FIVE HOURS EAST

Is the Ice Melting Near You?

Dorothy Yoder Nyce

Stories and anecdotes teach. The following dozen "windows"’ into relationships of interreligious conflict or peacebuilding depict problems between people loyal to different religions or convey actions that enable good will. From children to older adults, within local and global locations, among Hindu and Buddhist or Jewish, Christian, and Muslim adherents, accounts reflect diversity. 

Such difference is good; it strengthens what is distinct. As direct experience refutes fear of the unknown, effort toward good will can counter fundamentalist or extremist patterns. And as Hans Kung has taught: "There will be peace on earth when there is peace among the religions."

1

Writing in The Dignity of Difference, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks reports a gathering at the United Nations building, New York City, in August 2000 (Sacks, 5-6).

Over two thousand religious leaders met for the Millennium World Peace Summit. Billed to enlist leaders of major faiths to the cause of global peace, four days later participants signed a commitment to mutual respect, nonviolent conflict resolution, duty to the poor and the environment.

On signing, an Eskimo from Greenland, Angaangaq Lyberth, reported that ten years earlier a person returned to his village reporting: "There is a trickle of water coming down the glacier. I think that the ice is melting." Noting that day’s peace accord, Lyberth described the trickle as a stream. He summed up the group’s hope saying, "The ice is melting . . . The ice is melting."

2

C. S. Song from Taiwan is noted for Story Theology. In "The Wild Goose Lake" (Song, 143-44), Sea Girl longs for water from the lake to be released to the canals of her drought-hit village.

How will she get the golden key needed to open the stone gate? With the stone gate a metaphor for religious faith, the challenge becomes: How will hearts of adherents of diverse religions open up to the depth and riches of each other? Will they let the ice melt?

Rather than hold God captive—through our presumed right teachings or worship—we need to discover God beyond our valued limits.

3

Even works of art convey conflict. An allegory of sculptures titled "Ecclesia" and "Synagoga" (church and synagogue) appear at the Strasbourg Cathedral in France.
A "triumphant Ecclesia stands erect next to a bowed, blindfolded figure of the defeated yet dignified Synagoga." Proud church gazes over the other, the woman "conquered, with her crown fallen, staff broken, and Torah dropping to the ground." Here is Christian supersessionism ("ice") set in stone.

For her book Has God Only One Blessing?, Mary Boys invited an artist to create a new "posture" for the two figures. She believes that the relation between the two religions will be righted when the church repents of its distortions of Judaism, when Ecclesia sees Synagoga as her "partner in waiting for the full redemption of the world," Boys concludes (Boys, 33, 266).

4

Victoria Lee Erickson relates a story from a village in a beautiful mountain area of South Asia.

Two days early, arriving at night during a rain storm, and hungry, her group of Christian friends caught a village of Christians off-guard. It had no cooked food.

After the host prayed, they too prayed, sang, and shared stories in the hut—forgetting somewhat their yearning for food. Hearing noise, the host opened the door a crack. A horse appeared; the rider handed the host a bucket and left. Large, blue-shelled crabs dispelled hunger.

A near-by village leader, on seeing the visitors and knowing that the Christians were without food, had gone fishing with his Muslim neighbors on their behalf. Villagers of these two religions read their holy books together, share wells and a school, and protect each other. They also pray together respecting their diverse voices (Erickson, 98-99).

5

The one book of an Emory University faculty member, Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger, describes her fieldwork over a decade done with Amma, a Muslim healer from Hyderabad, India.

Professional, public, religious roles for Muslim women, though rare, are noticed. Laywomen may practice healing or prayers in homes. Gender roles and arrangements matter for Amma and her teacher husband Abba.

Patients with troubles, her disciples value her charismatic, spiritual teaching and strength. Amma might see, diagnose, and prescribe spiritual forces for Hindu, Muslim, or Christian patients. "They’re all the same in the healing room," she says. Writing diagnoses on paper "amulets or unleavened bread," she also may pray or recite from the Qur’an. Asked whether Joyce was a disciple, Amma replied, "She loves God and I love God, so we have a connection" (Flueckiger, 42, 68, 70, 142, 154, 168).

