 |
Read Bob Abernethy's full interview with theologian Miroslav Volf:
Q: You've seen THE PASSION and have some thoughts about it.
A: It was a hard two hours to watch, because Jesus is subjected to this brutal flogging and crucifixion. But I went away with [an] experience quite different than what I had expected to go away with, having read various reviews of the movie. Above all, it struck me that the violence was not, as often claimed, gratuitous. It seemed to me it was maybe excessive, but it wasn't gratuitous. It was in service of demonstrating what I think is the main point of the movie - namely, that Jesus offers forgiveness, even to the enemies. Love of the enemy is, I think, the subtext of the whole movie. You have this incredible scene when Jesus is crucified. Every single atom of his body must scream, "Attend to me." And yet, he attends to others. And yet, he offers forgiveness, even to those who have so brutally violated him. I went away with that.
Q: You probably brought that with you, too.
A: I'm sure I did bring that with me. I'm sure I'm reading this with a particular lens. People who bring other things will possibly see other things also in the movie. I think that is the heart of the cross. I think that's the heart of the Christian message. And I think the movie portrayed that in a compelling way, maybe in too graphic of a way; but nonetheless, it was a very important point.
Q: We see violence in the former Yugoslavia these days, between Israelis and Palestinians, in Iraq. Is there something about violence that we, as people, can overcome? Or is it just part of the human condition forever?
A: I hope it's not a part of the human condition forever. I hope that we can overcome violence. I hope that each one of us can overcome propensity toward violence. I can very well understand and see how we might have propensity toward violence. We, after all, get violated -- right? And those of us who are violated, we want to respond in kind. We want retribution. We want justice. Most of violence that's perpetrated is not violence for violence's sake. It's violence in order to redress a violation that has previously occurred. I think each one of us -- we can choose the path of peace, rather than [the] path of violence.
Q: And what is the key to that?
A: I think the key to that is to be able to perceive oneself and perceive the other person in particular relationship with one another. I think the key is how I see my identity in relationship to the other. And I think the key is willingness of a person to make a journey with another person, our community with another community, and attend to what they need, what drives them -- right? We tend to look at ourselves, simply. We tend to think that, "If I'm taken care of, I'll be taken care of." And yet, that is too limited of a perspective. If I'm taken care of, but the other who is intertwined with me is not taken care of, I will not be taken care of. This ability to step out of oneself and attend to the need of "other," I think, is essential for us to address the question of violence.
Q: Is there something about religion itself that invites violence?
A: If you're in a situation that itself is violent, fraught with tension, and if you're a religious person, it is very hard to resist the temptation, not to pull your god into your struggle. After all, your life is [on the] line -- right? As far as religious people are engaged in violence, religion inevitably gets pulled into the violence itself. Whether there's something inevitable about religion itself that generates violence -- I tend to doubt that. I tend to doubt that's the case with Christian tradition, which I know so very well. And I think [the] deeper we go into Christian tradition, [the] more it's going to be the source of peace than a source of violence.
Q: And you have said that the cure is not less religion.
A: Yes. I mean, the typical response to the problem of religiously induced violence, or violence which has a religious component to it, is to say, "Well, minimize religious commitment. [The] less of a religious commitment, [the] less violence we will have in the world." And my sense is that's not the case. My sense is that it's precisely the vague religiosity, abstract religiosity, religiosity that is emptied of its proper content, that can be claimed for any project that I myself pursue that is the source of violence. It's the content-filled religiosity that will steer me in particular directions, that will guide me and that will also lessen the propensity towards violence.
Q: But it's often said that there is a relationship between religion and violence because one group says, "We have the truth. Only we have the truth." To overcome violence, do people have to pull back on that idea and acknowledge that maybe everybody has the truth?
A: Most of the violence that I know is not around a religious claim: I have the truth or you have the whole truth, and now we fight about our difference about that issue. Most violence in which religions are implicated [is] about other things than just religion and about rights to practice one's religion; rights to have a space in which to be religious free, so to say. My sense is that even if that were the case, that would not significantly reduce the amount of violence in the world. But I'm not sure that we should think about religions in -- this trend simply to say, "Well, truth is relative when it comes to religion," and "Religions are more or less the same." What we need to do is recognize that they are more or less the same. And once we recognize that they are more or less the same, there's nothing to struggle about. I think religions are overarching interpretations of life. Indeed, they're overarching ways in which we conduct our lives -- what makes sense to us, and so forth. And therefore, I don't think the truth question can be pulled out of religion. Religions make truth claims, and these truth claims are about -- well, they're about what makes for a life that is in sync, that is in harmony with how the world is made up. That is a very important question that each of us pursues, and these are the questions that religions answer. They are the truth kinds of questions.
