CURRENT 26 DIALOGUE June 1994 FROM BAAR I TO BAAR Ii A REPORT FROM A CONSULTATION ON THE THEOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF OTHER FAITHS PREFACE EXPECTATIONS FROM BAAR I TO BAAR II 3 THE THEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS PLURALITY Kenneth Cracknell 10 BEING A CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY AMONG OTHER BELIEVING COMMUNITIES Michael Amaladoss 25 UNDERSTANDING AND WITNESSING TO CHRIST IN A PLURALISTIC WORLD Jane Smith 34 Anastasios of Tirana 43 PARTICIPANTS' REPORT 50 BIBLE STUDIES | Kajsa Ahlstrand 55 Sebouh Sarkissian a7 Nan-Jou Chen 60 Mark Heim 63 LIST OF PARTICIPANTS 67 BOOK REVIEWS 69 Office on Inter-Religious Relations Staff: Dr. Tarek Mitri Rev. Hans Ucko Ms. Audrey Smith WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES Office on Inter-Religious Relations 150 Route de Ferney — P.O. Box 2100 — 1211 Geneva 2 / Switzerland PREFACE This issue of Current Dialogue contains the report of a consultation on the theology of religion held in Baar, Switzerland, from 3-8 September 1993. There were twenty-five participants, many of whom came with extended experience in the practice of dialogue. All were involved in exploring the issues related to inter-religious relations in various ways, both in their ministry and in theological reflection and teaching. The programme stream on the ‘Theological Significance of Other Faiths’ within Unit Il and the Office on Inter-Religious Relations of the World Council of Churches, brought together the group. It proved to be a fruitful way of approaching the issues involved from two different aspects and practical experiences in both dialogue and mission. The consultation was convened with the conviction that the WCC needs to give fresh impetus to the development of appropriate theologies of religion that will facilitate creative attitudes among Christians to people of other faiths. The urgency of the task was also accentuated by the increasing polarization, and even hostility, among religious communities in many parts of the world. The statement of theological perspectives and affirmations prepared by an earlier consultation in Baar in January 1990, and the report of Section | of the San Antonio World Conference on Mission and Evangelism, provided the background for the deliberations. The 1990 Baar consultation ended with the words: We feel called to allow the practice of interreligious dialogue to transform the way in which we do theology. We need to move toward a dialogical theology in which the praxis of dialogue together with that of human liberation, will constitute a true /ocus theologicus, i.e. both a source and basis for theological work. The challenge of religious plurality and the praxis of dialogue are part of the context in which we must search for fresh understandings, new questions, and better expressions of our Christian faith and commitment. The consultation did not seek to issue any major theological statement or declaration. Instead, its objective was four-fold: first, to take stock and assess the state of the debate in relation to religious plurality; secondly, to identify and define more precisely some of the central questions and pressing issues involved in revisiting Christian faith perspectives and theological formulations in the light of plurality of faiths; thirdly, to indicate the programmatic implications in mission and dialogue for the World Council of Churches; and fourthly, to point to possible approaches and directions. The participants were well aware of the traditional approaches to the theological questions in inter-faith relations and the familiar typologies of ‘exclusive’, inclusive’ and ‘pluralistic’ Christologies. While the consultation recognized that it was important to examine the state of the debate within these frameworks, the desire to move beyond them and the need to explore different frameworks loomed large. They were mindful, too, of the pastoral needs of local churches and the concern to take seriously issues involved in inter-faith relations in processes of theological education and ministerial formation. The discussion at the consultation was in three stages: first, consideration of a theological approach to the reality of religious plurality; second, exploration of the significance of being a Christian community among other believing communities; and third, working toward an_ appropriate understanding of, and witness to, Jesus Christ that is relevant to a religiously plural context. Each stage was introduced by one of the participants, followed by plenary and group discussions. Specific issues, directions and approaches and programmatic implications were identified in groups. The work of the consultation was undergirded by worship and Bible study each morning. This issue of Current Dialogue includes most of the Bible studies presented at the consultation. The consultation demonstrated the fruitfulness of bringing together persons who are committed to creative and wholesome relations with people of other faiths, but from two different