SEA OF INTER-FAITH John MacDonald Smith *‘When I hear any man talk of an unalterable law’’, said Sydney Smith, ‘‘I am convinced that he is an unalterable fool’’. It is becoming increasingly painful to observe in the contemporary religious scene a growing number of unalterable fools who appear to think that religious doctrine is written in stone with an iron pen and that a knee-jerk assertion of the pure milk of the Word is sufficient to disperse the spiritual forces of evil. This activity, which on the analogy of the garden spray may be referred to as the ‘‘spiritual weedkiller’’ approach, ill becomes Christianity and is lacking in respect for other religions.
A good starting point for discussion is to ask why, if the Christian faith is such good news, it is unrecognised as such in its current expression by those, currently outside it, to whom its claims are often forcibly addressed in terms of the purest Catholic tradition or Biblical orthodoxy? Again, why do the protagonists of these “‘unalterable’’ and mutually incompatible neo-orthodoxies often appear to belie the charity they preach, giving the impression that they would quite happily welcome a return to the days when their beliefs could legally be imposed by means of the rack and thumbscrew? Anthony Freeman’s dismissal is relevant here.
Or why does interfaith dialogue frequently degenerate into a crude assertion of his own belief in the superiority of his own religion by each protagonist, accompanied by a resounding deafness to everything the other has to say?
Tight-lipped agreement to differ inevitably follows such triumphalism - a triumphalism which is a direct consequence of the assumption that one’s own personal spiritual prejudices are different from anybody else’s in being immune from correction. Otherwise, religious dialogue would be a sharing; for spiritual insight is not so abundantly dispersed about the world that any individual or group can claim the monopoly of it - though many do.
Church history records that during the fourth century ‘‘the whole world groaned to find itself Arian’? when the Christian community was subjected to a brief take-over bid by those whom the eventual orthodox victors enthusiastically persecuted as heretics. The ex post facto justification for this absolute denial of Christianity was that it was necessary in order to preserve the purity of Christianity. Closer examination of the context of this virulent demonisation of the ‘‘heretic’’ by the ‘‘orthodox’’ will lead the realistically-minded to prefer an explanation in terms of the State connection which by then had been set up, and the mutual back-scratching between Emperor and Church in which the former looked after the interests of the latter in return for the latter’s co-operation in keeping his subjects in order. If Paris was worth a mass, then the privileges of ‘establishment’ were certainly worth a dipthong or two.
Again, that remarkably Machiavellian arch-manipulator and mass-murderer Henry V111 started the Church of England on its separate nationalised path as a pure matter of politics which was subsequently transformed in folklore into a myth of the triumph of truth over the forces of evil. But more than folklore was involved, for the survival of England depended on popular aceptance of a political demonisation of the Papacy reinforced by the previously mentioned rack and thumbscrew. This, by a “trickle-down” effect, has resulted in a modern religious suspicion of the Papacy. (Suspicion may be justifiable, but not for this reason).
There are plenty of examples in the modern world of the developing and as yet unfossilised symbiosis between the religious and socio-political. In the Middle Eastern Arab-Israeli confrontation; within Islam in the Shia-Sunni struggle; between Catholic and Protestant in Ireland and between Orthodox and Catholic and Muslim in the Balkans there can be seen the ‘‘No Surrender’’ mentality which asserts religious truth not because it is true but because it expresses a tribal commitment to social, political and cultural hopes and fear. So much for the ‘““universality’’ of Christianity.
Religious beliefs are not only socially and politically contingent but also intellectually contingent. This has to be so because in any field of knowledge it is necessary to use the terms and concepts about which something is already known, in order to express truth which is becoming known, It was therefore appropriate in the fourth century to describe Jesus as “of one substance with the Father’’, as it is nowadays appropriate to refer to ‘““wave-particle duality’’ when describing electrons and protons in physics. But it must be remembered that these are descriptions - analogies or metaphors - which can outlive their usefulness, and that the truth is rather more elusive. In physics it require the ability to handle advanced mathematics, and in theology it requires the ability to be God, which not all possess, though some think they do.
Contemporary culture in any age dictates the images and metaphors of religious belief and a changing culture dictates changing images and metaphors. Reversing the argument, religious images and metaphors symbolise not only belief but also adherence to a social and political community. Hence a conservative attitude to religious language reveals not only spiritual belief but also the ‘ Possibly the world’s future depends on the success of anew approach to interfaith discussion...’ conservative socio-economic preferences of those who employ such language. Religious conservatism may reveal a quite proper dissatisfaction with the contemporary world but may also express something more undesirable: a Canute-like resistance to change or a pique that the world is not like it once was in some imaginary Eden long ago.
But things change and now religion must come to terms with a world bristling with weapons of mass destruction and pinpoint accuracy, threatened with ecological disaster, and in which money has become the dominant motivating factor. It is a world become smaller; and while in some ways we know each other better, we trust each other a lot less. It is a world which, far from cowering under the threat of external natural disaster against which humanity is helpless, in the developed world at least, man is now the threat. ‘‘The heathen’ to whom ‘‘in his blindness”’ the Christian nations once sent missionaries, having presumably seen the light, wishes them to send him arms.
This change has occurred quite discontinuously during the last half-century and is a consequrence of the impact of the explosive growth of science and technology during that time. It calls in question not only old religious images and metaphors but also the socio-political order with which they were once consistent. It demands a new approach to interfaith discussion. Possibly the world’s future depends on success in this area.
Interfaith dialogue is a necessity in changing times, but it can only be worthwhile if it is a listening dialogue, for confrontation gets nobody anywhere. Hence, there needs to be a recognition on both sides of dialogue of the extent to which people’s attitudes and assumptions differ nowadays from what they were when the great classical religious traditions were hammered out. Secondly, there must be a frank recognition of the wholeness and completeness of the tradition with which one is in dialogue. It is not helpful to the discussion and only leads to confrontation if one enters into it thinking that one’s own tradition is superior because it can supply something which is lacking in the other.
Again, without compromise to one’s own tradition, it can be expected that light will be shed on it by other traditions. Learning about other people’s beliefs actually teaches one something about one’s own. Therefore a Christian is free to accept those insights of the Buddhist or Taoist or Hebrew tradition which shed new light on and develop his own beliefs. Finally, there is the need to keep in mind at all times the truth that all religion is inevitable culturally conditioned. In short, interfaith discussion will concentrate more on the values which doctrines and rites express than on the doctrines and rites themselves. In this way a better understanding can be gained of the offering which ancient wisdom can make to human self-understanding.
Because it has no formal doctrinal system of its own to propagate, SoF is well placed to mediate interfaith communication, helping to unpack the underlying meanings of doctrines and symbolisms of different religions.
Contemporary religious antagonisms the world over might suggest that this is a forlorn hope, but in the longer term this may not be so. The SoF approach to religion as a human creation may become more widely acceptable and it will then become easier to show how similar are the hopes, aspirations and ethical demands of different religious systems. This will help to bring down barriers of the religious fundamentalism and tribalism, so much evident in the world today, which is so destructive of human happiness.
John MacDonald Smith has worked as both a scientist and an Anglican priest.