'Are preaching and doctrine really barriers to peace and multi-faith harmony?' Awkward questions are uncomfortable to ask, even in congenial gatherings. Yet some are also necessary. For every group has places where it prefers not to go, despite its ultimate health depending on doing so. This is true for multi-faith groups, as it is for church and other groups. For multi-faith groups too can sometimes begin to build walls they do not realise they are creating. Last Saturday's otherwise excellent Interfaith Forum in Toowoomba was a case in point. I felt awkward demurring at the groups' discussion feedback (see photo above) but I felt something needed to be said. For, among many very helpful and constructive ideas for moving forward, up came the old chestnuts that 'we should not preach' and that 'we should avoid doctrine and just share love'. Well, yes, and no... The damage done, over the centuries, to human relationships by bad or misdirected preaching and by mishapen doctrinal assertion and conflict is incalculable. Today, hopefully, most of us are ever more sensitive to of the pain and disharmony which can be caused. There are times and places, ways and styles, which are more or less appropriate. In some areas, such as in what ecumenical and inter-religious scholars call 'the dialogue of life' and the 'dialogue of action', preaching and doctrine may be particularly important to play down. Within multi-faith and many secular settings, there are also people who have been so hurt by bad religion that we need to give priority to gentleness and restraint in communication of our own personal inspirations. Yet without doctrine we lose both the dynamism which leads to genuine unity and harmony and also the will and openness to truth upon which such unity and harmony depends. 'Love unites, doctrine divides' is certainly a popular contemporary slogan. It is even heard sometimes within otherwise informed ecumenical circles. Partly, the aversion is a case of language. Today, both preaching and doctrine smack to many of olde worlde, as well as troubling, times. It is possible indeed that such words may one day be beyond recall, in the same way that the word dogma (understood as 'non-negotiable, incontrovertible' doctrine) is pretty much taboo. Yet they are so much part of our human religious fabric, especially within Christian circles, that rehabilitation would be a better option. After all, the reality is that everyone has doctrines. Buddhists, and some others, call them 'teachings' but they are the same thing. 'Love unites, doctrine divides' is indeed (a somewhat amorphous) one of these for some. Apart from pointing out that a significant part of my life has been, and is still, given over to preaching, my own sense is that disdain for preaching is based on bad experience or misconception. After all, one of the greatest peacemakers of my lifetime was Martin Luther King Jnr, who was a preacher in word, deed, and essential personality. You could no more take the preacher out of him than you could take his passion for peace and justice, love and harmony. For these were all one, grounded in his love and experience of God in Jesus Christ. So to reject preaching, in the best sense of the word, in all circumstances, is to reject one of the distinctive charisms of Christianity (and also, to some extent, those of Islam and some other faiths). It would certainly do little to endear multi-faith discussion and relationships to many Christians for whom this is part of their lifeblood, not as a weapon towards others but as a means of grace for all. What matters is how we preach and teach. Graciously, on Saturday, this concern was heard by others. For at the heart of our journeying with others of other faith, and none, is respect for the inner integrity of one another and what shapes us for good. Doctrine itself is a vital matter for ecumenical and inter-religious as well as confessional and intra-religious life. For it is a tool which can be used to help us grow together, as well as being a potential, and well proven, weapon of division. As with other things in religion, it is a case of how it is used. Is it a barrier to protect us against others or a freeing pathway upon to which walk? Is it used for the glory of God and for human self and mutual understanding or for self or group aggrandisement? Is it a means to learn and grow, written on our hearts and in our souls rather than in proscriptions of others? Ultimately every doctrine is, even at its very best, but a symbol of eternal love. We must always be wary therefore of overstepping the mark in our own doctrinal exploration and affirmation. Yet, even when we fail to comprehend them, the greatest doctrines of faith, as genuine symbols of God's love, can be for us means of grace and revelation. As such, they cannot simply be laid aside in multi-faith relationship. They are too important for that. As the ecumenical journey has shown, 'Life and Work' concerns must proceed hand in hand with 'Faith and Order' dialogue. Sometimes love is best expressed just in presence, care and service. Intertwined and underlying however are always our understandings of love. It is a matter of our human intellectual responsibility to complement and deepen our feelings of well-being towards others. If we never wrestle with what helps and what hinders we will fail to grow in love and we will hold back our gifts of, albeit glimpsed, understanding from one another. For as G. K. Chesterton (in What's Wrong with the World?) once said: 'creeds are always in collision. Believers bump into each other; whereas bigots keep out of each others’ way.'
