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How messianic hopes create both havoc and healing
In a world of increasingly ugly conversation, let alone action, fueled by faith, Paul Raushenbush, religion editor at the Huffington Post, published a fascinating piece on the difficulty of intra-religious dialogue. Yes, intra-religious, not inter-religious. As Raushenbush acknowledges, the conversations we have with those within our respective spiritual communities are often far more difficult than those we have with members of other communities.
As the article acknowledges, it is precisely because we are more connected to those who share our religious affiliations that we seem to struggle harder when differences arise. To paraphrase Raushenbush, when it comes to religious conversation, our expectations of sameness or difference are at least as determinative as the degree to which we actually agree or disagree with one another. In other words, precisely because we expect to agree with those within our community, we find it especially painful when we discover that we may not in fact do so.
The article observes that "We will continue to have tension among Christians until we all agree on everything or Jesus comes again -- and I am betting on Jesus." Does that mean that when Jesus comes, the expectation is that people, or at least all Christians, will agree? Is the messianic expectation one of all differences resolved, or could it be a heightened capacity to sustain genuine difference, even within a given tradition, and to do so with civility, respect and love?
While the author has since told me that his reference to when "Jesus comes again" is, for him, a reference to a distant future so far off as to be irrelevant, my question remains for anyone who believes in a future time when all will be perfected.
The redemptive/messianic expectations of any community shape their present realities and behaviors profoundly. In fact, once those expectations are made known, one can almost always predict how that community is likely to behave, at least if they have to power and opportunity to do so.
For example, communities which look forward to a time when all people will share their belief, have a particularly terrible track record when they combine their faith with real power and the opportunity to use it. Those traditions which imagine many paths to salvation and/or redemption do much better when they find themselves in similar circumstances. But the same can be said about the various communities relative success when it comes to dealing with religious differences, whether within their own faith or when they encounter other faiths.
A final observation about the relative ease and difficulty of inter- and intra-faith encounters: a great deal of inter-faith encounters aren't terribly inter-anything. Too often it is people who happen to mumble in different languages while wearing slightly different clothing gathering to celebrate the fact that when it come to "the important stuff", however they have already defined it, they all agree! Not exactly surprising that they find the conversation quite easy.
The real work, whether inter-religious or intra-religious, begins when those in the room have substantive disagreements about whatever it is they both believe is "the important stuff". One crucial technique for making that conversation work, as Raushenbush points out in his article, is that all parties to the conversation examine their own shortcomings before analyzing those of their interlocutors. Think of it as sacred self-critique.
Given the state of today's religious struggles, not to mention how those struggles flow into the contemporary political arena, the future of the planet may depend on our ability to practice it better.
By
Brad Hirschfield
|
January 19, 2011; 2:15 PM ET
| Category:
Interfaith Issues
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Posted by: Kingofkings1 | January 21, 2011 11:34 AM
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@ WmarkW;
Interesting comment. I'm an atheist too, and I have to say that religion bothers me - all of it from Creationism to the supernatural skyGod and life after death. I don't buy any of it. It's probably the oldest scam of them all - getting folks to believe in something you can't see, or touch, or hear from directly. "You just gotta believe" is an absolutely wonderful huckster's call that actually works.
The world is full of Elmer Gantrys selling nothing but an idea, and everybody buys it, because it gives them hope, though they call it faith. It's still just hope really. Nothing to rely on. No evidence. Nothing.
Life after death has to be ridiculous. As far as we know all living things die. We cannot be an exception when you think about it. We die. Fact.
The religious posit a supernatural world where God hangs out with dead people. And if you are good - AND BELIEVE - then you will go there too.
No way I can buy into such an obvious hoax.
Death is death, and there is no escaping that fact.
Cheers mate.
Posted by: Rongoklunk | January 20, 2011 9:08 PM
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How sad that religion, especially the Catholic Church, leaves millions of the poor and hopeless desperately waiting for something to happen instead of helping themselves.
Posted by: areyousaying | January 20, 2011 9:18 AM
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Being an atheist, religious beliefs that are actually disprovable (Creationsim) bother me a great deal, while the ones that are purely speculative (what happens to one's essence after death) generally don't. But among the latter, one that does bother me a great deal is Apocalypticism or Messiahnism (the belief that a messiah will take over the world and set everything right).
No one, either supernatural or superior beings such as UFO pilots, is going to come to earth to solve our problems. Neither will they be solved by a final war of religion, unless the "solution" consists of our total destruction.
The sects that reject ecumenical human-based solutions because a holy text promises their own side ultimate victory deserve our pity, fear and scorn. As do the people whose political opinions on debt, environmentalism or foreign policy, grow from their belief that a supernatural act of some kind makes the present an irrelevant predictor of the future.
Posted by: WmarkW | January 20, 2011 7:36 AM
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Good observation, rabbi.