Recently we have talked and read at length about inter-religious connections and ecumenism. This has long been an interest of mine and I wish to explore it much more during my time at Drew.
What follows is an excerpt from something I wrote earlier this year. I share it now as a background as to where I'm coming from - part of why I am here and some of the questions I have brought with me. Perhaps it will be something to refer back to as I learn more over the next few years.
---
How do religions interconnect, and how do we rectify their intellectual aspects? Is it possible for people of different backgrounds to maintain their spiritual strength without breaking down that of their counterparts? This is the theological dilemma which I find most pertinent both spiritually and academically, particularly in the past four years while I studied at Sarah Lawrence, a religiously diverse college. In the final year, I conducted an oral history project on students’ beliefs, faith, and experience. I hoped to encourage both academic and personal dialogue between students and provide a relaxed and respectful atmosphere in which they can explore and express their beliefs. Diverse in every possible way, no two interviewees professed precisely the same faith, yet all shared much in common.
Such is true, I find, of Christian denominations. Can Christians be both spiritually catholic and protestant, if not nominally, socially, or politically? Catholic: broad or wide-ranging; having sympathies with all; universal. Protestant: protesting injustice and corruption; striving for improvement, reform, and objectivity; from the word meaning "to bear public witness." Did Christ not represent all of these qualities?
A Roman Catholic priest once told me that "God does not check your denomination like an I.D. card." In the past decade, the Vatican, the Lutheran World Federation, and the World Methodist Council came together in the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, stating that "by grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works." In our doctrine and our divides, how do we differentiate the human from the divine? How does Christ bring unity and peace to a world in which Christianity creates further divisions and categories? Most significantly, must we erase these categories – must we be a reconciled Catholic church, or a Unitarian Universalist church, or a nondenominational church – or is it possible to respect human individuality while honoring the universality of the Divine?
As my project progressed I found inspiration and assurance that, though the journey for peace may be a long one, it is possible. It requires a willingness to speak and to be silent, a willingness to listen. With each interview, I learned not only to listen better but to listen to what cannot be heard.
Lilla Watson said, "If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." Her words transformed my entire perspective of outreach; although I had not reduced it to charity or good deeds, I had not fully comprehended the interconnectedness of humanity, our sufferings and our hopes. And not only has it affected my approach to serving the poor, the hungry, and the outcast, but it has convinced me that peace in every sense is a matter in which our liberation is mutually bound.
No comments:
Post a Comment