October 1, 2009
On project that is getting underway under the auspices of the Anglican Communion Office is called ‘The Bible in the Church’. We were introduces to this work at the Compass Rose Meeting. Essentially this is an international project to help Anglicans become aware of the hermeneutic or interpretive principles that they bring (in fact rather than in theory) to the interpretation of the scriptures. I am not optimistic that we will be able to develop or discover ‘Anglican’ hermeneutic principles. I am more hopeful that we can discover what is valuable about distinctive principles.
While I was in England I also took another look at an old book by Lyle Schaller looking at alternative futures and strategic planning for churches. I wanted to make sure that we were covering all the bases with our prayer, process and planning. I am daily more convinced that the direction that is emerging within our committee, vestry and staff both honors our historic concerns and commitments as a parish and offers an exciting way to conceive and shape our work going forward. I do not expect us to come up with one of those plans with seven strategic initiatives and fifteen tactical bullet points ‘to do ‘lists under each one. At this point I expect that we will agree on an understanding of defining vision that will shape all of our ministries in a variety of ways over time. It will be along the lines of emphasizing our commitment to formation for confident Christian Faith (remembering our foundation as a Sunday School) and seeing the essential mission of ‘engaging the other’ as a way of describing what we do (remembering our commitment to ministries of justice in the world). I can imagine changes as a result of such a vision that would be radical if we tried to order everything about our parish in this way on day one, which over time will be more understood as development of who we are.
Recognizing, understanding and appreciating difference is easier said than done. This has been the mission statement of an organization about which I have written before called Visions-Inc. Whether or not and to what extent they might be helpful to us as we seek to respond to the Gospel remains to be seen. What I do not doubt is that it will be hard to find the greater unity beyond clear and contradictory interpretive principles about scripture which lead to clear and contradictory conclusions about ethics or the preferred shape of the society on which we live. I do not believe that it is God’s desire that we separate from those with whom we disagree (especially at the points at which we feel our position is coming to the fore or we feel that our power is being eroded.) That means that we have to find a bigger vision and hold fast our trust in God’s fidelity to us. When I am back with my books I will take another look at Margaret Wheatley’s book Leadership and the New Science which I remember as a book that looked at things like chaos theory and fractals in terms of an ever-widening perspective in what is ‘real’, allowing us to be clear and honest about the tensions we know are present in our relationships with each other while holding fast a greater vision of the way in which God sees all of creation.
Friday, October 2, 2009
The Compass Rose 2009
October 1, 2009
The Compass Rose Society is reclaiming its original identity as a missional and connective society in the Anglican Communion and moving away from trying to raise money for projects (however worthy) of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC). As such it is once again showing signs of being the kind of society I thought we were joining when All Saints’ became a member in 1999. We were represented at the meeting by Della and Jere Wells who are joining the study and mission journey to Malawi for the next week. Sam and Boog Candler were also present from Atlanta. Sam is on the board of the society. They are doing the work of making connections between people within and throughout the Anglican Communion. We are proclaiming that our need for connection across boundaries and our unity in Christ is greater than our need to be theologically correct. Members of the Society are individuals, families parishes and dioceses (from Episcopal and at least one ‘breakaway’ parish) who make an initial gift equivalent to $10,000 or more and then continue to give at least $2,000 each year for projects either supported as a result of a society visit to a part of the church in need and in the company of the Secretary General of the ACC or at the request of the Archbishop of Canterbury. You can learn more here, and I would be glad to talk to anyone interested in joining, doing extraordinary work and enjoying the privilege of dinner with Archbishop and Mrs. Williams as long as they are gracious enough to host us.
This year we were to be addressed by the Bishop of Jerusalem who was denied permission to travel out of Ben-Gurion airport only days before he was due to leave. As a Palestinian, he could have left through Jordan but did not have time to make those arrangements. His report was emailed and read to us. In it he referenced the extraordinary difficulty of travel imposed by the Israeli authorities. This was one more example of how difficult things can be for anyone who lives in what the Bishop calls ‘The Land of the Holy One’. Appeals that are based on the sufferings of Palestinians are always dodgy to my ears unless they also acknowledge the reality that many Palestinians and their allies are committed to the eradication of Israel and the denial of their right to exist as a nation. I know that the sufferings of Palestinians are real and I know that Christians are a shrinking minority among Palestinians. I also know that when push comes to shove the predominant Palestinian identity is Arab and Muslim and that identity will ‘trump’ the others. I am nervous about the tendency of Anglicans to give uncritical support to the Palestinians without clear statements that Israel exists and should be able to exist without being threatened by its neighbors. At the same time it must be possible for us to question Israeli policies without being declared anti Jewish or suggesting ‘moral equivalency’.