6

A kindred spirit of M. K. Gandhi’s was Abdul Gaffar (Badshah) Khan. Khan and Gandhi bonded through nonviolent effort for twenty-five years before Partition and India’s independence.

In jail with Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, and Christian prisoners, they studied each other’s Scriptures and practiced "pure faith and austere ways." The Muslim reformer and Hindu lawyer continue to mentor, whether for sedition or as God’s servants among disadvantaged folk.

Khan called the Pathans whom he taught Khudai Khidmatgars (servants of God). Not literate but armed with discipline and faith, their nonviolent resistance caused the British more fear than their violence. Khan believed that all faiths duly inspire their adherents and that "God sends messengers for all nations and people" (Easwaran, 145).

For the two ‘Gandhis,’ their task became "to serve and to suffer in the cause of truth." Within a year of Khan’s uniting Pathans in Pakistan, he was jailed by a Muslim government that faulted him for being pro-Hindu. That Gandhi was killed by another Hindu who resented his pro-Muslim stance compares. Each was devout in his own religion yet most respectful of other living faiths, each was misunderstood by his own. Ingrained disdain for difference (‘ice’) prevailed.

7

In A New Religious America, Diana L. Eck notes examples of religious harassment—firm ice.

A Muslim community of Flint, Michigan, discovered on leaving a holiday celebration that all of their vehicles had flat tires.

A Hindu community in Kansas City found a side of beef hung on its temple door—vegetarians were not welcome in a city noted for red meat.

At a Hindu temple at Monroeville, Pennsylvania, LEAVE was written across the altar, and Sikhs who shared the worship space found their scripture, Guru Granth Sahab, torn to bits.

8

Doug Hostetter has served with agencies like the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) with war relief.

Hostetter’s first MCC assignment in Vietnam during the American war was in Tam Ky, a village amid heavy combat 150 miles below the Demilitarized Zone. He asked what the local people most wanted; education for their children had priority.

He first explored with Christian groups in the area. The Protestant pastor’s priority was "to win souls for Christ," not to help with literacy. The Catholic priest agreed, as long as the youth group worked with Catholic children—an option that would neglect Buddhist children (90 percent).

When the monk in charge of Buddhist youth was asked to help, he agreed without reservation—a striking learning for the young Mennonite. On leaving three years later, a good friend ended a long poem for Hostetter with "Your life has been like a tear in the eye of Buddha, crying for the suffering of the people of Tam Ky" ("God," 6).

Currently MCC’s representative at the United Nations, Hostetter’s stories and insight continue to grow.

9

One creative method used to relieve the anguish of Bosnia-Herzegovina was a fifty-member, interreligious, adult choir.

The Pontanima, Latin for "spiritual bridge," choir brought together members and music of Roman Catholic, Serbian Orthodox, Islamic, Jewish, Protestant, and Far East religions.

Expelled in 1992 from a seminary in Sarajevo, Josip Katavic, the Franciscan priest who started the choir in 1996, spent the intervening years trying to prevent conflicts, organize humanitarian activities, and help peace movements. Nine relatives including his father, 32 neighbors, and 82 from his native parish were killed during the war. Intent to forgive, he helped Muslim refugees, visited Serbs, and created Face to Face Interreligious Service.

Committed to interfaith dialogue and ecumenical living (to "melting ice"), choir members, themselves spiritually secure, witness to diversity and openness toward one another. From their common tragedy, they sing reconciliation (Pontanima CD). The choir transitions from—

 "Only God is the greatest/There is no God but Allah/Allah is the greatest/Give thanks to God" to—

"Hail Mary, full of grace. . . Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners . . ." to—

"Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. . . ."

10

Newsweek’s reporter Joshua Hammer offers a view of the disintegration of the region around Bethlehem during 2001-02. His book subtitle speaks: Unholy War in a Sacred Place.

One scene lingers: (Hammer, 191-212) the siege, by bedraggled Palestinian Muslim guerrillas, of the Church of the Nativity, Jesus’ presumed birthplace. Who was more terrified—disoriented warriors circling the Basilica’s ancient columns, staring "wide-eyed at gilded icons"? Or the fearful, presiding priest coping with militants in that holy site?

