Distinctly Welcoming

A Christian Engagement with Other Faiths: Two Resources

Rev Ray Gaston has just published his book, A Heart Broken Open. I can highly recommend it as a story of one person's journey into deep and powerfully transformative relations with Muslims. Ray documents the changes he experienced opening himself up to the hospitality of Muslims from a radicalised commitment to the ant-war movement around the Iraq invasion. It's edgy, political, deeply spiritual and infused with repeated grapplings with scripture and Christian prayer as he recounts his journey. You can access a flyer for the book here.

Share the Guide is a site from Fresh Expressions resourcing new models of church in contemporary culture and I've written a short piece helping to provide some tools for thinking about church and other faiths here.

When in Rome.....

 
  
It's a real treat to be doing my research at a Catholic institution, learning from the huge wealth of theological tradition and spirituality from this sister church. There is so much I admire in the weight of history that has deepened my own desire to draw from resources beyond my own evangelicalism. The latest developments with regard to invites from Rome to Anglicans unhappy with the prospect of women bishops seems very perplexing though. Maggi Dawn gives a useful summary of the situation here. I couldn't help chuckling when i was told by a Catholic woman recently, full of anxiety and exasperation, "The last thing our church needs is a bunch of reactionary misogynists."

The trouble is, I think our churches have gone about this the wrong way round. I was reading some Thomas Merton today and this is what he was saying in the midst of Vatican II reforms in the 1960's: "conservatives and progressives in the Church are so concerned with total victory over each other that they are more and more closed to each other." For Merton, there was a clear sense that when the church lost sight of its love and compassion for the stranger it would lose love and compassion for herself. He goes on to say, "If we cannot see [God] in the stranger and the alien, we will not understand him even in the Church. We must find him in our enemy, or we may lose him even in our friend...How can we reveal to others what we cannot discover in them ourselves?" I think of controversies over Islam, homosexuality, women bishops and wherever we place ourselves in these arguments, I suspect that we will find faultlines in the church at the points where we have been unable to see the grace of God beyond the place we stand in.

On a more positive note of mission and evangelism with grace and humility, Steve Taylor has written a brief reflection on my earlier post of the "Ten Commandments of Mission" published by the Christian-Muslim Forum. For me, these exemplify something of the ability to be confidently oneself in the very process of giving the other genuine space.

Tour de Force!

I've been absorbed in the high drama that is the annual Tour de France cycling marathon. Maybe it's my francophile tendencies but each year I get more and more impressed with this most exacting and sophisticated of sporting challenges. The above picture shows Lance Armstrong, five times winner, formerly retired, and already a tour winner after coming back from a death sentence to cancer. Alongside him is Mark Cavendish, British sprint sensation and fastest cyclist in the world. The race, to the uninitiated, can seem an immense mystery: there are awards for overall winner (yellow jersey), sprint leader (green jersey) and king of the mountains (spotted jersey). It's all played out to deft tactics working out team strategies to shelter the lead riders from the drag of the wind and when and where to break out from the pack (the peleton).

It's not for nothing that it is generally regarded as the most arduous sporting challenge in the world. While taking in the exertions of the riders, the chateaux and mountain peaks, i've been pondering some current reading of Bishop Kenneth Cragg's works, possibly the greatest living Christian writer on Islam. His works are wonderfully generous, eloquent and sympathetic accounts of Islamic belief and tradition. Infused throughout, though, is the centrality of the cross: the self-giving love of the Christ. I watch the utter emptying of Tour de France riders, reminded of those scriptures talking of the Christian "race" (Acts 20:24, 1 Cor 9:24, Gal 2:2, 5:7, 2 Tim 4:7, Heb 12:1) and think I'm catching a glimpse of what is meant by "running the race".