At dinner we were able to ask the Archbishop questions. He is very good at taking the questions seriously and giving thoughtful answers.
I asked: “Our bishops came home from the Lambeth Conference wondering when the Church of England was going to join the Anglican Communion. What do you imagine they meant by this question and what, if any, response would you like to make?”
In his answer, he thought it possible that some English bishops have an over exalted view of their position which might give an unfortunate impression. He was quick to defend the C of E as being a church in which every diocese puts considerable resources toward relationships in the wider communion. These are the kind of answers I would probably have offered were I in his shoes. They do not of course address the realities of power in the communion or any particular way in which some apparently view the C of E as avoiding entering the communion fray. I note this as observation without judgment implied.
I was heartened to hear the Archbishop recognize (albeit with some gloom) that we may be headed to a covenant that some Anglican provinces cannot sign, but which doe not represent the end of the world. We will still be the church in mission, caring for the neediest among u and establishing relationships in Christ throughout the world. It is my impression that as The Episcopal Church has continued to define itself, so the Archbishop has become clear about what he wants and what he sees as the way forward. The consequence of that greater definition appears to be the most people are settling down and happy enough to let things play out without the sense that there is a power vacuum which bishops in Durham, Lagos and elsewhere are quick to seek to fill.
The Compass Rose Society is reclaiming its original identity as a missional and connective society in the Anglican Communion and moving away from trying to raise money for projects (however worthy) of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC). As such it is once again showing signs of being the kind of society I thought we were joining when All Saints’ became a member in 1999. We were represented at the meeting by Della and Jere Wells who are joining the study and mission journey to Malawi for the next week. Sam and Boog Candler were also present from Atlanta. Sam is on the board of the society. They are doing the work of making connections between people within and throughout the Anglican Communion. We are proclaiming that our need for connection across boundaries and our unity in Christ is greater than our need to be theologically correct. Members of the Society are individuals, families parishes and dioceses (from Episcopal and at least one ‘breakaway’ parish) who make an initial gift equivalent to $10,000 or more and then continue to give at least $2,000 each year for projects either supported as a result of a society visit to a part of the church in need and in the company of the Secretary General of the ACC or at the request of the Archbishop of Canterbury. You can learn more here, and I would be glad to talk to anyone interested in joining, doing extraordinary work and enjoying the privilege of dinner with Archbishop and Mrs. Williams as long as they are gracious enough to host us.
This year we were to be addressed by the Bishop of Jerusalem who was denied permission to travel out of Ben-Gurion airport only days before he was due to leave. As a Palestinian, he could have left through Jordan but did not have time to make those arrangements. His report was emailed and read to us. In it he referenced the extraordinary difficulty of travel imposed by the Israeli authorities. This was one more example of how difficult things can be for anyone who lives in what the Bishop calls ‘The Land of the Holy One’. Appeals that are based on the sufferings of Palestinians are always dodgy to my ears unless they also acknowledge the reality that many Palestinians and their allies are committed to the eradication of Israel and the denial of their right to exist as a nation. I know that the sufferings of Palestinians are real and I know that Christians are a shrinking minority among Palestinians. I also know that when push comes to shove the predominant Palestinian identity is Arab and Muslim and that identity will ‘trump’ the others. I am nervous about the tendency of Anglicans to give uncritical support to the Palestinians without clear statements that Israel exists and should be able to exist without being threatened by its neighbors. At the same time it must be possible for us to question Israeli policies without being declared anti Jewish or suggesting ‘moral equivalency’.
At dinner we were able to ask the Archbishop questions. He is very good at taking the questions seriously and giving thoughtful answers.
I asked: “Our bishops came home from the Lambeth Conference wondering when the Church of England was going to join the Anglican Communion. What do you imagine they meant by this question and what, if any, response would you like to make?”
