Photo: At Newman Residence, Richmond, IN.
'The only element in the historic religions which the world is justified in calling upon is the intrinsic reality of faith which is beyond all attempts at formulation and expression but exists in truth; it is that which constantly renews its presence from the flow of personal life itself. This is the one thing that matters: the personal existence, which gives actuality to the essence of a religion and thus attests to its living force.'
'What does it mean to be a 'people of God'? A common belief in God and service to his name do not constitute a people of God. Becoming a people of God means rather that the attributes of God revealed to it, justice and love, are to be made effective in its own life, in the lives of its members with one another; justice materialized in the indirect mutual relationships of these individuals; love in their direct relationships rooted in their personal existence. Of the two, love is the higher, however, the transcending principle.'
Martin Buber, 'The Silent Question: On Henri Bergson and Simone Weil'
'What was the intention behind all my intentions, the fundamental intention which I represented rather than willed, the thing to which I was committed rather than committed myself? In unbelief I call that intention fate - what I was fated to do - in confidence I call it divine governance.'
'The more the world deceives, the more patience wins.'
'It is all a repetition, it is not a question of making a conquest, of hunting and seizing something, but of becoming more and more quiet, because that which is to be gained is there within a person, and the trouble is that one is outside oneself, because that which to be gained is in the patience, it is not concealed in it so that the person who patiently stripped off its leaves, so to speak, would finally find it deep inside but is in it so that it is patience itself in which the soul in patience inclosingly spins itself and thereby gains patience and itself.'
Soren Kierkegaard
'The brave man of the Promethean type confronts a distrusted transcendent reality with courage; the brave man trusting stands before God like Job asking for an answer; the fearsome man confronts the distrusted Transcendent with trembling; the fearsome man full of trust is awed but not cowed and there is joy in his awe.'
'The ghosts and deities and symbols which to psychologism seem to be projections of an irrational inner fear, may be regarded also as symbols of that transcendent reality which man confronts but from which he flees in distrust. There is an object of this religious fear; what the fearsome man regards as the object is indeed a fiction of his imagination; but the object is nonetheless present. There is something of which he is afraid. It is life itself; it is the principle of life; it is the ultimate reality that he is up against, the counterpart of his existence as a self.'
H. Richard Niebuhr, Faith on Earth
As Jesus says, 'It is I, be not afraid'. Trust.
'A logic of polarity, we might say, is a mode of thinking and writing that tends to attend to the wholeness, the unity, of a complex phenomenon, by juxtaposing the detailed but partial views of it acquired from the several possible points of vantage (each of which may tend to make totalistic claims for its perspective), and by combining those perspectives, making such reconciliations of their contradictions as can legitimately be made, but without any specious removal of the tensions between them.'
'(T) means humility before the penumbra of mystery that sets the bounds on human reason; relativism means that no conception of the absolute or of reality is adequate. Realism in Niebuhr means discerning, valuing, and responding in life in light of a trust that the mystery has integrity, is personal, and exercises its power redemptively, inviting human collaboration; relativism means 'that it is an abberation of faith as well as of reason to absolutize the finite but that all this relative history of finite hu(man) and movements is under the governance of the absolute God.'
James W. Fowler, To See The Kingdom: The Theological Vision of H. Richard Niebuhr, 1974
'I have something in mind deeper than the simplification of our external programs, our absurdly crowded calendars of appointments through which so many pantingly and frantically gasp. These do become simplified in holy obedience, and the poise and peace we have been missing can really be found. But there is a deeper, an internal simplification of the whole of one's personality, stilled, tranquil, in childlike trust listening ever to Eternity's whisper, walking with a smile into the dark. This amazing simplification comes when we 'center down', when life is lived with singleness of eye, from a Holy Center where the breath and stillness of Eternity are heavy upon us and we are holy yielded to Him.
Some of you know this holy, recreating Center of eternal peace and joy and live in it day and night. Some of you may see it over the margin and wistfully long to slip into that amazing Center where the soul is at home with God. Be faithful to that wistful longing. It is the Eternal Goodness calling you to return Home, to feed upon green pastures and walk beside still waters and live in the peace of the Shepherd's presence. It is a life beyond fevered strain. We are called to abandon strain, to peace and power and joy and love and thorough abandonment of self.'
