Curious Christian

Reflections on culture, nature, and spirituality from a Christian perspective

Beyond Tolerance: The Complexities of Religious Coexistence

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Matt Stone

2007-03-29

The other night I came across a very thought provoking article by Madhu Kishwar on the Hinduism Today website. It was entitled, “A peaceful coexistence of religions requires more than tolerance.”

In it Kishwar writes:

“Unfortunately, many modern secularists, who insist that inter-community harmony can be established only when everyone gives up all their religious taboos, end up creating more strife than harmony.”

………………….

“American scholar Paul Courtright, caused a major uproar recently because the author used Freudian analysis to interpret Ganesh’s elephant head and trunk in sexual terms. Those Hindus who led the campaign against this book saw it as part of a deep-rooted bias in Western academia, stemming from a tendency to trivialize or demonize Indic religions and cultures. The book is undoubtedly the product of painstaking research, and Courtright obviously knows more about the stories, myths and legends surrounding Ganesha than many practicing Hindus. What offended believers, was not his lack of knowledge but his use of a totally alien and inappropriate tool of analysis to deal with the belief system and iconography of a faith that does not lend itself to a Freudian worldview.”

“This is a classic example of conflicts arising not out of too little knowledge, but too much of it, combined with the unconsciously imbibed arrogance of a Western academia which assumes that its tools of analysis give it the right to understand and pass judgment on the experiences of all human beings. Instead of dealing with what was actually a criticism leveled at their intellectual approach, many Western Indologists treated the conflict as a case of “academic freedom ” versus an intolerance of Hindu community leaders. Such an approach left the conflict unresolved in a bitter stalemate.”

………………….

“While it is true that academic freedom should be preserved, it should also be acknowledged that every cultural community should be treated with respect and integrity.”

This all got me really thinking … but then Kishwar comes out with this:

“The concept of God in Christianity (as well as that of other Abrahamic traditions) poses the biggest challenge for interfaith harmony. We cannot provide meaningful interfaith education without effectively combating the culture of intolerance derived from a belief in the inherent superiority of an exclusivist, hierarchical, jealous God…”

So the only way we can have religious harmony is if Christians and other monotheistic faiths abandon monotheism? How is that treating the Christian tradition with “respect and integrity?” Once again, tolerance language leads into intolerant paradox. What do you think?

Tags Reconciliation

16 responses to “Beyond Tolerance: The Complexities of Religious Coexistence”

Tim Abbott

2007-03-29

What a great, if challenging, example of the struggle to see in a way that’s free of our own cultural worldview, to be truly objective. No matter how much we try to understand the others’ experience of understanding their world, we can only do it from within our own. We can attempt to look through someone else’s glasses, but they never fit as well as our own.
I found this post helpful in clarifying the interlocking realities of what people believe and how they believe. I guess this confirms what has been pointed out often; that people hold their own worldview to be universal in application and the best way to interpret the world, even as they seek to be ‘tolerant’.
I want to think more about how I assess the world views of others, but also to work out how I can understand better the barriers to believing in Christ that is inherent in the worldview(s) of the young people we work with.

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Kalessin

2007-03-29

The real irony is that tolerance found its first major expression in Christian writing in Europe and especially England after the English Civil War and the Thirty Years War, as best exemplified in Locke’s ‘Letter Concerning Toleration’ (1689).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Letter_Concerning_Toleration
I would hope that Islam, or India moreso, doesn’t have to go through that level of destruction to ‘get it’ for themselves.

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Brendan

2007-03-29

Gods don’t kill people. People kill people. Rarely is intolerance a solely a matter of theology or religion. Religion merely provides the context and justification for intolerance when cultures have already come into conflict because of commerce.

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Jason Pitzl-Waters

2007-03-29

First off, the surviving polytheist faiths (and the new ones) have every reason to be skeptical of the dominant monotheisms. The author didn’t say monotheists have to abandon monotheism, that was your reading of the material as a monotheist. A “culture of intolerance” is indeed present within several monotheist traditions. The dominant monotheisms are indeed for the most part exclusivist, have a hierarchical understanding of their faith in relation to others (whether admitted or not), and have worked to make their faith(s) the sole remaining one (even your tolerant and understanding work is built on the hope that your tolerance and understanding will eventually bring more converts). Polytheists logically see these things (some of which are deeply ingrained in monotheist structures) as huge stumbling blocks to true harmony and tolerance.
There will always be an underlying tension between monotheism and polytheism for the simple fact that historically speaking monotheist faiths have made it clear that they would rather our faiths didn’t exist (this, of course, expresses itself in a variety of ways). The ultimate burden of real dialog is always on those in power, and speaking on a global scale that power rests in the hands of monotheists. I think that article is saying that we can only have true harmony if long-standing monotheist paradigms regarding non-monotheist faiths change.

