Love Thy Neighbor is a collaborative series by Shared Justice, an initiative of the Center for Public Justice, and Neighborly Faith, an organization helping evangelical Christians to be good neighbors to people of other faiths. Recognizing that we live in a religiously diverse and pluralistic society, this monthly series will explore how Christians can embody and advocate for hospitality in principle, practice, and policy. Kevin Singer and Chris Stackaruck are the Co-Directors of Neighborly Faith and are serving as Associate Editors for the series.
BY DANIEL YANG
In June 2015, I participated in a workgroup convened by Dr. Bob Roberts Jr. composed of American Evangelical pastors and imams as well as Pakistani pastors, imams, and mullahs that met in Doha, Qatar. The gathering was called Ambassadors of Peace and the nature of the meeting centered around finding practical ways for clergy to work together to protect the religious “other” in their own countries, whether it be Christians protecting Muslims in North America or Muslims protecting Christians in Pakistan.[1]
The pastors from both countries were Evangelical (with the exception of a few from Pakistan) and held to an orthodox understanding of Christian mission which would include evangelism and conversion. There were often light-hearted jokes throughout the multiple-day gathering about the readiness of the pastors to baptize an imam or the eagerness of the imams to hear a pastor recite the Shahada. The jokes were subtle reminders of the sincerity and the seriousness each clergy felt towards wanting to see converts to their own faiths. Both groups were able to hold fast to the fundamentals and missional distinctions of their faith while remaining enthusiastic about interreligious engagement.
This workgroup was foundational in helping me to understand that a missional approach to interreligious engagement doesn’t have to exclude the objectives of a civic approach––and if done well––can even help to accomplish them. A civic approach is primarily concerned with building a pluralistic society, which in the case of America, honors and reinforces our constitutional commitments.[2]
I suggest at least three worthwhile reasons for a missional approach to interreligious engagement, especially as Christians seek to advance their partnerships with other religious groups without losing their Biblical distinctions and convictions.
1. FRIENDSHIP
Some Christians may view relationship and friendship with people of other religions as a potential means to a strategic end, such as the first step towards evangelism and conversion.[3] While this can certainly be the case and should not be easily dismissed as conniving or disingenuous (especially when done from a clear conscience and transparent motive), getting to know the religious other in relationship for the sake of friendship is a laudable objective by itself. The giving and receiving of the best parts of yourself are worth the encounter.
Miroslav Volf and Ryan McAnnally-Linz raise five potential obstacles to achieving this kind of friendship among serious people of different religions.[4] The reasons range from the problem of not sharing the same ultimate aims in life to the problem of identity and how the other threatens the integrity of the self. However, they affirm that these obstacles are not insurmountable. In fact, if and when they are overcome, the friendship that results from this difficult work is a strong testament to the robustness and authenticity of the Christian gospel. They point to Mohandas Gandhi and the Anglican missionary Charles Freer Andrews as a genuine example of this kind of friendship.[5]
Frances S. Adeney is an academic with a passion for mission through interreligious engagement. As the William A. Benfield Jr. Professor of Evangelism and Global Mission at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Adeney counsels from her experience as an academic and an active participant in interreligious engagement,
One of the best ways to engage people of another religion is through friendship. It offers a kaleidoscope of experiences that expands understanding and fosters mutual respect. Friendship offers experiences of another religion that one cannot gain through academic study. It offers opportunity to witness to the gospel, to be Christ’s hands and feet for others. And it offers the chance to receive.[6]
Adeney reminds us that friendship fosters mutual respect. Respect is a sense of dignity and worth that is ascribed to you by the religious other. This does not insinuate theological agreement, but does suggest an attitude of willingness, if not eagerness, to go deeper due to the fact that one knows the other has taken them seriously in all that is said and offered.
2. REFINING THEOLOGY
Having our theology shaped through the encounter of other religions may seem the riskiest among these objectives. In fact, to some Christians, it seems a negative and unreasonable thing to have one’s theology shaped by anything outside of Biblical revelation and the Christian Church. The idea of theology with permeable boundaries seems much too liberal or syncretistic to some Christians. But even if theology, particularly Evangelical theology, is much more enclosed and encapsulated as some would insist, can’t closed systems still be malleable and unrigid much like an inflated balloon is closed, but malleable and unrigid?
To use another metaphor, can more juice be squeezed out of the fruit of Evangelical theology? Or has it run out of fresh insight?
As Gerald R. McDermott of Samford University points out, even Reformed thinkers like Karl Barth[7] and Jonathan Edwards believed there was insight to be gained from other religions. McDermott, a leading scholar in the life and theology of Edwards, affirms that Edwards believed that there was revelation in the religions because of “borrowings” from the Jews and traditions passed down to the fathers of nations through Adam and Noah and their progeny. According to Edwards, “These revelations demonstrated that God did not abandon the Gentiles to ignorance of the divine being and nature.”[8]
McDermott also raises Barth’s question from Church Dogmatics, “Why should not the world have its varied prophets and apostles in different degrees?” To Barth, these little lights or “flickerings” should not be mistaken for true light and should be measured by the final radiance of Christ. But these truths are worth something and should be considered what he called “parables of the Kingdom” which could be tested and harmonized with the Biblical message and church dogma.