approaches, namely mission and dialogue. There is often tension between the two. But the consultation confirmed what the San Antonio Report of the conference on world mission said: "We recognize that both witness and dialogue presuppose two-way relationships. We affirm that witness does not preclude dialogue but invites it, and that dialogue does not preclude witness but extends and deepens it." In a small measure, the consultation in Baar in September 1993 pointed to ways in which dialogue and witness can be held together wholistically, as well as how issues in a theology of religion can be informed both by the practice of dialogue and involvement in Christian witness. This issue of Current Dialogue is a report of one such fruitful encounter. Christopher Duraisingh Hans Ucko Theological Significance of Other Office on Inter-Religious Faiths & Gospel and Culture Relations Unit Il General Secretariat EXPECTATIONS FROM BAAR I! TO BAAR II Concerns expressed and listed by participants to a consultation - edited by Hans Ucko - From Baar to Baar The former Dialogue sub-unit brought to the Seventh Assembly in Canberra the document "Religious Plurality, Theological Perspectives and Affirmations" from a consultation held in Baar, Switzerland, where in January 1990 some thirty theologians, Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant, met to interpret the theological significance of religious plurality. The consultation was called to give some theological considerations to the urgency of dialogue. There was a need to express respect and, where possible, affirmation of the religious experience of the other. Recognizing that God can and does act in saving ways other than the one we know, offered an interpretation of the Christian claim, rooted in Scripture and tradition, that Jesus is unique and the Christian conviction that Jesus and his life has universal significance. The document "Religious Plurality, Theological Perspectives and Affirmations” of Baar 1990 dealt with religious plurality and christological thinking from a pneumatological perspective, thereby emphasizing the Assembly Theme: "Come Holy Spirit, Renew the Whole Creation!" Although the Assembly in Canberra for various reasons (the Gulf War being one major reason, demanding rather an emphasis on interreligious relations than on a theology of religions) did not after all enter into the heart of the matter of religious plurality, it did underline the necessity that the question continues to be the object of study and reflection of the WCC. With the restructuring of the WCC in 1992, interreligious dialogue was bifurcated, aiming at a strengthening of interreligious relations as such and on the other hand, attempting a missiological reflection on the theological significance of other faiths. An inter-unit cooperation would then be able to bring into inter-action actual experiences of interreligious relations and a thrust of present missiological thinking on religious plurality. The Office on Interreligious Relations and the Programme on the Theological Significance of Other Faiths within Unit Il, Churches in Mission: Health, Education, Witness, set in motion a process of cooperation through the consultation on the "Theology of Religions" held in Baar in September 1993. Some 20 theologians, who from various perspectives were extensively involved in interfaith dialogue and in a theological reflection on religious plurality, came to Baar to take stock of where Christian theological deliberations are today and where they need to go in order to be S: synchronous with the present state of affairs of the ecumenical movement and of the world today. The consultation had no intention of being a continuation of the ecumenical consultation on "Religious Plurality, Theological Perspectives and Affirmations" held in 1990. The scope of this consultation was less to make theological affirmations but more to identify issues, be task-oriented, guiding the programme into a process that is to oscillate between three foci: - The fact of religious plurality and our celebration of and response to the triune God; - The call to Christian community within the other communities of faith and the identity of the Christian community; - The witness to Christ within the Christian community among the witnesses of other communities; Listing concerns At a meeting of Christian theologians, where lived experience and theological reflection, dialogue and mission, theology of religion and theology of mission, mutually interpenetrate one another, a context is provided for a process of a continued sharing of resources towards a common understanding of what mission and dialogue today might mean in the theological discussion. Discerning which direction to take in a theological interpretation of religious plurality requires a reading of the state of the nation, an inventory of concerns and a sharing of expectations. From their particular vantage-point and their particular contexts, the participants in the Baar consultation listed some issues to be reckoned with in a process of soliciting theological approaches to religious plurality, reinterpreting the Christian community among believing communities and seeking an understanding of the witness to Christ in a pluralistic world. The context of dialogue The context of dialogue is not neutral ground but, increasingly today, a context of suspicion and resistance. Some time ago African Christians called for a new programme within the WCC, a Programme to Combat Islam! In India Hindus militate against people of other faiths, particularly Muslims, holding up the vision of hindutva, the Hinduization of India. Throughout the world there are several fundamentalist Christian hit-and-run-campaigns vilifying the enemy, the Muslim, the Jew, the Buddhist. There are many unholy alliances between religion and politics. In such a climate, it becomes necessary to address the fears and anxieties concerning dialogue in member churches, since it is obvious that there are plenty of non-theological, e.g. psychological, factors at stake. The issue of dialogue touches not only theology but psychology. Christians therefore need to be strengthened in their faith not to perceive dialogue as a threat. Religious plurality should not frighten but should be a reason to rejoice, to be strengthened in faith. Religious plurality is an issue in the churches, irrespective of the geography or demography of any church. Whether a church in India, where religious 4 manifold has been the order of the day since time immemorial, or a church in Sweden where religious plurality is a consequence of recent migration or people seeking refuge from political and social hardships, religious plurality is an issue that remains a theological challenge. For some time it may have been possible to emulate the ostrich, but asked to respond theologically, churches in Sweden or in India are confronted in the same way as they hold on to claims that seem to contradict the multi-faith appearance of today’s society. Religious plurality is nowadays an inescapable reality, sharpened in a world that has become more and more polarized. The experience of religious plurality calls the Christian community to recognize itself within the other communities of faith and assess its witness to Christ in a mode of mutuality and reciprocity. The former Moderator of the Dialogue Advisory Group, Bishop Krister Stendahl once formulated the task in the following way: "How can! sing my song of praise to Jesus without offending the other?" There is then a need for a pastoral concern in dialogue. The churches tell us repeatedly that sufficient theologizing on dialogue has been done. Tools are now needed to open the theology on dialogue, to help people to get a handle on what they already see and know. A pastoral concern and an emphasis on education is therefore needed. Theologians need to be challenged to take people on the ground seriously and to take the pastoral and educational concern seriously. People are asking theologians to help them be sufficiently equipped to live as a Christian community in the midst of other communities of faith. That is why we need to know where to move in order that education and theological formation be affected. We are unable to do anything when pastors are as they are, unformed for living in a pluralistic society. Ministerial formation is capital. Ministers are the ones who preach Sunday by Sunday in the churches. This reflects where the churches really are. Mission and dialogue held together If the tension of religious plurality and Christian celebration of Christ, as the unique expression of God, can be located as a mysterion within the triune God or be identified with the eschatological vision of God bringing ta panta, everything, together as a gathering up of all things, then our endeavour should already now be one of affirming together our theology of religions and our theology of mission. There are no two tracks to follow in real life. Lived experience have mission and dialogue together not separated. Bringing together in a conceptual way mission and dialogue, the following aspects need our particular consideration: the Christian claim of universal relevance, an acknowledgment of the genuine diversity of religious claims and a common space to be discerned. Is then a new approach possible with a conscious linking of the tracks of mission and dialogue? The theological discussion in the ecumenical movement has made attempts in this direction. Reference needs to be made to Missio Dei as a concept for theological reflection on religious plurality. The kingdom or household of God reveals the dream of God of bringing all together; the mission in Christ’s way is a mission in self-giving and not in acquiring, grasping, taking. The theology of religion must be one of one God, out of a faith which does not offend others and which does not lose its mission-perspective. We must therefore not leave the great responsibility of witness to any extreme definition of Christian witness. If we do so, we ourselves will lose the opportunity to be a real church. Dialogue with institutional cooperation between different religions in responding to current problems in the world In relations with people of other faiths we should seek more cooperation on issues of common concern, reflecting together with people of other faiths about global ethics and trying to find a minimal consensus. Working together could prevent us from carving out our own empires. The dialogue should deal with justice, peace and social issues and find ways of ministering to a secularized society. There are commonalities assisting us in finding ways to cooperate on social and ethical issues. We therefore need more a dialogue of work and less a dialogue of talk, a work-dialogue. In this connection we need to think of what an appropriate theology of religions means, the more so if we accept that the essence of theology is unchangeable. We are, after all, called to be faithful to the gospel and proclaim its uniqueness. Dialogue with sects, syncretic cults, modernity and secularism The growth of Pentecostal churches and syncretistic sects in many parts of the world can no longer be discarded. The Pentecostal churches have found their way into the hearts of people and are responding to their demands. This is a challenge for anyone used to dialogue with the major world religions and requires attention and serious consideration. It is important to remember the hiatus between mainstream churches seemingly advocating dialogue but losing people and Pentecostal churches, which look upon dialogue aS a compromise and a contamination of faith, and which are rapidly gaining terrain. This alone tells us that we must not lose the zeal for conversations with Evangelicals on what we really mean by dialogue. The many religious movements need to be taken seriously. Dialogue with Pentecostal churches and syncretistic sects is a challenge. There is no institution or theological system. In dialogue with people belonging to syncretistic religious movements, there is a need to reflect on the phenomenon of syncretism itself. Is syncretism only a bad word or is syncretism the living dialogue going on inside any person of faith in his/her journeying in religiosity? It seems to be a fact that people today are believing rather than holding on to a set of beliefs, that there is a pilgrimage in religiosity. It seems that for such people ‘believing’ is more important than ‘belief’! There is a quest for something which is beyond. Once we have realized this, we cannot even as easily characterize the secularized world as atheistic. We should instead learn to affirm values of the secular. There is not as much atheism as we believe. Instead it seems as if it is inside the churches that there is a lack of faith. Mainstream churches seem unable to cope with the phenomenon of religiosity. Are the churches prepared to learn from the actual dialogue in life? Our model should much more be how the people live their religious life. The elite is not our model. We ought to realize that we have one dialogue-partner above all, within ourselves, by the name of modernity. Whether we like it or not, we are all wrestling with modernity irrespective of our faith. Dialogue with modernity is not unrelated to a systematic theology with has a preference for the human dimension, insisting on a "jesulogy” rather than a "christology” or affirming that the christology-language cannot be ontological. The role of religions in dialogue and the self-understanding of the church How do we reconcile the mission of the Christian church and the presence of living faiths and the presence of obvious sanctity, of ethical behaviour and of concern for humankind? How can we bring the witnesses of living faiths into others’ consciousness and understanding and yet avoid proselytizing? It is often more difficult to relate to our own people who hold theological positions different from our own, than to relate to people of other faiths. How can we present our variations of Christian attitudes on mission and dialogue to people of other faiths? How can we break open and identify the evil that is takes place in the name of religion? And when doing so, can we do this from outside the tradition we belong to or are identified with? The exercise of dialogue has given us a basically positive assessment of religion. This does not mean that we are naive. There is always ambiguity, there are always negative as well as positive aspects. But what implications does it have for the understanding of the church to have a positive assessment of other religions in the plan of God’s salvation? In the field of theology of religions we need to reflect upon the role of the church. Is the church all those called by God? Is the church the final cause, is it to be fulfilled in the community of the saved? That the church is in the image of Christ drawing all to the Father? What are the practical consequences of such a vision of the church particularly in any eschatological dimension for the witness of the Christian community in a pluralistic world? The question of conversion from culture to culture There is a problem of moving from faith to faith. Conversion is a quality of life. What does conversion mean and what do the often affirmed rights of the people to their own religion and culture mean? What is the salvific significance of culture and religions? The church in Africa lives between the African traditional religions and Islam. The church in itself is a pot-plant. The church relies upon external support. The pot prevents the flower from being rooted in the soil of Africa. The pot needs to be broken. But people love the pot as much as they love the flower (gospel). The syncretism of Africa is rather the present situation of a gospel in a pot that is not African than dialoguing with African religions. African religions and Muslims are like Christians monotheists. We need theological guide-lines helping African Christians to break the pot, which is nice but which is not African and without creating a divorce with brothers and sisters in the rest of the world. A new way of theologizing and another theology Ritual, credal formulations, the structures of religious bodies is all relative in two ways, relative to be substantial transformation in human experience and relative as analogous. It is not capturing reality, it is parallel or analogous. It is bigger than that what we can capture. Deus semper maior, God is always more. We are all approaching the transcendent in ways that are suggested by our culture, language and historical experience. This is difficult for most believers wanting ultimate possession of ultimate truth. Expressing ourselves today theologically calls for a new mode of theologizing, not in a propositional theology, but in a poetic theology. Here there is no room for defining away such as when we elaborate categories of relativism, inclusivism, exclusivism. We need a poetic theology also when speaking about soteriology, christology and ecclesiology. The only thing that persuades people are the telling of stories which are in themselves poetic expressions. Getting our churches more widely involved in real dialogue and not argumentation, we need to have a theoretical wrestling, but even more the telling of stories, the faith-journeys of people of other faiths. Our theories of pluralism express something which is greater than the form in which it is expressed. Salvation is not one, and only one, thing. The divine is greater and every religious life is specific, making my neighbour’s life and mine specific. Faith is not static. Change, flux and transformation is normalcy. We should not accept a theology of religions and thereby accept status quo. There has always been a history of dialogue in the church. Theology has always been in a continuous dialogue and it is imperative for the church to be in a dialogue, with reality as such. How can we persuade people that dialogue is not elitistic but part of life? Religious plurality challenges the churches to develop a theology of pluralism, as something God-given and as having a positive value. In dialogue we often surround ourselves, as it were, with a horizon of unity and reconciliation. Can we acknowledge the difference among religions and see their differences as positive, and not at once as complimentary, trying to find how religions different from each other yet somehow hang together. Are we ready to face difference? With a theology affirming pluralism, we would have come a long way from a theology of contempt of the other, to borrow from Jules Isaac, who coined the phrase: /‘enseignement du mépris. But we have also come away from a state of tolerance, towards a theology which calls for mutual respect and preparedness for mutual change. Should not tolerance be enough? Paul Claudel once said: "Pour cela, nous avons des maisons de tolérance" (houses of ill-repute, tolerated by the authorities). You don’t really accept, you tolerate, because there is no other way. We need more than mere tolerance. If we can go beyond tolerance, genuine, mutual respect of the differences will be assured and the excitement of a mutual understanding of change will become possible. Can we thank God for the other as other, thank God that there are Hindus, Muslims, Jews? How can we express our affirmation of the other in hymns and liturgy, in teaching and catechism, in sermons and prayers? Leaving religions to be dissimilar from our own, even if they were compatible, does not give us a right to co-opt them into our own categories or conceive a Christian end. Their difference is maybe more important than anything else and part of the providential. The different religious traditions are not like ours. We may in the end need not only a theology of affirmation but more a theology of silence. Religious diversity as God-given "A rich diversity of religious experiences and forms is one of God’s greatest gifts to this world. But it requires from us the virtues of understanding and sympathy, humility and readiness to listen and to learn. Only then can we build a greater global unity in the spirit of faith, hope and love" (Robert Runcie). eS I eB I I | SPE IIS a a ee SSeS SVS 4 St Ses TSS A> SFr