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John

2007-03-30

Bravo Jason. Here is a quote from my Spiritual Master re the inherent totalitarian intents of the monotheistic “revelations”.
“Fundamentally, among all the religious traditions of the world, ONLY Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are inherently,and aggressively, associated with an expansionistic ideal and an attitude of not only cultural, but also social and political, superiority, that irreducibly intends, and actively pursues, the self-appointed destiny of total world-domination, or global totalitarian “rulership”.
Likewise, by their very nature, these three religious, and comprehensively and irreducibly cultural, social, AND political, traditions are, in an intentionally performed state of competition, that always seeks, and frequently achieves, conflict, confrontation, and even aggressive warfare with one another–and even with ALL other religious, social, and political traditions, systems, or institutions in the world.
Because of all of this, humankind as a whole must especially beware of these three religious, cultural, social, and political traditions( including all of their variant formulations, systems, and institutions).”

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Kalessin

2007-03-30

I think I can mostly agree with Jason’s comments here, though not with John’s. In my view, specifically Christian cultural relations entail not merely tolerance but love — proactively and empathetically seeking the good of the other person on the presumption of equality before God.
This seems the minimum required by Christ’s principles: to my mind the many abberations of Christian history have resulted from a basic deficit rather than an excess of Christian spirituality. It is easier, as the saying goes, to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them. In most of Christendom spiritual life was too weakened to perceive or oppose political, commercial and national interests in supposedly Christian nations.
It is one of the saddest facts in history that Christianity, or ‘Christendom’ as it became, after surviving Pagan Rome in the late-second and middle third centuries, ultimately turned around and acted in the same way, if not worse; not questioning the structures of the social world that it inherited.
Most Christians of my personal acquaintance (that would be several hundred), react to Christendom — from Roman Imperialism to the whole High Middle Ages to current Colonialism to the politics of certain American Fundamentalisms — with embarrassment insofar as they even connect it with their own interests or activities.
The relationship between Christendom and most modern Christians of my acquaintance is analogous to that between Marxism and most atheists I know. While Marxist states killed millions of people in the past hundred years — and Christians, as Christians, were well represented — we do not hold all atheists responsible for the way that many people have politicised materialistic beliefs, unless they expressly support such policies.
For most of us the extent of our theistic expansionism would consist of a desire to personally share our own experience of God, and support charitable or humanitarian projects. I may overestimate our collective willingness to learn in reply, but I think that for many I could tick this box as well. And that, to my mind, is dialogue as it should be.
John’s quote from his Spiritual Master, which amplified and totalized Jason’s concerns (“all… all… all…”), strikes me as a prejudicial ‘tolerance’ spoiling for a fight: a political corruption of a fabulous ideal (not unlike ‘Christendom’).
I respectfully suggest that the basic love imperative of Christian Theism — denuded now of most of its residual Christendom — is actually quite a good foundation for strong intercultural relations, as it has been for equality and pacifism.

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Jason Pitzl-Waters

2007-03-30

“I respectfully suggest that the basic love imperative of Christian Theism — denuded now of most of its residual Christendom — is actually quite a good foundation for strong intercultural relations, as it has been for equality and pacifism.”
Kalessin,
First off, let me preface by saying that I have a deep admiration and respect for the Christian traditions of love, charity, and pacifism. I have read and interacted with some amazing Christian thinkers, and I wouldn’t be interfacing on blogs such as this if it were not for this deep wellspring of respect.
But having said that, I must respectfully disagree with some of what you have said.
First, while in some cases adherents of “Christian Theism” as you call it have been able to shed connections with “Christendom” (at least in their opinions), these communities seem to have little influence on those Christians still looking to grasp the reigns of power in order to mold the world to one they would be more comfortable with (and one I would be far less comfortable with). It also doesn’t address the fact that most Christians, still benefit directly from the actions of Christendom past and present. I do not angrily blame individual Christians for the sins of Christendom, any more than I blame Francis of Assisi for the Crusades, but we can’t enter into a dialog without the baggage of what is done (and is still being done) in the name of your God and your savior coming along with it.
Secondly, you state that most of you and your folk only wish to “personally share our own experience of God”. While that phrase sounds very fine and loving, I have a hard time believing that the numerous mission-related organizations would accept a growth rate more in keeping with the slow and personal expansionism you describe (making it more like Buddhism in many respects). I have yet to see any sea-change in the desire for large numbers of converts, though the methods may have become less coercive (in certain places at any rate) over time. Sharing of faith is different when you believe your faith is the only correct one. So such “sharing” will always embody uneven expectations in interactions with non-Christians.
Thirdly, I’m not sure I would wish for Christian Theism to be the basis of intercultural relations. It places Christian conceptions in a place of privilege, and pre-supposes that only Christian theism has embodied notions of equality and pacifism. If we are to have peace, respect, and good relations then it can’t be seen as a “Christian” endeavor or a “polytheist/Pagan” one, but a mutual road we both walk down willingly as equals.

