Eye on Faith

Thursday, January 19, 2012

King Abdullah II's three-piece harmony

King Abdullah II (World Economic Forum)

When H.M. King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein of Jordan introduced his World Interfaith Harmony initiative, he wisely did so in three cumulative steps.

He began with the 1425 AH/2004 CE Amman Message, the stated goal of which was “to declare what Islam is and what it is not, and what actions represent it and what actions do not.” As part of the development of this message, King Abdullah II had sent the following three questions to 24 of Islam’s greatest international scholars: (1) Who is a Muslim? (2) Is it permissible to declare someone an apostate (takfir)? (3) Who has the right to undertake issuing fatwas (legal rulings)?

The responses he received led to these “Three Points of the Amman Message”: First, “a precise definition of who is a Muslim” was arrived at through validating all eight Mathhabs (legal schools) - including Sunni, Shi’a and Ibadi Islam, traditional Ash’arism Islamic theology, Islamic Sufi Mysticism, and true Salafi thought. With reference to this initial definition, takfir between Muslims was then forbidden. Last, “the subjective and objective preconditions for the issuing of fatwas” was then set forth - “thereby exposing ignorant and illegitimate edicts in the name of Islam.” The widespread adoption of the Amman Message within the overall modern-day Ummah (nation) of Islam goes a long way to assure “balanced Islamic solutions” for vital issues such as human rights and religious freedom.

The second major leap towards World Interfaith Harmony that King Abdullah II has made involves the Common Word letter. Under King Abdullah II’s Patronage, the final version of this letter was presented

at a 2007 CE conference in Jordan. It emphasized that “the most fundamental common ground between Islam and Christianity, and the best basis for future dialogue and understanding, is the love of God and the love of the neighbor.”

With these two groundbreaking initiatives already underway, King Abdullah II then went on to the third

harmonious piece. At the 65^th UN General Assembly, he introduced a “draft resolution for an annual World

Interfaith Harmony Week.” This resolution was adopted in 2010 CE - and the first week of February will henceforth be dedicated each year to that noble endeavor.

Resources

http://www.ammanmessage.com/

http://www.acommonword.com/

http://worldinterfaithharmonyweek.com/about-us/king-abdullah-ii/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_II_of_Jordan

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Timkat: A celebration of Ethiopian Christianity

Philip and the Ethiopian (by Rembrandt)

Christianity is a vibrant part of Ethiopia’s heritage and has been so since the first century AD.

Numerous theories exist as to how Christianity was first introduced into this Sub-Saharan African land. Acts 8 tells us that Philip the Evangelist was told by an angel of the Lord to travel south to Gaza. There he met a royal-court Ethiopian who was sitting in his chariot reading these words from the prophet Esaias: He was led as a sheep to the slaughter… Philip “preached unto him Jesus” and afterwards baptized the Ethiopian. This is viewed by many as the start of the Ethiopian Church (although Wikipedia also mentions that Matthew the

Apostle was thought by historian Nicephorus to have preached the Gospel in what is now Ethiopia).

Ezana became the first ruler (320s to c. 360 CE) of the Axumite Kingdom (which included present-day Ethiopia, Yemen and Eritrea) to not only “embrace Christianity,” but to also make it the official state religion. His childhood tutor, Frumentius (aka Kesate Birhan, “Revealer of Light” – Abba Salama, “Father of Peace” – and presently Saint Frumentius), was appointed the first Abune (“head”) of the Ethiopian Church. Centuries later, when Islam expanded throughout North Africa, Ethiopia was the only area within the region that remained a Christian state.

Timkat (aka Timket and Timqat, and meaning “baptism” in Amharic) “celebrates the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River.” Following the Ethiopian calendar, it is also “the Ethiopian Orthodox celebration of Epiphany.” The Timkat festival traditionally includes a “ritual reenactment of baptism,” and the Tabot (“model of the Ark of the Covenant”) being borne on the head of a priest during the procession. Very early in the morning, “the Divine Liturgy is celebrated near a stream or pool.” Near dawn, a “nearby body of water is blessed” - and then either entered into by the participants or sprinkled upon them. By noon that same day, the crowd reassembles at the site to enthusiastically escort the Ark back to its home church.

Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timkat

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Ethiopia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-Saharan_Africa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_the_Evangelist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezana_of_Axum

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frumentius

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Rufus Jones: Howard Thurman's inspiration

(Young Gandhi)

Just as Martin Luther King, Jr. was inspired by Howard Thurman -Thurman, in turn, was inspired by the great Quaker mystic, Rufus Jones. (And all three were influenced by the life and work of Mahatma Gandhi…)

WMHT’s This Far by Faith reports that Thurman first encountered Jones’ work while serving as pastor at the Mount Zion Baptist Church in Oberlin, Ohio. Thurman went on to study with Jones, which Thurman described as “the watershed event of his life.” Thurman became intent upon transforming Jones’ global focus into a more local one. The question Thurman wrestled with was this: How can we manage the carking fear of the white man’s power and not be defeated by our own rage and hatred?

