You know Christians who respond to an increasingly interreligious world by building walls around themselves. They have only Christian friends, hold others at arm's length and make sure what you know about "them" comes from reliable (read: Christian) sources. If you do get face to face with a Jew or Muslim, evangelize them, for that's what God's Word calls you to do.
In the comments, few HuffPost readers are likely to endorse this view as a model for one-on-one relations. But when it comes to Christian institutions, people's response is more equivocal. For example, many assume that future Christian leaders should be trained in exclusively Christian seminaries, among exclusively Christian students. I want to ask: Does this make sense? Is it consistent? The best way to pose the question is to put before you a bold new experiment and to have you evaluate it:
The Experiment
Last June, Claremont School of Theology announced a historic plan to desegregate religious education. Together with a Jewish and a Muslim institution, we would launch a multi-religious university where ministers, rabbis, imams (and other students) would be trained side by side for service to society and the world.
Time Magazine called it a first-ever experiment. Massive media attention ensued. And indeed, our hopes for the new institution were idealistic and ambitious. We sought interreligious partnerships that would diminish conflict between the religions and equip religious leaders to work shoulder-to-shoulder in addressing global problems.
Now that we're a year into the process, we've also learned a few things. The experiment creates fears, fears breed criticisms and criticisms require answers. No, the new university is not post-religious. Nor is it a melting pot in which all religions are fused into one. It's a place where leaders from the different religions study and learn together, always with an eye on making genuine contributions to solving real-world problems.
Stories of Interreligious Dialogue
The biggest surprise has been the positive impact on Claremont School of Theology (CST) as the Christian member of this multi-faith project. We knew CST would participate in the multi-religious university. But we didn't anticipate how much the dialogue would deepen and transform our understanding of the changed role of Christian institutions in a global society. It turns out that the University Project is a mirror that allows us to see our own faith in a new light.
What do we see? A short story best describes it. Last semester the faculty established the "Thursday Soirees," afternoon discussions between faculty members and students. One afternoon a Jewish and a Muslim professor, Santiago Slabodsky and Najeeba Syeed-Miller, were describing distinctively Jewish and Muslim motivations for interreligious dialogue. At one point they turned to the CST students who were present and asked them, "Okay, how would you answer this question from your Christian perspective?" An awkward silence ensued: The students didn't know how to respond. These mainline students were happy to foster interreligious discussions, but they were caught off guard by the request to speak from a distinctively Christian perspective. Suddenly I realized: Entering into the multi-religious experience of the new university may do more to foster deep Christian reflection and Christian identity than would ever happen if the Christian seminary existed only by itself!
This story teaches an important lesson. Contact across the religions actually allows one to think more deeply about what Christian identity means in today's world. (The same applies, of course, for Jews and Muslims.) Each person has to find her own answer to that question, which she can then share both within her own community and in dialogue with other traditions.
What Are Our Sources?
What sources can Christian students draw from? Three in particular come to mind. First, we look at the New Testament with new eyes. We concentrate on the narratives of Jesus as he engaged in his ministry in the world. What were the patterns and values that he expressed? How did he deal with religious difference? The Pauline epistles provide additional perspectives. It turns out that the birth of the church and early forms of Christian identity were formed in complex interactions with alternative religious worldviews. (Look at Acts 17, for example.)
Second, we turn to Christian history and (as a United Methodist-related institution) in particular to the life and teachings of John Wesley. Examples come from the narratives of Wesley's public ministry with those who were outside Christianity, as well as from the early Methodist communities in Britain and the United States. The ways that historic Christian leaders organized and understood themselves are more relevant to the contemporary situation than many people realize.
Third, we learn from emerging Christian communities and emerging forms of ministry today. What some call "the emergent church" actually provides important insights into the complexities of Christian identity in a changing world. With the help of a Ford Foundation grant on "Rekindling Theological Imagination," we have been studying the new models of ministry and Christian leadership and publicizing the results. To date we have sponsored five national conferences on these questions (see bigtentchristianity.com for more information). Our speakers have included Richard Rohr, Marcus Borg, Carol Howard Merritt and other progressive speakers, but also Brian McLaren, Shane Hipps, Derek Webb and a good collection of evangelical speakers. The new Claremont School of Theology will be a place where a renewed sense of Christian identity emerges beyond the old dichotomies.