In his answer, he thought it possible that some English bishops have an over exalted view of their position which might give an unfortunate impression. He was quick to defend the C of E as being a church in which every diocese puts considerable resources toward relationships in the wider communion. These are the kind of answers I would probably have offered were I in his shoes. They do not of course address the realities of power in the communion or any particular way in which some apparently view the C of E as avoiding entering the communion fray. I note this as observation without judgment implied.
I was heartened to hear the Archbishop recognize (albeit with some gloom) that we may be headed to a covenant that some Anglican provinces cannot sign, but which doe not represent the end of the world. We will still be the church in mission, caring for the neediest among u and establishing relationships in Christ throughout the world. It is my impression that as The Episcopal Church has continued to define itself, so the Archbishop has become clear about what he wants and what he sees as the way forward. The consequence of that greater definition appears to be the most people are settling down and happy enough to let things play out without the sense that there is a power vacuum which bishops in Durham, Lagos and elsewhere are quick to seek to fill.
England
October 1, 2009
It has been wonderful being back in England for a few days. I was able to celebrate my father’s birthday at one wonderful restaurant and see one of my oldest friends (about to be married and move to Australia) at another. The best meal was lunch in the company of other friends at Rousillon. These were all squeezed in around the annual meeting of the Compass Rose Society (see next entry) including dinner at Lambeth Palace. Each day I was able to run and walk around various places in Central and West London. The city is noticeably and more than I remember polyglot, visible in the mix of races and costumes, the shops, other businesses, billboards and the newspapers.
At the same time I re-read a book from long ago: John Le Carre’s A Perfect Spy which captures so much of the England I knew from thirty years ago with all the characteristic attitudes expressed by the characters of the novel. Last year my book club wondered whether Le Carre could be read as serious fiction and this book should leave no one in doubt about the correct answer.
All of which is to say that rather than finding myself nostalgic, I found myself energized in the same way I used to experience excitement and anticipation as I took a train into New York City. (I see that is the subject of Edward Rutherford’s latest book, --one that I will read before long.) It is not so much the institutional expressions of England that captured my imagination on this trip. The death throes of ‘new labor’ under Gordon Brown were on the front pages most days and the Church qua institution shows no discernible signs of life. I was more aware of a sense of possibility, a kind of renewal, even with all the problems we have with coming to terms with difference. We can make a start through recognizing, understanding and even appreciating what difference can mean and wresting some positive outcomes from the challenges of a multi cultural, multinational, multi faith world.
It has been wonderful being back in England for a few days. I was able to celebrate my father’s birthday at one wonderful restaurant and see one of my oldest friends (about to be married and move to Australia) at another. The best meal was lunch in the company of other friends at Rousillon. These were all squeezed in around the annual meeting of the Compass Rose Society (see next entry) including dinner at Lambeth Palace. Each day I was able to run and walk around various places in Central and West London. The city is noticeably and more than I remember polyglot, visible in the mix of races and costumes, the shops, other businesses, billboards and the newspapers.
At the same time I re-read a book from long ago: John Le Carre’s A Perfect Spy which captures so much of the England I knew from thirty years ago with all the characteristic attitudes expressed by the characters of the novel. Last year my book club wondered whether Le Carre could be read as serious fiction and this book should leave no one in doubt about the correct answer.
All of which is to say that rather than finding myself nostalgic, I found myself energized in the same way I used to experience excitement and anticipation as I took a train into New York City. (I see that is the subject of Edward Rutherford’s latest book, --one that I will read before long.) It is not so much the institutional expressions of England that captured my imagination on this trip. The death throes of ‘new labor’ under Gordon Brown were on the front pages most days and the Church qua institution shows no discernible signs of life. I was more aware of a sense of possibility, a kind of renewal, even with all the problems we have with coming to terms with difference. We can make a start through recognizing, understanding and even appreciating what difference can mean and wresting some positive outcomes from the challenges of a multi cultural, multinational, multi faith world.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Compass Rose Annual Meeting
September 23, 2009
Next week I will attend the annual Meeting of the Compass Rose Society which includes the wonderful privilege of dinner at Lambeth Palace hosted by Archbishop and Mrs. Williams. Generally there is a question and answer period before hand with the Archbishop. In some years when I have been in attendance he could be forgiven, based on the questions, for thinking that all those who support the Anglican Communion and wish to see it thrive are ardent supporters of the move toward some kind of Anglican Covenant behind which he has chosen to throw his support.