The answer to that elemental conundrum might partially lie within Jones’ emphasis upon a very practical and accessible form of mysticism. Matthew Hedstrom states that Jones “promoted an egalitarian mysticism, open to all” and “not just a privilege reserved only for the great spiritual athletes.”

Wikipedia reports that Jones partially defined mysticism as “the attainment of a personal conviction by an individual that the human spirit and the divine Spirit have met, have found each other, and are in mutual and reciprocal correspondence as spirit with Spirit.”

Hedstrom theorizes that Jones’ view of mysticism stems from the late-19^th, early-20^th century “Quaker milieu in which it was formulated.” It was also likely influenced by Jones’ 1927 trip to Asia – during which he visited China, Japan, India, and even Palestine. While in India, he met with Gandhi - and also traveled to the Buddha’s birthplace. Wikipedia states that “this trip helped Jones formulate a new approach to missions – that of giving humanitarian aid to people while respecting other religions and not aggressively converting people to one’s own religion.”

Jones believed that there are two main types of mystics: those that primarily seek inner “peak experiences” (which Jones regarded as “spiritual escapism”), and those that “do not make vision the end of life, but rather the beginning…”

Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rufus_Jones_(writer)

http://www.crosscurrents.org/Hedstrom0204.htm

http://www.pbs.org/thisfarbyfaith/people/howard_thurman.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Howard Thurman: MLK's inspiration

(Howard Thurman)

With Christmas just ending in many parts of the world, it’s time to focus again upon this famous poem by Howard Thurman: When the song of the angels is stilled, When the star in the sky is gone, When the kings and princes are home, When the shepherds are back with their flock, The work of Christmas begins…

According to Thurman, this sacred work entails the following: To find the lost, To heal the broken, To feed the hungry, To release the prisoner, To rebuild the nations, To bring peace among people, To make music in the heart. It’s no wonder that Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK) considered Howard Thurman to be one of his foremost mentors. (Wikipedia reports that Thurman was originally a friend of King’s father while the two were attending Morehouse College, then later served as a “spiritual advisor” to King’s son, MLK.)

Thurman not only mentored Martin Luther King, Jr., but was also key in bringing Mahatma Gandhi’s message of civil disobedience to the West. During his “Negro Delegation of Friendship” India visit with Gandhi in 1936, Thurman asked what message he should take back to America. The Teach Peace Foundation reports that “Gandhi said he regretted not having made nonviolence more visible worldwide and suggested some American black man would succeed where he had failed.”

One of Gandhi’s core beliefs was that “God-given faith could be used to fight the oppression of white American segregation.” This greatly impressed Thurman, who – although already a Baptist minister – had previously thought that Christianity was somewhat of “a religion used by whites to keep blacks ‘in their place’ with images of a white Christ and images of a land of milk and honey in the great beyond.” Just as Gandhi used Hindu principles in India’s civil disobedience, Thurman began to use Christianity’s in America’s.

In his book, Jesus and the Disinherited, Thurman portrayed Jesus as “a liberating figure, bringing new

testament gospel together with non-violent resistance.” King, who had previously viewed the “love ethic” of

Jesus as applicable to individual relationships only, was deeply influenced by this book’s societal implications.

Resources

http://www.teachpeace.com/lphowardthurman.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Thurman

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi

Juan Rivera: Vegan pizza to go

Justice (Fresco by Luca Giordano)

A man who spent nearly 20 years of his life behind bars for a crime he apparently didn’t commit is now able to freely experience such simple gifts as no-cheese pizzas.

Said pizzas - reflecting the veganism that Juan Rivera first embraced while imprisoned - were joyfully shared with him and his family at Northwestern University’s Center on Wrongful Convictions (CWC) after Rivera’s recent release from Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet, Illinois. The Chicago Sun Times reported that “Rivera’s appeal was led by Northwestern University law professor Lawrence Marshall,” who co-founded the CWC in 1999. Co-counsel was provided by “the firm of Jenner & Block” and the CWC.

The CWC website explains that even though the terms “wrongful conviction” and “exoneration” technically refer to “legal innocence” (as in cases where “a defendant was convicted of a crime and later restored to the status of legal innocence based on evidence not presented at the defendant’s trial”) - there is also “compelling evidence of actual innocence in a substantial majority of wrongful conviction cases.”