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John

2007-03-30

Hi, Its John again. Matt I know you dont understand Adi Da’s unique truly global Divine Perspective. A perspective from which He clearly sees what is happening in the world–including its multi-various origins and the unspeakably dark consequences if the current historically generated patterns play out there (almost) inevitable destiny.
But the paragraphs I quoted are from one essay from a forth-coming book on what it will really take is humanity, and indeed the entire planet is going to survive.
Altogether He points out that the MAIN (not the only one) culprit responsible for the current crisis is us westerners and our would be world conquering so called “culture” with its drive to total power and control. Altogether He calls it (our “culture”) a “culture” of death.
See for instance “Right Human Life Must Transcend the Materialist “Culture” of Death” at:
http://www.aboutadidam.org/newsletters/toc-february2004.html
In the second part of this essay He points out why exoteric religion cannot in any way counter this dark historical trend.

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Steve Hayes

2007-03-31

In my first contribution to the synchroblog on syncretism I dealt with the Western obsession with the Freudian worldview, and the absolutisation thereov.
The problem is not the arrogance of Christianity, but the arrogance of the West.
Yes, we do all tent to interpret other worldviews and theologies and so on in terms of our own, and we can’t help that. Only a dyed-in-the-wool modernist would believe that it is actually possible to be “objective”. But if monotheistic religions promote intolerance more than others, what gave rise to Hindutva?

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Steve Hayes

2007-03-31

In my first contribution to the synchroblog on syncretism I dealt with the Western obsession with the Freudian worldview, and the absolutisation thereov.
The problem is not the arrogance of Christianity, but the arrogance of the West.
Yes, we do all tent to interpret other worldviews and theologies and so on in terms of our own, and we can’t help that. Only a dyed-in-the-wool modernist would believe that it is actually possible to be “objective”. But if monotheistic religions promote intolerance more than others, what gave rise to Hindutva?

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Jason Pitzl-Waters

2007-03-31

“But if monotheistic religions promote intolerance more than others, what gave rise to Hindutva?”
The Hindutva movement is a direct outgrowth of colonialist rule (and the “Christendom” it brought with it), and the severe tensions with its Muslim population that arose in the transfer from a colonial to a post-colonial state.
It was under colonial rule that the ideas the birthed the Hindutva movement first appeared, and reached the apex of its power in the late 1990s (with the Bharatiya Janata Party) and it is only recently (2004) that they are starting to (slowly) lose their grip on political power (the BJP was defeated by a center-left coalition called the United Progressive Alliance).
On the Internet I have seen Christians throw up Hindu Nationalism as some sort of proof that polytheist structures can be just as “intolerant” and violent as their own. But this ignores the fact that Western greed and intolerance created this nationalistic backlash. Murder, torture, rape, forced conversions to Christianity, and opportunistic exploitation of the Hindu caste system birthed this extremism. India has been self-governing for barely more than fifty years. Yet we act surprised when the country shows after-effects of imperialism.
Finally I wanted to touch on this…
“the arrogance of Christianity, but the arrogance of the West”
You can’t honestly separate the “West” from Christianity (or “Christendom” if you prefer), the efforts of the West have been blessed and aided by Christianity since Constantine converted. To say the West was not Christian or that Christianity didn’t aid the desires of the West is revisionism.

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Steve Hayes

2007-03-31

You can’t avoid revisionism — the past is always changing. And one of the Western superstitions that needs revising is the “blame it all on Constantine” syndrome.

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Matt Stone

2007-04-01

John, it should be noted that I do not see Christianity through an exclusively exoteric lens and believe it is somewhat reified to do so.