'To that divine Life we must cling. In that Current we must bathe. In that abiding yet energizing Center we are all made one, behind and despite the surface differences in our forms and our cultures. For the heart of religious life is in commitment and worship, not in reflection and theory.'
Thomas Kelly, Testament of Devotion, 1941
Idea: No binding creeds or statement of beliefs which denote completion and foster separation but statements of tension or balancing. Example, an ethic of love as centered reflection within a held tension and balance between Spirit and Scripture as a community's 'creed'.
I have finished this semester, and have decided to return to the blogsphere. This semester, I have worked on three papers for three classes: a look at William Penn's universalist thought, 'Jesus and Ishmael: A Connection between John's Gospel and Genesis' and the Tibetan Buddhist lojong meditation as it relates to the ecumenical endeavor. I have added a fourth paper on Integrative Religion. Five months online and no response indicates that this is mostly for my entertainment -- call it a hobby. Probably better to build a chair.
All papers are works in progress and need editing-revision. There is some intra-relationship between the four. The goal this semester was to explore accumulated thoughts and attempt to frame general strand of ideas.
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Buddist Lojong Meditation: Gaining from Other
We are learning from one another in today’s world. This paper suggests that there are riches to be gained from sharing across traditions. In this ever increasingly multi-cultural and multi-ethnic world, the modern view recognizes that we can learn a great deal from our differences. As human beings as a coming-together species, we are discovering that a binding element between people of difference is in the sharing of story. When I hear a story from a person, a story from their own life or from a work of art that speaks to them, something unique or common to my experience, both the story-teller’s life and my life are enriched. We gain in giving a piece of ourselves to others when we are given the opportunity to openly share in an environment of respect and wonder. In my mind, examples of works of art are the poem, the Beatitudes, a crayon drawing of Jesus, a Zen haiku by a Japanese elder. We can bring into view a work of art story that crosses boundaries and thereby enter into a new world.
This paper addresses one of many potential choices for shared art form across boundaries in the religious text-prayer. As a Christian speaking to a wide variety of other Christians, the author proposes to create a framework for engaging with a ‘religious’ text of difference in the Tibetan Buddhist lojong prayer. In the process of creating the framework in teamwork with others, the participants will be introduced to a new form of prayer and offer translations of the prayer into their own traditions.
In the Beginning: Preparation
Jane Vennard tells us that the ‘first step is to begin the teaching with a brief introduction to the prayer forms.’ (V, 114) Therefore, after having selected a Buddhist prayer of interest, the Tibetan lojong prayer, I had to select the translation of lojong prayer and find both a historical background of the form of prayer and a commentary on the text. For the translation of lojong prayer, I selected the Dalai Lama’s translation in the pamphlet ‘Training the Mind’. Although perhaps more philosophical and challenging than other translations, I knew that the majority of the people I would be interviewing were graduate students. Therefore, it is important for the ‘spiritual facilitator’ who wishes to introduce a new form of prayer, to consider the audience in terms of choosing language that is appropriate. The Dalai Lama uses terms in his translation that are particular to the Buddhist tradition and perhaps not familiar to a non-Buddhist audience. It was important for me to do additional research to come up with Buddhist translations to terms unfamiliar. Much of the necessary historical information of the ‘lojong prayer’ could be found in the commentary chosen, The Practice of Lojong, by Traleg Kyabgon. Through these two resources, I was able to print out copies of the lojong translation by the Dalai Lama to be distributed to the participants and have at hand the historical background as introduction and chosen commentary by both the Dalai Lama and Kyabgon which I felt gave particular insight into the spirit of the lojong prayer. Once the materials were assembled, it was then time to experiment with the process.
Wonder of God
Jane Vennard speaks the truth in stating that ‘teaching prayer is…simply sharing the wonder of God.’ (V, 111) The understanding in this process of discovery is that bringing in a poem or prayer from another tradition with an intent to open up to it in respect and wonder is an opening up to God. What became evident early on is that a great challenge is in fostering a prayerful environment and mood throughout. I think Vennard is right: get yourself prepared and then trust in the flow. She says: ‘we study the material, prepare our lessons, call on our experience to enliven our teaching, and then we let go…we are not attached to our success.’ (V, 108) Similar to Vennard, the Dalai Lama speaks of the teacher’s necessity to prepare and then to let go: ‘I am giving you this lecture. If somewhere in my thoughts there is a sense of curiosity - ‘Have I performed well? What do people think? This will pollute the spiritual training.’ (DL, 21) Therefore, a second important thought, after preparing oneself, is to set the right climate by establishing a prayerful peace through an opening prayer, statement or ritual.
