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."

"Victimhood: it's just not what it's cracked up to be"

---Me

Daily Buddhist Wisdom

"People must realize that even with all these comforts, all this money and a GNP that increases every year, they are still not happy. They need to understand that the real culprits are our unceasing desires. Our wants have no end."

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama, "Imagine All the People"

Christian-Dharma

Um, check this out people.

γρηγορειτε και προσεθχεσθε, ινα μη ελθητε εις πειρασμον, το μεν πνευμα προθυμον η δε σαρξ ασθενης.

This is Mark 14:38. It says "watch and pray, so that you do not fall into trouble: on the one hand the spirit is ready, but the flesh weak." Some of us out here are concerned with the possibility of bringing Buddhism and Christianity together. And so just a quick note here on one little verse that jumped out at me as I was doing my Greek homework. Keeping watch, as it says here, is practiced in most of the Buddhist sects I know. Zen made much, and continues to make much if it is authentic Zen, of simply sitting and observing and learning how create distance between what is happening to you and with you. This distance, as neurologists and brain researchers are now figuring out, takes place in your frontal lobe where the brain does its long range planning and finds control for all of its operations. Questions about possible conflicts over what it means to pray and what it means to meditate are nullified here. Watch AND pray! Just do it and forget about whether its Christian of Buddhist. Your brain needs it. You need it.

"the flesh is weak but the spirit willing" to me sounds like one of the four noble truths. Suffering exists, it is all pervasive in fact. But it can be overcome. That little running-back back there behind the line of scrimmage just needs one good block and he's gone. That was an idiot analogy. Yes. But a potentially life transforming opetation, provided we watch and pray long enough and jump into it with both feet.

Jubail "Church"

You'd be forgiven if you thought my blog had been lame of late. Reason? I got nuttin'. Well, I love the Buddhist quotes Beliefnet sends me, and at times they have to go up here simply so I can ponder them more and pass them on like the need to be passed on. But, yes, I have been sucky lackluster recently.

So here is where is where it picks up, sort of. There is this supposed church near Jubail Saudi Arabia. Story goes that some guy ran across it in the 1980s when his car got stuck in the sand next to it. Story is that he got put in jail for this: nothing worse than a Saudi exposing Saudi's non-muslim past. But I am not willing to believe this happed either. So the chruch supposedly dates from the period before Islam. How do we know this? Because story is that there were crosses around the structure, whch soon disappeared when the government got wind of what had happend.

Well, thing is, I have not seen the crosses. I have not seen any coins or pottery shards that date the place. I went the other day and took a look for myself. The structure overall is pretty unimpressive. There are these kind of Hellensitic/Roman looking decorations on either side of one of the tiny rooms. But does this mean this is a Nestorian structure? Dunno! Maybe it was built by portugues traders in the 16th or 16th century, or by non-Muslim Arabs, or even by Muslim Arabs a few hundred years ago.

It is too bad that the Saudi government is not interested in history and deny that was any history here before Islam. The fact that they do not seem to want to acknowledge this place exists tempts the mind in the direction that the place may have some non-Muslim connections. But the fact that it has not been demolished tempts in the either direction as well. So for now, we do not know who built this and if we can really call it a church. I am not taking the risk of getting shot by the Bedouins who live next door to find out either.