Of the CWC’s many exonerees, “13 had been sentenced to death.” In addition to the moral implications of this injustice, the financial ones are staggering. The CWC reports that “the taxpayer’s tab” for the wrongful imprisonment of 37 of these innocent men and women was “well in excess of $15 million…” These costs pale in comparison to “the social costs of lives and careers destroyed and families devastated” – not to mention the death and destruction that resulted from leaving violent criminals on the street.”

Juan Rivera emphasizes that he is not only free in body, but also in mind and spirit. He told the Chicago Tribune: I always knew I was a lifer, but I never lived as a lifer. The only thing that was incarcerated was my body… Rivera also talked about “his devotion to the religious faith he found” while incarcerated.

When asked if he were angry about his wrongful conviction, he replied: Am I mad? No. I’m disappointed that mankind would do this.

Resources

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-man-who-spent-21-years-in-prison-for-murder-to-be-released-20111004,0,489419.story

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-juan-rivera-interview-20120113,0,3329807.story?page=1&utm_medium=feed&track=rss&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20chicagotribune%2Fnews%2Flocal%20%28Chicago%20Tribune%20news%20-%20Local%20news%29&utm_source=feedburner

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/9851013-418/man-jailed-19-years-in-11-year-olds-stabbing-death-to-go-free.html

http://www.law.northwestern.edu/cwc/

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Mormons and Evangelicals: How do they compare?

With the January 21^st South Carolina Republican primary election on the horizon, people are wondering to what extent religion might decide the vote.

Reuters explains that “evangelical Protestants are expected to form a large voting bloc” and that “some evangelicals harbor mistrust for fast-growing Mormonism and its more exotic beliefs.” Reuters then references this Pew report finding: … while a substantial majority of the world’s 14 million Mormons view themselves as Christians, some non-Mormons view them as a cult based on the belief in living apostles and prophets, two additional books of scripture besides the Bible and other tenets.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints website describes the Book of Mormon as “Holy Scripture,” and states that it “is the word of God, like the Bible.” Its content “contains the history and God’s dealings with the people who lived in the Americas” (during the thousand-year period from

approximately 600 BC to 400 CE). According to Wikipedia, many Mormons also adhere to the Doctrine and Covenants (aka D&C, or D. and C.), which is “a part of the open scriptural canon of several denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement.” This book includes “many revelations on numerous topics…”

The Church website also describes Joseph Smith, Jr. as “a Prophet of God,” and states that God called him “to re-establish the Church of Jesus Christ.” One of the governing bodies of Smith’s church hierarchy is the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. The members of this quorum “are considered to be apostles, with a special calling to be evangelical ambassadors to the world.”

Although mainline Protestant Evangelicals tend to disagree strongly with some of these Mormon traditions, Reuters reminds us that there are some striking similarities between the two groups. Greg Smith of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life is referenced as listing these commonalities: They are ideologically conservative, a majority are Republican or lean Republican, they tend to attend church and pray regularly, and religion is often important in their lives.

Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormons

http://news.yahoo.com/mormon-moment-examined-u-survey-061142822.html

http://mormon.org/

Friday, January 13, 2012

Superstition and religion: Are they related?

(Author: W. J. Pilsak)

According to Wikipedia, “Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events.” So far, this sounds a lot like religion. What then, if anything, is the difference

between the two?

Wikipedia goes on to explain that the answer is very much dependent upon which side of the believer’s fence a person is standing (kneeling, bowing, etc.). If a person was an ancient-Roman fan of Ovid’s, then the Classical Latin term superstitio, might have meant “an excessive fear of the gods” (as opposed to religio, the “proper, reasonable awe of the gods”). During that period, superstitio was also used in reference to Early Christianity (which was “outlawed as a superstitio Iudaica in AD 80 by Domitian”).

The word “superstition” continues to be used disparagingly about spiritual beliefs that are not those of the predominant culture. For example – many adherents of Abrahamic religions such as Judaism, Islam and Christianity view Dharmic and/or Taoic beliefs as either misguided superstitions, or as outright apostasies.

Nevertheless, Austin Cline of About.com finds many connections between religion and superstition. Although his somewhat narrow definition of “superstition” tends more towards black cats and ladders than it does towards cosmology, he concludes that superstition and religion have these things in common: both are “non-materialistic in nature”; both seek to “provide meaning and coherence to otherwise random and chaotic events”; and “in both cases, people are expected to avoid certain actions and perform other actions in order to ensure that they do not fall victim to the unseen forces at work in our world.”

Interestingly, many lingering superstitions (such as those about Friday the 13^th) have some roots in religious tradition (Jesus was allegedly crucified on a Friday, and Judas is sometimes referred to as the 13^th apostle).

Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstition

http://atheism.about.com/od/religionnonreligion/a/superstition.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions

http://forbiddengospels.blogspot.com/2007/03/thirteenth-apostle-what-gospel-of-judas.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_the_13th