Explaining the Form and Process
Vennard suggests three principles: ‘brief introduction to the prayer forms’, ‘offer the group an opportunity to practice the prayer form together’ and ‘sharing after the common prayer experience’. (V, 114-115) After step one and two have been completed, it is now time to enter into an introduction of the prayer form and description of the process.
Introducing the prayer form:
‘Lojong’ in Tibetan means mind training. It is a form of prayer-meditation that ‘leads one to enlightenment and frees one from suffering’. As early as the eighth century, Shantideva developed the idea of ‘bodhichitta’ which is the ‘exchange of self for others’ and ‘equalizing self with other’ as a way to a deeper revolutionary understanding. The lojong teachings are part of the Mahayana tradition within Buddhism. Today the practice is a form of meditation used by many American Buddhists as a way to overcome ego-centering and to gather a more healthy view of reality. Traleg Rinpoche comments: ‘the practice of lojong will make us feel less like a victim and more like the author or architect of our own life…our real problem is that we blame other people for our misery and never tire of the abuse we suffer from subjecting ourselves to our own egoistic minds…the suffering generated within is always worse than the suffering we experience at the hands of other people or external situation…the idea is turning adverse circumstances and situations to our own advantage...our sphere of influence regarding how others treat us is very limited.’ (TK, 6, 8, 10, 11, 11, 11)
The lojong meditation calls us into a new other-focused form of intention and meditation that offers an alternative path to greater joy and peace.
After introducing the background of the lojong prayer, the next step is to explain the direction the group will be taking in the shared meditation. Because of my own preference to adapt to the flow of the group (in partnership with the group), I did not set out on a clear structure but communicated to the group a general direction taking from Vennard and Baker: The process that we will be taking is to practice the prayer form together and to share our own personal reactions to it (Vennard). I encourage us to remain faithful to maintaining a kind environment which is deeply respectful of one another and the spirit of this work. Along the way, we will review some new Buddhist terms. At center, we will share our own ‘feelings and associations, symbols, messages’ that arise from the lojong meditation and I will ask each of us to offer their Christian perspectives as it relates to the work (a combination of Baker’s ‘experience near’ and ‘experience distant’, DB, 33). You can respond in writing or draw a picture as a creative and fun way of stimulating conversation. (self add). At the end, we will share how the experience with the lojong meditation has affected us and how it might change our daily interactions (taking from Baker’s ‘going forth’, DB, 33).
Rather than setting out a linear step-by-step program in prayer form sharing, I felt it best to give a general direction of process that would be open to making adjustments along the way in partnership with the participants. This was the choice taken because the sharing was done in peer group.
Entering into the Process
The first step in engaging with the lojong prayer with participants was to do a shared reading. After explaining the importance of entering this prayer in a compassionate spirit out of a foundation of silence, the group was instructed to read in a circle with each participant reading one stanza. The text chosen comes from the Dalai Lama’s translation of a text written by Chekawa Dorje (1101-1175). Dalai Lama comments: ‘Chekawa knew that the complete intellectual and emotional understanding of these verses could transform human existence.’ (DL, iv). The Dalai Lama’s translation of the ‘lojong prayer’ reads:
By thinking of all sentient beings as even better than the wish-granting gem
for accomplishing the highest aim
may I always consider them precious
Wherever I go, with whomever I go
may I see myself as less than all others, and
from the depth of my heart
may I consider them supremely precious.
May I examine my mind in all actions
and as soon as a negative state occurs,
since it endangers myself and others,
may I firmly face and avert it.
When I see beings of a negative disposition
or those oppressed by negativity or pain,
may I, as if finding a treasure,
consider them precious, for they
are rarely met.
Whenever others, due to their jealousy,
revile and treat me in other unjust ways,
may I accept this defeat myself,
and offer the victory to others.
When someone whom I have helped
or in whom I have placed great hope
harms me with great injustice,
may I see that one as a sacred friend.
In short, may I offer both directly and
indirectly all joy and benefit to all beings,
my mothers, and may I myself secretly take
on all their hurt and suffering.