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For this year's Toowoomba Harmony Day celebrations, it has been a delight to write a special affirmation of peace and harmony for Toowoomba faith leaders to share. Taking up some of the themes of our journey together, including the local Indigenous significance of the Bunya tree, the Goodwill Committee of Toowoomba hope it may be a declaration we can also share and develop in the future. With every blessing upon our many peoples, faiths, and cultures which enrich us all... We come from many backgrounds and have journeyed many roads. We give thanks for these good things of our past. We rejoice in the first peoples of this land and their continuing cultures. We celebrate with all who have left other nations, brought their learning and made a home in this place. Just as the Bunya tree has given life for so many generations, so may we offer shelter and sustenance and share smiles of peace and harmony. We bring many gifts and outlooks. We give thanks for these good things of the present. We rejoice in the strengths and diversity of our shared community. We celebrate our many faiths and stories, our business and our art. Just as our environment gives delight to our Garden City, so may we scatter seeds of understanding, grow flowers of friendship, plant peace and harvest harmony. We share many hopes and dreams. We give thanks for these promises of the future. We rejoice in its possibilities. We re-commit ourselves to the common good. Just as earlier diverse communities gathered for the great Bunya festivals of the past, so may we walk together into a more joyful and reconciling world. Honouring our elders and raising up children of hope, may we be a model city of peace and harmony. No wonder Jesus so enjoyed meeting and eating with those who shared different spiritual journeys and diverse moral and religious viewpoints. It is both great fun and enriching in many ways. A recent meal with friends from our local Toowoomba Baha'i community was a beautiful example of this. Not only was the food and company delightful but, among other things, I was given fresh perspectives on the often fraught distinction between evangelism and proselytism. Unlike some 'progressive' Christians, I have never had a problem with evangelism as a core part of Christian life. Just as birds sing and dogs bark, what are Christians to do but share 'the faith that is in us'? Whilst I have met some people of other faiths who have had legitimate concerns about how some Christians seek to evangelise, they too tend not to have any real issues with evangelism as such. Instead they are supportive when they hear that many Christians have taken great pains to distinguish what is proselytism from what is (even very lively, energetic and challenging) evangelism. What I had not properly realised, until my Baha'i meal, was how others can help Christians with constructive approaches to evangelism through their own experiences. My wonderful hostess not only cooked a gorgeous meal but also spoke briefly about her experience as a Baha'i 'pioneer'. Before she ever came to Australia, she had left her native Iran with her immediate family to settle in Liberia, sharing her life and faith there as a natural part of the local community. In doing so, she had responded to the Baha'i challenge to leave home to journey to another place (often another country) for the purpose of passing on the Baha'i Faith. Steering clear of words like 'evangelist' or 'missionary' (the latter because of its associations with narrow and more bigoted forms of communication), this is what is meant by 'pioneering'. Clara and Hyde Dunn were just such pioneers when they came to Australia from the USA in 1920 and began the Baha'i Faith here. Today, there are therefore Baha'is throughout the world, adding their loving energies to community, not least in Queensland (from where the logo above comes - a witness to the creativity of a Brisbane-based Baha'i creative artist). What was magnificent to me was the way in which my dear friend spoke so movingly of the people and place to whom she had given her heart. It expressed so beautifully the joy as well as the challenge, and heartbreak (on leaving), of a true bearer of 'evangelion', good news. I was also struck by how much we all might learn from appreciation of such journeys and conversations across faiths and cultures. For at the heart of Baha'i pioneering is a deep respect for those whom they meet, reflecting the consideration and restraint that is lacking in proselytism (in whatever faith). As, the Baha'i Universal House of Justice expressed it in 1982: It is true that Bahá'u'lláh