It's not about winning; many of the Tour de France riders are actually there purely to serve their team leads, giving their all to push a particular pace and protect another of their riders. But every one of those riders finishes the line spent, emptied, given out. That is the crux of the challenge of the Christian gospel; it's a challenge that puts genuine and insuperable distance between Islam and Christianity. But that challenge, by definition, means that it is not about asserting ourselves, getting the last word, needing power and privilege. It's what Kenneth Cragg describes as being "troubled by truth". We have encountered truth in Jesus; but the nature of that truth is a paradox that demands generosity, grace and service. "Deciding by the gospel", as Kenneth Cragg says, "requires us to recognize that we may well be farthest from God in the very pretence of obeying Him".

So, tune into ITV4, give the Tour de France a go if you haven't already, and ponder the self-emptying of the cross as you watch Lance, Mark and Contador strain every sinew!

Fitna - freedom of speech or community cohesion?

...that's the simple equation we're being presented with the screening in the House of Lords of the notorious Fitna film. It links acts of Islamist terrorism with verses from the Qur'an and statements from extremist preachers. But is it really so simple? I'm disturbed by the weight that some Christian leaders are giving to the need to show the film and would like to suggest that we do a bit of reverse hypotheticals here. How would we feel if a film were produced of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia (or the Soweto township killings, or Hutu genocide) to a soundtrack from the book of Judges? (each of these episodes had overtly Christian justifications). We would be rightly horrified as Christians and be claiming: 1. that our scriptures were being misinterpreted 2. that an unfair juxtaposition of the worst of our faith with certain sources of that faith were beng presented. Some may even say that Christians are already being put in that negative light, and therefore why should Islam get preferential treatment? Well, I might reply that just because the Christian faith is villified does not mean standards of public judgment should automatically fall for all. Are we not setting a dangerous precedent by allowing a far-right politician with the endorsement and encouragement of the BNP party to be hosted in the chambers of executive government? We would then have no grounds to stop someone doing the same about the church...Do unto others as you would have done to you......

The thing is, it is not merely about freedom of speech, nor even about community cohesion. It is about wanting the good of all and treating others how we would like to be treated. I heard one of the Christian hosts of the film presentation speaking about the damage done to the British values of freedom of speech today. Too often we invoke religious arguments when our Christian base is threatened only to resort to secular liberal arguments to condemn others. Since when did freedom of speech become the ultimate measure of Christian pronouncements?

When we consider the Samaritans in the Bible, we must recall that they were a cultural and religious "other" to the Jews. For the Jews, they were impure and dangerous. Josephus, the historian, records a number of "terrorist" atrocities perpetrated against Jews. So you get the context for the mutual suspicion in some of the gospel encounters. What a wonderfully challenging and humbling parable we have in that story of the Good Samaritan....that symbol of uncleanness and violence becomes the agent of God's mercy to the suffering Jew! If our only understanding of Islam is the film Fitna, the parable of the Good Samaritan (the Good Muslim?), maybe what we need to read again.

There are real issues within Islam about the texts of violence. I would be the first to advocate and speak directly and confidently to Muslims that those texts should be abrogated. But showing an emotive film that suggests Islam is inherently violent in the chambers of government was rightly seen as provocative and engendering of hatred. As Christians, maybe we need to ask ourselves: "does this make me love my next door neighbour Muslim more?" If not, then let's be free not to see it....

The Lost Art of Identification - incarnation by another name

Talking with a local colleague on Friday, he reminded me that Muslims constantly struggle with extremists, often coming from the outside speaking for their community. These extremists present a distorted, reactionary view of the Muslim faith, appear bolshy and forceful, lacking in compassion, understanding or any engagement with real relationships across different boundaries. For the majority of Muslims, they feel powerless in the face of sectarian groups that supposedly speak on their behalf, using the media's hunger for simplistic caricatures to make their splash. Your average Muslim would rather continue to follow their faith in a manner that fosters goodwill, neighbourliness and peace. It can all be very frustrating and demoralising. How would you feel in this situation?

Well, for many of us, we have an opportunity to sympathise, empathise and identify with the bulk of Muslims in Britain when certain Christian groups pronounce in the public arena to our consternation and bewilderment.

