Yesterday was the first “Table Talk” of the year at the Center for Lutheran Studies at Claremont School of Theology. It was rockin! And by rockin’ I mean that Lutheran style refreshments were enjoyed by many as well as good, deep, challenging conversation with the occasional humorous outburst, not unlike the writing of Martin Luther.
Several subjects were touched on. If I had to say that the conversation had a consciousness (word up to Kris), it was all about exploring and dreaming of overcoming rifts. The particular rifts that were discussed had to do with issues specific to Claremont School of Theology, but these issues also affect much of the world. Our rifts were between religious backgrounds an
Out of the shoot we talked about the Legacy of Martin Luther and religious dialogue. Luther, unfortunately, does not have a very good record of religious dialogue. Early in his career he reached out to Judaism, but when all of Judaism of Europe did not come rushing to him with an interest in converting, Luther grew vitriolic. The Lutheran church has formerly apologized for this, and how his writing were used in terrible way. Luther also did support the project of reading the Qu’ran. Again, his motives seemed to have been geared more toward “debating” than dialogue. If it was honest debate he wanted, that would have been a step forward from earlier Christian writers and thinkers who simply “name called” instead of reading the Qu’ran. But our host, Dr. Thom Johnson, raised the point that for Luther what is most important was the gospel, grace, and Christ. So if Luther would have been really pressed on What Would Jesus Do? Then who knows where the conversation would have gone? Grace is a very good starting point to engage in religious dialogue from a Christian perspective.
We also had a great conversation inspired by a blog post of Drew Baker. I encourage you to read it. Drew raised a few points of conversation that we spent a fair amount of time on. As a community, CST is struggling to be a place where people of many different backgrounds feel welcome. I for one am very encouraged and hopeful about the University Project, as I think are my fellow students at Claremont.
The conversation then took a turn in an unexpected direction when we began to discuss the rift between students focused on academics and those focused on ministry. Lots of personal experiences were shared, each one valuable. This has caused me to wonder: what is the relationship between “academic” theology and “practical” theology? I have continued this conversation with friends, and it also makes me think back to the class that propelled me into the blogosphere: Theology After Google.
I would like to go on the record to say that I think it is a gross misconception that people in congregations and religious persons in general are not interested in going deep in their religious education. Far from it. Yes, teaching can be a challenge. But I think that the best and brightest of academia as well as aspiring religous leaders, activists, etc. need desperately to engage a wider audience. As an MDiv and aspiring MA student I feel privileged to be able to go deep into theological disciplines and into the art of ministry itself. I am enriched by experts who devote most of their time to research. I am also enriched and enlivened by religious leaders who know the real life scenarios and situations that people on the ground face everyday. Shouldn’t these areas be considered interesting by academics?
What might collaboration look like?
Thanks Wes and Drew for the excellent discussion topic. Here are my thoughts- long-winded as they are. If collaboration means seeking understanding and tolerance through the exchange of ideas, then collaboration is certainly possible and advisable. But all collaboration requires some sort of agreement, (i.e. agreement that seeking understanding and tolerance is a good idea). And when the two parties disagree completely, it’s hard to imagine what collaboration could mean.
In terms of collaboration among people of mixed religious perspectives, once again, exchanging ideas among people of mixed convictions is great. And yet just because religious collaboration is possible in one sense doesn’t mean it’s advisable (or possible) in all senses. This is because religions are about more than promoting tolerance and understanding. There are other issues- of retribution and forgiveness, karma and grace, pluralism and proclamation- that each religion wants to speak to in very different ways. In the areas where two religions agree, (i.e. Christianity and Buddhism both discourage materialism), collaboration is possible and productive. But real collaboration is often not possible on issues of more stark difference.
This discussion seems to stem from what you two are experiencing at Claremont, and so I’ll speak to this context. Looking in from the outside, it would seem that Claremont sees promoting a collaboration of tolerant dialogue between religions to be more central to its mission than identifying itself with any one religion. Not many institutions have undertaken this mission, and so it has some validity. But perhaps the problem that your school is dealing with is that collaboration in religion is hard to realize among people who basically disagree, because religious identity always involves saying ‘yes’ to some things and ‘no’ to others. How can we generate honest collaboration among people who disagree without also dissolving personal religious identity?
For instance, what would it mean for someone who believes that Christian Scripture contains God’s truth to collaborate in a bible study with a scholar who does not believe in God at all? While the believer would be exploring how the text speaks divine truth to daily life, the atheist would be asking questions of historicity, authorship, and literary history. And it’s not that either side’s questions are foolish or wrong, and perhaps we can even collaborate by sharing each others questions. But when our answers are so starkly different, eventually the collaboration breaks down. Because our primary modes of questioning are somewhat different, and our answers to these questions are (sometimes) absolutely different.
Like I said earlier, all the great religions have historically had much more on their agenda than just proclaiming tolerance. The question your school is facing is, can different religions continue to proclaim their distinctive religious agendas while remaining under the same roof? Said differently, if the institution takes the position of saying ‘yes’ to everything, how can it say ‘no’ to anything? If Claremont stands for all religious convictions, how can it, in the end, stand for any of them? I’m not saying that collaboration is impossible on all levels, but perhaps it is impossible on some of the most important ones. Thanks again for the great discussion. I would love to hear any of your thoughts or refutations. Thanks.
Thank you Paul. Those are great questions and you get to heart of many of the issues we deal with. To answer your question it does seem that there are some “no’s” at Claremont. I think there is an implicit “no” to theological exclusivism, “my way or the highway.”
I believe that you are currently serving and learning in Egypt. Perhaps your own real life experiences would be very helpful in discerning what kinds of collaboration are possible, in a very different religious landscape than say Southern California or Iowa.