Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road by Brian D. McLaren
Why do you think Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed would walk across the road to meet each other? What would they do or talk about? Brian believes that this imagery is not the beginning of a joke but it’s rather the start of one of the most important and fascinating conversations in the world today.
No one can deny the central role and influence that religion has had and still has on our world and history. Our identity has been largely formed by or in relation to our religious beliefs or lack of. In this “How to” book, the author attempts to compassionately, respectfully and tactfully reframe Christian identity in a multi-faith world. He takes a practical, pastoral and constructive approach by focusing on how to develop a healthy, sane and faithful Christian identify in a multi-fait world.
This identity goes beyond having a common enemy to fight and conquer which leads to hostility and violence but it’s about solidarity and benevolence. The author seeks to guide those who are seeking treatment for what he calls Conflicted Religious Identity Syndrome (CRIS) derived from the following tension: To accept and love God, must I betray my neighbor of another religion? To accept and love my neighbor, must I betray the God of my religion?
Brian reveals that whether we realize it or not, most people who suffer from CRIS are trying to distance themselves from religious hostility. That sense that the other is the enemy who must be turned away, or not welcomed as a guest or friend. While the book is primarily addressed to Christians, the author hopes that peaceable Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and others will find their own creative engagement with their own conflicted identities.
The tensions between our conflicted religions arise not from our differences, but from one thing we all hold in common: an oppositional religious identity that derives strength from hostility. Many Christians have felt unable to accept the typical responses of Christian faith to other faiths. On the one hand, we can’t in good conscience maintain a position of hostility toward or superiority over the religious commitments of other religions; On the other hand, we don’t feel right or faithful in watering down or suppressing our own deep commitment to Christ, the Bible, and the rich inheritance we have received in the Christian community.
A third option is to discover and practice a strong, generous, and benevolent Christian identity which is characterized by generosity and hospitality and not by hostility or mere niceness.
By identity, the author means an array of characteristics that make an individual recognizable as a member or an affiliate of a group, or that make one group recognizable and distinct from others. It follows then that each member needs to practice and watch conformity to these characteristics in order to remain a faithful member of the group/clan. And when people feel that a group they value – be it racial, religious, regional or ideological – is under attack, they rally to its defense, even at some cost to themselves.
So, my evolving personal sense of who I am is normally strengthened and supported by a stable “groupish” sense of who we are. But when who we are is threatened or destabilized in some way, my who I am is also threatened or destabilized in some way. When we increasingly understand who we are in relation to an enemy – whether that enemy is legitimate, innocent, or imaginary – we develop an increasingly hostile identity. Such an identity teaches us to see sameness as safety and otherness as danger.
In seeking to strike a healthy and honest balance in telling our history, the author is convinced that Christians (Western Christian in particular) must acknowledge the degree to which their faith has become a syncretized faith, a compromised faith. From Constantine to Columbus to other conquistadors to the colonizers mixing authentic Christian elements of love, joy, peace and reconciliation with strictly imperial elements of superiority, conquest, domination and hostility.
Why would people want to affiliate with the religion of an empire that threatens their security, history, culture, and economy? And that does it in Christ’s name?
How then do we treat oppositional, hostile and imperial malignancies? By faithful reformulating orthodoxy. Five hundred years after the Great Reformation, many key doctrines like Creation, original sin, election, the Trinity, the deity of Christ and the Holy Spirit would need to be reformulated. We’re, perhaps, on the verge of the Great Reformulation!
For example: what might happen if every Easter we celebrated the resurrection not merely as the resuscitation of a single corpse but more as the ongoing resurrection of all humanity through Christ? What if Easter was about our ongoing resurrection in Christ, in a new humanity marked by a strong-benevolent identity as Christ-embodying peacemakers, enemy lovers, offense forgivers, boundary crossers and movement builders?
God’s commonwealth where ALL are welcome! This possible impossibility is what Jesus meant when he claimed that the kingdom or commonwealth of God was at hand. It was not out of reach, nor was it in hand, already attained. It was simultaneously in reach and note yet seized, a gift already fully given, and not yet fully received, opened and enjoyed.
We need to celebrate Jesus! Instead of holding Jesus hostage as the private property of the Christian religion, we need to proclaim that God has already offered Christ as a gift to the world (For God so loved the world that he gave….). As the Christmas carol puts it “Let every heart prepare him room and heaven and nature sing”. The book challenges every religion, including all forms of Christianity, to prepare him room and sing.
As Gandhi said in conversation with E. Stanley Jones, Christian identity in a multi-faith world must be marked by:
- Christlikeness – so that we experience spiritual formation in Christ-like character, Christ-like vision, and Christ-like virtues and values.
- Focused on unadulterated, undiluted Christian practice – full devotion, not compromised or weakened
- Emphasize love – love as a “center and soul” of our faith, love for God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Love for the neighbor, stranger, outcast, outsider and enemy.
- Sympathy – we must approach other religions and cultures and the people who inhibit them with sympathy: Understanding, respect, human-kindness and benevolence.
So, why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? To discover (show) the other as neighbor, and to show solidarity with those on the other side.
Good thought! I will try to get hold on the book to read more about the subject. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI strongly encourage you to do that. It's a eye-opening read
DeleteThank you for the summary Muhindo.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome
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