Dialogue or Evangelism with Muslims: a simple trade?

There is a mini fuss kicking off about the place of evangelism amongst Muslims. Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali has spoken out about the need to have a strategy for evangelism to Muslims and suggested that the church has been far too diffident in that direction. His comments have provoked a fellow bishop to warn that evangelism "contributes nothing to our communities". What do you think?

Stay with me with this thread while I make my point; whatever you do, don't duck out too early for fear of misunderstanding me! Now I'm someone who normally gets a little jittery when Michael Nazir-Ali starts talking about Muslims...but he has got a point. Is the church a little like liberal newspapers that will gladly have a pop at other religions, but never satirise Muslims for fear of a backlash? There's not much integrity and courage there. And what kind of one-dimensional dialogue and community relations are established when a major dimension of our identity (and this is a mutual identity!) is the injunction to proclaim our faith to the other?

For me it is a no-brainer that we need to embrace evangelism and continue to think through our proclamation to all faiths and none. It's also a no-brainer that we should be thinking through strategies for dialogue and good community relations, though. The more pressing questions relate to the issue of what kind of dialogue and what kind of evangelism?

So, I'll applaud Michael Nazir-Ali, but add a vital qualification. If the Bishop of Rochester wants to resource an influx of folk bearing tracts and standing on podiums doing anti-qur'anic polemics into areas like mine (Muslim-majority) then I will agree to disagree. If he's talking about resourcing church communities that can confidently love and serve their Muslim neighbours unconditionally while unashamedly explaining the hope they have in Jesus, then I'm with him 100%. If the Bishop of Hulme's concern to see good community relations is about smoothing church-mosque relations so issues like apostasy in Islam are never broached and doctrinal differences overlooked in favour of focussing on shared beliefs alone, then I'm not interested. But if his vision of dialogue helps churches and Muslims to disagree and still be friends then I'm up for that.

The thing is, we don't need traditional evangelism or traditional dialogue: we need dialogue that includes the sharing of faith and evangelism that is prepared to listen.

Islam in the West on Film

We live in an age when people get a lot of their cultural clues through film rather than literature. With the aims of encouraging curiosity in other faiths and equipping knowledge, I will offer some pointers to resources beyond the traditional textbook theology or guide to religion books that can be ever so daunting and intimidating. Here are 3 films, then, that are, first and foremost, great entertainment, quality productions. But they also provide authentic and perceptive windows onto Islam in the West. So, in no particular order:

East is East is a comedy based in 1970's Manchester and explores the gulf in cultures between the Pakistani-born Muslim dad, his white English wife and their children. The two worlds that so many Muslim young people live in are reflected in both the comic and tragic episodes of this family. I remember talking to a leading interfaith churchman and Muslim imam about this film and they both thought it offensive and a caricature. I mention this as a qualification to the film but feel I need to recommend it because, without exception, I've found that second-generation British Asians find this witty, warm and true to their own experiences (the imam and vicar were of  "a certain age"). It helps lift the lid on the complexity of faith and culture in the  multicultural debate and  each character is treated with genuine sympathy.

Hidden was my favourite film of last year and is very much at the opposite end of the spectrum from East is East. If you enjoy arthouse foreign language films then you'll love this French domestic drama with brilliant performances from Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteul. It's the sort of film with lots of languor; minutes when nothing seems to happen. Beneath the tense threat to the middle class existence of the main characters is a foreign menace that seems to draw from a past sin; an act that has never been acknowledged, confessed, forgiven. It's an incredibly powerful film in which you are never quite sure who is guilty, who bears responsibility. In essence, it's a challenge, with the most tantalisingly open-ended conclusion, to love of neighbour, to honest dealings with the past, and risky embrace of the stranger. In our Orwellian Big Brother age, and with the legacies of colonialism and the fear of terrorism, Hidden is a very eloquent stir to emotion and intellect.

