spiritual wells and religious pluralism

“The spiritual probing of religious pluralism and the drinking from each others’ spiritual wells may be today's great spiritual event, full of significance for human well-being, and for the future of humanity on earth.”

Ursula King The Search for Spirituality p. 75

Religious Pluralism versus Tolerance

Continuing my recent theme of religious tolerance, and why it is not good, and what are the alternatives:

“Eboo Patel is an American Muslim of Indian heritage. Brought up in Chicago, he struggled in his youth with his cultural background and came to understand how different faiths could be the source not only of mutual enrichment but as readily could become mutually exclusive. At school he witnessed religious discrimination at first hand as to his shame he turned away when his Jewish friend was subjected to anti Semitic taunts. Patel was no stranger to bullying himself on account of his faith origins. Most importantly, his own upbringing made him consider the forces that determine whether a youngster follows a route of hatred against the world or takes the alternative and happier route of love and compassion for all. He realized that much depends upon whom you meet when you are at your most impressionable. He saw firsthand that the twenty first century is being dominated not by the color line but by a different line, which he calls the faith line. This, he points out, is no less divisive and no less violent than the color line. The faith line does not divide different faiths, or separate the religious from the secular. This line is divisive between the values of religious totalitarians and the values of the religious pluralists. The former believe that their way is the only way and are prepared to convert, condemn or indeed kill, those who are different, in the name of God. It is this side of the faith line that gives religions a bad press in the eyes of the secular public. The pluralists on the other hand hold that ‘people believing in different creeds and belonging to different communities need to learn to live together in equal dignity and mutual loyalty.’ Pluralism is the belief, Patel explains, ‘that the common good is best served when each community has a chance to make its own unique contribution.’ What Patel soon realized was that the dangerous religious fundamentalism we see around us is nurtured in the young, in the disaffected youth of our day who are taken advantage of and exploited for fundamental political aims. It is those youth of today who fuel the religious conflicts we witness, who martyr themselves while they kill or maim thousands. He also knew that the main faith leaders over the decades who have campaigned for justice and peace, leaders such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King, the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela all started young; they became active while still in their youth.
Inspired by this knowledge Patel saw that there could be no better place to make a start in trying to achieve a harmony and a common good among all America’s variants of religion than with this youth of today, those who will shape and see tomorrow’s world. It was against this background that in 2003 he founded the Chicago based Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC).
The idea of the IFYC was simple. Its mission is to build ‘a global movement of interfaith youth cooperation by generating mass public support for interfaith youth work, equipping youth-focused institutions to positively engage their religious diversity, and nurturing the emerging leaders of this movement.’
This has become an extremely successful organization with a multimillion-dollar budget. It actively involves tens of thousands of religiously diverse young people in projects that are taking the message of religious pluralism to millions across six continents.”

References:

Interfaith Youth Core at www.ifyc.org
Eboo Patel, Acts of Faith: the Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation, Boston: Beacon Press, generally and at p. 61

© Eleanor Stoneham 2011 quoted from Healing this Wounded Earth: with Compassion, Spirit and the Power of Hope, O Books 2011

The Wisdom of Tolerance?

There is an element in the meaning of tolerance that says: OK, I’ll put up with you even though my way is the right way. We talk much about tolerance: tolerance of age, sexual orientation, race or culture or skin colour, and of course religious tolerance.

But is this the right way of looking at things? Not if the underlying agenda is “putting up with”, on the basis that my way is of course the better, healthier, superior, way, the only right way, and you are therefore inferior and wrong in some way.

If we look at tolerance this way, we start off on the wrong foot. I believe all men and women are born equal, with their own unique value and gifts, with inherent worth and dignity. I believe that there is much in all the great religions and faiths to celebrate, to respect, to enjoy. No one religion can claim any kind of high ground.

The Unitarian Universalism movement celebrates the diversity of religious belief, and is guided by seven principles:

1. The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
2. Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
3. Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
4. A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
5. The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
6. The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
7. Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

I doubt whether anyone can seriously disagree with any of those principles.
Do look at their website.
From it I quote: “Our congregations are places where we gather to nurture our spirits and put our faith into action through social justice work, in our communities and the wider world...There is no formal conversion process, so becoming a Unitarian Universalist is simply a matter of self-identification…and does not require renouncing other religious affiliations or practices.”
There is no creed, as individual members are free to explore their own paths to truth.
Now this looks like something worth exploring further.