May they not be defiled by the concepts
of the eight mundane concerns,
and aware that all things are illusory,
may they, ungrasping, be free
from bondage.
Other lojong prayers are available that are shorter and are translated into simpler language. Reading out loud in a circular way brought all of the participants into the prayer and allowed them to both hear and see the words on page (handouts distributed).
After offering an opportunity for anyone to comment on what was shared in the first reading, I then entered into some of the more unfamiliar terminology of the meditation from the Dalai Lama and Traleg commentaries. Breaking the prayer down line by line and stanza by stanza fostered rich insights. The following terms were discussed. I will include any particular insights that flowed out of our discussion:
sentient beings: The Dalai Lama describes sentient beings as ‘those who are capable of experiencing suffering…the true source of our joy, prosperity and happiness.’ (DL, 11) Because the prayer of lojong is undertaken in deep compassion in exchange or equalization of self with other, understanding ‘sentient beings’ is important in understanding the scope of our prayer. The Dalai Lama introduces a new way of thinking of pain-suffering where the emphasis is a movement away from an entrenched self-focus: ‘In the Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life’ (12th c), Bodhicaryavatara says that there is a phenomenological difference between the pain you experience when you take on someone else’s pain yourself and the pain that comes directly from your own pain and suffering.’ (DL, 11) There is a new awakening when we realize this shift. Most participants had no difficulty in placing animals within the ‘sentient being’ range for animals too have the capacity to suffer. One participant took the idea of ‘sentient beings’ to include trees and plants; for they ‘grow toward the light’ and ‘in darkness (without adequate light), plants suffer or die.’ The lojong prayer can be directed to one ‘other’ individual or expanded to include the whole universe of ‘sentient beings’. We discussed the gospel of Thomas and its pantheistic statement: ‘split a piece of wood and I am there…lift up the stone and I am there’[1]. We discussed how different the Christian view would be if this gospel was considered canonical and if we took the love of all sentient beings to plants and animals as it relates to dominion.
wish granting gem: I chose a Buddhist poem by the Tibetan saint Milarepa (1052-1135), to describe the wish-granting gem: ‘All the wealth you have acquired from beginningless time until now has failed to fulfill all your desires, Cultivate therefore this wish-granting gem, of bodhichitta, O fortunate ones.’ (Milarepa, ‘Drinking from the Fountain Stream’) Cultivating bodhichitta (self for other, universal compassion for all sentient beings), from a Tibetan Mahayana perspective, is the highest gem. This idea was contrasted against the highest gem in the Western world which is generally money, sex and power. We discussed the sharp contrast between Tibetan and U.S. aspiration and the challenges inherent in taking on the mental focus-perspective called for in the lojong prayer. Some equated the highest gem as ‘treasure’ in the New Testament.[2]
seeing oneself as less than all others: The way of the Bodhisattva in bodhichitta can be misinterpreted by Westerners. The Dalai Lama assures us that he ‘certainly is not saying that one should engage in thoughts that would lower self-esteem…what is being emphasized is a sense of caring for others and a recognition of their preciousness based on reverence and respect, as superior beings (rather than pity or that they are inferior).’ (DL, 17, 15) This especially relates to negative emotional states such as anger. The Dalai Lama suggests that a cultivation of reverence to others gives one a restraining factor: ‘when powerful emotions arise, they will not be so powerful as to cause you to disregard the impact of your actions upon other sentient beings.’ (DL, 17) Instead of getting angry and reacting negatively, we can catch ourselves and hereby transform the experience. One participant took the phrase ‘may I see myself as less than all others and from the depth of my heart’ and spoke on how small one really is and the benefit of relinquishing the small and petty for the heartfelt good of the whole. In my own experience, there is an accumulation factor of power that comes in letting the small and petty fall to the side for a larger project.
examining the mind in all actions: The Dalai Lama identifies this verse as ‘the essence of the practice of Buddhism.’ (DL, 18) This essence is the freedom found in recognizing the ‘enemy’ within; the ‘emotional and mental afflictions that give rise to pain and suffering.’ (DL, 18) Traleg suggests that ‘our real problem is that we blame other people for our misery and never tire of the abuse we suffer from subjecting ourselves to our own egoistic minds.’ (T, 10) These ‘subtle inner thoughts have a huge impact on how we respond to others, how we conduct ourselves and how we evaluate ourselves.’ (T, 12) The lojong prayer takes us outside ourselves and essentially turns all events, regardless of their contents, into an advantage through a positive and ideally cheerful outlook.