Q: So how, then, does a Christian relate to a Muslim, or a Christian relate to a Jew, or vice versa, when I claim that one thing is true and the other person claims another thing is true?
A: What's important for us simply to understand [is] that our claim to what is true is not an absolute claim. It's really the absolute claims to truth that are problematic -- not the claims to truth. I can claim that something is true, but I can claim it in a provisional kind of a way: that's what I think is true. That's what I stake my life, even, to be the truth. But I don't have a perspective of the Almighty and all-knowing God. I'm not God. God is God. God has absolute truth. I have my own humanly conditioned kind of a truth. And I stand on that. I, indeed, stake my whole life on that. And if we each approach the question of truth in those terms, I think we are likely to have conversations going on: "Well, how do you see things?" "How do I see things?" That conversation can go on, and it can enrich, indeed, each of our traditions.
Q: What about the importance of trying to turn an enemy into a friend?
A: One of the central teachings of Christian tradition is how we relate to our enemies. There are many ways in which we can relate to our enemies. We can hold them in check. We can overcome them. We can eliminate them. And we may, indeed, need to protect ourselves from our enemies. But at the very heart of the Christian tradition is this impulse that [the] enemy is there as a human being who needs to be embraced, who needs to be taken into the fold, who needs to be made from an enemy into a friend. There are major differences [between how] we organize our private and also public life in terms of how we relate to the enemy. [An] enemy is an enemy and a foe of myself and my friends. I'll build alliances with friends, and I will keep enemies in check. That's one way of approaching this, and that's the approach that is based simply on power and, via power, protection of my own turf. The other approach is, well, [the] enemy is a human being. [The] enemy is my brother. [The] enemy is my sister. And notwithstanding his or her enmity, I have to reach out, and I have to make out of [the] enemy a friend.
Q: Have you yourself done that? Have you ever had an occasion where you were able to turn an enemy into a friend? Would you tell about it?
A: Often, in our daily lives, we encounter people who become our enemies. Hard for us to live with them -- right? I've had my share of trying to overcome differences and bridge gaps that have emerged between me and some of my close associates, some of my family members. Then there are also experience[s] of the war in [the] former Yugoslavia where, suddenly, people who were on the other side, who were Serbs, in my case -- I'm a Croat -- they seemed to [me] an enemy. And I have done that. I have reached out to them. I have tried to embrace them. I have tried to explicate my own position to them. It's a very difficult thing. I remember even now very vividly, I was once giving a lecture in Prague on the war in [the] former Yugoslavia. I was simply reading the situation from my perspective, saying that in this particular war I believe that Croats were more the victims and the Serbs were more the perpetrators. And there in the audience sits a friend of mine who is a Serb. And I see on her face pain as she is listening to me talking in those terms, because she profoundly disagrees with me on that issue. After that we had a long conversation -- a conversation which was very productive in the sense of trying to bridge the gap that we have.
Q: Does an enemy have to repent and ask for forgiveness before you can make that enemy your friend?
A: Before I can make that enemy my friend -- yes, but before I can start the process of making an enemy into a friend -- no. The process is unconditional. The beginning of the process is unconditional. The beginning of the process is, in a sense, unilateral. No matter what that person will do, I have a responsibility to try to make a friend out of the enemy. In order for friendship to be then established, I think that person will have to respond in a particular way. We would have to come to [a] certain kind of agreement about what has transpired between us. If an enemy has injured me, if I have been victimized, I would expect recognition of something like that. I may discover that, in the process, I have injured that person, and that recognition will have to take place. If we don't have a recognition of that sort, I'm afraid we will have peace at the cost of truth. It will be untrue peace. It will be an untrue reconciliation. It would be what I sometimes call "cheap" reconciliation.