Building, not Burning, Bridges between Faiths

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.

 

This “Serenity Prayer” as it is popularly called, is generally attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr, one of America’s most distinguished theologians. There is some doubt over the exact history of the prayer, when and where and why it first appeared. Reinhold himself wrote, in the January, 1950 copy of Grapevine, that the prayer "may have been spooking around for years, even centuries, but I don't think so. I honestly do believe that I wrote it myself."

In its Christian prayer form, quoted in The New York Times Book Review, for August 13, 1950, p. 19, it reads as follows:

“O God and Heavenly Father, Grant to us the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be changed; courage to change that which can be changed, and wisdom to know the one from the other, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.”

Now Niebuhr’s great nephew, Gustav Niebuhr, Associate Professor of Religion and the Media, has written an excellent book, Beyond Tolerance: How People across America are Building Bridges Between Faiths.

To quote from the back cover “blurb”: At a time when religious conflict seems to dominate the media, Gustav Niebuhr travelled across America to find people- Buddhists, Catholics, Jews, Baptists, Muslims, Episcopalians – who are all reaching out to find common ground between their faiths.”

And what he found gives us all hope, “a boost of much needed optimism.”

And this is not just about America. The issue is global and the message throughout the book, and the methods used through the different inter-religious organizations, (1000 across America in 2004 and rising), many of which he describes, are of interest and relevance to us all.

“This is such an interesting, well- researched and important book on such a vital topic; it always saddens me that gems such as this seem to command so little interest as compared with the mass of best selling trivia so widely available. We should all care more about the serious issues that are going to affect the future of our families and our world… This should be compulsory reading and on the book- shelf of all those who have an interest in furthering peaceful relationship between faiths, for the building of a healed and better world for us all.” 

This last paragraph is from my full review that can be read at Amazon.com as well as at Amazon.co.uk. Do read the book, whatever your faith or indeed if you have no faith. Despite the dreams of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and others, denouncing religion is as futile as King Canute trying to stop the encroaching waves. Far better to forge understanding and respect, beyond mere tolerance.

The End of Faith; Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason.

I wrote on 31 July about Sam Harris' book, The End of Faith; Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. I have now finished it and find its conclusions unsatisfactory. Another time I will write a more detailed review but for today it is late and I am tired so I will just make one or two points!

I mentioned before how I disliked and questioned his assumption about the link between wars and religion. I also have to take issue with his basic assumption, made very early in the book, and perpetuated throughout, that the sacred texts are nothing but myth and should be dismissed as such in the same way as the Greek myths. "...most of the people in this world," he writes, believe that the Creator of the universe has written a book." ... "Whatever their imagined source," he goes on to say, "the doctrines of modern religions are no more tenable than ...those cast upon the scrap heap of mythology millennia ago; for there is no more evidence to justify a belief in the literal existence of Yahweh and Satan than there was to keep Zeus perched upon his mountain throne or Poseidon churning the seas."
Continually trashing the Holy Bible as fairy tale does little to enhance his credibility, as he thereby ignores the vast theological and archeological knowledge underpinning its writings and its historical truths. I would recommend that he reads some of the many good books available on the subject. He could start with John Bartlett's The Bible; Faith and Evidence, A Critical Enquiry into the Nature of Biblical History.

Interestingly, Harris does understand the need for and existence of, a human spirituality, but he is adamant that this can and indeed must be developed without faith. He senses, he says, that the problem is hopeless, but that if parents and teachers in a single generation simply answered their children's questions honestly, there could be an utter revolution in our thinking, faith and religion would disappear in that generation and the world would be saved.

If that is the only way to save our world, as Harris seems to think, then I really believe the situation is hopeless. I really cannot believe that our faiths and our religions can be abolished so easily. They have a great deal more substance than Harris would like to think. And one cannot abolish deeply held beliefs so easily.

Instead I think we need to do all we can to foster true religious pluralism. The Dalai Lama in his book, Ancient Wisdom, Modern World (Ethics for the New Millennium), finds the idea of a world parliament of religions very appealing.

Harris suggests a world government - how else, he asks, "will a war between the USA and China become as unlikely as a war between Texas and Vermont?" But his vision is devoid of religion and it just will never work.