He takes the questions written on cards from members of the society in attendance, reads them verbatim and answers them thoughtfully and thoroughly. I’m chewing on what I would like to ask him and would welcome (with no promises implied) any suggestions you might have.
Next week I will attend the annual Meeting of the Compass Rose Society which includes the wonderful privilege of dinner at Lambeth Palace hosted by Archbishop and Mrs. Williams. Generally there is a question and answer period before hand with the Archbishop. In some years when I have been in attendance he could be forgiven, based on the questions, for thinking that all those who support the Anglican Communion and wish to see it thrive are ardent supporters of the move toward some kind of Anglican Covenant behind which he has chosen to throw his support.
He takes the questions written on cards from members of the society in attendance, reads them verbatim and answers them thoughtfully and thoroughly. I’m chewing on what I would like to ask him and would welcome (with no promises implied) any suggestions you might have.
Anne Graham Lotz
September 23, 2009
Newsweek (September 21, 2009 p.17) reports that Billy Graham’s daughter is promoting a new book called The Magnificent Obsession. She is quoted as saying “Religion is an impediment to knowing God…Procedures, rituals, creeds: how in the world can they help you connect with God?...If you’re sprinkled when you’re baptized or dunked when you’re baptized, it doesn’t matter as far as your salvation goes.” She does also leave some room for finding fellow travelers when she says “You can really love the Lord, but after a while, if you’re all by yourself, the fire goes cold.”
I met Ms. Lotz in 1983 (although there is no reason why she would remember me.) I was a newly ordained deacon and went with some parishioners to the immensely popular Bible Study Fellowship in Raleigh where she was a primary teacher. Even then it was clear that individual salvation was her concern and that there was not sense of church, except perhaps as an optional extra. There was certainly no explicit theology of church, or the place of the church in the life of faith, or ecclesiology. I thought of this then as I do now as the Christian equivalent of being ‘spiritual, not religious’. It is a reasonable resistance to the idea that any ‘experience’ (of salvation or anything else spiritual) is necessarily mediated in some way. The problem is that there is no such thing as the unmediated experience, --at least at the point at which we think about describing it in words.
There is a sense, then, in which the Church mediates our experience of
Christ through the ways in which we tell and respond to the story of Jesus, generation to generation. I’m with Ms. Lotz in resisting prideful claims to have the only and authoritative way of telling and interpreting the story. I’m not with her in considering Christian Community to be either optional or dispensable.
Newsweek (September 21, 2009 p.17) reports that Billy Graham’s daughter is promoting a new book called The Magnificent Obsession. She is quoted as saying “Religion is an impediment to knowing God…Procedures, rituals, creeds: how in the world can they help you connect with God?...If you’re sprinkled when you’re baptized or dunked when you’re baptized, it doesn’t matter as far as your salvation goes.” She does also leave some room for finding fellow travelers when she says “You can really love the Lord, but after a while, if you’re all by yourself, the fire goes cold.”
I met Ms. Lotz in 1983 (although there is no reason why she would remember me.) I was a newly ordained deacon and went with some parishioners to the immensely popular Bible Study Fellowship in Raleigh where she was a primary teacher. Even then it was clear that individual salvation was her concern and that there was not sense of church, except perhaps as an optional extra. There was certainly no explicit theology of church, or the place of the church in the life of faith, or ecclesiology. I thought of this then as I do now as the Christian equivalent of being ‘spiritual, not religious’. It is a reasonable resistance to the idea that any ‘experience’ (of salvation or anything else spiritual) is necessarily mediated in some way. The problem is that there is no such thing as the unmediated experience, --at least at the point at which we think about describing it in words.
There is a sense, then, in which the Church mediates our experience of
Christ through the ways in which we tell and respond to the story of Jesus, generation to generation. I’m with Ms. Lotz in resisting prideful claims to have the only and authoritative way of telling and interpreting the story. I’m not with her in considering Christian Community to be either optional or dispensable.