3. CIVIC ADVOCACY
The final objective in applying a missional approach for interreligious engagement is the increase of civic advocacy affirming the rights and freedoms of people of all religions in society – both their ability to practice their faith in private and in the public square through their faith-based institutions like schools, nonprofits, and the like. Christians that desire to protect their religious freedoms often realize that “freedom” must be a shared social condition for people of all religions. Christians should be motivated by their theological convictions to be better citizens on behalf of others. Protecting the freedom of conscience and religious choice is essential in seeing the Christian mission advance.
Miroslav Volf provides a bare-bones sketch of the theological reasons for Christians to support this kind of political project in a Western democratic society:
Because there is one God, all people are related to that one God on equal terms.
The central command of that one God is to love neighbors—to treat others as we would like them to treat us, as expressed in the Golden Rule.
We cannot claim any rights for ourselves and our group that we are not willing to give to others.
Whether as a stance of the heart or as outward practice, religion cannot be coerced.[9]
Given this framework, it’s still within the interest of the Christian missional cause to engage civically in a way that advocates for the dignity and rights of people of every religion. If Christians ever hope that people of other religions truly understand what is the authentic message of the Gospel and what difference following Jesus can make, they must work against politics that favor Christians as a group over others and instead favor of a society where people can hear from one other with a freedom of conscience and without coercion. Moreover, it’s the case in the United States more now than ever, where Christians remain the largest religious population, that to maintain integrity and to have a hearing among people of other religions, devoted Bible-believing Christians need to be the first to provide support and advocacy whenever communities from other religions have their religious rights infringed upon.
ENGAGEMENT FOR THE SAKE OF THE NEXT GENERATION
Youth specialist Len Kageler provides a powerful and prophetic image about the importance of raising the next generation of Christians to better understand the religiously pluralistic environment every religion now lives in. The picture is of Christian youth sitting in a room with no doors or windows. Kageler warns that much of youth ministry is designed for this kind of room. The room itself represents the childhood brain. As doors and windows are introduced to the brain, immediately questions pop up, however, the brain is not ready to reconcile the life inside the room with the world that appears outside. Kageler says awareness of other religions is like a new window or door that was not previously there, calling into question previously held assumptions.[10]
If our ministry to the next generation is ill-equipped for this reality, could it be partly due to our theology being ill-equipped?
Christian theology developed in an echo chamber, void of any meaningful interreligious engagement, will result in Christians who are ill-equipped to live and contribute meaningfully for the cause of Christ in an actual world outside of what often is a tiny room.
A missional approach for interreligious engagement is what good Christian theology looks like when integrated into the everyday reality of our religiously pluralistic communities. The simple objectives of 1) friendship, 2) refining theology, and 3) civic advocacy for religious freedom are just some suggested outcomes in which an applied missional approach for interreligious engagement pushes Christ followers out of the echo chamber and through the open doors and windows.
Daniel Yang is the Director of the Send Institute, leading and overseeing all of its initiatives. Prior to directing the institute, he planted a church in Toronto where he also helped recruit, assess, and train church planters through the Send Network and the Release Initiative. He earned an M.Div. from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Michigan, and is currently a Ph.D. Intercultural Studies student at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.
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END NOTES
[1] The gathering was held closed doors with no media coverage. The following article includes a photo and an interview of Bob Roberts Jr., the convener of the conference, who describes the purpose and the outcome of the meeting. https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2015/0729/Moving-beyond-suspicion-Muslims-and-Evangelicals-seek-common-ground
[2] Inazu, John D. 2016. Confident Pluralism: Surviving and Thriving through Deep Difference. Chicago ; London: University of Chicago Press.
[3] Fries, Micah, and Keith Whitfield, eds. 2018. Islam and North America: Loving Our Muslim Neighbors. B&H Academic.
[4] This article was posted by The Elijah Interfaith Institute on November 2015. But it also appears to be the basis for Volf and McAnnally-Linz’s chapter entitled “A Christian Perspective on Interreligious Friendship” in the book Friendship Across Religions: Theological Perspectives on Interreligious Friendship released August 2018.
[5] Volf, Miroslav, and Ryan McAnnally-Linz. 2015. “A Christian Perspective on Interreligious Friendship.” The Elijah Interfaith Institute. November 3, 2015. http://elijah-interfaith.org/sharing-wisdom/a-christian-perspective-on-interreligious-friendship.
[6] Adeney, Frances S. 2014. “‘Giftive’ Mission and Interfaith Dialogue.” Evangelical Interfaith Dialogue Fuller Theological Seminary, Critical Conversations for a Global Church, 5 (2): 10–12.
[7] I recall sitting in a lecture with Dr. Tite Tienou who did his PhD dissertation on Barth and he disclosed to our class that Barth had very little interaction with people of other religions either personally or academically.
[8] McDermott, Gerald R. 2000. Can Evangelicals Learn from World Religions?: Jesus, Revelation & Religious Traditions. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press.
[9] Volf, Miroslav. 2013. Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good.
[10] Kageler, Len. 2014. Youth Ministry in a Multifaith Society: Forming Christian Identity among Skeptics, Syncretists and Sincere Believers of Other Faiths. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Books.