art. 121(1A) stipulates that civil courts have no jurisdiction over subject matters that fall within the jurisdiction of the Islamic courts. Essentially, Islamic courts have jurisdiction over Muslims with regard to religious and family matters. The germ of the problem will thus be evident. How is this exclusive jurisdiction of Islamic courts to be reconciled with the strong constitutional expressions in Malaysia guaranteeing individual freedom of religious belief? The Malaysian Court Decisions24 Following the rejection of her application by both the High Court 25 and Court of Appeal, 26 Lina Joy appealed to Malaysia’s highest court, the Federal Court of Malaysia. In that court, she submitted that the

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requirement that she must obtain the approval of a third party in order to exercise her free choice of religion, was unconstitutional. 27 That argument failed. The majority maintained that the question as to whether Lina Joy was a Muslim or not was a decision exclusively for the Islamic courts. It was not a question for civil courts, except insofar as such courts recognized and upheld the jurisdiction and powers of the Syariah courts. Accordingly, the civil courts in Malaysia concluded that matters of apostasy are of such a character that they need to be dealt with by jurists who are appropriately qualified in the field of sharī‘a law. 28 This decision presents a Catch 22–type problem. Freedom of religion is a guaranteed personal right. Yet, according to the majority’s reasoning in Lina Joy, it can only be invoked and upheld in Malaysia if the courts of the religion that is rejected are willing to permit the assertion of that right. In Malaysia, in the case of Islam, this ruling places the Syariah courts themselves in an impossible position. For the civil courts and civilian power to uphold the right to change the religion of Islam is one thing, to expect the Syariah courts to do so is quite another. Answering Lina Joy’s argument that her constitutional right to freedom of religion had been infringed, the majority in the Federal Court adopted a narrow interpretation of art. 11(1) of the constitution. They stated:29 The freedom of religion under Article 11 of the Federal Constitution requires the Appellant to comply with the practices or law of the Islamic religion in particular with regard to converting out of the religion. Upon complying with the requirements of the religion and the religious authorities confirming her as an apostate only then can the Appellant profess Christianity. In other words one cannot at one’s whims and fancies renounce or embrace a religion. When professing a religion, common sense itself requires him to comply with the laws and practices of the religion.

The dissenting judge in the Federal Court, Justice Richard Malanjum FCJ, the Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak, took a different view.30 He concluded that the NRD had acted beyond its powers under the regulations—no exercise of such powers could be inconsistent with the constitution. In order to appreciate fully the serious impact on religious freedom in Malaysia occasioned by decisions in cases such as Lina Joy, it is important to notice two significant practical implications. First, apostates in Malaysia are subject to a range of penalties under state legislation. For example, in the State of Pahang, s 185 of the Administration of the Religion of Islam and the Malay Custom Enactment of

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1982 (Amendment 1989) describes the types of punishments to be meted out to apostates. It states: On conviction [they] shall be liable to a fine not exceeding five thousand ringgit or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years or to both and to whipping of not more than six strokes.

In other states of Malaysia, apostasy is punishable by mandatory detention at a rehabilitation center for periods of up to three years. Second, if Lina Joy were now to apply to a Syariah court in Malaysia for a declaration of apostasy, she would face a number of additional practical obstacles. Islamic principles discourage Muslims from supporting or facilitating renunciations of the Islamic faith by other Muslims. Thus, it would be difficult for Lina Joy to find a lawyer, specializing in sharī‘a law, who would be willing to represent her in such a case. Clearly, obtaining an apostasy order from a Syariah court in Malaysia is no mere formality. In a sense, it is akin to the King’s “great matter” when King Henry VIII in England sought to secure a divorce from Queen Catherine. For many at the time, this was seen as impossible because it was contrary to God’s law, as revealed in holy scripture. Asking religious people to be complicit in the divorce imposed intolerable burdens on their consciences. Some (like Sir Thomas More) were willing to pay for their refusal with their lives. It is almost certain that in Malaysia, an apostate would be considered, at least in many circles, as a social outcast.31 Before the Federal Court hearing, Lina Joy and her fiancé received several death threats. They were forced into hiding. Abdul Aziz Bari, a professor at the International Islamic University in Malaysia, suggests that freedom to profess and practice religion does not mean that an individual should be able to renounce Islam easily.32 Other constitutional law experts in Malaysia argue that punishment and detention for education and “repentance” purposes do not infringe an individual’s right to religious freedom.33 In most parts of the world, such arguments would, I believe, be rejected as inconsistent with the purpose of the constitutional guarantee. The notion that Lina Joy had rejected Islam as a matter of a “whim or fancy” likewise seems to underestimate the large struggle in which she had engaged in order to effect her purpose. Thus, to understand why apostasy is forbidden in Islam and why freedom of religion is interpreted so restrictively, it is important to appreciate the emphasis that is placed in Islamic tradition on the welfare of the umma, or community, for which the offence of apostasy is treated as relevant. In contrast to the generally individualist traditions of Western liberal social theory, Islamic tradition generally adopts a communitarian

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view. It is not unique in this respect. The Confucian view of society likewise lays emphasis on the community, often prevailing over the individual. According to such concepts, the self is commonly realized collectively and defined through traditions and concepts of honor. In Islam, individualism must be realized within the umma, or community, which is of paramount importance.34 Justice Faiza Thamby Chik, the trial judge in the Lina Joy case, noted that if Lina Joy were permitted to renounce Islam without first settling the matter with the religious authorities, it would “create chaos and confusion with the administrative authority” managing Islamic affairs “and consequently the non-Muslim community as a whole.”35 But it seems unlikely that many would-be converts in Malaysia would battle on to the extent that Lina Joy has. Still, the Lina Joy decision has supporters in Malaysia as well as critics. Questioning the Universality of Human Rights The divergent views on the position of the individual within a twentyfirst-century community, and the impact of an individual’s renunciation of a religious faith, can be placed within a broader global debate over whether human rights are truly universal. Many Muslims, and also nonMuslims, question the universality of the modern concepts of human rights. Abdullah Saeed, a professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne, points out that 36 For the Muslims who oppose universality, Islam has a particular concept of human rights, including religious freedom, and these must be understood in the context of the Islamic law, which itself determines the scope of freedom available to a Muslim.

Contemporary concepts of universal human rights have their origins in the Western philosophical tradition. These contrast with the Islamic emphasis on the umma. Although Western systems of beliefs sometimes restrict the activities of individuals on the basis that their activities interfere with the welfare of the community, Islam commonly imposes limitations on the indeterminate ground that “fostering social discord offends the communal spirit.”37 By way of contrast, supporters of the applicability of universal human rights within Islam argue that the rights provided for in the UDHR are not alien to Qur’ānic instruction and that “in fact, most rights can be supported by the Qur’ān and the practice of the Prophet.”38 They indicate that what is required is a reinterpretation of the religious scriptures. In

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Christianity, too, we know about the need for reinterpretation. Leviticus and Deuteronomy contain many passages in point. The fact that several Muslim nations have signed and ratified the ICCPR helps to support the argument that human rights are, as is claimed, universal. But this does not necessarily mean that such nations have always acted in accordance with the principles enshrined in the ICCPR. For that matter, neither has Australia, which would pride itself as generally being a human-rightscompliant country, adhering to the principles in the ICCPR. Islamic human rights instruments have been developed that opponents of the concept of the universality of human rights have used to justify their arguments. In 1981 the Islamic Council of Europe adopted the Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights. In 1990, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference adopted the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam. Both of these instruments address freedom of religion. However, they do not ref lect the same level of freedom of conscience provided for in the UDHR of 1948. For instance, neither Islamic instrument specifically provides for a right to change one’s religion. Within diverse Muslim communities there are differing views as to whether religious freedom includes a right to change religion.39 In 1948 the representative of Saudi Arabia to the United Nations maintained that freedom to change one’s religion was prohibited under Islamic law. He therefore objected to art. 18 of the UDHR. By contrast, the Pakistani representative, at the time, supported art. 18. He did so on the ground that the Qur’ān permits an individual to believe, or not to believe. Legitimate Restrictions on Human Rights As with many fundamental rights, the right to freedom of religion is not an absolute one. This fact is recognized in art.18.3 of the ICCPR itself. It provides that freedom to manifest one’s religion or belief may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order and health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.

In similar language, the Malaysian constitution states that a group may not act in any matter that might be contradictory to public order, public health, or morality.40 The constitution also specifies more questionable restrictions, for instance, that non-Muslims cannot propagate any religious doctrine among Muslims, although the reverse is not the case. In recent years, there have been numerous cases across the world,41 in

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which courts have upheld rules, policies, or laws restricting the right to manifest certain Islamic beliefs or practices. Such cases have concerned, for instance, the right of a Muslim woman to wear the Islamic headscarf or similar dress. Such a case came before the House of Lords in England in 2006. Their Lordships had to decide whether a school uniform policy infringed a student’s right to freedom of religion. The decision in that case contrasts with the Malaysian courts’ treatment of the same fundamental right in the Lina Joy case. In the United Kingdom, religious freedom is protected by history, by strong social conventions and now by the 1998 Human Rights Act (UK). That act incorporates into domestic law the nation’s treaty obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Article 9 of the European Convention, which is set out in schedule I, part I of the Human Rights Act, protects the freedom of the individual to have a religion or belief, and the right to manifest that religion or belief. The decision in R (SB) v. Headteacher and Governors of Denbigh High School42 concerned the entitlement of a Muslim schoolgirl to wear a jihab to school, that is, a full-length gown. The school was a public school, funded entirely by taxpayers. The pupils attended mixed-sex, multicommunity classes. About four-fifths of the pupils at the school were Muslims. Two-thirds of the governing board were Muslims. The head teacher was a Muslim. Under the policy of the school about uniforms, female pupils were offered three options. One was the shalwar kameeze, a combination of a smock dress and trousers. This option had been developed following consultation with parents, pupils, staff, and local mosques. The claimant wore the shalwar kameeze for two years. However, one day she turned up at school in a jihab. She was not permitted to attend school so dressed. In the resulting litigation, she lost the best part of two years’ schooling. The majority of the House of Lords rejected the claimant’s argument that her rights under art. 9 of the European Convention (and hence the Human Rights Act) had been infringed. They held that this was not the case because the claimant had a choice of alternative schools that she could have attended and where she would have been permitted to wear a jihab.43 Emphasis was placed on the care with which the school had worked out its uniform policy.44 A minority in the House of Lords accepted that there had been an arguable interference with the claimant’s rights. However, they concluded that it was justified in the circumstances.45 One of the English Law Lords later emphasized that the opinions in “[T]he House of Lords are notable for their emphasis on the details of the particular case, and for avoiding (indeed, rejecting the possibility of ) any broad general rule.”46

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When balancing individual freedoms and community interests, the question arises whether “the court should inquire into the centrality of a particular manifestation or demonstration of religious belief.”47 Given the sensitive nature of the matter, and the inexpertise of most (or all) judges on such questions, courts of our tradition have commonly been reluctant to delve into disputes regarding theological or liturgical principles.48 There are some similarities between the approach of the House of Lords in the jihab case, and the approach of the courts in Malaysia in the Lina Joy case. Both decisions permitted restrictions to be placed on individuals based on considerations of the community interest, although for different reasons. The courts in both countries deferred, to varying degrees, to an authority that they considered to be more qualified on the particular issue. However, the Malaysian courts went much farther in its deference. In effect, the majority in Malaysia concluded that they had no jurisdiction on the matter, even to uphold the constitution, a civil law document. Australian Courts on Apostasy Australian courts and tribunals have occasionally addressed the issue of apostasy and its relationship with fundamental rights. Not infrequently, the question has arisen before courts and tribunals in the context of applications by persons claiming Australian protection as refugees. In NAIS v. Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs,49 for example, it can be seen that apostasy, for individuals born and raised as Muslims in Islamic countries, is quite a common issue in refugee claims. It is an issue that has arisen more than once in the High Court of Australia. Applicants for protection visas claim that they have renounced their Islamic faith of their birth. They then argue that they fear the consequences of this renunciation if they are returned to their country of nationality. In 2006 in SZBEL v. Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs and Another,50 the applicant was a seaman employed by an Iranian shipping line. Having jumped ship in Port Kembla, he applied for a protection visa in Australia. He had earlier been invited by a seaman on the same ship to attend a Christian church service while the ship was in port in Dubai. Following this experience, over the next four years, the applicant attended Christian services in various ports. However, the Refugee Review Tribunal did not accept that the applicant was “considered by the Iranian authorities to be an apostate or actively involved in Christianity, prior to his arrival in Australia.” It therefore refused to grant him a protection visa.

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The question that arose before the High Court was whether the issues, to which the tribunal’s reasoning processes were directed, had been adequately notified to the appellant. At stake was a question of procedural fairness rather than apostasy, as such. The appellant argued that he was not on notice of how his adherence to Christianity had become an issue in the decision under review. The High Court held that the tribunal had not accorded procedural fairness to the appellant. It remitted the case to be reheard without this disqualifying imperfection in the tribunal’s reasoning. In 2005, in Applicant NABD v. Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs,51 over the dissents of Justice McHugh and myself, the High Court rejected a claim of an Iranian man, who had become a Christian, alleging fear of persecution if he were returned to Iran. He relied on the fact that such cases often raise acute questions. It is not unusual to see divided judicial decisions. The majority found no error in the attention paid by the tribunal to the fact that the applicant would be safe in Iran, so long as he practiced his Christian religion “quietly.” The dissenting reasons rejected that requirement as incompatible with the essential entitlements of enjoying freedom of religion,52 including open affirmation and proclamation. Reconciliation—Some Suggestions Against the background of these judicial decisions, apostasy emerges as an archetypal challenge to the universal principle of religious freedom. Within this paradigm rules that prohibit, or seriously impede, the renunciation of a person’s religious faith appear difficult or impossible to reconcile with the right to change one’s religion, as freedom of religion is expressed to contemplate in international human rights instruments. How, then, can these competing world views be reconciled in a way respectful of each other? Are we condemned to irreconcilability between particular religions and the universal human right to freedom of religion to which most countries of the world now adhere—or at least to which they give lip service? In the Malaysian state of Negeri Sembilan, after an individual applies to a Syariah court for a declaration acknowledging the renunciation of Islam, he or she must undergo counseling and education sessions with the mufti for 90 days. The aspiration of these sessions, at least on the mufti’s part, is “repentance” by the would-be apostate. However, if the individual refuses or fails to “repent,” the court may grant a declaration that the person has renounced Islam. While this is a somewhat lengthy and drawn-out process, there is clearly merit in the replacement of dire

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punishments by imposition of counseling. Moreover, it is a whole lot better than birching, imprisonment, or stoning to death. In contrast, the procedure in Singapore is more straightforward. A person wishing to renounce Islam simply attends a counseling session at the state mufti’s office. If, after counseling, the former Muslim maintains a change of faith, that person’s conscience is respected. There is no whipping, no imprisonment, and no refusal. Indeed, some commentators have concluded that the outcome of the Lina Joy’s case was inevitable in a country such as Malaysia. In order to reconcile the fundamental right to freedom of religion with Islamic religious principles, there needs to be a substantial shift in attitudes within Islam toward apostasy and an acceptance of spiritual diversity. The fact that many individual Muslims throughout the world, including scholars, already support the universality of human rights and a concept of religious freedom that includes the right to change one’s religion indicates that achieving such a change is far from impossible. Protecting Minority Religious Views A fundamental objective of a right to freedom of religion in any society is the protection of the rights of minority religious groups. In most parts of the world today Islam itself is a minority. Adherents of Islam are, as such, entitled to the benefit of this precious freedom. They expect and demand it. In Australia, freedom of religion is protected in a limited way under s. 116 of the Australian Constitution. Of that provision Chief Justice Latham wisely stated,53 [I]t should not be forgotten that such a provision as s 116 is not required for the protection of the religion of a majority. The religion of the majority of the people can look after itself. Section 116 is required to protect the religion (or absence of religion) of minorities, and, in particular, unpopular minorities.

The world has a very strong interest in the reconciliation of the religions of the Book with modern notions of tolerance and the acceptance of diverse reality. Accommodating religions with modernity and diversity cannot be secured effectively by one faith alone. A starting place for achieving general reconciliation may indeed be the strengthening of a pluralistic, tolerant, multicultural society such as Australia.54 Change will not happen if leaders of the Abrahamic religions and citizens of different religions (and no religion) remain silent out of fear of causing offence, or worse still, out of fear of violence or punishment.

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The principle of mutual respect and acceptance lies at the heart of the worldwide movement for the protection of universal human rights. A good indication of the difference that might be effected in Australia, for example, may be seen in the work of the La Trobe University Centre for Dialogue. It can also be seen in the announcement by the Australian Catholic University55 in Melbourne that it will launch the world’s first professorial chair in Muslim- Catholic relations. At Griffith University in Brisbane, the Griffith Asia Institute provides another valuable venue for interfaith dialogue on region.56 It affords another venue for the political, cultural, and legal dimensions of religious freedom in Asia and Oceania. There are more such bodies in Australia. Indeed, there is a f lowering of them. Such bodies need to be aware of the apostasy and other debates and to play a part in the building of human rights institutions for the Asia/Pacific region. This is the last region in the world to lack a comprehensive human rights charter and a court or other body to make it effective. Australia is well placed to contribute to dialogue of this kind. Such dialogue demands much more than tribal loyalties and partisan conf lict. People of religious faiths can learn from each other, and also sometimes from humanists and people of no religious faith.

Conclusion Universal human rights afford common ground for all people to join together. Such rights are needed to permit everyone to fulfill themselves as our unique human natures, intelligence, and moral sense demand. But, universal human rights are awkward. This is because they are often claimed by people who are not exactly like ourselves. Yet they are not new. They have historical origins57 in centuries-old ref lections about the essential ingredients of what being a human being really means. The notion that human beings have an essential dignity that demands respect and requires legal protection, derives, in part, from the ideal, common to all of the Abrahamic religions, expressed in the metaphor that human beings are made “in the image of God.” This is another belief that the People of the Book share in common, together with monotheism and other shared religious tenets. This is why it should be possible to build a common acceptance of diversity upheld by the UDHR and later instruments. However, it will be a race against time as we attempt to copy the moves toward tolerance that have taken centuries for other societies to attain. For the future of the world and of our species, we must hope that humanity wins this race.

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Notes Parts of this essay draw on the author’s Griffith Lecture: “Fundamental Human Rights and Religious Apostasy.” See Griffith Law Review 17 (2001): 151. 1. “Attack Steels Rebels’ Plans to Reform Anglican Church,” The Australian, June 24, 2008, 10. 2. Ibid; see also the Institute of Religion and Democracy website: http:// www.theird.org/NETCOMMUNITY( accessed June 24, 2008). 3. Reported in The Australian, June 24, 2008, 10. 4. Especially Leviticus 20:13. 5. Deuteronomy 13:6–10. 6. Ibid. 7. H. de Bracton, De legibus et consuetudines Angliae, trans. S. E. Thorne, Vol. II, Of Pleas of the Crown (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968), 349 (also accessible at http://hls15.law.harvard.edu/bracton). 8. See F. W. Maitland, “The Deacon and the Jewess; or, Apostasy at Common Law,” Law Quarterly Review 2 (1886): 153. 9. See A. A. Bruce, “Christianity and the Law,” Central Law Journal 64, (1907): 247, 253; and W. S. Holdsworth, “The State and Religious Nonconformity: An Historical Retrospect,” Law Quarterly Review 26, (1920): 339, 345. 10. W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1st ed. (rpt.) (London, Dawsons of Pall Mall, 1966), Vol. IV, p. 44, referring to 9 & 10 W. III. c. 32. 11. Taylor’s Case 1 Ventr. 293, 3 Keb. 607, and King v. Woolston 2 Strange, 834. 12. Adopted and proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 217A (III) of December 10, 1948. 13. Attorney-General (Vict); Black v. The Commonwealth 9 (1981), 146 CLR 559 at 579 (D.O.G.S. Case). 14. Holy Koran, 2:256. 15. Jamila Hussain, “The Shariah—Ignore It? Reform? Or Learn to Live With It?” UTS Law Review 87 (2006): 97. 16. Lina Joy [2004] 2 MLJ 119. 17. L. Thio, “Apostasy and Religious Freedom: Constitutional Issues Arising from the Lina Joy Litigation,” Malaysian Law Journal 2 (2006): Article 1, 8; B. Dawson and S. Thiru, “The Lina Joy Case and the Future of Religious Freedom in Malaysia,” Commonwealth Lawyers’ Journal 16 (2007): 54. 18. Penal Code of Singapore, s 377. In July 2009, the High Court in Delhi in India upheld a challenge to the constitutional validity of s 377 of the Indian Penal Code insofar as this imposes criminal punishment on adult, consensual, private same- sex activities: Naz Foundation v. Union of India [2009] 5 LRC (forthcoming). Provisions equivalent to s 377 still apply in 41 of 53 countries of the Commonwealth of Nations.

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19. Foreword, Bishop Desmond Tutu, January 8, 2009, in G. Robertson, In the Eye of a Storm (Seabury, New York: 2008), xi at xiv. 20. W. Cole Durham Jr., “Freedom of Religion: The United States Model” The American Journal of Comparative Law 42 (1994): 617, 618; A. Saeed and H. Saeed, Freedom of Religion, Apostasy and Islam (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2004, 10). 21. Lina Joy v. Majlis Agama Islam, WP & Anor [2007] 3 CLJ 557. 22. M. Azam Mohamed Adil, “Restrictions in Freedom of Religion in Malaysia: A Conceptual Analysis with Special Reference to the Law of Apostasy,” Muslim World Journal of Human Rights 4, no. 2 (2007): Article 1, 1. 23. Prof K. Win, “Is Malaysia a Muslim Example?” Asian Tribune, June 14, 2007, http://www.asiantribune.com/index.php?q=node/6159 (accessed on July 31, 2007). 24. Lina Joy v. Majlis Agama Islam, WP & Anor [2007] 3 CLJ 557. 25. [2004] 2 MLJ 119. 26. [2005] 6 MLJ 193. The constitutional issue was not argued before the Court of Appeal. 27. Dawson and Thiru, Commonwealth Lawyers’ Association and Contributors 16 (2007): 54, 55. 28. See Dalip Kaur v. Pegawai Polis Daerah, Balai Polis Daerah, Bukit Mertajam & Anor [1991] 1 CLJ 77 at 85g-I—86a per Mohd Yusoff Mohamed SCJ, affirmed by Gunn Chit Tuan SCJ in Habibullah bin Mahmood v. Faridah bte Dato’ Talib [1993] 1 CLJ 264; Zubeydah bte Shaik Mohd v. Kalaichelvan a/l Alagapan [2003] 2 MLJ 471 (HC). 29. Lina Joy at [14] (emphasis added). 30. Lina Joy at 602 [49]-[51]. 31. Saeed and Saeed, Freedom of Religion, Apostasy and Islam, 144. 32. A. Aziz Bari, in M. Azam Mohamed Adil, Muslim World Journal of Human Rights 4, no. 2 (2007): Article 1, 18. 33. Ibid. 34. D. Jordan, “The Dark Ages of Islam: Ijtihad, Apostasy, and Human Rights in Contemporary Islamic Jurisprudence,” 9 Washington & Lee Race & Ethnic Ancestry Law Journal (2003): 55, 57. See also H. Roborgh, “Militant Islam and the Qur’an,” Quadrant 441 (2007): 56 at 58. 35. [2004] 2 MLJ 119, at 126G para. 10; 132I, para. 27. 36. Ibid. 37. Temple International and Comparative Law Journal 30 (1990). 38. Saeed and Saeed, Freedom of Religion, Apostasy and Islam, 12. 39. Ibid. 40. Article 11(5). 41. See Meor Atiqulraham bin Ishak & Anor. V. Fatimah Bte Sihi & Anor, Civil Application no. 01–3-2005 (N), Federal Court, July 12, 2006. 42. [2007] 1 AC 100; [2006] UKHL 15. 43. At 114 per Lord Bingham of Cornhill.

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44. At 117 per Lord Bingham of Cornhill. 45. At 132 per Baroness Hale of Richmond. 46. Lord Robert Walker of Gestingthorpe, “A UK Perspective on Human Rights ‘Judging,’ ” The Judicial Review 295, no. 8 (2007): 319. The decision of the House of Lords has been criticized on other grounds: see P. Lenta, “Muslim Headscarves in the Workplace and in Schools” South African Law Journal 296 (2007): 317–319. 47. Walker, “A UK Perspective,” 319. 48. Ibid., 319–20. For recent Australian cases, see Ermogenous v. Greek Orthodox Community (2002) 209 CLR 95 at 110 [37]-[39]; 118 [64]; 121–122 [74][76]; and Re McBain; ex parte Catholic Bishops’ Conference (2002) 209 CLR 372 at 429 [134]. 49. (2005) 223 ALR 171 at [64]; (2005) 80 ALJR 367; (2005) 88 ALD 257; [2005] HCA 77. 50. (2006) 228 CLR 152. 51. (2005) 79 ALJR 1142. See also SAAP v. Minister for Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (2005) 228 CLR 294 at 306 [31], 339 [146], a case involving adherents to the Sabian-Mandean beliefs in Iran. 52. Cf. Appellant s 395/2002 v. Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (2003) 216 CLR 473. 53. Ibid. at 124. 54. Amartya Sen in Identity and Violence (New York : W.W. Norton & Co., 2006) has pointed out that defence of ethnic rights can sometimes lead not to true “multiculturalism” but to “plural monoculturalism”: people living side by side but apart, policed by their own intolerant patriarchs. J. Button, “Liberals getting left out of the debate on Islam,” Sydney Morning Herald, October 22, 2007, 17. 55. B. Zwartz, “Interfaith Chair at Catholic University a World First,” The Age (Melbourne), November 7, 2007, 8. 56. The Griffith Asia Institute has initiated investigations of aspects of Islam in Asian societies. See “International Collaboration on Islam Bears Fruit” in Griffith Asia Institute Newsletter 10, no. 3 (Spring 2007): 3. 57. David B Goodman, Globalization and the Western Legal Tradition: Recurring Patterns of Law and Authority, Law in Context Series (Cambridge University Press, 2007), at 227.

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CHAPTER 5 HOLDING HANDS AND BEARING ARMS: A CONTINUING CHALLENGE FOR GLOBAL RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES Merrill Kitchen

Introduction The last one hundred years has been a time in which scientific research has yielded unprecedented life- saving contributions, but at the same time, probably more violent actions have been perpetrated by human beings on one another than ever before.1 All too frequently these conf licts have arisen among and between communities known as the “children of Abraham,” who have a common monotheistic religious history. Furthermore, each of the three faith traditions are being challenged by those passages in their holy scriptures that can be interpreted selectively to justify actions of aggression and rejection; at the same time, each has scriptural justification for initiatives that can lead to reconciliation and understanding of difference. One example of a variously interpreted scriptural passage in the Christian Bible is the Parable of the Pounds in the Gospel of Luke. This parable has been interpreted in many different ways over the past two millennia. Sometimes it has been cited to justify exploitation, polarization, and division, while at other times it has been seen as a prophetic stimulus for moral rectitude and passive resistance in the face of political and religious oppression. The parable will be explored in terms of its literary context along with the sociocultural contexts of its past and present audiences. A particular focus will be on the way in which early Christian scholars understood this parable when Christianity was a minority sect in the Mediterranean

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world in comparison with later interpretations that emerged within a context of politically dominant Christendom. It will be asserted that the interpretation and contemporary impact of ancient religious writings such as this parable are highly dependent on the interpretive lens employed by readers at the time. Finally, it will be suggested that the contemporary post- Christendom reader must be open to reviewing critically some of the commonly accepted readings of inf luential New Testament texts that justify oppressive actions and be open to differing interpretations that offer an understanding of affirmation and permission, in their embrace and even celebration of human difference. It will be argued that an alternative reading of the Parable of Pounds, for instance, opens a pathway to the kind of social capital that can embrace unity within diversity and promote the fair distribution of resources among contemporary global human communities. Reading the Parable of the Pounds There has never been a single commonly accepted homogeneous theological understanding within the contemporary Christian church, let alone between and among all three of the monotheistic religions. One of the greatest barriers has been a commitment to the literal inerrancy of holy scriptures that leads to a reduction of every situation of conf lict into “a cosmic war between the forces of good and evil” with the result that some religious groups define themselves over and against whomever, or whatever, is different.2 These proclamations of exclusivist faith understandings automatically relegate all other political or religious thought, including secular humanism, into categories that may be perceived as “unacceptable” or “other.”3 The complexity underlying the social and religious movements that inf luence these mind-sets should not be underestimated. At a time when globalization is an economic and increasingly political reality, religious inf luences such as these have the potential to impact, both positively and negatively, vast numbers of people. An example of one such passage in the Christian Bible that has been used to justify the accumulation of wealth as a divinely ordained blessing, and the destruction of dissidents as a logical management response, is the Parable of the Pounds found in the Third Gospel of the New Testament writings, which is assumed to have been authored by a man named Luke.4 The Third Gospel was probably written about a decade after the Romans destroyed the Second Temple in Jerusalem (70 c.e.). It was a time when the traditions of Judaism were being reexamined in the search for a future identity that would offer hope and meaning for Palestine’s dispossessed Jewish communities. Christianity, as a separate religious

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identity, was not yet a fixed concept, and the followers of Jesus Christ constituted just one of the many sects of Judaism in Palestine at the time. It was a time when the Jewish- Christian author, possibly a priest traditionally known as Luke,5 sought to reframe the remembered stories of Jesus so that these diverse newly developing sectarian communities could embrace each other as companions, and even siblings, who shared together the same history.6 Luke’s Gospel is the sole source for several significant stories told by Jesus that focused on the use of wealth, social privilege, and cross-cultural human relationships. They include the wellknown Parable of the Good Samaritan, and the Parable of the Prodigal Son, along with others about a Rich Fool, a Shrewd Manager, and a Rich Man and Lazarus.7 The Parable of the Pounds is not as well known, and although it almost certainly has a source in common with the Parable of the Talents found in the Gospel of Matthew.8 In Luke’s Gospel, however, the parable is situated in a totally different narrative context and has the potential to tell a more powerful story. The Gospel commences with stories of Jesus’s birth, infancy, and childhood with a distinctive emphasis on Jesus’s priestly family connections and their regular observance of the traditions of Israel. The narrative then proceeds to describe Jesus’s ministry of teaching and healing in the Galilee region and, in spite of the concern of others, his determination to return to Jerusalem, a place depicted as one of both hospitality and threat, of divine presence as well as absence. As the Lucan Jesus journeys along the way, his followers are consistently challenged to revisit their religious roots and to seek their distinctive ethical base. This produces the potential for hospitality to be given and received freely, no matter whether it is between friends or with perceived enemies;9 the forgiveness of debts will result in renewed relationships between lender and debtor on an equal footing;10 and the sharing of resources among the community will result in benefits for all.11 The Parable of the Pounds then addresses all of these ethical elements and is told as Jesus’s journey reaches its last stage on the way to Jerusalem.12 It is followed by stories of active confrontation with political and religious authorities, confusion and distress amongst Jesus’s followers, and then the arrest, trial, death, and resurrection of Jesus in Jerusalem. In the Parable of the Pounds, the Lucan Jesus tells a story about a ruthless, wealthy, and widely despised, community leader who goes overseas to seek enhanced political power for himself. Before leaving his own country, this so-called “nobleman” gives ten of his slaves ten pounds each with the direction that they should “Do business with these until I come back!”13 Then on his return, after receiving the political power he had been seeking, this newly appointed “nobleman-king” calls his slaves to

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account. The responses of only three of the ten slaves are mentioned in the parable. The first is rewarded with control over ten cities for having doubled the value of the nobleman-king’s investment in him, then the second is commensurately rewarded after showing that he had increased his allotment by 50 percent. Finally, the focus shifts to a third slave, who accuses his master of fraud and duplicity. He states clearly that he has preserved and then returned the ten pounds he had been given because he refuses to exploit others to produce enhanced wealth for his newly appointed master-ruler. The parable finishes with a challenging statement. From the mouth of the newly empowered ruler come the words, I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. And as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and slaughter them in my presence.14

Most Christian commentators see the nobleman-king as a positive character and affirm the shrewd productive investments by the first two slaves. Consequently, the third slave is seen then as an antagonistic character because he failed to make gains from the money entrusted to him. But careful attention to some of the intertextual elements in the Parable of the Pounds reveals some interesting connections and suggests that an alternative reading is possible. The third slave character is consistently defined as “other,” a term employed in the Third Gospel three times more often than in the other Gospels. This “other” slave is depicted carefully wrapping in a cloth the deposit he had received from his master and burying it. Interestingly, in this action the author aligns him with Mary, the mother of Jesus in the Lucan birth narrative, who wraps her newly born baby in a cloth and places it in a manger.15 Following an earlier source from Mark’s Gospel but adding an element of dissent, Luke describes Joseph of Arimathea as a member of the Jerusalem religious council, and depicts him taking the crucified body of Jesus, wrapping it in a linen cloth, and then reverently placing it in his own unused tomb.16 Another literary connection can be found in the Lucan passion narrative, where Jesus is judged by his religious elders on the basis of words uttered “from his own lips,” thus echoing the judgment on the third slave who, according to the nobleman-king, was “judged by his own words.”17 The result is that both characters, the Third Slave and Jesus, are condemned by the same pragmatic judicial system that puts its own interests before those of others.18 Interpreting the Parable of the Pounds by noting these intertextual elements is not antagonistic to the narrative f low of Luke’s Gospel but allows a continuity with the revelatory proclamation of tolerance and mutuality

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implicit in the prophetic charge to Israel that it be a “revelation to the Gentiles.”19 It also echoes the imperative to “love one’s neighbor as one loves oneself ” that is illustrated in the Parable of the Good Samaritan.20 The “other” slave, who refuses to be compromised by the nobleman-king in the Parable of the Pounds, can be seen as a faithful ref lection of the Lucan Jesus who also refuses to exploit his neighbor for personal gain. The characters of both the slave and Jesus are depicted as being determined to retain the mutuality and interdependence of reciprocal generosity in a society of “limited good,”21 holding on to what the author perceives as the true tradition of Israel at a time when others, for their own gain, may well have been aligning themselves with a number of different power groups to retain their authority and power in the midst of evolving new religious expressions. Another interesting contextual element when reading and interpreting the Parable of the Pounds is the historical reality that the parable was written at a time when memories of Archelaus and Antipas, two ambitious, ruthless sons of King Herod the Great, may have still been burning in the minds of the Gospel’s earliest audience. At the time of their inf luence, in the early first- century, Roman hegemony over the region of Palestine controlled its economy and fostered mutually productive connections with Jewish collaborators.22 After the death of Herod, these ambitious sons appealed to Rome for the right to rule over their father’s territory. Having received imperial consent, according to the historian Josephus, Archelaus returned and massacred more than 3,000 worshippers at the Jerusalem Temple during a Jewish feast.23 In light of this historical context it is not difficult to see why some of the earliest commentators on the Gospels, such as Irenaeus, interpreted this passage quite differently than later scholars living in the eras after the Emperor Constantine had embraced Christianity.24 The pre- Constantinian interpreters of the Christian scriptures tended to understand narrative characters such as princes, kings, and rulers as exemplars of abuse and repression. Their heroes were those who resisted ruling powers rather than those who collaborated. After Constantine, when the ruling power was on the side of the church, Christian scholars tended to read the same parables in reverse. The kings and rulers became godlike heroes, and the uncooperative characters were seen as treasonous, exemplars of revolt. Reading the Parable of the Pounds Today A survey of interpretations of the parable by a range of Christian scholars over the last century shows a continuing bias in favor of the wealthy characters.25 It also assumes that the accumulation of wealth is evidence of

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faithful service. The slave- owning, nobleman-king character is perceived then to be an allegory of a God who presumes uncritical loyalty with the right to destroy any who question the ethics of such a rule. Consequently, the disobedient “other” who refuses to comply with the directions of such a God is seen as disobedient and, having failed to meet the divine expectations, is judged appropriately. In addition, the characters of all of those who had objected to his pursuit of power are publicly, and justifiably, killed at his command. These objectors are seen by most New Testament commentators as representing anybody who has been found guilty of failing to welcome Jesus as Messiah. In terms of the human search for significance and power, little has probably changed since the eras of the Herods and Constantine. Certainly, Christianity, “whether colonized or colonizing, has not existed in abstraction from empire.”26 Instead of standing prophetically with the risk-taker or whistle-blower who would confront exploitative powers, the political and religious bodies of Christendom have always been tempted to invest their social and spiritual capital into “imperialistic ambitions,” often with the aim of “conquest and expansion, not in terms of any sort of joint exploration with other traditions.”27 Furthermore, in spite of the growth of a secular academy and an inherent individualism underlying most contemporary Western societies, an element of communal religious and economic fundamentalism continues to have a powerful inf luence. Some citizens continue to see their own rulers as “saviors,” and even regard themselves as specially chosen people.28 They may be outraged when other local, national or global groups question their claims of special privilege. Of course, it is possible that a group response to such challenges may lead to thoughtful ref lexive actions that result in harm minimization but, all too often, the reactions can be manifested in ethnic cleansing, focused oppression, and even terrorism in an attempt to retrieve group honor in the face of perceived global shame.29 Unfortunately, any effort to win individual human rights for people perceived to be enslaved by tyrannical dictatorships in honor-shame societies is likely to result in further tyranny and the further destabilization of their hierarchical social, economic, and political structures. Furthermore, even minority fundamentalist movements can use their small numbers to inf luence critical decision making. As a result, individual human rights risk being extinguished when the imposition of militant religious regimes enact their regimentation and cruel judgment.30 Sadly, there are religious groups in the twenty-firstst century who continue to claim the language of the medieval crusades. They label others, even including some within their own faith tradition, as the equivalent of infidels and traitors. It is not merely a clash between modernist

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and medieval thought as much as a syncretistic meshing of reason, revelation, and social formulation inf luenced by the kind of immediate anxious perceptions generated in times of threat and rapid change. In the present global community, there continues to be some powerfully inf luential religious bodies, once conceived by medieval ecclesial systems in “scholastic, doctrinal formulations” and administered by exclusivist clergy.31 Unless these religious bodies take the risk of voluntary powerlessness and engage in open dialogue with others from different traditions, their particular interpretations of the holy scriptures will continue to be used to justify privileged positions along with the control of power resources for particular benefit rather than the common good. In the twenty-first century, these controlling resources include educational facilities, military armaments, power-generating industries, agricultural developments, and border-protection constraints. The eyes of the world are able to penetrate in a way never seen before. Satellite dishes and television antennae dominate the rooftops of Beirut, Damascus, Cairo, Baghdad, Tel Aviv, Nazareth, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem today just as they do in all other cities in the region. At the same time as millions of people in Europe, the United States, and Australia are watching the daily breaking news; millions of others throughout the Middle East (including refugees) are seeing the same images through Hebrew and Arabic providers as well as from large Western providers such as the BBC and CNN. This common electronic bond links human beings around the globe, but reactions to the received images will differ depending on the way each viewer processes the information. While the anxious in some regions of the world will have their anxieties assuaged by images and discourses of trustworthy power and feel empowered to hold hands with those who are different, there are others whose outrage will be intensified by the same discourse and who will take up arms against those perceived as the enemy “other.” It does not matter whether the anxious viewer is American or Iraqi; Australian or Afghani; Zimbabwean or South African; Jewish, Christian, or Muslim—this stark human reality has been demonstrated over and over again in all people groups throughout all human eras. In terms of global harmony and longevity, it is important to remember that there are liberal capitalist structures and economic hegemonies that appear, for their long-term survival, to be heavily dependent on natural energy resources that are often geographically situated in the lands of their perceived enemy. If amicable access to high- dependency products such as oil becomes impossible, it seems inevitable that a move back to potentially world-threatening nuclear energy resources will occur. Such a scenario can be resisted by those who have the power to make change. Like the “other” slave in the Parable of the Pounds, there are significant

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voices within each of the Abrahamic faith communities that offer pathways toward the development of mutually beneficial concepts of hope. By imaginatively integrating the perceived polarities, perhaps a retained truth embedded in the Gospel paradox can be embraced once again inspiring an attitude of reception, appreciation, and hospitality to the “other” in the hope that these actions will be reciprocated with responses of grace. Perhaps the Parable of the Pounds could be transliterated for the twenty-firstst century reader thus: A political leader went to an international gathering of leaders from the twelve most powerful nations in order to gain appointment as his country’s representative. He summoned ten of his advisors, and challenged them to recruit as many supporters as possible for his ultra- conservative nationalist agenda. But an ecumenical inter-faith delegation of religious leaders of his country, who were deeply concerned about his policies, sent a delegation after him, saying, “We do not want this man to exert his racist and sexist policies in our country.” On his return, the first came forward and said, “Global leader, I have recruited ten of the world’s most powerful media magnates to your cause.” He said to her, “Well done, good advisor! Because you have been trustworthy in a very small thing, take charge of the multi-million dollar Global economic portfolio I now have.” Then the second came, saying, “Global Leader, I have recruited the five wealthiest people in the world to your cause.” He said to him, “And you, take charge of the Global Trade and Industry portfolio.” Finally, another came, saying, “My Leader, here is your written request of me. I folded it up and put it in an envelope, for I refuse to abuse others for my own political ambitions, I am fearful of you, because you are a very ambitious and ruthless man; you are taking what you did not earn, and you are attempting to reap what you did not sow.” The Global Leader said to him, “I will judge you by your own words, you wicked advisor! Then turning to his bystanders he commanded, “Take his position from him and give it to the head of Global Economics.” But the religious leaders who were also standing by said to him, “Global Leader, stop constantly rewarding the exclusivist racists all the time!” To which [the Global Leader] retorted, “I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. But as for these enemies of mine—these undermining ecumenical inter-faith religious leaders—bring them here and silence their voices by getting rid of them.

The Lucan Jesus held closely to the tradition of Israel and refused to conform to the demands of corrupt religious and political powers. Ultimately, it cost him his life. At the same time a new awareness began to emerge, and a paradoxical power from a stance of voluntary powerlessness stimulated

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new religious reformations to emerge from the cradle of Israel. It did not stop the cycles of violence that have continued to whirl over millennia, but it did offer alternative pathways for human relationship—ways of holding hands with each other and respecting difference rather than bearing arms in order to eradicate the other. The cost of holding hands rather than bearing arms may be heavy, but there are many from the whole gamut of world religions in the last century who, for the benefit of all humanity, have refused to exploit the other. Almost sixty years ago, Nelson Mandela urged South Africans to “break out of the vicious cycle of dependence imposed on us by the financially powerful” describing the oppressors as people who “dare to fashion the world in their own image.”32 These words cost him his freedom for 27 years. For Martin Buber and Jonathan Sacks, from the Jewish tradition, it is about saying “thou” before saying “I” or “we.”33 Emanuel Levinas, in his essays on Judaism, writes, The justice rendered to the Other, to my neighbour, gives me an unsurpassable proximity to God [. . .] One follows the Most High God, above all by drawing near to one’s neighbour, and showing concern for “the widow, the orphan, the stranger and the beggar,” an approach that must not be made with “empty hands.”34

The teachings of the Qurān also frame this ethic of mutuality and reciprocity in the language of “holding hands.” As Dr. Ghazi Salahuddin Atabani points out, “[R]ather than indulging in sterile polemics with Christians and Jews, Muslims are encouraged to hold hands with them in spreading monotheism, adhering to virtues and abstaining from vices.”35 It is in the encouraging words and actions of people such as these that, in putting the needs of others before our own, we can hear the heartbeat and feel the hand of God. Notes 1. See Karen Armstrong, Holy War: The Crusades and their Impact on Today’s World (Macmillan, London, 1988), 1–4. 2. Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (London: HarperCollins, 2000), xi 3. Ibid., 86. 4. Luke 19:11–27. 5. Rick Strelen, Luke the Priest. The Authority and Author of the Third Gospel (Aldershot UK/Burlington VT: Ashgate, 2008), 1. 6. Craig A. Evans, Luke (Peabody MA: Hendrickson, 1990), 7. See also Bruce W. Tuckman & Mary Ann C. Jensen, “Stages of Small Group

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7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

19. 20. 21.

22.

23. 24.

25.