End of Life
September 23, 2009
Some things have become clear in the health care conversation. One is that providing insurance for everyone is going to cost money and that money is going to have to come from somewhere. Two is that people who are currently insured do not want to lose the coverage that they have and that with a change in the system there is some likelihood that something will change for everyone involved. Three is that no one really knows what drives health care costs and that if there is not to be overt rationing of resources then our behavior has to be changed in some way regardless of insurance, if we are going to reduce or manage the amount and proportion of GNP (or whatever) our society spends on health care. Each and maybe all of these realities are going to be resisted by someone. We have more or less adjusted to the changes that brought about ‘managed care’ and those changes, while not fun, appear to have slowed the rate of growth in health care costs, and we can all adapt to any changes that come out of the current reform.
My instinct is that it is the third of these issues (cost control) that generates the most difficulties for us because it is so hard to know exactly what is driving costs in the first place. Is it doctor’s insurance in a litigious society? The cost of development of drugs and ever-more-accurate, ever-more-expensive diagnostic tools? (Hands up everyone who has ever had and MRI for a headache.) The existence of good insurance with little or no ‘co payments’? Insurance Company shareholders insisting on profits? Or is it just a plain old combination of these and a host of other factors all being driven by our fundamental fear of death? Apparently 30 percent of Medicare costs relate to the last six months of life. I can think of numerous situations in the past thirty years where medical costs near the end of life could have been reduced and treatment in the face of death made a great deal more humane for everyone (patients, families, nurses and doctors) if only there had been some serious conversation about the patient’s wishes while she or he were able to have those conversations. My attorney always addresses the need for a medical power of attorney whenever I revise my will (which is good), but that doesn’t really lead to lead to clarity. I can say quite clearly that I want aggressive and expensive treatments to have a more than 70% likelihood of being effective in restoring me to some kind of enjoyable quality of life, and I want the people who know and love me to judge what that would be for me. I do not want to say that there is no point or worth in a life in which a person is severely handicapped or incapacitated. I do not want to make those kinds of decisions for others and I certainly don’t want any laws that could lead to pressure on patients to do anything other than affirm life (even though I suspect that some things that pass for affirmation-of-life are really a far of death that is part and parcel of an already-happened spiritual death.)
Years ago, when it was still common to be in the hospital for eight weeks following a hysterectomy, for example, I put on a well attended Sunday School class on ‘the hospital experience’. A chaplain talked about end of life choices and planning. Afterwards a doctor, who acknowledged that he had gone into reconstructive surgery in part because of his abhorrence of death, asked some pointed questions. The chaplain’s response was affirming of the concerns and work of that doctor. He said “When I go to the doctor, I’m not really looking to speak with someone who is comfortable with death. I want someone who is gong to make me better.” Well said. The doctor’s office is not the place for conversations about choices at the end of life to happen any more than meeting with a bereaved family is the time to teach what makes for good liturgical choices about funerals. But those conversations need to happen somewhere and regularly if there is to be any hope of really controlling health care costs through changed behavior. We don’t want to reduce or be cavalier in any way about the importance of the gift of life. At the same time we don’t need to be turning some technical measure of life (breathing, heartbeat, brain activity) into an idol. We can put on classes and create safe spaces for conversation, but what will make us want or need to attend?
Some things have become clear in the health care conversation. One is that providing insurance for everyone is going to cost money and that money is going to have to come from somewhere. Two is that people who are currently insured do not want to lose the coverage that they have and that with a change in the system there is some likelihood that something will change for everyone involved. Three is that no one really knows what drives health care costs and that if there is not to be overt rationing of resources then our behavior has to be changed in some way regardless of insurance, if we are going to reduce or manage the amount and proportion of GNP (or whatever) our society spends on health care. Each and maybe all of these realities are going to be resisted by someone. We have more or less adjusted to the changes that brought about ‘managed care’ and those changes, while not fun, appear to have slowed the rate of growth in health care costs, and we can all adapt to any changes that come out of the current reform.
