Significance of Spiritualism
Significant interfaith encounter arises from our being able to see each other doing whatever it is we do as well as possible – teaching, worshipping , reflecting, serving. For me, one of the most important such encounters I have ever had was this spring in Qatar, when I was part of an international group of Muslims and Christians meeting to read their scriptures together and discuss them; we Christians were able to benefit enormously from watching Muslims doing what Muslims do with love, intellectual rigour and excitement. It proved a deeper and more truly respectful meeting of minds than any attempt to find a neutral common ground. We met as theologians, committed to exploring the reality of what truthful and holy lives might look like and how they might be talked about. And so we were able not to see each other as competing to answer the same exam paper. At times there was deep convergence, at times monumental disagreement. But I suspect we all emerged with a sharper sense of what our traditions had to deal with, of the complexity of our world and the difference of our questions. My hope for the future of dialogue is for more such exchanges at every level. But I want to turn in conclusion to two specific issues, already hinted at in what I’ve said thus far. I want briefly to say something about the general relation of faith communities to the wider society; and I want to add a few reflections specifically as a Christian theologian on the ideas sketched here. On the first issue: it is true that faith communities have something in common over against a secular frame of reference. They all have disciplines of examining the honesty and consistency of believers, ways of encouraging self-scrutiny; they all assume that we are likely to be deceived about ourselves for quite a bit of the time. They all assume that what we are finally answerable to is something other than just the majority vote in a society at any one time. They all teach us to look critically at what seem to be our instinctive choices, and they all warn us against thinking that the material environment (including the human body) is just there to serve such instinctive human choices. There is a basis for what some like to call a ‘global ethic’ in all this, even if it is primarily negative rather than positive. However, when there are attempts by governments or international agencies to harness this in support of this or that programme for human improvement, it is important that there should not be misunderstanding.