Q: It's hard enough for an individual to do these things with an enemy. It's even harder for groups, for communities, for nations to do that. Is that at all possible?
A: It's very hard. It's much harder. The larger the group, the harder, in a sense, it becomes. I think it is possible if we don't think of reconciliation as this final process, or if we don't expect finality to the reconciliation process: we go through this; now we're reconciled, and everything is sunny and beautiful. I think we can have a small step of reconciliation. That happens also in interpersonal relationships. Often, it is expecting too much that [gets] in [the] way of accomplishing what is possible -- right? If you don't expect too much, I think we will accomplish more in these situations. And in relationship[s] between nations, often the very small steps are real, small steps that can be made. There are examples of real successes in reconciliation. One always hears of the relationship between Germany and France. Three major wars have been fought in about 70 years before the Second World War. After [the] Second World War, something like a reconciliation process has occurred. And these two nations, even though the relationships are often strained now -- they're no longer [the] enemies that they had once been. [The] process of reconciliation has gone a certain way.
Q: How about religious and ethnic groups in the former Yugoslavia? Is it possible for them to reconcile?
A: It is possible to reconcile, depending [on] what we expect. I think a life together where people are appreciating the other, the neighbor, even though the neighbor may grate on me in certain ways -- I think that kind of reconciliation is quite possible. I think it's on its way. There are very simple examples, and they happen in everyday life. You have a country like Croatia, very small. You have a country like Serbia, relatively small. They used to be together, and they had wonderful basketball teams -- an association. They were playing basketball against each other. Suddenly, this has shrunk to a level where you can't compete as well. It's in [the] interest of each of the countries to expand this, and they are playing against each other. [The] Serbian Adriatic League, for instance, has been founded, which is a sign of reconciliation -- out of certain interests, but nonetheless, a sign of reconciliation. We who were fighting, we're playing together -- as rivals, but nonetheless, playing.
Q: How about Americans and Islamic terrorists? How should we relate to them?
A: Our first responsibility is to make sure that safety is guaranteed for us. We have to take seriously terror. Terror takes lives. Lives are precious and, therefore, we have to make sure that we are protected. How we go about protecting ourselves -- that is a central issue, and that's an issue around which one can debate. I would hope that, at least on the part of our country, overtures would be made to come to a point where some kind of reconciliation would be possible between various groups of people, especially groups of people that are feeders to individual terrorists who have committed these acts. How we react to these countries and how they react to us -- I think the processes of negotiations, of seeing ourselves through their eyes, helping them to see themselves with our eyes -- these kinds of processes are very important. That's the stuff of politics. Politics is not about simply holding in check whichever group is there so that we can live as we please to live but, rather, [it is about] processes in which we can live together as citizens of one world. That doesn't mean that we're going to change, necessarily. [It] doesn't mean we're going to necessarily give up on some of the cherished ideals that we have. It means simply that we'll take into account the other perspective, what the other group thinks of us; try to interpret ourselves, interpret them to ourselves, and so forth.
Q: You've got two small sons. What do you teach them about fighting?
A: I teach the older one. The younger one's very hard to teach right now, because he's not quite two, and so there I think the teaching is more by example. How does one respond when he is naughty, when he does something he ought not do? That's a very important way in which we teach our children, simply by the way in which we relate to them. We all try to teach our children: "Well, share that toy." "There's your turn, and there's the other person's turn." It's the very simple lessons of life: "See what his interest is." Aaron is my youngest, and Nathaniel is the oldest: "Well, look what Aaron wants now. Try to imagine yourself in his shoes. What would he do? What would you do if you were in his place?" All of these lessons, I think, are lessons that we apply as adults, as nations.
Q: Does it work? When you say, "Try to imagine what the other one wants," does it work with your kids?
A: Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't work. But my sense is that's what moral education is all about. We need to engage in [the] moral education of our children, moral education of ourselves. If I cannot share a perspective of another, I will be unable to act in morally responsible ways toward that other.
Q: One of your tasks at Yale is leading a study of faith as a way of life. What is the essential idea there?