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Matt Stone

2007-04-01

Jason said, “If we are to have peace, respect, and good relations then it can’t be seen as a “Christian” endeavor or a “polytheist/Pagan” one, but a mutual road we both walk down willingly as equals.”
I agree, mutuality is essential. How we do that is the hard part! What next?
To skip around these threads a bit, I might add that I do agree with Steve that one of the things that needs changing is the “blame it all on Constantine” syndrome.
At the very least we need to recognize that Western thought derives from Greco-Roman philosophy as much as Christianity, and what tradition did that arise out of? Now, I could argue that it was NeoPlatonism that brought out the worst excesses of mind/body and matter/spirit dualism in Christendom, for Hebraic thought is far more holistic. But before we go any further let me admit that that would be too simplistic too. I merely raise this to serve as an illustration that the West is hardly an exclusive byproduct of Christianity.
The West has never been purely Christian. As many Pagans I have come across have repeatedly reminded me, remnants of the old ways have repeatedly bubbled to the surface during the course of Western history, to impact it and shape it. How much of modern science do we owe to alchemists and astrologers for instance? The West is a product of all of us, for better or for worse. I believe a mutual road needs some sort of mutual acknowledgment, even if, granted, Christians have plenty we need to say sorry for.

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Jason Pitzl-Waters

2007-04-01

Matt, and Steve
I never claimed the “West” is the exclusive byproduct of Christianity. I said that:
“the efforts of the West have been blessed and aided by Christianity”
Which even the most ardent apologist for the sins of the “West” (and Christianity) would have to admit.
“Since Constantine converted” was mostly a turn of phrase, not a rigid statement of belief on my part. I know that history is more complex than that. But Constantine does still represent a turning point in the intertwined history of “the West” and Christianity.
“At the very least we need to recognize that Western thought derives from Greco-Roman philosophy as much as Christianity, and what tradition did that arise out of?”
I could easily argue that Christian philosophers twisted the precepts of Neoplatonism (and other “pagan” ideas) to suit their own ends. For all the pagan technology and philosophy that was co-opted by the post-pagan “West”, those in the drivers seat of power claimed to be Christian. But I’m not here to demonize Christianity, or to blame the sins of history on Christians. I am simply saying that any discussions about “the West” can’t be entirely divorced from the self-proclaimed Christians who have been in the seats of power of the West for over a thousand years.
“…mutuality is essential. How we do that is the hard part! What next?”
I’ll get to that soon, sadly I’m pressed for time today!

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Sun Warrior

2007-04-02

What a great topic.
Somehow, this level of disagreement is essential. The specific consciousness of God, from the West, meets the non-specific consciousness of God from the East.
It’s quite the mess of misunderstandings. Yet they are so close on so many points. The Hindu gods are manifestations of the Godhead. Very close to the perception of the Trinity, though Christians would probably dither in the details. But it is weird how both sides of the world agree that God is Love, just differ on the manifestation.
The East believes in reincarnation, the West believes in the ‘zero-sum-theory-of-life:’ the soul is born in the womb, has one life to live, and a deadline to get into heaven (I know you guys will disagree on the last, but the word ‘Salvation’ has that popular understanding).
We have major objections to reincarnation, but the West has not really examined the implications of the zero-sum-theory has had on itself. Historically, we have made life just as miserable with the zero-sum theory, as India has with reincarnation.
We are an eclectic group here. Let your imagination roam for a minute. What would happen to our theories and faith if we accepted reincarnation? Is it incompatible with Christianity? Why? Would Jesus suddenly become more understandable? It is a major gift from the East to Christianity, but no one is seeing it. Don’t let the Hindus details stand in your way. What would happen to Christianity if souls lived more than one life?
Just as the East cannot accept that God does have a specific consciousness, which monotheism knows. It points to some basic soul searching for both, if one is interested. But you come to understand the box you’re in, and the challenge that this supposed fluke of a shrinking global village has precipitated.
Suddenly the spiritual limits of both sides are shown for what they are, and extends to each other a way out. Each side has libraries to justify why they should not consider the other. But just as Jesus had to confront just as big a monolith as the Temple, perhaps we should shake loose a little and risk some creativity at this opportunity, as religions collide.
Have any Christians had a spiritual experience at a Buddhist or Hindu Temple? Or did we interfere with it through our Christian critical mind?
Anger at each other is a good start to dialogue. Do we have the wisdom to ask why we are so angry? Its that discomfort that is speaking to us. Has Jesus made any developing Christians do the same?

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