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Development Revisited,” Group and Organizational Studies 2 (1977): 419–427. Luke 12:16–21; 15:11–31; 16:1–8, 9–13. Matthew 25: 14–30. Luke 10: 1–38; 13:10–18; 14:1–23; 15:1–32; 18:35–19:20. Luke 11:1–4; 16:1–31; 17:1–4. Luke 11:5–9; 12:13–31; 18:18–27. Luke 19:11–27. Luke 19:13. Luke 19:26–27. Luke 2:7. Luke 2:7; 23:53. Luke 19:22 ; 22:71. For a more extensive exegetical analysis, see Merrill Kitchen, “Rereading the Parable of the Pounds: A Social and Narrative Analysis of Luke 19:11–28,” in Prophecy and Passion. Essays in Honour of Athol Gill, ed. David Neville (Hindmarsh, SA: Australian Theological Forum, 2002), 225–246. Isaiah 52:10/Luke 2:32. Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18 /Luke 10:27. George M. Foster, “Peasant Society and the Image of Limited Good,” American Anthropologist 67, no. 2 (1965): 304–305; Halvor Moxnes, The Economy of the Kingdom of God. Social Conflict and Economic Relations in Luke’s Gospel (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1988), 75–98. See Josephus, Life of Flavius Josephus, 68–76, in The Works of Josephus, trans. William Whiston (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1987), 23–26; also Séan Freyne, Galilee: From Alexander the Great to Hadrian 323 BCE to 135 CE. A Study of Second Temple Judaism (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1998), 165–170. Josephus, Wars of the Jews 2.1.1 – 8.1.1 in The Works of Josephus, 511–525. Irenaeus, Against Heresies. Book 1, VI.4; Book II, XXIV.3 in The AnteNicene Fathers. Volume 1. eds. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1972), 324, 411–412. Also Frédéric Manns, “La Parabole des Talents: Wirkungsgeschichte et racines Juives,” Revue des Sciences Religieuses 65 (1991): 346–358, extensively reviews the interpretations of the Parable of the Talents in the Patristic writings, commenting in passing on the Parable of the Pounds. See also Eusebius, De Theophania, cited in William D. Stroker, Extracanonical Sayings of Jesus (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1989), 45. See, for example, J. Norval Geldenhuys, Commentary on the Gospel of Luke (London/Edinburgh: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1950) 473–478; I. Howard Marshall, Commentary on Luke. NIGCT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1978), 700–709; Eduard Schweizer, The Good News according to Luke, trans. David E. Green (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press), 1984, 292–296; J. Massyngbaerd Ford, My Enemy is My

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26.

27. 28. 29.

30. 31. 32.

33.

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Guest: Jesus and Violence in Luke (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1984), 108– 109; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke X-XXIV (New York: Doubleday, 1985),1227–1233; Michael Goulder, Luke. A New Paradigm. Vols. I and II, (Sheffield, UK: JSOT Press, 1989), 683; Craig A. Evans, Luke (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1990), 285; Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke. NICNT (Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 1997), 673–680. But note that the dissonance was recognized over a century ago by the German theologian Adolf Jülicher, Die Gleichnisreden Jesu (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1910), 472–495. Later commentators recognizing the dissonance include Joachim Jeremias, Rediscovering the Parables, trans. S. H. Hooke (London: SCM Press, 1966), 46–47; Luke Timothy Johnson, “The Lukan Kingship Parable (Luke 19.11–27),” Novum Testamentum 24, 2 (1982): 139; Ignaçe de la Potterie, “La Parabole du Prétendant à la Royauté (Lc 19.11–28)”, A Cause de l’Évangile, Études sur les Synoptiques et les Actes (Paris: Cerf/ Publications de Saint-Abdré, 1986), 641; James M.Dawsey, The Lukan Voice. Confusion and Irony in the Gospel of Luke (Macon, GA: Peeters Mercer, 1986), 96–97; J. D. M. Derrett, “A Horrid Passage in Luke Explained,” Expository Times 97 (1986): 136–138; Halvor Moxnes, The Economy of the Kingdom. Social Conflict and Economic Relations in Luke’s Gospel (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1988), 73; Brendan Byrne The Hospitality of God. A Reading of Luke’s Gospel. (Strathfield, NSW: St. Paul’s, 2000), 152–153. Catherine Keller, “The Love of Postcolonialism: Theology in the Interstices of Empire,” in Postcolonial Theologies: Divinity and Empire, ed. Catherine Keller, Michael Nausner, and Mayra Rivera (St. Louis, MS: Chalice, 2004), 223; see also Bernard Lewis, The Multiple Identities of the Middle-East (London: Phoenix, 1999), 26–28. Keith Ward, “Convergent Spirituality,” in Christianity in the 21st Century, ed. Deborah A. Brown (New York: Crossroad, 2000), 49. Armstrong, The Battle for God, 368. For a discussion on the social values of honor and shame, see Bruce J. Malina and Jerome H. Neyrey, “Honor and Shame in Luke-Acts: Pivotal Values of the Mediterranean World,” in The Social World of LukeActs. Models for Interpretation. ed. Jerome H. Neyrey (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991), 25–65. Armstrong, Battle for God, 86. Walter Bruegemann, Testimony to Otherwise. The Witness to Elijah and Elisha (St. Louis MS: Chalice Press, 2007), 28. Nelson Mandela, “No Easy Walk to Freedom” address, August 21, 1953. In In the Words of Nelson Mandela, ed. Jennifer Crwys-Williams (Secaucus, NJ: Carol Publishing, 1998), 16. Martin Buber, I and Thou, trans. R. G. Smith. New York: Macmillan, 1987; Jonathan Sacks, The Dignity of Difference. How to Avoid the Clash of Civilisations (London/New York: Continuum, 2003), 151.

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34. Terry Veling, “In the name of Who? Levinas and the Other side of Theology,” Pacifica 12 (1999): 292, citing Emmanuel Levinas, Difficult Freedom: Essays on Judaism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 18, 26. 35. Ghazi Salahuddin Atabani, “Islamic Shari‘ah and the Status of NonMuslims,” Religion, Law and Society. A Christian-Muslim Discussion, ed. Tarek Mitri (Geneva/Kampen: WCC Publications / Kok Pharos Publishing, 1995), 64.

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PART II IMPLICATIONS FOR MULTIFAITH DIALOGUE—ASSESSMENT AND CRITIQUE

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CHAPTER 6 RELATIONSHIP BUILDING IN THE MIDDLE EAST AMONG ADVERSARIES: ISRAELIS AND PALESTINIANS Dvir Abramovich

Introduction This chapter will showcase the invaluable role that intercultural dialogue, encounters, workshops, and structured interactions between Israeli Jews and Palestinians play in advancing reconciliation and friendships, crucial to long-term resolution of the conf lict. Also identified and examined are the unsung peacemakers and conciliators who, in the face of hostility and accusations of betrayal, are holding reconciliation-aimed sessions between Israelis and Palestinians and Jews and Muslims to bridge the cultural gap and put a human face on the other. Referring to the “Contact Hypothesis,” Ifat Maoz correctly asserts that “intergroup contact can, under certain conditions, be effective in reducing hostility and prejudice and in creating more positive attitudes between the groups.”1 Furthermore, this chapter will illustrate that, despite the overwhelming reports and images of violence that foreground the suffering of both peoples, and have engendered a sense of irreconcilable differences and hopelessness, there is another perspective to be considered within this rubric. The ongoing strife, incitement to hatred by radicals, and heartrending tales of bloodshed and violence may reasonably be perceived as an indication of how far from reconciliation Israelis and Palestinians are. Reconciliation is not easy in a region dominated by painful memories, and there are those who contend that the current disorders may tragically

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foreclose any prospects of a peaceful resolution. Hatred might well be expected among Israelis and Palestinians who are angry about the lack of progress in the peace process and who have had to persevere through the darkest days that saw many “peaceniks” give up hope. Still, another narrative is gradually coming to the fore. Many Israelis and Palestinians have rejected a nihilistic path, escaping the cauldron of their tragedy, rage, and despair and casting their lot with the alternative path of reconciliation. Yes, the media prefers to center its reports on the pessimism, hurt, religious schism, and simmering tension between Israelis and Palestinians, but the inarguable truth is that intercultural and reconciliation efforts between Jews and Arabs are quietly gathering momentum, both in Israel and around the world. Small and faithful acts of hope, they form part of a continuum of peacemaking possibilities propelled forward by those tireless militants for peace who are driven by the belief that the mightiest tree may grow from the tiniest seed, that reconciliation is a drop spreading hope in a sea of bitterness. Despite the daunting obstacles to reconciliation, people on both sides have decided not to allow the extremists win, choosing to approach the other’s culture and faith with an open mind and heart. Searching through the deepening morass that bedevils the two peoples, they can see beyond the seemingly hopeless circumstances. For it has become common wisdom that the solution to the Israeli Palestinian divide necessarily requires vigorous and imaginative principals who, groping toward common ground, can lift the combatants out of the worsening chaos. David Makovsky, a former executive editor at the Jerusalem Post, contends that “there is no other way to resolve the endless conf lict between Middle Eastern Muslims and Jews than a long dialogue modeled on the successful talks that took place between once mutually suspicious Jews and Roman Catholics.”2 It is clear to most observers that governments may sign treaties, but only people can make peace. 3 Most commentators concur that “the promotion of successful people-to-people efforts are an important element in the arsenal of peace building. It is becoming increasingly acknowledged that peace promotion on the community level must accompany peace building on the elite level.”4 And “recent approaches to the resolution of conf lict emphasize the long and gradual process of peace-building and reconciliation that has to follow the stage of peacemaking.”5 Because of the media’s penchant for chronicling only the carnage and havoc associated with the Arab-Israeli clash, meetings and forums in which Israelis and Palestinians have engaged with each other, have listened compassionately and without judgment, and have built relationships have

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gone under the radar. The dialogue groups, projects, and stirring initiatives explored herein are driven by Gene Knudson Hoffman’s dictum that “an enemy is one whose story we have not heard.” This principle is dramatized in Yossi Klein Halevi’s At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew’s Search for Hope With Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land (2001), a sobering and illuminating search by one of Israel’s finest reporters on the religious dimensions of conf licts in the Middle East. A senior writer for the Jerusalem Report, Halevi endeavors to embrace religious empathy to discover whether faith could be a means of healing rather than intensifying the conf licts in the region. It is also worth considering the philosophical tenets of Rabbi Michael Lerner, the editor of the Jewish journal Tikkun (in Hebrew, “repair of the world”) who heads the Tikkun community, a peace lobby group. In his instructive study Healing Israel? Palestine (2003), Lerner first advocates stopping the blame game. He then posits that this is to be followed by a new spirit of generosity, heart-to-heart reconciliation, and a true commitment to find nonviolent roads to peace even when violent elements have momentarily taken over. Lerner’s progressive middle path has the goal of producing a public climate that will induce grass-roots leaders, as well as policymakers who previously were weary of taking risks to deny hard liners and strive for a just peace. For decades, a single-track approach was deployed in the Israeli-Arab conf lict in an attempt to make peace from the top down. One could argue that earlier efforts to solve the conf lict, for instance the 1993 Oslo Accords, failed because the leaders were ahead of their constituencies. By not building trust between citizens, the architects of the Oslo Accords did not enable their respective populace to possess the confidence to make peace and did not involve the ordinary “person on the street” in the process. The Post-9/11 Cultural Landscape There is little question that in the post-9/11 cultural landscape, the need for tolerance among peoples of different faiths has become more urgent, especially in the war-torn Middle East, where religion-inspired violence often turns homicidal and catastrophic. Rabbi David Rosen, a Jewish American leader, shrewdly observes that “if there is no peace among religions, there can be no peace among humanity.”6 Lacking a charismatic leader, activists for dialogue between Jews and Arabs face various challenges in getting their message out and appealing to a public conditioned to scandals and fiery demagogues who routinely seize the spotlight and command worldwide followers.

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Inherent Difficulties Another difficulty is that often Israelis and Palestinians cannot communicate, or see beyond their cultural barriers, each clutching to their own prejudices and perceptions of the other. As a host of theorists have appositely remarked, [I]dentity constructions among Jews and Palestinians largely evolve around the conf lict between the sides. In this conf lict, each national group historically holds extreme monolithic constructions of the other group as the enemy, as inherently evil, and of itself as just, right and moral. Such constructions justify one’s own right to self- determination and fulfillment of identity and security needs, while denying and delegitimizing such rights for the other side.7

This state of affairs undermines the ability of Israelis and Palestinians to jettison deeply entrenched exclusionary mind- sets. More fundamentally, the varying historical circumstances from which Arab and Jewish cultures have surfaced means that different communicative patterns have emerged, making verbal intercourse exacting. “Boundary Spanning” Dialogue Approach One way to engage multicultural, multilingual parties is suggested by theorists Christakis and Brahms. In an insightful disquisition that identifies the crucial role dialogue plays in facilitating reconciliation, Christakis and Brahms speak of the boundary-spanning dialogue approach.8 This conf lict-resolution methodology tool used to promote productive discourse is based on the concept of agora, a reference to “the open space where ancient Athenian citizens assembled to take part in their governance process.”9 In essence, the purpose of the agora is to enable each person to take part in the process that affects their lives and express his or her values in an open and transparent manner, without fear that the other side will impose their assumptions and mores. As a matter of fact, in April 2001, a cadre of Israelis and Palestinians involved with the Neve Shalom/Wāhat al-Salām (Oasis of Peace) School for peace took part in a workshop held in Cyprus that proved quite successful. Co-Educational Projects In this connection, it is worthwhile referencing a remarkable co-education initiative that strove to improve intercultural and interreligious relations and bridge the ethnic divide between Palestinians and Jews. Recognizing

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that multicultural and bilingual education can ease tensions and help foster better respect for the heritage of the other, while at the same time providing an opportunity for mutual respect and equality, two schools in Israel fashioned a public show that celebrated three distinct festivals— Hanukkah ( Jewish), Christmas (Christian), and ‘īd al-fitr (Muslim).10 At this juncture, it is prudent to dwell brief ly on the benefits of bilingual education. The propitious outcomes of bilingual pedagogy, enlisted as a strategy for augmenting intergroup bonds and attitudes are varied. First, it empowers the minority students and enhances their self-esteem. This is because their home tongue and culture are integrated into the school surrounding. Second, the majority group profits from the venture in that bilingualism accords intellectual enrichment and a weightier fusion of cultural pluralism into the fabric of its learning. Third, it allows for the reframing of ethnic relationships and affords both parties equal chances for scholastic achievement.11 The joint celebration, a brainchild of the school’s teachers, took place during the 2000–2001 academic year in the schools established by the Centre for Bilingual Education in Israel. In essence, the educators designed a commemorative, ritual performance that co- opted ingredients from the three religions and that sought to create unified ideals and identities. The celebration was commensurate with the ideology of “The Centre for Bilingual Education” in Israel, which insists on preserving symmetry and balance across all levels within the school— administrative, curricular, and practical.12 For the purposes of this chapter, we shall concentrate on the Muslim and Jewish aspects of the celebration. Entitled “The Festival of Light,” the organizers purposefully avoided spotlighting only Hanukkah, which bears an almost identical moniker, challenging the hegemony of the Jewish Holy Day and casting their inclusive net widely to equally represent the Muslim festival that concludes the Ramadan fast.13 The auditorium where the show took place was dappled with symbols drawn from the three festivals, including information kits on each of the traditions. Arab and Jewish children stood on the stage, in a scene that was hailed later by the principal as exemplifying what the school was all about. Most importantly, the sense generated by the combined effort was that all religions were evenly honored, aided and abetted by the decorations and by the manner by which the stage was set up, resulting in a rare evenness and conformity between the faiths that is rarely seen.14 At the end of the function, several parents spoke about their children’s involvement in the function particularly and in the school generally. The majority stressed the desirability of co-existence, of the importance of acknowledging one’s own heritage and ethnicity, which eventually

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strengthens understanding toward other groups. Ultimately, the overriding goal of such schools, where both Hebrew and Arabic are deployed in the teaching, is to instill within the students positive attitudes toward their peers and respect for their corresponding religions. In a sense, this special presentation, eschewing ideological agendas and political overtones, suggests that to transcend the deep-seated discord between Israeli Jews and Palestinians, Judaism must be disentangled. In other words, religion must remain distinct from the nationalist movement and must assume center stage. In various ways, this is quite ironic, since most of the Jewish students are secular and do not embrace religion as a way of life.15 At bottom, this extraordinary enterprise and its refashioning of longheld conf lictual stances was [g]eared towards effecting a new social order. By mediating collective abstractions (togetherness, peace, multiculturalism, toleration of difference, overcoming hatred), inducing actions (each of us can partake in the religious experience of the other; each of us can reshape his/her own tradition), and reconstructing knowledge and experience . . . this public event reshapes conf licting identities into a new order.16

Bilingual schools offer hope for a more optimistic path in Arab-Jewish relations since they encase within their midst the seed and vision of a harmonious, more dignified landscape of co-existence. A similar intercultural project to promote coexistence and respect was launched in September 2007 in Beer Sheva, Israel’s fourth-largest city. The Hagar Association’s central aim is to develop and build an “educational space in which Jewish and Arab children are educated together in an atmosphere of equality, tolerance, bilingualism and multiculturalism.”17 To realize that goal, the association has founded The Hagar School, which currently has 50 students across a preschool and a kindergarten. Class composition is evenly split between Jewish and Arab children, with lessons taught by Jewish and Arab teachers in Hebrew and in Arabic. Classrooms are decorated with letters of the alphabet and the days of the week in both languages. Partial funding is provided by the Ministry of Education and the Beer-Sheva Municipality Fund, with remaining monies coming from the Yad Beyad (Hand in Hand) Foundation. Underlying the co-education philosophy is the desire to at once teach children to appreciate their own unique cultural heritage and to comprehend and respect the differences that surround them. To further drive their goal of bringing Jews and Arabs closer, the school actively encourages parents’ involvement through a committee system that facilitates shared parent participation in

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workshops and joint holiday celebrations. In accordance with the association’s tenet of collective Arab-Jewish decision making, board, kindergarten staff, and the various committees are made up of Arabs and Jews. The overriding purpose of Hagar is to proffer a space and an avenue through which the community can foster “lasting relationships based on equality, tolerance and recognition of the other’s uniqueness.”18 In January 2008, the kindergarten children celebrated the Jewish festival of Tu Bishvat and the Muslim festival of ‘īd al-saghīr.19 Beyond the extraordinary atmosphere of the school, the 2009 Gaza War has affected Hagar’s efforts to attract children, especially since the South of Israel and Beer Sheva were subject to the onslaught of rocket attacks. Yet, the parents were determined to unite against the increasing antagonism between Beer Sheva residents and the Hagar kindergarten, and are intent on preserving the prevailing atmosphere of compassion they have nurtured and cultivated among the students.20 Indeed, as one parent remarked, the daily contact enables the children to combat radicalism, “[B]efore my child is exposed to the winds of racism, he knows that Arab means Wasim or any other child at the Kindergarten, children just like him.”21 Mark Mathbane’s South African Model The scholar Mark Mathabane urges Israelis and Palestinians to look to South Africa as a model out of the knotty stalemate. Mathabane employs the Zulu concept which insists that there can be no resolution without acknowledging the other’s humanity (the concept served as the basis for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission) believing that this approach will lead Israelis and Palestinians to identify with each other’s misery, rather than focus singularly on their own.22 Citing President Lincoln’s second inaugural address, which was imbued with pleas of charity for all and malice toward none, and which helped restore a frayed nation, the human rights lecturer describes how Mandela spoke of the Afrikaners’ anguished memories of their own agony at the hands of the British during the Boer War. The Afrikaners’ suffering resulted in them setting up a racist entity in the name of survival—a political system that oppressed and trampled on the humanity of the blacks. Mandela’s public appeal was noted and embraced by the resentful black majority largely because he was uttering those words as a human being, pleading with his brethren to crawl into the skin of the Afrikaners and accept their humanity despite being victimized and dehumanized for centuries. Mathabane asks us to imagine the Palestinians empathizing with the Jewish suffering during the Holocaust and Israelis acknowledging the Palestinians’ grief at being stateless. In a similar vein, David Goldberg believes that when peace is

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ultimately reached between Israelis and Palestinians, it will be crucial for a local Truth and Reconciliation commission to be set up to “restore a modicum of trust between both sides and remind them of the terribly fallible, fragile, but recognizable, humanity of the other.”23 Tools for Conflict Resolution According to the researchers Ellis and Maoz communication is a vital tool in resolving international conf licts since it is the basis for establishing acceptable working relationships where core issues can be attended to. They cite such methods as transformative meditation, a technique whose central objective is to address inequality domination and enslavement, while at the same time activating real change and growth in the participants. Fixing their gaze on the Israeli-Palestinian conf lict, the authors of a wide-ranging article claim that transformative communication engagements, coupled with governmental and intergovernmental involvement, can solve ethno-political feuds that are usually characterized by “misperceptions, negative stereotyping, mutual de-legitimization and severe communication.”24 “Interactive Conflict Resolution” Another effective course in managing long-standing conf licts is “Interactive Conf lict Resolution,” a structured approach that facilitates face-to-face communication and is centered on enhancing understanding, lessening prejudice, and mending fractured relations. Within the context of JewishArab relations, there exists the conf lict management workshops, utilized to draw together the warring parties in a comparatively secluded location, and to allow them to know each other, and to put on display, front and center, the roots and consequences of the dispute in a transparent way.25 This model of problem-solving gatherings was first evolved in the 1970s by Herbert Kelman of Harvard University and was later put into action by Kelman and his associates, assembling Israeli and Palestinian peace activists for eye-to-eye conversations. The workshops explored by Ellis and Maoz took place following the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords, bringing together Jewish and Arab youth. Studies carried out in the aftermath of such dialogue workshops strongly indicate that the meetings substantively improved relationships between Israelis and Palestinians and helped in lowering friction and debunking negative characterizations. Ellis and Maoz delineate the two chief purposes of the group workshops: The first one is that of conf lict transformation—its interventions are aimed at changing relationships and at moral growth that produces justice,

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forgiveness, and reconciliation. The second one is that of community relations. This theory of practice sees the conf lict as an on-going polarization, distrust, and hostility between groups that exacerbate existing tensions. Its interventions are aimed at improving communication and understanding, promoting tolerance, encouraging acceptance of diversity, and encouraging structures that safeguard the rights of all.26 During the workshops, facilitators adopted various procedures to sustain positive intergroup exchange. One was “perspective taking.” This strategy prods participants to place themselves in the position of the other side so as to embrace an emphatic stance that encourages greater understanding of their counterpart’s emotions and demands. As a result of such constructive dynamics, the cultural and experiential gulf between members of the competing groups can be narrowed to such an extent that individuals can learn to take the other’s viewpoint into account. The Role of Religion Certainly, one of the paths to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conf lict is to develop an ongoing channel of interaction not only between the two nations but also between the two religions. Ben Mollov and Chaim Lavie claim that religious cultural elements can be used to facilitate peace building: Religiously based dialogue has the potential to move mutual perceptions to more favorable positions based on the similarities between Islam and Judaism. Such dialogue can also clarify to both sides the identification which each side has with the same land.27

One can ref lect that religion has not infrequently played a major part in fuelling antagonism and inciting violence in the region. Principally, both nations must slowly accept each other, with each other’s differences and contrasting beliefs. Arthur Hertzberg, a moderate rabbi to whom many have turned for advice on Middle East matters, conveys in his book The Fate of Zionism: A Secular Future for Israel and Palestine the all-purpose message that religious extremists and ideologues in both camps have elevated nationalist disputes into divine mandates, in effect building barriers that are nearly impossible to scale. Hertzberg’s fear is that Israelis and Palestinians may ultimately be shackled by their own hurts and lose the ability to take account of the other’s pain.28 Often the interreligious encounters are made up of a simple exchange of views, as in the case of Hamad Abu Daoud, the leader of the Jahalin, a Bedouin community, and Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom. The two men sit

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on mats in a tent situated on a hill overlooking the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim and talk about family, about the problems the Bedouin face in a modernized world, and about the volunteers Milgrom supervises who tutor the Bedouins in English.29 An organization that belies the charge of naïve idealism is the Oz Vashalom Netivot Shalom, a religious peace movement. What is astonishing is that it is headed by Yitzhak Frankenthal, an orthodox Jew whose 19-year-old son Arik, while a soldier in the Israeli tank forces, was abducted and shot three times in the head by Hamās terrorists in 1994. Frankenthal admits that he does not love the Palestinians, but recognizes that there is only one way to stop the killing, and that is to make peace through compromise. Frankenthal has also established The Families Forum, an interfaith peace organization composed of bereaved Jewish families and Palestinian bereaved parents who lost children to the protracted slaughter and who campaign for the establishment of a Palestinian state and for interreligious dialogue. Since 1994 the group has lectured to more than 50,000 students in Israeli schools and community centers, in addition to staging a series of political rallies and donating blood to each other’s hospitals.30 Most of all, the parents help one another cope with the loss of their loved ones in the interminable strife swirling in and out of their lives. Eight years later, Frankenthal joined Natalia Wieselteir and Shmulik Cohen to create “Hello, Salaam! Hello, Shalom,” a telephone hotline that allows Israelis and Palestinians to talk with someone on the other side.31 Within the first seven months of the hotline’s launch, more than 80,000 people from across Israel and the Palestinian areas have called the telephone line talking for about 300,000 minutes. The success, in the prevailing climate of apprehension and mistrust, when simply talking to an Israeli can be a dangerous act, is astounding. For ordinary Palestinians and Israelis, disenchanted with the trite political machinations of their leaders, and the attendant disgruntlements, “Hello, Salaam! Hello, Shalom!” has furnished them with a life- changing opportunity, one that has transformed their deep-rooted perceptions. To wit, Cohen relates a gratifying story about a high school student who convinced his grandmother, an ardent right winger, to call the service. After relenting to his requests, she came off the phone astonished at what had transpired, crying out, “They’re just like us.”32 We ought to also mention the Yakar Synagogue/study center based in Jerusalem, which has since 1981 been teaching religious issues to Jewish and Arab students. The pioneering, pluralistic initiative, founded in 1978 by Rabbi Micky Rosen, allows the Arab students (who travel by bus from the Islamic college in Baka Al-Gar) and their Jewish counterparts to learn

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that there are a myriad of ways of looking at parallel narratives from the two religions. Led by rabbis and qadis, the students examine such topics as the sanctity of the land and the status of women, absorbing the different points of view Judaism and Islam offer and understanding that there is no right or wrong way when reading texts and doctrines found in the Jewish Bible and the Qur’ān.33 More than anything else, the project vividly celebrates diversity and demonstrates the truism that while there are extremists on both sides, the Jewish and Muslim faiths preach peace and harmony. In the wake of four traumatic years of suicide bombings that severely tested the Israeli people’s belief in the potential for resolution, grassroots organizations such as Rabbis for Human Rights, made up of Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionalist Rabbis are involved in finding alternative accommodations or rebuilding the demolished homes of Palestinians and Bedouins evacuated by the Israeli government for administrative reasons.34 Showing a maturity and wisdom that acknowledges that Israelis and Palestinians have more in common than what separates them, Rabbis for Human Rights also conduct English classes for Arab children. The “Open House” Initiative Yet it is not only groups that are campaigning for better relations between Arabs and Jews. Individuals such as Yehezkel and Dalia Landau have been working to bring peace for nearly 15 years through their Open House initiative. Run by Yehezkel Landau and Michail Fanous, a Palestinian educator, the Open House is a center situated in the Arab town of Ramle that is devoted to building trust and friendships between Muslim and Jewish children, “in the spirit of their common forefather Abraham through whom all families of the earth shall be blessed.”35 Among the programs the center runs are a summer camp for 100 Jewish and Arab teenagers and an Arab and Jewish parents’ network, as well as a day care center that caters for Arab children. Nadia Milad, a Palestinian Muslim working in the center, encapsulates the need for such a place: [W]e live here with Jewish people. We shop in the market with them. But there isn’t any real connection. Here we try to make an opportunity for Jews and Arabs to get to know each other (and learn) that children are very much the same.36

The Bar-Ilan–Hebron Project A moving case study of the role and impact culture can have on progressing Israeli-Palestinian relations, as well as the power of dialogue

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in improving conjunct perceptions resides in a project between Jewish students from Bar-Ilan University and Palestinian university students from the Hebron area. The initiators and those who later assessed the merit of the encounters began with the premise that culture, which in the Middle East is guyed within the realm of religion, can serve as the lever to elevate the strained relationship. In fact, the authors of the study note that a number of respected academicians, such as Fisher, Geertz, and Huntington, repeatedly underscore the nexus between religion and culture and the centrality of the two elements on the collective values of people who may not necessarily be fervently observant. One should venture the observation that as a result of the meeting and activities that occurred between the 180 students (reported to generate cordial feelings) vibrant and enduring friendships were cultivated between the chief organizers, who showed sympathy and support during times of violent periods and personal crises. The data collected by the researchers, garnered from questionnaires the Israeli Jewish participants and Palestinian Arab participants filled out, clearly illustrated that any type of contact, minimal or general, will induce more moderate and favorable perceptions among the opposing camps.37 As a matter of fact, the researchers found that Palestinian students who had basic contact with Israelis, evinced a more amicable disposition toward Israelis than those who did not. Thus, it was concluded that human contact is an optimal avenue to lowering animosity. Examining additional projects of religious-based dialogue, the collected quantitative data indicated that even though there was not a huge change or a life-changing shift in attitudes recorded, one crucial fact to emerge was a greater inclination on the part of the Palestinian members to resume contact with the Israelis. It is evident that interfaith talks contain the promise of moving conf licting sides toward more conciliatory positions, and religion, rather than escalating violence, can moderate it. As the authors of the study assert, critical discourse in this field affirms that “individuals will change their negative attitude towards another group when they discover that others hold attitudes or beliefs similar to their own.” The importance of discovering commonality in the other is being increasingly acknowledged by other researchers concerned with intergroup reconciliation with attention to the interreligious element. 38 All in all, a dominant thread in intercultural dialogue is the deployment of religion as a medium to navigate a course through the explosive waters of an ethnic feud, which humanizes the region’s perennial enemies and encourages each side to find some type of accommodation based on common interests and respect of correlative aspirations.

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Another dialogue meeting between Palestinian and Jewish students, concerned with reducing antipathy and suspicion, took place between October 1996 and January 1997. Composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate students, the encounter was led by Jewish and Palestinian facilitators and was marked by a series of free-f lowing discussions, with very little interference by the professional group guides.39 Since the investigators found it extremely complex to evaluate a whole group process, they chose to look at two outstanding representatives of the respective groups and to analyze their verbal exchange. Avner, the prominent Israeli subject chosen by the researchers to analyze the conversion experienced by the Jewish participants, provides valuable feedback on the insights he gained from this experience: [F]rom the last meetings and discussions I’ve had with Nasser, I can understand the source of their frustrations. [. . .] He said a lot of things to make us think [. . .] Today I know the value of land for them [. . .] The one-to- one interactions with Nasser were very significant for me.40

The transformation Avner underwent was quite meaningful. For example, at one point he scolded a Jewish member of his team for blaming Palestinian violence on their genes, realizing that this charge was foundationless and would merely erect a barrier that would block an honest appraisal and progress in the dialogue. Of key importance is the dissolution of Avner’s indurate identity. This in turn opened a space for greater acceptance of Nasser as a multivalent person with his own national wishes and goals. Peace-Education and Reconciliation Workshops Peace-education and reconciliation workshops are conducted not only among university students, but are also offered to high school teenagers. Operating on the principle of transformative dialogue, the workshops foster a process whereby Israeli Jews and Palestinian youth can constructively come to grips with disagreement and dissent and concomitantly articulate their own emotions, life experiences, ideals, and opinions. In doing so, the two sides, engaging in intergroup contact, are able to enlarge their interior boundaries to encompass the traditional other within the realm of “relational moral responsibility.”41 Consequently, by learning more about each other, a greater sense of empathy, acceptance, and intimacy for the position of your supposed “adversary” came to the fore, as well as a diminution in prejudice. In 1998, two groups of 15- and 16-year olds from Israeli and Palestinian schools took part in a co-existence-oriented

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workshop. Over two days, 131 students discussed the burning social and political issues dominating the Jewish-Arab divide, telling their intimate stories and getting acquainted.42 As part of the activities, they played games intended to bring the youth from both sides closer, followed by chats about their life style and school milieu. Much accent was placed on the relating of private narratives. Prior to the encounters, very few of the teenagers had had the opportunity to meet Palestinians or Israeli Jews. Given the limited personal knowledge they possessed, it was of little surprise that both displayed stereotypic and negative perceptions of the other. For the Israeli Jews, the media was the main fount for their information about Palestinians. As such, they viewed them as essentially violent, barbaric, and demented. However, during dialogic meetings, the Israeli Jews were astounded to discover that the Palestinian youth were very much like them in numerous ways. Dana, for instance, delivered the following admission: I thought they were all against peace. This is what you see in television and at home, you grow in a society where they say that Palestinians are bad, that they are all the same . . . Here I saw that they are really similar to us, identical. The same dreams, only that they live like in a jail.43

Vered, another Jewish woman, gave an almost parallel account, “[T]he encounter showed me that the media is not always accurate, and that there are there also human beings, not like they describe them.”44 Equally, the Palestinians were much more approving and positive toward the Israeli Jews than before the workshops, rating them as smart and open-minded, in sharp contrast to the previous image of the Israeli as a brutal, coercive soldier. Further, as a sign of the favorable impact of the shared dialogues, the friendships formed during the workshops continued after the conclusion of the formal part. Also, some of the Israeli Jewish and Palestinian teenagers, twelve months after the initial participation, met on a social basis.45 As this contact and others prove, Israeli Jews and Palestinians can work together fruitfully only in an environment of equality, where one group does not command, control, or govern the other, where minority/majority power relations are jettisoned in favor of an empowering context.46 Neve Shalom/ Wāhat al- Salām Community As we can see, the next generation of Israelis and Palestinians hold the key to demolishing old prejudices and developing new friendships, denuded of corrupting stereotypes. Doubtless, it is their spirit of

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reaching across the ostensibly unbridgeable abyss that yawns between the two that must be encouraged. In Neve Shalom/Wāhat al- Salām (Oasis of Peace) a Nobel Peace Prize– nominated community in Israel founded in 1972, Palestinians and Israelis live harmoniously side by side and teach their children the histories and national narratives of both peoples.47 Besides raising their children to acknowledge the failings in each other’s version, some of the Israeli residents are members of an organization called Zokhrot (We Remember), which makes it easier for Israelis to understand the pain Palestinians feel. Foremost, the objective is to move beyond the culture of incitement to a culture of tolerance so as to progressively reduce the levels of hostility and feelings of revenge. In Jerusalem, Israeli and Arab children spend the summer together in a project called Seeds of Peace, an arrangement that enables the participants to form new friendships that transcend the cultural barriers dividing their communities.48 The Barenboim West-Eastern Divan Orchestra The theme of young people from both sides of the Middle East conf lict coming together before prejudice binds them finds fertile ground in the field of art. The eminent Israeli pianist, conductor, and director of the Staatskapelle Berlin and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Barenboim is the co-creator (along with the late Edward Said) of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, an ensemble of young Jewish and Arab musicians, including participants from the Palestinian territories, Syria, and Egypt. The collection of talented players has performed in Britain, Brazil, and Argentina. For Barenboim, who believes that art can pierce the formidable veils of incomprehension, the orchestra is “a paradigm of coherent and intelligent living together.”49 To that end, Barenboim has also founded a musical kindergarten in Ramallah for four- and five-yearold Palestinian refugee children and plans to open one in Gaza, figuring that a violin lesson is an hour away from extremism. “Breaking the Ice” Expedition In the spirit of building understanding and unity between the two peoples, four Israelis and four Palestinian adults scaled an icy mountain and braved rough seas together in Antarctica as part of the “Breaking the Ice” expedition in 2004. The search for common ground took the joint polar expedition on an historic trek of physical and mental courage to climb an unnamed peak. After reaching the top, the group named the snowcapped point “Mountain of Israeli-Palestinian Friendship.” Afterward,

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team leader Heskel Nathanial read from a statement that the four Jews and four Arabs had co-authored: [B]y reaching its summit, we have proved that Palestinians and Israelis can cooperate with one another with mutual respect and trust. Despite the deep differences that exist between us, we have shown that we can carry on a sincere and meaningful dialogue. We join together in rejecting the use of violence in the solution to our problems and hereby declare that our people can and deserve to live together in peace and friendship.50

Their accomplishment caught the attention of the former United Nations Secretary- General Kofi Annan, the Dalai Lama, the German parliament leader Wolfgang Thierse, and the Nobel Peace Prize laureates Mikhail Gorbachev and Shimon Peres, all of whom sent them messages of support. “Pathways to Reconciliation” Project Of particular salience is the “Pathways to Reconciliation” project, an inspiring pilot program that sends about 80 Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs, and Palestinian educators to Antalya, Turkey, to participate in a conference entitled “Continuing Dialogue in Times of Crisis.”51 Upon their return, the teachers are set to strengthen the peace education program that has been running for seven years in 60 Palestinian and Jewish high schools. Much of the program’s power comes from the tremendous change it foments in the mind-set of the participants. For a majority of the Jewish partakers, it was their first encounter with a Palestinian who was their professional counterpart, and for many Palestinians, it was the first time they came across an Israeli who was not a soldier. Even the introductions were difficult. At first, most were cynical. One Israeli school teacher confessed that he was not prepared for any type of conversation, wishing to prove to the Palestinians that they were not only wrong, but were terrorists. Similarly, a Palestinian teacher said that initially he was not interested in hearing about Jewish suffering or how they had lost people they had loved. Slowly, the two camps began to talk. They wrote questions and comments on cards that were anchored to the wall for everyone to read; they took part in various tasks, such as leading blindfolded group members around the hotel, the blindfolded not knowing who was leading them. In the end, the participants listened to each other. And before long a kind of empathy began to f lower. The former enemies stopped attacking and competing over who suffered more and thought about how they

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could make things better. Facilitators Michal Levin and Fakhira Halloun explained that these teachers have access to hundreds of students every year. In effect, they are the conduit through which the positive effect of the meeting can percolate and filter into their respective families, communities, and friends. Ultimately, the hope is that the teachers will act as agents of change within their societies. “It’s important to know that Israelis and Palestinians can meet together, with professional facilitation,” Michal Levin observes, “and discuss their differences rather than kill each other.”52 “From Memory to Peace” Initiative At a time of uncommonly high tension between Arabs and Israelis, a profound and groundbreaking program that attempted to show Arab solidarity with Jewish suffering in the Holocaust and to bridge the gaps of difference took place in June 2003.53 A first in the annals of Arab-Jewish relations, “From Memory to Peace” involved a group of about 250 Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs, Palestinians, and Jews and Muslims from France who took part in a four- day tour of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Krakow. The aim of the multi- denominational pilgrimage, comprising professionals, intellectuals, and businessmen, was to expose, writ large, one of the most festering roots of the Arab-Jewish discord—the long-standing resistance by Arabs to recognize the central role the Holocaust has played in shaping Israel’s identity. Moreover, it sought to end the equation of Palestinian suffering with the industrialized death of the Holocaust, a comparison that angers Israelis for its trivialization of the European genocide. Before the trip, the Arabs and Palestinians, often the recipients of dishonest anti-Jewish propaganda, visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyr’s and Heroes Remembrance Museum. Additionally, they met survivors, held periodic discussion groups to dialogue about living within a new paradigm, and took part in three months of organized study and weekend seminars during which they examined the Holocaust from multiple perspectives. Amid the ghastly images, the group walked along the railway tracks at Birkenau, to the same platform where the diabolical selections of Jews had taken place. During the stopover, the men and women went into the gas chambers, the crematoria, and prisoners’ huts, taking in the horrific sites where Jews lived their tortured existence until their murderous end. After hearing the testimonies of Birkenau survivors, the group erected a small memorial near the Death Wall, where Jews were lined up and shot. Then, the Arab participants read out the names of the mission’s Jewish members’ relatives who perished there. At one point, Rabbi Avi Gisser,

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one of the group’s leaders, recited the traditional mourning prayer, the Kaddish. When he slightly changed the ending to “He will make peace upon us and upon all peoples of the world,” the Jews and Arabs jointly answered, “Amen.”54 Earlier, the Jews and Arabs sobbed together when facing the “sauna,” where Jews were deloused and shorn of their hair. Later, in the quarantine barracks, seeing survivor Ruth Lavie hold up a picture of her father, who was taken to Auschwitz, the tears again commingled. At that moment of shared charity and compassion, the delegation began singing traditional songs of the Holocaust, including the “Song of the Partisans,” “I Believe,” the Jewish affirmation of belief in the Messiah as well the “Song of Peace.” It was reported that a few of the Arabs found the journey so moving they could not speak of it. Yoram Halevi, an Israeli researcher, noted that “[F]or me to sing the “Song of Peace” with Arab friends here in Auschwitz is the most important sign of hope that we can live together.”55 The brainchild of Arab and Israeli intellectuals and educators, the journey stemmed from the belief of Emile Shoufani, the archimandrite at the Greek Catholic Church in Nazareth and director of the St. Joseph High School, that [r]econciliation between Arabs and Jews would never be possible unless Arabs understood what the Holocaust means to Jews—unless we touch the suffering, the memory, the terminology. We must learn the pain of the other side if we want to stop the cycles of bitterness and death.56

In Krakow, an Arab journalist proclaimed that “[W]e emerge from death into life and hope [. . .] If two people engaged in conf lict can have experienced something like this, everything is possible.”57 Concurrently, Rabbi Gisser’s comment on the import of his involvement lays bare the positive impact of the trip: [A]s a Jew, I met with Arabs in a way that I had never met them before, and I allowed them to know me in a way I had never done before. That gives me hope that we can find a human common denominator. We have deep disagreements about sovereignty, land and resources, rights and history. Yet we have found a deep, common humanity. And even if we do nothing else that is a valuable experience.58

The unprecedented and inspiring visit was a critical step toward the normalization of relations between Israelis and Palestinians, proffering a healing lesson to a region riven by war. To a large extent, it opened the hearts of Israelis, damaged by the ravages of terror, and gave them cause to believe that a sector of the Arab populace is willing to accept

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the suffering of Jews and is willing to show identification with their Holocaust burden. Appositely, the Windsor Star editorial in Canada nicely summed up the value of the gathering: [T]he more disaffected parties encounter each other as human beings—as men and women who suffer, yearn, love, experience the awe, pride and fear of parenthood, struggle to support families, mourn for lost fathers and mothers, feel doubt, are suffused with anger and sorrow—the more likely they are to discover that the bonds of humanity they share are at least as powerful as the differences in politics and policy that separate them.59

It should be noted that the Jews were criticized for agreeing to travel with the Arabs and Palestinians to the single place on earth where the Jewish claim to sole victimhood is universally accepted, while the Arabs were condemned for aiding and abetting “Zionist propaganda.” Still, the two camps courageously ignored the missives launched at them, knowing that visiting the extermination camps was an extraordinary step toward creating a humanistic dialogue that avoids the political and military realities of the day. Plato said that we should make our philosophers kings and our kings philosophers. Several Israeli authors, philosophers at heart, are at the forefront of pursuing peace at a grassroots level. The poet and Israel Prize winner Dalia Ravikovitch has for the last eight years crossed the border into Hebron from her home in Tel Aviv to bring chocolate bars for her 10-year-old Palestinian friend Zhidan, a Muslim butcher’s son. The two embrace at the beginning of each meeting, at peace among the puzzled stares of Arab shopkeepers. Such encounters are at the core of grass-roots peace work.60 Israeli Author and Peace Activist David Grossman An Israeli author prominent in the Israeli peace movement is David Grossman. One of Israel’s most sensitive and penetrating novelists, in November 2002 he joined fellow writers Amos Oz and Meir Shalev to pick olives with Palestinian villagers in an act bristling with symbolic resonance to protest the Israeli occupation. Similarly, he was one of the first Israelis to f lout the ban on Israeli Palestinian contacts and meet in clandestine hideaways and foreign embassies. And in Death as a Way of Life: Israel Ten years after Oslo,61 a collection of 10 years of journalistic pieces, Grossman takes readers inside his personal lament, shifting his gaze to the Middle East conf lict and to the neverending environment of menace and death. Dwelling on the paralyzing

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effects war and terrorism has had on Israelis and Israel, Grossman, who has spoken of feeling like a walking dead man in his hometown of Jerusalem, marshals the image of a numbing death tango that locks each side into avenging every destructive act with yet more violence to explicate the death-trap of this cruel ritual. In one passage, he discloses his intense frustration: I have to admit that many times I often feel that words can no longer penetrate the screen of horror. It is difficult to speak to another person’s heart when, all around, human beings are being blown up and children are being torn to pieces. At such moments, I want very much, instead of writing, to run through the streets screaming.62

Grossman’s sentiments are echoed by the assessment of Ellis and Maoz, who state that Arab and Israeli escalation of violence is caught in a circular pattern where it is not possible to know whether a given violent act is cause or effect. Each individual party sees its actions as provoked by the other; but from outside every action is seen as both a provocation and a response.63

According to Grossman, it is only mutual understanding of the other and acting on that understanding that will allow a future for the two nations. Admirably, despite the pessimism that enrobes his daily living, despite the terrifying bombings in hotels, nightclubs, and coffee shops, despite his despair, Grossman never once loses the capacity to see through the darkness into the humanity of Israel’s enemies. For Grossman, a clarion voice for tolerance, the Palestinians have legitimate claims—they too are victims who have suffered, both mentally and physically, from the Israeli occupation. Characteristically, Grossman refuses to submit to the death grip enmeshing many Israelis, insisting on knowing the Palestinians as human beings, for he understands that turning away, or suspending one’s soul, or anaesthetizing oneself to the shocking hostilities would mean being transformed into a suit of armor that no longer has a knight inside. Conclusion The indefatigable warriors for peace, who form the focus of this essay, are to be lauded for recognizing and acknowledging that they have no choice but to make peace instead of stoking the f lames of this perennial dispute and standing over the graves of their loved ones. Over and over,

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the benefits of peace need to be inculcated among those who have only known guns firing and bombs exploding. The silent majorities on both sides need to be engaged for any formal treaties to succeed. To be sure, previous disappointments have produced many a cynic and doubter, who view any undertaking through the monocle of distrust. Still, any misgivings about the lip service paid to a slew of formulas must take a backseat to the possibility of resolution, denying madness another victory. Sanity must prevail, because if anything, the failure to find a reasonable solution and its attendant implications should prod all parents into action. Manifestly, Israelis and Palestinians, traumatized by war and death, have no choice but to work collectively and purposefully to try and forge a feasible deal. After a historic first meeting at the Vatican with the late Pope John Paul II, Rabbi Shlomo Amar, part of the delegation of chief rabbis, told a news conference, “[I]t is the psychological wall between the two peoples that must be knocked down.”64 If Rabbi Amar’s counsel is not heeded, the people of the region will need to brace themselves, as the conf lict will continue to spiral out of control. Notes 1. Ifat Maoz, “Coexistence is in the Eye of the Beholder: Evaluating Intergroup Encounter Interventions between Jews and Arabs in Israel,” Journal of Social Issues 60, no. 2 (Summer 2004): 438. 2. Todd Douglas, “Intellectuals Come to Terms with Changes for North American Jews,” Vancouver Sun, August 9, 2002, A19. 3. For an excellent overview of this theme, see Justine Shapiro and B. Z. Goldberg (Writers, Directors, Producers), Promises [video recording] (United States: Promises Film Project, 2001); Meron Benvenisti, Intimate Enemies: Jews and Arabs in a Shared Land (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); Kamal Abdel-Malek and David C. Jacobson, eds. Israeli and Palestinian Identities in History and Literature (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999); Brian Frost, Struggling to Forgive: Nelson Mandela and South Africa’s Search for Reconciliation (London: HarperCollins, 1998); Dermot Keogh and Michael H. Haltzel, ed. Northern Ireland and the Politics of Reconciliation (Washington D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993); C. R. Mitchell. Gestures of Conciliation: Factors Contributing to Successful Olive-Branches (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999). 4. Ben Mollov, and Chaim Lavie. “Culture, Dialogue, and Perception Change in the Israeli Palestinian Conf lict,” International Journal of Conflict Management 12, no .1 (2001): 71. 5. Ifat Maoz, “An Experiment in Peace: Reconciliation-Aimed Workshops of Jewish-Israeli and Palestinian Youth,” Journal of Peace Research 37, no. 6 (2000): 721.

