July 19, 2010 Dear Readers, - irdialogue.orgirdialogue.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/JIRD-Issue-4-Part-I.pdfJuly 19, 2010 Dear Readers, ... Kate Fridkis, interViews Editor ... next

A forum for academic, social, and timely issues affecting religious communities around the world.

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July 19, 2010 Dear Readers, Inter-Religious Studies continues to grow as a field, both within academe and in the non-profit and social sectors. The result has been an outgrowth of organizations that devote significant attention to the challenges and opportunities that globalization has enabled, by way of increased interactions between religious traditions. This special issue of the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue, distributed in two parts, will include the work of both individual authors and major organizations, notably UNESCO, Herzen Pedagogical University in Russia, and the National Association of College and University Chaplains. The emphasis on institutional involvement within this issue is not merely intended to reflect the emerging trend of inter-religious engagement but also encourage it anew. We hope that these articles pique your interest, excite you, and provide further impetus for you as an individual – and member of an organization – to become involved in inter-religious work and use it as a tool to increase efficiency and equity within your social, intellectual, and professional communities. With warm regards, Stephanie Varnon-Hughes and Joshua Zaslow Stanton, Editors-in-Chief


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Editorial Board Joshua Zaslow Stanton and Stephanie Varnon-Hughes, Editors-in-Chief Aimee Upjohn Light, Executive Editor Stephen Murray, Managing Editor Matthew Dougherty, Publishing Editor Tyler Zoanni, Associate Publishing Editor Kate Fridkis, interViews Editor Editorial Consultants Ira Rifkin, Lead Editorial Consultant Frank Fredericks, Media Consultant Marinus Iwuchukwu, Outreach Consultant Jason Levine, Development Consultant Hannah McConnaughay, Publicity Consultant


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Board of Scholars and Practitioners Y. Alp Aslandogan President Institute of Interfaith Dialog Justus Baird Director of the Center for Multifaith Education Auburn Theological Seminary Alan Brill Cooperman/Ross Endowed Professor in honor of Sister Rose Thering Seton Hall University Tarunjit Singh Butalia Chair of Interfaith Committee World Sikh Council - America Region Reginald Broadnax Dean of Academic Affairs Hood Theological Seminary Thomas Cattoi Assistant Professor of Christology and Cultures Santa Clara University Miriam Cooke Professor of Modern Arabic Literature and Culture Duke University David Gray Director of the Workforce and Family Program The New America Foundation Barry Harrison Managing Partner Resolve Digital Burhan Erdem Student Specialist in Muslim-Christian Relations University of Houston Marianne Farina Assistant Professor Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology


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Reuven Firestone Professor of Medieval Judaism and Islam Hebrew Union College Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer Director of the Religious Studies Department Reconstructionist Rabbinical College Bud Heckman Director of External Relations Religions for Peace International Yahya Hendi First Full-Time Muslim Chaplain in the United States Georgetown University Robert Hunt Director of Global Theological Education Perkins School of Theology Southern Methodist University John Kampen Academic Dean and Professor of New Testament Methodist Theological School in Ohio Edward Kessler Founder and Executive Director of the Woolf Institute of Abrahamic Faiths Fellow, St. Edmund's College Cambridge University Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook Professor of Religious Education Claremont School of Theology Fatimah Husein Lecturer Indonesian Consortium of Religious Studies Kristin Johnston Largen Editor, Dialog: A Journal of Theology Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg David Lawrence Professor of Hinduism Chair of Religion and Philosophy University of North Dakota


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Timothy Light Emeritus Professor of Chinese Religions Western Michigan University Christy Lohr Associate Dean for Religious Life Duke University Greg Martin Author; Vice President Soka Gakkai -- USA A. Rashied Omar Research Scholar of Islamic Studies and Peacebuilding Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies University of Notre Dame Jon Pahl Professor, History of Christianity in North America Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia Eboo Patel Founder and Executive Director Interfaith Youth Core Shanta Premawardhana Director of Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation World Council of Churches Martin Ramstedt Senior Research Fellow Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Monica Ringer Assistant Professor of History and Asian Languages and Civilizations Amherst College Or Rose Associate Dean, Director of Informal Education Hebrew College Varun Soni Dean of Religious Life University of Southern California


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Paul Sorrentino Director of Religious Life Amherst College Robert Stockman Director Wilmette Institute for Baha'i Studies Siti Syamsiyatun Associate Director Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies Sayyid Syeed Director of Interfaith and Community Alliances Islamic Society of North America Swami Tyagananda Director, Ramakrishna Vedanta Society of Boston Hindu Chaplain Harvard University Burton Visotzky Appleman Professor of Midrash and Interreligious Studies Jewish Theological Seminary Matthew Weiner Director of Programs Interfaith Center of New York Madhuri Yadlapati Instructor of Religion Louisiana State University Venerable Yifa Nun, Scholar, and Writer Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Order


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Acknowledgements The Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue™ was started with the help of a generous grant from an anonymous donor in the Washington, D.C. Jewish community, to whom we express our profound gratitude. We are also grateful to the Interfaith Youth Core, which confers its non-profit status upon the Journal as its fiscal agent. In addition, we would like to thank our 2009 - 2010 Donor's Circle, which includes: The Henry Luce Foundation Dr. James R. Day Dr. Michael Wilhelm Happold John Richard and Francis Light Dr. Madhuri Yadlapati We would like to recognize as a partner organization the Ancient Philosophy Society. The Journal also acknowledges the significant contributions of Resolve Digital, for designing our website, and Mirah Curzer Photography, for providing us with images for our website and issue covers. Disclaimer The Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue™ does not endorse any of the articles it publishes or the positions presented within them. These articles are merely intended to stimulate discussion and dialogue, rather than to promote a political, social, or religious ideology on the part of the Journal, which intends to remain as neutral as possible. Subscriptions The Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue™ is published free of charge through its website, www.irdialogue.org. It also publishes more regular, non peer-reviewed “interViews” articles for interested readers. In order to have both the Journal and installments of “interViews” articles sent to you via e-mail, please submit your e-mail address in the box designated “subscribe to our newsletter” at the bottom right corner of our website. Copyright Policy The Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue™ retains the full copyright to all articles it publishes, unless otherwise indicated within the text of the given article.


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Table of Contents for Issue 4: Part I of the

Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue™ Page 10, “In Review: Thomas Cattoi’s Divine Contingency: Theologies of Divine

Embodiment in Maximos the Confessor and Tsong Kha pa,” by Aimée Upjohn Light, Duquesne University

Page 13, “In Review: Seeking the Divine Presence, Part 1: The Three Pillars of a

Jewish Spiritual Life,” by Maria Reis Habito, Museum of World Religions and the Elijah Interfaith Institute USA

Page 17, “William Lane Craig on Luis de Molina and the Catholic Church: A

Theological Synthesis,” by Glenn B. Siniscalchi, Duquesne University Page 27, “Introduction: Special Section from the National Association of College and

University Chaplains,” by Paul V. Sorrentino, Amherst College and NACUC Page 29, “Building a New Global Commons: Religious Diversity and the Challenge

for Higher Education,” by Victor Kazanjian, James P. Keen, and Peter Laurence, Education as Transformation, Wellesley College, and an international consultancy

Page 38, “Grassroots Scriptural Reasoning on Campus,” by Peter Ochs and Homayra

Ziad, University of Virginia and Trinity College Page 46, “A Christian Vision for Faith Among Other Faiths,” by Samuel Wells, Duke

University


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In Review: Thomas Cattoi’s Divine Contingency: Theologies of Divine Embodiment in Maximos the Confessor and Tsong Kha pa (Gorgias Press) By Aimée Upjohn Light

Though humbly refraining from claiming as much, Thomas Cattoi’s new book Divine Contingency: Theologies of Divine Embodiment in Maximos the Confessor and Tsong Kha pa is the first in what will come to be seen as the “next generation” of interreligious work. Writing at the intersection of the quest for metanarratives of religion and the return to confessional approaches, Cattoi’s sweeping historical treatment of two of the greatest figures in Christianity and Buddhism, Maximos the Confessor and Tsong Kha pa, puts to work the methodology so long called for but which has—until now—failed to be put into practice. The methodology is a return to tradition-bound approaches necessitated by our inescapable faith commitments that actively seek to learn from and affirm positive value in religions other than our own. Though the organization of the book makes it an even more challenging read than it would otherwise be, Divine Contingency is groundbreaking. Both as a piece of interreligious scholarship and as the instantiation of a methodological shift which is long overdue in Western theological and interreligious circles, Divine Contingency marks the beginning of a new era of interreligious scholarship in the West. Not for the feint of heart, Divine Contingencies expects of the reader a thoroughgoing knowledge of Christian Patristic studies as well as some familiarity with the developments of Buddhism in Tibet. Though clearly enough written to be accessible to determined graduate students, Divine Contingencies is intended primarily for the audience of authors against whose backdrop of books the work is written. Clearly the next in the line of substantial work which includes Theology After Vedanta: An Experiment in Comparative Theology, An Apology for Apologetics: A Study in the Logic of Interreligious Dialogue, Towards a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism and The Depths of the Riches: A Trinitarian Theology of Religious Ends, Cattoi’s Divine Contingencies should please not only Frank Clooney, Paul Griffiths, Jacques Dupuis and S. Mark Heim, but those many scholars who have followed their conversation for close to two decades. The quest for a pluralist meta-narrative of religions has been going strong since the publication of John Hick’s problematic An Interpretation of Religion, and the call to jettison the quest in favor of more realistic, tradition-bound approach has been loud for at least a decade. Yet tradition-bound approaches have retreated into provincial, self-oriented studies which reach out to the resources of other traditions only as vehicles for affirming the onotlogies operative in the home religion. S. Mark Heim’s The Depths of the Riches: A Trinitarian Theology of Religious Ends is one such study. Though creative and laudable for its efforts to avoid the incoherence of pluralism yet eschew the colonial and imperialistic tendencies of inclusivisms, Heim’s thesis of multiple religious ends falls into the trap set for any interreligious project which seeks to affirm multiplicity while holding to its own ontology: the illusion of affirming multiplicity while continuing to make absolute and totalizing truth claims.


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Heim’s multiple religious ends thesis held that members of multiple religions actually get the ends they desire, but that these ends are accounted for by the Trinitarian God’s relationality. Because, however, it is the Trinitarian God who is the accounting principle, Christian salvation cannot help but be the fullest communion with this God who is only partially accessed through other paths. Everyone attains the religious end which she longs for, but only Christians get the best one—and only a Trinitarian Christian metaphysic is right. What has been called for as far back as Francis Clooney’s 1993 book Theology After Vedanta and as recently as critiques made by Paul Griffiths and by myself in The Journal of Ecumenical Studies is not another veiled attempt to account for religious multiplicity. Such is Heim’s project, which reinscribes the colonizing and imperialistic tendencies of any inclusivism. Instead, what we in the West need is a frank admission of our own locatedness, our epistemic boundaries and faith commitments, and within that framework a learned appreciation for other faith traditions and a contrast with our own. We ought not sugarcoat the differences or seek false identification in the quest for an impossible meta-position. We ought not highlight only the differences in order to show our own superiority. We must honestly admit our own beliefs and respectfully study the beliefs of others to put in bas relief the things that are shared as well as commitments which differ. Yet such an approach requires a lifetime of learning—a commitment which few but Thomas Cattoi have made. Cattoi’s claim is that it is by looking to a figure outside of our tradition, in this case Tsong Kha pa, that we gain a newfound appreciation both for that tradition and for an element of our own tradition. In this case, it is by looking to Tsong Kha pa’s thinking on the status of the created, embodied world that we come to awareness of the radical affirmation on the part of Maximos of the Confessor that the created order is truly good, salvific and willed by God. Unlike his predecessors Origen, or at least the Origenist school and Evagrios, Maximos affirms the transformative value of contemplation and the practice of virtues. The reality of this world is not something of negligible value or a state to be gotten over. Rather, the reality of this world is the very vehicle of our transformation. Similarly to Maximos, Tsong Kha pa’s wisdom is a response to a predecessor—in this case not the Origenist school but the rDzog chen tradition (Tib. For “great perfection”). rDzog chen, part of the Ancient School of Buddhism introduced to Tibet in the 8th century C.E., holds like all Mahayana that Buddhahood is attainable in this samsaric world. Unlike some other schools, however, rDzog chen holds that spiritual practice merely retrieves a facet of reality that is and always has been present. What we do does not create something new or transform our being, does not impact our spiritual attainment. Rather, it calls to light what was always the case. Tsong Kha pa, like Maximos, rejects rDzog chen’s almost Origenist understanding of the already present nature of our spiritual goal, instead opting for a Maximus-like view of the need for development or change, and the consequent instrumental importance of the world and our being and practice within it. In short, our being-in-the-world affects spiritual change or attainment, not a return to or realization of what already is.


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In Maximos’s Christianity, this is the ontological presupposition as well as generated worldview of the incarnation. In Tsong Kha pa, belief in the necessity of our practice is founded on the rejection of the ontological foundation of our being, pure awareness, as being identical to primordial Buddha itself. In rDzogs chen, our goal is to access our primordial condition of awareness; viewing our practices as transformative is wrong-headed. Like Maximos, Tsong Kha pa rejects this ontological optimism. Far from being pessimistic, however, Maximos and Tsong Kha pa are both radically optimistic about the possibility for human beings to attain our spiritual end. Though denying the identification of what is with what should be, both hold that there are transformative mechanisms available to us for furthering our spiritual journeys. For Maximos and Tsong Kha pa, contemplation is a crucial spiritual practice. In both Mahayana and Vajrayana, the Tibetan rendition of Mahayana, the Buddha is seen not only as perfect religious teacher, but as the embodiment of the true nature of things. Though other Buddha embodiments manifest, the body of Gautama is not only the bearer of teachings, but the interpretive key to the universe. It is through familiarity with the Buddha who sustains the world that we gain wisdom and become compassionate. Thus we may rightly say that in Tsong Kha pa’s Buddhism it is the natural order and contemplation of the natural order that are the mechanisms for our transformation. One cannot help but be put in mind of Maximos’s belief in the transformative power of contemplation in and of the created order and the incarnation. Both figures exhort us to spiritual practices in and through the world. Cattoi’s analysis of the differences between Christian understandings of the plentitude of creation and the emptiness which is the end of Buddhist wisdom must remain the subject for yet another analysis of this outstanding work. His point that Maximos’s and Tsong Kha pa’s similar understandings of the transformative nature of spiritual practice and the world in which it rests lead to radically different ends must, however, remain the focal point of a correct understanding of Cattoi’s book. Cattoi’s project has exactingly compared the similarity in the two authors, forcing an appreciation of what this strain of Buddhist spirituality shares with one of the greatest Church Fathers. Yet Cattoi unflinchingly points us to the fact that these systems which share something fundamental guide us to radically different ends. What Cattoi has accomplished is a faith-based yet radically open and learned assessment of what one of our heroes in the Christian West shares with one of Tibet’s spiritual masters. What this review seeks to highlight is not Maximos and Tsong Kha pa’s similar view of the worldly mechanism of transformation; nor is it their divergence on the nature of creation as plentitude versus emptiness, though these comparisons are of vital interest to specialists in Patristics and Buddhist studies. Instead, what should be highlighted is the existence of a new breed of interreligious scholarship. Thomas Cattoi’s Divine Contingency is surely the first of what will become a new wave of authorship called for by the post-pluralist meta conversation on religion; a way of doing interreligious work that must be informed by great learning in not one, but multiple religious traditions. The need to actually engage in hands-on learning across religious boundaries as well as to speak from one’s own orientation has been clear for years. Cattoi is the first to attempt such an ambitious project.