A: I direct the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, and one of the programs we have is called "Faith as a Way of Life." The basic idea arose from my own experiences in the pew. If you ask, "What's your question that drives you?" the response to this question will be, "Well, faith" -- Christian faith, in my case -- "as a way of life." I was sitting in pews often, and I was listening to sermons, to what was going on in the church, and my question was, "Is faith connecting with life? Is faith here presented as a way of life?" Often, what I would hear would be two types of sermons, or two types of approaches in the churches. One would be old, stale formulas -- whether they're derived from the Bible or from somewhere else. [They] would be repeated and somehow, for a while, they might work. Then, when life gets to be too complex, the whole thing would collapse. That's a fundamentalist option. The other option is the language of psychology that is interlaced with religion, and it somehow connects with life. Or a language of sociology which somehow connects with life. But then I thought, "Well, maybe it connects with life, but what connects with life is not faith, but that which faith was latched onto" -- namely, pop psychology or pop sociology. And I thought, "That can't be right." We have to look for ways in which faith qua faith will connect with life, in which faith will become a way of life, a healing way of life. And so I decided to apply for the grant to study that issue with a group of about eight senior pastors, six junior pastors, four theologians. We together reflect on the issue, "How is it that Christian faith can be a salutary way of life?"
Q: What would be an example of a way faith can connect with an everyday problem?
A: Well, examples that we have been talking about -- questions of forgiveness and questions of reconciliation. As I listen, often, to sermons, they seem to talk a lot about God's forgiveness, but when it comes to our forgiveness -- well, maybe on [a] personal level it works. But on [the] level of communities and so forth, that's set aside, and strict claims of justice are being implemented. Or when I listen to some other forms of sermons, what I find is, well, some kind of cheap forgiveness is being peddled, which is really just pop psych: "It's anger that you have to deal with, and it's for your own good that you attend to your anger. Therefore, you need to forgive." And the whole question of justice falls by the wayside. I think the Christian tradition has something very important to say, and faith can connect with life [in a way] that is very much healing and salutary -- namely, how does one connect the claims of justice with the willingness not to count the offense against the offender? That's the robust idea of forgiveness. What is forgiveness? Very often, in our everyday life, we think of forgiveness simply as related to what happens to our emotions. We were angry, and we avert that anger because, it is often said, that's good for us. The whole point of forgiveness becomes attending to my own emotional state. And although forgiveness has to do with my emotional state, that certainly is not all that forgiveness is. A very large and important part of forgiveness is forgotten about, and that is the question of justice. If I say, "I forgive you," I have implicitly said you have done something wrong to me. If I say, "I forgive you," I have blamed you for infringing [in] some way upon my space, [for having] done something that wasn't right. You have committed [an] injustice. So every forgiveness has as ... part a[n] affirmation of the claims of justice and statement that somebody has transgressed against me. But what forgiveness is, at its heart, is both saying that justice has been violated and not letting that violation count against the offender. I release the offender from what justice would demand to be done for that person. That's what forgiveness is. I think Christian tradition has a very acute and important sense of that and can make an important contribution to proper understanding of, and practice of, forgiveness.
|
|
|
|
Q: What do you think is most essential for participants in Christian-Muslim dialogue?
A: I really like what has been done in the "Building Bridges" dialogue under [the] organization of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. It was started by his predecessor, and the idea there is simply to read together our respective scriptures. We come together as committed Muslims and committed Christians. [The] main activity is opening our scriptures -- portions of that -- and reading them together. I find that important and extraordinary -- refreshing -- because it's really these scriptures that shape the way we think as Muslims, that shape the way we think as Christians. We are people of the book, each one of us, in our own way. It's important for us to read scriptures, because scriptures are richer and more complex than our theories as religious folks. And therefore, we can call into question ourselves and also call into question other[s] with respect to their own scriptures. There's something that's larger than either of the participants in the dialogue. And that "larger" has a claim upon each one of us in a particular way. When we point to that, I think we can bring movement into dialogue. We can start learning from one another. My own experience is that I learn the best and I am enriched as a Christian the most when I hear Muslims talk about what they do as Muslims. I think I become a better Christian as I am listening to what they're doing. It doesn't mean I will agree with that. It means that I might disagree strenuously, but I have been, in the process of [either] agreement or disagreement, enriched as a religious person.
Q: What would be an example?