Ae Fond Kiss is the third recommendation. A British arthouse film by the director Ken Loach; it's a love story between a white Catholic girl and a Muslim boy, set in sectarian Glasgow. There's a touch of Romeo and Juliet about this, but once again, it helps to highlight the culture/religion interface and the grappling of communitarian Asian cultures in the individualised West. There's a wonderful scene early on when the sister of the Muslim boy is making a school speech and proudly strips off her  school shirt to reveal a blue Rangers top announcing  that, "I'm a Scottish, Muslim, Rangers-supporting girl in a Catholic school". A lovely encapsulation of the mulitiple identities that are the lot of our lives today.

Go rent and watch! ....next up will be novels.

And the xyz of this sharia furore

A few days later and I can safely say that the British media, in the words of Bob Dylan, "went along for the ride" and failed to offer any objective analysis of Rowan Williams' comments on sharia law. Bishop Tom Wright has written an open letter to his clergy which is a helpful guide to the truer intentions of the Archbishop and Andrew Goddard has published an insightful piece on the Fulcrum website here, (thanks Jon's Journal for finding these).

There seem to me to be two different motors, both forming a pincer movement, driving the reaction to the sharia debate. The first motor is from a secular perspective that would drive out this awkward business of faith from all public spheres such as law, education and business. In the words of Friday's Guardian lead, "what the Archbishop really wants is a tolerance for the role of religion in public affairs that succeeds only in highlighting why it should be excluded." The second motor is exemplified by these comments in the Daily Telegraph: "If the Church of England is to have any point, it is to stand up for the prevalence of English and Chrsitian values."

Now in both wings there are real fears, both sensible and misguided, about sharia law and extremist Islam in Britain. What there has been precious little of in this debate is the altogether fundamental question of what sort of society we want to live in. In Britain, we have moved from a largely Christian-based legal and social system to an increasingly rights-based secular system. We live in a time of transition where so many of the structures and still many of the legal principles carry echoes of a church-shaped past. Much of our present social, cultural and legal thinking is being driven by individual "rights": the supreme power of the individual in her conscience to decide on the reality of the world for herself. Overlaid on this, the multiculturalism project, as distinct from the "laicite" of France where no public acknowledgement of faith is, in theory, permissible, fostered cultural and religious difference without any corresponding social "glue". In essence, everyone is free to do their own thing so long as they don't harm "me", and I get to choose "my way".

The trouble with this is manifold. What if I don't have the resources to choose what I want? Individual rights and freedoms quickly transform into proprietary rights, demands and consumption. What if the choices I see being made harm creation, harm future generations, and by my judgment, harm "them"? What kind of "choice" do I have about the environment and society I live in and is access to this only possible through money if I have no say in shaping the greater good? Is there no prior claim to "duty" to the other, our neighbour?

...These are the big questions underlying the debate, make no mistake. In the church, we need to begin to at least get a handle on the symbols of this discussion because the two responses I outlined earlier are also played out, sadly, by Christinas. If we are not careful, we will find ourselves advocating for what Lesslie Newbigin called a "naked public square": devoid of the language of faith and thus prey to totalitarianism and naked greed. Alternatively, jostling for prime position on a pedastal of privilege, pushing off the awkward squad of other religions that want to make their presence felt undermines our faith and, in the process, neuters the public square from the rigour of genuine challenge.

A dose of reality and humility is called for: "the past is a different country; they do things differently there." Are we going to fall for the traps of cultural supremacy or Christian dualism? .....Or is there another way forward in Christian faithfulness?

The ABC of Sharia Law

Another day, another controversy around the place of faith in Britain. Oh what a sorry mess we are making of this business of public faith! Sharia law is one of those phrases that conjures up immediate negative images, and because of that, is often a rallying point for polarising opinion. If we like to pride ourselves on our religious sensitivity and savvyness when it comes to world affairs, we might be deeply offended by the thought that you could equate "Muslim" with "terrorist". The word sharia, though, is buttoned up for most people: sharia = stonings for adultery, hands chopped off for stealing and instituionalised misogyny.