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In Review: Seeking the Divine Presence, Part 1: The Three Pillars of a Jewish Spiritual Life (Trafford Publishing) By Maria Reis Habito It is sheer luck, or is it perhaps Providence, to come across a book that speaks to the soul of the spiritual seeker as gently and persuasively as this new book by Rabbi Yoel Glick. Rabbi Glick’s experience and expertise in guiding people on the spiritual path for the last 25 years is reflected in every chapter and page of this rich volume, which is a collection of Rabbi Glick’s weekly lectures and writings composed over a number of years, in which he and his family lived in Canada, Israel, India, and France. The individual pieces, most of them no longer than three to five pages, beautifully offer themselves as inspirational readings for each new day. Rabbi Glick’s approach to the sources and practices of Judaism could be compared to the pioneering work by Henry Le Saux (Swami Abhishiktananda) and Bede Griffiths, who also read and interpreted the Christian scriptures in the light of Hindu spirituality. It is indeed rare to find a presentation of Jewish spiritual life which highlights the universality of the teachings over the particularity reserved for those who are scriptural experts and members of the Jewish people. Rabbi Glick’s approach to religions is pluralistic; one all-important fruit of the expansion of consciousness is the love for other religions, “which cannot be a half-hearted kind of love that says: ‘Your religion is okay, but my religion is the best.” It needs to be a full love, a love that has a deep respect and appreciation for what other religions have to offer to humanity. It needs to arise out of a firm knowledge, clear understanding, and a profound sharing of each other’s religious experience” (252). The central purpose of the book is “to instruct spiritual seekers how to use the teachings and practices of Judaism to experience the reality of God” (xix). The focus here is on “experience,” the individual quest for a personal relationship with God, rather than the study of ethical rules and regulations which emphasize the social and group dimension of Jewish teaching and practice. As indicated in the title, there are three pillars of the Jewish spiritual life, in accordance with which the book is structured, followed by a description of the spirituality of the Jewish Holydays (as Rabbi Glick refers to holidays). What are the three pillars? In the Ethics of the Fathers (Perkei Avot), they are described as Torah, avodah (worship), and gimilut chasadim (acts of loving kindness). The introductory chapter of the book offers a richly layered explanation of these terms, based the rabbinical understanding of Torah as study, avodah as prayer, and gimilut chasadim as good works. His view of these three pillars is inspired by the Hindu tradition, namely as different spiritual paths suited to the different dispositions of individuals: Jnana (wisdom), bhakti (devotion), and karma (action). Rabbi Glick also takes his own approach from the “concepts and consciousness of spiritual science (p.2),” in the light of which he interprets Torah as the expansion of consciousness, avodah (worship) as Remembrance of God and gimilut chasidim (acts of loving kindness) as Self-transformation.


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The spiritual life is the path of Self-transformation, “the work of transforming ourselves from physical creatures into perfect Divine instruments” (69). This is achieved through a combination of physical disciplines and the development of virtues based on self-examination and deepening awareness. Remembrance of God leads to immersion in Divine presence through the constant turning of our mind to God in prayer, mantra-repetition, and meditation, not only in times especially reserved for religious practice, but more importantly as we go about our daily business. The expansion of consciousness is arrived at through these foundational practices, deepened and sustained through the study of and reflection on the scriptures of the World’s religions and other spiritual materials, either by oneself, or in a group guided by a spiritual mentor. The expansion of consciousness leads to a state of “unbroken awareness of the underlying Unity of all existence” (259), which is distinguished by an all-embracing, all-pervading love. As described in the culminating chapters of part 3, this love is comprised of “Love for God,” “Love for the Divinity in Every Human Being” and “Love for All Paths that lead to God.” The spiritual seeker who arrives at this state of infinite oneness “will see nothing but God, nothing but love” (259). Expressed in the language of the Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), the spiritual seeker who has reached the consciousness of oneness will “build a vessel that is worthy to hold God’s Infinite light” (238). The sources used to illustrate the topics and teachings outlined above are mainly derived from the Hasidic, Kabbalistic and Hindu traditions, with the inclusion of some examples from Christian, Buddhist, and Sikh traditions for further clarification and added insight. Like every gifted teacher, Rabbi Glick uses stories about and sayings of the masters, saints and spiritual giants of these various traditions to bring a teaching to life, to highlight a point, and to inspire. To give one example, the two chapters on “Guidance through Divine Inspiration” provide the practitioner important criteria to distinguish the authenticity of a divine calling from ego-delusion, and point out the obstacles and pitfalls on the path of following God’s will in one’s life. These chapters assemble helpfully commented upon examples from the lives and the teachings of Ramakrishna, the Baal Shem Tov, Saint Teresa of Avila, Sri Ramana Maharshi, Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrkonos, Rebbe Menachem Mendel of Kotsk, and Swami Turiyananda of the Ramakrishna Society. The overall richness of the materials presented to the reader in this volume demonstrates Rabbi Glick’s knowledge of and familiarity with the spiritual scriptures of these respective traditions. However, one is left to wonder why no materials from the Sufi tradition are included as well. While each short chapter in this collection is unique as an inspiring piece of reading, the coherence between or sequence of the chapters and ideas expressed therein does not always become readily apparent. This of course has to do with the fact that the volume is a collection of teachings given over a number of years. But the reader not so familiar with Kabbalah, Hindu meditation practices, or the “concepts and consciousness of spiritual science” – which are not explained per se – sometimes may wish for some more help in making pieces fit together in an overall picture. For example, the early chapter on “Divine Attributes” (13-17) introduces the basic notion of the ten Sephirot, which, in Kabbalistic thought, form the fundamental pattern of the universe and the


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human being. The connection that Rabbi Glick makes between the ten Sephirot and the yogic system of the seven chakras is especially important with regard to meditation, but aside from a small footnote, no further explanation is offered here. Since the development of the ten divine attributes is presented in an introductory way as a key notion of self-transformation, the reader naturally expects a further deepening of this theme in the following chapter and might be surprised to find instead reflections on humility that are mainly drawn from Christian sources, such as the life of St. Francis and the Desert Fathers. While Rabbi Glick speaks about the importance of meditation as a discipline in the spiritual journey, he refrains from describing or advising a particular method of meditation in detail. The great virtue of this open and inclusive approach is that readers who already have a practice of meditation will feel confirmed in their own path; the drawback is that other readers might feel the lack of a clear and practical guide to meditation. There are short descriptions of different forms of visualization or meditation dispersed over different chapters of the book, for example in connection with the special color blue (techelet) of the early tzitzit (178), or the raising of Shechinah or Kundalini energy (107, 169). Since the latter practice is described as a method used by those who merge with the Eternal Self and become “at one with the whole universe,” one might wish for a more systematic presentation of this method, rather than just a short paragraph. Rabbi Glick also mentions the practice of linking up with the “souls which are on higher planes (53), or describes how the darshan of a holy man or woman “lifts the individual out of his lower state of consciousness and links him to the root of his soul” (56). But the concept of the root soul to which all of this seems to refer to is only explained in the latter part of the book (183) in the chapter of “The Evolution of Religion,” which in contrast to other chapters does not indicate the source of the ideas expressed. These comments on some structural shortcomings of the collection do not intend to detract from the very rich and uplifting content that it offers to all readers, regardless of their religious or spiritual backgrounds. While Jewish seekers will be helped in rediscovering their own roots, non-Jewish seekers will also very much benefit from learning about the richness of the Jewish mystical traditions, as presented in this book. As stated in the beginning, most of the sources and notions used in the book are from Hasidic and Hindu backgrounds. Both of these traditions, maybe more explicitly than others, use a language that clearly seems to imply a dualistic view of this world: spirit versus matter, soul versus body, transcendence versus immanence. In this language, the “higher” spiritual realm is opposed to “the darkness of this physical reality,” in which “the sparks of divine light” are bound by the “material sheath.” Our “lower self or nature” needs to be removed so that our “Divine self” can be revealed. Our “animal body” needs to be overcome so that we can “rise” or “ascend” from lower, physical planes to “higher” spiritual planes of existence. Rabbi Glick sometimes makes use of this type of language as well, but then overturns it with surprising statements such as, for example, “in fact, there is really no higher or lower plane; the different planes are only different states of consciousness” (p.109). He advises the reader to think of the body as a “holy ground” for the light of the soul (p.104). He gives the story of Vivekananda who first doubted that God was in all things – including “jugs and cups”


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and then had a profound experience of the non-dualistic nature (advaita) of absolute reality, in which he experienced God’s Oneness (p. 256). In fact, if one had to describe the message of Rabbi Glick’s entire book in just one sentence, it would be this: It is a commentary in 338 pages on the words of the Shema: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One” and of the commandment “and you shall love the Lord, your God, with all of your heart, and all of your soul and all of your might.” If ultimate reality is One, if it is Love, one may ask, what then is the use of any type of language that implies a dualistic attitude towards creation? I recently came across the following statement by Rabbi Elie Kaplan Spitz in his book, Does the Soul Survive? A Jewish Journey to Belief in Afterlife, Past Lives, and Living with Purpose. (Woodstock, Vt : Jewish Lights Publishing, 2006). “Although Judaism is a rich soil in which to grow the soul, this terrain remains untilled by most today.” Rabbi Glick has tilled this soil for many years, and the fruits of his work, which are being made available in the form of this first volume in a planned series of three, will undoubtedly continue to help many souls to grow.


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William Lane Craig on Luis de Molina and the Catholic Church: A Theological Synthesis By Glenn B. Siniscalchi One of the most creative theological syntheses ever formulated on the compatibility of divine sovereignty and human freedom in the history of Christian thought was devised by Luis de Molina (1535-1600). Although Molina’s philosophy was contested by the Thomists, a special congregation in the Roman Catholic Church decided that it was consistent with Catholic theology in 1607.1 Nevertheless, the second and third revivals of Thomism in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries soon overshadowed Molina’s illuminating ideas with regard to divine foreknowledge. Despite this longstanding decline, Molinism has come roaring back in philosophical circles in the last thirty years under the tutelage of William Lane Craig, Thomas Flint, Alfred Freddosso and Alvin Plantinga.2 Due to the lack of Molinist philosophy in much of contemporary Catholic theology, I will draw out some of the more interesting aspects of Molinism in light of the need within the Church to look at innovative approaches to develop the motivation that is needed for mission work. Within a Molinist perspective, the underlying rationale for the evangelizing component of mission work in the face of the possibility that non-Christians can still be saved can be strengthened. One of the leading spokesmen of Molinism is the American Evangelical philosopher William Lane Craig. I will focus on his writings in particular for the purposes of this essay. Introduction to Molinism

In Molina’s philosophy, God knows what every person will freely do in every possible circumstance that could be placed in front of each of them before he creates the universe. Exhausting every possible contingency, including birthplace, genetics, upbringing, and personality, God’s knowledge of these circumstances is known as middle knowledge (Latin: scientia media). Molinists refer to all of these possible scenarios as feasible worlds, all of which reside in the mind of God before the universe is created. Hence, one of the most basic assumptions in Molina’s philosophy is that there are other worlds that God could have created but chose not to make. Applying the middle knowledge view to the doctrine of salvation extra ecclesiam, God knows that before he creates the universe that some individuals who will not have the opportunity to hear and affirmatively respond to the Gospel during their earthly lives are those same individuals who would not accept the Gospel (and be baptized) if they had the chance to hear it. Apparently God knows that some people will refuse to believe in the Gospel no matter what circumstances he could have placed in front of them in any logically possible feasible world. On the other hand, if a person would have responded to the Gospel in at least one feasible world (which is logically prior to the initial creation event), then God will ensure that he or she will be born in a time and place where they will hear and respond to the


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Gospel in the actual world and be saved (Craig 1995, 115.). Let us therefore summarize the Molinist view of salvation extra ecclesiam. First, Molinists maintain that non-Christians can be saved by responding favorably to the light of grace that God has given to them through nature and their conscience (Ibid. 89; c.f. Rom 2:6,7) God will judge the unevangelized on the basis of their response to his grace through these means. Every person that honestly seeks the truth and lives an upright life can receive eternal salvation. Second, God cannot guarantee that every person that he can create (in every feasible world) will freely choose to respond to his grace and be saved in the actual world. Certainly, it is logically impossible for God to make persons to freely choose actions that go against their will to perform. Every person who refuses to accept the Gospel in the actual world does so because they distance themselves from God’s gracious offer to them, not because God has failed to place them in a set of circumstances in which they could have favorably responded to his love. Because logical truths flow essentially from his perfect nature, God cannot perform logically contradictory actions. Third, God knows all logical possibilities, including those possibilities that can and will occur in the actual world before it is brought into being. Seen within this framework, God knows what every free human person will do in every circumstance before they perform them in the real world. It is possible that God is unable to create a world in which every person will freely choose to respond favorably to the Gospel. Rather, God picks out the best feasible world; the world in which the most people are saved and the least amount are lost. That is the world he creates. Moreover, this is the world that we currently inhabit. Fourth, before God creates the universe, he knows that in every feasible world that there are some individuals who will always refuse to positively respond to the Good News regardless of the circumstances that could have placed in front of them. These persons suffer from what is known as transworld depravity. So although it is logically possible that every human person can and will accept the Gospel and be saved in every feasible world, it is actually impossible for God to create such a world. If such a feasible world were even possible for God to create, then God would have brought it about. According to Craig:

It’s possible that in every world which God could create, someone would freely reject Christ. Again, God could force them to believe, but then that would be a sort of divine rape. Love for God that is not freely given is not truly love. Thus, so long as men are free, there can be no guarantee that they will all freely believe in him (Craig 1990, 112).

On the one hand, persons who suffer from “transworld depravity” are incapable of being evangelized in any of the feasible worlds that God could have actualized. Conversely, everyone who would have responded in faith to the Good News in at least one feasible world before the actual world is actualized will have the opportunity to hear and respond to the Gospel at least once in their lifetime (Craig 1995, 115). Those who are lost in the actual world are those who were lost in every feasible world to begin with.