lays on every Bahá'í the duty to teach His Faith. At the same time, however, we are forbidden to proselytise, so it is important for all the believers to understand the difference between teaching and proselytizing. It is a significant difference and, in some countries where teaching a religion is permitted, but proselytising is forbidden, the distinction is made in the law of the land. Proselytising implies bringing undue pressure to bear upon someone to change his Faith. It is also usually understood to imply the making of threats or the offering of material benefits as an inducement to conversion. In some countries mission schools or hospitals, for all the good they do, are regarded with suspicion and even aversion by the local authorities because they are considered to be material inducements to conversion and hence instruments of proselytisation. This, and other reflections on pioneering by Baha'is may have value for Christians too, as we grow out of our history of deep lack of respect for even Christian difference and live in a world of continuing conflict of ideas. Of course it will not end the terrible persecution of Christians by others but it may add light to our own efforts to be bearers of light not heat. Jesus himself called Christians to be salt and yeast: qualities which enhance but destroy a good meal if they are not applied with care. In which regard, my fabulous hostess that evening showed the way with her marvelous Persian rice. 'What's the difference to ordinary rice', I asked. "Oh', she said, with a typically beautiful smile, 'its just a little thing I add': but no, I thought, not just a little dill, but a wonderful touch of love. One of the biggest challenges to peacemaking is the very way in which peace is often viewed: namely as an absence, or a state void of war and violence. At best this perspective means peace is simply boring. No wonder violence is then so appealing, even fascinating (in its ancient sense of sacred attraction or compulsion). It was therefore good to be reminded recently, at a conference at the University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba, of the considerable work that has been done in recent decades in developing the concept of 'positive peace'. Speaking to a mixed body of academics, faith and local community leaders, diplomats and government representatives, Dr Lucas Misseri (from the National University of Corboba in Argentina) opened up the subject beautifully. Developing the theories of 'positive peace' by Galtung and Maliandi, he outlined deeply constructive philosophical grounding for the work being done in Toowoomba towards 'building a model city of peace and harmony'. If peace is actually truly dynamic, then it requires convergence, enabling all that is best in the variety of human life to engage, share and create even more new, life and energy. Inter-religious dialogue, he thus opined, was a vital convergent vehicle to positive peace. Dialogue indeed represents a crucial 'space in-between' our differences, offering respect and a cherishing all that is of value . It is not necessarily about seeking consensus, for that might actually deny the potential of creative conflict. For peace is impossible if it is about settling things down. True, positive, peace is about enlarging life, bringing all that is good in the past and present into a more fulfilling, yet never complete, but always open future: what the Judaeo-Christian tradition calls shalom. As such, inter-religious dialogue should also include others who do not see themselves as religious, or may even see themselves as a-religious. For everyone needs to be involved to find more convergences and the necessary values for peace. As well as examples from Poland and the Phiiippines, the rest of the USQ conference involved considerable input from Toowoomba, showing how such dialogue is being developed locally at a whole host of levels. Deepened by our international sharing and insights, we locals were thereby strengthened in our lived dialogue, recognising it more fully as an essential resource to building the foundations of 'positive' peace: * creating spaces for convergence * establishing symbolic ways of interacting in the face of violence and 'negative' peace * acknowledging human diversity and enhancing mutual respect * contributing to a democratic lifestyle. |
AuthorJo Inkpin is an Anglican priest serving as Minister of Pitt St Uniting Church in Sydney, a trans woman, theologian & justice activist. These are some of my reflections on life, spirit, and the search for peace, justice & sustainable creation. Archives
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