My instinct is that it is the third of these issues (cost control) that generates the most difficulties for us because it is so hard to know exactly what is driving costs in the first place. Is it doctor’s insurance in a litigious society? The cost of development of drugs and ever-more-accurate, ever-more-expensive diagnostic tools? (Hands up everyone who has ever had and MRI for a headache.) The existence of good insurance with little or no ‘co payments’? Insurance Company shareholders insisting on profits? Or is it just a plain old combination of these and a host of other factors all being driven by our fundamental fear of death? Apparently 30 percent of Medicare costs relate to the last six months of life. I can think of numerous situations in the past thirty years where medical costs near the end of life could have been reduced and treatment in the face of death made a great deal more humane for everyone (patients, families, nurses and doctors) if only there had been some serious conversation about the patient’s wishes while she or he were able to have those conversations. My attorney always addresses the need for a medical power of attorney whenever I revise my will (which is good), but that doesn’t really lead to lead to clarity. I can say quite clearly that I want aggressive and expensive treatments to have a more than 70% likelihood of being effective in restoring me to some kind of enjoyable quality of life, and I want the people who know and love me to judge what that would be for me. I do not want to say that there is no point or worth in a life in which a person is severely handicapped or incapacitated. I do not want to make those kinds of decisions for others and I certainly don’t want any laws that could lead to pressure on patients to do anything other than affirm life (even though I suspect that some things that pass for affirmation-of-life are really a far of death that is part and parcel of an already-happened spiritual death.)
Years ago, when it was still common to be in the hospital for eight weeks following a hysterectomy, for example, I put on a well attended Sunday School class on ‘the hospital experience’. A chaplain talked about end of life choices and planning. Afterwards a doctor, who acknowledged that he had gone into reconstructive surgery in part because of his abhorrence of death, asked some pointed questions. The chaplain’s response was affirming of the concerns and work of that doctor. He said “When I go to the doctor, I’m not really looking to speak with someone who is comfortable with death. I want someone who is gong to make me better.” Well said. The doctor’s office is not the place for conversations about choices at the end of life to happen any more than meeting with a bereaved family is the time to teach what makes for good liturgical choices about funerals. But those conversations need to happen somewhere and regularly if there is to be any hope of really controlling health care costs through changed behavior. We don’t want to reduce or be cavalier in any way about the importance of the gift of life. At the same time we don’t need to be turning some technical measure of life (breathing, heartbeat, brain activity) into an idol. We can put on classes and create safe spaces for conversation, but what will make us want or need to attend?
Monday, September 7, 2009
The Niqab in France
September 7, 2009
The debate over Nicholas Sarkosky’s attempts to ban the wearing of the niqab in France gets at much of the dilemma I experience in relation to Islam. If you do a search for relevant articles, look for the burqa rather than the niqab. The burqa is the head covering worn by some Muslim women in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere which has a gill of some kind covering a woman’s eyes, where the niqab leaves a slit in the head covering making a woman’s eyes visible to others. The hijab is a headscarf which is often worn by Muslim women in America.
The view of some in France, as I understand it, is that these head coverings are signs of the oppression of women in a male dominated religious culture and therefore fundamentally at odds with the liberal values of secular France. Some Muslim women however point out that they are French nationals, often born in France, who are highly educated and who choose to wear the niqab as a sign of their own religious commitment to modesty in a secular state which they see as having no moral boundaries or center. So is this a question of civil rights or freedom of religion?
I have seen some blog sites in which many of the commentators are convinced that the fundamental underlying issue represents neither civil rights nor religious freedom but a full fledged hatred of Islam and a determined effort to make France inhospitable to that faith.
My efforts to understand my own responses to Islam have led me to read Islam Under Siege (Polity, 2003) and Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization (Brookings Institution Press, 2007), both by Akbar Ahmed, the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University and a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution. He identifies three primary streams or models for Islam which he identifies with three places in South India.
The stream he associates with ‘Ajmer’, home of the founder of the Chisti order and sympathetic to those familiar with the more mystical traditions of Islam represented by Rumi and generally familiar as Sufism. Adherents of this model can be austere and puritanical all the way to people who might use drugs and or alcohol, (prohibited in Islam) in service of their mystical pursuits.
The ‘Deoband’ model includes all mainstream Islamic movements from the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia to the Muslim brotherhood or Hamas in the Middle East. They all seek to trace their view of the world to Muslim tradition in a conscious way. Ahmed would include Ibn Taymiyya from the past and Syed Qtub more recently among those who represent this model. Our friends at the Al-Farook Masjid of Atlanta would fall into this broad category which can include that minority who resort to terror all the way to people simply trying to keep the traditions of their tribe or culture in foreign lands.
