Christian perspectives on inter faith relations:

Divine Love underpins dialogue

Talk given by the Inter Faith Officer at Somerville College Chapel, Oxford, Sunday 14th February 2010

So what is it that I am going to talk about this evening? What is the Christian perspective, the Christian ingredient that should animate and underpin all our relationships, not least and not only those with believers of other religions? You know this already. I am going to talk about Divine Love, the Love of God. It is Valentine’s day and so it is legitimate to talk about love, although I must emphasise that the Love I am proposing is Love with a capital L “God is love” (1 John 4.8). Human love can be strong but it is also limited. It needs to be refreshed and renewed constantly by Divine Love. Divine Love can sustain friendship and exchange with our neighbours, in this case of other religions, where there may not be natural bonds of kinship or culture.

When God became man in Jesus, he brought to earth the lifestyle of heaven and showed us what love is from God’s point of view. The Gospels and Christian scriptures illustrate its many characteristics but I would like to highlight a few this evening.

• As we know, Christ died for all, to reconcile the whole of humanity with the Father. So Christian love both demands of us, and gives us the capacity, to love everyone, without exception – as God does, making no distinctions. For a Christian moreover, everyone must be loved because it is Jesus whom we love in each person ‘You did it to me’ (Mt 25.40). At a local outdoor event in a county in the south of England the local inter faith group had its little gazebo. One gentleman refused to go in, saying ‘I’m a Catholic so I don’t need that’. In reality the Roman Catholic Church and other Churches have highly developed theologies of inter religious dialogue and vast experience of friendship and exchange with neighbours of other faiths. The capacity to go beyond the circle to which we belong is embedded in our DNA as Christians (and indeed as human beings made in the image of God). It is often fear of the unknown or insecurity about our faith that prevents us doing this. This is why interreligious dialogue requires a deepening of our faith, not watering it down.

• Another significant characteristic of Christian love is to be the first in loving, to take the initiative, reflecting God’s love for us in sending Jesus to save us while we were still in our sins. ‘We love because he first loved us’ (1 John 4:19) In every day life, this means not waiting for the other person to take the first step, but being the first to move without expecting any response or initiative on their part. A friend who heard of attacks on synagogues in Britain texted a Jewish colleague who texted back: ‘Thank you. That means more than you can possibly know. When you wonder whether every face masks a hate it is beyond price to know that there is genuine compassion.’

Up and down the country hundreds of inter faith groups and associations have been formed, some formal, many informal. They may be composed of a few Christian and Muslim women who meet regularly, or indeed be a national organisation like the Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom. Most, not all, have arisen out of Christian initiative, the impulse to build and foster dialogue and friendly relations with all neighbours. This is irrefutable evidence on the ground, but it grew out of the work of the Holy Spirit. In fact, one of my favourite sayings is by St John of the Cross, the great Spanish mystic, who said: ‘Where you do not find love, put love, and there you will find love.’ Taking the initiative is extremely important. It gives us freedom and brings great rewards.

• A third characteristic of Christian love, shared by other religions and philosophies is to love each person as ourselves, ‘Do to others as you would have them do to you’ Luke 6.31. This is the Golden Rule well expressed by Gandhi when he affirmed ‘You and I are one and the same thing. I cannot hurt you without harming myself.’ Let’s think for a moment what the world would be like if not only individuals but also peoples, ethnic groups, and states were to practise the Golden Rule. For example, ‘Love the other’s country as your own’.

In the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake there has been much talk of debt cancellation, the dire consequences of colonial history and the slave trade, corrupt and incompetent governments, how to go about rebuilding, and now the Robin Hood tax. History does indeed teach us some very stark lessons about failures in Christian living and consequently how believers of other religions may see Christians today. Over 40 years ago Pope Paul VI already proclaimed “Development is the new name for peace”…. If we are able to recognise all people as brothers and sisters in the human family, as children of God, then we will be able to build a world in which there is more solidarity and unity.

• A fourth characteristic of Christian Love can be summed up in a few words: To make ourselves one. Making ourselves one with others means making their worries, their thoughts, their sufferings, their joys our own. The great apostle Paul wrote: ‘I have become all things to all people so that I might by any means save some’ (1 Cor. 9.22) Making ourselves one applies first of all to interreligious dialogue. It has been written that ‘to know the other’s religion implies seeking to walk in the other’s shoes, seeing the world as he or she sees it, grasping what it means for the other person to be Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu…’.

A startling example of this kind of love was the experience of Fouad, a 21 year old Lebanese man, during the war in Lebanon. He was returning home from the airport when he was stopped by some men along the road to Beirut. It was a Muslim area. On his identity papers the men read ‘Maronite Christian’. ‘Yes, I am a Maronite Christian’ Fouad admitted ‘and I am on my way home’. ‘You come with us’ they replied. They interrogated him and afterwards they said, ‘You know what is going to happen to you don’t you?’ The young man realised that it was all over for him. One of the militia men took him towards a bridge where many Christians had been killed. While he was walking along he tried to calm his inner turmoil and thought about what God wanted of him in that moment. ‘Love this neighbour’ was what came to mind. So he tried to make the man aware of his love for him. He said ‘It must be difficult, a nasty business, this job … making war.’ They were in sight of the bridge. The militia man stopped, looked at him and said: ‘Let’s go back’. At the command post he spoke with the others. One of them came up to Fouad and said: ‘You were lucky because they killed his brother a few days ago’. As if to say – if there was anyone who might have been really glad to kill you it was him.

These points, to love everyone, to take the initiative, to love our neighbours as ourselves and to take on board the joys and sufferings of others are illustrated especially in the life of Jesus but they can be lived by all of us, whatever faith tradition we might be rooted in.

In this way believers of different religions can be united by God’s love and together build a society and a world where there is solidarity and justice.

Celia Blackden 14.02.10


Supplementary information given:

On the handouts you will find details of Christian principles of inter faith relations, inter faith organisations, Christian resources and other information. Next year we will have a new Census, and the question on religion will remain as it was in the 2001 Census for Religion in the UK. The results of the 2001 Census showed the following figures which I have rounded off. These have of course changed since then:
Buddhist 152,000
Christian 42,000,000 71.6%
Hindu 559,000
Jewish 266,000
Muslim 1,591,000
Sikh 336,000
Other 178,000 (a good number declared they were Jedi Knights!)
None or not stated 13,500,000