Rowan Williams, being a very intelligent man, knows that sharia law is far more complex than this. The vast bulk of Islamic laws that are invoked within Muslim communities (yes, present tense because it is a current reality here in Britain), concern family relationships (divorce and separation), and inheritance matters. The trouble is, the media and our beloved political establishment are either not intelligent enough to know this or, and God forbid this be the case, prefer to play to the simplistic public perception (sharia = stonings etc) for short term electoral expediency.

It helps to have a little bit of wider knowledge, including a little bit of historical knowledge. Did you know that the Jewish community have religious courts ruling on familial and inheritance matters that have credence in our legal system? Did you know that under British colonial rule in India, many Muslim regions operated a parallel sharia system to the English legal system?....And let's come closer to home: did you know that the Church of England has its own valid legal structures for enforcing discipline and disposing of property?

What makes Rowan Williams' comments so incendiary then? ...Fear and ignorance.

Ignorance we can do something about very easily and sadly our politicians don't seem to want to do much about that at the moment. What comes out in the press over the next few days will tell us whether our media wish to remain ignorant.

Fear takes more time to deal with, and fear is not to be minimised or scrubbed under the carpet. The very idea of sharia law in Britain doubtless suggests public floggings in northern towns. The very fact that Rowan Williams has broached the issue ought to be welcome because the conversation to be had is, "what aspects of shariah are incompatible with life in Britain today?" You can't have this conversation if you've not recognised that the reality for many Muslims is to want to adhere to Islamic proscriptions in their public dealings. By shutting off the conversation at source, you are effectively saying, "your faith should be entirely private". Is that what we want? I don't want a society where that is the case for my Christian faith and I should apply that freedom to my neighbour as much as myself. The tough call is the mutual challenge of which laws and practises should be denied in the pursuit of the common good. Thus, respect for the vulnerable, fully equal status for women, illegality of corporal punishment would be among my challenges to some Muslims that would want to bring an unadulterated sharia to Britain.

So, all in all, I'll thank the Lord for our Archbishop....and pray that we will seek truth and move from fear to love.

An Audience with A Grand Mufti

The other evening I attended a local mosque to hear the "Grand Mufti of Bosnia", Dr Mustafa Ceric. The school kid in me was quite pleased to meet a Grand Mufti; it's one of those titles that is as snigger-inducing as it is mysterious. I found out later that a Mufti is someone who has the authority to pronounce a fatwah so I ought to be more careful.

Anyway, this senior Muslim cleric was visiting Birmingham as part of the programme of "Radical Middle Way" events to encourage sincere and committed Muslim faith robustly engaged in the plurality of Britain. Dr Ceric was fascinating: advocating personal piety in prayer and reading of the Qur'an, shari'ah law for governance in Muslim family and financial matters and thirdly, the exercise of reason in a confident encounter with the rest of society.

One neat observation on his part was that "Muslims like each other but have no respect for one other. Non-Muslims don't like each other but respect each other". In essence, he was saying that Muslims need to be credible in a society where you are valued by your learning and your productiveness. It is the combination of Muslim unity coupled with the use of wisdom and rationalism that will make them a force for good in wider Europe, so he says.

It's the kind of stuff that is relevant to the discussions on no-go areas. Here is a Muslim voice, speaking to a conservative, non-academic mosque community, and challenging Muslims that their faith ought to be outward looking and be able to learn from non-Muslims without needing to compromise. The issue is real, but there is hope in voices like Mustafa Ceric for the wider good. As Christians in Britain, and in the world, dare we pray for Muslims, that they may find a way forward; help them in this process so that the church might be a blessing to all? As hordes of teenage Muslims, in their sneakers, baggy trousers and prayer hats filed out in the rain, I wasn't sure how many of them got the references to Weber or even the wider debate to which Ceric's qur'anic references referred to so I remembered that grumpy prophet again: "seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper."