Karen Armstrong on Muslim and Christian Dialogue

Folks taking a look at what I am interested in here on my blog will note that Christianity's and Christians' relations with two other major traditions: Islam and Buddhism, is important to me. I heard this a few moments ago in an interview Speaking of Faith conducted with Karen Armstrong. I thought it said rather profound things about what we are up against in trying to understand where fundamentalisms come from. Since we may all harbor some of its dross in our bosom and since meaningful inter-religious dialogue cannot begin until we address this head on, it's best to go straight at it, which I believe this anecdote offers us the possibility of doing.

Ms. Tippett: I wonder if you would tell a story that you told when you and I were on a panel together several months ago. It was a simple story, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. You described being on another — part of another discussion and a fundamentalist Christian, I believe, beginning to rant and rave. Do you remember this?
Ms. Armstrong: Yes. I was at Oregon State University and it was a conference called "God 2000" and it was a wonderful conference. We had lectures from Jews, a rabbi, a Muslim scholar, and we were all asked to say what we had learned about God, and it was wonderful. People were asking profound questions about the nature of prayer, spirituality, listening to very, very religious ideas. Very pluralistic ideas were coming out that nobody thought that their tradition alone had the right answer, the monopoly of truth.
And then when we were on the final panel, suddenly erupted in the hall a fundamentalist who started to shriek at us incoherently. What I could make out was that he was saying that Jews and Muslims denied Jesus and therefore they were going to hell, and all of those of us who sided with Jews and Muslims were also going to hell, and this was evil. And you couldn't hear much because he was so incoherent with rage and despair. What I could hear, however, was the note of pain in his voice. This was not just some loony. This was somebody who was suffering and in pain, and felt profoundly threatened by what we were saying.
And the point is that we, seven of us on this panel — we're all articulate people, we'd all been talking nonstop to each other and to the audience for the last two days. We were utterly struck dumb. None of us could say a word. We felt utterly winded by this assault. Even me, and I should have known better because I'd just finished my book on fundamentalism. I couldn't think of anything to say. Eventually this man was hustled out, and the moderator said, "Well, I wish we could have talked to him, because he is part of the conference of God, 'Where Is God at 2000?' He's part of this conversation." But somehow we couldn't talk with one another. He was incoherent, we were struck dumb and useless, and this is the problem that we're facing.

Ms. Tippett: It's also — it says something about the limits of words and dialog.

Ms. Armstrong: Yes, it does, and I think what we've got to do is listen to the pain of the other. You could hear the note of pain, and you can hear the distress in it. When we look, say, at fundamentalist doctrine, we've got to see what pain and fear lies at the root of this because, as we've learned to our cost, they're trying to express — often very badly and in noxious ways — anxieties and fears that no society, no government, can safely ignore. And so our future, I think, depends on learning to listen. Now, it's maybe too late because I don't hear a great deal of pain and fear in Osama bin Laden. I think that this has moved on now and has stopped being fear and distress in some parts of the world, only in a tiny minority, but we can see — we saw on September the 11th that it only takes a very few people to commit immense havoc these days.

Ms. Tippett: And you're really back at that virtue of compassion again.

Ms. Armstrong: Yes. It means "to feel with." "To feel with." Not to feel sorry for, but to say, "If I were in his position, maybe I would feel the same."