‘Aligarh’ represents a modernist Muslim response to the world. This is where Ahmed finds himself and bemoans the declining influence of the movement as many of his coreligionists (and many conservatives of other faith streams) seek to reject Modernism and its consequences in the face of globalization with no perceivable moral center. This model includes genuine democrats and military dictators (Muhammad Abduh in Egypt in the 19th century to the Shah more recently. They wish to preserve what is essential to Islam while engaging modern ideas. They may be extremely devout or effectively ‘secular’.
Clearly none of these models provide and exact match to the complexities of Judaism or Christianity, but they help us see the same trajectory of growing conservatism in reaction to what many perceive as a world out of control, a world of instant communication and no moral guiding principles, a world in which global markets are good at creating wealth but dreadful at distributing it in any way that makes for community or justice, a world in which the gaps between rich and poor are growing ever more severe.
The excellent Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, Jonathan Sacks has pointed a way toward addressing these challenges in another excellent book called The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations (Continuum, 2002), in which he argues for constructive engagement between peoples of faith.
The French debate about the niqab does not admit of simple or simplistic analysis but points to a whole host of issues and challenges in the large sweeping currents that affect all of our lives.
More to follow in due course.
The debate over Nicholas Sarkosky’s attempts to ban the wearing of the niqab in France gets at much of the dilemma I experience in relation to Islam. If you do a search for relevant articles, look for the burqa rather than the niqab. The burqa is the head covering worn by some Muslim women in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere which has a gill of some kind covering a woman’s eyes, where the niqab leaves a slit in the head covering making a woman’s eyes visible to others. The hijab is a headscarf which is often worn by Muslim women in America.
The view of some in France, as I understand it, is that these head coverings are signs of the oppression of women in a male dominated religious culture and therefore fundamentally at odds with the liberal values of secular France. Some Muslim women however point out that they are French nationals, often born in France, who are highly educated and who choose to wear the niqab as a sign of their own religious commitment to modesty in a secular state which they see as having no moral boundaries or center. So is this a question of civil rights or freedom of religion?
I have seen some blog sites in which many of the commentators are convinced that the fundamental underlying issue represents neither civil rights nor religious freedom but a full fledged hatred of Islam and a determined effort to make France inhospitable to that faith.
My efforts to understand my own responses to Islam have led me to read Islam Under Siege (Polity, 2003) and Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization (Brookings Institution Press, 2007), both by Akbar Ahmed, the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University and a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution. He identifies three primary streams or models for Islam which he identifies with three places in South India.
The stream he associates with ‘Ajmer’, home of the founder of the Chisti order and sympathetic to those familiar with the more mystical traditions of Islam represented by Rumi and generally familiar as Sufism. Adherents of this model can be austere and puritanical all the way to people who might use drugs and or alcohol, (prohibited in Islam) in service of their mystical pursuits.
The ‘Deoband’ model includes all mainstream Islamic movements from the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia to the Muslim brotherhood or Hamas in the Middle East. They all seek to trace their view of the world to Muslim tradition in a conscious way. Ahmed would include Ibn Taymiyya from the past and Syed Qtub more recently among those who represent this model. Our friends at the Al-Farook Masjid of Atlanta would fall into this broad category which can include that minority who resort to terror all the way to people simply trying to keep the traditions of their tribe or culture in foreign lands.
‘Aligarh’ represents a modernist Muslim response to the world. This is where Ahmed finds himself and bemoans the declining influence of the movement as many of his coreligionists (and many conservatives of other faith streams) seek to reject Modernism and its consequences in the face of globalization with no perceivable moral center. This model includes genuine democrats and military dictators (Muhammad Abduh in Egypt in the 19th century to the Shah more recently. They wish to preserve what is essential to Islam while engaging modern ideas. They may be extremely devout or effectively ‘secular’.
Clearly none of these models provide and exact match to the complexities of Judaism or Christianity, but they help us see the same trajectory of growing conservatism in reaction to what many perceive as a world out of control, a world of instant communication and no moral guiding principles, a world in which global markets are good at creating wealth but dreadful at distributing it in any way that makes for community or justice, a world in which the gaps between rich and poor are growing ever more severe.
The excellent Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, Jonathan Sacks has pointed a way toward addressing these challenges in another excellent book called The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations (Continuum, 2002), in which he argues for constructive engagement between peoples of faith.
The French debate about the niqab does not admit of simple or simplistic analysis but points to a whole host of issues and challenges in the large sweeping currents that affect all of our lives.
More to follow in due course.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)