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The orthodox Molinist simply does not know how many people will be saved or lost in the end (Dulles 2003). Fifth, despite the amount of people who will refuse to accept the Gospel, the reason why God created the world is that God wanted to share his love with persons who are capable of freely reciprocating to his love. God deems it better to create a world in which some individuals will be lost rather than not creating at all. If God creates, he does his best. In the final analysis, the actual world is not the best of all possible worlds (contra Leibniz), but is the best of all possible ways to get to the best of all possible worlds. God has chosen to create the feasible world which achieves the optimal balance between the saved and the lost. Persons then can be saved through missionaries, but no one will be lost because of the failures of missionaries (Craig 2004). While it is logically possible for everyone to be saved, it is actually impossible for God to create such a world. Salvation Outside the Church According to Catholic Teaching

Undoubtedly the Catholic Church’s primary ecclesiastical sources for explaining the doctrine of salvation outside the Church are found in the documents of Vatican II. Other papal documents that reaffirm, clarify, and defend the Council’s teaching must be used as well. After this section, I will turn to the various ways in which Molinism is thought to reinforce the Church’s vision of mission work. Although many theologians have sought to explain away the notion that the Catholic Church sees herself as the one true religion since Vatican II, the classical axiom “no salvation outside the Church” is still constitutive of the Council’s teaching (Vatican II Dignitatis Humane N. 1; Lumen Gentium N. 8; Unitatis Redintegratio N. 8). Like all shorthand slogans, however, the axiom extra ecclesiam nulla sallus reveals some of the truth, but conceals it in other ways. The axiom has never been interpreted in sheer black and white terms (Sullivan 1992). Although the Church stresses the importance of respecting religions, spiritualities, and cultures that are different or contrary from the Church’s own, Vatican II as a whole does not endorse a “false irenicism” or a religious indifferentism (Vatican II Nostra Aetate. N. 2) The Council does not limit eternal salvation to Catholics alone. Persons who do not know anything about Christ and the Church can receive salvation. According to Lumen Gentium: “There are those who without any fault do not know anything about Christ or his church, yet who search for God with a sincere heart and, under the influence of grace, try to put into effect the will of God as known to them through the dictate of conscience: these too can obtain eternal salvation.” Further, “Nor does divine Providence deny the helps that are necessary for salvation to those who, through no fault of their own, have not yet attained to express recognition of God yet who strive, not without divine grace, to live an upright life” (Vatican II Lumen Gentium. N. 16) No matter what circumstances that persons might be in, everyone has the opportunity to be saved. But christological grace is always involved in salvation. As Francis Sullivan of Boston College writes: “There is no doubt about the conciliar teaching that people who never arrive at Christian faith and baptism can be saved” (Sullivan 1992, 162). According to the Council, persons who are saved outside of


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Christianity must be invincibly ignorant about the Gospel. Conversely, those who have been exposed to the Gospel are held more accountable to live out their divine calling (Vatican II Lumen Gentium N. 14). If someone suspects that the Catholic Church is the one true faith, then the honest thing for them to do is to pursue their questions in the best way that they can. Mental reservations or moral hesitations will not fool an all-knowing God. Put in this way, St. Augustine’s evaluation of salvation outside the Church rings true in current Catholic theology: “For in the ineffable foreknowledge of God, many who appear to be without are within, while many who appear to be within are without” (Augustine 27.38) Now it is true that the Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in non-Christian religions (Vatican II Nostra Aetate N. 2). Non-Christian religions prepare individuals to receive the fullness of the Gospel (Vatican II Lumen Gentium N. 16). The Council approves of the world’s religions in the sense that they contain elements of truth that can dispose individuals to receive Christ if they explicitly hear the Gospel. So, the Church’s revolutionary stance at Vatican II did not lie in its affirmation that non-Christians could be saved, but in its refusal to call non-Catholics “pagans,” “heathens,” “idolaters,” and the like. Instead of openly criticizing views that are contrary or contradictory to Catholic doctrine, Vatican II seeks to find what is good and holy in other religions instead (Ruokanen 1992, 102-3). For the first time in conciliar history a positive statement is ascribed to other religions (albeit positive ascriptions are made by Christian thinkers before Vatican II). Salvation can be found in other religions, but is definitely not of these religions. As theologian James Fredericks suggests, “Nowhere in its documents does the council unambiguously recognize the other religions as actual mediations of the saving grace of Jesus Christ” (Fredericks 2003, 233). Other religions are seen as participated forms of mediation in the one divine revelation that has been given to humanity in Christ (Vatican II Lumen Gentium N. 62). Those persons who are invincibly ignorant of the Gospel who lead an upright life and are obedient to God’s voice in conscience can attain eternal salvation. These persons receive a special kind of grace that is known to God himself (Vatican II Ad Gentes N. 7; Gaudium et Spes N. 22). This special grace is not in opposition to or separated from to the infusion of christological grace. Ruokanen states: “there is no certainty of salvation outside the Church, but those who by some sort of unconscious desire or intention (inscio quodam desiderio ac voto) belong to the Church are part of the body of Christ.” He goes on to say: “Here again the emphasis lies on the mediation of salvation by the Church, but the idea of ‘the Catholic unity’ is enlarged. The limits of the Church are not visible and strict. Those non-Catholics and non-Christians who are sensitive to God’s call in their inner self are in some secret manner latent members of that society to whom the explicit means of salvation are available” (Ruokanen 1992, 18). One way to interpret the Catholic view on salvation extra ecclesiam is to understand the Thomistic nature-grace distinction: grace builds on nature and brings it to perfection. Persons who are invincibly ignorant about the Christian message are saved by receiving a special grace that is known to God himself. Radical interpretations of the Church’s teaching that construct their theologies from within the sphere of grace (redemption) rather than nature (creation) with respect to the status of non-Christian salvation (or, those who are unaccountable to respond to the preaching of the Gospel)


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deviate from Catholic teaching. “According to Conciliar theology,” says Ruokanen, “religions are human cultural phenomena which belong to the natural goodness of life based on gratia creata sive communis; but as such, they consist neither of revelatio specialis nor of gratia increata sive supernaturalis” (Ibid. 70). One of the primary goals of the mission component to evangelization is to transform societies. This is known as the qualitative aspect to missions. But it must be admitted that there is a quantitative aspect to missions in Catholic thinking as well—to proclaim and persuade others unto the Gospel. Within the quantitative aspect to missions there are at least four reasons in light of Catholic teaching to engage in missions. First, we are commanded by Christ to participate in his saving work of humanity (Vatican II Ad Gentes, N. 13, 15,30, 39, 40, 41). Second, it is only natural to become evangelical when one is truly born of the Spirit (2 Cor. 5:11). The Christian knows that faith increases when it is given to others (John Paul II, N.2). Third, the Magisterium continues to affirm that the fullness of revealed truth is found within the Catholic fold alone. Religious truth that is found outside the Church is not seen as complementary or parallel to the one divine revelation that has been given in Christ. Lastly, those who do not hear and respond to the Gospel in faith are not assured of their eternal salvation. The Compatibility of Craig’s Molinism and the Catholic Church William Lane Craig has prematurely concluded that the Council has ruined the Church’s motivation to participate in the saving aspect of missions. In his words:

Missiologically, a broad inclusivism undermines the task of world missions. Since vast numbers of persons in non-Christian religions are in fact already included in salvation, they need not be evangelized. Instead missions are reinterpreted along the lines of social engagement—a sort of Christian social peace corps, if you will. Nowhere is this reinterpretation of missions better illustrated than in the documents of the Second Vatican Council. In its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, the Council declared that that those who have not yet received the gospel are related in various ways to the people of God. Jews, in particular, remain to dear to God, but the plan of salvation also includes all who acknowledge the Creator, such as Muslims. The Council therefore declared that Catholics now pray for the Jews not for the conversion of the Jews and also declares that the Church looks with esteem upon Muslims. Missionary work seems to be directed only toward those ‘who serve the creature rather than the Creator’ or are utterly hopeless. The Council thus implies that vast multitudes of persons who consciously reject Christ are in fact saved and therefore not appropriate targets for evangelization (Craig 1995, 85).

Craig’s interpretation of Vatican II is multiply confused. Of course, Catholics are to pray for Jews and Muslims. As Scripture says, Christians are to pray for everyone (1 Tim. 2:4). Since the Catholic Church still considers herself the one true faith, it is axiomatic


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that the quantitative aspect to evangelization remains constitutive of conciliar theology. Unfortunately, Craig has used the qualitative aspect of mission work as the sole hermeneutical lens by which to interpret the Council. Instead of surveying all of the Council’s teaching, Craig has endorsed a popular interpretation of the Council that is all too prevalent nowadays. As we have seen, the esteem that the Church has for non-Christians should not be construed from within the standpoint of the theology of redemption, but from creation—meaning from those commendable human qualities that all persons share together. Commenting on paragraph 22 of Guadium et Spes, Ruokanen emphasizes that: “Non-Christians reflect the truth only insofar as their life is in accordance with natural knowledge of the one God and of natural moral law. This means that in LG 16 the possibility of an extraordinary way of salvation is reduced to the sphere of theology of creation and to general conception of God and morals included therein” (Ruokanen 1992, 99). Noticing the same erroneous trajectories in Catholic theology, Benedict Ashley concurs: “Karl Rahner’s important theory of ‘the anonymous Christian’ has been mistakenly taken to imply that since the Good News has already been heard by everyone willing to hear it, evangelization is unnecessary. All that is needed is ecumenical dialogue to help all to recognize that they really are already of one faith” (Ashley 2000, vii). Citing the Evangelical theologian Clark Pinnock, Craig explains the problems that accompanies a wider inclusivism:

(1) God has called us to engage in mission work and we should obey. But this provides no rationale for why God commanded such a thing and so amounts to just blind obedience to a command without rationale. (2) Missions is broader than just securing people’s eternal destiny. True enough; but with that central rationale removed we are back at the Christian peace corps. (3) Missions should be positive; it is not an ultimatum ‘Believe or be damned.’ Of course; but it is difficult to see what urgency is left to world missions, since the people to whom one goes are already saved. I must confess that I find it tragically ironic that as the church stands on the verge of completing the task of world evangelization, it should be her own theologians who would threaten to trip her at the finish line (Craig 1995, 86).

Notice that these three points coincide with the first three points of the Catholic Church’s underlying rationale to engage in missions. However, Craig does not seem to realize that his appropriation of Molinism reinforces the Catholic Church’s teaching over those radical interpretations of the Church’s teaching that he rightly disagrees with. The Church would go much further than Craig’s straw man depiction of the Council’s theology and unwaveringly maintain along with Craig himself that part of the reason to engage in mission work is to evangelize others unto Christ. Aside from these minor scuffles between Craig and the Church, both of their views converge in many respects. Both of them rightly reject a strict exclusivism. Though Craig prefers to call himself a “particularist” instead of an “exclusivist,” he still maintains that people can be saved outside of cognitive belief in the Savior. One does


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not have to have explicit faith in Jesus to be saved. As we have seen, this is the same outlook as Vatican II. Second, Craig also holds that persons who through no fault of their own can achieve salvation by responding to God’s love for them in nature and conscience by living an upright life. Again, there is no problem here. Lastly, both deny the validity of religious pluralism de jure: “a move away from insistence on the superiority or finality of Christ and Christianity toward a recognition of the independent validity of other ways” (Hick and Knitter 1997, viii). All religions are not equally valid paths to the Triune God. One of the reasons why Dominus Iesus (2000) was written was to summon Catholic theologians to provide an underlying rationale to preach the Gospel in a world in which it is well known that persons outside of Christianity can still be saved (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 2000, N. 3, 14 , 21, 23). Within a Molinist perspective, Catholics can make greater sense of three well-established truths that Dominus Iesus clarified after the Council. The first is that divine revelation has been given on behalf of all persons. No more revelations are to be expected from God. Nor are special revelations to be found in other religions (even though truths of natural revelation can still be found in them). The second truth is that every person has the opportunity to be saved. Lastly, Catholics must make every effort to evangelize others insofar as this is humanly possible. With these three truths in balance, the Catholic Molinist holds that the motivation to preach the Gospel has not been diminished but enhanced. On the one hand, God has so providentially ordered the world that missionaries will arrive on the scene of unevangelized regions and preach the Gospel to those persons that God knew from eternity would favorably accept the message if they had the chance to hear it. While Scripture is not a philosophical text, it seems consistent with this picture. In Acts 17:25-27, we read: "He made from one the whole human race to dwell on the entire surface of the earth, and he fixed the ordered seasons and the boundaries of their regions, so that people might seek God, even perhaps grope for him and find him, though indeed he is not far from any one of us.” Consider the words of John Paul II:

In proclaiming Christ to non-Christians, the missionary is convinced that through the working of the Spirit, there already exists in individuals and peoples an expectation, even if an unconscious one, of knowing the truth about God, about man, and about how we are to be set free from sin and death. The missionary’s enthusiasm in proclaiming Christ comes from the conviction that he is responding to that expectation, and so he does not become discouraged or cease his witness even when he is called to manifest his faith in an environment that is hostile or indifferent (emphasis mine) (John Paul II, 45).

On the other hand, God knows that some persons living in unevangelized regions of the world who have never had the opportunity to hear the message of Christ are the same individuals who would not accept the Gospel even if they had the chance to hear it. The Molinist points out that persons can be saved in response to missionary labors but that no one will be lost because of their failures (Cf. Craig 1993, 261-5)


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The Molinist believes that as Christians we should not be so concerned about the millions of people that have lived and died without hearing the Gospel as much as we should be concerned about the way that God will deal with those who have accepted the Good News—and have not responded to the missionary mandate. As the Fathers of the Council have said: “All children of the Church should nevertheless remember that their exalted condition results, not form their own merits, but form the grace of Christ. If they fail to respond in thought, word and deed to that grace, not only shall they not be saved, but they shall be more severely judged” (Vatican II Lumen Gentium, 14). Conclusion

Within a Molinist viewpoint the Catholic’s underlying rationale to engage in mission work in a world where it is well known that persons outside of Christianity can still be saved can be strengthened. The so-called problem of soteriological evil is a non-issue for the Christian Molinist. It is surprising that Catholic theologians have not noticed Molina’s popularity in philosophical circles and appropriated his ideas to doctrines such as salvation extra ecclesiam. Hopefully this trend will change and we will be more inviting of his illuminating ideas in light of the challenges that all Christians are facing with respect to the demands of inter-religious dialogue.