A: A number of people who are part of that dialogue have given personal statements. They're now [published] in the book SCRIPTURES AND DIALOGUE. There's a Muslim who says, "When I was a young boy, I have learned [the] whole Qur'an by heart. And I have recited to myself [the] Qur'an every single day, and I've recited that from memory." And I think to myself, "Well, what kind of Christian am I?" I don't know one fifth, one twentieth of my own scriptures by heart. And yet, to be a Christian means in some way for God's Word to dwell in oneself, so that resonates in oneself. And I think, "Well, I would be [a] much better Christian if I were to emulate what this Muslim friend has done."
Q: Have you tried to do that?
A: Well, I try to remember, but I am afraid that, with [the] 47 years old that I am, my memory isn't what it ought to be. But I encourage my son to remember more. I remember when I was in Sunday school and we had to learn Bible verses: "Why do I need to do that?" And yet now, as I think about it, I think it will be profoundly important and significant to remember, because only that which is remembered in individual situations in which we all find ourselves can be brought to bear on those situations. You have this rich storage of the tradition which is part and parcel of you. And in concrete situations you respond out of the richness of the tradition rather than out of a narrow segment of it.
Q: Is the Christian God different than the Muslim God?
A: [The] Christian God is different than the Muslim God, but it's not "other" than the Muslim God. I do believe that Muslims and Christians and Jews pray to the same God. And yet they understand who God is in significantly different ways. That's what makes the discussion interesting -- what makes the discussion difficult, also. Clearly, Christians cannot think about God apart from what has been revealed to Christians in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That adds a dimension which is quite different than Jewish understanding of God or Muslim understanding of God. Nonetheless, it's the same "object" to which we direct our prayers and whom we worship in all three of those religions. I'm puzzled that, in many of the especially more conservative evangelical churches in recent years, it has been claimed that Allah and [the] Christian God are different gods. My father, who was a bona fide Pentecostal minister, always taught that [the] Muslim God and [the] Christian God are the same God understood in different ways.
Q: You have spoken about the process of trying to turn enemies into friends and reconciliation. And somewhere in there is the idea that, in the end, it won't work without God's grace. Can you speak about that a little bit?
A: One can say many things about how God's grace plays a significant role in reconciliation. I think about reconciliation not simply as something that happens in this life. I think about reconciliation in the life to come. I think about the Last Judgment as the great day of reconciliation also. And that great day of reconciliation will be possible only when all of us fully understand the extent to which we have injured others, and all of us repent. And that's only possible through the enlightenment of divine grace. Very often, our reconciliation is partial, and it's partial for a very simple reason. No matter how I try, even the best of reconciliation is such that I don't quite understand what I have done to the other person, and that other person doesn't quite understand what he or she has done to me. We have partial understandings, and through our partial understandings, we reconcile. But how do we come to full understanding, so that the healing can happen? I think this full understanding can happen only through divine help. So, if there is such a thing as a world of love -- and I do believe that God will create a world of love at the end -- that world of love is possible only through divine grace.
Q: Is God's grace available to people of all religions, or only to Christians?
A: God's grace is available to all people. How different religions participate, how people who belong to different religions participate in that grace of God -- that can be a disputed and is a disputed question. But I believe that God's grace as manifested in Jesus Christ is available to all people. It's universal. That has been the standard teaching of all Christian churches -- that God's grace is universal, indeed that no deed is imaginable that can take anyone outside the sphere of God's grace. It's universal in extent, and it's universal in its depth. It goes as deep as it can go.
Q: Many evangelical Christians believe that salvation is possible only through faith in Jesus. Can somebody who's not a Christian be saved?
A: It has been standard teaching also of [the] majority, I think, of evangelical Christians that a person who is not explicitly professing Christ can be, in the end, saved. [The] claim has always been that salvation will happen through some form of encounter with Jesus Christ. We may not be able to tell how, but nonetheless, salvation is not available simply to people who profess Jesus Christ in this life. It's available also to others. I don't think it's a plausible position to say, "Well, different religions are equally valid ways to God. They are all, at the bottom, the same and they're equal in their access to God." You have to empty many claims of various religions of their content in order to show somehow that they are the same. That doesn't seem to me to respect sufficiently what adherents of these religions claim. It almost seems like somebody's looking through me and beyond me to find something else that I really believe, of which I'm not quite aware. That doesn't strike me as very respectful. I think [a] much more respectful thing is to say [that] Muslims have very definite claims about how salvation happens. Christians have definite claims about that. What we have to do is engage in a dialogue about these claims. We are different, and we make truth claims as we are different. And, yet, we can all discuss that. We can also invite the other person to see things from our end and vice versa. We will engage in constructive dialogue. We may not end up agreeing, but I find it almost like an insult to human nature, an insult to religious people, whatever religion they belong to, to say, "We have to agree [at] the bottom in order to be able to live in peace." That strikes me as not a plausible position. I want to believe that if you and I disagree about something, that we can still be very good neighbors; indeed, that we can be friends. And I think that ought to apply also for various world religions. We can disagree on profound matters of life and nonetheless, we can live in peace with one another. Why? Because I do believe that different religions have their own internal resources -- and I could make that claim for Christian tradition, certainly -- which will motivate us to live in peace, indeed, to love those who differ from us.
Q: Talk, if you would, about your own daily practices and prayer life.
A: Aside from communal worship, I like to open the Scripture. I like to read portions from the Old Testament, portions from the New Testament. I meditate on these. I pray with regard to these, as well as praying for my immediate family, my friends, for the needs of the world, for the situation in which we find ourselves today. I probably don't pray enough, but I do pray and I think it's a very important activity. Occasionally, I fast also, depending on the situation that may require that. It's these kinds of practices that sustain and nourish me. I wish I was better at it. I wish I did more than I do. I find the struggle between the demands of life as a father, demands of life as a professor, demands of life as a director of [the] Yale Center of Faith and Culture -- all sorts of demands, personal speaking engagements and so forth -- and the kind of serenity and space and time for prayer life. But when I do it, I find it immensely liberating, because there's this unassailable fortress of space and time. I can be there what I want to be before my God -- who I am before God. Nobody else can enter there. If I can keep the world out, it's a wonderful thing that gives a perspective on everything that we do. That is what's most significant for me -- to be not simply immersed in things, but to step out of things from a vantage point that is significantly different than the everyday. And that vantage point is the presence of God. I believe God is the source of our being. I think God is the chief end of our lives. And if that's the case, then being before God, being with God's Word provides one a completely different framework to see everything that's going on. I'm very troubled by a kind of innate selfishness that attends to our lives, that attends to our public lives, attends to all of our lives. I recall this book by Andrew Delbanco [THE REAL AMERICAN DREAM: A MEDITATION ON HOPE, 1999] where he sketches the American dream from a kingdom of God dream -- a religious dream, to [a] national dream, to then the sixties. It was a dream of, well, inflated self. I think we are great as human beings to the extent that we serve something that is greater than ourselves. We as human beings are great to the extent that we serve the God who created us. And I think that's what prayer life also helps you put in focus. I try to [pray] in the evening. Mornings are taken up by other things, and I'm not a morning person. It really depends on many factors how long that will be. But I like to read [a] portion of the Old Testament, the New Testament -- maybe 20 minutes or so. Sometimes I don't do it, I must admit.
Q: Let me pick up on the relationship between Christian-Muslim dialogue and the terrible things happening in the Middle East. Do events in the news make Christian-Muslim dialogue much more difficult?
A: Renewed violence in Kosovo, in [the] former Yugoslavia, where Orthodox churches have been burned down, where mosques have been burned down -- a revival of violence in that part of the world is deeply troubling to me, because I come roughly from that part of the world. My sense is dialogue becomes all the more important. It becomes significant not just as what is going on in the room, but significant for its symbolic importance. It is possible for these estranged communities often to talk to one another about what matters most profoundly for them. And because it's possible to talk about those things, I think it's also possible for us to live together in peace and harmony. I don't think these political events are the only or even most important reason why we should engage in dialogues. Something more important is at stake. If you look at the global trends, Christianity and Islam are the dominant and to be increasingly dominant world views today -- 2 billion Christians, 1.3 billion Muslims -- and the fastest-growing, overarching interpretations of life of any available. I think that Muslim-Christian relations are of epochal -- not just daily -- political significance. We need to engage in those dialogues. We need to engage one another precisely because of that significance in the future, because one half of the world population belongs to these two religious groups.
Q: Is the alternative a "clash of civilizations," some kind of war between Christianity and Islam?