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6. John Blake, “Coming Together: More Seeking to Resolve Conf licts under the Growing Umbrella of Religious Reconciliation,” Atlanta Journal and Constitution October 25, 2003: 11. 7. Ifat Maoz Shoshana Steinberg, Dan Bar-On, Mueen Fakhereldeen, “The Dialogue between the “Self ” and the “Other”: A Process Analysis of Palestinian-Jewish encounters in Israel,” Human Relations 55, no. 8 (August 2000): 933. 8. N. Alexander Christakis and Sabrina Brahms, “Boundary Spanning Dialogue for the 21st Century Agoras,” Systems Research and Behavioural Science 20 no. 4 ( July–August 2003: 372). 9. Ibid., 379–380. 10. Zvi Bekerman, “Reshaping Conf lict through School Ceremonial Events in Israeli-Palestinian-Jewish Coeducation,” Anthropology and Education Quarterly 34, no. 2 ( June 2003): 205–224, 209–210. 11. Zvi Bekerman and Gabriel Horenczyk, “Arab and Jewish Bilingual Coeducation in Israel: A Long-Term Approach to Intergroup Conf lict Resolution,” Journal of Social Issues 60, no. 2 (2004): 391. 12. Ibid., 392. 13. Bekerman, 211–212. 14. Bekerman, 213. 15. Bekerman., 218. 16. Bekerman., 219. 17. Hagar: Jewish- Arab Education for Equality, http://www.hajar.org.il. 18. 2007–2008 report, 4, http://www.hajar.org.il. 19. Michal Greenberg, “In the Hagar kindergarten in Beer Sheva Jewish and Muslim children are celebrating Tu Bishvat,” Ha’aretz, January 20, 2009, 4. 20. Or Kashti, “Arab-Jewish Kindergarten is a Bubble among Be’er Sheva Social Troubles,” Ha’aretz, March 4, 2009, 12. 21. Ibid., 12. 22. Mark Mathabane, “No Humanity, No Peace,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 5, 2002, E1. 23. David Goldberg, “Faith and Reasons: True Atonement Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry,” The Independent, October 4, 2003, 22. 24. Donald G. Ellis and Ifat Maoz, “A Communication and Cultural Codes Approach to Ethnonational Conf lict,” International Journal of Conflict Management 14, nos. 3–4 (2003): 259. 25. Ibid., 260. 26. Ibid., 261. 27. Ben Mollov and Chaim Lavie. “Culture, Dialogue, and Perception Change in the Israeli-Palestinian Conf lict,” International Journal of Conflict Management 12, no. 1 (2001): 69. 28. Arthur Hertzberg. The Fate of Zionism: A Secular Future for Israel and Palestine (Harper: San Francisco, 2003). 29. Julia Lieblich. “Interreligious Understanding in the Holy Land from the Ground Up,” Associated Press, March 25, 2000, 24.

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30. Jenny Hazan and Kelly Hertog. “Parents’ Circle,” Jerusalem Post, November 8, 2002, 10–11. 31. Peter Hermann, “Hello! Salaam! Shalom! Dialogue: Peace Activists Set Up Phone Lines to Encourage Israeli-Palestinian Conversations,” Baltimore Sun, October 6, 2004, 14A. 32. Ibid. 33. Pamela Symon, “Jews and Arabs Study Religion Side by Side,” The Jerusalem Report, July 27, 1995, 11. 34. Rabbis for Human Rights. http://www.rhr.israel.net/. 35. Lieblich, “Interreligious Understanding,” 24. 36. Ibid., 24. 37. Mollov and Lavie, “Culture, Dialogue, and Perception Change,” 75. 38. Ibid., 79. 39. Ifat Maoz et al., “Dialogue,” 937. 40. Ibid., 953. 41. Maoz, “Experiment in Peace,” 722. 42. Ibid, 724–725. 43. Ibid., 728. 44. Ibid., 728. 45. Ibid., 729. 46. Donald G. Ellis and Ifat Maoz. “Cross- Cultural Argument Interactions between Israeli Jews and Palestinians,” Journal of Applied Communications Research 30, no. 3 (August 2002): 192. 47. Curtis Polly, “City Branch,” Guardian, September 28, 2004, 22. 48. Seedsofpeace.org. 49. Jan Dalley, “When Harmony Strikes,” Financial Times, August 21, 2004, 14. 50. Lauren Gelfond, “Mountain of Israeli-Palestinian Friendship,” Jerusalem Post, January 18, 2004, 1. 51. Etta Prince- Gibson, “Teachers Greet “The Enemy,” Jerusalem Post, April 4, 2003, 13. 52. Ibid., 14. 53. Yair Sheleg, “United in Pain.” Ha’aretz, June 6, 2003, 17. 54. Ibid., 20. 55. Monica Scislowska. “Israeli Arabs, Jews Visit Auschwitz,” Associated Press, May 28, 2003: 23. 56. Etta Prince- Gibson, “Teachers Greet,” 14. 57. Stuart Schoffman, “Transcendence in a Cursed Place,” Jerusalem Report, June 30, 2003, 30. 58. Sheleg, “United in Pain,” 22. 59. Editorial, “Share Common Ground, Not Hate,” Windsor Star (Canada), June 16, 2003. 60. Alan Cooperman, “Making Peace where Politicians Fear to Tread: Israelis and Palestinians who Defy the Extremists,” U.S. News and World Report, June 30, 1997, 39. 61. David Grossman, Death as a Way of Life: Israel Ten Years after Oslo (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003).

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62. Ibid., 56. 63. Ellis and Maoz, “Communication and Cultural Codes,”, 262. 64. Peggy Folk, “Historic Meeting for Vatican, Israel: Chief Rabbis Seek Pope’s Support against Terrorism, Anti- Semitism,” Washington Post, January 17, 2004, 23.

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CHAPTER 7 BEJEWELED DIALOGUE: ILLUMINATING DEADLY CONFLICTS IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY Chaiwat Satha-Anand

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n a dialogue between Richard Rorty and Gianni Vattimo on “the future of religion” held in Paris, on December 16, 2002, the two philosophers remarked that humanity has entered “the age of interpretation,” where there are no more strong reasons either to be an atheist refusing religion or to be a theist refusing science. Faith has arrived at a point where it could accommodate these dualisms without recognizing any reason for conf lict. Motivated by the notion of “the death of God,” the secularization of the sacred has signified the rebirth of religion in the third millennium. Secularization renders philosophical questions about the nature of God useless—because of the weakness of human reason, it is not clear what it actually means to affirm or deny God’s existence.1 Toward the end of their dialogue, Vattimo asked: What can we do with people who apparently do not share civic responsibility either inside our society or outside? What happens when we arrive at a place which refuses us, like some parts of the Islamic world, what do you think we should preach to them?

Rorty, the eminent philosopher of postmodernity, replied with a surprising answer: [I]t seems to me that the idea of a dialogue with Islam is pointless [. . .] With luck, the educated middle class of the Islamic countries will bring about an Islamic enlightenment, but this enlightenment will not have anything to do with a “dialogue with Islam.”2

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It is a notable fact that many important reference books related to culture,3 as well as those related to peace and nonviolence,4 do not have an entry on the notion of dialogue. The absence of the political will to engage in dialogue in the philosopher’s case and a place for the concept in these publications ref lects the ways in which dialogue as a concept and practice is perceived in the global academic stage today. Though the reasons for such an absence could be many, one way to address this issue is by examining the place of dialogue as a cultural practice in the context of deadly conf licts at the turn of the twenty-first century. This chapter argues that a creative entry point is needed in order to engage in dialogue not only in the context of, but also in the midst of, deadly conf lict. The chapter begins with a discussion of common wisdom concerning dialogue among civilizations. Following this, the recommendations concerning interfaith dialogue of the Thai National Reconciliation Commission (NRC), which was appointed to find ways to end the violence in southern Thailand that had claimed some 4,000 lives of both Buddhists and Muslims since 2004, are outlined. The obstacles presented by those who worked in the field of this deadly conf lict in Southern Thailand too are discussed. Inspired by the religious texts on the notion of light—especially the Buddhist sutra “Jewel Net of Indra”—I will introduce and discuss a mode of dialogue that I call “bejeweled dialogue”—an entry point in the context of deadly conf licts. This new mode of dialogue is crucial at the present time because there is an urgent need to find a language of communicating that could permit and enable conf licting parties to move beyond inherent prejudices. For example, when some Muslims explain the problem of violence, the global condition, and their place in it, the demand is for the others to accept the world as the Muslims see it, heterogeneity among Muslims notwithstanding5 On the other hand, when the “Western” language is used by some Muslims, critics could argue that it risks reproducing the power being contested in a cycle of dominance since it is always difficult to dismantle “the master’s house” with his tools.6 As a result, a highly complex global conf lict gets reduced to a simple two-sided conf lict by creating the necessary conditions for changing the conf lict into violence between two warring parties. In order to transcend such a simplified dichotomy, some would argue that there is a need for a “third side” that could prevent conf lict from escalating to violence. Due to this “third side’s unique perspective,” each competing viewpoint could be properly understood and forgotten shared interests that overshadow existing differences remembered.7 Though the metaphor used here as an entry point comes directly from Buddhist cosmology, and therefore could be relatively free from prejudices plaguing the Muslim- Christian traditions, an interpretation of

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its content that resonates with those informed by the Abrahamic traditions is attempted here. Thus, this chapter concludes with a brief discussion of how the “Jewel Net of Indra” might be recognized by those from beyond the shore of Hindu-Buddhist discourse and how the “bejeweled dialogue” inspired by it appreciated. Experiences: The Pope and the Thai NRC In 2006 Pope Benedict XVI delivered the Regensburg speech citing the fourteenth-century Byzantine emperor’s characterization of Islam as a violent religion. After the speech, Morocco withdrew its ambassador to the Vatican; criticisms came in from many heads of states in the Muslim world from Turkey to Indonesia, and even the shaīkh al-Azhar indicated that the pope was ignorant about Islam.8 In addition, as a result of this, Christian churches were attacked in many Muslim countries, and a Catholic nun was killed in Somalia.9 In 2007, 138 Muslim scholars from 43 countries launched an appeal to the pope for greater theological dialogue, called “A Common Word Between Us and You,” widely known as “the Common Word.” Then the pope expressed regret and went to Turkey, where he held a two-minute prayer facing Mecca in the Blue Mosque, a move applauded by many Muslims as “more meaningful than an apology.” Also in 2007, the pope reinstated the Vatican’s Islam department, called the Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue. In 2008 the Vatican continued to host several meetings with religious leaders around the world, discussing issues such as the love of one’s neighbor and the theological foundations of human dignity, among others. Since the eleventh century, these efforts have been seen as important in a process to bridge Islam and Catholicism in terms of mutual respect. Apart from a common aversion to violence as a solution to disagreement, the idea of Islam and “the West” engaging in a dialogue is considered crucial. Important for the success of such a dialogue is its determined inclusiveness that would make participation by all, clerics and ordinary people alike, possible.10 The Vatican’s recent move represents a standard reaction coming from concerned bodies, governments, religious orders, or civil society movements, in espousing dialogue as a possible channel and/or solution for a world facing explosive cultural problems caused by religious intolerance. Examples include the cartoons of Prophet Muhammad published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005 and the characterization of the Qur’ān as a violent text in the Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders’s film Fitna. In the eyes of many, the angry responses of the Muslim world toward these incidents seem to reconfirm the message of both the cartoon

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and the film in contrast to the dialogue initiative proposed by the Vatican, among others. But beyond the inclusiveness principle of dialogue and a noble agenda of replacing dogmatic stances with cultural curiosity based on mutual respect,11 it is important to recognize the simple fact that many Muslims feel that now they live in a world under siege, plagued by the darkness of raw violence not unlike a condition best captured over a century ago by Joseph Conrad. In Heart of Darkness (1902), Conrad writes: They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force—nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind—as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness. The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly f latter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea—something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to.12

In the immensely inf luential Orientalism, Edward Said discussed the present shape and form of orientalism—understood as “fundamentally a political doctrine willed over the Orient because the Orient was weaker than the West, which elided the Orient’s difference with its weakness.”13 It is interesting to note that Said used the above quotation from Conrad to begin his third chapter, entitled “Orientalism Now.”14 Commenting in an Iranian newspaper ( Javan) on the Dutch cartoon controversy and the Pope’s remarks about it, Mohammad Reja Jamali pointed out that the present is still the time of colonialism and that the colonialists have come to “plunder the material and spiritual resources of the oppressed people of the world in a new disguise.” In his view, the only force that is posing an obstacle to the colonialists’ design is Islam, and that is why Islam has been targeted and the sacred Islamic belief insulted.15 If this is how many conf licting parties feel about the state of the present world, then their feeling that the world is shrouded in the heart of darkness should serve as the context whereby dialogue initiatives would have to take place. In other words, right in the “heart” of darkness, how could people engage in dialogue on something such as “theological foundation of human dignity”? Does this mean that in such a world of darkness there is no place for dialogue? In 2005, Thaksin Shinnawat, then Prime Minister of Thailand, established the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) headed by

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Anand Panyarachun, a former prime minister and a master Thai diplomat who headed the UN High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change in 2004 and was tasked with finding ways to end the violence that has exploded in southern Thailand since January 2004.16 The NRC presented its report in June 2006. Unfortunately, the report came in at a time of heightened political conf lict in Thailand that later led to the September 19, 2006, coup d’état that ousted the Thaksin government. Basically, the NRC report maintained that southern violence is a political problem and therefore should be solved by political solutions. Among many recommendations proposed to solve the deadly conf lict, conceptualized as three layers of violence—(1) the agency, which— commits violence; (2) structures,—which constitute the source of violence in established institutions and practices; (3) and segments of culture(s),— which serve to legitimize violent actions in Thai society—the report emphasized the use of dialogue as a method in carrying out reconciliation at both the agency and the cultural levels.17 In proposing immediate reconciliation measures aiming to solve violence at the agency level, the NRC maintained that [I]t is necessary to engage in dialogue, freely exchanging views with people, both at home and abroad, who may subscribe to ideologies different from that of the state, and who see violence as a way to achieve their ideals.

It then suggested that the Thai state clearly establish its political primacy over military means with a unified security policy to show that it is determined to engage in dialogue with the militants. It also suggested that a selected group of people be authorized to act on this dialogue in a discreet and confidential manner.18 As for long-term reconciliation measures aiming to solve the violence problems at the cultural level, the NRC proposed that “a mutual learning process between Buddhists and Muslims is essential to the strengthening of society in the southern border provinces and the improvement of communal relations.”19 This could be achieved by encouraging peoples of different faiths to deepen their understanding of the core teachings of their own religions, important for understanding both the problems facing them as religious communities and the place of each believer as an individual in the conf lict. In so doing, dialogue is seen as not only a technique but also a gateway to unleash the power of religious teachings conducive to ending violence.20 In the atmosphere of increasing tension between Buddhists and Muslims, especially in southern Thailand, those who have engaged in interfaith dialogues have encountered some difficulties. First, as violence

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has occurred almost on a daily basis (even at the time when this chapter was written, in January 2010) with casualties among both Muslims and Buddhists, there has increasingly been a nationalist turn among Buddhists alongside a rise in anti-Muslim sentiment. For some Buddhists, Muslim- dominated southern Thailand represents an apocalyptic vision of Thailand’s possible future plagued with ethnic and religious tensions.21 Many Malay Muslims feel that their society is now buried deep in the mist of fear and distrust of others.22 As a result of continuing violence and a lack of reliable justice from the Thai state, and increasing despair among the people, there are those who see no justification to engage in dialogue with people from other religions. In the main, the reasons for dialogue are not always obvious to many. Second, even when some participated in this dialogue,23 they did so largely to defend their own faith and followers. In such dialogue attempts, the participants tended to ground their opinions in unmoved positions, which made the dialogue useless. Third, those who had engaged in dialogue had done it for apologetic reasons—they had wanted to protect their followers from “losing” to the other side. Thus, though welcomed, participation in interfaith dialogue is seen as an important informationgathering platform that will enable participants to see how the others think, to assess their strengths and weaknesses, not unlike meeting the “enemy” to check on them before the battlefield.24 Fourth, not only does mistrust exist among people who are supposed to engage in dialogue, some do not even trust in dialogue itself. This may be for a combination of reasons, including the fact that the notion of dialogue is misperceived as mere talks or conversations, and there is a feeling that another talk might not contribute much to mitigating or eradicating the daily violence they face. Fifth, among those who do understand the differences between dialogue and other forms of human communication such as talk, discussion, or negotiation, some maintained that certain rules governing the dialogue process cannot be applied in real-life situation. For example, if empathy is sometimes emphasized, many feel that it is so very difficult, if not impossible, to see the world from the other’s perspective, especially when “the other” is perceived to be one’s enemy. Sixth, ignoring the notion of dialogue as a time-consuming process, some quickly point out that interfaith dialogue is useless in just such a context since the killings continue unabated.25 Despite obstacles to interfaith dialogue, some advocates continue to promote dialogue in the midst of continuing violence in southern Thailand. Since victims in this case include both Muslims and Buddhists, as well as ordinary people and government officials, there have been dialogue-training events that involve many who might be party to the

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existing deadly conf licts. Some of these training events have begun with separate workshops for the security officials, who are mainly Buddhists, and the Malay Muslims, some of whom are students, on what dialogue is. Then both groups were brought together. Although the session had begun with mistrust, the ensuing dialogue enabled them to discuss practical issues such as what had happened when the Muslims’ houses were searched by the Thai soldiers, who are mainly Buddhists. The soldiers had stormed the village and broke down the house doors looking for missing weapons. The Muslim students who had been trained in the use of dialogue then suggested that the soldiers first declared their positions and changed the way they forced their way into the villagers’ homes. The soldiers responded that they too were afraid of being shot by the villagers. At this point, one Muslim student remarked, “[N]ow I understand. We are all human. We both are afraid of being killed.”26 From this point on, it is not difficult to imagine how dialogue between parties to the deadly conf lict would proceed. But the problem that needs to be addressed is, What actually happens at the very moment when fear of violent death seems to bring both parties together in a new understanding of how human both sides are? What does one see when he/she comes to a realization that both sides are very much alike? Metaphors: The Trains and the Jewels In 1996 the Israeli army bombarded a refugee camp in Lebanon. Brothers and sisters of those killed were supposedly “happy” because the political and military error had paid them a political dividend. In an interview published in 2006, Salomon Lerner—the former president of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Peru from 2001 to 2003—cited this case to point out that the term “political dividend” was in fact coined by General “El Gaucho” Cisneros, a former Peruvian minister and a coup maker. Cisneros said that “if it were necessary to kill twenty civilians in order to eliminate two or three terrorists, then that action was justified.” Lerner criticized this idea by pointing out the devastating effect when cost-benefit analysis was applied to human beings and “a marginal human cost is accepted.” The problem, however, is not this particular Peruvian general or some decision makers inside the Israeli army but that the approach is part of a worldwide logic, located within the contemporary context of a technologically sophisticated social life, where the idol to be accepted at all costs is effectiveness. The present is a time of “great cynicism,” where the logic of the market prevails without regard to human lives. The philosophy of utility and expendability is what applies today, according to which even humans are expendable and can

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be replaced. Perhaps such a philosophy is generally accepted because the world is suffering from a disease of the soul that has assumed the form of a collective amnesia. Significant to this analysis, Lerner concluded that “people who hold that view forget that each person is a world and that the history of each person is universal history.”27 However, how is it possible that this collective amnesia that has blinded many from seeing the world in each person, has taken place? Clifford Geertz, relying on Claude Levi-Strauss’s train metaphor in his The View from Afar (1985), believed that in today’s world humans are not unlike passengers in the trains—understood as different cultures. Each train is moving on its own track at a particular speed in a particular direction toward its own station. The trains that go in the same direction, at a similar speed, will be visible to the passengers when they look out of their compartments. But what about other trains on parallel tracks that are going in the opposite direction? Citing Levi- Strauss, Geertz wrote: [We] perceive only a vague, f leeting, barely identifiable image, usually just a momentary blur in our visual field, supplying no information about itself and merely irritating us because it interrupts our placid contemplation of the landscape which serves as the backdrop to our daydreaming.28

For a dialogue among civilizations to work, it might be argued that one has to move out of such “placid contemplation,” fighting the cradling rhythm of the trains of life in order to arrive at a collective anamnesis that will illuminate all to see the humans on the other side once again. But then what kind of light will be needed for such illumination? To come to terms with this question, it is important to reconsider the notion of dialogue itself. Many who choose the path of dialogue in dealing with conf licts, especially those inf luenced by the classic work of David Bohm,generally see it in terms of an encounter between two sides with different convictions. Dialogue can therefore be seen as a means to come to terms with conf lict “through words.”29 This is perhaps because for Bohm the word dia means “through.”30 Logos, as it is generally understood in philosophy, however, means more than “word” but also conversation and reasoning. However, it is the dia part that is problematic. It goes without saying that the word dia in Greek can be used in different ways. When implying place, its meaning is most likely “through,” when implying time, it means “during” or “successive intervals,” among others. In common composition, however, dia can also mean “in different directions,” “leaving an interval” or “breach.”31 The meaning of dia in this latter sense is crucial for understanding how people who choose to engage in dialogue in the midst of deadly conf licts see both themselves

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and others. It is also necessary to emphasize the ways in which different identities encounter one another in dialogue, because if it does take place in the midst of deadly conf licts, such as those in southern Thailand, southern Philippines, or Sri Lanka before the government’s recent military victory, participants may not come as friends, but as enemies, if they do come at all. The question is therefore raised by John Paul Lederach: “How do we transcend the cycles of violence that bewitch our human community while still living in them?” This question, he believes, is the canvas of the human condition in too many parts of our globe. He answers this with the thesis that “Transcending violence is forged by the capacity to generate, mobilize, and build the moral imagination.” Most importantly, perhaps, Lederach maintains that moral imagination [r]equires the capacity to imagine ourselves in a web of relationships that includes our enemies; the ability to sustain a paradoxical curiosity that embraces complexities without reliance on dualistic polarity; the fundamental belief in and pursuit of the creative act; and the acceptance of the inherent risk of stepping into the mystery of the unknown that lies beyond the far too familiar landscape of violence.32

To be able to see the other as a world in and of him/herself and to also see oneself in that world, especially when “the others” are made to be “the enemy” who perhaps had the blood of one’s family on their hands, there is a dire need to look with new spectacles, powerfully enchanted enough to make dialogue in just such a context possible. Imagining Possibilities through the Lens of the “Jewel Net of Indra” It is said that the Avatamsaka Sutra is the “theoretical culmination of the practical consummation of Buddhist thought in China.”33 This old Buddhist text maintains that all errant beings can return to the Buddhahood that exists in all sentient beings when they follow the enlightened path combining wisdom with compassion. In the inclusive Buddhist cosmology, all things are related, yet each individual thing has its special meaning in the universe.34 In this sense, [a] single rock is equivalent to the totality of the universe and in that relationship the rock would be principle and the totality its attribute. A nearby blade of grass would become the principle in its own relationship with the totality, yet the rock and the blade of grass, as mutually embraced, would be mirrored within each other in a principle-attribute ad infinitum.35

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To explain the concept of mutual identity and interpenetration that exist in the infinite interref lection across space and time, a favorite metaphorical description often used by the seventh-century Buddhist Hua-yen School in China is called the “Jewel Net of Indra.” The Hua-yen scholar Francis Cook described the Jewel Net as followed: Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each “eye” of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering like stars in the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are ref lected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels ref lected in this one jewel is also ref lecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite ref lecting process occurring.36

Common wisdom suggests that this image—used by the Chinese Buddhist monk depicting the Indian god’s heaven—ref lects the interconnectedness of beings in the world. It is important to underscore the presence of a jewel in each eye of the net. From a linguistic perspective, the word “jewel” in Thai, especially when denoting a diamond, could be petchr or vajr, which also means thunder, Indra’s powerful weapon, not unlike that of the Greek god-Zeus. But the main characteristic of a jewel used in the description is its ref lexive quality, which means that one jewel can ref lect the whole that are all connected. Something that happens to one jewel will therefore affect all other jewels in the net. For example, if one jewel is tarnished with a mark or a crack, the picture of the whole ref lected in all other jewels will also contain that mark. Above all, the jewel is beautiful. Its beauty shines infinitely with the light ref lected from all the jewels. The “Jewel Net of Indra” has been used as an alternative way in ecological thinking about the relationship between humans and nature.37 But it is here chosen as a way to overcome the limitations of dialogue generally construed, especially when it is needed in deadly conf licts. One of the marks of an extremely violent conf lict in the contemporary world is the construction of the enemy as the deadly other, using the toxic concoction of hatred and fear as evident in the role of media used in the Rwandan genocide. Hatred is for who “they” are whose existence is disgusting to “us” and an affront to the values “we” hold dear for ourselves as well as future generations. Fear is for what “they” might do to “us”

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and all the things “we” love at present and in the near future.38 If hatred and fear could be construed as defilements that distort the world one sees, then the conf licts seen through such a spectacle will become hatefully and fearfully unreal. Thinking through the “Jewel Net of Indra” in connection with the deadly conf licts in southern Thailand that have claimed some 4,000 lives from 2004 to 2009, it is important to underscore the principles that constitute the notion of reconciliation put forward in the NRC’s report: Overcoming Violence with the Power of Reconciliation.39 Essential for the present discussion are dialogue, imagination, and risk. For many, imagination was only about how power relationships between the center that is Bangkok and the southern border provinces could be reimagined since the existing political institutions and practices have left much to be desired. But through the spectacle of the “Jewel Net of Indra,” imagination is necessary for a high-risk endeavor that is to invite the “deadly enemies” into a dialogue in the midst of violence if such deadly conf lict is to have a chance of coming to an end without more violence. The “Jewel Net of Indra” represents an alternative way of looking,— the ref lexive quality of the jewels means that what is seen is not only “the other” but also oneself as well, since it is the looker’s image that will ref lect back through the jewel’s polished surface. In addition, as suggested by Lederach, if it is important to include “the enemy” in the dialogue, understood as a “web of relationship,” then being in the net together means that “we” are connected to the enemy, not in a mode of dualistic connectedness but in terms of an almost infinite connectedness that transcends the rigid wall of atomistic identity constructed precisely for the purpose of “our” solidarity in pursuit of the others’destruction. In addition, as jewels “we” are precious as are those earlier made to be worthless. The realization of both self-worth and how others are equally precious could lessen the curse of deadly conf licts when “we” are desensitized to the use of violence, while others are demonized. Seen from the “Jewel Net of Indra” lenses, fighting parties could enter the dialogue realistically on the grounds that they are both very much alike and connected. But then will the “Jewel Net of Indra” be of any use as an entry into bejeweled dialogue in deadly conf licts involving peoples of faiths other than Buddhists and Hindus? Conclusion: Imagine This In the Rorty-Vattimo discussion cited in the beginning of this chapter, Rorty gave up the will to try any dialogue involving Muslims since it would be “pointless.” Proposing the use of the “Jewel Net of Indra” as an

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entry point into dialogue amid deadly conf licts with an alternative way of looking at the “enemy,” there is a need to ask if the Buddhist-Hindu metaphor is meaningful for those from the Christian or Muslim world? Historically, it was the monk Fa-tsang (643–712), who wrote about the “Jewel Net of Indra” to his fellow monk Uisang (625–668) in Korea.40 What if it were someone else from a totally different culture? How would he/she tell his/her friends about the magnificent Indra net? How could he/she help these friends make sense of such a majestic beauty? Imagine this: If it were the Moroccan traveler—Shaīkh Muhammad Abu Abdullah who is renowned by the name Ibn Battūta, who had traveled to both India and China in the fourteenth century, who had listened to the sages of faraway lands and learned about something like the “Jewel Net of Indra,” what could he have written in his Travels?41

Comparative religious metaphors aside, the beauty of the “Jewel Net of Indra” might remind him as a Muslim of the light that shines through his very own holy book. In the Qur’ān, there is a sūra (chapter) named nūr (light). In this chapter, the central verse (ayah) is called the verse of light, regarded by the Sufis as containing the mystery of God: God is the Light of the heavens and earth. His Light is like this: There is a niche, and in it a lamp, the lamp inside a glass, A glass like a glittering star fuelled from a blessed olive tree from neither east nor west, Whose oil almost gives light even when no fire touches it—Light upon light—God guides whoever He will to his Light; God draws such comparisons for people; God has full knowledge of everything.42

Muhammad Assad points out that since God is impossible to define, the parable of the “light of God” is not meant to express His Reality, but only to allude to the illumination that He, who is the Ultimate Truth, bestows on the mind and feelings of all who are willing to be guided. The lamp in the verse signifies the revelation that God gives through His prophets. The niche is the light of the message ref lected in the believers’ hearts. The glass shining like a glittering star is human reason, the gate through which true faith can find its way to the human heart. The olive tree is an allusion to the organic continuity of all divine revelations, neither East nor West, which from its main root grows steadily throughout human spiritual history, branching out into a splendid variety of religious experiences, endlessly widening the range of the human perception of truth.43 Following Assad’s explanation specifically for the purpose of the present discussion, the “verse of Light” produces three elements that might

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connect a Muslim to bejeweled dialogue inspired by the “Jewel Net of Indra”: (1) the organic continuity that is common to all, symbolized by the olive tree; (2) human reason, symbolized by the shining glass; (3) and the human heart that could be illuminated by Divine Light, as in the niche. If a combination of factors that include hatred and fear has rendered deadly conf licts, not only in southern Thailand but also elsewhere in the world, without effective solutions other than the use of violence as has recently been the case in Sri Lanka, then there is a dire need to free everyone involved—perpetrators, victims, the general public, and peacemakers—from such despair. If dialogue is still believed to be a way out of deadly conf licts, it has to cut through the heart of darkness with an innovative perspective. “Bejeweled Dialogue,” inspired by the wisdom and beauty of the ancient “Jewel Net of Indra,” is proposed here as an alternative form of dialogue that can creatively reconnect those in the midst of deadly conf lict, that will make it possible for them to see conf licting parties as humans who are equally valuable and organically connected, and that will perhaps enable them to find ways to end deadly conf licts without violence. Notes This chapter was originally presented at the seventh annual conference of Globalization for the Common Good: An Interfaith Perspective: “From the Middle East to Asia Pacific: Arc of Conf lict or Dialogue of Cultures and Religions?” Trinity College, University of Melbourne, June 30–July 4, 2008. It was later given as the keynote address for the Asia-Pacific Peace Research Association (APPRA) conference at the National Dong Hwa University, Hualien, Taiwan, September 10–12, 2009. 1. Santiago Zabala, “Introduction: A Religion Without Theists or Atheists,” in The Future of Religion, ed. Santiago Zabala (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 1–27. 2. Ibid., 72–73. 3. See, for example, Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., The Dictionary of Global Culture (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997); Sarah Gamble, The Routledge Critical Dictionary of Feminism and Postfeminism (New York: Routledge, 1999); Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffins, Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies (London and New York: Routledge, 1999); John Hoffman, A Glossary of Political Theory (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007). 4. See, for example, the classic Aldous Huxley’s An Encyclopedia of Pacifism, included in Robert Seeley, The Handbook of Non-Violence (Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill & Company; Great Neck, NY: Lakeville Press, 1986); Roger S. Powers and William B.Vogele, Protest, Power, and Change: An

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5.

6. 7. 8. 9.

10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

24.

Encyclopedia of Nonviolent Action from ACT-UP to Women’s Suffrage (New York & London: Garland Publishing, 1997); and Christopher E. Miller, A Glossary of Terms and Concepts in Peace and Conflict Studies (San Jose, Costa Rica: University for Peace, 2005). Edward W. Said, “The Clash of Definitions,” in The New Crusades: Constructing the Muslim Enemy, ed. Emran Qureshi and Michael A. Sells (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 68–87. This is a paraphrase of Audre Lorde’s words—Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider (Freedom, CA: Crossings Press, 1984), 112. William L. Ury, The Third Side: Why We Fight and How We Can Stop (New York: Penguin Books, 2000), 4–17. John L.Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think (New York: Gallup Press, 2007), 150. Christoph Marcinkowski, “Religion, Reason, “Regensburg”: Perspectives for Muslim- Christian Dialogue,” Islam and Civilizational Renewal 1 (2009): 160. Centre for International Political Studies, University of Pretoria, “Islam and the Vatican: The Journey toward a Dialogue among Civilizations,” Islamic Focus, no. 18 (2008): 1. Ibid. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (London: Penguin Books, 1989), 31–32. Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 204. Ibid., 198. Esposito and Mogahed, Who Speaks for Islam? 151–152. See a nuanced analysis of the problem in Duncan McCargo, ed., Rethinking Thailand’s Southern Violence (Singapore: NUS Press, 2007). Overcoming Violence Through the Power of Reconciliation (Bangkok: National Reconciliation Commission, 2006). Ibid., 71–72. Ibid., 100. Ibid., 100–101. Duncan McCargo, “Thai Buddhism, Thai Buddhists, and the Southern Conf lict,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 40 (2009): 8. Supara Janchitfah, Violence in the Mist: In the Name of Justice (Bangkok: Kobfai, 2008). See, for example, news of Muslims who were killed while praying in a Narathiwat mosque in southern Thailand and the vengeful killing of a monk and wounding another as a possible response in Bangkok Post, June 9 and June 13, 2009. Mark Tamthai in a panel: “Concepts and Experiences in Inter-Faith Dialogue,” a panel discussion held in Nakorn Pathom on June 17, 2007, published in Religious Dialogue (Chiang Mai: Institute of Religious and Cultural Studies, Payap University; Nakorn Pathom: Center for Nonviolence Studies and Development, 2007), 16–17. (In Thai.)

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25. Parichart Suwanbubbha’s opinion in ibid., 42. See her “Moving Together through Action and Dialogue,” in Amana 2 (2008): 4–5, for her understanding of theory and practice of dialogue. 26. Parichart Suwanbubbha’s opinion in Religious Dialogue, 40–41. 27. “Interview with Salomon Lerner,” International Review of the Red Cross 88 (2006): 229–230. 28. Clifford Geertz, Available Light: Anthropological Reflections on Philosophical Topics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 77. 29. Parichart Suwanbubbha, “Moving Together through Action and Dialogue,” Amana 2 (2008): 4–5. 30. David Bohm, On Dialogue (New York: Routledge, 2000), 6. 31. Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 388–389. 32. Johan Paul Lederach, The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 5. 33. Cited in Heinrich Dumoulin, S.J., A History of Zen Buddhism, trans. Paul Peachey (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1963), 38. 34. Ibid., 39. 35. Daigan and Alicia Matsunaga, Foundation of Japanese Buddhism, Vol. 1 (Los Angeles and Tokyo: Buddhist Books International, 1978), 103. 36. Francis H. Cook, “The ‘Jewel Net of Indra,’ ” in Nature in Asian Traditions and Thought: Essays in Environmental Philosophy, ed. J. Baird Callicott and Roger T. Ames (New York: State University of New York Press, 1989), 214. See also Francis H. Cook, Hua-Yen Buddhism: The “Jewel Net of Indra” (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1977); and Antonino Forte, A Jewel in Indra’s Net: The Letter Sent by Fazang in China to Uisang in Korea (Kyoto: Italian School of East Asian Studies, 2000). 37. As in Cook, “The ‘Jewel Net of Indra.’ ” 38. See excerpts of Radio Rwanda broadcasts during the April 1994 genocide in Scott Straus, The Order of Genocide: Race, Power and War in Rwanda (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2006), 169–172. 39. There are nine principles of reconciliation used in the NRC report: truth, justice, accountability, forgiveness, nonviolence, dialogue, memory, imagination, and risk. See Overcoming Violence through the Power of Reconciliation, pp. 66–67. 40. See Paul W. Kroll’s review of Forte’s A Jewel in Indra’s Net in Journal of the American Oriental Society 121 (2001): 511. 41. Travels of Ibn Battuta (1929), translated and selected by H. A. R. Gibb (New Delhi: Goodword Books, 2003). 42. “Al-Qur’an 24:35,” in The Qur’an, trans. M. A. S. Abdel Haleem (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 223. 43. See The Message of the Qur’an, trans. and explained by Muhammad Asad (Gibraltar: Dar Al-Andalus, 1980), n. 50–53, 541.

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CHAPTER 8 CHRISTIAN ECUMENISM, OTHER FAITHS, AND THE “PEACE OF THE WORLD” Peter Carnley

Introduction This chapter explores the theological connection between dialogue among the separated Christian Churches, motivated by the ecumenical quest for Christian unity, and the contemporary dialogue between Christians and the adherents of other great world religions. It argues that these two areas of contemporary religious dialogue, though often regarded as quite separate enterprises with altogether different procedures and goals, are in fact part of a single quest, which is dictated by an overarching and motivating theological vision of world peace. Indeed, from this perspective, Christian ecumenical dialogue and dialogue between the world faiths can be regarded as a single enterprise. This means, in methodological terms, that both the theoretical basis and the actual contemporary experience of Christian ecumenical dialogue provide some basic principles and strategies that apply equally well to dialogue with other religions. Liberal Democratic Societies and Religious Pluralism At the outset, those involved in religious dialogue immediately have to face the question of truth: how does my truth relate to your truth? This is as much an ecumenical question that churches face in dialogues designed to achieve Christian unity as a question that faces those engaged in dialogue across the boundaries of the great world religions. This is because the adherents of religion generally are committed to absolute truth and the belief that their religious conviction and commitment is not just a

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tentative or passing thing, but something that they espouse “with all their heart, and with all their soul, and with all their mind, and with all their strength.” Thus the question of truth is important to religious believers. On the other hand, it is often said in Western liberal democratic societies that dialogue with those of other religious convictions will f lourish only so long as one does not get involved with questions of truth. Indeed, in Western liberal democratic societies, there is a belief abroad that conf lict over issues of religious truth is the cause of most of the world’s woes. The contention is that as soon as people begin to contend for competing apprehensions of the “truth of God,” they begin to divide. In other words, some commentators argue that it is precisely when questions of religious truth are allowed to surface that society runs into social problems and that therefore, religion is the root cause of all the world’s social tension and disintegration and violence. The encouragement in this direction is to identify commonalities and generalities, to avoid addressing questions of difference, and to quarantine questions of truth. This was the strategy followed in Europe after the fragmentation of Christianity as a result of the sixteenth-century Reformation and the bitter religious wars of that period. The ensuing European Enlightenment opted for a highly privatized approach to religion by promoting an extreme form of individualism. The privatization of religion thus discouraged both the public expression of religion and the public discussion of religion, and since the Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Western liberal democratic societies have tended to get by with an uneasy religious truce, based on the virtue of tolerance, but at the expense of openly and publicly addressing questions of truth. This inherited discouragement of the public expression of religion bequeathed to contemporary Europe from the Enlightenment means that the wearing of the signs of religious commitment in public, whether it be the head scarf, a gold cross, or turban, can become a contentious matter of public debate; the placing of a crucifix in schools likewise can be like lighting the blue touch paper of a firework. In post-Enlightenment liberal democratic society, religion is supposed to be a private matter. Church and state are separated, and individuals are free to pursue their own religious preference provided they keep it more rather than less to themselves. The public domain—the state or civil society—thus, inevitably, becomes highly secularized. Moreover, because there is a clear separation of church and state, civil society tends to be grounded in a quest for a lowest common denominator of ethical commitment, a kind of universal ethical system of an essentially secular, nonreligious, or neutral kind with which everyone can agree, but that leaves other issues important to human self-identity,

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whether as Christians, or Muslims, or Jews, for example, entirely unaddressed. Thus, when religion is privatized, the public discussion of specific questions of religious truth is discouraged, leading to a “one size fits all” approach to dialogue. Still, while remnants of the European Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries certainly live on, many commentators are of the view that, to all intents and purposes, the Enlightenment is really over. There are many respects in which Western society is in big trouble and which indicate that the Enlightenment experiment has not worked. It is clear, in this scholar’s opinion, that the attempted isolation of the secular state from religious forces is no longer sustaining its power to produce a cohesive society. Indeed, given the cultural and religious diversity of the modern world, the attempt to keep religion privatized regularly fails—witness the regular controversy over the public display of religious identity, such as head scarves and crosses around the neck—to which reference has already been made. Arguably, even in modern Western liberal democracies, people do not have their identity as purely private persons in some kind of enclosed capsule, isolated from the religious and cultural affiliations that they enjoy. We live in societies of religious pluralism and cultural diversity and cannot pretend otherwise. As members of a group, human identities are mixed up with cultural and religious affiliations. Of course, whole communities in modern multicultural democracies could aspire to live side by side, keeping very much to themselves, as self-contained privatized units—co- existing within an uneasy truce, at best marked by tolerance, but having very little to do with one another. Once again, this is a social arrangement in which questions of truth tend to be bracketed and are simply not aired or publicly addressed. So how are we to respond to this? First, it should be noted that the example of the contemporary ecumenical movement itself provides grounds for challenging the view that, in a society of religious pluralism, peace and harmony can only be achieved so long as addressing questions of truth is avoided. The opposite may be the case. For example, it is not a coincidence that one paradigmatic example of a human success story, the end of the troubles in Ireland and the extraordinary laying down of arms with the prospect of the creation of a unified Ireland, has actually occurred along with the f lourishing of the modern ecumenical movement. This is an example that proves the contrary to the popular view that addressing questions of truth leads always to tension and division. In one generation, tensions between Catholics and Protestants have diminished precisely as both sides have begun to sit down to talk

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seriously about their differences. Of course, another factor in contemporary Ireland is undoubtedly the modern economic revival, particularly in the south, which might signal that the original divisions were not so much based on religious difference but on economic disparity, with religion providing the rallying banners for contending sides. Even so, history will show that the involvement of church leaders committed to ecumenical dialogue has played an important role in creating a new climate of religious tolerance and cooperation in Ireland. A Christian Theology of Dialogue with Other Faiths What, though, are the theological imperatives that drive Christians into dialogue about issues of religious truth, not just among themselves in quest of Christian unity, but also between themselves and the adherents of other world religions? It is important to recognize that the motivation of Christians themselves to work for Christian unity does not just spring from an occasional prayer of Jesus.1 Rather, it lies at the very center of the Christian soteriological vision. Apart from praying that his disciples might all be one, the essence of the message Jesus proclaimed was the good news that the Kingdom of God, or the reign of God, was “at hand.” Jesus exhorted his listeners to repent, or turn around their lives, and align themselves with the values of this “dawning Kingdom.” Thus, the Gospel values of love, joy, patience, forgiveness, human reconciliation, and peace, are understood as values of the “dawning Kingdom.” This hoped-for Kingdom of the future of God, marked by these values, was in turn pictured in the parables of Jesus and in a number of images of humanity living in generous love, forgiveness, reconciliation, care, harmony, and peace. As this future Kingdom or reign of God is understood by Christians to be already dawning in this world, Christians believe they see hints and glimpses of it in the present—just as the day can already be discerned by anticipation in the first glimmers of the light of dawn. Indeed, Christian faith holds that the future Kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed was already dawning in Jesus himself. This in turn begins Christian theological ref lection on the words and works of Jesus, on God’s revealing presence in him, God’s Word incarnate in him, and God’s Spirit enlivening the lives of those who do his will. Among the concrete images of God’s future Kingdom in the Christian tradition is the image of a heavenly banquet in which all men and women of goodwill sit down together, which Christians also believe they experience by anticipation when in worship they break and share bread together. The Christian Church, in turn, sees itself, when it is truest to its ideals and values, as a continuing sign of the Kingdom, a place in this world

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where the values of the dawning Kingdom are already appearing, and where the Spirit of God is already at work. From this it follows that, if the church is to reveal more fully these heavenly realities, it must “make straight the way of the Lord, and the rough places plain”(Isaiah 42:16) by removing all obstacles that might obscure the clearer vision of the “dawning Kingdom.” In this way, human disunity and tension, let alone discord and violence, have no place in the life of the church. On this understanding, Christians are motivated to participate in the work of Christian ecumenism, to love and care for one another, to dialogue together in order to articulate agreed statements of Christian truth, and to work together in unity and mission, not as an optional extra, but as an essential rather than peripheral concern, since it lies at the very heart of the Gospel of the “dawning Kingdom of God.” Moreover, and very importantly, in Christian self-understanding, the church and its unity is not an end in itself. The glimpses it is given of human unity and peace within its own life, which are interpretable as signs of the presence of the Spirit of God, ground the Christian hope for more to come. Christian unity is thus the ground of a hope for the broader goal of human unity and peace. To express the point more clearly, one can refer to St. Paul, who speaks of the Spirit known among those of faith as a kind of down payment or first installment of a greater yield to come2, or the first fruits of a much greater harvest3 that is yet to be experienced, when all women and men of every race and nation, will sit down together in the Kingdom of God, subject to his perfect reign in harmony and peace. Arguably then, Christians must necessarily be aligned with working not just for Church unity but also for the peace and unity of all humanity. That means that dialogue with those of “other faiths” in the common quest for human unity must be considered, for the Christian and Christianity, an imperative. At the very least, an intuitive appreciation of the essential link between Christian unity and world peace, and of the theological imperative that underpins it, led in 1948 to the formation of the World Council of Churches in the wake of World War II. This was followed by the establishment of various international networks for the promotion of justice and peace, and within 20 years the Second Vatican Council had been called, which, as we shall see below, adopted decrees on both Christian ecumenism and dialogue with Other Faiths in the 1960s. Indeed, the second half of the twentieth century witnessed the burgeoning of a plethora of bilateral dialogues as particular churches squarely addressed specific issues that formerly had divided them. Indeed, the late Pope John Paul II used to say that the ecumenical movement within the life

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of the Christian churches is one of the world’s most important peace movements. In conclusion, Christian dialogue with members of other great world religions is a logical follow-on from the Christian vocation to work for Christian unity. Moreover the link between Christian ecumenism and dialogue with Other Faiths is the theological vision of the peace and unity of the whole world “under God.” Thus Christian ecumenism and interfaith dialogue can be considered a single ball game. A Paradigm Example of Interfaith Dialogue Given the theological imperative just explained to promote dialogue beyond the boundaries of the Christian Churches, it is not surprising to find high-profile contemporary church leaders becoming seriously engaged in dialogue with Other Faiths. Indeed, the recent contributions to interfaith dialogue of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, provide a paradigmatic example of the refusal on the part of one Christian leader to make do with the “one size fits all” approach to dialogue favored by modern Western liberal democratic fashion. Early in 2008, Rowan Williams became embroiled in a controversy after a lecture on Civil and Religious Law in England: A Religious Perspective, and triggered in particular by his references to sharī‘a law.4 This lecture was followed by a BBC interview on Radio 4, the program The World at One, in response to which the BBC received a huge volume of letters and emails, mostly of complaint, objecting to the archbishop’s views. In Australia, as elsewhere, it attracted a good deal of press coverage and editorial comment.5 The editor of The Australian newspaper, for example, wrote the archbishop’s ideas off. In response to the general criticism, the archbishop, speaking in the context of the English General Synod, defended his right as a religious leader to express his concerns about the involvement of minority groups in English society and emphasized the need for the law of England to take the religious sensibilities of a multicultural society into account in the interests of social inclusiveness and cohesion. Yet there is always a danger in using the term sharī‘a. It automatically conjures up images associated with a set of very negative attitudes toward women and very brutal and inhumane physical forms of punishment. The community at large surely needs to learn and appreciate that the divine path or way denoted by sharī‘a is a mixture of specific laws and prohibitions of a dietary and social as well as of a penal kind, plus a set of basic principles and values, such as being just and fair in one’s dealings and acting honestly and truthfully. All this has to be translated into specific

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actual laws, having regard for such jurisprudential principles as custom (‘urf ) and analogy (qiyās) so as to extend the limited basic principles of sharī‘a into the unlimited situations of life ( fiqh).6 In fact, the archbishop in his lecture went to great pains to point out that many Muslim scholars would say that sharī‘a refers to a method rather than an actual code of law that is complete in itself. Its actual purpose is an attempt to make actual the will of God in particular sets of circumstance, which may differ from place to place, and lead to slightly different legal embodiments: witness the differences between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and between Turkey and Malaysia. In suggesting that British law might accommodate some elements of sharī‘a as a way of fostering the cause of social cohesion in England, the archbishop was, arguably, not suggesting, as many held, a return to physical maiming of the kind that Britain left behind some centuries ago, or a regressive stance with respect to the status of women. Rather, his point was that people’s identity these days derives from social, cultural, and religious affiliations and that in order to take account of them, a “one size fits all” approach to law may not be all that productive. On this view, account must be taken of specific religious and cultural affiliations to meet the needs of real people who draw their identity from quite specific religious and cultural traditions. Moreover, he pointed out that it is factually the case that there already are some respects in which British law takes account of religiously formed sensibilities. He cited the matter of conscientious objection on religious grounds that is already well recognized in British law. If a person is in conscience a sincere pacifist then that person is not compelled to act contrary to conscience, but may be exempted from some forms of military service. The example the archbishop gave was in relation to the law of abortion. Countries that permit abortion, usually only in specifically regulated circumstances, also provide that medical doctors are not to be required to perform abortions if it offends their conscience. Once again, here is an example where the law already takes into account religiously based moral sensibilities. The archbishop simply proposed on the basis of these precedents that some elements of sharī‘a law might be accommodated particularly to the law governing some social matters, such as divorce law, property settlements, or some commercial arrangements. He pointed out that Orthodox Judaism already has its own procedures based upon the Talmud that are legally recognized in Britain. The suggestion was that in certain circumstances, people might even be permitted to choose their preferred jurisdiction, though without cutting off the right of appeal to civil law

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to safeguard liberties if need be. In this way, religious minorities might be accommodated and feel more “at home” in a more inclusive kind of society. Further, the Australian press’s criticism of the archbishop’s modest proposals failed to note that Australia is tending more and more to use mediation rather than a purely adversarial approach to the administration of law, and also to incorporate tribal elders in the rehabilitation and discipline of young aboriginal offenders, in place of incarceration. Punishments according to tribal law are now also considered as an option to imprisonment. Often the offender knows full well that after a term in prison, let us say, for manslaughter, he is likely to face tribal punishment. While difficult for some to accept, it is understandable that cultural considerations have to be taken into account, if we are dealing with real people whose identity is formed and bound up with a particular set of cultural and religious values. Also, in Australia, the Australian Law Commission has at least made some small concessions toward Muslim needs. For example, there is a greater emphasis on conciliation and mediation in resolving disputes, and a case has been made for binding financial agreements between spouses to be recognized.7 In this light, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s very tentative suggestions about accommodating the method of sharī‘a in the formulation of at least some aspects of British law may be more tenable than some press commentary has editorialized. Perhaps (as the present scholar personally believes) this might stand as a practical example of the kind of courageous and imaginative approach to interfaith dialogue that we should be aiming at. Thus, instead of trying to identify a kind of universal civil ethic that might apply to everybody on the “one size fits all” principle, we might well take account of the fact that we live in a pluralistic community of overlapping allegiances and affiliations that give us our diverse identities. Cultural and religious sensibilities have of course to be balanced and agreed to by the community at large, but they are not wisely ignored. Indeed, the principle of “assimilate or else” may not be the best recipe for achieving social cohesion. Toward a Philosophy of Interfaith Dialogue If the “one size fits all” approach to dialogue is resolutely resisted in the way proposed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, how may the quest for truth and the brute fact of religious pluralism be understood and handled? What strategies might we adopt? Once again, the experience of Christian ecumenical dialogue may be found to provide some basic principles that apply equally well to dialogue with other religions.

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In the context of the Christian hope of the “dawning Kingdom of God,” there is always an element of provisionality attached to perceptions of truth, because there is always more to come, greater clarity to come. This means to approach questions of truth in humility, cautiously, and not with the air of arrogant certainty; to see ref lections only “through a glass, dimly, not face to face.”8 This should leave Christians open to the possibility that there may be diverse ways of humanly understanding and expressing the “truth of God” (to deploy a Christian notion). Certainly, it suggests the obvious truth that all religions are not the same, because no one formulation of the “truth of God” will be able to encapsulate all there is to say. Diverse approaches to the “truth of God” may therefore be noncompeting and complementary. Indeed, it is not possible to describe the same ball as simultaneously both red and brown; it will be one or the other; but there may be other descriptive phrases applying to the ball that are not similarly in competition with one another. The same ball may be at the same time red and not very bouncy. Likewise, religious truths may be complementary and not necessarily in logical competition with one another. On the other hand, the same truth may appear somewhat differently in different contexts. A ball that we all agree is red when viewed in daylight may actually appear to be brown when taken into a room where there is a blue light. Likewise, a religious truth may strike us somewhat differently in different historical contexts. This may be a way of dealing with the issue of the status and treatment of women. For example, while some Islamic approaches to the treatment of widows may today appear to some to be unjust, it is sometimes said that in the original context of their formulation, by comparison with other prevailing contemporary attitudes, they may have marked a significant and humane advance in the treatment of women. Therefore, context may be important in our discussion of religious truth. Furthermore, it should be remembered that questions of meaning are logically prior to questions of truth; it is not possible to begin to judge whether what a person is saying is really true or not, without first ascertaining its meaning. The quest to put ourselves in the shoes of the other, sympathetically to wrestle with what is really being said, and what is really meant, is a necessary prerequisite of the pursuit of questions of truth. Certainly, as individuals grapple for the truth and seek to understand one another’s apprehension of it, in an atmosphere of humility and mutual respect, it might be found that what is actually being built is a community of social cohesion much stronger and resilient than the mere awkward, silent co-existence that the Enlightenment, with its heavy commitment to privatization of religion, the attempted quarantining of truth, and the

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awkward avoidance of the public expression and discussion of religion, would bequeath. Learning from Ecumenical Mistakes Finally, even ecumenical mistakes and blunders may provide some useful practical lessons in developing strategies to guide interfaith dialogue. One Vatican foray into Christian ecumenism may be of particular help in addressing the issue of the handling of competing claims to religious truth. The Second Vatican Council of the Roman Catholic Church produced both a Decree on Ecumenism, Unitatis redintegratio (1964), and a decree on Other Faiths, Nostra ætate (1965). Both these documents are now somewhat in need of an update. In June 2007, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in Rome issued a Responsa to clarify certain matters touched upon in the Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism concerning relations between the Church of Rome and other Christian churches. In this document the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith addressed five questions in what it called “a response to some questions regarding certain aspects of the doctrine of the Church.” In a nutshell, the five questions to which clarifying answers were given all focused on a statement in the Decree on Ecumenism of 1964, which said that the true Church of Christ “subsists in” the Roman Catholic Church. For the last forty years there has been debate about whether this means that the true Church of Christ, which is said to subsist or continue or remain in the Roman Catholic Church, can also be thought to subsist in other Christian churches and ecclesial bodies as well. In other words, is the term being used inclusively? Does it affirm something about the nature of the Roman Catholic Church while leaving open the possibility that the true Church of Christ may be found elsewhere as well? Or is the word being used exclusively only of the Roman Catholic Church? Obviously, if the use of the term “subsists in” by the Second Vatican Council simply implies a refusal of the Council to make a one-to-one identification of the true Church of Christ with the Roman Catholic Church alone, then the possibility is opened up for mutual recognition, and ecumenical dialogue more or less on an equal footing. And, clearly, this would not be the case if it simply intended to say that the true Church of Christ quite simply is the Roman Catholic Church to the exclusion of all others. Notably, in June 2007, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith opted for the more exclusive interpretation of “subsists in”; indeed, the official commentary published with the Congregation’s answers to

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questions quite simply says that there is in fact no difference between saying the true Church of Christ “subsists in” the Roman Catholic Church and that the true Church of Christ simply is the Roman Catholic Church, for it was argued that there can only be one true church. Those remainders are all, in one way or another, said to be “wounded.” The Oriental, or Orthodox, churches are at least said to be “sister churches” to the local Catholic Church, but they are said to be wounded, insofar as they lack something; what they are said to lack, of course, is communion beyond the local level at the universal with the See of Peter. Though they may still be called “churches” because they are acknowledged at least to possess a valid eucharist and ordered ministry in apostolic succession, they are nevertheless “wounded”—they are said to lack something needed for continuing ecclesial life in perfect health. Then, according to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s answers to questions, the Christian communities born out of the sixteenth- century Reformation are said to suffer from an “even more profound wound” than the Oriental or Orthodox churches. They are not even to be called “churches” at all, because they are said to lack a valid eucharist and the ordained ministry of bishops, priests, and deacons in unbroken succession from Jesus’s apostles. It is perhaps not hard to imagine what kind of negative reaction the publication of this document triggered among other churches, and even within the Roman Catholic Church itself. Both Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Prefect of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, and Cardinal Karl Lehmann, the president of the German Bishops’ Conference, were clearly disturbed by it. Indeed, the official commentary on CDF’s short catechism itself already acknowledged “the no little distress” that this would probably cause to the nonpapal world, and one senses that it fully understood that it would make the ecumenical journey much more arduous; nevertheless it self- defensively pleaded that it must honestly put its own true position. All is not ecumenically lost, however; for all nonpapal bodies, though said to be defective and wounded, are acknowledged to possess at least some “elements of sanctification and truth” which are said to “tend and lead toward” the one true Church of Christ that subsists in the Roman Catholic Church alone. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith thus at least wishes to acknowledge that “elements of sanctification and truth” are found outside the Roman Catholic Church. To this degree “the Church of Christ is present and operative in the churches and ecclesial communities not yet fully in communion” with the Roman Catholic Church. But the full identity of the true Church of Christ is said to lie with the Roman Catholic Church, and it appears to be hoped that the

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degree to which other churches and ecclesial communities approximate to this norm by possessing “elements of sanctification and truth,” will be sufficient to ground some kind of continuing ecumenical dialogue. One suspects, however, that the only ecumenical dialogue that is now really possible is dialogue aimed ultimately at the return of separated churches to the one true fold of Rome. Nonetheless, what do allegedly “wounded” Christians, in ecumenical dialogue with their Roman Catholic counterparts, have to say in response to the assertions of this short catechism on the nature of the church? And what can we all learn from it about strategies for interreligious dialogue generally? The first thing to suggest is that as long as there are divisions among Christians, are all wounded. It is not that some suffer from wounds and others do not. Even in this particular document, the Roman Catholic Church, despite its claims, concedes that it itself does not fully express the ideal of catholic inclusiveness that properly belongs to the one Church of Christ while ever there are Christians separated from it. In answer to question 5 it actually says: “[. . .] because of the divisions between Christians, the fullness of universality, which is proper to the Church governed by the Successor of Peter and bishops in communion with him, is not fully realized in history.” In other words, while ever there are divisions between Christians, even the Roman Catholic Church itself is not fully one. By our divisions we are all wounded. Second, for all baptized into the communion of God, the Church’s institutional life, concretely manifest in the present, is always partial and incomplete. Christians, it can be said, live in active hope of the future dawning Kingdom of God, when God shall be all in all, and when the one true Church of Christ will be fully revealed, and we shall know both perfect communion with God and with one another. And if the one true Church of Christ is essentially a heavenly reality that is only ever realized in this world imperfectly, then its unity, this side of the eschaton, will always be less than perfect, in just the same way as its holiness, or its catholic inclusiveness, or its apostolic integrity and continuity through time is only imperfectly realized within history. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” and in this sense are “wounded.” What further principles might be drawn from this episode by way of lessons to guide not only future ecumenical dialogue among Christians but interfaith dialogue? Surely it is unwise to aggravate the alleged wounds of others by rubbing salt into them. There is a time for honesty; but there is also a time for prudence, for temperance and wisdom, for love and self less care. After all, the Good Samaritan of Jesus’ famous parable treated the wounds of the man who fell victim to thieves by the wayside

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not by rubbing in salt but with oil and wine—wine with the antiseptic qualities of its alcoholic content and oil for soothing and healing. The life-transforming call of the parable is a call to care, to soothe and to heal. The ecumenical movement has brought the Christian Churches together as close neighbors. The challenge before contemporary Christians is not to overreact to such statements, but to pour oil on troubled waters, and to press on in hope toward that day when we shall all happily arrive at “the fullness of eternal glory in the new Jerusalem.” Furthermore, it is pertinent to ask: What is the point of making such claims to possess truth exclusively? Unfortunately when exclusive claims to possess the truth are made, it always leaves others languishing, wounded by the wayside. And what do such statements really achieve? Sometimes they may actually reveal a kind of nervous insecurity, a kind of defensive quest on the part of those who utter them to reassure themselves more than anything else. In other words, repeated claims to possess truth exclusively may have the opposite effect from the self-assurance intended. Perhaps there is something of value to learn here from this less-than-happy episode in the recent internal history of Christian ecumenism that can be imported into the dialogue between other world religions. As it turns out, there are signs that the Vatican itself learned something of importance from the negative reaction of other Christian Churches to its June 2007 document. For in December 2007, the same Vatican department, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, published a “Doctrinal Note on Some Aspects of Evangelization,” which impacts on the dialogue with other religions. By contrast with the exclusive claim that the true Church of God continues to exist “only in the Catholic Church,” the December document appears to be a little more moderate in its language in discussing its claims in relation to those of Other Faiths. While understandably affirming that some aspects of truth are believed to be nonnegotiable, this document first affirms the importance of love and holiness if “the light of truth is to reach all human beings,9 but makes no claim to the exclusive possession of the activity of the Holy Spirit of God, which is said to be present in anyone’s “search for the good and the true [. . .] opening the human heart and making it ready to welcome the truth.” While at this point the document has in mind the “truth of the Gospel,” it nevertheless helpfully goes on to quote a phrase that the Christian medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas used some 18 times: “Every truth, no matter who says it, comes from the Holy Spirit.” It also quotes the late Pope John Paul II, for whom the Holy Spirit operates “at the very source” of all “religious questioning.”10

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The work of evangelization, the proclamation of the Christian Gospel, is then said to be for the purpose of sharing the “tremendous benefit” of knowing “the true face of God and the friendship of Jesus Christ” who is identified according to Christian dogma as “God with us.” Christians should wish “everyone to share in these goods, so that they may possess the fullness of the means of salvation.”11 In other words, it seems to be conceded that those who have not yet heard and accepted the Christian Gospel nevertheless already enjoy some grasp of truth and some means of salvation, even if not the “fullness” of these divine realities. What Rome claims is that the adherents of other faiths have not yet received “the fullness of the gift of truth” and “the fullness of salvation.”12 In other words, the work of the Holy Spirit of God is in leading all men and women to truth, but Other Faiths do not possess the “full truth.” This at least recognizes that other faiths do possess some of the “truth of God.” Thus, CDF is not making an entirely exclusive claim to possess all truth, and that is surely a step in the right direction. What might have been said more clearly in the Responsa was that the true Church of God exists “fully” only in the Catholic Church, with the implication that it does indeed also exist in other Christian Churches as well. What can be learned from all this is that we should not be discouraged by Vatican statements; there is always room for movement. Certainly, it is clear that the practical experience of ecumenical dialogue spills over into the dialogue between Christians and the adherents of other religions and vice versa. Conclusion The fundamental argument of this chapter is that some basic strategies for approaching dialogue with adherents of other world religions may be drawn from both the theory and practice of Christian ecumenism as we pursue the quest for a more tolerant and peaceful world. In particular, issues arising out of religious difference, specific understandings of religious truth, and the specifics of cultural diversity are all to be brought to the table and seriously addressed in the work to which we are committed of interreligious dialogue. A lowest common denominator, or “one size fits all” approach, which suppresses important issues, quarantines truth, and sweeps religious differences under the carpet will in the long run not get us very far if we really want to achieve social cohesion and peace. On the other hand, a candid and charitable engagement with one another so as really to get to know what motivates the other and how the other really thinks, instead of trading in cruel distortions and stereotypes, will in the end make for a far more cohesive society of harmony and peace than we presently imagine possible.

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Notes 1. Today, many Christians committed to working for the unity of all Christian people are content to note that Jesus himself prayed that his disciples might “all be one” ( John 17.21). 2. St. Paul, Second Epistle to the Corinthians 1:22. 3. St. Paul, Epistle to the Romans 8:23. 4. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, “Civil and Religious Law in England: A Religious Perspective,” www.archbishopofcanterbury. org/bibliography/articles,interviews,speeches. 5. Ibid. See also BBC interview—Radio 4, World at One, February 7, 2008. 6. For example, the prohibition on wine because of its bad effect on the mind can be extended by analogy to narcotics, even though there is no specific prohibition on narcotics in the Qur’ān or the sunna of the Prophet. See Abdullah Saeed, Islamic Thought (London/New York: Routledge, 2006). 7. See J. Hussain, “Family Law and Muslim Communities,” in Muslim Communities in Australia, ed. A. Saeed and S. Akbarzadeh, (Sydney: University of NSW Press, 2001), 184. 8. St. Paul, First Epistle to the Corinthians 13:12. 9. Doctrinal Note on Some Aspects of Evangelization, n. 11, Vatican department, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, http:// www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_ con_cfaith_doc_20071203_nota-evangelizzazione_en.html (accessed 11,16,2010). 10. Ibid., n. 28. 11. Ibid., n. 7. 12. Ibid., n. 10.

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PART III TOWARD A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF ISLAM

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CHAPTER 9 THE SEARCH FOR COMMUNITIES OF PEACE: AN INTERNATIONAL REFLECTION ON CHRISTIAN-MUSLIM RELATIONS James Haire

Introduction: The Issue of Violence and Peace This chapter seeks to look at the interrelationship of Christianity and Islam in the search for the creation of communities of peace around the world. It begins by looking at the violent worlds in which the two religions, particularly Christianity, began, and then goes on to look at the transformed communities of peace in the development of both religions, through examining the milieu of violence from which they developed, the transformed communities of peace then created, and the dynamics that created those transformed communities. In this it pays particular attention to Christianity, as it would be presumptuous for the author to engage in too heavy an analysis of Islam. Nevertheless, it points to certain factors of significance in the history of Islam. The chapter then goes on to observe the dynamics of peace and violence in the intercultural history of the two religions, by looking historically at cyclic-cultures and wordcultures, and the interaction between the two, particularly as they relate to peace and violence. From this, it seeks to draw out conclusions on the experiences of peace and violence in relation to cultures. The chapter does so not simply from a theoretical framework, but also from the author’s auto-ethnographic material. The author thus here presents autobiographic encounters that have contributed to the theorization of the issues discussed in the chapter. In addition to lecturing in Indonesia for over 35 years, including at the Sekolah Tinggi Agama

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Islam Negeri (the State Islamic University) in Malang, in East Java, he has also been involved in Christian-Muslim dialogue, both in Australia and in Southeast Asia. This has included engaging in public dialogue with Abdurrachman Wahid (Gus Dur), the former president of the Republic of Indonesia. In addition, at the request of the Indonesian authorities as a result of his theological research there in the 1970s and 1980s, he was engaged in the peace process for the Molucca Islands in Indonesia between 2001 and 2005, when he took part in persuading the Christian population to engage in what turned out to be successful peace talks. Both Muslims and Christians were involved in serious violence, with many thousands dead and almost half a million persons made homeless. However, since 2002 both the Muslim and the Christian populations have been gradually working their futures out together, in a quite remarkable display of creating communities of peace. Toward the end of the peace process, a significant communal act of reconciliation occurred. A rebuilt central mosque and a rebuilt central Christian church, both destroyed in the violence, were dedicated. At the beginning of the dedication of the mosque, Christians brought the tifa (the equipment used in Indonesia to call the Muslim faithful to prayer), which they had had made at their own expense, to the Muslim community, as their gift for the new mosque. At the beginning of the dedication of the church, Muslims brought a large bell, which they had had made at their own expense in the Netherlands, as their gift for the new church. Both promised never to engage in violence again. Such autobiographic material will be used in this chapter as auto-ethnographic data to inform the theorization of issues presented. Here, in this example, after word-culture formal negotiations, acts of cyclic-culture, as discussed below, were used to express the conclusion of those negotiations. What is Christianity? Christian theologians do not speak of Christianity as if it were some sort of ideology competing with other ideologies in the marketplace of ideas. Rather, Christians see themselves as those who bear the mark of Christ upon themselves. In Rowan Williams’s words, [W]e carry the name of Christ. We are the people who are known for their loyalty to, their affiliation with, the historical person who was given the title of “anointed monarch” by his followers—Jesus, the Jew of Nazareth.1

The identity of Christians is as those who bear witness to God’s action upon and within their personal and communal lives. Thus, for Christians, it is God’s objective action upon history as a whole, upon their communal and individual histories in particular, and, very specifically, upon the

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experience of each current individual and each current community, that is significant. However, the difficulty in this is that experience past or present, personal or communal, can be merely projections onto God of a person’s or a community’s aspirations or self-interest. How are Christians, then, to listen to the voice of God? It is not their task primarily to invoke God for their particular view of the world, but rather, in humility, to listen as that divine voice comes to them. Therefore, they need to take up this task of listening theologically, while also being very conscious of the need to discriminate between the voice of God on the one hand and their cultural and psychological impulses on the other. Thus the church has stressed the varying roles of scripture, tradition, experience of the Holy Spirit, and advice of doctors of the church, bishops, assemblies, synods, and councils as ways in which the voice of God can be heard and confirmed. This is to guard against the danger of projection attempting to express the will of God. Moreover, they need to listen for the voice of God within a general theological framework. What, then, is this framework? What, then, is the very heart of the existence of those who call themselves Christians, and of the church? It is this. The inexplicable will of God to be for, and with, humanity implies that the church’s life cannot begin to be understood in terms of the structures and events of the world by itself. Equally, God’s inexplicable will to be God with, and for, humanity implies that Christians should always understand their life as individuals and as a community, and indeed all history, theologically. These simple, yet profound, facts derive from the mystery of the Triune God not to be God apart from, or separate from, humanity, but rather to make God’s very life intersect with human life, through the unity of the Son of God with humanity. The theological basis of Christianity and of the church is in the wonder of God’s condescension to humanity, that is, in the intentionality of God’s solidarity with sinners, that is, with those who find their self-identity solely within themselves, and find their selfjustification and sole solace in life and beyond life in themselves alone, without any reference to God. The church is called to exist solely through the solidarity of Jesus Christ with those who are alienated from God, by Christ going to the extremes of alienation for humanity, so that humanity might through him come close to God. At the heart of this Christian faith is expressed the fact that God does not wish to be alone in celebrating the wonder God’s inexpressible love for humanity. God in Christ calls into existence the church, an earthly body of his Son, who is its heavenly head, in order that humanity may come close to God, and so responsively rejoice with God in the harmony and peace that God has established for creation.

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If the being of the church and its life is predicated upon the grace of God in Jesus Christ as itself defining God’s action in the world for the reconciliation of creation, including humanity, then its life of peace is that which it receives from God in Christ, who is its life. The church’s very existence will be shaped by the manner in which it confesses this truth to be its very existence. Thus, Christianity at heart, as it is expressed in the church, sees itself as being brought into being from outside itself. Moreover, it ultimately understands itself as being given meaning from beyond itself. It lives in the world in a very ambivalent manner. It needs the structure of an institution in the world. It can be analyzed through the methodologies of the human sciences, sociological, psychological, economic, managerial, and so on. However, these are secondary issues. Its primary self-understanding is that the church, the expression of Christianity in the world, is the object of God’s self-giving for the sake of the world. For Christianity the issues of the primary and the secondary are central to its self-understanding, as they are in the traditions of Judaism, and also are found in parallel traditions in Islam. The primary, both in the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament for Christians) and in the New Testament, is the worship and service of God. The secondary are all those arts and skills necessary for human life, both individual and communal, that is, the arts and skills of the doctor, the businessperson, the accountant, the lawyer, the engineer, the builder, the statesman, the artist, and so on. In and of themselves, these arts and skills are very important for human life, both individual and communal. However, these secondary abilities can never become primary. Any attempt to make them so is idolatrous. This is an essential distinction underlying the Judaeo- Christian theological tradition. It also has parallels in Islam. The three Abrahamic faiths—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, in historical order of appearance—were all born in worlds of violence. Christianity began as a despised minority of a despised minority ( Judaism) within the Roman Empire. Islam also knew struggle and violence, as did Judaism.2 However, within three centuries of being this despised minority of a despised minority, Christianity had become the official religion of the Roman Empire. This Constantinian settlement had a profound impact on the church. Its immediate source documents (the New Testament) had been produced for a tiny community suffering violence. Now that Christianity was in a powerful position, how was it still possible to hear God’s voice so clearly, especially through those source documents? In fact, the church found its symbiosis with state power so congenial that it found its life, for its future, difficult to contemplate outside this situation. For Islam, too, the establishment of Islamic Caliphates and Sultanates and other forms of Islamic states provided great comfort

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after years of struggle. Christianity and Islam, along with Judaism, have known violence and oppression, but also congenial symbioses with state power. It is clear, of course, that the language of violence is found in the sacred scriptures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In the Hebrew scriptures (the Old Testament for Christianity, and revered texts for Islam) is found language of violence relating to God’s actions (as in Numbers 11: 33–34), to outsiders (Deuteronomy 2: 26–3: 22), to the Israelites themselves (Deuteronomy 28: 15–46), to conquest ( Joshua 6: 20–21), and to natural phenomena (Isaiah 13: 6–13). This language continues in the apocalyptic texts (Daniel 7: 11–12). In the New Testament, language of this type relates to God (as in Matthew 11: 20–24), to Jesus (Matthew 23: 13–36), and to future judgment (Acts 17: 30–31 and Revelation 6: 1–17). Again, in the Qur’ān, there is the language of violence related to divine action (as in Sūra 1:3 and 2:104), to the defence of the community (umma) (Sūra 2: 216–218), to punishment (Sūra 9: 73–74), and to those totally outside (Sūra 4:84).3 For this study, it is the interrelationship of Christianity and Islam that is central. Here, the picture is mixed. On the one hand, Christians and Muslims lived together in great peace for centuries, particularly in the Fertile Crescent. On the other hand, both Byzantine and Roman Christianity and also Islam have a long history of religious wars. The Christian sovereigns and the Islamic Caliphs struggled for territory with each other, and among themselves, over many centuries. They did this first in the Middle East and in Europe, and then in their de jure or de facto colonial territories in Asia and Africa. The interaction of violence between Christianity and Islam can be analyzed in a number of ways. First, it can be seen in terms of the self-defence of a community protecting the claims of an exclusive monotheistic faith as they each saw it. Second, it can be seen in terms of prosecuting an exclusive understanding of mission or da’wa for the expansion of the church or the umma. Third, it can be seen as self-protection through a variety of hermeneutic methodologies on the basis of specific verses in the Bible or Qur’ān related to what was regarded as legitimate coercion. Fourth, it can be seen as the territorial and political rivalry between two word- and trade-cultures.4 In fact, the three reasons above can be related to this fourth, as will be examined further. In the contemporary world it is essential that Christianity and Islam seek communities of peace, for five reasons. First, as the two faiths represent by far the largest religious communities in the world, they have a responsibility for the existence of peace in our world. Both have as their followers both the richest and the poorest on the planet. Second,

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despite their strong peace traditions, both have been involved in violence at many times of their histories. Third, these two religions differ from other world religions in being truly interethnic and international. For example, the range of countries of origin of Australian Muslims alone is one of the widest in the world.5 Fourth, Christianity and Islam are both self-propagating missionary faiths. Their particular forms of exclusivity or inclusivity related to others may vary from place to place, and from time to time. However, at heart there is a missio Dei or da’wa consciousness in the existence of each of them. This colors the ways in which each faith sees God’s, and thus their, responsibility for both the life of humanity and for humanity’s social and political structures.6 Fifth, Christianity and Islam, in their 1400 years of common history, have both had ebbs and f lows in their inf luences. Throughout their common history there have been alternate advances and retreats for both faiths. In this, the dynamics of their respective histories have often been similar.7 The contemporary reality of our world is one of a culture of violence. The irony of the ending of the Cold War is that it has coincided with the unleashing of new forms of religious violence. In the words of Samuel Kobia, the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, there is a pattern that “legitimatizes a culture of violence by invoking God arbitrarily to suit a particular agenda for aggression.”8 This culture of violence manifests itself in many ways. There is the structural violence of domineering or negligent governments in relation to their populations. Corruption and the abuse of power often manifest themselves in violence. There are often structural forms of traditional violence, resulting in gender discrimination, forced labor migration, discrimination against young people and those with disabilities, and discrimination based on race, caste, and class. Surrounding human life itself is the violence against the environment. Against this rather gloomy picture, positive signs must also be noted. In the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, there were remarkable efforts to create communities of peace in various places. Specifically in largely Muslim Aceh in northern Sumatra, Muslim and Christian humanitarian relief and reconstruction agencies were able to work out means of mutual cooperation involving respect for the faith of those assisted. Again, the speed of reconciliation after ethnic and communal violence often has been very rapid, as observed by the author in the case of the Molucca Islands. Despite violence, there is evidence of a vast amount of resilience among populations who have been deeply wounded, as has been seen in Rwanda and Burundi. On a wider scale, the replacing of the G- 8 group of nations by the G-20 group in specific concerns suggests a real intent for genuine international and interreligious future visioning.

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Violence and Transformed Communities of Peace Over against the prevalence of themes of violence in both faiths, it is nevertheless important to look at the themes of peace that have arisen in them. These themes are all the more remarkable, given the violence often associated with them. It is appropriate, then, to look at this phenomenon of violence and peace as it relates to the birth of Christianity as a case study. Christianity was born in a milieu of political and social violence. The evidence from the New Testament and from non- Christian sources of the first century c.e. point to the constant struggle of Christianity to survive in such a climate. Clearly that climate of violence also inf luenced the language and concept-construction of many parts of the New Testament, as seen above. Nevertheless, it is also very striking how early Christianity sought to transcend that violence. A microcosm of the New Testament understanding of building communities of peace for all can be seen in the ethical sections of Paul’s writings,9 especially in the ethical sections of Romans. Paul’s theology dominates the variety of New Testament theologies by its sheer volume. In the New Testament canon, Paul is associated with by far the greatest number of documents of any writer; no less than 13 letters bear his name. It is arguable that no document in Christian history has played a more inf luential role than Romans. Within the development of global Christianity, one simply has to ref lect on the pivotal impact of Romans on patristic theology, on Augustine, and on the development of Western Christianity; on Luther and Calvin and the consequences of the Reformation; on Wesley and the evangelical revival; on Karl Barth and his dominance of twentieth- century theology; and on the Second Vatican Council and the renewal of the Catholic Church. Romans is central to Christian self-identity and self-understanding. It is foundational for the understanding of Christian community, particularly as set out in chapters 12–15. In order to understand this concept of community, it is necessary to understand that it both reacts against, and transforms, Greco-Roman cultures of the first- century c.e. It is thus important to look at the results of socio- scientific research on first- century social organization. Here, parallels are to be seen in the emergence of Islam.10 First, in this world, social groupings were based on kinship, ethnic issues, power, and politics. The kinship group had decisive inf luence over individual identity and self-awareness. Individual consciousness was subordinate to social consciousness.11 This dyadic consciousness too was the background for much of early Islam.

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Second, religion, like other social factors, was enmeshed in kinship and politics. Membership in religious groups was either involuntary or voluntary. In the first-century c.e., the religion of voluntary members resulted in a newly created kinship group.12 Although it appeared to be similar to any other kinship group, Christianity was in fact a created or fictive kinship grouping. Again, a similar background existed with the rise of Islam. Third, there is considerable evidence within Greco-Roman culture of intense expressions of emotion, through outbursts of anger, aggression, pugnacity, and indeed violence. Moreover, these appear to have been socially acceptable.13 Again, there is some evidence of this with the rise of Islam (as in Sūra 2: 190–194 and Sūra 9: 12–15). Fourth, in such an atmosphere, concern for honor and shame was significant. A person’s sense of self-worth was established by public reputation related to that person’s associations rather than by a judgment of conscience.14 This is not foreign to the experience of the early development and theological struggles of Islam. Over and against these four factors, Paul summons Christians to a new form of society, a fictive kinship community based on identity in Christ, and to new social roles. These roles are based on the twin concepts of peaceful harmony and mercy. In doing so, Paul does summon Christians to base their ethical lives on the primary, over against the secondary, bearing in mind distinct racial and cultural perspectives. It is helpful to examine the words commonly translated “peace” and “mercy.” The Greek word “είρήνη” (eirēnē) means “harmony” and “peace,”15 and is closely associated with the Hebrew term “ ‘‫” ’שלום‬ (shālôm). In the New Testament, it refers to two distinct states. First, it means the final salvation and harmony of the whole community, and thus of each individual person. So the concept has a future orientation, referring to the final end of history. Second, on the basis of its future orientation, eirēnē refers to a condition of peace and harmony here and now, guaranteed by what will occur at the end of time. This divinely willed state includes Christians’ well-being and their harmony with God, with one another, and with all human beings. This present orientation refers first to the state of the whole community, and then to the individual as part of it. The terms for “mercy” are “οίκτιρμός”16 (oiktirmos) and “ ‘έλεος” (eleos).17 Both mean “mercy” and “compassion,” while oiktirmos additionally means “pity.” Human mercy denotes the divinely intended attitude of Christians toward others. It signifies sympathy and loving kindness, which are to be exhibited in relationships, particularly through acts of help to the needy. This we see in Matthew 9:13, in

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relation to Jesus’s attitude to eating with outsiders, and in Luke 10:37, in relation to Jesus defining the neighbor who may be an outsider. Thus, we see sustained communal elements, and also sustained pointers to the ideal of a society that is ultimately to be under God’s rule.18 The factors of “peace” and “mercy” have their bases in the primary, rather than the secondary. The Dynamics of Transformed Communities So, in returning to Romans, we observe how Paul deals with the factors in Greco-Roman culture outlined above. Over against them, he summons Christians to new social roles, based on mercy, peaceable harmony, and reconciliation. There are to be fresh expressions of group identity. No longer based on kinship or ethnicity, group identity nevertheless seeks to retain the intense cohesion of former groups. Honor for the community derives from its incorporation into its risen Lord. For that reason, attitudes of peaceful harmony are central to the community’s identity. Again, the basis of individual and communal life is to be related to the primary, rather than to the secondary. Within Islam, parallel dynamics between the primary and the secondary can be observed, particularly in relation to the formation and ongoing life of the umma.19 The primary in Islam is stressed at all times in relation to all individual and communal ethical life being dependent upon one’s submission to Allah. Submission to the will of God is thus constantly presented as central. This is expressed in the repeated declaration of the First Pillar, the shahāda, stressing the sovereignty of Allah. The second Pillar, the salāt, is the organization of the expression of the shahāda, and the other three Pillars, the zakāt, the sawm, and the hajj, the consequences of that expression. From this primary, the secondary, that is, all individual and communal ethical behavior, is developed for the umma, as seen in the Qur’ān, the hadīth, and the sharī‘a. However, it is quite clear where the primary lies: in the expression of the shahāda. Moreover, there is another factor of considerable significance. For Paul, attitudes to those outside the newly created Christian social groupings are to be the same as attitudes to those within them. There is to be no distinction. Again, we should note the parallels with Islam, particularly in relation to the other Peoples of the Book, for example in Muslim ordinances in relation to Muslim marriage to Christians and Jews. Throughout world history, Christianity has had both success and failure in being able to present and live out this newly transformed identity in Christ. To this varying success and failure, and the reasons behind it, we now turn.

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Religion in Intercultural History It is necessary, then, to look through one particular lens at the processes of the spread of world Christianity, and at its consequent relations with Judaism and Islam. It is necessary, too, to observe how the ideal of communities of peace developed on the one hand or was restricted on the other, as Christianity expanded. Christianity was born within an immediate Jewish cultural environment, surrounded by an Aramaic and Hebrew vocabulary, and Semitic expectations. However, this integrated Judaism, in its strict and official vesture, rejected Jesus of Nazareth and later turned against Paul as he championed freedom from the Law through Jesus Christ. As the New Testament and second- and thirdcentury c.e. writings demonstrate, Christianity penetrated much more easily into Hellenistic culture, including Hellenistic Judaism, than into the culture of Judaism itself. From Hellenism, it developed into the wider Greco-Roman culture, and subsequently moved into northern and eastern Europe, in addition to its limited movements into Asia. Why was it that it found its movement into Hellenism much easier than its movement into Judaism? It was because Hellenism was more of a culture in the original sense of that word than Judaism. Hellenism was much more related to primarily agricultural societies, whose deepest concern was with being in harmony with nature.20 The Christ Event spoke of birth, growth, development, maturity, death, resurrection, and new life. This was a cycle. It fitted the cyclic world of agricultural life. It was a cyclic culture. That world spoke of planting, development, maturity, harvest (or death), new life, renewed fertility of the soil, and new growth. The Jesus story fitted the pattern of agricultural life. It had also been similar to the dramas of the Prophets and Psalms in the Hebrew scriptures, where they had spoken of destruction and rebirth. However, in first- and second-century c.e. Judaism, a different world had emerged. There was no longer the drama of the Old Testament prophets and the psalms of the Hebrew scriptures. Now Judaism tended to stress the precise following of particular divinely inspired words, which had been uttered up until the time of Ezra and the “Men of the Great Synagogue” and thereafter had ceased.21 So the gospel lived and f lourished in a cyclic and agricultural mode as it was interwoven into agricultural societies. In this way, on the whole, the gospel initially expanded. However, it did not enter the world of Judaism to any large degree. As it moved north and west, and east to some degree, the transfiguration of agricultural society meant that the gospel was totally interwoven into the fabric of the culture and also began to mould the cyclic impulses of the culture. Wholeness, harmony, rhythm, and ritual were the means

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by which the gospel was expressed. Baptism was the water ritual; Holy Communion was the thanksgiving ritual. Both were central means of expressing the faith. Many parts of northern, western, and central Europe were evangelized in this way. The movement was slow and halting, and yet the interweaving continued. Celtic Christianity developed in this way, deeply cyclic, and deeply agricultural. There were also limited movements into western Asia, to India, and to areas further east. There was, from time to time, resistance to the gospel, but generally the development of Christianity was communal. Christianity thrived in this cyclic world, and expressed itself communally. There were internal communities of peace, and frequently relations of peace with surrounding faiths. However, another world existed in which Christianity had not been able to develop so successfully. This was the world of a trading- and wordculture. It was the world of first- and second-century c.e. Judaism, into which Christianity had not been able to develop in the first millennium. However, with the rise of travel and trade, Christianity began to develop into a trading- and word- culture, that is, into a culture in which wholeness, community, harmony, and ritual received less attention, and more attention was given to common standards to guide diverse peoples as they sought to live together. The development of trading- and word-cultures occurred largely in the period from the fourteenth-century c.e., often referred to as the modern period, taking in as it did the European expansion in trade and commerce, the Renaissance and the Reformation, and industrial modernization. This was a world different from that of the agricultural world. Journeying individuals and communities needed clear-cut ordinances in warding off their dangers and temptations, far from the cyclic life of the soil that they had left behind. That cyclic world had been so clearly transfigured by the Christ Event, and celebrated in ritual as a means of expression and teaching. The trade- and word-culture was different. Guidelines were needed to bind communities together. Doctrine, ethics, polity, and management were all important. The emphasis was to be on the Book (the Bible), the Guide to the Book (the confessions and catechisms), and the Interpreter of the Book (the preacher). However, here we reach a significant factor, as parallel cultural emphases also occurred in other trade and word religions, specifically Islam and Judaism. In Christianity, in this word and trade form, there is emphasis on the Bible, the confession and catechism, and the preacher. In Judaism, there is a parallel emphasis on the Torah, the Mishnah and Talmud, and the rabbi. In Islam, there is a parallel emphasis on the Qur’ān, the sharī‘a, and the fiqh. So it is here, with Islam, that Christianity is now in parallel form, but also in rivalry.22

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Within Western-trading Christianity comes the Enlightenment, which relativizes the Christian faith’s exclusive claims, and thus places it firmly in the area of the individual’s personal rights. Christianity, in this view, is thus no longer fundamentally communal. It is one logical development of Christianity in a word-culture. So now Christianity succeeded in operating in two cultural modes, the cyclic and agricultural mode, and the word and trade mode. However, a critical issue arose during the period of global evangelization, from the late eighteenth-century c. e. onwards. Could Christianity, which largely existed in a word and trade cultural mode in the mission-active nations, translate itself again into the cyclic and agricultural cultural modes of the receptor cultures? If the mission-active cultures had been those that were still in the original cyclic and agricultural mode moving into new cyclic and agricultural receptor cultures, then the spread of the gospel would have been relatively simple. However, mainly they were not. They were trade and word cultures. In the process of evangelization, a variety of reactions occurred. In relation to Islam, with both being in wordand trade-culture mode, there was the heightened possibility of rivalry. In some situations, the spread of the gospel was highly successful, as, for example, in parts of Central, East, and West Africa, in much of the Pacific, in parts of the Outer Islands of Indonesia, and in North-East Asia. This success is seen in a number of significant indigenous Asian theologies,23 for example in Korean Minjung theology24 and in the theology of C. S. Song.25 In these theologies communality relates both to the indigenous identity of Christian community (the “experience of critical transcendence”26), and to the peaceful harmony between the Christian, minority community and the wider community in each Asian society. In the development of Christianity in the cyclic and agricultural mode, great emphasis was placed on the baptizing of communities and cultures into the faith. Once whole Christian communities had been established, then there tended to be harmony and peace both within those communities and in relation to the surrounding societies. However, although trade- and word-culture communities encouraged peace within their community, they did not necessarily encourage community with those outside the faith-group. Often, colonial Protestant communities were internally cohesive, but aggressive toward the world around them, including toward indigenous religions. So in the Caribbean and in the Southern states of the United States, the local population was enslaved, or slaves imported, and the slaves simply acquiesced in the colonists’ religion. There was little attempt to translate the gospel into the cultural terms of the indigenous community. In China, Japan, and India, parts of the population were antagonized by Christianity. The same dynamic also occurred with the

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spread of Islam. However, here the dynamics were the opposite of those experienced by Christianity. For Islam, they have been largely how a faith carried on a word- and trading-culture could be transferred to a cyclicand agricultural culture.27 This correlation has emerged rather frequently across religious divides, especially where there is a meeting between two word- or trading-culture religions. There are four poignant examples of this. First, it is seen in the struggle between particularly the strident word-culture form of Judaism and the word-culture form of Islam in the Middle East. Second, it was observed in the violence of the past between Muslims and Christians in urban areas of Indonesia. Third, it is seen in the attack of word-culture Christianity against the word- and trading-culture Judaism in Germany in the 1930s. Fourth, it is observed in the antagonism between specific traditions of Islam and certain traditions of Christianity in the United States. As a result of such examples and of others, Jack Straw, the former British foreign secretary, argued that the Cold War had eroded traditional political identities and encouraged people to retreat back to identities defined in terms of cultural, ethnic, national, gender, or religious affiliations, and that the challenge has been to recapture civic political culture by finding ways of allowing space for these affiliations within a framework of shared values.28 Conclusions: Religion, Culture, and Communities of Peace Therefore, a number of things become apparent. First, it is necessary to observe that creating communities of peace from the Pauline tradition means creating attitudes of peace and harmony toward those outside the faith community that are the same as attitudes to those within the community.29 Here Christianity has significant parallels with Islam. Second, it is necessary to note that Christianity needs both its cyclicor agricultural- culture forms on the one hand, and its word- and tradeculture forms on the other. However, it is also necessary to note that its word- and trade-culture forms have a tendency to go against the New Testament, and specifically Pauline, teaching, in that they can tend to an aggressive attitude to those outside the community, while fostering cohesiveness within the faith-group. Again, there is resonance with such tendencies in Islam. Third, it is necessary to stress the importance of cyclic- and agricultural-culture forms within the expressions of Christianity, and to see how word- and trade-culture expressions of Christianity can at the present time be translated into cyclic forms.30 Fourth, theology, therefore, is not simply a matter of engaging in word-culture exercises (in, for example, doctrine and polity). It is as

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much an expression of faith through liturgy, drama, dance, music, and communal living. Fifth, the communal nature of expressing theology calls both Christians and Muslims in particular to advance, at all opportunities, the eight goals of the Millennial Declaration (MDG) of the United Nations.31 These are indeed expressions of communities of peace. Sixth, this way of communal harmony is necessary in the ways in which the churches live their lives. Consensus decision making, mutual celebration, the interest in others’ rituals and festivities are important in being Christian. Here too there are parallels in Islam. Seventh, truth can be communicated without aggression.32 Therefore, the ecumenical movement internationally, in and of itself, as it brings the churches together, is central to the creation of peaceful communities. Again, the style of interfaith dialogue, particularly between Christianity and Islam, is pivotal in creating societies of peace. Notes 1. R. Williams, “Christian Identity and Religious Plurality,” Current Dialogue 47 (2006): 6. 2. On this, see further A. R. C. Leaney, The Jewish and Christian World 200 BC to AD 200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); W. H. C. Frend, Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church (Oxford: Blackwell, 1965); Shahram Akbarzadeh and Fethi Mansouri, eds., Islam and Political Violence (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2007). 3. See further W. W. Emilsen and J. T. Squires, eds., Validating Violence– Violating Faith?: Religion, Scripture and Violence (PACT Series 4) (Hindmarsh, South Australia: ATF Press, 2008). 4. On these four issues, see further J. Heft, ed., Beyond Violence: Religious Sources of Social Transformation in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (New York: Fordham University Press, 2004); Emilsen and Squires, Validating Violence; K. Armstrong, On the Bible (Crows Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin, 2007), 28–30, 224–225; J. Haire, “Public Theology—A Purely Western Issue? Public Theology in the Praxis of the Church in Asia,” C. T. C. Bulletin 23: 3 (2007): 48–61. 5. See ABS 2001, “Census of Population and Housing: Muslim Community Profile: Birthplace of Individual: Top 25 (based on total Muslim population),” Commonwealth of Australia, 2002. 6. S. Neill, Christian Faith and Other Faiths: The Christian Dialogue with Other Religions (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), 40–69, 205–232. 7. S. H. Moffett, A History of Christianity in Asia, Vol. 1 (San Francisco, CA: Harper, 1992); I. Gillman and H. J. Klimkeit, Christians in Asia before 1500 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002).

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8. World Council of Churches News Release entitled “Restating the Ecumenical Vision Demands Conversion, says Kobia,” Geneva, February 15, 2005; Cf. J. Burton, Conflict: Resolution and Provention (London: Macmillan, 1990), 1–2; 13–24. 9. See, for example, in Romans 12–15; I Corinthians 1:10–13; 5:1–5; 6:1–8; Galatians 5; Ephesians 5:21–6:9; Colossians 3:18–4:1. 10. See, for example, Sūra 2: 256; Ibrahim Canan, “Islam as a Religion of Peace and Tolerance,” Yeni Umit ( January/March 2004): 21. 11. W. A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983), 90–91; G. Theissen, Social Reality and the Early Christians (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1992), 272–278. 12. G. Theissen, The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), 27–40; P. F. Esler, The First Christians in their Social World (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), 6–12. 13. L. Pearson, Popular Ethics in Ancient Greece (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1973), 193; A. J. M. Wedderburn, The Reason for Romans (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988), 81–83; W. R. G. Loader, Jesus’ Attitude toward the Law (Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2002), 177. 14. B. J. Malina, The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1981), 27–48. 15. See further W. Foerster, “είρήνη et al.,” in G. Kittel, ed., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. and trans. G. W. Bromiley, Vol. 2 (∆-Η) (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1964), 400–420. 16. See further R. Bultmann, “οίκτίρω et al.,” in G. Kittel, ed., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. and trans. G. W. Bromiley, Vol. 5 (Ξ-∏α)(Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1967), 159–161. 17. See further R. Bultmann, “ ‘έλεος et al.,” in G. Kittel, Theological Dictionary, Vol. 2], 1964, 477–487. 18. On these concepts of peace and mercy, see further J. Haire, “Peace and Mercy in “Romans”: Towards a Contextualisation Today,” The 1995 Canon Ivor Church Lecture, St. Francis’ Theological College Occasional Papers 11 (1995). 19. See Yahiya Emerick, Muhammad (Indianapolis, IN: Alpha, 2002). 20. On this, see further in Leaney, Jewish and Christian World; R. Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986). 21. As in the first words of the Pirqê Abôth; H. Danby, trans., The Mishnah, “The Fathers”(“Pirqê Abôth”)(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933), 446–461. 22. On this whole topic, see further in J. Haire, The Character and Theological Struggle of the Church in Halmahera, Indonesia, 1941–1979 (Studien zur interkulturellen Geschichte des Christentums 26) (Frankfurt-am-Main und Bern: Lang, 1981), passim, especially 320–325.

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23. J. P. Widyatmadja, Kebangsaan dan Globalisasi dalam Diplomasi (Yogyakarta, Indonesia: Kanisius, 2005); A. A. Yewangoe, Theologia Crucis in Asia (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1987), 289–323. 24. D. Kwang-sun Suh, “Minjung and Theology in Korea,” in Minjung Theology, ed. Kim Yong Bok (Singapore: CCA, 1981), 27; Nam Dong Suh, “Towards a Theology of Han,” in Minjung Theology, ed. Kim Yong Bok, 1981, 54; D. Mol, “Minjung Theologie, Zuid Koreaanse Bevrijdingstheologie in een geïndustrialiseerde Samenleving,” Wending (1985): 20–21; C. H. Moon, “Minjung Theology,” Ching Feng 26 (1983): 48. 25. C. S. Song, Third Eye Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1979); Po Ho Huang, “From Galilee to Tainan: Towards a Theology of Chhut-thauthin,” ATESEA Occasional Paper 15 (2005). 26. C. S. Song, Theology from the Womb of Asia (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1986), 219. 27. On this issue in general, see further R. H. S. Boyd, India and the Latin Captivity of the Church (London: Cambridge University Press, 1974); Haire, Character and Theological Struggle; J. M. Kitagawa, The Christian Tradition beyond European Captivity (Philadelphia, PA: Trinity Press International, 1992). 28. See Oxford Today 19:3 (2007): 4. 29. See, for example, from a Muslim perspective, H. Tarmiji Taher, Aspiring for the Middle Path ( Jakarta: CENSIS, 1997); Muhamad Ali, Teologi Pluralis-Multikultural: Menghargai Kemajemukan Menjalin Kebersamaan ( Jakarta: Kompas, 2003); H. M. Oasim Mathar, ed., Sejarah, Teologi dan Etika Agama (Yogyakarta, Indonesia: Interfidei/Dian, 2003). 30. Haire, Character and Theological Struggle, 325–326. 31. See http://www.un.org/millennium goals/ (accessed December 15, 2009). 32. See J. Leimena, “De Ontmoeting der Rassen in de Kerk,” De Opwekker (1941): 626–642; T. B. Simatupang, Tugas Kristen dalam Revolusi ( Jakarta: BPK, 1967); T. B. Simatupang, Keselamatan Masa Kini ( Jakarta: BPK, 1973); G. van Klinken, Minorities, Modernity and the Emerging Nation (Leiden: KITLV, 2003).

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CHAPTER 10 HOW MUSLIMS VIEW THE SCRIPTURES OF THE PEOPLE OF THE BOOK: TOWARD A REASSESSMENT? Abdullah Saeed

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or many Muslims, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are linked together by their scriptures. The Qur’ān recognizes the “Torah” (Tawrat) and the Gospel (Injil) as revelations from God. However, the Qur’ān also views itself as the continuation and final validation of the ideas and beliefs expressed earlier in these scriptures. Thus, despite the formal differences between the Qur’ān, the Torah, and the Gospels, the Qur’ān seems to uphold the authenticity of the Jewish and Christian scriptures. Nonetheless, there are references within the Qur’ān to certain “distortions” of these texts. What these are, and in what sense parts of the Torah and Gospels were “distorted” is an issue that has been debated by Muslim and non- Muslim scholars throughout the past 14 centuries. This chapter attempts to explore the idea of “distortion” as well as the range of Muslim views around it, arguing that despite the polemics on both the Muslim and non- Muslim sides on the issue, the Qur’ān and a number of Muslim scholars take a more nuanced and positive view of existing Jewish and Christian scriptures and their authenticity. Such a view could be quite conducive to today’s interfaith dialogue projects between Muslims and people of other faiths.1 Although there are many “scriptures” of Jews and Christians, I will refer in this chapter only to what the Qur’ān refers to as Tawrat (Torah) and Injil (Gospel).

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Muslim Understanding of “Scripture” Muslims, generally speaking, view “scripture” as—literally—not metaphorically—the exact words of God. For Muslims, the Qur’ān is the actual speech of God, which came through the angel Gabriel to the Prophet in the form of direct divine guidance. The angel is said to have brought God’s messages faithfully, in the language of the Prophet, without distortion. The Prophet in turn conveyed them word for word as they came to him. His followers then took the messages and compiled them into the form of a book. The generally accepted Muslim concept of scripture is based on a “dictation” theory of revelation. This rejects the notion that any “human” speech attributed to God can be the word of God. Moreover, Islamic theology holds that scripture is the word of God only in the same language in which it was revealed. Thus, even in the case of the Qur’ān, it is scripture only when it appears in Arabic; a translation of the meanings of the Qur’ān is not the word of God. This Muslim concept of scripture seems to have evolved in the course of the first and second centuries of Islam (seventh and eighth centuries c.e.), developing into a theological statement and a cardinal point of belief. In contrast to this commonly held view, the Qur’ān seems to have taken a broader view of scripture. Perhaps it took into account the circumstances in which earlier revelations were given to the prophets who came before Muhammad, circumstances that perhaps did not lead in many cases to the “documentation” of these revelations during the lifetime of the prophet or immediately after. It seems that the Qur’ān does not consider such recording necessary to its understanding of what scripture is. If the communities to whom Moses and Jesus, for example, and indeed other prophets were sent were largely illiterate and perhaps dependent on oral transmission, an oral tradition would have been acceptable as a medium of transmission. If, in the process of narration and transmission, some of the “words of God” were mingled with “words of human beings,” the texts would still retain their strong connection to the original revelation from God and the authority vested in that revelation. Even translations of the revelation would be considered the “words of God.” In these contexts the focus is on the actual overall message of the revelation, not on its language or how it was narrated. There are many reasons why Muslims hold to this particular understanding of revelation and scripture. One is associated with how Muslims experienced the Qur’ān in the first community at the time of the Prophet. For Muslims, the Qur’ān, or parts of it, was written down during Prophet Muhammad’s lifetime, as he seemed to have had the habit of dictating the

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messages he received from God. Tradition holds that a number of scribes, though on an ad hoc basis, wrote down at least some revelations as they occurred so that they would not be forgotten. Transcribing parts of the Qur’ān at least ensured that a significant number of revelations existed in written form at the time of the Prophet’s death. However, the various revelations were not collected into a single volume until after his death. From the time of the Prophet’s death, Muslims had a book or at least the concept of a book that included only the speech of God as communicated to the Prophet Muhammad. This book, from a Muslim point of view, excluded any sayings or statements of the Prophet himself. A second reason for the existence of this understanding is that it helps Muslims in their affirmation of their own religion. If religion is based on God’s revelation in the form of scripture, one could argue that the “purity” of a religion should be based on the purity of its scripture. If Muslims could argue that their scripture was the “purest” available, doubtless on the basis of criteria adopted by Muslims themselves, then it follows that the earlier religious traditions were following traditions that did not equal in their “purity” to that of Muslim tradition. In the disputes that arose in the first and second centuries of Islam between Muslims and Christians, in particular, about the relative strength and “purity” of their religions, these arguments about the authenticity and purity of the scripture were useful in how Muslims defended their religion. Portrayal of Jewish and Christian Scriptures in the Qur’ān The Qur’ān shows utmost respect and reverence for what the Qur’ān calls “the Tawrat” (Torah) of the Jews, revealed to Moses, and the Injil (Gospel) of the Christians, revealed to Jesus. It never makes disparaging statements about these “Books,” but instead refers to them as coming from God. The only denigrating remarks in the Qur’ān are about certain individuals or groups of People of the Book ( Jews and Christians) and their actions. The Qur’ān urges Muslims to respect the People of the Book. For example, the Qur’ān emphasizes that there are Christians who are upright, righteous, and do good works: Not all of them are alike: Of the People of the Book are a portion that stand [for the right]; They rehearse the Signs of Allah all night long, and they prostrate themselves in adoration. They believe in Allah and the Last Day; they enjoin what is right, and forbid what is wrong; and they hasten [in emulation] in [all] good works: they are in the ranks of the righteous. (3:113–114)

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It also encourages Muslims and People of the Book to live together in peace because they share a belief in the same God: “Our God and your God is one.” (29:46). The “Book”—that is, the Tawrat—is said to contain guidance and light in Q5:44 and 5:46. In the context of Jewish tradition, rabbis and doctors of law were entrusted with the protection of God’s Book (Q5:44). The Qur’ān asks the Jews of Medina why they had come to the Prophet Muhammad for judgment when they had the Torah with them (Q5:43). The people of the Gospel were also commanded to judge with their Gospel, most likely referring to the scripture they had at the time of Prophet Muhammad (Q5:47). The Qur’ān is also said to “confirm what is with them ( Jews and Christians),”2 a reference to a text/scripture that most likely was with the Jewish or Christian communities at the time of the Prophet. The People of the Book are described as reciting “verses of Allah.”3 Many verses in the Qur’ān refer to the People of the Book as the ones to whom God “gave the Book,”4 and who are asked to “establish the Torah and the Gospels.”5 The Jews, at the time of the Prophet, were thus reciters of scripture,6 as were the Christians.7 Indeed, scholars such as Ibn Taymiyya used these verses to rebut other Muslims, who argued that the Jewish and Christian scriptures as a whole should be rejected.8 The way in which the Qur’ān presents and views the status and role of the Torah and Gospels—as revelations—is not surprising; honoring previous divine scriptures would seem natural. Consequently, both Jews and Christians are collectively and generally given the honorific title “People of the Book” (ahl al-kitāb).9 From among the main conceptual links between the Qur’ān, Torah, and Gospels is the belief in one God and his worship—the key message of all the messengers, from a Muslim point of view.10 Muslim Views on the “Distortions” A significant point of tension between many Muslims and People of the Book is the Muslim claim that the scriptures of the Jews and Christians have been “distorted” and are therefore not to be relied on as the “word of God” in matters of religion, faith, or law.11 There are three broad views among Muslims on this: (1) the scriptures the Qur’ān approves of are only those that were actually revealed to Moses and Jesus, not what exist now; (2) significant parts of the Jewish and Christian scriptures that exist today are “distorted,” and it is difficult to determine which parts are unchanged; and (3) there are no uncorrupted Jewish or Christian scriptures that remain today—those that the Qur’ān refers to as Torah or Gospel have been obliterated. This last appears to be the most popular

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view. Although the Qur’ān makes clear its respect for both the Jewish and Christian scriptures, many Muslims claim a number of Qur’ānic verses as the basis for their conviction that these scriptures, as they exist today, have been distorted. The argument that the Jewish and Christian scriptures were distorted is a feature of both historical and contemporary polemical debates between Muslims and People of the Book. Camilla Adang notes an exchange that allegedly took place between the Patriarch Timothy and Caliph al-Mahdi (d. 785 c.e.), where the caliph is believed to have told the patriarch that the reasons why Christians can find no reference to the Prophet Muhammad in their scriptures is because they have corrupted and distorted them. Timothy replied that it would have been impossible to delete these references if Muhammad had been a true prophet.12 These arguments also continue to feature in current polemical debates. For example, in one discussion, a Muslim puts forward his view: What we believe is that parts of the original revelations sent down to Moses (Torah) and Jesus (Gospel), peace be upon them both, still exist in the Bible today. We believe that people came and wrote things from their own and claimed that it was from God. They then went and mixed their own writings with the original revelations (Torah and Gospel) and removed and added to them.13

To support his claim, the author refers to the Qur’ān: “The reason for this is because it is clear from the verses themselves without [any] need of interpretation that the Qur’ān endorses [the idea of ] textual corruption of the Jewish and Christian scriptures.”14 He goes on to refer to Qur’ān 2:79: Therefore woe be unto those who write the Book with their hands and then say, “This is from Allah,” that they may purchase a small gain therewith. Woe unto them for that their hands have written, and woe unto them for that they earn thereby.

The author argues that God is warning the Jews, who wrote the scripture themselves and then claimed that it was from God—which is “[a] clear charge of textual corruption.” For him, the verse “clearly [states] that whatever the Jews wrote, they claimed it was from God.”15 The author also rejects the authenticity of the Christian scriptures, referring to Qur’ān 4:157, which mentions the crucifixion of Jesus. He goes on to say that [t]he verse is making it clear that the crucifixion of Jesus is conjecture or corruption. The crucifixion of Jesus is clearly taught in the Gospels that

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we have today, and thus the Qur’ān is clearly in an indirect way saying that this is corrupted..16

In response to the charge that the Torah and Gospels were distorted or corrupted, Jewish and Christian critics have used other verses of the Qur’ān, such as Q.2:41 and Q.4:41, to emphasize that the Qur’ān confirms these scriptures and therefore they are the word of God. This has led some Muslims to assert that the scriptures that the Qur’ān confirms were not those that the Jews and Christians had in their possession at the time of the Prophet Muhammad, but only the original revelations that God sent through previous prophets, and particularly those that attested to the coming of the Prophet.17 Jewish and Christian critics respond with further references from the Qur’ān, saying that [t]he author of the Qur’ān believed that the Revelation which the Jews and Christians of his time had in their very own possessions, which would have been the Holy Bible, was God’s true and preserved Word, and that the function of the Qur’ān was to confirm them.18

In the modern period, early polemics have not disappeared, but they are continuing between Muslims and People of the Book. It is the case that the Qur’ān refers to certain “distortions” of the scriptures by some groups of the People of the Book. Terms used for this vary, but the most common is tahrīf. Scholars of tafsīr (interpretation of the Qur’ān) have explored verses where tahrīf and other related terms are used. However, unlike the vast majority of Muslims, many interpreters of the Qur’ān appear to be more cautious in their assessment of what the Qur’ān is referring to when it speaks of tahrīf or distortion. It appears that the debate on whether the Jewish and Christian scriptures can be upheld as the word of God cannot be resolved by simply quoting these Qur’ānic verses; the nuances of the verses that refer to “distortion” and the meaning of this distortion in these contexts need to be understood and taken into account in this debate. References to “Distortion” in the Qur’ān There are a number of instances in the Qur’ān that seem to indicate that there was some “distortion” of parts of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, either of the meaning of the text or, in some cases, of the actual words themselves. One of the terms used is baddala, which means “to change, exchange or substitute.” The Qur’ān says: “But the transgressors changed (baddala) the word from that which had been given them.”19

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Tabari, a scholar from the tenth century c.e., sees baddala as changing how a word is uttered or pronounced.20 There is also a reference in the Qur’ān (2:79) to some people writing something and attributing it to God, but without specifying what that is. The Qur’ān, in 3:78, also makes reference to a form of distortion practiced when reciting certain religious texts, designed to give a false impression to the listener that what is being recited is the word of God. Of the terms related to “distortion” used in the Qur’ān, there are four verses that use the derivative of tahrīf—yuharrifuna (they distorted)—namely, 2:75, 4:46, 5:13, and 5:41. What is tahrīf? Tahrīf is defined as “corruption of a document,” whereby the original sense of the text is “altered.” This may happen in a number of ways: by direct alteration of the written text; by arbitrary alterations when reading aloud a text that in itself is correct; by omission; or by the wrong exposition of its true sense.”21 Scholars such as Razi, Tabari, Qurtubi, Ibn Taymiyya, and Qutb, whose commentaries on the Qur’ān provide important input into this debate, differ in their ideas on tahrīf as to where the emphasis of interpretation lies, that is, whether it occurred by changing the words or the meaning of the words. Fakhr al-Din al-Razi was a theologian who authored numerous books along with one of the most authoritative commentaries on the Qur’ān, called “The Great Commentary.”22 In Razi’s interpretation of Q2:75, he defines tahrīf as “change and alteration. [Tahrīf ] comes from inhirāf, which is turning away from something or departing from something.”23 He goes on to distinguish between tahrīf lafzi (changing the wording of a text) and tahrīf ma’nawi (changing the meaning of a text), raising the possibility of both. Razi also seems to imply that changing a text is only possible before a scripture becomes well known to a large number of followers.24 For him, this can happen only at a very early stage in the history of a community, when the number of followers is very few and the text of the scripture is not well known. There is no consensus among scholars on when this kind of tahrīf could have taken place. Razi suggests that it could have occurred in the case of Torah either at the time of Moses or at the time of Prophet Muhammad. The object of tahrīf would be different according to when it occurred. In most cases, debates on tahrīf were intertwined with the connotation that Jews and Christians discarded the references to the coming of the Prophet Muhammad in their scriptures. Razi proceeds to say that if tahrīf occurred at the time of Moses, it is unlikely to be related to the texts concerning Prophet Muhammad. Conversely, if tahrīf occurred at the time

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of the Prophet Muhammad, it would likely concern the interpretation of texts about the coming of Prophet Muhammad or certain laws like the law relating to the punishment of adultery. Razi himself, in his interpretation of Q2:75, does not give a definite answer as to when this tahrīf took place. He also says: “[T]he apparent meaning of the Qur’ān does not indicate the nature of what they distorted.”25 In Qur’ān 2:75, it refers to a “group” or “party” who engaged in tahrīf; but the Qur’ān does not state who these people were. Again in this case, according to Razi, some of those who engaged in tahrīf could have been around at the time of Moses, and some at the time of Prophet Muhammad.26 Having quoted other views, Tabari, a prominent interpreter of the Qur’ān, believes that tahrīf was actually undertaken by a group of people at the time of Moses, who heard the word of God from him but, having heard and understood it, altered it.27 If this is the case, it is extremely unlikely that “distortion” by some renegade followers would have been given any kind of authority, and such distortions would not have crept into the scripture. The text of the revelations would have remained intact and well known to both Moses and his true followers. Qurtubi sees some weakness in saying that tahrīf was undertaken by the contemporaries of Moses.28 His view is that certain Jewish scholars may have changed some of the ethical teachings of the Torah in an unsystematic manner, according to their own whims.29 Sayyid Qutb, who also wrote a commentary on the Qur’ān, argued that the group referred to is “the most knowledgeable of the Jews [. . .] that is the scholars and rabbis who hear the Speech of God revealed to their Prophet Moses in the Tawrat.”30 Distortion in Diction The question of whether tahrīf occurred in the meaning or wording of scripture has not been resolved in tafsīr literature either. In interpreting Q2:75, Tabari explains the phrase yuharrifunahu as “they alter its meaning.” For him, “yuharrifunahu” means “they change its direction and its meaning to another meaning.”31 For Ibn Zayd, certain Jews altered and changed the Tawrat by making what was halāl (lawful, permissable) as harām (nonlafwul, forbidden) and harām as halāl; truth was changed to falsehood and falsehood to truth.32 Later on, Tabari implies that the alteration of meaning was more likely,33 which seems to confirm that he saw tahrīf largely as changing the meaning of the text, not the actual text itself. Razi, in his treatment of Q4:46, sets out three ways in which tahrīf could occur. The first is by “changing a word for another,” that is,

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replacing one word by another.34 He addresses any objection to this by saying, [First] if it is said, how is this [change] possible for a Book whose letters and words are known to such a large number of people in the East and West, we would say: It is perhaps possible to say that [initially the number of ] people were few and those who had the knowledge of the scripture were extremely small, and therefore they were able to cause this change.35

Razi then continues to explain the meaning of tahrīf and various possibilities. According to him, “distortion” could also mean to utter false and questionable statements. He also claims that when certain members of the Jewish community in Medina asked the Prophet for his advice or comments, they later changed the words he used.36 Sayyid Qutb emphasizes that attributing false interpretations is not a characteristic of Jews as such, but of Muslims as well. He claimed that it was a typical habit of people of religion and of power to follow their whims when interpreting the scripture, including the Qur’ān.37 Distortion by “Concealing the Text” In the interpretation of Qur’ān 2:174, Tabari claims that the verse refers to Jewish scholars who concealed (katamu) the truth about Prophet Muhammad, even though they knew of references to his prophethood in the Tawrat.38 Again, there is no reference to changing the actual text of the Tawrat, but only to “concealing” it. There are no details as to how this took place. Tabari interprets another verse, Q2:159, as referring to Jewish and Christian scholars.39 They, in both the Tawrat and Injil, are said to have concealed the issue of Muhammad, the proof of his prophethood, and ultimately his description. Concealment here perhaps means not recognizing either Muhammad or the “signs” apparently mentioned in both scriptures. Later on, Tabari says that the verse refers to anyone who conceals knowledge that Allah has commanded to be conveyed to the people.40 Emphasizing the relevance of concealment in relation to tahrīf, Tabari quotes several views on the occasion of the revelation of Q5:41. Some of them make reference to the punishment for adultery and the reported attempts by certain Jewish scholars in Medina to “conceal” the punishment of stoning.41 Others make reference to whether the punishment for murder should be diyah (blood money) or qatl (execution).42 In both cases, it could be said that these Jewish scholars were apparently attempting

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to “conceal” the true nature of the punishment for these offences, as revealed presumably in the Tawrat. Tabari, however, concludes by saying that his preferred view is that the verse was revealed about a group of munafiqun (religious hypocrites who claimed they were Muslims but in fact they were not).43 If this was the case, this verse does not address the actual altering of scripture at all. The religious hypocrites could not have changed the actual text of the Qur’ān—they did not have the ability, as is universally agreed. If the verse is related to the Jewish scholars, as is suggested by other reports, it is probably referring to “concealing” the actual rule, perhaps by falsely interpreting a ruling of the Tawrat or by ignoring that ruling. Distortion “with their tongues” Qurtubi gives the meaning of yalwuna in Q3:78 as “distortion by changing what is intended by the text.”44 The verse is referring to distortion of the text or its meaning through speech; that is, either reading what is not from scripture as though it were or giving the Prophet Muhammad, who did not understand Hebrew, the same impression. Tabari also gives the meaning of yalwuna as distortion and then provides corroborating reports.45 One of these, by Qatadah, says: “[T]hey [ Jews] ‘distorted the Book of Allah and [introduced] innovations into that and, then, they alleged that those [innovations] are from Allah.’ ” Ibn Abbas reportedly said: “[T]hey [ Jews] used to add to the Book of Allah what Allah did not reveal.” Both views appear to be related to additions or “interpretations” that were then attributed to God. Again, in Q4:46 the Qur’ān speaks of people distorting by “twisting their tongues” (layyan bi alsinatihim). Based on this, it could be said that this verse appears to indicate that tahrīf occurred by some form of deceitful distortion of the language of communication. Ibn Taymiyya on Distortion Many Muslims appear to be puzzled by the diversity of Qur’ānic references to tahrīf and the apparent reverence the Qur’ān shows to the scriptures of the Jews and Christians. As the earlier example of a polemic debate shows, some Muslims address this concern by claiming that what the Qur’ān refers to with respect are not those texts the Jews and Christians had at the time of the Prophet Muhammad. Other Muslims disagree with this argument. For instance, for Ibn Taymiyya, in verse Q5:47, Christians are commanded to judge according to what was revealed in the Gospels. It could be argued that since this verse addresses Christians at the time

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of Prophet Muhammad, it must be referring to the Gospels they possessed at that time. Similarly, the Qur’ān asks the Jews to judge according to the Torah. Again, the Qur’ān must be referring to the Torah that was in the stewardship of the Jews at the time, not to something that existed only earlier, as many Muslims claim, at the time of the Prophet Moses. Referring to the divergent views on this issue among Muslims, Ibn Taymiyya says: It is said that in the world there is no single copy [of the scripture] that corresponds to what God revealed in the Torah and Gospels. All [versions] that exist are changed. As for the Torah, its transmission from a large number of people to a [subsequent] large number of people has stopped and the Gospels is taken from four [people]. Then, among these people [Muslims] there are those who allege that much of what is in the Torah and Gospels [today] is false, and not of God’s word. Some of them said: [what is false] is not much. It is [also said]: No one has changed any text of the scriptures. Rather they [ Jews and Christians] have falsified their meanings by [false] interpretations. Many Muslims have held both of these views. The correct [view] is the third view, which is that in the world there are true copies [versions], and these remained until the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him), and many copies [versions] which are corrupted. Whoever says that nothing in [these] copies [versions] was corrupted has denied what cannot be denied. Whoever says that, after the Prophet (peace be upon him), all copies [versions] have been distorted, he has said what is manifestly false. The Qur’ān commands them to judge with what Allah revealed in the Torah and Gospels. [Allah] informs that in both there is wisdom. There is nothing in the Qur’ān to indicate that they altered all copies [versions].46

Ibn Taymiyya also provides a basis for understanding what should be considered the “word of God” in the existing scriptures of both Jews and Christians. For him, the word of God is represented by “what the messengers report from God,” not what scribes have written after the death of the messenger, for instance, about the life and times of a prophet.47 The Qur’ān consistently refers to the Torah and Gospels as “Books of God,” revealed to Moses and Jesus. We know from the history of these two religious traditions that by the time the Prophet was preaching, the scriptures of both Jews and Christians were established and documented. Since the Qur’ān was referring to those scriptures that existed in the seventh century, its references to them should equally apply in the modern era. The above discussion indicates that although there is the possibility of some textual distortion of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, it is

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possible to argue that distortion has mostly occurred through their interpretation. The large-scale and deliberate falsification of texts that have a long tradition of transmission and are widely and thoroughly known would be difficult, as several commentators affirm. Some would argue that even if there was some degree of textual corruption, the actual scriptures should still be considered “Books of God” today. Difficulties for Interfaith Understanding The view that Jewish and Christian scriptures are distorted has been a source of conf lict and division between Muslims on the one hand and Jews and Christians on the other since historical times. Mutei notes that the view that Christians distorted the Bible has [. . .] prompted Muslims to study the Bible to identify where these misrepresentations would be found. Progressively, whatever may have appeared to the Muslims as being part of the falsification has been used polemically to launch attacks on the Christians. It was from the foundation of these and similar verses that Muslim scholars examined the Bible and found examples of falsification, which they then used for polemical purposes.48

The view is seen as “exclusivist,” in the sense that only one religious tradition has access to truth as it is given from the divine source, and all others are wrong. David Thomas argues: Through the course of the shared history of the faiths, exclusivist attitudes have led to widespread misunderstanding, to the mistaken point that each faith has represented the other in its own terms, to a reduction of the other down to the stature of a subsidiary form of itself, and then to demonization, enmity and the sanction of bloodshed.49

By questioning the integrity or authenticity of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, there is a sense that proponents of this view are questioning the integrity and authenticity of these faiths, which puts Jews and Christians on the defensive, where they feel they have to either justify their beliefs or attack the Muslim faith. People cannot listen to the other or engage meaningfully in dialogue if they feel they are on the defensive. For example, Cutsinger asserts: For it is in the very nature of things that pious believers will seize all the more strongly upon their convictions, and with all the more unthinking fervor, when they feel themselves threatened.50

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The issue of a religious tradition’s sacred texts is extremely sensitive because [e]ach tradition’s scripture is at the heart of its identity [. . .] Scriptures are formative for understanding of God and God’s purposes; for prayer, worship and liturgy; for normative teaching; for imagination and ethos [. . .] Many of the bitterest disputes within and between all three faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, centre on appeals to scripture.51

The argument is also used to discourage Muslims from reading or engaging with the Bible.52 This works against some of the objectives of interfaith dialogue, such as exploring and learning about different faith traditions. For example, this fatwa states: We Muslims believe that the Bible has been distorted and tampered with by Christian scholars, and it now contains falsehoods and myths that no one with a sound mind can believe. Reading these distorted books is not permissible, except for one who has enough Islamic knowledge to be able to distinguish between truth and falsehood in them, and who reads them with the aim of refuting their followers and convincing them that what is in these books is falsehood.53

Christian Responses: Examples Christians, in particular, have reacted to this Muslim view since historical times. In 1658, the Czech theologian Jan Amos Komenský (Comenius), while commissioning a Turkish translation of the Bible, responded to the proposition that the Christian Bible was corrupted and unreliable. His dedication (written to the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet IV), which would preface the translation, addressed the issue of whether the Christian scriptures had been falsified. His arguments can be summarized as follows: (a) God is the author of His Word and He protects it; (b) God’s Word is eternal and cannot be corrupted; (c) The scripture could not have been corrupted either by the first recipients as they knew it was from God and therefore kept it reverently, or the later followers, and given the large number of these later followers they could not have corrupted it even if they had wanted. (d) God has instilled in people’s minds so much reverence for his Word that both the Jews in their Law and the Christians in their Gospel are equally intolerant of making any change and would

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rather die than admit, knowingly and willingly, any corruption whatsoever.54 Interestingly these are very similar to the arguments Muslims themselves use to defend the integrity of the Qur’ān. Comenius’s comments on the falsification of scripture are, in fact, located in quite a long tradition of seventeenth century writings on this issue.55 This tradition, remarkably, involved a “genuine two-way debate” between Muslim and Christian writers, something quite unknown in earlier times.56 Some Europeans were aware, from at least the late thirteenth century, of the general nature of Muslims’ claims that the Jewish and Christian scriptures were distorted. But the details remained largely unknown, since the specific arguments of the Muslim writers did not have any circulation in the West. This, however, changed in the early seventeenth century, when a Persian manuscript was brought to Rome and given careful study.57 A Christian response was written by a Spanish Jesuit, a man who had played a leading role in the Jesuit mission to India in 1600 c.e. and translated into Persian.58 He also argued that the text was the same in all parts of the world; that no alternative, “uncorrupted” version had ever been produced; and that the notorious enmity between Jews and Christians made it very unlikely that they could have connived at producing the text that they did in fact share.59 Among the common arguments advanced by opponents of the Muslim position include the following: (a) nowhere in the Qur’ān does it state that the Bible is corrupted, and evidence from the Qur’ān shows that it is not corrupted; (b) historical documents (such as early Christian manuscripts, the Dead Sea scrolls) demonstrate the reliability and authenticity of current biblical texts; and (c) logical reasoning suggests that the Bible could not have been corrupted before the time of the Prophet or afterward.60 Muslim Voices for Rethinking Although the views on the distortion of Jewish and Christian scriptures that emerged in the Muslim tradition were seen as firmly established, in the modern period a number of Muslim scholars have begun to reassess those views. This is more obvious today within interfaith discourses. Omar, for example, argues that it is necessary for participants in interfaith dialogue to read and embrace the sacred texts of other religious traditions. Although he does not explicitly address the question of whether the Jewish and Christian scriptures are distorted, he does not accept some of the Muslim arguments that justify this proposition. In particular, he rejects the arguments of the scholar and theologian Ibn Hazm (994–1064)

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and his critique of the Old and New Testaments, labeling Ibn Hazm’s analysis as “f lawed,” resulting in “misunderstanding and irreverence.”61 He argues that “[a] more careful examination of the nature of different sacred texts, however, may suggest that in fact Muslims, Jews, and Christians operate with radically different theologies of revelation.”62 Omar supports his position by relying on Mahmoud Ayoub’s view that it is possible to differentiate between valid but distinct modes of revelation. The Bible, according to Ayoub, is more a revelation of action or a record of God’s acting in the history of humankind.63 On the other hand, for Ayoub, the Qur’ānic mode of revelation is more direct communication or commandment from God to human beings.”64 Other scholars see the difficulties associated with any rethinking. Seyyed Hossein Nasr believes that because of the genuine theological issues between Christians and Muslims that are hard to resolve, such as the question of the incarnation and the Trinity, Muslim thinkers who accept the Qur’ānic dictum that Christianity has a divine origin cannot easily find a way to reconcile these doctrines with this Qur’ānic affirmation, so they attribute the doctrines to misinterpretations of Christ’s message and to alteration of the text of the New Testament.65

His plea therefore is to respect the other and for the Muslims at least to remember the Qur’ānic verse (29:46), “[A]nd argue not with the People of the scripture unless it be in a mostly kindly manner.”66 Opposition to rethinking among Muslims is also associated with the idea that there is a hidden agenda on the part of some Christians to make Christianity attractive to Muslims through arguments such as the authenticity and reliability of Jewish and Christian scriptures, and then to encourage them to convert to Christianity. As evidence for this, Muslims might argue that some earlier Christian writers have asserted that overcoming Muslim doubts about the genuineness of the Christian Bible was the essential first step toward their conversion: the Flemish humanist Nicolaus Clenardus, for example, in his oft-quoted letters from Fez in the early 1540s, wrote that this was the issue on which the entire dispute between Christians and Muslims hinged.67 In a competitive world, even in the “religious market,” such fears and suspicions do play an important role in maintaining barriers between religious communities. While there is no doubt there is stiff competition between Islam and Christianity in particular for more followers through proselytization in some parts of the world, there are also many moves to build bridges between the two traditions.

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A rethinking of how Muslims see Jewish and Christian scriptures is likely to lead to a better understanding among Muslims, Jews, and Christians. Naturally, Muslims would expect a change in how Jews and Christians see Muslim scripture as well, as relationships are built on positive views on both sides. It will move interreligious dialogue to a higher level of engagement, beyond mere “tolerance” to deeper, more enduring interreligious cooperation by allowing Muslims to read and appreciate the sacred texts of religious traditions other than their own for a better understanding of their own or simply inspiration.68 In the interfaith context, it will also deemphasize the view that one religion is in a position of superiority and and that it has a special relationship with the divine.69 From a Christian point of view, treating the sayings of Jesus in the gospels as largely authentic gives immediate respect to Christian convictions.70 Rethinking will most certainly improve Muslim- Christian engagement, because the way we talk about our sacred stories affects the way we think and ultimately the way we act. Reinterpreting this narrative will also bring about healing and a transformed relationship, where the perceived enemy becomes an integral part of a renewed spiritual vision.71 In the past, Jews, Christians, and Muslims have engaged in interpretive endeavors as self-enclosed entities, not just to bolster their own identities in the face of the other, but also to put down the other, even to harm the other. By treating their scriptures as authentic, Muslims, Christians, and Jews can better engage with one another and read their scriptures together. In the United Kingdom there is an interfaith movement that involves Jews, Christians, and Muslims reading their scriptures together. Participants have found this to be a really helpful approach because it brings movement to “calcified positions” and moves disputes from being about “us” to something that has a claim on us and to which “we give greater allegiance than we do to our own convictions.” 72 Participants in this “scriptural reasoning” interfaith movement elaborate on how important it is for members of faith communities to engage with each others’ scriptures.73 Naturally, the argument that the Jewish and Christian scriptures are distorted would be a major obstacle to this kind of engagement. Concluding Remarks For the Qur’ān, the idea that the Jewish and Christian scriptures are from God was an important one. It recognized them as “books” of God even though some of them may not be, from many Muslims’ point of view, as they “originally were,” and have been, in some cases, translated into other languages or narrated by a person other than the prophet who received the messages. Given that the Qur’ān was addressing, on the whole, Jews

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and Christians living in the seventh century and making reference to their scriptures, it makes sense to adopt the view that what the Qur’ān considered “sacred,” “word of God,” or “books of God” must have been the scriptures the Jews and Christians had at the time. Since the scriptures of Jews and Christians are on the whole today as they were in the seventh century, one could also argue that the respect and reverence the Qur’ān showed to these scriptures should be shown to them today as well. Moving beyond the polemics of the past to a more nuanced appreciation of the Qur’ānic notion of tahrīf will provide a stronger basis for interfaith dialogue and a greater appreciation of the scriptures of these great monotheistic faiths.

Notes 1. For some of the arguments presented in the first part of this paper, see also Abdullah Saeed, “The Charge of Distortion of Jewish and Christian Scriptures,” The Muslim World 92, nos. 3 & 4 (Fall 2002): 419–36. 2. Qur’ān 2:89. See also 3:3; 3:50; 5:48; 6:92. 3. Qur’ān 3:113. 4. Qur’ān 3:187; 4:44; 4:47. See also 4:131; 5:5. 5. Qur’ān 5:68. 6. Qur’ān 2:44; 2:113. 7. Qur’ān 2:113. 8. Ibn Taymiyyah and Taqiyy al-Din, al-Tafsīr al-Kabir, ed., ‘Abd al-Rahman ‘Umayrah (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyyah, n.d.), I, 207–209. 9. Muhammad Abdel Haleem, Understanding the Qur’ān: Themes and Style (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 1999), 73. 10. Qur’ān 16:36; 21:25. 11. This problem is discussed by Seyyed Hossein Nasr as one of the obstacles for Christian-Muslim dialogue. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “Islamic- Christian Dialogue—Problems and Obstacles to be Pondered and Overcome,” The Muslim World 88, nos. 3–4 ( July- October 1998). 12. Record of the disputation between Timothy and al-Mahdi in Camilla Adang, Muslim Writers on Judaism and the Hebrew Bible: From Ibn Rabban to Ibn Hazm (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 224. 13. Bassam Zawadi, “Evidence That Islam Teaches That There Was Textual Corruption of The Christian and Jewish Scriptures” (n.d.), http://www. call- to- monotheism.com/evidence_that_islam_teaches_that_there_ was_textual_corruption_of_the_christian_and_ jewish_scriptures (accessed February 2010). 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 17. See the arguments of Ibn Hazm outlined in Muhammad Abu Laylah, The Quran and the Gospels: A Comparative Study (Al-Falah Foundation: Cairo,

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18.

19. 20. 21. 22.

23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48.

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2005), 123–137. http://l.b5z.net/i/u/6103974/f/The_Quran_and_the_ Gospels__A_Comparative_Study.pdf (accessed February 2010). Sam Shamoun, “The Quran as a Confirmation of the Holy Bible: A List of References” (n.d.). http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Bible/ list.html (accessed February 2010). Qur’ān 2:59. Tabari, Abu Ja’far Muhammad b. Jarir al-, Jami ‘al-Bayan ‘an Ta’wil ‘ay al-Qur’ān (Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1988), I. 303. “Tahrīf,” in H. A. R. Gibb and J. H. Kramers, Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991), p. 560. John A. Haywood, “Muslim Theologian Abū ‘abd Allāh Muḥammad Ibn ‘umar Ibn Al-husayn Fakhr Ad- dīn Ar-rāzī (n.d.). http://www. britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/200614/Fakhr- ad- Din- ar- Razi (accessed February 2010). Razi, al-Fakhr al-, al-Tafsīr al-kabir, 3rd ed. (Beirut: Dar Ihya’ al-Turath al- ‘Arabi, n.d.), Vol. II, part 3, 134. Razi, al-Tafsīr, II, part 3, 134. Razi, al-Tafsīr,II, part 3, 135. Tabari, Jami ‘al-Bayan, I, 367. Tabari, Jami ‘al-Bayan, I, 368. Qurtubi, Abu ‘Abd Allah Muhammad b, Ahmad al-Ansari al-, al-Jami’ li ahkam al-Qur’ān (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyyah, 1993), I, part 2, 4. Qurtubi, al-Jami’, I, part 2, 4. Qutb, Sayyid, Fi Zilal al-Qur’ān (Beirut and Cairo: Dar al- Shuruq, 1996), I, 84. Tabari, Jami ‘al-Bayan, I, 368. Tabari, Jami ‘al-Bayan, I, 367. Tabari, Jami ‘al-Bayan, I, 368. Razi, al-Tafsīr, V, part 10, 117. Razi, al-Tafsīr, V, part 10, 117–118. Razi, al-Tafsīr, V, part 10, 118. Qutb, Zilal, II, 675. Tabari, Jami ‘al-Bayan, II, 89. Tabari, Jami ‘al-Bayan, II, 52. Tabari, Jami ‘al-Bayan, II, 53. Tabari, Jami ‘al-Bayan, IV, part 6, 232. Tabari, Jami ‘al-Bayan, IV, part 6, 231. Tabari, Jami ‘al-Bayan, IV, part 6, 234. Qurtubi, al-Jami’, II, part 4, 78. Tabari, Jami ‘al-Bayan, III, 323. Ibn Taymiyyah, al-Tafsīr al-Kabir, I, 209. Ibn Taymiyyah, al-Tafsīr al-Kabir, I, 210. Joseph M. Mutei, “The Bible: Classical and Contemporary Muslim Attitudes and Exegesis,” Evangelical Theological Review 31, no.3 (2007): 207, 210.

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49. David Thomas, “The Past and the Future in Christian–Muslim Relations,” Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 18, no. 1 (2007): 33, 39. 50. James S. Cutsinger, “Hesychia: An Orthodox Opening to Esoteric Ecumenism,” Lecture delivered at the University of South Carolina, October 19, 2001; published in Paths to the Heart: Sufism and the Christian East, ed. James S. Cutsinger (Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom, 2002). 51. David F. Ford, “An Interfaith Wisdom: Scriptural Reasoning Between Jews, Christians and Muslims,” Modern Theology 22, no. 3 (2006): 345, 345. 52. A. Rashied Omar, “Embracing the “Other” as an Extension of the Self: Muslim Ref lections on the Epistle to the Hebrews 13:2,” Anglican Theological Review 91, no. 3 (2009): 433, 434. 53. Fatwa No. 129175, “Learning English by Studying the Bible.” Response by Sheikh Muhammed Salih Al-Munajjid. http://www.islam- qa.com/ en/ref/129175 (accessed February 2010). 54. Noel Malcolm, “Comenius, the Conversion of the Turks, and the Muslim- Christian Debate on the Corruption of Scripture,” Church History and Religious Culture 87 (2007): 477, 500. 55. Ibid., 510. 56. Ibid. 57. Ibid., 503. 58. Ibid. 59. Ibid., citing Arnulf Camps, Jerome Xavier S.J. and the Muslims of the Mogul Empire: Controversial Works and Missionary Activity (Schöneck-Beckenried, 1957), 118–120. 60. Kamil International Ministries Organization, “The Integrity of the Bible Part 1: Studies on Answering Islam,” (2007). http://www.kimo4jesus.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=16, accessed February 2010. 61. Omar, “Embracing the Other,” n. 51, 434. 62. Ibid. 63. Ibid. 435, citing Mahmoud Ayoub, Islam and Practice (Ontario: The Open Press, 1989), 229). 64. Ibid. 65. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “Islamic- Christian Dialogue-Problems and Obstacles to be Pondered and Overcome,” The Muslim World 88, nos. 3–4 (1998): 219. 66. Ibid., 220. 67. Malcolm, “Comenius,” 477, 500 (citing Nicolaus Clenardus, Peregrinationum ac de rebus machometicis epistolae elegantissimae (Louvain, 1550), fo. 37r (misprinted “35”): “Hic est disputationis cardo.” 68. Omar, “Embracing the Other,” n. 51, 433. 69. David Thomas, “The Past and the Future in Christian–Muslim Relations,” Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 18, no. 1 (2007): 39.

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70. Mark Beaumont, “Muslim Readings of John’s Gospel in the cAbbasid Period,” Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 19, no. 2 (2008):195. 71. Omar, “Embracing the Other,” n. 51, 437. 72. Miroslav Volf, “Your Scripture Meets Mine,” Christian Century (2004): 43. 73. David F. Ford, “An Interfaith Wisdom: Scriptural Reasoning between Jews, Christians and Muslims,” Modern Theology 22, no. 3 (2006): 346.

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CHAPTER 11 BROKEN COVENANTS AND BROKEN RELATIONSHIPS: GUIDELINES FOR COOPERATION IN A WORLD IN TRANSITION Ian R. Fry

Introduction The “crisis” in the Middle East is a series of rolling crises with the territory of Palestine/Israel at its focal point. It is a complex of religious, political, and socioeconomic considerations that has triggered critical changes in relationships between the White Western Christian Bloc of countries (WWCB) and the balance of the world community. It is not a territorial conquest for resources with an occasional burst of military action that outsiders can view as disengaged observers. Nor is it a short-term conf lict between communities that can be considered in isolation. In the writer’s view it is fundamental to the “radical transition” that Camilleri and Falk say has been taking place in the organization of human affairs during the past six or more decades.1 The changes taking place are shown in this paper to be the consequences of policies pursued over an extended period within communities of the three Abrahamic faiths—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—but in particular within the WWCB. Those policies have included subjugation and exploitation of communities on religious grounds, and have been adopted as a consequence of religious belief and self-understanding, which relate to the theological concept of divine covenant. That concept is acknowledged by each of the three communities, but with different interpretations.

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The origins of the crisis in the Middle East do not lie in any of a series of relatively recent related events—the 1967 war between Israel and its neighbors, the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Hitler’s World War 2 Holocaust, the 1917 Balfour Declaration, or the establishment of the World Zionist Organization (WZO) in 1897. They lie in the development of three separate and competing communities of Abrahamic faith, each of which claim to have come into existence as a result of divine revelation, and each of which believe themselves to be subject to divine covenants. It is the author’s view that two particular prophetic statements—one delivered within Islam and the other within Judaism—relate directly to the crisis in the Middle East and demonstrate that the three primary Abrahamic communities of faith are indeed subject to divine covenants. The outcomes of certain policies pursued by each of those communities illustrate the nature of a divine covenant and the consequences of ignoring or rejecting obligations that are part of it. They provide insights to help safeguard the human future. Divine Covenant: Not Exclusive to the Abrahamic Traditions The use of the term “divine covenant” is an acknowledgment by a person or a community of a relationship with a divine authority, but the understanding of the relationship varies widely, and does not always involve characterization or definition of the authority in conceptual terms. Many people acknowledge such a relationship without using the term “divine covenant,” and without attributing to themselves a particular divinely ordained role. The circumstances and communal self-understandings that led to the crisis in the Middle East are such that the concept of divine covenant must be reexamined. Currently the concept, and the legitimacy of institutional religion, is swamped by a wave of religious doubt, cynicism, and much public discussion about evolution and the status of creation theories. This is a result of humans focusing on their developed capacity to control, devise, or manipulate—or in common parlance, “create”— most material things that are within their grasp or which they can conceptualize.2 Within Judaism and the Christian Church, there has been strong resistance to acknowledging the possibility of religious belief or activity among people living before to the end of the most recent ice age, about 10,000 b.c.e.3 For this reason, consideration of religious actions and beliefs usually starts with the region of Mesopotamia—regarded from a European perspective as “the Cradle of Civilization”—and until recently

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it has been proposed that the earliest identified religious practice, ref lecting belief in supernatural spirits or a divine force, was Shamanism dating from the Neolithic period, either c. 7,000 b.c.e. to 9,000 b.c.e.,4 or c. 10,000 b.c.e. in Israel.5 However, it is now known from rock art illustrations of shamanistic activities that this phase of evolution in religious belief was reached by the oldest continuously existing culture—that of Australian Aborigines—up to 7,000 earlier, c. 17,000 b.c.e.6 Shamanism assumes that a human has the role of an intermediary, a communicator with the spirit world, or a messenger, possibly with a range of subordinate powers,7 but it does not involve any sense of a covenantal relationship, and it has been widely assumed that the first people to recognize such a relationship were the Hebrews of the Abrahamic period, c. 1,800 b.c.e. However, it is now also established that Australian Aboriginal culture involved belief that there is a greater and sacred force that cannot be understood, that all life is sacred, that each person has a continuing presence after earthly death, and that a divine covenant was acknowledged from c. 4,000 b.c.e.8 Similarly, complex beliefs encompassed within Hinduism involve each of these considerations and, in some streams, an intense intimacy in sacred relationships.9 The Dreaming, or Tjukurrpa—the basis of the Australian Aboriginal belief system and pattern of personal and communal conduct—dates from about the time of the loss of the land bridge that the ancestors had crossed between Asia and Australia. Tjukurrpa, expressed through song, dance, painting, and storytelling, passes knowledge, cultural values, and belief systems to later generations. It recognizes that everything has been created in an orderly manner for the benefit of every living being; that certain patterns of conduct are necessary to preserve that order, and that if those patterns are broken, the individual or the community suffers as a consequence. In addition, L. R. Hiatt asserts that the traditional moral codes and models of a good person in two Aboriginal communities that he researched, the Warlpiri and Gidjingarli, “might serve as a checklist for a character reference practically anywhere.”10 However, when the land bridge to Asia became submerged by rising sea levels as the ice age passed, Australia became isolated from the rest of the world. Cultural contact was lost, and Aboriginal religious belief remained fairly static until the arrival of Europeans in the seventeenth century c.e. In West Asia, the circumstances were generally in contrast to the largely inhospitable and challenging environment in which the Dreaming evolved. Ready access to resources, relatively easy movement and communication, and ready opportunity for cultural interaction provided the environment for strong population growth and concurrent development of two principal streams of philosophy and cultural practices. One

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stream developed in the Indus Valley and the regions in an arc toward the Caspian.11 Through interaction with a range of cultures it was the precursor to the Vedic writings that provide the basis of Hinduism, and also inf luenced the cultural development in Babylon.12 The second stream emerged in circumstances of population competition and violence which, during the third millennium b.c.e., involved two people who are believed to have migrated north from Arabia, the Akkadians13 and the Amorites,14 and a third, the Arameans, who migrated from the northern regions of Syria.15 That complex spawned the series of Mesopotamian codes of conduct already noted. Chart 1 provides an overview of the circumstances that provided the stimulus for the Abrahamic prophetic tradition—the starting point for the three primary Abrahamic faiths. It identifies key people and considerations in the evolution of religious belief and systematic religion; the communities involved in that continuing evolution in the linked continents of Asia, Europe, and Africa; the establishment of Judaism, the fragmentation of the Abrahamic stream of faith, and the plunge into crisis. The evolution of the Hebrew understanding of divine covenant during the second and first millennia coincided with the lives the Egyptian monotheist Akhenaton, the Persian monotheist and teacher Zoroaster, the Greek philosophers from Pythagoras to Aristotle, and the evolution of a series of additional steams based on the inspired teachings of the Buddha and Confucius. Contact and interaction between these streams inf luenced the evolution of each of them, and Hebrew interaction with Zoroastrianism is considered to have inf luenced its understanding that God is One.16 However, being in relative geographic isolation, Buddhism and Confucianism developed more independently.17 Aboriginal life was subject to the traditional laws, relationships, and moral teachings of the Dreaming long before the Mesopotamian f loods and the preparation of the Sumerian Ur-Nammu Code, the Akkadian Bilalama Code, and the Amorite Hammurabi Code, which was incorporated in due course into Hebrew scripture. Furthermore, its communities were living according to an understanding of divine covenant for about two millennia before Abraham’s acknowledgment of a personal and communal covenant, and the subsequent pronouncement of the Mosaic Covenant, and the Deuteronomic Code, which became the foundation for the trio of Abrahamic faiths. However the inspired Hebrew understanding of divine covenant, evolved through extensive cultural interaction, provided a basis for world harmony and stability, but the Jewish community lost sight of it as it bounced from crisis to crisis. The second stream of Abrahamic faith, Christianity, was called

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into existence to pursue the same role as the first. Its performance was even worse. Then the third, Islam, was called. Its role, essentially, was to redirect and reform, but subsequent contradictory self-understandings and misinterpretation of covenant and conf lict between the three streams have inhibited its capacity and resulted in the current crisis in the Middle East. Development of Understanding of Divine Covenant in Judaism: Competitive Development of the Three Abrahamic Faiths The Patriarch, Abraham, and his immediate descendants were subject to a divine covenant, but the development of a comprehensive understanding of the nature and components of such a covenant only began when Moses perceived and responded to a command to lead the people of Israel out of a period of pre-ordained bondage in Egypt (Genesis 15:12–16).18 That understanding was complete prior to a series of events that were a prelude to the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth: the excesses of the Hasmonaean monarchy, the establishment of the short-lived Qumran community, and the intervention of Philo. The experience of the Exodus and Sinai, with Moses’s command that Israel must acknowledge and honor a Covenant with God, was the point at which the building of the nation of Israel and its intense interest in theology and belief in its role as a people under covenant began. The recording of Israel’s history in written form did not begin until the monarchy was established in the tenth century b.c.e. Editors collected oral tradition from all available sources, and piecemeal editing of current and older traditions enabled the presentation of theological understanding in a logical sequence and a historical context. This means that the material is not presented in the sequence in which it was composed.19 The Bible opens with two creation stories that were written and inserted at different times. Both were included because they illustrate different concepts. The first (Genesis 1:1–2:4), sets out the Hebrew understanding of the sequence of creation, and was inserted in Genesis at about the turn of the fifth and fourth centuries b.c.e.20 It acknowledges God as Creator, absolute and singular, a position that Israel’s prophets had been moving toward but did not firmly adopt until they became aware of Zoroastrian teaching. Prior to that, the Hebrews had accepted that other peoples were subject to gods, but they believed their God was superior. The other (Genesis 2:2–4,16), incorporates the legend of the Garden of Eden. It was written much earlier, c. tenth century b.c.e.,21 but it was placed second to lead into discussion of humanity’s

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30

20

Abraham’s Mesopotamian Heritage 9

10

Sumerian, Ubaid, Uruk, Accadian* , Amorite* , Aryan & Hurrian. Cereal harvesting, dry stone wall construction from 9000 BCE; symbolic script, toolmaking, painted pottery from 7000 BCE; irrigated farming, copper & iron smelting, clay tablets, ideographs & pictographs from 4000 BCE; Cruciform writing c. 2250 Traditions: Shamanism; Hierarchies of deities & priests; Great Floods & associated myths; Ziggurats to approach the gods. Codes: Sumerian Ur-Nammu & Lipit-Ishtar; Akkadian Bilalama; Amorite Hammurabi

-- Cities of early Greece --Knossos, Mycenae, and Troy

Recorded history sparse: 1Datiing

based on Hebrew Biblical tradition. 4Verkamp 1995 et.al.2000 6Eriksson.Kathryn. Petrie Oration Aug 12, 2006 7Armstrong. Ethics and practice took precedence over ritual 9 8Hallo 1996 Hooker 1996

2 Tacon et.al.1996 5Law 2008

3Michaelsen

10Britannic

Ishmael’s sons establish 12 Arab nations; settle from the River Paran east toward Babylonia in association with descendants of all of Abraham’s children.

2010

*Originating in Arabia in the third millennium BCE Significant Jewish resettlement, exile Inquisitions. Start years, Medieval 1184; Spanish 1478; Portuguese 1536; Roman 1542

Sumerian Ubaid Uruk

Accadian

Amorite ISHMAEL

- - - - - - - - - - Agricultural revolutions- - - - - - - - - -


Communal and social

8

Floods 1

ADAM

AXIAL AGE

NOAH Vedic Tradition

.

… and his unknown heritage

Australia: Aboriginal Dreaming; Creation myths, C.4,0002 Sumerian Era from C.5,500

1

ABRAHAM

Aryan Ziggurats

1

C. 2000-1800

Hurrian

Eblaite creation hymns Sumerian Ur-Nammu Code Accadian Bilalama Code

YAHWISM Hindu Rg Veda

Personal covenant imposed: acknowledged by Abraham

ISAAC

Persian Babylonian

Akhenaton Assyrian Early Aramaean influence

Monarchy

Naram-Sin: divine kingship Sharman, Totems, Priests Europe, Central Asia C.7,000 Mesopotamian settlement C. 9,000 Australian Aboriginal Sharmanism C. >17,0003 Neanderthal burials, sacrifice, signs of Sharman 3

JUDAISM

Amorite Hammurabi Code

Kingdom of Egypt

JACOB

Isaac’s 12 grandsons by Jacob (Israel) settle in Canaan and the Negeb—but many move southwest to Goshen and eventual bondage in Egypt

4

Australian Aboriginal rock art, Aurignacian Migration from Africa

C.25,000-35,000 C.40,000 C.40,000

3 4

The Exodus. The Israelites, held in bondage, are led out of Egypt by Moses to Sinai where they receive the Law and Covenant

First Homo sapiens migration 5 after C.100,000

40

Judges

MOSES6 Samuel Saul Mosaic Covenant of Sinai Abrahamic Covenant Documented Pre-exile:Amos, Jeremiah, Post-exile: Ezekiel, Zechariah,

30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11

Chart 1 Evolution of Systematic religion and the Concept of Divine Covenant

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BCE. 10 9

8

7

6

5

4

Greek Philosophers: Aristotle Plato Socrates Pythagoras

3

2

Time Scales: hundred years

CE.

1

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Maya, Mesoamerica Napoleon Crusades–two phases Herzl

Controversies Arius, Athanasius, Pelagius Augustine Nestorius

------9-----

Dictatus Papae

Constantine

----Internal---Romanus Pontifex Hitler

Pompey’s Roman Conquests

Reform Luther Calvin

- - Germanic Polytheism - -

Shoa

Central, Northern Europe

SUNNI

Al-Wahhab

continuity of belief not established

ISLAM MUHAMMAD

SHI‘A

Covenants recognized

The Bab

Synthesis of Near East & Egyptian religious traditions

ж

Schisms

Vatican II Nostra Aetate

Church growth by proselytizing, syncretism

Inquisitions

\ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \/ \

RELIGIONS7

< Fragmentation

REFORM

ZOROASTER’S influence

REFORM CONSERV

Maimonides

conquest Judaism grows by annexation: Sumeria,Galilee, Idumea, Negev.

conquest

New Covenant proclaimed

Covenants interpreted

Pentecost

Partial Exile

Khazar Khanate

PAUL

Hijra

Isaiah, Zephania, Habakkuk. 2nd Isaiah, Haggai, Malachi, Jonah,

Mass Jewish expulsions Aggressive oppression

State of Israel

.

Shiat Ali

Intifada

Qumran Community

Al-Qaeda Gandhi

Genghis Khan’s conquests

Babylonian Talmud

Malachi

6

.

JUDAISM

---------Muslim conquests---------

Universal Covenant Composed

Cyrus’ Procl’m’t’n

7

JESUS Hasmonean Revolt

ORTH’OX

RABBINIC

Dispersion:

WZO

SIKHISM

ж ж

1st Temple 2 Kings 2nd Temple

DAVID SOLOMON

WCC

CHRISTIANITY

(Ahura Mazda)

conquest

.

> \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \

Church expansion by coercion, conquest Nicaea ORTHODOX

CONFUCIUS* BUDDHA*

8

Colonial expansion New World oppression

жжж ж ж

evolution together with imperial turmoil in Europe, West Asia

10 9

BAHA’I

CATHOLIC

Sufism

Kabbalah

Pharisaic schools Philo

5

4

3

2

1

© Ian Fry-MCD-April 2010 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

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position of subordination, dependent on God as provider, and subject to norms of conduct and honesty, judgment, and punishment. There is a remarkable coincidence between that passage and the content of the Dreaming, except that the Genesis passage makes no reference to covenantal responsibility. That concept is introduced next, through the myth of Noah and the Ark, which provides a basis for an understanding of a universal covenant. The coincidence between the stimulus for this and the Dreaming is also noteworthy—circumstances of catastrophe—but the catastrophe of the loss of the land bridge to Asia was 2,000 prior to the Mesopotamian f loods that provide the setting for the myth, and the Noahide Covenant was not added to the Hebrew Bible until after the Hebrews were exposed to those myths during the exile in Babylon in the sixth century b.c.e.22 A series of clusters of prophetic writings relating to the evolving understanding of divine covenant in successive periods of Jewish history have been identified by the author. They begin with the command to Abraham to leave his ancestral home and establish a new community in Canaan,23 and close with the Damascus Document of the Qumran Community, c. 100–75 b.c.e. They illustrate the evolution of theological understanding as the Hebrew people went through successive cycles of accepting then neglecting or breaking their covenant, being punished, interacting with other communities, being reprieved, being given another opportunity for service, failing again, and so on. The fully evolved understanding of divine covenant in Judaism at the close of the Second Temple period is, in summary, as follows. All humanity lives in both a personal and communal covenantal relationship with God under the Universal or Noahide Covenant, in which, by virtue of creation, love is the focal point of every relationship. Two additional covenants had been invoked: the Abrahamic Covenant to which all communities descended from Abraham were subject; and the Mosaic Covenant that related specifically to the descendants of Jacob/ Israel. Those three covenants are each perpetual conditional covenants of human obligation24 and involve a divine promise that is conditional upon adherence to certain obligations, divine judgment of whether the obligations have been met, and a penal clause that may be invoked if obligations are not honored. The Mosaic Covenant obliges Israel’s descendants to act in accord with certain guidelines, to exemplify patterns of conduct that would enable humanity to live in harmony and stability, and thus enable all humanity to recognize and understand its relationship with God. That Covenant involves conditions that make the community conspicuous

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through changing relationships with its neighbors—harmonious or disruptive and oppressive—and in such a manner that the reason for its existence would be understood and result in blessings for all humanity, ultimately enabling it to understand and respond to the Universal Covenant. The divine promise to the Hebrews was the opportunity to live in peace and security in the region of Canaan—if they honored their obligations. From time to time their leaders had failed to honor their obligations and had suffered the consequences personally. Likewise, the nation overall had failed to honor its obligations at times and had suffered by becoming oppressed refugees in Egypt and, subsequently, being exiled to Babylon. No nation can avoid judgment even if its power appears to make it possible. The penalty for breach of covenant is, or may be, exercised through the party, or through the response of the party that has been wronged, and a breach of covenant may result in a community’s punishment continuing and being evident from generation to generation. One failure, or breach of covenant, does not invoke abrogation of the covenant: merely a penalty. The promise and the obligation both remain. Conduct showing renewed acceptance of the obligation may result in a return to security, but a further penalty may be invoked in the event of another failure. Cyclical responses may occur in perpetuity. Each man and woman is subject to a personal promise, obligation, and judgment together with his or her community’s promise, obligation, and judgment, and no person can avoid ultimate responsibility for his or her personal actions, and consequent judgment. Not even Israel’s greatest leader, Moses. That comprehensive evolved understanding could have been enough for both Israel and the nations with which it interacted to recognize and act on it. It was not. The abuse of the Mosaic Covenant by the Hasmonaean monarchy reached such a level that challenges to the religious order came from several quarters: astute rabbis,25 the Qumran Community, the philosopher Philo, the Pharisaic “schools” in Jerusalem, and, finally, the dual ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth. Division within the Jewish community, further conf lict with the imperial power, the establishment of Christianity as an additional community of faith, the destruction of the reconstructed “Second” Temple, and the dispersion of the great bulk of the Jewish population followed in quick succession. However, the church proved no better. The extent of its abuse of covenant triggered further challenges—the principal challenge being the ministry of the Prophet Muhammad—just as humanity was approaching the critical “cliff face” of unforeseen population expansion. That cliff face was about to place enormous strain on the resources

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at humanity’s immediate disposal, and on intercommunal relations. The need for an understanding of divine covenant was greater than ever. Chart 2 places key events since the rise of the Abrahamic tradition in the context of the cliff face of population explosion and the need for an understanding of covenant to enable humanity to enjoy harmony and stability for a very long term. It also indicates how the development of technology, including DNA analysis, enables an assessment to be made of the pattern of human movement.26 Parallel archaeological investigations have facilitated plausible assessments of population patterns, habitat, and communal social practices.27 Competition, Rejection, Conf lict The teachings of six people, and the young church, whose inf luence was critical during the first millennium and a half of the Common Era, either in a positive or negative sense, are outlined here. In succession they are Jesus, Muhammad, Maimonides, Pope Gregory VI, Pope Nicholas V, and Pope Leo X. Jesus did not declare the Mosaic Covenant dead. He called for repentance and renewed commitment to the covenant and taught that all covenantal law was current and that the obligation of the people of the Covenant had not changed. But, being convinced that a change in the status of the Jewish people was inevitable, and that a parallel reformed community was necessary to pursue that obligation, he instructed his disciples to maintain two practices to confirm their commitment to their relationship with God and to his teaching, and to commemorate his life and personal sacrifice. They are the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Jesus’s key command was that his disciples accept the obligation that still applied to Israel under the Mosaic Covenant: to act in accord with guidelines already provided, to exemplify patterns of conduct that would enable all humanity to live in harmony and stability, and to enable it to recognize and understand its relationship with God. This meant that in practice the New Covenant involved only a few changes. Jesus’ followers were not to covet the territory of Canaan as a base from which to conduct their mission. The world was to be their field of activity, and the obligation to attend to it was couched in positive terms, not passive. However, because it was the focal point for the revelation of the relationships between God and humanity, the City of Jerusalem would remain the focal point for people of faith. And while the People of Israel remained subject to specific religious practices, and means of

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0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Abrahamic tradition: Yahwism Period of Jewish consolidation

Moses The Exodus♦ Law, Covenant

Jerusalem Destroyed: Babylonian Exile Nicaea

The Prophet Muhammad Islam

Jerusalem Destroyed again: Jewish Dispersion

Jesus of Nazareth

Pentecost prompted efforts to develop a Christology & church structure

‘War on Terror’

Crusades

Maimonides

Fall of Constantinople

Beginning of European Colonial Era

Reformation

Zionism, Darwin, Marx

Dreyfus, Herzl, WZO

Balfour Declaration

Hitler, Holocaust

WCC, State of Israel

Vatican II: Nostra Aetate

U.S. Oil Imports Decision

Yom Kippur War, Oil Embargo

Second Intifada

September 11, 2001

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Industrial Rev. Enlightenment Discovery Renaissance

Petroleum–Finite

Electronics Nuclear

Genetics: DNA

U.S. Oil Imports Dec.

Significant phases of developments in philosophy technology & resource exploitation

6.8 bn.

Today

Plateau?

What next? Economic Peak? Crisis

Chart 2

The Human Population Explosion—The Abrahamic Faiths: rise, competition and conf lict

BCE −2000 −1500 −1000 −500 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2300 CE * A probable peak population of 9 to 11 billion is projected (assuming no extraordinary wars, plagues, or natural occurrences), followed by a slow decline to a probable plateau of about 9 billion to be reached about 2300. (Main source: World Population to 2300, Report ST/ESA/SER.A/236, 2004, and subsequent revisions. Additional source: US Census Bureau ♦ Eriksson. Petrie Oration, Aug 12, 2006. Critical prophetic events, convergence: Qur’anic Prophecy of the Night Journey; Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah; Convergence of those prophetic expectations; establishment of the State of Israel © Ian Fry, MCD-April 2010

World Population in Billions

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identification as a community, under the Mosaic Covenant, the people of the New Covenant were not, and it was not restricted to people of one ethnic identity. The New Covenant was open to people without restriction—the people of the Noahide Covenant—but with the condition of a personal commitment. When leaders of the young church saw the power of Rome as a vehicle to carry it throughout Asia Minor and North Africa as well as southern Europe, they adopted syncretism as a means of mass conversion of pagan and polytheist communities to “Christianity.” Then, being caught in a combination of power struggles that made cohesive theological consideration impossible,28 the church lost interest in the notion of covenant, and during a period of highly divisive controversy it adopted a doctrinal statement, the Creed of Saint Athanasius, which must have terrified those hearing it. Its doctrinal disputes, institutional heresy hunting, determination to develop political alliances to impose its religious beliefs and practices by military means, and mass conversions by the sword 29 soon exceeded the worst of the Hasmonaean monarchy’s religious expansion through military annexation and sheer brutality, especially when the Roman State progressively ceded regional authority to the church hierarchy.30 The pattern of imperial political and military adventures in Abyssinia, Persia, Palestine, Yemen and Arabia, which involved three major competing substeams of the church (Catholic, Nestorian, and Monophysite), and variant forms of Judaism, then became a disruptive inf luence and a major factor in the call to the Prophet Muhammad and the establishment of Islam.31 The circumstances of that call, and its purpose, thus parallel very closely the circumstances of Jesus’s ministry. Islam was called into being essentially to challenge and reform the conduct and theology of its predecessors: principally Christianity. Muhammad did not say that either Judaism or Christianity were redundant. In clear contradiction of the church’s notion of supersessionism, he insisted that they were both legitimate, inspired by God, that their adherents continued to live and work under divine covenants, and that their “books”—the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Gospels and canonized writings, and the Qur’ān—were all valid. Thus, in Qur’ānic teaching, the Mosaic Covenant did not abrogate the Abrahamic Covenant, nor did the Christian New Covenant abrogate the Mosaic, and Muhammad did not propose that there was, or ought to be, a specific additional Covenant to which Muslims are subject.32 The entire thrust of the Qur’ān is covenantal. Submission and obedience to the Will of God dominate Muslim self-understanding, and

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the concept of trusteeship (amāna) is basic to Islam.33 It binds Muslims under covenant to constantly remember that God, the holder of absolute authority, reposes trust in all humanity, not only in Muslims.34 This covenant of trust is accepted in a relationship of khalīfa, engaged surrender to the divine as a trustee or vice-regent, khalīfa Allāh, in consciousness of one’s servantship in fulfilling obligations. It requires that priority be given to the worship of God, to justice and charity to neighbors as a guide for other communities to do likewise, and protection of the totality of creation.35 There is a strong correlation between the concepts of amāna and Khalīfa, the tenth- century version of the creation in Genesis, and the Aboriginal Dreaming. Numerous Qur’ānic passages deal with the intimate relationship between honoring or dishonoring trust, and being subject to divine judgment and punishment, but two linked passages relate specifically to the continuity of the Mosaic Covenant. They are consecutive passages in Sūra 17, Al-Isrāa, which was recited after Muhammad’s vision of a Night Journey. The passage placed second, sets out basic Qur’ānic understanding of divine judgment. Judgment of each individual is a matter solely between God and each individual. It is based on personal conduct; it is absolute, and there is no room for intervention. Communal judgment is based on the response by the community at large. If those who are derelict do not change their ways after due warning, the community is subject to measured divine determination. 36 The prior passage, Sūra 17:2–11, relates explicitly to the future of the Jewish community and is critical. It notes that the Jewish nation had twice acted contrary to its obligations under the Mosaic Covenant and had been punished by invasion and destruction; indicates that if the nation “reverts to its sins” again there will again be divine punishment, and states that Hell has been made a prison for those who reject all Faith. 37 That Night Journey prophecy is absolutely consistent with Hebrew prophetic understanding of divine justice, and, of equal significance, the Qur’ān acknowledges Jesus’s special status as the person of Hebrew prophetic expectation, born by divine intervention to convey the Gospels to complement the Torah, and to assist the Jewish community to fulfill its covenantal role of leading all humanity to understand its relationship with God. It confirms that status by specific reference to Jesus’s elevation to the presence of God (Qur’ān 43:61; 3:45–56).38 However the Qur’ān rejects, absolutely, the Christian concept of Trinity,39 which is thus the basis of contention between one faith and two others: not between one faith and one other.

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The Eastern Church was circumspect and acknowledged the validity of many of Muhammad’s criticisms, but the dominant Western or Roman Church totally rejected his challenge to rethink its theology and practices. When Jerusalem fell to the Seljuks in 1071, Pope Gregory VII was determined to press for crusades to clear the Muslims from Spain, but he was struggling to impose his will on Europe’s monarchs. To provide a theological justification of his position and to force the reluctant kings to take part he promulgated Dictatus Papae40 in1075 and sought to impose 27 points as the basis of Catholic tradition and absolute authority thereafter. In absolute contradiction of the New Covenant, it rejected the validity of any other faith; set the person of the pope above all other humans, all kings and princes, with sole authority to appoint and depose kings; placed the pope above all law, not subject to judgment, and as the final arbiter of the law, judgment, and penalty; proclaimed that the Roman church was of divine origin, had never been in error, and never would be; that the pope controlled the bishops who controlled the people, and that by virtue of office the pope was undoubtedly a saint.41 Those claims, and the destruction of the Khazar Khanate,42 were followed by a revitalization of Judaism across Europe under dynamic new leadership that reached a peak with the writing of Spanish-born Moses ben Maimon. Maimonides conceded that each of the three faiths has a role in leading humanity toward an understanding of its relationship with God and thus, by implication, that they are subject to divine covenants, with both the Abrahamic and Mosaic Covenants remaining in effect. But he repudiated the Night Journey, denigrated Muhammad, rejected the Qur’ānic description of Jesus as the Messiah of Jewish expectations, ridiculed him, and was scathing about the conduct of the church. He asked whether there could be a greater stumbling block than Christianity, which caused the Jews to be slain by the sword, and said that all the deeds of Jesus of Nazareth and “that Ishmaelite who arose after him” will only serve to prepare the way for the Messiah’s coming and the improvement of the entire world.43 Maimonides asserted that at some time in the future the Messianic King will arise, renew the dynasty of King David, return it to its initial sovereignty, build the Temple, and gather the dispersed of Israel. He said a war involving Gog and Magog, powers of great evil,44 will take place at the beginning of the Messianic Age, but the only differences between his era and the Messianic Era will be that Jews will be emancipated from subjugation by gentile kingdoms; there will be neither famine nor war, envy, or competition; good will f low in abundance; and “the occupation of the entire world will be solely to know God.”45 While Maimonides

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looked to the future, Rome looked to bolster its waning power by finding a sea route around Africa to attack the Muslim strongholds of the Ottoman Empire from the rear and reduce their pressure on the Balkans and Eastern Central Europe. To that end, Pope Nicholas V promulgated the bull Dum Diversas in June 1452.46 He gave retrospective blessing to the exploitative practices Portugal was already following in Africa and complemented it with a bribe of territorial “grants.” Alfonso V was given papal authority to invade, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens, pagans, and other enemies of Christ; seize their kingdoms, dominions, and possessions; reduce them to perpetual slavery, and appropriate all those things for his own and his successors’ use and profit. In the name of the church, he sanctioned the modern slave trade; confirmed that in its view all other people and all resources existed solely for the benefit of Christians as-a-right under the New Covenant, and, in the first of three bulls, provided the basis of the “Doctrine of Discovery.”47 When Constantinople fell to Ottoman forces and the Byzantine Empire was no more, Rome’s economic base, access to the east, and trade were sharply restricted. His solution was the second bull of the series: Romanus Pontifex. It opened with theological justification, Jesus’s plea to his disciples to “go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation,” then extended privileges similar to Dum Diversas to Spain and other Catholic kings and princes. It greatly stimulated the race for colonies. With that race under way, Pope Leo ordered the sale of indulgences to finance the completion of St. Peter’s Basilica. The long-running abuse of covenant had triggered several reforms to the way the church worked,48 without a theological reformation, but this corrupt use of theology did.49 The outcomes included 60 years of civil wars in Europe, fragmentation of the church, and the export of denominational competition around the world as European powers sponsored their particular fragments and, claiming to be acting on their obligations under Covenant, laid claim to all they could of the nonEuropean world. Abuse of Covenant: Oppression and Exploitation Many people within the church struggled to protect the rights of people being subjugated, and many developments favorable to people of the non-Western world have taken place since Romanus Pontifex, but they are not the developments that triggered the CME or will determine its outcome. It is conduct contrary to the WWCB’s covenantal obligations that will.

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European colonial policies were underpinned by the Doctrine of Discovery, which was based on papal bulls already mentioned, and others, including Inter Caetera of Pope Alexander VI,50 and the cultural and religious belief that Christians were the new “Chosen People” who will “one day fulfill God’s will by taking over all the non- Christian parts of the earth as a promised and everlasting possession.” That belief is ref lected in the Johnson Rulings, which determined the reallocation of land occupied by indigenous Americans.51 But linked to the “chosen people” syndrome was the denial of indigenous humanity. The first wave of Spanish officials assumed that Amerindians were subhuman, without souls, not entitled to basic human rights, and therefore subject to “elimination” without baptism.52 Their treatment was so atrocious that Pope Paul III issued the encyclical Sublimus Dei in 1537 to correct the situation, saying “the Indians are truly men and [. . .] they are not only capable of understanding the Catholic Faith but [. . .] they desire exceedingly to receive it.”53 However, 20 years later, Pedro de Santander still advised the Spanish king “to put them all to the knife.”54 And as if harnessed to the Doctrine of Discovery, relentless anti- Semitism continued. Union between Spain and Portugal was only agreed subject to the conditional marriage of Isabella junior, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, to Manoel, heir of King John of Portugal. Isabella senior would enter Portugal only if all non- Christians who had f led from Spain were expelled. Royal decrees requiring all Jews and Muslims to be gone from the combined territories within ten months were signed one month after the marriage treaty.55 Competitive evangelism, social disruption, and division then went in tandem with almost every colonial venture. When Britain claimed Kenya and Uganda in 1885, and empowered the East Africa Company to administer the region, conf lict between promoters of Anglican Christianity, Roman Catholic Christianity, Islam, and ancient African animist religions led to civil war between the tribes of Uganda in 1890.56 The Coincidence of Events: The Qur’ānic Night Journey and Maimonides Assertions When the circumstances of the Abrahamic communities of faith are considered together with the Qur’ānic Night Journey and Maimonides’s assertions, it becomes apparent that those assertions are critical to understanding the CME, and that the three faiths are intimately linked, subject to a common role or obligation, and are required by divine covenant to work in intimate collaboration.

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Until late in the twentieth century, the dominant churches maintained that the expulsion of the Jewish community from Jerusalem, and its worldwide scattering, was to be its permanent state, and that nothing would change until the either the Jews recognized Jesus or he returned in person.57 Within Judaism, a return to Jerusalem was a formal expectation referred to in liturgy and linked to the identification of the Messiah. Maimonides’ assertions, which were generally accepted,58 actually reinforced expectations that had been prompted by the beginning of the Islamic Era.59 However, for many Jews it was a longing rather than an expectation, and their perception of the Messiah began to change from a person to a communal influence during the nineteenth century. Rabbi Samuel Hirsch maintained that the return of Jews to Zion lay in God’s hands; Jews were prohibited from accelerating its advent; God created miracles and prophecy in order to demonstrate divine sovereignty over nature, and to call ancient Israel to its vocation, and that when the messianic age came “the nations of the world would bring Israel to Jerusalem.”60 Rabbi David Einhorn rejected the notion of a personal messiah, and taught that all Israel collectively was the messianic people.61 Then expectations lurched away from reliance on divine intervention after the Dreyfus case in Paris in the 1890s when Theodore Herzl wrote that “the Jews who will it shall achieve their State.”62 But although pressure built for an organized return, there were still leaders like the British secretary of state for India, Edwin Montagu, who, for theological reasons, strongly opposed an organized return.63 The Qur’ān says nothing about Jews returning to Jerusalem, but as noted above it foreshadows retribution against them if they again transgress against their neighbors. The WZO’s justification for proceeding with settlement in Palestine without agreement from the authorities of the day was continuing oppression in Europe, even though full rights had been granted to Jews in eight countries by 1874.64 No one expected any relief because of the church’s theology. Christian anti- Semitism was then stimulated by Jewish collaboration under the Balfour Declaration65 in Germany’s Great War defeat, which confirmed transgression in terms of the Night Journey that had been initiated by the WZO’s decision. Retribution could have been minimized, or perhaps even avoided, at any time up to the Polish-Russian Accord of July 1941, after which Hitler proceeded to the “Final Solution,”66 long after Dunkirk, when the Allies were in disarray and Hitler offered an armistice. But there was no intention to do so. Shortly before those events, in 1940, a policy of repression that Herzl first set out in his diary prior to the publication of Der Judenstaat 67

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was confirmed by the head of the Jewish National Fund, Joseph Weitz. He wrote: It must be clear that there is no room for both peoples in this country [. . .] The only solution is Eretz Israel, or at least Western Eretz Israel, without Arabs [. . .]There is no way besides transferring the Arabs [. . .] we must not leave a single village, not a single tribe.68

Jewish collaboration in the Balfour Declaration had already triggered the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany, when the Great War continued for five weeks after Germany sought an armistice, because the U.S. president Woodrow Wilson, who had been consulted on the terms of the Balfour Declaration and entered the war reluctantly and urged on by the Zionist lobby,69 insisted that the war would not be stopped until after the Kaiser abdicated and a republic was established. The events that followed relate to both the Night Journey and Maimonides’ expectations in such a manner that it cannot be regarded as a coincidence. Hitler’s action with his “final solution,” 70 the Holocaust, can be equated with the role of the Scourge in the Night Journey, and the Allied collaborators confirmed their transgression—absolutely—by imposing the State of Israel on the people of Palestine through the corrupt use of United Nations procedures. Nelson Rockefeller, later U.S. vice president, was blackmailed by Zionist officials with a threat of exposure for indictable offences during the Second World War, and, in turn, offered inducements and made threats to officials of a number of Latin American governments, which resulted in several countries changing their votes on the Partition question, thus securing the passage of the Palestine Partition proposal.71 The first stage of Maimonides’ assertions changed from expectation to reality: the return of a Jewish community to Palestine in association with a war between powers of great evil. One was an alliance of colonial oppressors; the other, a rabid anti- Semite. Stage 2, the Messianic Age, was nowhere in sight owing to the oppressive and exploitative conduct by people of the two senior partners in the triangle of Abrahamic faiths ( Judaism and Christianity) toward those of the junior partner (Islam). However, the people of all three faiths are still subject to their respective covenants, and by pursuing their own interests at the expense of their neighbors they have blundered into circumstances consistent with the comprehensive Hebrew understanding of divine covenant. The WWCB faces retribution while the Jewish community is a participant in the functioning of each of the divine covenants concurrently.

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First: the Mosaic Covenant. The People-Israel have passed through a phase of retribution for communal transgression against the Palestinian people and, as its prophets foreshadowed, they have been given a reprieve. They have an opportunity to prove that they still acknowledge the Mosaic Covenant, are prepared to pursue their ongoing role, and might yet justify the outstanding divine promise of communal security. However, because of their return to transgression by continuing to deny the rights of the Palestinians, and oppression similar to that which they experienced in Europe, their community is balanced on a knife’s edge. Israel has a clear choice. It can decide to change direction and negotiate a settlement acceptable to the Palestinians, and if it does so it will ease worldwide tension that is the result of its current policy, and it can anticipate support from people of all faiths. It will facilitate the reallocation of funds from the current defense budgets of those who contribute to its defense or maintain additional security forces against the threat of terrorism. It will encourage capital reinvestment from the WWCB to those countries that need them by investors who share its aspirations for health, education, and development programs. It will also knit its own security blanket—or realize the covenantal promise—through the genuine friendship of its neighbors, while it moves all humanity toward phase two of Maimonides’ assertions. On the other hand, it can maintain its insistence on the whole of Palestine in the belief that it is entitled to it as-ofright under the Mosaic Covenant. If so, it will be well advised to ref lect on the teachings of its prophets and their comprehensive understanding of covenant. It cannot rely for long on the United States to maintain the security umbrella because, through policies noted below, it has forfeited the capacity to do so. Israel will further undermine its relations with its immediate neighbors, and if its inaction results in a critical situation that undermines the stability of the WWCB, its friends and co-religionists in the Diaspora might be accused of a conf lict of interest and disloyalty to their country of citizenship—a situation they have always feared. Second: the New Covenant and the Mosaic Covenant concurrently. The People of Israel have become the catalyst in the process that is now under way of inverting the economic and authority relationship between the historically dominant WWCB and the balance of the world community. This corresponds to the application of the communal penalty clause of the New Covenant against the long-exploitative WWCB. That penalty clause is self-inf licted to the extent that the WWCB ignored the warning of the 1973–74 oil embargoes that it was able to def lect onto others, and it has subsequently pursued the same policies and has been slow to respond with structural changes following the self-inf licted economic crisis of 2008–09.

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Third: the Universal or Noahide Covenant. The inversion of relationships that is already under way cannot be reversed, but it can be accelerated or retarded according to the decisions that Israel takes. Although it is an involuntary catalyst in the process, it has absolute free will in decision making in the same manner as all peoples, and its decision whether to continue self-interested resistance and exacerbate current conf lict or to forego its ambitions and reach rapprochement with the people against whom it has transgressed will be entirely its own. The alternative outcomes will be similar, varying only in the extent of trauma and whether it exposes itself to further retribution. Consistent with the thrust of the Universal or Noahide Covenant, the benefits that f low to developing countries will soon outweigh the shortterm traumatic effects of change. Trade figures for the year 2000 showed that the WWCB, one-sixth of the world’s population, consumed or controlled about four-fifths of the foodstuffs, fibers, and non-renewable resources f lowing in world trade. As has been shown by recent economic disruption from the credit crisis, such disparity is unsustainable, and the ratio has already shifted in favor of the non-Western world. The shift must be expected to continue. The process of change has so far been gradual because people and institutions in the WWCB control the f low of the greatest share of capital. That control was illustrated during the Yom Kippur War, but it was fractured to some extent. The capacity of developing countries to demand restructuring of the world economy is increasing, and they can already inf luence world infrastructure and the pattern of supply and demand in partnership with the major Non-Western countries. In 1970, three and a half years before the Yom Kippur War, the Nixon. administration took a deliberate decision to reduce domestic production of crude oil and to increase purchases from countries in the Middle East. It was a part of its Middle East “bought peace” process and a consequence of its determination to gain control of the resources of the region. When Britain, being in deep crisis, relinquished its mandate over Palestine 25 years earlier, the United States took onthe role of protector. It expected a stable friendly base for its Middle East interests with secure access to the resources of the region which it coveted, but it has been unable to secure a trouble-free peace. In 1969, the Suez Canal was still blocked and Israel still occupied the Sinai Peninsula following the Six Day War; sporadic border engagements continued, and the United States still guaranteed Israel’s supplies. The Arab countries had turned to the Soviet Union for arms supplies because the United States would not supply them without a guarantee of nonuse against Israel, and the

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United States lacked a strategic base close at hand. Tensions were building with fears of an impending coordinated attack, and Jordan had ordered the destruction of the PLO headquarters, fearing Israeli reprisals against cross-border attacks. The Soviet Union thus had an enormous strategic advantage in the Cold War. Desperate for a means to stabilize the region and inf luence Arab policies, the United States talked first to Russia, proposing that Israel be asked to accept minimal boundary changes under a four-power guarantee. Then it talked to Israel about arms support, and gained its agreement to withdraw from the West Bank. Next, it approached the Arabs, hoping that buying oil in sufficient quantity to improve their trade balances would inf luence their approach to Israel.72 The American oil majors reduced home production and increased Middle East imports progressively, and the United States made its own economic and political security dependent on its ability to maintain peace in the Middle East. When the four-power plan was announced, Israel objected that its withdrawal was to appease the Arabs.73 But when the new oil policy became public in February 1970, all parties concerned—Israel, the Arabs, and the Soviet Union—knew exactly what the United States had done. Israel demanded a massive increase in arms supplies (see chart 3), cross-border attacks continued, and the Arabs wanted more security, too, through higher oil prices to fund additional arms purchases. The United States had triggered an unprecedented arms race in the Middle East, and it had to increase its own “defense preparedness” and establish additional overseas military and communications bases. But its oil deal came at a critical time and aggravated the United States’ trade imbalance with a greater outf low of paper dollars convertible to gold at a fixed rate. Under strain because of the war in Vietnam, the dollar was weakening against other currencies, and several countries demanded redemption of paper dollars for gold. On August 15, it unilaterally terminated convertibility of the dollar to gold, and in doing so, caused chaos in the international monetary system.74 The United States had made a blunder of monumental proportions, and it did not have to wait long for another war. The Yom Kippur War erupted on October 6, 1973, with invasions by Egypt and Syria, joined later by Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Kuwait. When Iraq nationalized its remaining U.S. oil assets, the companies closed its export taps, and, in collaboration with the U.S. State Department, cut oil supplies to Europe by half with the blunt message: “Support Israel against the Arabs or pay the price.” 75 President Nixon ordered a massive arms-resupply airlift; OPEC imposed a crude oil price rise from $US3 to $US5 on October 16, and the next day, several Arab countries announced progressive production cuts

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Petroleum: Thousands of Barrels / Day *Aid: Grants & Loans $US Billions / Year

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Non-OPEC Imports Ian Fry - MCD - March 2010

Chart 3 The Yom Kippur War & Oil Embargo: U.S. Petroleum Production, Imports, Consumption and Aid in grants and Loans to Israel: 1969–1980 Source: Petroleum: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Aid: Jewish Virtual Library.

that would continue until Israel withdrew from the Occupied Territories. An armistice was agreed on October 24, but, disillusioned with the United States and Israel, OPEC announced a major price increase to $US11.65 per barrel from January 1, 1974. Three years of world economic and political instability followed. In 1977 the United States guaranteed Israel $US3 billion in annual aid to persuade it to sign its first peace accord with an Arab state: Egypt.

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Out of the chaos of the Yom Kippur War, the Muslim world community gathered strength. Between 1970 and 1980, direct development assistance to disadvantaged countries from OPEC members increased 23fold from $US0.4 billion to $US9.1 billion, while OECD aid increased only three-fold, from $US6.9 billion to $US 27.3 billion.76 Direct aid from Muslim OPEC members was for hospital, school, university, and mosque construction, welfare services, and general budget support to offset the burden of high oil prices. The status of Islam rose strongly. However the euphoria was short-lived. Prior to 1973 only three oil producers had financial institutions to manage such funds. Although nine new funds were established between 1974 and 1976,77 most of them were still placed with United States and European institutions. Investment capacity and control stayed with those institutionsthat placed the bulk of investments in the West, not in the developing world. After a dip during the peak of the crisis the disparity between the WWCB and the developing countries widened. OPEC’s success in forcing the restructuring of one major resource sector encouraged developing countries to establish a number of additional resource producer groups,78 and this development, linked with proposals for a New International Economic Order NIEO by the Group of 77, had the potential to redress the historic exploitation of the non-Western world. However, few countries of the WWCB gave it significant support, and it was opposed by the corporations and institutions of the WWCB that controlled those product groups. The world has now reached another critical stage in the CME. Iran is the focus of attention as Israel rebuffs all United States’ efforts to negotiate a resolution to the Palestinian crisis, and the fundamental situation of the United States has not changed. It cannot disentangle itself except by breaking the chain that links its own security and stability to the conf lict between Israel and its immediate neighbors. Like Israel, it has options to consider. First: coerce Israel into an agreement with Palestine. The probability is that this can only be achieved by financing additional “bought peace” measures, but such measures will not satisfy Palestine, and a groundswell of opposition in frontline states might prejudice their governments’ current arrangements with the United States. Israel’s intransigence over additional Jewish settlements in the West Bank and, as a consequence, its relations with Iran, indicates that the United States has very little opportunity to maneuver. Second: similar to the first, but with different emphasis. Leave the initiative with Israel and accept whatever initiative Israel and its support network propose in negotiating a settlement that is acceptable to the Palestinians. Whatever that initiative might be, the situation will be as

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in 1970, and the demands of the Arab neighbors and Iran are bound to be substantial. Third: do nothing, accept the risk that Israel will continue to resist pressure for settlement of the Palestinian question, and face the consequences of another war in the Middle East with the near-inevitable destruction of oil fields or embargoes such as was feared when Israel refused to accept the establishment of a Palestinian state in 1990; Iraq stepped in to try to force the issue, and the United States had to exercise its inf luence and force a war against Iraq to maintain Israel’s security umbrella and its own economic security. It can no longer take that course in the Persian Gulf without catastrophic consequences, but it is considering the risk and the alternatives—supply Israel or go to war itself. Israel’s inf luence is such that in January 2010, the U.S. government contracted for 195 smart guided “Blu” bunker busters to be transported to Diego Garcia. Dan Plesch, director, Center for International Studies and Diplomacy, University of London, is reported as saying that the U.S. military made the preparations, but the final decision rests with President Obama, who “may decide that it would be better for the United States to act instead of Israel.” 79 Conclusions From the evidence available, several matters are now clear. The crisis in the Middle East requires a concerted reassessment of the relationships between each of the world faiths, a review of the policies and practices they have adopted because of their particular religious self-understanding, and a change of direction to accommodate the rights and needs of humanity for an epoch that we can barely comprehend. The State of Israel is the focal point of a process of change that is seeing the White Western Christian Block forfeit its undeserved position of dominance and privilege, and which is enabling the peoples of other affiliations to benefit from that change. This situation is totally consistent with the Hebrew understanding of the Divine Covenant developed prior to the Common Era, and with Covenants to which each of the Abrahamic faiths are subject. Neither Israel nor the communities of dār al-Islām are to blame for the present crisis, nor for the consequences if steps to alleviate it are not taken soon, even though some of their people are abrogating their obligations under covenant by using oppression or terrorism to achieve their aims in the manner of their terrorist forces prior to the establishment of the State of Israel. Primary responsibility lies with the churches and the governments of the White Christian Western Block to seek and implement a solution,

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and to accept a reduction in status, privilege, and inf luence in recompense for a history of broken covenants. If Israel cares to take the lead, and to reach a settlement to the satisfaction of the Palestinians, it can anticipate gaining the support of the worldwide communities of faith, and, in so doing, facilitate the diversion of funds and technology on a massive scale to the developing countries that have suffered such oppression and exploitation over a long period. It will thus focus attention directly on its acceptance of its divine covenant, and bring humanity closer to the realization of the second strand of Maimonides’ expectation: a world focused on an understanding of its relationship with God. However, that is not a task for Israel on its own. The three Abrahamic faiths are each legitimate, established by divine inspiration, and obligated to fulfill a common role. That role is to enable humanity to enjoy harmony and stability for the full term of its existence, and to move toward an understanding of its relationship with creation and the Creator. To do this they must first acknowledge that they are partners. Then they must work in intimate collaboration, picking up the threads of reform for which Islam was called into existence—and which now requires a coordinated effort.

Notes 1. Joseph A. Camilleri and Jim Falk, Worlds in Transition: Evolving Governance across a Stressed Planet (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2009), 2–4. 2. Ibid. Camilleri and Falk argue that Homo sapiens has built upon the genetic potential acquired over a period of 5 million years; that human culture, social organization, and institutions associated with theocracy, feudalism, or slavery have evolved through a succession of epochs; and that “the contemporary period can be more clearly understood if it is viewed as one more stage in the evolutionary trajectory of human social and technological development.” 3. Bernard J. Verkamp, The Evolution of Religion: A Re-Examination (Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press, 1995), 1. 4. Karl J. Narr, “Prehistoric Religion,” in Britannica Online Encyclopedia 2008. 5. Reuters, “Earliest Known Shaman Grave Site Found: Study,” Yahoo! News, November 4, 2008, archived. 6. Peter Michaelsen et al., Australian Ice Age Rock Art May Depict Earth’s Oldest Recordings of Shamanistic Rituals, vol. 41, Mankind Quarterly: Council for Social and Economic Studies. Provided by Proquest Llc (2000). 7. Mircea Eliade, Shamanism, Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, Bollingen Series LXXVI (New York: Pantheon Books, 1964).

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8. Paul S. D., C. Tacon, Merideth Wilson, and Christopher Chippindale, “Birth of the Rainbow Serpent in Arnhem Land Rock Art and Oral History,” Archaeology in Oceania 31, no. 3 (October 1996). 9. Gavin Flood, An Introduction to Hinduism, 1st ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996; reprint, 2004), 6–16. In defining Hinduism, Flood states that “sacred” refers to a quality of mysterious power that is believed to dwell within certain objects, persons, and places, and is opposed to chaos and death; that many Hindus believe in a transcendent God; devotion (bhakti) to deities may be mediated through icons and holy persons; and while the deity is worshipped as distinct, it and the devotee share in the same essence 10. L. R. Hiatt, “The Moral Lexicon of the Warlpiri People of Central Australia,” Australian Aboriginal Studies; Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies 2007, no. 1 (2007). 11. Flood discusses two alternative theories, one that the Aryan culture developed from the Indus Valley civilization, and the other that the Indus Valley civilization declined and was replaced by the Aryan culture. “Introduction to Hinduism,” 23. 12. V. M. Kelkar, and Y. D. Vaishnav, “Commonalities in Hinduism and Judaism,” International Journal of Humanities and Peace 17, no. 1 (2001). 13. Richard Hooker, The Akkadians 2340–2125 BC (Pullman: Washington State University, 1996). 14. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s.v. “Amorite” (2010). 15. E. Lipinski, The Aramaeans: Their Ancient History, Culture, Religion (Leuven: Peeters, 2000); Cyrus H. Gordon, “Abraham and the Merchants of Ura,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 17, no. 1 ( January 1958): 40. 16. N. F. Gier, “Religious Syncretism,” in Theology Bluebook (Moscow: University of Idaho, 1994). 17. Heinz Bechert and Richard Gombrich, eds., The World of Buddhism (London: Thames and Hudson,1984), 7–8. Bechert notes that as a contemplative religion Buddhism was forced from its land of origin following the rise of Christianity and Islam, and is now in a phase of renewed philosophical missionary activity. 18. The period of bondage and the dating of the Exodus are disputed. Scholarly dating of the Exodus ranges from early twelfth century, through the thirteenth century (Sarna and Hershel) to the fifteenth century. I am persuaded that the durative pattern of Exodus (Malamat 1988) is sound; that an early fifteenth century start date (Eriksson 2006) is most supportable; that the movement began on a small scale under Moses’ leadership, and that the largest emigration occurred during the thirteenth century. The Exodus is therefore shown in charts 1 and 2 as early the fifteenth century. See also Abraham Malamat, “Let My People Go and Go and Go and Go,” Biblical Archaeology Review 85 (1998); Nahum M. Sarna, and Hershel Shanks, “Israel in Egypt: The Egyptian Sojourn and the Exodus,” Ancient Israel 33, no. 54 (1999); Kathryn Eriksson, “Thera: Redating the

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19.

20.

21. 22.

23.

24.

25.

26. 27. 28. 29.

30. 31.

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Exodus (Provisional),” Buried History, Journal of The Australian Institute of Archaeology (forthcoming). Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel: With a Reprint of the Article from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, trans. J. Sutherland Black and Allan Menzies. 3rd ed. with preface by W. Robertson Smith (Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, 1885/1); W. Nicholson, The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). J. Philip Hyatt, “The Compiling of Israel’s Story,” in The Interpreter’s One-Volume Commentary on the Bible, ed. Charles M. Laymon (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1971), 1083. Ibid,. S. H. Hooke, Babylonian and Assyrian Religion (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963). Hooke maintains that there were ritual myths and origin myths, but no Babylonian covenant myth for the composers of the P source texts to adopt. Scholars debate the historicity of the Abrahamic tradition and the start point of the Patriarch’s emigration. Concerning the start point, see Gordon. Concerning historicity, see Paul Haupt, “Kir = Ur of the Chaldees,” Journal of Biblical Literature/The Society of Biblical Literature 36, nos. 1/2 (1917). However, the evolution of Hebrew understanding of personal and communal covenant is, in the writer’s view, consistent with the understanding having been inspired in the circumstances of an extended family embroiled in conf lict. Although the historicity of the early narrative is not sustainable, debate over step-by- step events does not negate the core development. David Noel Freedman, and David Miano, “People of the New Covenant,” in The Concept of the Covenant in the Second Temple Period, ed. Stanley E. Porter and Jacqueline C. R. de Roo (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003). F. E. Peters, Judaism, Christianity and Islam: From Covenant to Community, 1st ed., 3 vols., vol. 1: From Covenant to Community, Judaism, Christianity and Islam: The Classical Texts and Their Interpretation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990a), 101–03. Stephen Oppenheimer, The Real Eve:Modern Man’s Journey out of Africa (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2003). Alice Roberts, The Incredible Human Journey. (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2009). B. R. Rees, Pelagius: Life and Letters (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1998). Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Saxony, Germany: Charlemagne—Capitulatio De Partibus Saxoniae” in LoveToKnow 1911 (LoveToKnow Free Online Encyclopedia, 1911). Peters, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, 350–51. G. E. Von Grunebaum, Classical Islam, trans. Katherine Watson, 1st ed. (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1970), 14–24, 36–40; W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman

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32. 33. 34.

35. 36. 37.

38.

39. 40.

41. 42.

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(London: Oxford University Press, 1969), 5; Cecil Roth, A History of the Jews, rev. ed. (New York: Schocken Books, 1974), 145–46; Michael Avi-Yonah, “Byzantine Jerusalem,” in Jerusalem ( Jerusalem: Keter Books, 1973), 47. Qur’ān 5:12–19; 33:7. Qur’ān 4:58. Sayyid Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Lebbai, A Compendium of Muslim Theology and Jurisprudence, trans. Saifuddin J. Aniff-Doray, 2nd ed. (Kuala Lumpur: A. S. Noordeen, 1999), 22. ‘Abdur Rahman I Doi, Shari‘ah: The Islamic Law, 1st ed. (Kuala Lumpur: A. S. Noordeen, 1984), 382. Sūra 17:13–17. “We decreed for the Children of Israel in the Book that twice would they do mischief on the earth and be elated with mighty arrogance (and twice would they be punished)! When the first of the warnings came to pass, We sent against you Our servants given to terrible warfare: They entered the very inmost parts of your homes; and it was a warning (completely) fulfilled. Then did We grant you Victory over them: We gave you increase in resources and sons, and made you the more numerous in man-power. If ye did well, ye did well for yourselves; if ye did evil, (ye did it) against yourselves. So when the second of the warnings came to pass, (We permitted your enemies) to disfigure your faces, and to enter your Temple as they had entered it before, and to visit with destruction all that fell into their power. It may be that your Lord may (yet) show Mercy unto you; but if ye revert (to your sins), We shall revert (to Our punishments): And we have made Hell a prison for those who reject (all Faith)” (Sūra 17:4–8). There is ambiguity in three texts that are the basis of contention about whether the Qur’ān recognizes or denies the Christian notion of Jesus’s resurrection after death, or whether he was elevated without death, but there is no contention about the Qur’ānic reference to his elevation to the presence of God. Qur’ān 5:17; 9:30–31; 43:57–61; 5:116–118. Pope Gregory VII, “Dictatus Papae, 1090, Trans.,” in The Internet Medieval Sourcebook, ed. Paul Halsall (New York: Fordham University Press, Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies), 1075. Ewart Lewis, Medieval Political Ideas, 2 vols., vol. 2 (New York: A. A. Knopf., 1954). The circumstances in which the Khazar Khanate came under Jewish rule, its subsequent destruction by Sviatoslav, and the extent of religious conversion and expulsion are widely disputed, but there appears to be consensus that significant Jewish emigration stimulated scholarly endeavor and communal cohesion in Central Europe. Moses Maimonides, Mishneh Torah: The Laws of Kings and Their Wars, ed. and trans. Eliyahu Touger, First of new translation with commentaries, 14 vols., vol. 14 (New York: Moznaim Publishing Corp., 1987), 234–36.

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44. Generally, powers of great evil, but interpreted variously. Eliyahu Touger, ed. Maimonides Mishneh Torah (New York: Moznaim, 1987). Cites Malachi 3:22, wars of, making God’s power known throughout the world, s.v. “Gog and Magag,” in the Oxford Concise Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. Elizabeth A. Livingstone (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977). Cites Rev. 20:8. Two powers under the domination of Satan, s.v. “Gog and Magog,” in The Jewish Religion: A Companion, ed. Louis Jacobs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). Cites Ezekiel 38, 39, prophesying defeat of ruler and country by Israel, followed by reign of God. 45. Maimonides, 240–52. 46. Pope Nicholas V, “Dum Diversas. Bull,” in Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages, ed. Paul Halsall (London: George Bell 1910). 47. Frances Gardiner Davenport, European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United States and Its Dependencies (Washington: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1917); Steve Newcomb, “Five Hundred Years of Injustice: The Legacy of Fifteenth Century Religious Prejudice,” Shaman’s Drum (Fall 1992): 18–20. 48. Saint Benedictus, The Rule of St. Benedict., trans. Anthony C. Meisel, and M. L. Del Mastro (Garden City, New York: Image Books, 1975). 49. Martin Luther, Martin Luther: Selections from His Writings, ed. John Dillenberger (New York: Doubleday-Anchor 1961), 5. 50. Pope Alexander VI, “Inter Caetera,” Manataka American Indian Council, http://www.manataka.org/page155.html; Steven T. Newcomb, Pagans in the Promised Land, 1st ed. (Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing, 2008), 31–50. 51. Paul Gottschalk, The Earliest Diplomatic Documents on America: The Papal Bulls of 1493 and the Treaty of Tordesillas Reproduced and Translated (Berlin: Paul Gottschalk, 1927). 52. Tracy Assing, “With a Carib Eye: Review of Forte, M. C., Ruins of Absence,” The Caribbean Review of Books, no. 7 (2006): 18; Angelo J. Disalvo, “Spanish Dominicans, the Laws of the Indies and the Establishment of Human Rights,” Romance Quarterly 40, no. 2 (1993): 91. 53. Pope Paul III, “Sublimus Dei: The Enslavement and Evangelizatiom of Indians” (Rome: The Vatican: Papal Encyclicals, 1537). 54. Newcomb, Pagans in the Promised Land, 50. Quoting from John Keats, Eminent Domain: The Louisiana Purchase and the Making of America. (New York: Charterhouse, 1973), 62. 55. J. C. Revill, World History (London: Longmans, Green, 1953), 275. 56. Sam Kobia, “Denominationalism in Africa,” The Ecumenical Review/ World Council of Churches 53, no. 3 (2001). 57. Sergio I. Minerbi, The Vatican and Zionism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 96. Citing Civilta Cattolica 1897 and Herzl Museum, “Herzl’s Diaries” ( Jerusalem: Department for Zionist Activities of the World Zionist Organization, 2010). 58. Meir Meiseles, Judaism Thought and Legend: An Anthology, trans. Rebecca Schonfeld-Brand and Aryeh Newman, 1st ed. ( Jerusalem: Feldheim Publishers, 1964; rpt., 1977), 209–303; 575.

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59. Peters, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, 106–07. The author documents Rabbi Isaac’s teachings of successive cycles of rebellion, retribution, and redemption in the manner of Hebrew prophets and the Qur’ānic Night Journey (Pesikta Rabbati 36:1–2), and also a Jewish poem, c. 638 c.e., which anticipates the revelation of the Messiah in the wake of the conf lict between Gog and Magog 60. Michael A. Meyer, Response to Modernity: A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism, 1st ed. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1995; rpt. 1995), 74–78. 61. Ibid., 247. 62. Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State, trans. Sylvie D’Avigdor (American Zionist Emergency Council, 1946). 63. Alfred M. Lilienthal, The Zionist Connection: What Price Peace? (New York: Middle East Perspective Inc., 1979), 14. 64. Alfred M. Lilienthal, What Price Israel? (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1953), 12. The countries were England, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Austria, and Switzerland. 65. Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin, eds., The Israel-Arab Reader, 4th rev. ed. (New York: Pelican, 1984), 17, Doc.7. 66. Leni Yahil, The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry (Oxford: Oxford, 1991), 254. 67. Edward Said, The Question of Palestine (New York: Vintage Books, 1980), 99. 68. Joseph Weitz, My Diaries and Letters to the Children, vol. II (Tel Aviv: Massada, 1965), 181–82. 69. Z. A. B. Zeman, A Diplomatic History of the First World War (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971), 338–39. 70. Yahil, The Holocaust, 254–55. 71. Mark Aarons and John Loftus, The Secret War against the Jews, 1st ed. (Melbourne: William Heinemann, 1994), 168–70. See also Ian Fry, Trouble in the Triangle: Christians, Jews and Muslims in Conflict, 2 vols., vol. 2 (Fitzroy: Compton Arch, 2000/2), pp. 1475–83, 1955–56, for details of the disproportionate representation of WWCB states in the United Nations at that time. 72. U.S. Cabinet Task Force, “The Oil Import Question: A Report on the Relationship of Oil Imports to the National Security” (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Cabinet Task Force on Oil Imports Control, 1970). 73. Mark Tessler, A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), 448. 74. Luca Einaudi, “The Generous Utopia of Yesterday Can Become the Practical Achievement of Tomorrow”: 1000 Years of Monetary Union in Europe,”, National Institute Economic Review (2000). 75. From the writer’s personal conversations with oil industry executives in Baghdad, January 1976. 76. Shireen Hunter, Opec and the Third World (London: Croom Helm, 1984), 178.

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77. Ian Seymour, Opec: Instrument of Change, 1st ed. (London: Macmillan, 1980), 236–39. 78. Fry, Trouble in the Triangle, 1993–2001. Commodity groups covered bauxite, iron, copper, lead/zinc, tin, phosphate, peanuts, rubber, cocoa, coffee, cotton, olive oil, sugar, wheat, bananas, and wool. See Appendix B, pp. 1993–2001, for details of member countries, their religious, political, and regional affiliations. 79. Rob Edwards, “Final Destination Iran?” Sunday Herald Scotland, March 14, 2010.

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CONCLUSION INTERFAITH INTERACTION: CONTRADICTIONS AND CONFLICTS Chandra Muzaffar

W

e are witnessing two seemingly contradictory trends in the relations between religious communities. On the one hand, there has never been a time like this in history when there is so much exchange and interaction among followers of different faiths in so many different parts of the world. On the other hand, a great deal of tension, conf lict, and violence—violence perpetrated in the name of religion that has led to the massacre of tens of thousands of human beings—also characterizes this interface. People are reaching out to one another, and yet people are rejecting one another. We shall begin by looking at the positive: the dialogues and interactions among people of different religions and why it is happening on such a vast scale. This will be followed by an analysis of conf licts with religious overtones in different Asian countries. We shall then ref lect upon religion and conf lict at the global level and how it is intertwined with the quest for global hegemony. Since the quest for global hegemony has, to all intents and purposes, ended in failure, we shall conclude our study with some tentative thoughts on the role of religions in a posthegemonic world. Dialogue and Interaction In the last 20 years or so, the number of dialogues among people of different faiths has increased tremendously. In the initial phase, these dialogues among professionals, academics, and activists were concerned with issues

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of theology and doctrine. After a while, the more sensitive and perceptive among the dialoguers realized that this approach would not take them far. On doctrinal matters such as the status of Jesus from a Christian as against a Muslim point of view, it would be almost impossible for the adherents of the two religions to arrive at a common position. We should expect the overwhelming majority of Christians and Muslims to cling on to their respective beliefs about Jesus till the end of time. However, dialogues between Christians and Muslims and with the followers of other religions today have moved on to other concerns.1 Environment, very much the f lavor of the moment, poverty, corruption, and human rights are some of the themes that are explored. Some of the chapters in this book allude to some of these themes. Over the years, numerous interfaith publications have emerged, both within academic circles and in the arena of social activism.2 Perhaps an even more significant development in the interaction of different religious communities are grassroots initiatives that focus upon tangible programs that have a direct impact on the lives of ordinary people. In Malaysia, volunteers from different faiths—Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, and Baha’is, among others—both doctors and paramedics, run health clinics for the poor and disadvantaged. There are programmes for HIV-AIDS victims and victims of drug abuse in Indonesia managed by activists of different faith backgrounds. India has quite a few centers for the victims of domestic violence established and organized by women of different religious persuasions, and those who do not belong to any particular religion. Multifaith grassroots activism has been reinforced in recent years by some bold moves on the part of the police and other law enforcement agencies to sensitize their own personnel to the needs and aspirations of religiously diverse communities. Courses are sometimes given on ethnic relations and on the importance of appreciating religious and cultural sensitivities. What explains the growing interest in understanding the religious other in many parts of the world? Since World War II, more societies have become multireligious and multicultural largely because of migration. The religious other is no longer some abstract idea; he is part of one’s immediate neighborhood. Whether one likes it or not, one has to live with one’s neighbor—hence the need for some sort of understanding of his ways and his mores. An outstanding example of this would be the migration of Muslims from North Africa, West Asia, Central Asia, and South Asia to Western Europe in recent decades, and the adjustments that both migrants and established European communities have had to make.3

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If migration has underscored the presence of the religious other, it is partly because religious consciousness itself has become more pronounced. Increased religious consciousness is yet another reason why people are taking notice of the religion of the other. When individuals and groups in a certain setting express their religiosity through worship or attire, others may respond in a positive or negative manner. A positive response is when one, out of curiosity, seeks to know more of the religion of the other. There is another factor that has also, ironically, helped to encourage dialogue among religious communities. Conf licts involving people of different religions sometimes persuade one party in the conf lict to reach out to the other. As Dvir Abramovich, Chaiwat Satha-Anand, and James Haire show in their respective chapters, it is not uncommon, even in the midst of protracted conf licts, for individuals from opposing sides to meet, to understand one another, and to try to heal the wounds. A fourth reason why acquiring knowledge of faiths other than one’s own is not uncommon today is because of the new information and communication technologies. Unlike the old days, detailed information of different religions is easily available on the Internet. Among those accessing such information there will be some who will become less exclusive and less parochial in their outlook because of their exposure to the belief system of the other. They will begin to see similarities and parallels in the philosophies and value-systems of the different religions. This is how technology impacts upon one’s religious consciousness. Of course, the new communication channels can also—as we have seen—accelerate the spread of bigoted religious attitudes, just as conf licts often harden antagonistic feelings toward the religious other. We shall return to this point. Similarly, increased religious consciousness, we have hinted, can lead to negative consequences such as the erection of even more impenetrable barriers separating communities. And migration, and the presence of some “alien” religion in one’s environment can generate extreme hostility and even vile hatred toward the out- group. Conf licts in Asia It is not surprising that the conditions and circumstances that explain the proliferation of interfaith dialogues and interreligious interactions are also the causes of uneasiness, tension, and conf lict between groups. It is this that we shall now explore. We shall examine the conf licts between segments of different communities, their underlying causes, and the role of religion in them.

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Starting from the Southeast Asian part of the world, there have been conf licts involving groups from different religions in a number of states within ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) for a long while. The civil war in the southern part of the Philippines, for instance, between a largely Christian state and Muslim rebels has been going on for decades. In Thailand, the three largely MalayMuslim provinces in the South—Yala, Narathiwat, and Patani—have witnessed sporadic violence since the sixties as separatist forces resist, and retaliate against, what they perceive as the unjust treatment of a national minority that is different from the Thai-Buddhist majority in the ethnic and religious sense.4 There have been occasional riots for a variety of reasons involving some Muslims and some Christians in certain parts of Indonesia since the early years of independence in 1945, though interreligious ties, between the Muslim majority and all the other minorities, on the whole, have been excellent. In contrast to this, in Myanmar, both the Christian Karen and Muslim Rohingya minorities have often alleged persecution and marginalization by the military junta in power, comprising men who in the formal sense at least claim to be Buddhist. Interreligious conf lagrations—or what appear to be interreligious conf lagrations—have also occurred in South Asia. In India, even during the colonial period, there were serious communal f lare-ups, involving mainly Hindus and Muslims. Since independence in 1947, there have been some major episodes of communal violence—Babri in 1992; Mumbai in 1993; Gujarat in 2002—that have led to the death of thousands of innocent people.5 Complicating the interreligious scenario in the country, is the unresolved problem of Kashmir, which is perceived by a lot of Hindus and Muslims in India and Pakistan as a Hindu-Muslim conf lict. But Kashmir, like the other episodes, does not suggest in any way that India is a communal cauldron. It is not. In fact, given the complexity of its religious and cultural diversity, India has managed its intercommunity relations fairly well. Sri Lanka is another South Asian nation where a longstanding conf lict that claimed perhaps more than 80,000 lives saw the exploitation of religious sentiments by a small segment of the Sinhalese Buddhist majority, including some monks, to the detriment of the mainly Tamil Hindu minority. Turning to China, we have a situation where the government, given its communist background, remains wary of any religious movement, and for that reason, often acts swiftly to curb their inf luence. Tibetan Buddhist groups seeking to assert Tibetan autonomy have invariably incurred the ire of Beijing. When Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang province expressed their anger and unhappiness over issues pertaining to the

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economy and administration in 2009, Beijing retaliated with some harsh measures, induced to some extent by the violence of a fringe within the Uighur community itself.6 Causes of Conf licts We have provided a brief overview of conf licts with religious overtones in seven countries in Asia with the aim of highlighting conf licts of this nature. If we did a comprehensive study of each of these conf licts, we would discover that the causes are complex and that in many instances, religion was a secondary factor. We would summarize the primary causes7 as follows: 1. Historical, including the adverse consequences of colonialism. This would be certainly true of southern Philippines. Spanish and American colonizers were bent on conquering and controlling resource-rich Mindanao province. The fact that their adversary was Muslim could have colored their campaign of conquest but the real motive was colonial dominance. In the case of Thailand too, history has played a big role in the making of the conf lict. It was the Thai-Siamese—annexation of the Malay Muslim kingdom of Patani in the nineteenth century that sparked the people’s resistance to Thai rule. The Muslim character of Patani could not have been a major factor, since there are sizeable Muslim communities living in relative harmony with the rest of Thai society in places like Bangkok, the capital, and Chiang Mai in the north. Likewise, the Babri incident in northern India, which has its roots in British colonial rule, and the Uighur unrest in China, are also linked to the past. 2. Politics and Power. In nearly every one of the conf licts mentioned, politics and power have been important. In Myanmar, this is obvious. It is mainly because the regime in power is autocratic, that religious minorities, and indeed the majority community itself, have been oppressed and brutalized. In both Thailand and the Philippines, if there is some reluctance on the part of the government to accord genuine autonomy to the minority in the south, it is because of their desire to preserve and perpetuate their power. By the same token, if rebel groups in both states have on occasion rejected peace overtures from the government, it is partly because they are afraid of losing their grip upon the territories under their control. In Sri Lanka, a similar logic applied to both the government and the Tamil Tigers who fought for an independent Tamil

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homeland for decades before their military defeat in 2009. Victor and vanquished were driven by the desire for power and control. There is no doubt at all that the quest for Hindu supremacy in India, now known as the Hindutva movement, is also motivated by the desire for power, as evinced by the politics of Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat during the 2002 riots in that state. In fact, manipulating the religious sentiments of the majority Hindu and minority Muslim communities for electoral votes, as and when it suits the convenience of the political actor in question, has been part and parcel of Indian politics since the early seventies and every political party is guilty of this game to a greater or lesser degree. Power has played a different sort of role in some Indonesian riots. One of the causes of the riots in the Molucca islands—James Haire refers to peace-building efforts after the riots—was the collapse of the power structure associated with the minions of the late Indonesian president, Suharto, and their desperate attempt to remain in control through the exploitation of religious fissures within the local community. 3. Economic and Sociological. Some of the episodes we have examined also suggest that economic and sociological factors have shaped conf licts. In the conf lict zones of Thailand and the Philippines, grinding poverty, unemployment (especially among youths), and the lack of social mobility have contributed to the prolongation of unrest and instability and the continuance of violence. It is said that in Sri Lanka it was the rapid decline of the economy, brought about to some extent by the 1983 communal riots, that exacerbated the ethnic conf lict. Hindu and Muslim youths who swell the ranks of rioters and looters in communal clashes in various parts of India often come from the underclass. The Role of Religion Having looked at the causes, let us now try to determine the role of religion in the conf licts noted in this essay. In assessing the impact of religion upon conf licts, one has to distinguish the victim, and how he or she mobilizes religion, from the victimizer and his use of religion. Of course, as we have seen, it is not always easy to make this distinction, especially when it comes to their relationship to power. It is also important to realize that those who consciously resort to religion either to resist oppression or to perpetuate injustice invariably interpret some text or other to justify their stance. Interpretation is central to their mission. Two of our contributors—Merrill Kitchen in the case of Christianity,

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and Abdullah Saeed in the case of Islam—have offered their ref lections on interpretations of texts. In the ultimate analysis, whether one regards a certain interpretation as legitimate or not, depends on one’s own standpoint. Be that as it may, there is consensus among scholars that the deliberate killing of innocent people, of civilians, has no legitimacy in any religion. This is a view that has to be emphasized over and over again for the simple reason that in all the conf licts that we have alluded to, whether it involves Muslims or Christians, Hindus or Buddhists, whether it is the government or a rebel group, whether it is the victimizer or the victim, civilians have had to pay the price. This is not the only example of the blatant distortion of religious teachings to achieve political ends. The episodes we have drawn from seven countries will show that all the religions in the region have also been abused to demean and demonize the religious other. There is yet another aspect to the role of religion in some of the conf licts that deserves to be given prominence. It will be observed that in the Philippines, the opposition to Manila in the initial stage came from the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which was secular rather than religious in its orientation. Later, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) came to the fore. Similarly, in Thailand, the Patani United Liberation Organization (PULO) founded in 1968 was more inclined toward Malay nationalism than Islam. When it broke up into splinter groups in 1992, a couple of these groups adopted a conservative religious position. In Kashmir, the Kashmir Freedom Movement established in 1972 was avowedly nationalistic. Today, one of the dominant forces in the Kashmiri struggle is Lashkar e-Taiba, founded in 1990 with the objective of establishing an Islamic state in South Asia. Even if we looked beyond our examples, we see that in Palestine, from the late fifties to the late eighties at least, the secular Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), with Al-Fatah at the helm, defined the Palestinian struggle. Today, the Islamic-oriented Hamās commands much more grassroots support than Al-Fatah. There are some parallels to this pattern in India and Sri Lanka. There was no mass Hindu political movement in India in the early decades of independence. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as the political manifestation of Hindutva is a recent phenomenon. In Sri Lanka, the emergence of the Heritage Party, in the last few years, espousing a bigoted form of Sinhala-oriented Buddhism that repudiates the accommodative universalism of the religion, goes against the grain of the country’s earlier secular politics. If there is a simple explanation for the rise of religious movements in politics, after the initial secular phase, it is partly because of disillusionment

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with the secular thrust of society, and the hope that the leaders and supporters of these movements harbor that religion with its ideals would provide the solution. The underlying causes of conf licts that appear to have a religious dimension, and the role of religious groups in these conf licts are not widely known to the general public. What the media, both print and electronic, report are the conf licts as they occur without much indepth analysis. Since these reports more often than not present conf licts in Indonesia or India or in any other country for matter as conf licts involving two antagonistic religious groups, the erroneous impression created is that there is deep hatred between them. It is an irrefutable truth that the media’s reporting on conf licts has had a negative, even destructive, effect upon interreligious ties.8 It has widened the chasm between communities. Every time a simplistic, superficial report on some communal clash somewhere on earth is shown over television or appears in a popular tabloid, it undermines all the good work that ordinary citizens have been doing trying to build bridges between the different religions. This is why responsible media reporting on so-called interreligious conf licts is a fundamental prerequisite for the maintenance of harmonious interfaith relations. What this means is that there should be no sensationalization, no exaggeration, no distortion of facts on the ground. There should be an honest attempt to discuss the background to the conf lict. The central issues should be presented in a balanced manner. At some point, there should be an in- depth analysis of the conf lict. Biases and prejudices should be minimized as far as possible. It is not just the media. Those who have knowledge and understanding of their religion—not necessarily religious elites—should be more vocal on issues pertaining to religion. They should with courage and conviction present the more inclusive, universal, progressive vision of religion to the public. They should not be afraid to counter religious bigotry and religious exclusiveness that seeks to negate the importance of sincere interaction with the religious other. The government and other political and economic actors also have a role to play. Since power and politics, economic factors, and sociological inf luences are among the root causes of the conf licts that concern us, the government and other actors should do much more to resolve long-standing issues such as southern Philippines, southern Thailand, and Kashmir. There should also be much more pressure on the delinquent regime in Myanmar to respect the rights of its religious minorities. In a nutshell, it is faithful adherence to the tenets of good governance that will help to improve relations among the different religious communities.

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However, overcoming obstacles to interfaith interaction within different countries in Asia by itself will not guarantee harmonious ties. There is also the global dimension to consider. For there is a yawning gap that separates the centers of power in the West from the Muslim world. Hegemony and the Muslim World What is at the root of this yawning gap? It is the drive by the centers of power in the West led by Washington to control and dominate certain countries in the Muslim world and the reaction of a fringe in the Muslim world to this that is responsible for the prevailing distrust and antagonism between the two. In other words, U.S. hegemony is a huge hurdle to amity and harmony between the Muslim world and the West.9 While the quest for global hegemony began with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945,10 it was only after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States’ Cold War adversary in 1991, that the Muslim world loomed large on the horizon as the new enemy. The United States, it has been argued, needed an enemy to justify its drive for hegemony. And, the Muslim world fitted the bill for a variety of reasons. Most of the world’s exported oil f lows beneath the feet of Muslims. Oil, needless to say, is the lifeblood of contemporary civilization. The majority of the world’s vital sea-lanes from the Straits of Hormuz to the Straits of Melaka border Muslim countries. Israel, the United States’ closest ally, is right in the middle of the Arab-Muslim world, and the United States is determined to ensure its security by exercising control over Israel’s neighbors just as Israel, through its lobbies in the United States, shapes U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.11 U.S. and Western leaders in the early 1990s also knew that with the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union, resistance to their hegemony would come from a segment of the Muslim world. They witnessed the strength of this resistance in the Islamic Revolution of Iran of 1979, which succeeded in overthrowing an autocratic monarch who protected U.S. hegemonic interests in the region. The resistance of the people of Afghanistan, and other Muslims who rallied to their cause, to the Soviet occupation of their land from December 1979 to February 1989—and the eventual Muslim triumph over the Soviet army, a victory that won the toast of the West—also convinced Western leaders that Muslims will not yield easily to any form of hegemony. No less significant is the unyielding resistance of the dispossessed Palestinian people to Israeli occupation and usurpation of their land, and indirectly to IsraeliU.S. hegemony over the region.12

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In spite of the Muslim record of resistance to alien hegemony, the United States and its allies decided to invade Afghanistan in October 2001 because it was playing host to al-Qaeda, the group that was allegedly responsible for the heinous terrorist attack upon the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001. There were of course other reasons for the invasion. Occupying Afghanistan has enhanced U.S. access to oil in Central Asia and the Caspian Sea region. Equally important, it has given the United States a strategic foothold in a region where Russian and Chinese inf luence is still significant.13 Nine years after the invasion, there is still strong resistance to the U.S.helmed occupation. It is led by the ultra-conservative Muslim group, the Taliban, which was in power in Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, and which had become very unpopular with a big segment of the population toward the end of its rule because of its retrogressive approach to the role of women in society, and its atavistic interpretation of Islamic law. It is alien occupation that has given the Taliban a new lease of life. An even more unjust and immoral invasion and occupation was that of Iraq in March 2003. The three principal motives behind the United States’ hegemonic drive, especially in the Middle East—oil, Israel, and geopolitics—were obvious to even the casual observer of the international scene. It is estimated that the occupation and its aftermath has resulted in the death of more than a million Iraqis—and more than 4,000 soldiers from the United States, Britain, and their other allies. These deaths, and the occupation of Iraq in general, have created a great deal of anger and unhappiness within the Muslim world. It is after these two invasions, especially the second, that negative sentiments toward the United States in particular peaked. A third invasion, of Lebanon, in 2006, by Israel, with the strong backing of the United States and Britain, helped to reinforce the widely held view among Muslims everywhere that powerful nations in the West and Israel are hell-bent on attacking Muslim states that resist their hegemony, and are hostile toward Islam itself. The Lebanese resistance movement, the Hizbāllah, not only thwarted the Israeli onslaught but also exploded the myth that Israeli air power was invincible. The respect and affection that the leader of the Hizbāllah, Hassan Nasrallah, commands among the Muslim masses worldwide is a measure of how much they cherish their independence and their dignity in the face of global hegemony. It is of course true that violence has played a major role in the resistance to hegemony. This includes violence against civilians, which, as we have shown, is antithetical to Islam and all other religions. It should not however diminish our empathy with the people who are struggling against the injustice of hegemony. It is a struggle that is seldom acknowledged by the mainstream Western media, or by the inf luential

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stratum in the United States and in most other Western governments. On the contrary, stereotyping Muslims, denigrating and demeaning them in the media, and even discriminating against them in the public square, in the workplace and in school, have become more frequent in recent times in some Western countries. Even among the well- educated, superficial generalizations are bandied about. Islam, they opine, has a propensity toward violence; it treats women badly; it is incompatible with democracy. No attempt is made to look at the actual situation and draw ethically sound conclusions from them. In reaction to these negativities about the religion and its practitioners, some Muslims have also begun, through their media, to sully and smear the United States and the West.14 This is an atmosphere that is hardly conducive for forging harmonious relations between Muslims and people in the United States and the West in general, whether they are affiliated to a religion or not. It is an atmosphere that will change only if the drive for hegemony comes to a halt. Future Direction There are signs to show that the drive has failed.15 As we have seen, Muslim resistance to hegemony has been strong and effective. Within the United States’ own “sphere of inf luence,” Latin America, the people are rejecting U.S. economic and political dominance as ref lected in elections in a number of states. Russia is reasserting its authority within its own neighborhood, and China, India, and Korea are emerging as the new centers of economic power. A sizeable segment of global civil society is opposed to the global hegemony of any state. Most of all, the United States itself is faced with serious economic woes, from growing unemployment to mounting debts for which there appear to be no solutions, at least within the prevailing ideological framework. If the United States is no longer in a position to attempt to impose its hegemony upon the planet, it is quite conceivable that economic, cultural, political, and military power will become more diffused in a multipolar world. In a multipolar world, China in particular, given its economic clout, will have an important role to play. So will other Asian countries, such as India and Korea, perhaps Indonesia and Vietnam, albeit at a somewhat lower plane. Asia, as a whole, there is no doubt at all, will carry much more weight in a posthegemonic world. In such a world, how will the different religious communities relate to one another and how will they respond to the challenges that confront them? For one thing, there may be less of an adversarial relationship between the United States and the Muslim world. This will also have some

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effect upon the relationship between faith communities such as Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians, in Asia, on the one hand, and Muslims, on the other, since the former’s perceptions of the latter are often colored and conditioned by the Western media. Outside perceptions of this sort, the different religious groups will continue to grapple with the challenges emanating from their own domestic environments, some of which we have looked at—challenges that may also lead to the strengthening of negative attitudes toward one another. At the same time, groups and individuals within the various religious communities can be expected to continue to interact with one another. One hopes that in these interactions, faith communities will go beyond the articulation of shared values and principles garnered from their respective spiritual and moral philosophies. There should be some endeavor to formulate specific policy measures that address some of the monumental challenges that confront humanity today. One of these challenges is the economic and financial crisis that has impacted upon the entire human family in one way or another. It is irrefutably true that one of the root causes of the crisis is a financial system that negates justice. In the Islamic financial system, on the other hand, justice is paramount. It requires “both the financier and the entrepreneur to equitably share the profit as well as the loss. For this purpose, one of the basic principles of Islamic finance is: ‘No risk, no gain.’ ”16 To implement this principle effectively, a host of new institutions will have to be created that will deal with issues related to moral hazard, conf lict of interest, and the late settlement of financial obligations. Our task is to conceptualize institutions at this concrete level so that they embody the values and principles that our religions uphold. If interfaith dialogues and interactions in the coming years lead to the birth of institutions and systems that are capable of responding to the crises of our time, the shared spiritual and moral values upon which they are anchored will be hailed as the harbinger of a new epoch in a new universal civilization.

Notes 1. The importance of moving on to other concerns was raised in my “InterReligious Communication: The Five Tasks,” in One God, Many Paths, ed. Gan Teik Chee ( Penang, Malaysia; Aliran, 1980). 2. An example would be Sandy and Jael Bharat, A Global Guide to Interfaith: Reflections from around the World ( Winchester, UK: O Books, 2007). 3. This is discussed in Tariq Ramadan, To Be a European Muslim (Leicester, UK: The Islamic Foundation, 1999).

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4. For a broader understanding of the conf lict, see various essays in Understanding Conflict and Approaching Peace in Southern Thailand, ed. Dr. Imtiyaz Yusuf and Dr. Lars Peter Schmidt(Bangkok, Thailand: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 2006). 5. The realities of communal violence are studied in The Other India: Realities of an Emerging Power, ed. Rajesh Chakrabarti (New Delhi, India: Sage, 2009), especially Section 111. 6. See John Chan, “ ‘Protest in Tibet,’ JUST Commentary 8, no. 4 (April 2008) and my “Uighur Discontent,” JUST Commentary 9, no. 8 (August 2009). 7. A more elaborate analysis of the causes can be found in my “Religious Conf lict in Asia: Probing the Causes, Seeking Solutions,” in Bridge or Barrier: Religion, Violence and Visions for Peace, ed. Gerrie ter Haar and James J. Busuttil (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2005). 8. I have spoken about this on numerous occasions, especially at conferences organized by the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD), one of the most dynamic media networks in the world today. See also my “The Media, Islam and the West,” in my Global Ethic or Global Hegemony? Reflections on Religion, Human Dignity and Civilisational Interaction (London, UK: ASEAN Academic Press, 2005) and my “Media, Dialogue and Religion,” in my Hegemony: Justice; Peace (Shah Alam, Malaysia: Arah Publications, 2008). 9. I have explored the impact of hegemony on West-Muslim ties in a number of my writings. See for instance my “Resisting Hegemony; Raising Dignity,” in my Hegemony: Justice; Peace. 10. This is mentioned in my “The Empire: What it is and What it Means for All of Us,” in my Hegemony: Justice; Peace. 11. This point is made in John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007). 12. For a comprehensive examination of the phenomenon of resistance in contemporary Muslim societies see Alastair Crooke, Resistance The Essence of the Islamist Revolution (London, UK: Pluto Press, 2009). 13. These and other reasons are analyzed in my “The War on Terrorism and Hegemonic Power,” in my Muslims Dialogue Terror (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: International Movement for a Just World, 2003). 14. See my “Quo Vadis the Dialogue of Civilisations?” in my Hegemony: Justice; Peace. 15. How American militarism has led to the decline of U.S. hegemony is discussed in James Petras, Zionism, Militarism, and the Decline of US Power (Atlanta, GA: Clarity Press, 2008). 16. See Muhammad Umer Chapra, ‘The Global Financial Crisis: Can Islamic Finance Help Minimise the Severity and Frequency of Such a Crisis in the Future?’ Islam and Civilisational Renewal 1, no. 2 (December 2009) (International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies [IAIS], Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), p. 235.

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NOTES ON EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Dvir Abramovich is the director of the Centre for Jewish History and Culture at the University of Melbourne, where he is also the Jan Randa Senior Lecturer in Hebrew-Jewish studies. He is the president of the Australian Association of Jewish Studies and the editor of the Australian Journal of Jewish Studies. A regular contributor to national media, his publications include Testifying to the Holocaust (Australian Association of Jewish Studies, 2008, co- edited). Luca Anceschi is lecturer in international relations in the School of Social Sciences, La Trobe University (LTU), and research associate at the LTU Centre for Dialogue. A graduate of the University of Naples “L’Orientale” and of LTU, his principal areas of research are the international politics of the Greater Middle East and the role of Islam in international relations. His publications include Turkmenistan’s Foreign Policy—Positive Neutrality and the Consolidation of the Turkmen Regime (Routledge, 2008). Joseph A. Camilleri is professor of international relations and the founding director of the Centre for Dialogue, La Trobe University. A fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences, Professor Camilleri chairs the editorial committee of the scholarly journal Global Change, Peace and Security. His recent books include Worlds in Transition—Evolving Governance across a Stressed Planet (Edward Elgar, 2009, co-authored), Regionalism in the New Asia Pacific Order (Edward Elgar, 2003), and States, Markets and Civil Society in Asia Pacific (Edward Elgar, 2000). Peter Carnley is the former Anglican Archbishop of Perth (1981– 2005) and Primate of Australia (2001–2005). He graduated from the University of Melbourne (1966) and from Cambridge University with a doctorate in systematic theology (1969). He holds a number of honorary doctorates and is an honorary fellow of Trinity College, Melbourne; St. John’s College, Cambridge; and Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

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His publications include The Structure of Resurrection Belief (Clarendon Press, 1987), The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Sermons (HarperCollins, 2001) and Reflections in Glass (HarperCollins, 2004). Ian R. Fry, an independent scholar and writer, is currently a doctoral candidate at the Melbourne College of Divinity. His research relates to the concept of Covenant as a basis for dialogue between Christians, Jews, and Muslims. He is a former general manager of Word Publishing Company, the joint-venture newspaper publisher for the Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, and United Churches of Papua New Guinea. His publications include Trouble in the Triangle (Compton Arch, 2000, 2 vols.). Michael Kirby is a former justice of the High Court of Australia. A former inaugural chairman of the Australian Law Reform Commission (1975–1984) and the president of the Court of Appeal of Solomon Islands (1995–1996), Justice Kirby has served in many international and United Nations positions including two expert groups of the Organisation for Economic Co- Operation and Development (OECD), Paris; many bodies of the Commonwealth Secretariat, London; and positions in the ILO, UNDP, UNESCO, UNODC, WHO Global Commission on AIDS, and UNAIDS. He was the president of the International Commission of Jurists (1995–1998) and served as a special representative of the secretary general of the United Nations for Human Rights in Cambodia (1993–1996). He holds honorary degrees from 12 Australian and foreign universities. Merrill Kitchen is an endorsed minister in the Churches of Christ movement and, for ten years until the end of 2009, was the principal of the Churches of Christ Theological College in Melbourne, Australia. Initially trained as a medical scientist, she began a journey of theological learning stimulated by the many questions that arose during a time working in medical institutions in Israel-Palestine alongside Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Her postgraduate theological studies have been in the area of social, political, and cultural readings of the New Testament. James Haire is professor of theology and executive director, Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture, and director, Public and Contextual Theology (PACT) Research Centre, all in Charles Sturt University, Canberra, Australia. He read classics and theology at the University of Oxford and undertook postgraduate study and research in theology at the Hendrik Kraemer Instituut, the University of Leiden, and the University of Birmingham. A minister of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and of the Halmahera Church, he has lectured in theology in Indonesia for over 35 years, including 13 years resident there. His published work includes

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The Character and Theological Struggle of the Church in Halmahera, 1941–1979 (Lang, 1981), and “Public Theology—A Latin Captivity of the Church: Violence and Public Theology in the Asia-Pacific Context,” appeared in the International Journal of Public Theology (2007). Graham Maddox is professor emeritus of political science at the University of New England, specializing in political thought, democratic theory, and Australian politics. He is the author of Australian Democracy in Theory and Practice (Longman, 5th ed., 2005), and Religion and the Rise of Democracy (Routledge, 1996). The most recent of many articles have concentrated in the area of religion and politics. A former president of the Australasian Political Studies Association, Professor Maddox is a member of the Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton, and a life member of Clare Hall, Cambridge. Chandra Muzaffar is the Noordin Sopiee Professor of Global Studies at the Science University of Malaysia (USM) in Penang. He is also the president of the International Movement for a Just World ( JUST). He has published more than 20 books on civilizational dialogue, international politics, religion, human rights, and Malaysian society. His latest publications include Hegemony: Justice; Peace (Arah, 2008) and Religion & Governance (Arah, 2009). Neil Ormerod is professor of theology at Australian Catholic University. He is widely published in Australia and overseas. His most recent works are Creation, Grace and Redemption (Orbis, 2007) and Globalization and the Mission of the Church (T&T Clark, 2009, co-authored). His research expertise is focused on the theology of the Trinity, ecclesiology, and natural theology. Ruwan Palapathwala researches and lectures in the fields of religion and culture, Asian religious thought and pastoral theology at the Melbourne College of Divinity, and Trinity College Theological School, Trinity College, the University of Melbourne, Australia. He is the director of the Centre for Social Inquiry, Religion, and Interfaith Dialogue (Melbourne), the Senior Chaplain at RMIT University, and has published widely on the intertextuality of the Holy Books, globalization, interfaith dialogue, nonviolence, terrorism, pastoral care, suffering, aging, and spirituality in later life. Abdullah Saeed is Sultan of Oman Professor of Arab and Islamic Studies and the director of the National Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia. His research focus is the negotiation of text and context in Islam, ijtihād, and interpretation.

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His publications include The Qur’an: An Introduction (Routledge, 2008); Interpreting the Qur’an: Towards a Contemporary Approach (Routledge, 2006); Freedom of Religion, Apostasy and Islam (Ashgate, 2004, co-authored); Islam in Australia (Allen & Unwin, 2003); Islamic Banking and Interest (E. J. Brill 1999). Chaiwat Satha-Anand is a professor of political science at Thammasat University (Bangkok, Thailand). His most recent publications include The Life of this World: Negotiated Muslim Lives in Thai Society (Marshall Cavendish, 2005) and Imagined Land: The State and Southern Violence in Thailand (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, 2009, edited). His works on Islam and nonviolence have been translated into Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, and Italian. Andrew Wicking holds a PhD from the Melbourne College of Divinity in Foucauldian and Buddhist Studies. He also holds a combined Bachelor of Arts/Law degree from the University of Melbourne. He has published in numerous scholarly venues; lectured at the United Faculty of Theology, Melbourne; and was assistant secretary to the Steering Committee for the Globalization for the Common Good Conference, Melbourne 2008. His research interests include the continental philosophy of religion, methods and methodologies in the study of religion, and non-Western knowledge systems.

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INDEX

‘ īd al- fitr, 121; see also Ramadan ‘īd al-sagh ī r, 123; see also hajj ‘ulam ā, 48 ‘urf, 163 Abdurrachman Wahid (Gus Dur), 176 Aborigines (Australia), 213, 214, 216 chart 1, 223 Abou El-Fadl, Khaled, 55 Abraham, 110, 127, 214, 215, 216 chart 1, 218 Abrahamic faiths, 10, 13, 14, 16, 33, 88, 98, 110, 178, 179, 191, 206, 211, 234 Abrahamic worldview, 34 Abramovich, Dvir, 13, 117, 245 Abu Daoud, Hamad, 125 Abyssinia, 222 Aceh, 180 Acts of Apostles, 179; see also New Testament, Luke Adang, Camilla, 195 Adumim, Maale, 126 Afghanistan, 58, 251, 252 Africa, 8, 14, 56, 57, 59, 75, 179, 186, 214, 216 chart 1, 222, 225, 226, 244 African Union, 8 Akhenaton, 214, 216 chart 1 Akinola, Peter, 85 Akkadians, 214, 216 chart 1 al-Azhar, 15,143 Albania, 14 Alexander VI, 226

al-Fatah, 249; see also PLO al-Mahdi, 195 Amar, Shlomo, 137 America, 33 Amorites, 214, 216 chart 1 Anand Panyarachun, 145 Anglican Church, 85, 88, 226 Annan, Kofi, 132 Antalya, 132 Antarctica, 131 Antifoundationalist movements, 23 Antipas, 107 apostasy, 85, 87, 88, 90, 91, 95–98 Apple Computers, 72 Arabia (pre-Islamic), 214, 216 chart 1, 222 Arab-Palestinians, 133, 135 Aramaic (language), 184 Arameans, 214, 216 chart 1 Archelaus, 106 Argentina, 131 Aristotle, 50, 53, 81n5, 214, 217 chart 1 Ariyaratne, A.T., 5 ASEAN+3, 8 Asia, 222 conf licts in, 245–248 Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), 12 Asia Minor, 222 Assad, Muhammad, 152 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), 246 Atabani, Ghazi Salahuddin, 11 Athanasius, 217 chart 1, 222

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262

IN DEX

attentiveness, 76–77 Augustine, 53, 181, 217 chart 1 Auschwitz, 134 Auschwitz-Birkenau, 133 Australia, 14, 86–87, 88, 93, 95, 96, 98, 109, 162, 164, 176, 213 Constitution, 97 Federal Parliament, 164 High Court, 86, 95, 96 Law Commission, 86 Refugee Review Tribunal, 95 The Australian, 162 Australian Catholic University, 98 Ayoub, Mahmoud, 205 Ba’asyir, Abubakar, 47 Babri, 246, 247 Babylon, 214, 217 chart 1, 218, 219, 221 chart 2, 237n22 Baghdad, 10, 109 Baha’i, 217 chart 1, 244 Baka Al-Gar, 126 Balfour Declaration, 212, 212 chart 2, 227, 228; see also Palestine Bambang Yudhoyono, Susilo, 57 Bangladesh, 14, 57 Baptist Church, 46 Barenboim, Daniel, 131 Barenboim West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, 131 Bari, Abdul Aziz, 91 Bar-Ilan–Hebron Project, 127–129 Bar-Ilan University, 128 Barth, Karl, 181 Baudrillard, Jean, 25, 26 Bavaria, 55 BBC, 109, 162 Bedford, Nancy, 36 Beer Sheva, 122, 123 Beirut, 109 Belgium, 14, 240n64 ben Maimon, Moses, 224 Benedict XVI, 15, 55, 83n31, 143 Bethke Elshtain, Jean, 59 Bethlehem, 109

Bharatiya Janata Party (India), 249 Bible, 85, 88, 103, 104, 127, 179, 185, 195, 196, 202–205, 215, 218, 222; see also Old Testament, New Testament Bilalama, 214 Birkenau, 133 Birmingham, 14 Blackstone, William, 86 Blue Mosque, 143 Boer War, 123 Bohm, David, 148 Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America ALBA, 8 Bosnia and Herzegovina, 14 Bowen, John, 30 Brahms, Sabrina, 120 Brazil, 59, 131 Bretton Woods Institutions, 8 Brunei, 14 Brussels, 14 Buber, Martin, 111 Buddha, 32, 43n51, 214, 217 chart 1 Buddhism, 3, 9, 11, 31, 33, 43n51, 71, 73, 74, 83n28, 142, 143, 145, 146, 147, 149, 150, 151, 152, 214, 217 chart 1, 236n17, 244, 246, 249, 254 Avatamsaka sutra, 149 Buddha Gotama, 3 cosmology, 142 engaged, 9 ethical tradition, 11 Jewel Net of Indra, 142, 150–151 Burundi, 180 Bush, George W., 54 Cairo, 10, 109 Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, 93 Calvin, John, 181, 217 chart 1 Calvinism, 181, 217 chart 1 Canaan, 216 chart 1, 218, 219, 220 Canada, 135 Capitalism, 9, 47, 59

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IN DEX

Caribbean, 186 Carnley, Peter, 13, 157 Casanova, Jose, 53, 60 Caspian Sea, 252 Catherine (Queen of England), 91 Caucasus, 14 Center for Global Ethics, 67 Central Asia, 10, 216 chart 1, 244, 252 Centre for Bilingual Education (Israel), 121 Centre for Dialogue (La Trobe University), 98 Chakravorty Spivak, Gayatri, 37 Charismatic Catholics, 3 Chicago Symphony Orchestra, 131 China, 16, 70, 76, 149, 150, 152, 186, 246, 247, 253 Christakis, N. Alexander, 120 Christianity 3, 5, 9, 11, 15, 31, 32, 33, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59. 60, 68, 71, 74, 78, 79, 80, 85, 86, 87, 88, 90, 93, 95, 96, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 111, 119, 129, 142, 143, 152, 157–162, 164, 166–170, 177–188, 191, 193, 194, 195, 197, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207n11, 212, 214, 217 chart 1, 218, 221 chart 2, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 234, 236n17, 238n38, 244, 246, 249, 254, Christmas, 55,121 Church and State, 158 Cisneros, Luis “El Gaucho,” 147 Cixous, Hélène, 29 Clarke, John, 46 Clenardus, Nicolaus, 205 CNN, 109 Cohen, Shmulik, 126 Cold War, 54, 58, 180, 187, 231, 251 Comte, Auguste, 1 Confucianism, 11, 92, 214 Confucius, 214, 217 chart 1

263

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), 166, 167, 169; see also Vatican Conrad, Joseph, 144 Constantine, 107, 108, 217 chart 1 Cook, Francis, 150 Copenhagen, 14 cosmogony, 32 Council for Inter- Religious Dialogue (Vatican), 143 Council of ‘ulam ā (Nigeria), 48 Council Vatican II, 60, 161, 166, 181, 217 chart 1, 221 chart 2 Covenant Divine, 212–220 Mosaic, 214, 220, 222, 229 New, 222, 224, 229 Noahide, 218, 222, 230 cultures, 69 cosmological and anthropological, 69 cultural virtues, 75–76 Cutsinger, James S., 202 Dalai Lama, 132 Damascus, 109 Damascus Document of the Qumran Community, 218 Danbury, 46 Daniel (Book of ), 179 David (King of Israel), 217 chart 1, 224 De Bracton, Henry, 86 de Santander, Pedro, 226 Dead Sea, 204 Delhi, 10, 100n18 Deloria, Vine Jr., 34 democracy, 45, 46, 51, 60 Denmark, 14, 143, 240n64 Derrida, Jacques, 24, 25–27, 29 Deuteronomy, 86, 87, 93, 179, 214; see also Old Testament Dhamma, 32, 43n51 dialogue bejewelled, 153 between Islam and the West, 46

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264

IN DEX

dialogue—Continued A Common Word Between Us and You, 143 as communicative process, 12 a force for healing, 13 humanistic, 135 interfaith, 2, 34, 128, 145, 164–166, 191, 204 intercultural, interreligious and intercivilizational, 10, 13, 34, 117, 125, 128 of civilizations and cultures, 12, 148–149 of religions, 2 principle aims of dialogical project, 12 prospects for, 10 religious-based, 128 transformative, 129 transformative potential, 16 within and between faiths, 16 Diego Garcia, 234 Doran, Robert, 69 Dubai, 95 Dunkirk, 227 Durkheim, Emile, 1, 51 East Africa Company, 226 East Asian Summit, 8 East Germany, 59 East Java, 176 Easter, 55 ecological destruction, 79 Ecumenical movement, 159 Ecumenism, 161 Egypt, 10, 15, 109, 131, 143, 214, 215, 216 chart 1, 219, 231 Einhorn, David, 227 Ellis, Donald G., 124, 136 England, 46, 49, 86, 91, 94, 162, 163, 240n64 English General Synod, 162 Enlightenment, 25, 39n1, 40n7, 42n35, 49, 141, 158–159, 165, 186, 221 chart 2 environmental concerns, 71

epistemological-soteriological paradigms, 24, 29–30 epistemology and soteriology, 24–28, 33, 39 ethics, 11, 33, 67, 108, 185, 216 virtue ethics, 68, 81 Europe, 10, 12, 14, 16, 33, 38, 51, 55, 56, 88, 93, 94, 109, 133, 158–159, 179, 184, 185, 204, 212, 213, 216 chart 1, 217 chart 1, 221 chart 2, 222, 224, 225, 226, 227, 229, 231, 233, 238n42, 244 European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, 94 European Union, 8, 68 Exodus (Book of ), 215, 216 chart 1, 221 chart 2, 236n18; see also Old Testament, Moses Ezra, 184 Faiza Thamby Chik, 92 Fanous, Michail, 127 Fa-tsang, 152 fatwa, 203 Ferdinand (King of Spain), 226 Fertile Crescent, 179 Feuerbach, Ludwig Andreas von, 51 Fez, 205 fiqh, 163, 185 Fisher, 128 Fitna, 15, 143 Foucault, Michael, 25, 26, 27, 29 France, 14–15, 49, 133 Frankenthal, Arik, 126 Frankenthal, Yitzhak, 126 French Revolution, 49 Freud, Sigmund, 1, 25 Fundamentalism Christian, 50, 53 economic, 108 religious, 2 Fundamentalist movements appealing to literal interpretations of texts, 9 upsurge of, 1

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265

IN DEX

G20, 8 G7, 8 G8, 8 Gabriel (Angel), 192 Gabriel, Theodore, 53 Galilee, 105, 217 chart 1 Gaza, 131; war in Gaza, 123 Geertz, Clifford, 42n49, 128, 148 Gellner, Ernest, 47 Genesis (Book of ), 215, 218, 223; see also Old Testament Germany, 14, 15, 59, 187, 228 Gidjingarli, 213; see also Aborigines Gisser, Avi, 133 global governance and citizenship, 9, 17 global warming, 79 globalization, 67, 104 market relations, 9 personal integrity and, 76 scale of values, 68–70 technological, 11 virtues in, 70–72 Glorious Revolution, 49 God absolute sovereignty of, 47 as depth and Being-Itself, 30–31 existence of, 51 of the gaps, 51 nonexistence, 51 revelation of himself in Islam, 47 Gog, 224 Goldberg, David, 123 Golson, Tyler, 56 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 132 Gospel, 103–106, 110, 160, 161, 169, 170, 191, 203 as depth and Being–Itself, 30–31 Islam and 193–195 see also New Testament, Luke, Mark, Matthew Great Britain, 14, 31, 163, 226, 230, 252; see also United Kingdom Greece (ancient) language, 24, 148, 182

mythology, 150 philosophy, 214, 217 chart 1 Greek Catholic Church, 134 Green, Thomas Hill, 50 Gregory VI, 220 Gregory VII, 224 Griffith Asia Institute, 98, 101n57 Grossman, David, 135–136 Guantanamo Bay, 58 Gujarat, 246, 248 Habermas, Jürgen, 60 Haddad, Yvonne Y., 56 had ī th, 87, 183 Hagar Association, 122–123 Haire, James, 13, 175, 245, 248 hajj, 183; see also ‘īd al-sagh ī r Halevi, Yoram, 134 Halevi, Yossi Klein, 119 Halloun, Fakhira, 133 Ham ā s, 126, 249 Hammurabi, 214, 216 chart 1 Hanukkah, 121 Harare, 85 Haraway, Donna, 37, 44n68 Harvard University, 124 Hasmonaean, 215, 219, 222 Hegel, George William Friedrich, 27, 28, 50 Heidegger, Martin, 25 Hellenism, 184 Henry VIII, 91 Heritage Party (Sri Lanka), 249 Herod the Great, 107 Hertzberg, Arthur, 125 Herzl, Theodore, 217 chart 1, 222 chart 2, 227 Hiatt, L.R., 213 Hill, P.C., 4 Hindes, Barry, 51 Hinduism, 9, 11, 143, 151, 152, 213, 214, 216 chart 1, 236n9, 244, 246, 248, 249, 254 Hindutva movement, 248, 249 Hiroshima, 251 Hirsch, Samuel, 227

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266

IN DEX

Hitler, Adolf, 212, 217 chart 1, 221 chart 2, 227, 228 Hizballā h, 252 Holocaust, 123, 133–135, 212, 221 chart 2, 228 Holy See, 8; see also Vatican Hood, R.W., 4 hope, 78–80 Hormuz (Straits), 251 House of Lords, 94, 95, 101n46 Hua-yen, 150 human predicament, 4 human rights, 71, 79, 88 Human Rights Act (UK), 94 Hume, David, 51 Huntington, Samuel, 55, 128 Ibn Taymiyyah, 194, 197, 200–202 imperative of independence, 24 India, 14, 100n18, 150, 152, 185, 186, 204, 227, 244, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 253 Indian Ocean tsunami, 180 Indonesia, 14, 15, 47, 57, 143, 174, 175, 176, 186, 187, 244, 246, 248, 250, 253 industrial society, 1 Infidels, 108 Inglehart, 51 interactive approach to conf lict resolution, 124 interdisciplinarity, 37 interfaith understanding, 202–203 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 8 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), 86, 88, 93 Iran, 16, 47, 57, 95, 96, 101n51, 144, 163, 233, 234, 251 Iraq, 58, 109, 231, 234, 252 Ireland, 159, 160 Irigaray, Luce, 29 Isabella (Queen of Spain), 226 Isaiah, 161, 179, 217 chart 1

Islam, 13–16, 31, 33, 71, 215, 216 chart 1, 221 chart 2, 227, 233, 236n17, 252, 253 and apostasy, 87 in Australia, 180 beliefs in, 87 and Catholicism, 15, 143 and Christianity 185,180, 182–188, 193, 195 division between “modernizers” and “traditionalists,” 16 history, 60 human rights and, 92–93 inheritors of, 16 and Judaism, 125, 127 minority in Western Societies, 56–57 moderate, 54 orthodox, 57 relations with, 13 Sh ī ‘a ī 10, 53, 217 chart 1 social order, 59 Sunni, 10, 53, 217 chart 1 umma, 31, 55, 91, 92 and the West, 45–48, 52, 43–56, 60, 61 women in, 94 see also Qur’ā n, Muhammad Islamic Council of Europe, 93 Israel, 105, 107, 110, 117–137, 137, 179, 211, 212, 213, 215, 216 chart 1, 217 chart 2, 220, 221 chart 2, 224, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232 chart 3, 233, 234, 235, 236n18, 238n37, 251, 252 Israeli-Arab conf lict, 118–119 Israeli Palestinian conf lict, 124–125 Italy, 10, 14 Ivekovic, Rada, 36, 43n64 Jacob, 216 chart 1, 218 Jahalin, 125 Jamali, Mohammad Reja, 144 Javan, 144 Jenkins, Philip, 47

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IN DEX

Jerusalem, 84, 104, 105, 106, 107, 109, 126, 131, 136, 169, 219, 221 chart 1, 224, 227 Jerusalem Post, 118 Jerusalem Report, 119 Jesus Christ, 32, 58, 105–108, 100, 160, 167, 168, 170, 171n1, 176, 177, 178, 179, 183, 184, 192, 193, 194, 195, 201, 206, 215, 216 chart 1, 219, 220, 221 chart 2, 222, 223, 224, 225, 238n38, 244 jihab, 94, 95 John (King of Portugal), 226 John Paul II, 77, 78, 137, 161, 169 John the Baptist, 219 Joseph of Arimathea, 106 Josephus, 107 Joshua, 179 Jubilee Debt campaign, 8 Judaism, 10, 33, 45, 85, 104, 105, 111, 122, 125, 127, 163, 178, 179, 184, 185, 187, 191, 203, 211, 212, 214, 215, 216 chart 1, 217 chart 1, 218, 222, 224, 227, 228 Jung, Carl Gustav, 25 just wars, 5, 54 justice, 73–74 Jyllands-Posten, 143 Kabbani, Muhammad, 54 Kaddish, 134 Kant, Immanuel, 50 Kashmir, 246, 249, 250 Kashmir Freedom Movement, 249 Kasper, Walter, 167 Kelman, Herbert, 124 Kenya, 226 Kepel, Gilles, 3 Khatami, Mohammad, 12, 57 Khazar Khanate, 217 chart 1, 224, 238n42 Khomeini, Ruhollah, 47 Kirby, Michael, 5, 85 Kitchen, Merrill, 5, 103, 247

267

knowledge-systems, 24 Kobia, Samuel, 180 Koechler, Hans, 12 Komenský, Jan Amos (Comenius), 203 Korea, 152, 186, 253 Minjung theology, 186 Kosovo, 14 Krakow, 133, 134 Kristeva, Julia, 29 Kuwait, 231 Lacan, Jacques Marie Émile, 29 Landau, Dalia, 127 Landau, Yehezkel, 127 Lapidus, Ira, 48 Lashkar e-Taiba, 249 Latham, John, 57 Latin America, 9, 228, 253 Lavie, Chaim, 125 Lavie, Ruth, 134 Lebanon, 147, 252 Lederach, John Paul, 149, 151 Lee Min Choon, 97 Lehmann, Karl, 167 Lenten, 55 Leo X, 220 Lerner, Michael, 119 Lerner, Salomon, 147, 148 Letwin, Shirley Robin, 50 Levin, Emanuel, 111 Levin, Michal, 133 Levi-Strauss, Claude, 148 Leviticus, 87, 93, 99n4, 112n20 Liberation theology (Catholicism), 9 Lina Joy, 87, 88–92, 94, 95, 97 Lincoln, Abraham, 123 London, 14 University of, 234 Lonergan, Bernard, 69, 82n18, 82n22, 83n28 Luke, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107; see also Acts of Apostles, Gospel, New Testament Luther, Martin, 181, 217 chart 1 Lyotard, Jean François, 25, 26, 27–28, 41n26

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268

IN DEX

MacIntyre, Alasdair, 68, 80, 81n7 Maddox, Graham, 4, 45 Madrid, 14 Magog, 224 Maimonides, 217 chart 1, 222 chart 2, 224, 227, 229, 235 Makovsky, David, 118 Malang, 176 Malanjum, Richard, 90 Malaysia, 14, 57, 87, 88, 89–91, 93, 94, 95, 97, 163, 244 Constitution of, 89 High Court of, 87, 89–91 Malmö, 14 Mandela, Nelson, 111, 123 Manoel of Portugal, 226 Manuel II Palaiologos, 15 Maoz, Ifat, 117, 120, 124, 136 Marcos, Ferdinando, 60 Mark, 106; see also Gospel Marseilles, 14 Marx, Karl, 1, 28, 54, 221 chart 2 Mathabane, Mark, 123–124 Matthew, 105, 179, 182; see also Gospel Mecca, 143 Medieval crusades, 108 Medina, 194, 199 Mehmet IV, 203 Melaka (Straits), 251 MERCOSUR, 8 Mesopotamia, 212, 214, 216 chart 1, 218 methodology, 23, 24, 28, 31 new methodological paradigm, 34–39 Microsoft, 72 Middle East, 2, 10, 17, 33, 109, 117–119, 125, 128, 131, 135, 179, 187, 211–212, 215, 230–231, 234, 251–252 Mignolo, Walter D., 36 Milad, Nadia, 127 Milgrom, Jeremy, 125–126 Millennium Development Goals (MDG), 188

Milton, John, 49, 59 Mindanao, 247 Modernity, 1, 25 Mollov, Ben, 125 Molucca Islands, 176, 180, 248 Monophysite Church, 222 Monotheistic religions, 103; see also Christianity, Islam, Judaism Montagu, Edwin, 227 More, sir Thomas, 91 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), 249 Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), 249 Morocco, 15, 143 Moses, 192, 193, 195, 197, 198, 199, 201, 215, 216 chart 1, 219, 221 chart 2, 224, 236n18 Muhammad (Prophet), 15, 32, 87, 91, 143, 171n6, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 204, 217 chart 1, 219, 220, 221 chart 2, 222, 223, 224 newspaper cartoons, 14, 143 Night Journey, 223–226 Mumbai, 246 Murphy, Lionel, 88 Myanmar, 246, 247 Christian Karen, 246 Muslim Rohingya, 250 Nagasaki, 251 naïve idealism, 126 Narathiwat, 154n23, 246 Narendra Modi, 248 Nasr, Seyyed Hossein, 205, 207n11 Nasrallah, Hassan, 252 Nathanial, Heskel, 132 National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) (Thailand), 142, 143, 144, 145, 151, 155n39 National Registration Department (NRD) (Malaysia), 89, 90 Nazareth, 109, 134, 176, 184, 215, 219, 221 chart 2, 224 Nazism, 58

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IN DEX

Negeri Sembilan, 96 Neolithic, 213 Nestorian Church, 222 Netherlands, 14, 176 Neve Shalom/Wā hat al-Salā m, 120, 130–131 New Age, 3, 43n65 New Testament, 104, 108, 178, 179, 181, 182, 184, 187, 205; see also Bible Newlands, George, 32 Nicholas V, 220, 225 Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 25, 27, 51 Nigeria, 48 Nike, 72 Nixon, Richard, 230, 231 Noah, 216 chart 1, 218, 222, 230 Norris, Charles, 51 North America, 14, 38, 46, 47, 54, 56, 59, 61, 119, 226, 228, 231, 247, 255n15 Nostra ætate, 166, 217 chart 1, 221 chart 2 Obama, Barack, 58, 59, 234 Oceania, 98 OECD, 233 Old Testament (Torah, Tawrat), 178, 179, 184, 185, 191, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 221 chart 2, 223; see also Bible OPEC, 231, 232 chart 3, 233 Open House Initiative, 127 Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, 8 Organisation of the Islamic Conference, 9, 93 Ormerod, Neil, 5, 67 Orthodox Church, 10, 167, 217 chart 1 Orthodox Judaism, 126, 127, 163 Oslo Peace agreements, 119, 124, 135 Ottoman Empire, 10, 225 Oz, Amos, 135 Oz Vashalom Netivot Shalom, 126

269

Pahang, 90 Pakistan, 14, 15, 57, 58, 93, 246 Palapathwala, Ruwan, 4, 23 Palestine, 104, 105, 107, 119, 125, 211, 222, 227, 228, 229, 230, 233, 249 Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), 249 Palestine partition proposal, 228 Parable of the Good Samaritan, 105; see also Gospel Parable of the Pounds, 104–111; see also Gospel Paris, 14, 141, 227 Parliament of World Religions, 67 Patani, 246, 247, 249 Patani United Liberation Organization (PULO), 249 Pathways to Reconciliation Project, 132–133 Paul, 161, 181, 182, 183, 184, 187, 217 chart 1; see also New Testament Paul III, 226 Peace-education, 129 Pentecostal Protestants, 3 People of the Book, 85, 98, 191–196 Peres, Shimon, 132 Persia, 204, 214, 216 chart 1, 222; see also Iran Peru, 147 Philippines, 10, 14, 56, 59, 60, 149, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250 Philo, 215, 217 chart 1, 219 Pipes, Daniel, 54 Plato, 50, 52, 135, 217 chart 1 Plesch, Dan, 234 Pluralism cultural, 121 democratic, 46 political, 46 religious, 8, 11, 17, 88, 157, 160 Poland, 59, 77 Pollis, Adamantia, 11 population explosion, 219–220 Port Kembla, 95 Portugal, 225, 226

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270

IN DEX

Postcolonialism, 23 Postdisciplinary endeavour, 24 Postmodern condition, 6, 26–27 Postmodern theory, 25 Postmodernism, 23, 25–28 Postmodernity, 26–27 Poststructural awareness, 35–36 Poststructuralism, 23, 28–29 Prophets, Book of, 184; see also Old Testament Protestant Reformation, 88 Psalms, 184; see also Old Testament Puritan, 49, 59 Pythagoras, 214, 216 chart 1 Qatadah, 200 qiyā s, 163 Qumran, 215, 217 chart 1, 218, 219 Qur’ā n, 53, 87, 92, 93, 143, 152, 171n6, 179, 183, 185, 191–201, 204, 205, 206, 207, 221 chart 2, 222, 223, 224, 226, 227, 238n38, 240n59 acknowledges the humility of Christianity, 54 ethic of mutuality, 111 Jewish Bible and, 127 requiring Muslims to hate who violate Islamic teachings, 15 strictures of, 16 Qurtubi, Abu ‘Abd Allah Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Ansari al-, 197, 198, 200 Qutb, Sayyid, 197, 198, 200 Rabbis for Human Rights, 127 Radical Christians, 3 Ramadan, 121; see also ‘īd al- fitr Ramallah, 131 Ravikovitch, Dalia, 135 Rawls, John, 50 Razi, Fakhr al- Din al-, 197, 198, 199 Reconciliation, 96–97, 117, 120 Reformation, 158, 181 Regensburg, 15, 143

religion basis of ideal communities, 31 about being and non-being, 30–31 capacity to be effective voice, 8 conceptualization of, 4 as concern of one’s striving to know “where from” and “where to,” 30 dialogue of, 2 as dimension of depth, 30 dimensions of, 32 ethical dimension of, 6 force for conf lict or for dialogue and transformation, 2 freedom of, 97 98 global resurgence, 1 institutional dimension, 6 private matter, 7 role of, 248–251 role as a persuasive advocate, 7 three functions of, 31 as “ultimate concern,” 30 Revelation (Book of ), 179, 196 Rhode Island, 46 Robinson, Gene, 88 Rockefeller, Nelson, 228 Roman Catholic Church, 9, 10, 15, 46, 59, 60, 98, 118, 143, 159, 166, 167, 168, 169, 181, 217 chart 2, 224, 225, 226 Rome, 107, 166, 168, 170, 204, 222, 225, 226 Ronell, Avital, 37 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 86 Rorty, Richard, 59, 60, 140, 141, 151 Rosen, David, 119 Rosen, Micky, 126 Rotterdam, 14 Rushdie, Salman, 57 Russell, Bertrand, 51 Russia, 14, 54, 227, 231, 252, 253 Rutherford, Samuel, 49, 59 Rwanda, 150, 155n38, 180 Sabah and Sarawak, 90 Sacks, Jonathan, 111

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IN DEX

Saeed, Abdullah, 92, 191, 249 Said, Edward, 131, 144 salafiyya, 53 Sal āt, 183 Salla, Michael E., 54, 47, 58 Santiago de Compostela, 55 Sarkozy, Nicolas, 15 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 51 Satha-Anand, Chaiwat, 13, 141, 245 Saudi Arabia, 47, 93, 163, 231 sawm, 183; see also Ramadan Scandinavia, 48 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 51 secular society, 3 Secularism, 45, 47 Secularization, 1, 141 Sekolah Tinggi Agama Islam Negeri, 176 Seljuks, 224 sexual minorities, 85 shah āda, 183 Shalev, Meir, 135 Shamanism, 213 shar ī‘a, 47, 162–163, 183 Shoufani, Emile, 134 sh ūra, 57 Sin, Jaime, 60 Sinai, 215, 216 chart 1, 230 Singapore, 87 Sinhalese population, 246 Six Day War, 230 Socrates, 49, 217 chart 1 Solidarity, 77–78 Somalia, 143 soteriology, 24, 30–34 “interface” soteriology, 35, 38–39 South Africa, 59, 109, 111, 123–124 South Asia, 244, 246, 249 South Korea, 59 Southeast Asia, 8, 14, 176, 246 Soviet Union, 54, 230, 231, 251 Spain, 14, 224, 225, 226 Islam, 10 Spencer, Herbert, 1 Sri Lanka, 149, 153, 246, 247, 248, 249

271

St Peter’s Basilica, 225 Staatskapelle Berlin, 131 Stepan, Alfred, 48 Straw, Jack, 187 Sudan, 10, 87 Suez Canal, 230 Sumatra, 180 Sustainability, 74–75 Sweden, 14 Switzerland, 14, 15, 240n64 Syria, 131, 214, 231 Tabari, Abu Ja’far Muhammad b. Jarir al–, 197, 198, 199, 200 tafsī r, 196, 198 tahrif, 197–198, 199 Taliban, 58, 59, 252 Talmud, 163, 185 Tamil Tigers, 247 Taxonomy, 81 Taylor, Charles, 51, 71, 79, 80, 82n14 Tayyip Erdoğan, Recep, 57 Technology, 23, 25, 74, 79, 220, 221, 235, 245 Tel Aviv, 109, 135 Terrorism international, 3 link to radical Islam 14, 126 rise of international, 10 September 11 attacks, 14, 47, 56, 119, 221, 252 Thailand, 14, 142, 144, 145, 146, 149, 151, 153, 154n23, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 255n4 Thaksin Shinnawat, 144 theocentric paradigm, 33 Thierse, Wolfgang, 132 Thio Li-ann, 87 Thomas Aquinas, 169 Thomas, David, 202 Thomas, Scott M., 1 Tibet, 246 Tikkun, 119 Tillich, Paul, 30–31, 42n49 Timothy, 195, 207n12

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272

IN DEX

Tjukurrpa (Dreaming), 213, 216, 218, 223; see also Aborigines transborder translation, 36–37 transformative meditation, 124 Triune God, 177 Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Israel, 124 in Peru, 147 in South Africa, 123 Tu Bishvat, 123 Turkey, 15, 57, 132, 143, 163 Tutu, Desmond, 88 Uganda, 226 Uisang, 152 UN High- Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, 145 Unitatis redintegratio, 166 United Kingdom, 88, 94, 206; see also Great Britain United Nations, 8, 12, 19n25, 86, 87, 93, 132, 145, 188, 228, 230n71 United Nations General Assembly, 19n25, 86 United States, 54, 58, 59, 109, 186, 187, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 252, 253 attacks on, 14 not at war with Islam, 58 wrath of, 59 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 86 Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights, 96 Ur-Nammu (Code), 214, 216 chart 1 Vatican, 8, 15, 137, 143, 144, 166, 169, 170 Vattimo, Gianni, 141, 151 Vietnam, 54, 231, 253 Vlastos, Gregory, 58 Volga, 14 Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet), 51

wahh ābiyya, 53, 54 Waldron, Jeremy, 51 War on terror, 10, 54 Warlpiri, 213; see also Aborigines Weber, Max, 1, 51 Weitz, Joseph, 228 Wesley, John, 56, 181 West Bank, 231, 233 Western liberalism, 48 Western metanarrative, 23 Westphalia (Peace of ), 88 Whigs, 49 Wicking, Andrew, 4, 23 Wieselteir, Natalia, 126 Wilders, Geert, 15, 20n35, 143 Williams, Roger, 46, 47 Williams, Rowan, 162, 164, 176 Wilson, Woodrow, 228 Windsor Star, 135 World Council of Churches, 161 World Health Organization, 8 World Trade Center (New York), 252 World Trade Organization, 8 World War II, 58, 86, 161, 212, 228, 244 World Zionist Organization (WZO), 212, 227 Xinjiang, 246 Yad Beyad Foundation, 122 Yad Vashem, 133 Yala (Thailand), 246 Yemen, 222 Yom Kippur War, 230, 231, 233 Yugoslavia, 10 zak āt, 183 Zartman, William, 56, 57 Zeus, 150 Zimbabwe, 70, 76, 85, 109 Zokhrot, 131 Zoroaster, 214, 215, 217 chart 1

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