Guardians of the Sacred Fires

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I really like this article on religious pluralism in the most recent Zion's Herald. It's actually the postscript of a book called The Inn at the End of the World (Reflections on an Inclusive Faith) by a retired United Methodist minister, the Rev. Dr. Kent Moorehead.

Guardians of the Sacred Fires: The challenge of surviving in a world of many religions

My favorite paragraph:

The third posture [towards religious pluralism] is to seek to take the universals of each faith, the things we all have in common, and merge them into a world faith. This would be a new synthetic form of spiritual Esperanto. Esperanto was that attempt to create a new world language, which never really worked. People love their own language. An Italian who wants to speak to his beloved wants to be able to say amore. Most of us who love Shakespeare prefer to hear it in English rather than Esperanto. The universal ideals of the great religions, such as peace, are important, but people are attracted to a faith by the particulars. Take Moses and the Prophets out of Judaism, Jesus out of Christianity, Buddha out of Buddhism, and Muhammed out of Islam, and you have a kind of amalgamated religion that sounds a little too much like spiritual stew. It would be dull, dull, dull. Behind this idea of amalgamated religion is often the idea that all religions are really the same—that we’re all trying to go to the same place, just taking different paths. Can you imagine a young woman who has just fallen in love, saying "all lovers are basically the same," or someone else saying that Gandhi, Susan B. Anthony, and Albert Schweitzer are "pretty much like anyone else?" The same is true for the great religions of the world. They are not the same. They have different views of God, history, evil, and morality. It is the distinctive elements of each religion that make them interesting and vital. Leave these out and we have lost too much.

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[part 2]

The third posture is to seek to take the universals of each faith, the things we all have in common, and merge them into a world faith. This would be a new synthetic form of spiritual Esperanto. Esperanto was that attempt to create a new world language, which never really worked. People love their own language. An Italian who wants to speak to his beloved wants to be able to say amore. Most of us who love Shakespeare prefer to hear it in English rather than Esperanto. The universal ideals of the great religions, such as peace, are important, but people are attracted to a faith by the particulars. Take Moses and the Prophets out of Judaism, Jesus out of Christianity, Buddha out of Buddhism, and Muhammed out of Islam, and you have a kind of amalgamated religion that sounds a little too much like spiritual stew. It would be dull, dull, dull. Behind this idea of amalgamated religion is often the idea that all religions are really the same—that we’re all trying to go to the same place, just taking different paths. Can you imagine a young woman who has just fallen in love, saying “all lovers are basically the same,” or someone else saying that Gandhi, Susan B. Anthony, and Albert Schweitzer are “pretty much like anyone else?” The same is true for the great religions of the world. They are not the same. They have different views of God, history, evil, and morality. It is the distinctive elements of each religion that make them interesting and vital. Leave these out and we have lost too much.

The fourth posture is what Steere calls “mutual irradiation.” This means creating settings where each faith can bring its highest and best ideals, as well as what makes them unique, into a dynamic encounter and then trust the Spirit to lead us to higher ground. Thus, a committed Muslim would not need to say, with some kind of pseudo civility, that Jesus is a prophet. That is fine, but we really want to know why the Muslim is a Muslim and what excites him about his faith. Tell us why prisoners who embrace Islam tend not to return to prison once they are released. We want a committed Jew to tell us why she follows her faith. Don’t patronize us—tell us about Moses, the Prophets, the healing power of Sabbath, and the Jews’ secret of survival through centuries of persecution. Christians should give an account of why they believe Jesus is unique, what is behind his amazing influence, and what hope he offers.

A good model for the dialogue of the world religions can be found in the encounters that Jesus had during his brief ministry. They were lively, challenging, and at times humorous. There was a repartee that was energizing and exciting. He did not seek the middle ground, asking “what can we all agree upon?” He encouraged others to state their convictions, and in the case of a rich young man, he said he was not far from the Kingdom. There was no condescending or patronizing attitude in these encounters, but there were great moments of candor. When a woman caught in the act of adultery was brought before him, he reminded the men who were ready to stone her that it takes two to commit that act. He dealt with their hypocrisy by asking those who were sinless to cast the first stone. Then he released the woman, not condemning her, but with a frank warning to change her life. In hearing these stories, we get an exciting sense of openness, dialogue, and challenge. Remember, there was no Christianity or Islam, and Jesus probably never met a Hindu or a Buddhist. His dialogues and meetings were adventures in truth seeking and in warnings about the misuse of faith and the danger of attitudes that destroy the human soul. People of diverse faiths are strong enough to have this kind of dialogue.

[continued]

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[part 3]



The key to honoring the great religions of our world is to accept, even while acknowledging mutual imperfections, that each has a sacred mystery and a sacred fire. Just as we are called to be the guardians of the sacred fire in each human being, we are also called to be guardians of the sacred fires of each religion. This means finding ways to release the highest wisdom and the deepest witness of each faith. There is a new world being born before our very eyes. There is no such thing as a Buddhist sky, a Muslim moon, a Jewish ocean, or a Christian earth. God is not the exclusive property of any one faith. We are not going to be able to destroy or ignore other faiths, and no one really wants religious stew, or the lowest common denominator. We need exciting, fresh fires of truth to burst upon this tired old world, and all of us are called to be the guardians of those sacred fires.