A: I'm not sure that the alternative is really a "clash of civilizations" or war between Christianity and Islam. But I think as events indicate -- whether that's in Iraq, whether that's in Palestine and Israel, whether that's in Kosovo and Bosnia -- there are very important tensions between these two groups. And depending on the local situation, they can very quickly erupt in violence. It's important for us to look at various levels -- economic, political, and also religious levels -- to talk about issues and to find ways in which these two large religious communities can live together in peace.
Q: You spoke about faith being transmitted person to person. In your own life you have recalled, I think, that your nanny, growing up, was one who taught you, by her life, so much about Christianity.
A: I sometimes say that, really, most of my work, even my theological work, is really working out at the intellectual level the kinds of standards, convictions that were transmitted to me by my very godly parents and by my godly nanny. My picture of God has been very early shaped by my nanny, by my mother. I tell a story about my nanny and my picture of God. You have the father in the story of the prodigal son, and then this immensely good human being, which my nanny was, and a deeply, deeply committed Christian. She wanted to be with the Lord every day. She was talking about wanting to go and be with the Lord but was [the] most joyous person you could ever imagine in your life and deeply good as a person. At least, that's how I remember her as a child. I was five when we went to live in a different town. My mother also was deeply devout, and she was not a highly formally educated woman, but was intellectually very alive and observant of the world around and deeply, in a sense, theological and philosophical. She would look at a snowflake falling and would point to the beauty of the snowflakes falling. And then she would see them fall on the ground, and she would say, "And yet, not a single one of them is lost." "What do you mean, Mom, 'not [a] single one of them is lost'?" "Well, I mean that each one of them contributes to [the] sprouting of vegetation in spring. None of this is lost. It all comes back and gives life to life." It's these kinds of attitudes and this kind of engagement with the world around us, deeply personal but also deeply, in a sense, philosophical, that has nurtured me, all surrounded by a very deep faith. My mother was every day on her knees for about an hour or so, praying. That's how I grew up -- in those kinds of situations. And so for me, Christian faith was a very good thing as a child. I can imagine how some of my friends have grown [up] in situations where, because their parents were religious in [a] particular way, they felt oppressed on account of this. I never felt that. I felt these are the most wonderful people because they're so deeply committed. I think that has shaped deeply the way in which I relate to the Christian faith, the way in which I think that Christian faith has these immense resources for living a deeply human life. My father was a Pentecostal minister, and I grew up as a preacher's kid. My grandfather was a Baptist minister, and when I came to this country, I was partly alienated from the kind of Pentecostalism that I saw on TV. I couldn't quite relate to that. I've come to call that "machine-gun Pentecostalism." I grew up more in the Holiness Pentecostal tradition, where such things as "waiting upon the Lord," where such things as listening and hearing and much more of a kind of opening the self to God were prominent. But when I came to this country, I tended to worship in other churches. I became an Episcopalian about three years ago. My final reason was, as I put it, a flight from bad preaching. What I mean by that is not that it was not intellectually, theologically, and in other ways sophisticated. It was bad preaching because it lacked what I needed the most from preaching, and that is the very simple gospel content. I would rather somebody read to me [the] Gospel of Mark than talk [about] I don't know what. I would often go to a church, and what I get is pop psychology, popular sociology. And I always thought, "Well, I'd be better at home with a cup of warm cappuccino, [the] NEW YORK TIMES, and any old book that I can pick from my library." Do I need to go to church to get psychologized? What I needed from the church is really the gospel to be proclaimed. The Episcopal Church has this wonderful thing called THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. And within that liturgy I have found just about everything that I need. If the sermon is good, I'm all the happier for it. If the rector has a bad day, well, I can live with that.
Q: Why are you optimistic?
A: I'm optimistic because I believe in the Resurrection. I believe in God, who makes all things new. I believe that our hope does not reside in inherent tendencies of the way things are and, therefore, will be. My hope is not in extrapolating from what is to what is to come. My hope lies in the God who brings [the] new to that which is old. And that, in the Christian tradition, is expressed, symbolized, enacted in the resurrection of Christ -- [the] death of Christ for the sake of the salvation of the world and [the] resurrection of Christ -- hope in the hope of that resurrection. That's the hope of a new world -- as I said earlier, [a] world of love.
|
|