Within this "island of Christianity" among a "sea of Islam," rows of men bowed toward Mecca, between columns painted with scenes of the crucifixion and St. John the Baptist. They pled with Allah to deliver them from Israeli Jewish enemies.

By the time the Palestinian militant leaders, fighters, and security men left their sanctuary in the sanctuary, the priest held back tears ("melting ice").

11

Many American women have read The Faith Club in which a Muslim (Ranya), a Christian (Suzanne) and a Jew (Priscilla) search for interfaith understanding.

If all people of faith were as intent to learn from and confess faith alongside people loyal to other religions, conflicts might lessen. Intent to teach their children fairness, to confront personal stereotypes, and to enrich personal faith, these women met repeatedly. They dealt honestly with fears and asked tough questions of themselves and the other two. As they shared each others’ holidays, more "ice melted."

12

A dialogue among Jews, Christians, and Muslims took place in late June 2009 at the Cairo Al Azhar University, "bastion of Islamic Sunni orthodoxy."

Pluralist writer and professor Paul Knitter reports his experience. After visiting scholars presented papers, locals launched into what seemed like ambush. They reviewed damage by the West: colonization, globalization, Muslim extremists resulting from the Iraq war, and U.S. support for Israel’s destruction of Palestinians.

Knitter was asked to offer unanticipated closing remarks. He started with a Qur’anic quote: "If it had pleased Allah, He would have made you a single religion (ummah). . . . But I have made of you tribes and nations so that you may know one another" (5:48; 49:13).

Knitter restated what Jewish and Christian speakers had learned of intense Muslim anger and pain, of their feeling misrepresented, of deep wrongs met through government and politicians. He clarified that many Americans share the anger and pain.

True listening and dialogue had occurred. The principle Imam of Syria wrote a poem for Knitter; listening to its lilting Arabic brought tears (‘melting ice’).

Conclusion

Are people of faith ready for a thaw? To allow religious "ice" to melt, will members loyal to given faith traditions hold to their sacred understandings yet credit insights present in religions? Will integrity follow from saying, "The truth that you teach gives you meaning; I wish to learn from it to enhance being faithful to mine. For, God’s truth exceeds what either of us claims."

Resources

Boys, Mary C. 2000. Has God Only One Blessing? Judaism as a Source of Christian Self-Understanding. NY: Paulist Press.

Easwaran, Eknath. 1999. Nonviolent Soldier of Islam Badshah Khan, A Man to Match His Mountains. Tomales, CA: Nilgiri Press.

Eck, Diana L. 2001. A New Religious America. San Francisco: Harper.

Erickson, Victoria Lee. 2005. Still Believing: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Women Affirm Their Faith. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis.

Flueckiger, Joyce Burkhalter. 2006. In Amma’s Healing Room: Gender and Vernacular Islam in South India. Bloomington: Indiana Univ Press.

Hammer, Joshua. 2003. A Season in Bethlehem Unholy War in a Sacred Place. NY: Free Press.

Hostetter, Doug. "God is Bigger than You Think, My God was too Small," 9 pp. (gift from Hostetter to author).

Idliby, Ranya, Suzanne Oliver, & Priscilla Warner. 2006. The Faith Club. NY: Free Press.

Knitter, Paul F. 2009. "Ambushed by dialogue in Cairo," National Catholic Reporter. Error! Bookmark not defined.; retrieved 10/1/2009.

Nyce, Dorothy Yoder. 2010. Multifaith Musing: Essays and Exchanges. Paul F. Knitter, Foreword. Self-published, Evangel Press, 21, 29, 124, 27, 129, 125, 126, 138.

Pontanima Choir (founded Sarajevo, 1996). 1999 CD. “The Mystery of Peace: Religious Songs” CD, track 15. (Heard in person, Goshen College Chapel, Goshen, IN).

Sacks, Jonathan. 2003. The Dignity of Difference. NY: Continuum.

Song, C. S. 1989. Tell Us Our Names: Story Theology from an Asian Perspective. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis.

—Dorothy Yoder Nyce, Goshen, Indiana,  has engaged in interfaith issues since first living In India fifty years ago. Her DMin degree of 1997 focused on interreligious dialogue. Her book of 2010 titled Multifaith Musing: Essays and Exchanges is available for $10 from 1603 So. 15th St., Goshen, IN 46526.