Conclusion
The shortest way from A to B is not always the best way. There is no need to replace Christian seminaries or Jewish yeshivas with multi-religious universities. That would presuppose that dialogue across difference is a zero-sum game, that succeeding with interfaith collaborations means silencing one's own voice. In fact, the opposite is true. The Claremont University Project is like a lens: the more focused it gets, the more clearly we at the seminary can see what it means to be involved as Christians in multi-faith endeavors.
Our opponents say that inviting other religious voices into theological education will eliminate Christian distinctiveness. But, to their surprise, something different is happening. Our own voices are now becoming more clear and distinct thanks to this partnership with other traditions. It turns out that there is a beautiful symmetry between the Christian seminary and the interreligious university. The more clearly we learn to hear the music of other traditions, the more beautifully we can sing our own song.
Philip Clayton is Interim Vice-President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Claremont School of Theology, as well as Ingraham Professor of Theology. He is the author of 18 books and hundreds of articles, an international leader in the dialogue between science and the world's religions, a scholar on the future of faith, and an activist in emerging Christianity.
Follow Philip Clayton, Ph.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pdclayton7
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The challenge in this issue is, "What is a Christian?" A question with only an individual answer. So too with other religions.
Consider the current movement of some toward non-theistic Christianity. To those who say, "You can't be a Christian and not believe in God." I ask, on what authority do you base that assertion? There is no central Christian authority, only conventional wisdom which is also the basis for creationists view that evolution is only a theory because they don't know the difference between conventional wisdom and scientific fact.
Religion can adapt to a changing world only when it's adherents want it to. Sadly many monotheistic religions are "set" in stone, so change is bad. No matter if the change is something the world around the religion constantly does.
"You are all free to go. Get on with your lives; take all the time, energy, money and effort previously dedicated to religion and find something truly useful to do for the benefit of the earth and your fellow man."
Only by coming to understand that multi-faith isn't any kind of a threat (which, it seems, is the point of this article).
Other religions don't have a tough time with it; no reason Christians should.
"That Which Is, is One; sages speak of it variously."
~Rig Veda
The Rig Veda is the earliest scripture in what is now called Hinduism, and is quite possibly the oldest scripture in existence.
If they understood reality as it is described above that long ago, why should younger religions have such a tough time with it?
"Imagine no religion"
I'm not religious, but, well ..... Amen.
This can also facilitate inter-faith understanding, and help to dissolve some of the social insanity going on currently, with respect to gross misunderstanding about Islam and Muslims, and related expression of bigotry, in the United States.
Simply Put: getting to know people, and a bit about who they are, and how they conceive the world, and actually listening, always does a world of good.
deal with it.
However, much of Christianity, to its detriment, has gotten more and more exclusionary as it has devolved over the centuries.
Ironic, considering Jesus isn't portrayed as having taught that attitude in any way.
When conceptual ideas are deemed to be important ..... trouble ensues.
Love your neighbor as yourself seems simple enough, as a teaching ...... where'd all the confusion many Christians display on this point come from, anyway?
It is a religion founded on fear and hatred masquerading as a false, sugary love--for your own team.
It can't survive any other way.
Pre Council Of Nicea (325 A.D.) .... there were literally hundreds of Gospels, and a very broad spectrum of Christian practice and belief.
The Council Of Nicea first made Christian "doctrine" official, including the specific nature of the divinity of Jesus (since, prior to that council, there was a wide variety of beliefs about Jesus' divinity, and the specifics and exact nature of Jesus' divinity).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea
That's also when the Bible was codified, and all the gospels that didn't reflect official doctrine were axed, and the 66 Books which comprise the Bible today were signed off on as "the word of God", and compiled into one Book (Bible).
Point Being: for its first three hundred years or so ....... Christianity was a very, very different thing than it is, today.
I do get where we are founded on hatred. Where did your read that? I have never read that we are to hate any one. If you find that text please send it to me. I do agree that some misused the Bible for their own pleasure, but justice will come to them. Hate is not one of the Fruits of The Spirit found in Galatians. Hate is of the flesh and a weed that kills real love.
It isn't that it can't survive, its you don't want it too. The Bible calls all believers "the church" as a body. As long as there is one believer there will always be "a church" until Jesus returns.
Read the Bible you may find something you like.
Well, I believe the focus of this article is the "body" of believers. Membership in churches (not just Christian churches) is on the decline while the population continues to increase. So, perhaps the article could have been more properly titled "Can Any Organized Religion Survive the Threat of a Multi-Faith World." While there are certainly many church members still remaining (in many churches), it's clear that the "body" of believers has taken a negative hit. The question that remains is whether this negative trend can be stopped or reversed. And personally, I think the answer to that question is a definite "no."
I was raised in a Christian home. In my teen years, I was a fellowship leader in MYF (Methodist Youth Fellowship). With others under my wing, we'd go door to door spreading the good news of salvation. But when I graduated from high school and entered college, I began to meet many other people who adhered to other faiths. And it was this exposure that made me begin to question my own faith. Each of these religions (including my own) had leaders who were considered intelligent scholars. And each scholar was absolutely convinced that their God was the right God, usually at the exclusion of all others (ie., Thou shalt have no other God before Me.).
Still, I clung to my faith until I began listening to the lectures of the late Alan Watts. Watts was an Anglican priest for 20 years. Then one day, in his own words, "I woke up from the dream." He spent the rest of his life pursuing comparative religious studies ... lecturing widely, giving seminars, and writing books on the subject.
In short, I was exposed to a "larger" world of religious thought. In such a world, there was (and is) no way I'd ever go back to a "narrow" belief system that excludes the validity of all others. And my only regret is that I was not aware of this larger world as a child.
There is no reason why one can't hold to a narrow view, and allow others their own. The problem often lies in bringing people into the modern world. Some refuse to assimilate, and embrace such as not just equal rights for women, but a womans right to sovereignty.
I suppose so. But that's not what I was talking about. I was addressing the article's title question, "Can Christians Survive the 'threat' of a Multi-Faith World?" In my case, my Christian faith did not survive the influences of a multi-faith world. I made the choice to NOT hold a narrow view. And if recent polls are any guide, I'm not alone. Membership in Christian churches is on the decline ... and more and more people are classifying themselves as "unaffiliated" with any religion or church.
Judging by the historical record the answer is, of course not.
The golden age of religious tolerance probably happened in Spain about eight hundred years ago and they blew it, all of them.
Why would anyone expect interfaith relationships to get any better than they were in Spain before the crusades and the inquisition?
I don't think you're likely to get a second chance and who cares, really. I'd be happier if all the various squabbling religionists would take it outside somewhere, kill each other off and leave the rest of us out of it.
I've seen no product of religion but distrust and hatred, pain, death and destruction.
Who needs it?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p00548l1
Christians, Jews, and Muslims lived together in virtual peace for over 700 years.
Shuffle up and deal!
Thanks!
fanned!
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Where is the evidence that it is an " increasingly interreligious world"?
To me, what we have is a world in which respect for human rights is increasingly more valued than religious belief and dogma. One of those human rights is freedom to believe what one wishes, or have no beliefs at all.
It is all good. There is no problem to solve. Just promote respect for human rights, as described in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml
"Everyone" needs no explanation and includes children. I would imagine that if one wanted to find excuse to reject the declaration they would have to come up with some excuse, however insane, and irrational.
To me, a child 3 months old has the right to live, of course, but it is meaningless to talk about his/her freedom of speech. So, you end up deciding a cut-off age for that. Then, why not "adult" versus" child"?
Beyond that, I am not opposed to minor revisions in the UDHR, if all signatories agree. The point is that there is or, at least there can be a common basis for mutual respect and understanding, without bringing in religion, which is a divisive rather than a uniting agency.