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Bibliography Augustine, De Baptismo. Ashley, Benedict M. Choosing a World-View and Value System: An Ecumenical Apologetics. New York: Alba House. 2000. Craig, William Lane . No Easy Answers: Finding Hope in Doubt, Failure, and Unanswered Prayer. Chicago: Moody Press. 1990. ———“Politically Incorrect Salvation,” in Christian Apologetics in the Postmodern World Timothy R. Phillips and Dennis L. Okholm, ed. Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press. 1995. ———The Only Wise God: the Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom. Eugene: Wipf and Stock. 2000. ———“Does the Balance Between Saved and Lost Depend on Our Obedience to Christ’s Great Commission?” Philosophia Christi, 6 (2004): 79-86. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dominus Iesus. 2000. Dulles, Avery. “The Population of Hell.” First Things, 133 (May 2003). 36-41 Flint, Thomas P. Divine Providence: The Molinist Account. Cornell: Cornell University Press. 2006. Freddosso, Alfred J. On Divine Foreknowledge, Part IV of the Concordia by Luis de Molina. Cornell: Cornell University Press. 2004. Fredericks, James “The Catholic Church and Other Religious Paths: Rejecting Nothing That is True and Holy,” Theological Studies, 64 (2003). 233. Hick, John and Paul Knitter, ed., The Myth of Christian Uniqueness: Toward a Pluralistic Theology of Religions (Maryknoll, Orbis Books, 1987), viii. John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio Plantinga, Alvin. The Nature of Necessity. Oxford :Oxford University Press. 1979. Second Vatican Council. Ad Gentes. in Austin Flannery ed. Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Documents. Collegeville: Liturgical Press. 1975. ——— Dignitatis Humane in Austin Flannery ed.


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——— Gaudium et Spes in Austin Flannery ed. ——— Lumen Gentium in Austin Flannery ed. ——— Nostra Aetate in Austin Flannery ed. ——— Unitatis Redintegratio in Austin Flannery ed. Ruokanen, Miikka. The Catholic Doctrine of Non-Christian Religions According to the Second Vatican Council, Leiden: E.J. Brill. 1992) Sullivan, Francis A. Salvation Outside the Church?: Tracing the History of the Catholic Response. Mahwah: Paulist Press. 1992. Notes 1 For a short discussion on the major points of debate between the Jesuit Molinists and Dominicans at the beginning of the 17th century, see William Lane Craig, “The Middle Knowledge View,” Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views, ed. James Beilby and Paul R. Eddy. Downer’s Grove: Intervarsity Press. 2001. 120-123. 2 See William Lane Craig, The Only Wise God: the Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom, (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2000); Thomas P. Flint, Divine Providence: The Molinist Account, (Cornell: Cornell University Press, 2006), 75-178; Alfred J. Freddosso, On Divine Foreknowledge, Part IV of the Concordia by Luis de Molina, (Cornell: Cornell University Press, 2004); Alvin Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity, (Oxford :Oxford University Press, 1979).

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Introduction: Special Section from the National Association of College and University Chaplains

The National Association of College and University Chaplains (NACUC) held its annual conference in Durham, NC in February 2010. The theme of the conference was “Religious Pluralism: Engaging Other Religions While Valuing One’s Own.” Our intent was to have a conference that addressed theoretical and practical issues related to chaplaincy and religious pluralism. We wanted to approach existing religious plurality from a perspective that was respectful of each faith tradition, but also maintained integrity and authenticity within one’s own particular religion. We are grateful to the editors of the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue for their willingness to publish a portion of the proceedings and related articles. We decided to focus our plenary session on religious pluralism through the lens of one particular faith. We wanted the speaker to articulate how he or she thought of inter-religious engagement in light of his or her own faith commitments. We were fortunate to be able to use many of the facilities at Duke University for the conference itself. Since Duke has also made a robust commitment to interfaith dialogue, it made great sense to draw upon available speakers from the university community. We asked Samuel Wells, Dean of the Duke University Chapel and Research Professor of Christian Ethics at Duke Divinity School, to give the first address: “Towards a Vision for Interfaith Dialogue.” It is important to recognize that this is “a” vision for interfaith dialogue. More specifically, it is a description of Sam Wells’s vision, as a Christian, and how he works through his own theological commitments as both a follower of Christ and one committed to inter-religious dialogue. At the conference itself, his talk was followed by a brief response by Professor Stanley Hauerwas. It is my hope that others may choose to take on this challenging task and compose articles similar to that of Dr. Wells, from the perspective of different faith traditions. They would be a great addition to this journal and the discourse on religious pluralism more broadly. The remainder of the conference focused on more practical aspects of approaching religious pluralism. There were four workshops. One was a panel addressing how various faith traditions interact and work cooperatively on campus. A second had Muslim, Jewish, Hindu and Christian panelists and examined the responsibilities, opportunities and challenges of both minority and majority religions in developing and supporting a campus environment conducive to religious diversity. The third workshop is included in this special section of the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue. “In From the Margins: Shifting the work of religious life programs on campuses to align with the educational mission of our institutions,” looked at how religious life programs should operate in concert with the educational goals of an academic institution in equipping students with competencies in religious diversity. This was lead by one of the pioneers in the multifaith movement, Victor Kazanjian, who serves as the Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life at Wellesley College. The fourth workshop was lead by Joshua Stanton and entitled, “Multi-Faith Councils as Incubators of Leadership.” I was privileged to work with him as advisor to the Multifaith Council at Amherst College when he was its founder and president. Stanton’s interactive presentation is a training tool for multifaith work on campus.

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The final morning of the conference was devoted entirely to Scriptural Reasoning. This is a method of studying sacred texts from various traditions in a multifaith setting. I believe it is both respectful of the texts and of the people of different faiths who study them. The session was lead by Peter Ochs, Edgar Bronfman Professor of Modern Judaic Studies at the University of Virginia and co-founder of the Abrahamic Society for Scriptural Reasoning, and Homayra Ziad, Assistant Professor of Religion at Trinity College. An article based on the session is included in this journal issue and should be viewed as a wonderful resource to enhance anyone’s learning and religious literacy. Again, I want to express my thanks to the editors of the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue for publishing these sessions and to the conference speakers who contributed their articles. Paul V. Sorrentino Director of Religious Life, Amherst College Conference Organizer, National Association of College and University Chaplains

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Building a New Global Commons: Religious Diversity and the Challenge for Higher Education By Victor Kazanjian, James P. Keen, and Peter Laurence The article that follows is adapted from the introduction to the forthcoming book of the same name which analyzes the historical and theoretical underpinnings that have led to the multifaith revolution on college and university campuses across the country illustrated through a case study of the development of the religious and spiritual life program at Wellesley College. Much of this material was included in Victor Kazanjian’s workshop at the Annual Conference of the National Association of College and University Chaplains in Durham, North Carolina.

Consider for a moment the earth as a “global commons,” a shared space in which limits on resources and the environment are planetary, economies as well as human systems are inextricably interconnected, and human diversity is ever more apparent among the occupants of this planetary home. By the time current human population growth trends are expected to peak at mid century, bringing with them cascading changes and dislocations, new generations of world citizens will be called upon to lead in addressing myriad challenges arising as we better learn to live together as humankind on the commons we know as earth. The term “commons,” is derived from its ancient usage in the English countryside describing parcels of land that were used “in common” by the people of a village. The lives of the people of the village depended upon access to and use of a shared landscape that provided many necessities: grazing land, water, wood and fuel. Centuries later, in an increasingly globalized and interconnected (and yet deeply fragmented) world, “the commons” might also be thought of, as Richard Bocking writes in Reclaiming the Commons (May 2003), as those things that are essential to being members of the human community sharing the commons of the planet. In this context, the commons would include the air we breathe; the water we drink; the seas, forests, and mountains; the diversity of life itself, and also those things that humankind has created: language; scientific, cultural, and technical knowledge; and health, education, political and economic systems. The “commons,” then, is that which we must engage with together to sustain life and implies a shared commitment to community, cooperation, the respect for the rights of others and the corresponding responsibilities that we each share for life on this planet. Liberal arts education has historically staked a claim to the commons on two dimensions: first as the shared ground in which we develop future cadres of leaders, citizens, scholars, professionals, and public servants, and second as being itself a microcosm of the larger universe of ideas, perspectives, and people who are engaged in the common life of a particular educational institution. In seeking to meet the challenges of the world, higher education aspires to be that place where diverse points of view are brought together in the common task of deepening understanding of self, other, and world. Here in places of learning, the commons can indeed be envisioned as a space that enables a unique kind of educational dialogue: one that is not merely political or

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polemical, but humanistic and ecumenical (For more see the work of Brian Bocking). For higher education, the commons is not a place of particular ideology or theology but rather that place where diversity of viewpoints becomes the central ingredient of a vibrant intellectual community. Only on a college or university campus does such a diverse group of citizens of the world gather, and, while affirming their differences, pursue the distinctly common purpose of learning and living together. It is in such a unique environment that experiments can be (and perhaps must be) made as to how human beings whose identity is so often forged along lines of difference can take up responsibilities and craft together a common life in which all participate in a shared use of the commons. In many ways we in higher education continue to fall short of this ideal. We struggle to engage diversity in all of its forms, and have yet to find adequate ways in which the philosophy, structures, and programs of our institutions can lead not to continued Balkanization but rather to a public square of conversations. Were we to move closer to our goal of a global educational community, we might then create a commons on our campuses where we would move from seeing difference as a barrier to difference as a resource, from seeing difference as a problem to difference as a promise. Too often the answer to this conundrum of engaging diversity has been to mute particularist voices in favor of a single normative identity, whether it be religious, nationalistic, or secular in nature. The ideas and processes that we explore seek to illustrate a different paradigm, one in which the educational enterprise offers students the experience of reconstructing themselves in ways that make them better at encountering difference and discovering ways that lead to collaboration rather than necessarily to conflict. Such an educational paradigm would invite the identity-forming narratives of each person into the commons where they are recognized in such a way that the space of the commons becomes a place of dialogue and interaction, of encounter and conversation, of essential conflict, but conflict that ultimately seeks a common cause. One dilemma that persists in higher education is the place of religion in college and university education and the challenges and opportunities posed by increasing religious diversity on campuses nationwide. At their founding, the mission, values and founding principles of most colleges and universities were expressed in explicitly religious terms. Many colleges and universities trace their beginnings to particular religious roots (mostly Protestant Christian, fewer Roman Catholic or Jewish.) Although it was religiously-inspired motivation that led to the founding of many of the earliest colleges and universities in this country and shaped early educational philosophy and pedagogy, it is the assumption of a single, shared religious context and a common religious language to describe the educational ideals of higher education that forged a too small a container in the years that followed. The restrictions placed on belief and thought in colleges and universities by religious institutions led to the growing objections of many scholars who found their intellectual inquiry restricted by theological principles rather than educational ones. Gradually, secular scholarship won out; most colleges and universities severed ties with organized religion and replaced religious frameworks with secular ones for life on campus. The secularization of higher education ushered in an era of academic freedom and the establishment of scientific rationalism as the standard by which intellectual

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inquiry was measured. Whereas in earlier years religious claims that truth was to be found in scripture, and tradition and identification with certain forms of Christianity governed the norms of educational institutions, this was replaced by a claim that only what could be measured scientifically was legitimate for scholarly pursuits. The pendulum had swung, and an epistemological polarity was created with secularism on the one pole and religious faith on the other. It became increasingly difficult in the academy to conceive of an educational system in which both epistemological processes (the scientific, exploring that which can be measured, and the religious/philosophical, exploring that which cannot be measured) could coexist. One solution was to embrace the scholarly study of religion as a legitimate academic pursuit, but to also build an impenetrable wall between the study of religion and its practice. In doing so, a dichotomy developed between that which is considered knowledge and that which is considered belief or practice. This fragmentation served the purposes of both “fundamentalist” religionists and “fundamentalist” secularists, both of whom fought to establish exclusive claims on truth. What was missing from this split was the consideration that the mind is capable of experiencing and looking critically at both of these things, that which can be measured and that which cannot, and that belief might actually be more accurately described as the acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something. If defined in this way, both scientific inquiry and religious exploration are reflections of beliefs and therefore welcome on the campus commons in which the critical engagement of all beliefs is necessary to fulfill the promise of education. The failure of institutions of higher education to do so in the case of religion has tended to leave the realm of religious belief and practice to be defined by those not sharing the values of higher education to deepen one’s understanding of self, other, and world; those whose goals are perpetuating narrow and exclusive claims to truth. On campuses, chapels and chaplaincies became the official places where the practice of religion was sanctioned and the presence of religious practitioners condoned. On these campuses, religious life ceased to be a part of the institution’s educational program and was instead relegated to one of a host of outside groups competing for student’s extracurricular attention. The religious and spiritual life of students (and faculty, alumni and staff) was no longer a matter of educational concern for the academy, but rather tolerated as a separate but related enterprise on campus. On some campuses, chaplaincies centered around historic congregations remained in an honored place, but many chaplaincy programs became outposts for clergy and religious professionals placed on campuses by outside sponsoring religious organizations with little more than cordial relationships with the institutions. It should be recognized that the history of chaplaincies on college and university campuses is a distinguished one of men and women working within institutional limits to provide pastoral care for community members in times of joy and sorrow; organize spaces for discourse around moral and ethical issues of the day; design and lead community rituals such as convocation and baccalaureate services; and preside at funerals, memorials and weddings to enable campuses to mark significant moments in the life of the campus community. Chaplains historically were at the forefront of developing programs of community service on campuses and played leading roles in social justice efforts including women’s suffrage, anti-slavery, civil rights, and

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antiapartheid, antiwar and environmental movements. It is important that alongside the critique of the problems associated with the structures of religious life that developed in the last century the importance and power of the work of chaplains is not lost. In the “secular” institutions (those that were not formally affiliated with Roman Catholic, Jewish or particular Protestant denominations or Evangelical movements) the dominant religious tradition nevertheless remained Protestant Christianity. The Dean of the Chapel or the College/University Chaplain was nearly always Protestant and served as religious host for the rest of the campus. While no longer under the formal control of religious institutions, a Protestant Christian ethos continued to permeate the institutional culture of most colleges and universities, as in American society. Although secularity was claimed to be the norm, college mission statements, crests, and rituals often retained and reinforced the primacy of the Protestant tradition. Just as the (Protestant) Chapel often was situated in the center of campus, so too was it the Protestant Dean of the Chapel or College/University chaplains who took center stage to welcome and bless at formal functions such as convocation, baccalaureate and commencement. Often the Protestant hosts played a gracious and compassionate role in reaching out to all community members and often advocating for the needs of other religious communities. But the effect of this structural problem was that those not Protestant were rendered as guests on a Protestant (although professedly secular) campus. There is a long history of religious minorities organizing on college and university campuses in the United States. Beginning in the 1890’s, Catholics in normatively Protestant and secular campuses created Newman Centers to serve the needs of Catholic students. Starting in the 1920’s, the development of Hillels established a mechanism for nurturing the Jewish life and identity of students in a way that was deemed compatible with, albeit marginal to, the institution’s educational mission. Hillel and Newman Centers have played a crucial role in raising questions of religious diversity in higher education throughout the last century and continue to provide leadership nationally for interfaith efforts on campuses. Alternative Christian organizations such as Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, which began in England in 1877, traveled to Canada in the early 1900’s and arrived in the United States first on the university of Michigan campus in 1938, established an Evangelical presence on many secular campuses that has since been joined by rising numbers of Evangelical Christians connected to national or campus-specific organizations. In recent years a strong movement has developed in Evangelical Christian communities on campuses to participate fully in the democratic project of creating pluralism on campus, challenging the notion that so-called religious exclusivists are uninterested in or have antipathy towards discussions of religious diversity. Each of these stories and the more recent history of the emergence of Muslim, Buddhist, Secular, Humanist, Unitarian Universalist, Hindu and other chaplaincy programs on campuses is a narrative of great importance in understanding the impact of growing religious diversity on college and university campuses. But the situation of a central Protestant Chaplaincy and marginalized Jewish, new Evangelical and Roman Catholic organizations remained the shape of religious practice on campus until the increased immigration of the 1960s and 70s, documented by Diana Eck in A New Religious America How a "Christian Country" Has Become the World's Most

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Religiously Diverse Nation (HarperOne 2002) created a new situation of increasing religious diversity. The growth of people practicing Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism in particular was considerable. The results began to show up on college campuses in the early 1980s and the presence of religious minorities other than those that were traditionally understood in the United States created a different kind of religious diversity on campus. During these years, chaplains at many institutions watched these changes and responded by trying to provide services to newcomer communities as best they could, offering hospitality and pastoral care to all regardless of tradition or practice. By the early 1990s the children of immigrants from the 1960s and 70s, representing increasing diversity of religious and spiritual practice, had reached such numbers that this began to push colleges and universities to reconsider questions of religion, spirituality and education. Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist students began arriving at American colleges and universities with an expectation that the institutions would provide for their religious needs. In addition, other students from African, Jain, Native American, Sikh, Shinto, Wiccan, and Zoroastrian traditions began to find voice and organize groups on campus. On campuses nation-wide, past mono-religious and secular practices were colliding full-force with a growing multi-religious, multi-spiritual reality. This collision precipitated what for some was and remains a crisis but for others was an opportunity to deal with increasing religious diversity and address issues of religion, spirituality and higher education. By the 1990s, inspired and led by a growing student movement on religious diversity, some campuses began to look for alternatives to the void created by diminished or confused religious life programs. Questions of services and space for particular religious groups emerged first. This was followed by uncertainty among administrators as to whose responsibility it was to respond to these needs and to incidents of conflict between religious groups. This phenomenon impacted all institutions, secular and religious alike, as even religiously affiliated institutions began to see a growth in the religious diversity of their student populations and acknowledged as part of their mission the preparing of students for life and leadership in a religiously diverse world. In addition to questions of religious practice, increasing numbers of students have been arriving on campus defining themselves as spiritual but not religious, and interested in spiritual practices such as yoga and meditation or co-curricular conversations about meaning and purpose in their lives and learning. In the last two decades, multifaith religious and spiritual life programs that not only provide services for a rapidly diversifying student, staff and faculty populations but also seek to contribute to their institution’s global and multicultural educational programs have begun to emerge on campuses across the country. Among the first to experiment with a multifaith model was Wellesley College, a liberal arts college for women in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Convening a consultation on the religious and spiritual life of the college involving trustees, students, faculty and senior administrators in 1991, the college devised a plan to renew its commitment to religious and spiritual life through a multi-faith program that was to serve the needs of a diversifying student population, create opportunities for spiritual growth for all community members, and offer an educational program on interreligious understanding and dialogue. In 1992, Wellesley inaugurated the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life. Wellesley’s first act was to create the new position of Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life, the role of which was

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not to represent any one religious community but to be a spiritual leader, educator and senior administrator who would design and oversee the new structure. The initial charge to the dean, chaplains and multifaith student council was to reconsider the relationship between religion/spirituality and higher education, and move religious and spiritual life from the margins of the institution to be a more integrated part of college’s educational program. Wellesley’s journey of experimentation with issues of religious diversity over the next two decades is one story among a number colleges and universities who in the 1990s saw that there was a deep confusion on campuses between a mono-religious institutional history and a multi-religious contemporary college community and set out on a journey to explore new models for religious life on campus. The Wellesley story and an analysis of the historical and theoretical underpinnings that have led to the multifaith revolution on college and university campuses across the country will comprise the bulk of Building a New Global Commons: Religious Diversity and the Challenge for Higher Education, Kazanjian, Keen and Laurence, expected in 2011. Through the work of Education as Transformation, Inc. an organization based at Wellesley which works with campuses nationally around issues of religious diversity and spirituality, an institutional change process has been developed and implemented on many campuses based on the principle that a pluralistic approach to engaging religious diversity is an educational imperative (rather than a religious one) for institutions of higher education wishing to prepare students to be global citizens. Although they observe that issues of religion are increasingly crucial to understanding the vast complexity of social issues facing this country and the world, most colleges and universities still have difficulty determining where these programs fit in their educational agendas. In speaking of Religious Life or Chaplaincy programs, the following statements are often reportedly heard on campuses: Religious and Spiritual Life/Chaplaincy programs are: “a remnant from a long gone era,” “marginal to the educational mission of colleges and universities,” “irrelevant in the context of an epistemology defined by rational inquiry,” “contrary to a secular institution,” “an unnecessary drain on scarce institutional resources,” “redundant now that we have community service and counseling centers,” “making too many demands on issues such as unreasonable space, and food needs,” “attracting ‘unwelcome’ outside groups on campus.” Too often those responsible for religious and spiritual life programs have in the past adopted one of the following stances in response: 1) Remain on the margins and hope that no one notices us 2) Whine a lot and hope that people will take pity on us, or 3) Fight “the good fight” to hang onto our precious resources and marginalized status. But increasingly campus leaders (including chaplains, students, faculty and student life staff) are choosing to engage in a process of self-reflection, critical analysis, and the rearticulation of the role of religious and spiritual life on their campus. At Wellesley College and other campuses, this process has led to the development of four principles upon which the work is based. 1. The role of religious and spiritual life programs must be primarily about education. Religious and Spiritual Life/Chaplaincy programs must be connected to the educational missions of colleges and universities, clearly articulated as an aspect of student

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development, integrated into the students’ educational program, and embedded within the institutional structures in both student life and academic realms. In such a program the role of Religious Life professionals/Chaplains must be that of spiritual leaders – often grounded in a particular tradition, belief system, or practice, but committed to a multifaith educational context – educators articulating the educational theory and practice behind interreligious dialogue and understanding, and student life professionals well versed in student development theory and questions of religious identity and spiritual growth. 2. A pluralistic approach to religious and spiritual life is the most consonant with the educational values of secular higher education. By “decentering” the historically normative, usually Protestant Christian, traditions and creating a dynamic, pluralistic program in which all traditions and practices of belief are equally valued as part of a world community, Religious and Spiritual Life/Chaplaincy programs can contribute to the global/multicultural educational agenda of their institution by offering programming on interreligious understanding, dialogue and conflict transformation, and increasing the literacy and competencies of community members in areas of religious diversity and spiritual practice 3. Including everyone at the table means sharing the conversation and including more food A pluralistic approach to engaging religious diversity requires the decentering of the normative group(s) and the creation of a shared circle of conversation. This means that equity of voice is crucial. Experimenting with new models of dialogue requires that traditionally marginalized voices be fully included. An equal representational model more like the United States Senate (rather than the proportional model of the House of Representatives) is essential to this process. Institutions that incorporate religious diversity programming into their educational agenda must also provide resources to support this aspect of their educational program. Such programs much be embraced at all levels of the institutions, and support given to addressing issues of staffing, programming, and space. Justifying this as a priority for colleges and universities requires less polemic from chaplains and more reference to educational theory and quality research on the growth of religious diversity and spirituality on campuses and its educational import.

4. Everything flows from the moments of community connection and individual care Ritual gatherings in which community members celebrate their lives together or mark crucial life moments (like the death of a community member, or national or global crises) remain central to understanding the role of religious and spiritual life/chaplaincy programs. Even as we adapt to a more educational focus in forging new partnerships with educators on campus, the pastoral care of the community remains the foundation

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of the work on campus. No one doubts the essential role of religious professionals on campus in moments of crisis. With these principles in mind, we have developed an institutional change process with which we engage colleges and universities in the work of reenvisioning the role of religious and spiritual life on campus. We begin by using the following steps in helping campus teams of leaders including administrators, faculty, student life staff, religious professionals/chaplains, students, alumnae and trustees to develop a multifaith educational model appropriate to their campus. I Identifying the Mission

What is the mission of your institution? II Acknowledging our history (ies)

What is the journey that has brought your institution to this moment? How has religion factored in that history?

III Understanding the Context

What are the structures religious/spiritual life structures that you have inherited?

What are the systems in which the work of religious/spiritual life is embedded?

In which division(s) is your program situated? To whom do you report? How is your program funded? What relationships exist with other departments/divisions in your

institution? What relationships exist with external organizations,

religious/spiritual/ethical communities, educational and community organizations, and global partners?

IV Articulating a Vision

How does your envisioned Religious and Spiritual Life/Chaplaincy program help fulfil the mission of your institution?

What aspects of the history of religion at your institution are important to preserve?

What past practices are in need of transformation? What is your desired structure that best enables you to be an effective part of

achieving your institution’s educational goals? What are your desired outcomes?

V Developing a Strategy

Who are your partners in this work? 1. Create cross constituency conversations which lead to the development

of statements of mission, philosophy and goals

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What structural change is necessary? 1. Deconstruct old structures that inhibit achieving these goals 2. Build new structures in collaboration with administrators, faculty, staff,

students, alumnae, trustees, and external organizations that reflect your mission, philosophy and goals

VI Reflect and Redefine

What are you learning from your change process? 1. Develop mechanisms for periodically evaluating your programs and

responding to the need to growth and redesign Conclusion

People on campuses across the country are heeding the call to engage religious diversity by transforming their Religious and Spiritual Life/Chaplaincy programs to better reflect the educational principles and practices of the colleges and universities in which they serve. As such, these individuals and institutions are responding to the plea for higher education to help build a pluralistic American society and world by transforming ignorance about religious and philosophical differences into multifaith understanding and interfaith cooperation through education. College and university campuses are indeed microcosms of the global commons, using the tools of education to challenge extremism and ignorance about that religious perspectives and spiritual practices of the peoples of this planet. In meeting the challenges posed by religious diversity, these campuses are becoming spaces where inter-religious understanding and respect, cooperation and interdependence are the new norm, proving that the development of peaceful and pluralistic communities comprised of people of a myriad of different religious, cultural and ethical perspectives is possible and providing a place where the global commons is a reality.

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Grassroots Scriptural Reasoning on Campus By Peter Ochs and Homayra Ziad This paper comes out of the presentation and practice of Scriptural Reasoning at the annual meeting of the National Association of College and University Chaplains at Duke University in February 2010. We would like to extend our thanks to Paul Sorrentino for inviting us to speak. We are also grateful for the helpful comments of SR participants at the NACUC conference, and of colleagues at the American Academy of Religion Theologies of Religious Pluralism seminar (Cohort One).

Scriptural Reasoning (hereafter, “SR”) is a practice of fellowship and study among Muslims, Jews, and Christians, developed over sixteen years and now practiced by approximately twenty groups in North America and the United Kingdom. While SR began in an academic setting, it has expanded into a civic, community practice, largely in the United Kingdom but with a growing number of community groups in the United States. The founders of SR believe that university chaplains and campus ministers could become the most important guides in the practice of SR as an interfaith and civic practice. Chaplains and campus ministers are not only deeply connected with diverse groups within their own campus, but are as likely to have strong links with change-agents in the larger community. We believe that chaplains can become loci of SR teaching for other campus professionals, students, and faculty, as well as area clergy and their congregants, and area activists. For chaplains working in multi-faith settings, SR can be an important tool. Chaplains face two key, inter-related challenges: they are given the charge to create community, whether inter-faith or intra-faith, and in so doing they must find ways of meaningfully understanding difference without asking participants to compromise or dilute deeply held religious convictions. Many groups have found that space in the idea of faith-in-action - where each participant is working towards a vision of a renewed world. In this case, the idea of social justice is brought to the fore, and an interfaith community is built around this shared ethic. But how do we find a safe, mediated space to explicitly communicate to each other what moves us spiritually, our convictions about God and the human condition? More importantly, can we find a space to agree to disagree, honestly, even vehemently, not just on the details but even on the foundational issues of what it means to be faithful? What do I really mean by social justice? What do you mean by salvation? And finally, can we do this in the most beautiful manner, with care and compassion, or, as the Qur’an suggests, “dispute in ways that are most beautiful” (16:125)? As a practice, Scriptural Reasoning is the communal reading of sacred scriptures in small groups – opening our sacred texts to others for conversation from the heart, and modeling a fellowship that sees difference as rich and illuminating. As a process, SR is relationship, through the medium of sacred texts. The Abrahamic traditions emphasize the importance of the reading and interpretation of scripture as the foundation on which traditions are constructed. Within each of the three communities,

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there are myriad theologies of scripture and interpretive approaches to the text – this can even include a conscious rejection of the primacy of scripture - but it cannot be doubted that the Children of Abraham continue to hold scripture as a central motif in their relationship with the transcendent. The Qur’an describes Jews and Christians as ahl al-kitab, family of scripture, and drew on this common feature to bind these traditions in fellowship to the new seventh-century community forming around the Qur’anic message. In SR, we agree on the importance of scripture as the foundation on which our traditions are constructed. We also agree that our scriptures are the most profound source of what each of our religious traditions claims to offer us: peace. Most importantly, SR recognizes that we each bring to our interfaith encounters some prior convictions about scripture, and that we interrogate the other by way of these convictions and the interpretive categories they foster. SR does not penalize participants for having a prior text. What this practice does is unsettle our interpretive framework, the application of our interpretive categories to other traditions. It forces us for a brief period to step out of that framework and gain an unexpected insight into another tradition and most surprisingly, into our own tradition. In some sense, the boundaries of the text, and “rules of engagement”, provide a safe space to experience that dislocation: participants know that once they exit the charmed circle, they are free to process the experience within the bounds of their home tradition(s). The elements of SR practice are simple. Minimally, there is a table and three chairs. On the table are small translated excerpts from the three Abrahamic scriptural canons: Tanakh, New Testament, and the Qur’an. After some introduction to the scriptural passages and their plain sense, participants read the passages aloud and then question one another about puzzling or surprising features of each verse, sometimes each word in a verse. They note grammatical constructions, changes in tone, or shifts in the narrative structure. While participants may bring in observations from other textual or extra-textual sources, conversation is always brought back to the texts at hand. The texts are the anchor. If the participants belong to any of the three scriptural traditions of reading and worship, each invites members of the other two traditions to read each canon as it were “their own”. While a facilitator is present to help discussion move along, no one acts as an authority on the meanings of any of the canons, and no one assumes knowledge of how people from another tradition, or from their home tradition(s), will interpret a particular passage. At the same time, participants are welcome to speak explicitly from a faith perspective, while recognizing that theirs is only one of many interpretations of the passage in question. No one speaks too much or too little, but all share their wonderments and ideas about what a passage may mean, and each listens to the other. No sincere lines of reading and discussion are excluded. Helped along as needed by the facilitator, discussion typically focuses first on one scriptural canon. Brief selections are chosen so that the group has ample time to discuss each word and verse in the selection and time, as well, to pursue certain lines of reading and response around the group until the verses seem to have stimulated several lines of interpretation and all participants have had time to voice their insights. The texts are brought into conversation with one another, so that the conversation builds between the participants and between the texts. A non-intrusive but skilled facilitator will often find it helpful to keep two or more of the compelling lines of interpretation going. We call

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such lines “scriptural reasonings,” since they tend to display what we consider the entire group’s lines of reasoning about a given perspective on a given verse or passage. In many group sessions over years of SR practice by many different kinds of readers, we have noticed that the “reasonings” that emerge from study circles show the influence of each tradition, of each discipline of study (if the participants are teachers or students of such disciplines), and of each participant’s reading style. But we have also observed that, if a group is well-facilitated, no one of these voices and approaches dominates the reasonings and that each pattern of reasoning belongs to no one tradition or discipline. Each of these reasonings “belongs” to the specific SR group that generated it and to all the texts being studied: each is in this sense an “Abrahamic scriptural reasoning,” neither Jewish nor Muslim nor Christian alone, but an expression of what readers from all three traditions may generate, together. It is a direction of reasoning to which each different opinion or claim has made its contribution. The reasoning “belongs” to the group and its intersections: it is beyond individual owners. It is a movement across the borders of each individual and each tradition but preserving the particularities of each. It is important to note that participants may not share the same reading of any verse. The reasoning does not present a group “opinion” about some scriptural belief or ethic or theo-political challenge. The goal of SR is not to articulate a consensus or “position statement” on “how the Abrahamic traditions may agree.” The process of group reading and reasoning is an end in itself: an instance of shared inter-Abrahamic study and reasoning that is multivocal. But the process is generative in that it creates circles of fellowship that continue beyond a given session of reading. It also tends to open new insights into each canon and new levels of understanding, however tentative, across canonical borders. These fellowships and openings are among the expanding, rippling effects of SR study: effects of peace, we hope, not in the sense of agreement or consensus, but of growth in bonds – or even the faintest tissue – of relationship, communication, a sense of more deeply overlapping commitments to the ways and mysteries of the Creator and the mysterious ways of love. As a Muslim participant in SR, I (Homayra) take inspiration from traditional Sufi and Illuminationist1 ideas of knowledge and being. According to significant intellectual currents within the Sufi tradition, our existence itself is relational. That is, we exist only in relationship to Being, and real dialogical human relationship is how we experience that existence in relation. We are only alive in relation. In dialogical relationship, we seek to know the other. In the Illuminationist tradition, real knowledge of another does not function according to a subject-object dichotomy. Knowledge by correspondence can never grasp the reality of the other. Real knowledge is an experiential mode of cognition. This is knowledge through presence (huzur), when absorption in witnessing the other is so complete that no perception of witnessing remains. Presence and witnessing express a mode of knowing that leads to an illuminative experience of reality in the other: in that relationship, for a brief period, the knower becomes what she knows. The act of witnessing each other does not mean that we must believe in the same things or engage in the same practices. Rather, this moment of profound relationship with one another also brings us to a deeper level of clarity with regard to what differentiates us from each other – a knowledge of difference that does not breed fear, but ignites a desire, a loving curiosity, to understand what is important to the other. In my eyes, this is what it means

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for two people to address each other with Martin Buber’s Thou, rather than view each other as objects to be utilized or possessed. Following Buber, “real community… originates and continually renews itself as a group of people participating in and around a dialogical center” (Kramer 2003, 81). Genuine community cannot be based only on our feelings about a particular person, but rather arises through the willingness to enter into a transformative relationship. But this type of relationship, according to Buber, does not come about just through institutionalized social relations or collective action, which in the end, is still the pursuit of a need or interest. Rather, it comes about through real listening. For genuine listening to occur, there must not only be the I (the dialogical person), the Thou (the unique other) but also the “between” – the realm of the interhuman. True existential relationship is found in that interhuman space (Ibid. 76-7). This space cannot arise without a living center (an Eternal Thou). Each participant creates a dialogical relationship with the center, and consequently, with each other. For Muslims, this is reminiscent of Sufi orders centered on a living teacher; the presence of the teacher, which brings the sacred into the world, is the Thou through which each disciple relates fully to the other. In the practice of SR, the Thou, the living center, is the text. Finally, these truly dialogical relationships are, for most of us, brief flashes – SR, practiced over a period of time, creates the conditions for these to occur. Scriptural reasoning was first practiced among groups of scholars, or, more recently seminarians, graduate students and chaplains – that is, groups with training or expertise in at least one of the sacred texts in questions. In the past five or more years, however, SR has been introduced, increasingly, to “grass roots” members of local communities and congregations and to student groups, from secondary schools to universities. While university chaplains have unique access to all of these potential participants, college-aged students are, of course, of primary concern to them. During our NACUC conference, participants expressed considerable interest, for example, in discussing the ethical dimension of engaging college-age students in scriptural text study. How do we meet the challenge that, while students may hold one or more of these texts sacred, we cannot assume any specific level of expertise, proficiency, or even familiarity with any scriptural tradition? Are we sensitive to the fact that the college years are a delicate time in the spiritual formation of individual students? Can we facilitate SR study groups in a way that attends to the sensitivities, at once, of students from secular backgrounds and from religiously traditional families? Students who have recently been dislocated from their birth-families may be uniquely challenged by the intensity of inter-religious study and conversation. To introduce textual resources for responding to such questions, we chose the theme “Commanding Love/Obedience to God” for our SR study sessions at the NACUC conference. We felt this issue would be of particular interest to chaplains, and even more so to chaplains in a college or university setting, who are working with an age group that may not react well to commandments of any sort! As students face periods of questioning and crises of faith, and chaplains are given the charge of guiding them through these encounters, can young people be commanded to love God? Commanded to love others? What does command mean? Is there wisdom in commanding?

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From Tanakh (Hebrew Scriptures), for example, we examined such texts as Deuteronomy 6:

1 These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 2 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. 3 Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you. 4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. 10 When the LORD your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, 11 houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied, 12 be careful that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery (New International Version).

From out of the twelve circles of study at the conference (with about nine folks in each circle), we heard such dialogues on Deuteronomy as this one:

• “How can love be commanded? What will students say about that?” • “But this is a command of the heart, like ‘love me!’” • “But are we not free to say yes or no to love?” • “But this is a different beloved, is it not? An infinite one, whom one loves as life.” • “Does one not have to be within this religion to read the text that way?” • “Perhaps each student-reader would have a different yet parallel way of speaking

about this love of life.” Among the other questions that were deeply explored: what does it mean to love God with “strength”? Why is love expressed in such an embodied manner? What is the relationship between love of God and action in this world? What is the ethical import of receiving from God in return "good things you did not provide” and “wells you did not dig”? From the Qur’an, we examined such texts as Surah al-Najm 53: 33-62:

33[Prophet], consider that man who turned away: 34he only gave a little and then he stopped.35Does he have knowledge of the Unseen? Can he see [the Hereafter]?

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36Has he not been told what was written in the Scriptures of Moses 37and of Abraham, who fulfilled his duty: 38that no soul shall bear the burden of another; 39that man will only have what he has worked towards; 40that his labour will be seen 41and that in the end he will be repaid in full for it;42that the final goal is your Lord;43that it is He who makes people laugh and weep; 44that it is He who gives death and life; 45that He Himself created the two sexes, male and female, 46from an ejected drop of sperm; 47that He will undertake the second Creation; 48that it is He who gives wealth and possessions; 49that He is the Lord of Sirius; 50that it was He who destroyed, in their entirety, ancient ‘Ad 51and Thamud, 52and before them the people of Noah who were even more unjust and insolent; 53that it was He who brought down the ruined cities 54and enveloped them in the punishment He ordained for them? 55Which then of your Lord's blessings do you deny? 56This is a warning just like the warnings sent in former times. 57The imminent Hour draws near 58and only God can disclose it. 59Do you [people] marvel at this? 60Why do you laugh instead of weeping? 61Why do you pay no heed? 62Bow down before God and worship! (trans. Abdel Haleem 2008)

From out of the study circles, we heard such dialogues as this one:

• “It seems to me that this command is connected to God’s role as Creator, God’s complete control, and the unpredictability of God and the final Hour. Where is our autonomy?”

• “But it is up to each individual to realize this relationship for herself, and a

promise is given that each soul will be repaid for what she has worked towards. Therein lies the power of human beings.”

• “But we need guidance in order to love – does that mean we cannot love of our

own volition? Why do we need to be “warned?””

• “Perhaps we need to discover the love that was always there. We are being warned about a lack of seriousness towards the importance of this short life as a tool for discovery. Even while humans are commanded to weep instead of laugh, God is the one that creates the laughter and the weeping… Worship creates awareness of the hidden workings of God – or perhaps, God is to be found in the act of worship…”

Discussions of this kind ranged over broad expanses of opinion and belief and reading and response. There was significant energy, some perplexity, many opinions and many discoveries. Our own two sets of ears also heard something else that was displayed not within individual opinions, but through the patterns of interaction among all the texts and around each circle of study: That the deepest responses to the questions we raised earlier – about the ethics of sharing SR with undergraduates – are offered through the very activity of scriptural study and fellowship more than through the specific text readings and interpretations offered by individual participants. If SR is to serve the good, then it must be facilitated and nurtured in a way that moves each circle of study to

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offer open and caring hospitality to each and all participants: the religious and the non-religious, from this background and that, the learned and the not so learned. The “formula” for such study is simple: a table, chairs, two or more sets of texts from the different canons, some variety of participants, a sensitive facilitator (or two), a spirit of respect for all texts on the table and trust that, however challenging the verses may at times appear, persistent and open dialogue and careful word by word study will in time – we pray! – open each fellowship of study to mutual care and friendship and open each participant to the possibility of simultaneous affection (at the very least, deep respect) for the wisdoms he or she brought to the study and those encountered anew around the table of study.

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Bibliography Abdel Haleem, M.A.S. The Qur’an: A New Translation. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. 2008. International Bible Society. Holy Bible, New International Version. 1984. Kramer, Kenneth Paul and Mechthild Gawlick, Martin Buber’s I and Thou: Practicing Living Dialogue (New York: Paulist Press, 2003), 81. Ziai, Hossein. “Suhrawardi.” in Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman, ed., History of Islamic Philosophy. Routledge History of World Philosophies. Vol. 1. Routledge: New York. 1996. Notes 1 The Illuminationist, or Ishrāqī, tradition was founded by the Persian philosopher Shihāb al-Dīn Yahya Suhrāvardī (d. 1191). It is argued that Suhrāvardī conceived Ishrāqī philosophy “as a distinct, systematic philosophical construction designed to avoid the logical, epistemological and metaphysical inconsistencies which [he] perceived in the Peripatetic philosophy of his day” (Ziai 1996, 438).

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A Christian Vision for Faith Among Other Faiths By Samuel Wells

Six months ago I took part in the Undergraduate Convocation welcoming the class of 2013 to Duke University. The 1700 students introduced by the Dean of Undergraduate Admissions to the University President came from no less than 50 different countries. Duke really is becoming a global university. There was a time when your typical Duke student was from a white, Southern, mainline Protestant stable. No longer. A year ago I went to talk to the InterVarsity undergraduate group. I’d prepared a talk about the different ways to address the history of black and white in Durham, and the interlocking complexities of race and class. I walked in to find a room of perhaps 80% Asian faces. I had no idea what my conventional Southern heartsearchings about race and class meant to them. And that’s just the Christians. Once we add in the full diversity of faiths, we discover that Duke is changing faster than anyone can keep up with. My role at the university is to articulate a Christian faith that relishes the new world that is rapidly emerging, and to imagine a future for a broadly mainline Christian expression beyond the assumptions of a cultural dominance that is becoming philosophically untenable as fast as it is becoming socially invisible, regardless of whether it was ever theologically defensible or missiologically helpful. I’m glad to share that work in progress with you today. I’ve talked in other settings about a vision for interfaith or multifaith interactions. Today I want to speak as a Christian – not because I believe the Christian take on these things is the only one that matters or even the beginning of a wider conversation, but simply because a Christian is what I am and my motivation for being in the conversation comes from my Christian convictions and not from some broad administrative or spiritual agenda. I’m going to begin by suggesting what stake Christians have in the notion of faith. I shall use that as a platform from which to survey some fairly conventional, one could say tired, models of interaction with other faiths. From there I shall make a constructive proposal for how Christians might conceive of their relationship with non-Christian people of faith, before finishing with some practical examples of the forms of interaction that might arise. A Christian Notion of Faith

When Christians speak of faith they generally mean three distinct, but not separate, things. I want to dwell briefly on each one. First of all they mean a tradition of historical events, centered on the presence of God the holy Trinity among us in Jesus Christ, the centripetal force in whom all the promises of Israel found their yes, and the centrifugal force from whom the Holy Spirit carried the good news to all the world. That good news was that in the Incarnation God had shown his resolve never to be except to be for us and with us in Christ. In his passion and death, Christ had shown there was no dimension of human life he was not prepared to reach and no depth of human sin he was not committed to redeem. In Christ’s resurrection, God had shown that sin, death and the devil had no abiding hold

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on our lives or imaginations, and that the end of all things was life with God, creation restored. In the sending of the Spirit and the empowering of the church, God had given us access to the three aspects of salvation Christ had made forever possible: forgiveness, healing, and eternal life. The presence of those things named, more than anything else, the living presence of Christ in the world. That is, more or less, what is often called the deposit of Christian faith. If faith first means the past it second means the future. Faith means a confidence that the new creation that God has promised will be a living reality in which all that has been rejected or downtrodden will be woven back into the design, that all discordant notes will be blended into a rich harmony, that there will be a banquet at which all may come to eat as God’s companions. In particular it means that death is not the end of hope, but that beyond the dying of our light, God will remake each one of us, as a heavenly body, out of all in us that has in this life turned to him. In the meantime, faith names a certain notion of providence that, often despite the appearance of failure, suffering, and betrayal, trusts that all things work together for good if one lives in the rhythm of God’s good time. Secure in the heritage of historic events and the destiny of future promises, faith means to the ordinary Christian third a mode of living: abiding in the present. Ephesians 6 refers to the “shield of faith.” A shield doesn’t stop bad things happening, it doesn’t prevent you being attacked, it doesn’t usually change the external reality that much. But it keeps your heart pumping and your life going and your spirits vigorous even when the slings and arrows of favor and fortune would otherwise destroy you. The present tense of faith means the grace to live without the need to have secrets about the past (because sins are forgiven) or fears about the future (because eternal life is promised). Faith is the freedom to be fully alive outside the prison of the past or the dungeon of the future. It is not effort expended but energy released, not an achievement to be grasped but a gift to be received. It exists definitively as infectious joy. I’ve taken the time to outline these three overlapping dimensions of faith because I believe, when Christians imagine and discover what it means to have faith alongside people of other faiths, all three need to be borne in mind. So, for example, a common concern for Christians is whether those whose faith is not shaped around what God has done in Christ can be saved. This sounds initially like it is a conversation about the first kind of faith, the historical events, but in fact it’s really a conversation about the second kind of faith, the future promises. The trouble is, no amount of millennial speculation or rapturous research can avoid the fact that Christian faith in the future, while full of conviction, is imprecise in its details. Christians become very exercised on the questions of who gets to heaven and how Christ’s atoning work gets them there but tend to fall silent on the specifics of what heaven is actually like. There are two difficulties in the tendency to focus interfaith questions in this future dimension of faith. First one can become embarrassed when pushed to articulate parts of the faith that have never been made fully explicit; second one can seem ungenerous in being so certain that no one but people like oneself can find salvation, and this lack of grace seems to stand in contradiction to what I described earlier as the present dimension of faith, a life characterized by generosity and joy. To take an alternative example, other Christians tend to focus on this third (present-tense) dimension of faith, whether conceived of as generosity and joy or as

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justice and liberation. This often evokes an uncritical eagerness to regard one kind of joy or liberation as being as good as another, and a tendency to see the first dimension of faith, the historical tradition, as a burden and an encumbrance rather than an identity-forming gift. So Christians can face a corresponding pair of difficulties in their inclination to focus interfaith questions in this present dimension of faith. First, one can seem to treat eternal salvation as a device that can simply be secured through goodwill, appearing not so much to stress the universality of Christ’s saving work as to deny the necessity of his atoning death; and second one can seem so eager to be inclusive and to elide the specifics of historic traditions that one’s articulations of faith can lose their moorings in the first, historic dimension of faith almost altogether. The perpetual call to leave our differences aside and go and do service projects together is commendable to the extent that the service projects are beneficial to the recipients and that it is easier to make relationships while doing something worthwhile. But it risks the conclusion that service projects alone are what faith is fundamentally about – a suspicion to which an overemphasis on faith in the present could easily give rise. I’m all for interfaith service projects, but I’m keen to stress that such projects should be an expression of faith and an opportunity for creative conversations around practice and tradition, rather than a substitute for faith. It is for these reasons that, in contrast to one tendency to be over-determined by the future dimension of faith and another inclination to be over-characterized by the present dimension of faith, I believe interfaith dialogue must, for Christians, be rooted in the first, historic, dimension as I have described it. The Christian faith is an existential and pragmatic reality and a dynamic anticipation of an in-breaking future. But before it is those things it is a tradition passed from the saints to the present day and recorded definitively in the scriptures. Only that historic tradition offers guidance in relation to the potential self-deceptions of the present and the potential false hopes of the future. It is with that heritage and specifically with those scriptures that interfaith dialogue should not necessarily end, but certainly begin. Some Conventional Portrayals of other Faiths I expect you know the story of the shipwrecked traveler who was washed up on a desert island and met the conventional solitary hairy resident occupying a small hill of sand with nothing but a palm tree and two buildings on it. The traveler says, “I’m impressed to see that one of the two buildings on your island is a place of worship. Tell me what the other one is.” “That’s the place of worship I wouldn’t be seen dead in,” said the permanent resident. The conventional view among Christian approaches to other faiths is to make a threefold distinction between exclusivist, inclusivist, and pluralist views. Exclusivists quote Jesus’ words in John 14.6, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” and take them to mean Christianity represents the only true religion. Other religions may express some truths, but only Christianity embodies the truth. Inclusivists are inclined to believe the saving work of Christ can apply to adherents of other faiths, particularly ones whose lives have been ones of integrity and truth-seeking. Inclusivism is perennially associated with Karl Rahner’s term “anonymous Christian,” given to those who seem to represent high Christian ideals

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within other faith traditions. Pluralists assume that all the major religions provide equally valid paths to salvation. No one tradition is superior to any other: each has sacred rituals, holy people, and a commitment to love God and one another. It should be clear from what I have said so far that this conventional threefold distinction is inadequate for the task it is generally given. The principal reason for this is that it assumes as normative what I earlier called the second or future dimension of faith, and, while it makes reference to the third or present dimension, it is largely silent about the first dimension, the heritage of tradition. And yet, as I have already suggested, it is this first dimension that is the bedrock of Christian identity. Without it, Christianity is bound to seem an assortment of arbitrary and culture-dependent conventions concerning mutual well-being and eternal survival. If one looks in any detail into the specific and in some cases historically-grounded convictions in different religious traditions, focusing on personal salvation quickly becomes absurd, because different traditions have profoundly differing notions of the nature of the human condition from which persons are to be saved, profoundly differing perceptions of the God who is taken to be doing the saving and of the divine action that constitutes the saving, and profoundly differing visions of the blessed state that constitutes the result of that saving action or process. Focusing narrowly on personal salvation distorts other faiths and at the same time offers an impoverished account of Christianity, which is much more than simply a mechanism for achieving postmortem survival. Jesus ceases to be the overflowing of God’s love and becomes a first century Rambo figure on an undercover operation to get a bunch of souls out of earth before sundown. Providence ceases to be the rolling down of God’s righteousness like a never-failing stream and becomes a complex forensic equation of how many souls can be squeezed into heaven with the aid of the four spiritual laws. When trying to understand Christianity, at least as much as other faiths, personal salvation is not the place to begin – or end. Beneath this urge to commend such a typology lies a sociological or philosophical desire to designate some sphere of human action or conviction as “religion.” I don’t believe Christianity has any particular stake in being regarded as one among a broader genus called “religions,” nor do I believe it should self-consciously engage in a beauty parade in which it presents itself as the best in such a genus. I’m broadly agnostic on the question of whether there is such a generic thing as “religion” that Buddhists and Christians have in common. I’m inclined to be suspicious, because I sense that to accept that Buddhists and Christians are both part of a more overarching area of human culture called “religion” risks subscribing to a self-definition that renders both of them irrelevant. Religion, in this sense, generally means a set of behaviors, moral norms and practices that connect individuals and groups with some sense of security about life beyond death. Again, the emphasis is generally on the second and to a lesser extent the third dimension of faith described earlier. The irreducible distinctiveness of Christianity lies, however, primarily in the first dimension, the historic tradition. But in order to conform to a general definition of religion, each faith tradition is always likely to be asked to elide the parts of its identity that are unique. The subtle agenda here is that religion becomes an aspect of culture that by definition has no purchase on any kind of truth that has an existential bearing on political reality. The state deals with matters of the mind and the body, and the religious people deal with matters of the soul (if it even exists). I sometimes tease our Jewish,

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Buddhist, Muslim, Catholic, Hindu, and Mormon campus ministers at Duke that they know, and I know, that we’re all liberal Protestants really. That’s not some kind of “anonymous Presbyterian” doctrinal claim, it’s the naming of a tacit acceptance that if they want access to the university’s resources and meeting space and goodwill, they have to accept at least in practice a set of liberal Protestant assumptions – that faith is primarily an articulation of inner dispositions and feelings, that it’s best to be sheepish (at least publicly) about making converts, that it’s terrific to put a lot of energy into service projects, and that none of us constitute a significant ideological challenge to the campus or national political status quo. Tick all those boxes, and you get to be called a religious group. The fact that incarnational Christianity, for example, makes almost diametrically opposite claims about the body, suffering, and death to claims and understandings upheld by most forms of Buddhism ends up being neither here nor there. To suggest that these faith traditions are two diverse manifestations of a fundamentally unitary phenomenon seems to me to be bending those traditions out of recognizable shape for some purpose that is not designed to serve either. It’s a purpose that is often taken to be harmless or affirming but of which I am suspicious. A Constructive Proposal for Faith among the Faiths It will by now be clear that I sense that if Christians find conventional models for addressing other faiths inadequate they do so for good reasons. To make a constructive claim for what might be a more appropriate understanding of other faiths requires three things. It requires a succinct perception of where other faiths belong in Christian theology. It requires a portrayal of the attitude of mind and motivation with which Christians might enter conversations across faith boundaries. And it requires suggestions for what such interaction might practically involve. Let’s start with where other faiths belong in Christian theology. I want to read you some familiar words from Matthew’s gospel.

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage." When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: 'And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.'" (Mt 2.1-6)

The wise men are one of the most vivid portrayals in the New Testament of honest seekers after truth coming from beyond the faith of Israel. Leaving aside the camels, the attempt to wedge Luke’s shepherds and Matthew’s wise men into the same timeframe, and all the customary paraphernalia of the Christmas story, look for a moment at the shape of what happens here. People of integrity come a long way – a very long way – using the best scientific and devotional materials available to them. That journey from

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the East characterizes a Christian perception of what it might mean for non-Christians to make a sincere search for truth. But crucially these sages make their way to Jerusalem. In Jerusalem they are exposed to, note this, the historic deposit of faith constituted by God’s revelation to Israel. Through exposure to that unique and irreplaceable revelation, they discover that the Messiah is to be born in Bethlehem. Here is a pattern to guide our perceptions of science and other faiths. Wisdom can get people to Jerusalem – in other words, can in some sense get a sense of what is meant by the God of Israel; but only revelation can get them to Bethlehem – to the God of Jesus Christ, made known as a tiny, vulnerable, needy baby. Research, study, prayer, meditation, discipline, searching, science can get you to Jerusalem; but only revelation can get you to Bethlehem. Bethlehem with its vulnerable God in human flesh and its anticipation, in the magi’s gifts, of his future suffering, is an emblem of what is unique about Christianity. This is my frustration with those who argue so loudly for intelligent design and other such attempts to shore up the historicity of the Bible. Such efforts seem all about getting us all to Jerusalem. But what’s the good in that? The heart of the Christian faith is not, in this sense, in Jerusalem. The heart of the Christian faith is in Bethlehem. Christians have little or no stake in arguing that there is a God, unless that claim is accompanied by witness that this is a God who has shaped his life never to be except to be for us and with us in Christ. And the shape of that witness comes in the manger at Bethlehem. Here we discover the humanity of God, here we see the profound vulnerability of the incarnate savior, here God is placed in our hands. What saves us, in Christian terms, is not that any person went to the cross; it is that this person, this man born without a home, soon a refugee, raised among humble Jewish folk, this person went to the cross. That is what Bethlehem represents. Arguments for the existence of God tell us none of that. Let’s look at a second familiar story, this time a story about wisdom from 1 Kings 3.16-27:

Two women who were prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. The one woman said, "Please, my lord, this woman and I live in the same house; and I gave birth while she was in the house. Then on the third day after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth. We were together; there was no one else with us in the house, only the two of us were in the house. Then this woman's son died in the night, because she lay on him. She got up in the middle of the night and took my son from beside me while your servant slept. She laid him at her breast, and laid her dead son at my breast. When I rose in the morning to nurse my son, I saw that he was dead; but when I looked at him closely in the morning, clearly it was not the son I had borne." But the other woman said, "No, the living son is mine, and the dead son is yours." The first said, "No, the dead son is yours, and the living son is mine." So they argued before the king. … So the king said, "Bring me a sword," and they brought a sword before the king. The king said, "Divide the living boy in two; then give half to the one, and half to the other." But the woman whose son was alive said to the king--because compassion for her son burned within her--" Please, my lord, give

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her the living boy; certainly do not kill him!" The other said, "It shall be neither mine nor yours; divide it." Then the king responded: "Give the first woman the living boy; do not kill him. She is his mother."

It’s hard to imagine anything that could be dearer to oneself than one’s own newborn child. Solomon perceives that the true mother would rather part with the child than see it die, because love is expressed in mercy more than in a brutal form of justice. But is not faith as dear to the believer as one’s own dearest relative? Is that not what baptism means – that one is engrafted into Jesus in such a way that one cannot imagine being separated from Jesus any more than one could imagine consenting in the death of one’s child? I want you to think about eclectic faith as being like the woman in the story who said "It shall be neither mine nor yours; divide it." How could one imagine creating a hybrid faith made out of choice highlights from the world’s religions? Is such a cocktail not a sign that, like this second woman in the story, one is not truly inscribed into any one of them? Can we not read this story as nudging us, provoking us, stretching our imaginations to perceive that it would be better, from a Christian perspective, that someone be a wholehearted follower of a faith other than Christianity than that they pursue no faith or that they strive to mix a cocktail of whatever tastes good with ice and a slice of lemon? Again I want to underline the fundamental first (or historical) dimension of faith. These precious details of the origins of Christian convictions are not ones that Christians are in a position to give away or divide or barter over. It is quite possible to imagine discussing the quality of a religious experience or the implications of a social commitment in the present tense in a way that was deeply appreciative an admiring of another faith tradition: but the heritage of faith is more like the baby. One cannot take a sword to the heritage of Israel, the transformation in Jesus, and the emergence of the church in the power of the Spirit and somehow hope to emerge with the best bits. Our brief exploration of these stories of the wise men and the two women underline what I earlier maintained: that Christians have no particular stake in affirming a generic notion of faith-in-general. Such an affirmation risks being a distraction, since, as we saw in the wise men story, it’s liable to direct attention to Jerusalem rather than Bethlehem; or meanwhile it is in danger of making the subject of Christianity the believer rather than the God of Jesus Christ. This is the lesson of the story of the two women: if an undue effort is made to affirm the convictions of both women, the baby dies. Only when there is a risk of the faith of Jesus Christ being removed in favor of a generic claim of “everybody is right” does the genuine cry of faith shout up. Our third story comes from Exodus 3.21-2, where God is telling Moses how he will deliver his people:

I will bring this people into such favor with the Egyptians that, when you go, you will not go empty-handed; each woman shall ask her neighbor and any woman living in the neighbor's house for jewelry of silver and of gold, and clothing, and you shall put them on your sons and on your daughters; and so you shall plunder the Egyptians.

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This is how my colleague Paul Griffiths speaks of Origen of Alexandria’s use of this passage. He says this treasure

is indeed treasure, but it is treasure whose proper use was not known to the Egyptians; only the Israelites, guided by God’s wisdom, could know that the Egyptian gold should be made to make objects devoted to the worship of YHWH. But Origen goes on to say that Egyptian gold is a dangerous thing: it can be used to ornament the worship of YHWH, but it can also be used to create idols.…

It seems, from Origen’s use of the metaphor of Egyptian gold, that pagan philosophy – and, by extension, non-Christian religious wisdom – is something that Christians lack and need. (Paul Griffiths, “Seeking Egyptian Gold: A Fundamental Metaphor for the Christian Intellectual Life in a Religiously Diverse Age,” The Cresset 63/7 (2000) 5-16.) Griffiths’ comments on the contemporary significance of this metaphor are worth quoting, because they exactly coincide with the recommendations I shall be making later in my lecture. Griffiths says,

the gold of the Egyptians is precious, desirable, to be sought with eagerness. We are therefore motivated to grapple with, to probe, to explore, and to ingest, the particulars of the religiously alien in all their alien specificity, because it is precisely in those specificities that we will find – if we can find – the precious things we seek, even though we don’t know as we seek them just what they are or what we’ll do with them when we’ve found them.

Griffiths suggests a prime way to do this in an intellectual vein is through textual commentary – through Christians writing commentaries on sacred texts of other faith traditions. This is a very rare thing. Griffiths says it’s rare because

we think we know what we’ll find [there], and so we’re disinclined to look closely. Theological conservatives tend to think they’ll find a tissue of error and idolatry, and so they don’t look at particulars. Theological liberals tend to think that they’ll find lots of what Christians already know – which is true and good, of course – and so they don’t bother to look, either.

And this brings us to the company we keep when we take up the task of searching for Egyptian gold and entering interfaith dialogue expecting to be surprised by joy. The Gifts of Strangers I have questioned the assumption that Christians talk with people of other faiths because there is a common core, named faith, religion, humanity, civilization, or consciousness that we all share. On such a view the more we talk with one another, the closer we get to the one thing we are all searching for. But if faith is not, for Christians,

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the end of searching, but the lost sheep’s acceptance of being found, this motivation is based on a false description. Another, more fashionable, view, is that we have to talk to one another or we shall all end up killing each other. This is not just a reference to events that are very much in the imaginations of all of us in recent years. This is in light of the widespread assumption, embedded in European and North Atlantic culture at least since the seventeenth century, that religion and violence are inherently linked. I often say to our 25 religious life groups at Duke that the way we relate to each other as friends and respectful colleagues across religious boundaries is our witness to the campus that that 350 year old story is not true – in other words that religion and violence are not integrally related to one another. But I want to commend to you a third, and apparently more modest, motivation for being part of a conversation with non-Christian believers. It is simply for people to be profoundly enriched by the gifts that come from the stranger. Christians enter the conversation expecting to be given gifts. What Christians learn in their tradition is that they depend first of all on God and secondarily on the community of faith; but they also depend on the stranger. Let me give some examples – examples that are drawn from the heritage of Christian faith, what I earlier called the “deposit.” Israel showed its faithfulness to God in its openness not only to the orphan and the widow – but also to the alien. The Old Testament is a litany of testimony to the way the stranger brings unexpected gifts to the people of God. Melchizedek brings out bread and wine and offers a blessing to Abraham, and thus becomes a kind of archetypal member of another faith, like the wise men in Matthew. Pharaoh is the foreigner who feeds Jacob’s family through the famine. Balaam offers Israel a blessing in the sight of her enemies. Ruth epitomizes the faith and faithfulness of the stranger. Achish of Gath hides David when he is being pursued by Saul. The Queen of Sheba is the world’s recognition of the wisdom and wonder of Solomon. Cyrus opens the way for the Jews to return from Exile. In the Book of Esther, Ahasuerus saves the Jews, after some lapses of judgment, from the genocide plotted by the menacing Haman. Israel’s story cannot be told without such people of other traditions and cultures of faith. Meanwhile when the genealogy of Jesus comes to be written, names like the non-Israelite Rahab are indelibly inscribed within it. Central to the reception of Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom are a series of foreigners who understand it better than those to whom the gospel is first proclaimed. Jesus says of the centurion whose servant he is asked to heal, “Not even in Israel have I found such faith.” Jesus heals ten lepers, but it’s only the Samaritan that turns back to thank him and praise God. It’s the Syrophoenician woman who insists that if Jesus can feed the Jews and have many baskets of crumbs left over, there must be plenty crumbs enough to feed the Gentiles. Cornelius is the one whose visit from an angel pushes the Church into revising its understanding of Gentile faith. And it’s in the figure of a Samaritan that Jesus tells his followers that they should see the model of a good neighbor. What this multitude of examples shows is that there never has been a Christianity that is not dependent on the stranger – particularly the stranger of a different faith tradition – for wisdom, example, revelatory moments or even its very survival. In the first half of my lecture I was eager to stress what interfaith dialogue is not: it is not the

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convergence on a consensus. But in this second half I am just as eager to emphasize what interfaith dialogue is: it is the opportunity for Christians to receive unexpected gifts from strangers, as their forebears have done, so many times before them. A Proposal for the Form Dialogue Might Take In this concluding part of my lecture I want to suggest how Christians may configure interfaith dialogue in such a way that they may be best placed to receive gifts from strangers. These gifts are of broadly three kinds. The scrutiny of strangers pushes Christians to identify, clarify, articulate and refine their own traditions, convictions, and hopes. The faith of strangers challenges Christians’ imagination, practice, and truth-claims and offers opportunities to discover wisdom and insight in unexpected places. The company of strangers creates occasions for Christians to receive blessing from the generosity, dignity, courage and humility disclosed when the Holy Spirit chooses to grow fruits whose provenance Christians haven’t already prejudged. These three kinds of gifts lead to three kinds of activity: being present, listening, and journeying together. I want to say a few words about each one. (1) Being present to one another. Interfaith dialogue is not between one –ism and another; it is between one people and another, one person and another, one Christian, one Muslim, one Hindu. The first step in dialogue is to establish what it means to be present to one another. It is natural for Christians to propose that the form of being present be sharing a meal together, since it is at the heart of Christian experience that Christ is made known in the breaking of bread. Sharing food discloses significant dimensions of many faith traditions and provides a suitable opportunity for the beginning of interfaith conversations, since food is so close to perceptions about the source and destiny of life. Interfaith dialogue requires people to set aside time simply to be present to one another with no agenda beyond that which makes it easier to be present; for Christians this rests on a conviction that God’s divinity is made present in our humanity. It is best to be with a small enough group that each may know one another’s names after the first meeting and expect to become close acquaintances after several meetings. It may well be worthwhile to develop a sequence of themes that address issues of common concern such as war and nature and alcohol and poverty, but these themes are principally ways of focusing what it means to be present and disclose deeper identity, rather than subjects designed to draw out a consensus. (2) Listening and engaging. If the emphasis is to be primarily on faith as a historical tradition, the simplest way to listen to one another is to read sacred texts together. This may be done in more than one way. A text may be introduced by a representative of the tradition from which that text comes and taken as an entry-point into a description of the whole tradition. Several texts may be set alongside one another from different traditions around a common theme, such as the environment. Or each member of the group may together study a single text that derives from one tradition as if it were a sacred text from their own tradition. Such discipline and attention evokes questioning, insight, conflict and discovery of one’s own tradition as well as that of others. On occasion it may be appropriate to do a simpler version of this in public: for example to invite speakers from each of the major global faith traditions to address an issue such as the environmental crisis from within their own tradition before a live

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audience. This is a way of encouraging the sprouting of further dialogue groups as well as demonstrating the fruits of such dialogue in insight and good will. (3) Journeying together. Journeying together is a physical and metaphorical notion. If a group of people can journey together physically, they can gain a better understanding of one another and the destination to which they are headed. Christians see this in Moses’ guiding his people through the wilderness, through Jesus and the disciples’ journey to Jerusalem and Paul’s journey to Rome. A physical journey together, to the local mosque or to Varanasi on the River Ganges, is a perfect way to embody the spirit of humble engagement Christians seek to display in interfaith dialogue. But just as significant is the metaphorical journey that emerges from a personal history of engagement in good and trying times, of joint statements in troubled times and reasoned disagreements on matters of significance, that accumulate a common awareness that these have been conversations that have really mattered. Do these proposals seem modest? Not if one were to ask how many people are actually engaging in them. I’m not proposing a program to be taken up by the United Nations or some grand international body. I’m suggesting something for you and me. We can say we are doing it for the world, if we like, because there is nothing the world needs more than examples of how to sustain reasoned disagreement over issues that evoke passionate expressions among people who have no foundational starting points to fall back on. We can say we are doing it for people of other faiths, if we like, because the Christianity that emerges in generous-hearted dialogue with strangers is offering others what as Christians we believe are the words of eternal life. But I’ll tell you why I’m doing it. I’m not really doing it for the world or for people of other faiths. I’m doing it for me. I am a person in need. I am a person who would like to learn better how to pray, how to live a disciplined life, how to fast, how to meditate, how to be a gracious presence in the life of my neighbor. And I represent a tradition that needs to learn how to bring people of different races together, how to hold diverse opinion within one body, how to break our addiction to violence, how to use power to set people free. These are things I personally and the tradition I represent have to learn. That’s why I’m involved in interfaith dialogue. I’m involved because I believe that God shows me things through people like these. And what I say to them is, thank you for being messengers of God to one another and to me.

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About the Authors Maria Reis Habito is the International Program Director of the Museum of World Religions and the Director of the Elijah Interfaith Institute USA. She studied Chinese Language and Culture at Taiwan Normal University in Taipei from 1979-81 and received her M.A. in Chinese Studies, Japanese Studies and Philosophy at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet in Munich in 1985. She was a research fellow at Kyoto University, Faculty of Letters from 1986-1988 and completed her Ph.D. at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet in 1990. She has taught at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, and has organized many international Interfaith conferences, notably a series of Buddhist-Muslim dialogues. She has published two books in German, and many scholarly articles in English. With Bhikkhuni Liao-yi, she co-edited "Listening: Buddhist-Muslim Dialogues 2002-2004" (Taipei, 2005). Victor Kazanjian is the Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life, Co-director of the Peace and Justice Studies program and director of the Wintersession in India program at Wellesley College as well as the co-founder and president of Education as Transformation Inc. Together with Peter Laurence he is co-editor of Education as Transformation: Religious Pluralism, Spirituality, and a New Vision for Higher Education in America (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2000), Beyond Tolerance: A Campus Religious Diversity Kit (NASPA, 2004) and the Peter Lang book series, Studies in Education and Spirituality (see www.peterlangusa.com). Jim Keen is an executive coach and international organizational consultant. He also served as executive director of the Governor's School of New Jersey, as chairman of the board of the International Center for Integrative Studies, and as dean and vice-president of Antioch College where he was the professor of Cultural and Interdisciplinary Studies. Jim is co-author of Leadership Landscapes (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) and Common Fire: Leading Lives of Commitment in a Complex World (Beacon Press, 1996.) Peter Laurence is the executive director of Education as Transformation, Inc. He has been a leader in and consultant to various national and international interfaith organizations for the past twenty years, having served as chair of the board of the North American Interfaith Network, and as a member of the Assembly for the Parliament of the World’s Religions. Together with Victor Kazanjian, he is co-editor of Education as Transformation: Religious Pluralism, Spirituality, and a New Vision for Higher Education in America (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2000), Beyond Tolerance: A Campus Religious Diversity Kit (NASPA, 2004) and the Peter Lang book series, Studies in Education and Spirituality (see www.peterlangusa.com). Aimee Upjohn Light is the Executive Editor of The Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue™ and Assistant Professor of Theology at Duquesne University. She holds a PhD from Yale University in the philosophy of religion and an MA from Notre Dame in systematic theology. With quite a list of publications and two forthcoming books, one might imagine that she would solely engaged in editing! But because of her experience

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as a leader, she will be chairing the Journal's Department of Outreach and Development. Peter Ochs is Edgar Bronfman Professor of Modern Judaic Studies at the University of Virginia. He co-founded the Society for Textual Reasoning (studies in Jewish textuality and philosophy) and the Society for Scriptural Reasoning (fellowships of inter-Abrahamic scriptural study and interpretation). Among his books are Another Reformation: Postliberal Christianity and the Jews; Peirce, Pragmatism and the Logic of Scripture; Textual Reasonings (co-edited with Nancy Levene); and Renewing the Covenant (with Eugene Borowitz). Glenn B. Siniscalchi is currently a PhD student in systematic theology at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA. His interests are in the relationship between faith and reason, and the theology of religions. He also serves as associate editor of American Theology Inquiry, a biannual journal of theology, culture and history. Paul V. Sorrentino is the Director of Religious Life at Amherst College as well as a regional coordinator with Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. He is ordained with the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference and an adjunct faculty member at Bethel Seminary of the East. He is on the executive committee of the National Association of College and University Chaplains and on the Board of Scholars for the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue. His articles have appeared in the Journal of Ecumenical Studies, the Journal of Chaplaincy in Further Education, the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue, and Student Leadership Journal. His Religious Pluralism was published by VDM Verlag in 2009.

Samuel Wells is Dean of Duke University Chapel and Research Professor of Christian Ethics at Duke Divinity School. Prior to this he served four parishes as a priest in the Church of England from 1991-2005. He has authored numerous articles and several books, including Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics (Brazos; SPCK, 2004); God’s Companions: Reimagining Christian Ethics (Blackwell, 2006); Power and Passion: Six Characters in Search of Resurrection (Zondervan, 2007); Speaking the Truth: Preaching in a Pluralistic Culture (Abingdon, 2008); and Christian Ethics: An Introductory Reader (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). Among volumes he has co-edited are The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics (Blackwell, 2004), with Stanley Hauerwas; and Introducing Christian Ethics (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), with Ben Quash.

Homayra Ziad is Assistant Professor of Religion at Trinity College, where she teaches courses on Islam. Her scholarly interests include intellectual and cultural trends in Muslim South Asia, theoretical Sufism, theologies of pluralism, and Qur’anic hermeneutics. Homayra earned a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies and M.A. in International Relations from Yale University, and a B.A. in economics from Bryn Mawr College. She has published on the Naqshbandi Sufi revivalism of the eighteenth-century Delhi theologian and poet Khwajah Mir Dard. Homayra worked as an Associate at the Chaplain’s Office at Yale and was also the editor of Chowrangi, a quarterly magazine

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devoted to the dissemination of progressive Pakistani and Pakistani-American voices. She has acted as a resource on topics related to Islam for media outlets such as Voice of America, BBC Radio Asian Network, Boston Globe, India New England and Jane Magazine. She has also organized and taken part in interfaith initiatives and educational outreach on faith. In this capacity, Homayra is involved in the practice of Scriptural Reasoning and on the Board of Advisors of the SR Society.