beings of a negative disposition: Beings of a negative disposition give us an opportunity for practice. The Dalai Lama posits that when we encounter such people of negative disposition, our inclination is to react ‘in some strong and negative way’. (DL, 19) Instead of avoiding or running an internal dialogue about the person, the Dalai Lama informs that this is what practice is all about; using the most difficult and trying situations for transforming reality. People can be seen as a ‘treasure’ or ‘precious’ for they give us a vehicle to transform experience.
offer the victory to others: The lojong prayer offers an alternative to our natural inclination to win. The Dalai Lama writes that we ‘need to eliminate the excessive competitiveness and the ill-conceived ideas of prestige and face that continue to bedevil human relationships today.’ (DL, iv) We see this manifested in our relationships where in the minutest detail, we seek to save face: ‘the true practitioner is encouraged to accept defeat and offer victory, so that one doesn’t react in a negative way with outrage and anger.’ (DL, 19) These reactions can be very subtle and often come from our self-measurement. Can we lose our self-and other-critique and instead send out compassion to all sentient beings? As in the previous case, all opportunities offer an invitation for deeply transforming natural reaction for the good of the world.
may I see that one (giver of injustice) as a sacred friend: As in the previous example, a naturally troublesome situation can be transformed. The Dalai Lama is not advocating a kind of passivity where we accept everything that comes our way without utilizing our ‘force’. He suggests a transforming of the emotion through a deeper understanding. Transforming the ‘enemy’ situation follows along with the wisdom teachings of Jesus. Dalai Lama asks us to transform emotional and mental states and conditioned stimulus-response by standing outside and witnessing; turning naturally negative responses into beautiful gems. He also would suggest, to not stand passive, but to make strategic decisions (in Christian sense, in partnership with God) that uses our chosen reactions in order to teach others. Jesus, too, carried a similar kind of passivity (other than turning tables) yet he was able to create intersections of experience with certain people in order to teach higher universal truths that overturned conventional understanding.
eight mundane concerns: the eight mundane or worldly concerns are: material gain, material loss, praise and blame, acceptance and rejection, pleasurable sensory perception and unpleasant sensory stimulation. One participant reminded us that many of the themes in the lojong prayer are parallel to the teachings of the ancient Christian mystical tradition. Although Buddhists can be considered to be ‘atheistic’ (some commentators describe that an atheistic label is wrong but that the Buddha’s simply was unwilling to enter into debate about ‘God’ which detracts from the here and now), their teachings have a strong ‘Christian’ component.
Following the flow of introducing Buddhist terminology and the rich discussion that resulted, the group then went through the poem again stanza by stanza and identified additional Christian themes.
Additional Christian parallels
The most common connection found between the lojong prayer and the Christian tradition was in Jesus’ core commandment of ‘Loving God with all and neighbor as self’[3] with an emphasis on expanded neighbor[4] and in Jesus’ ‘self-emptying’ to the cross[5]. One participant made the link with the ‘mystical theology’ found in the Imitation of Christ.
The group discussed the use of ‘mother’ in the line ‘may I offer all joy to beings, my mothers, and may I take on their hurt and suffering.’ The patriarch Jacob came up in discussion regarding his wrestling and saying, ‘seeing your face is like seeing the face of God’[6] to brother Esau the following day. One young man suggested that seeing ‘mother’ in all others is positive for mothers ‘provide the greatest compassion, nurture, love…and call for our dependence.’ Placing this within the context of the lojong prayer’s focus on other, regardless of package, as a great gift and precious, is helpful. How transformed would our lives be if we saw all sentient beings that pass our way as a great gift for our nurture and to cherish our inter-dependence?
Many silent lojong meditations take on the giving and receiving: ‘may my joy flow out to you and may I take on your suffering.’ This is a difficult practice for many Westerners as a result of our system which places so much importance on self-empowerment and personal ‘rights’. Many people see such entry into a lojong prayer of this type as ‘weak and dis-empowering‘. I find it interesting (and sad) that this is the highest teaching among Tibetan Buddhists (all Mahayana traditions) yet in the Western world as a whole (and in many Christian circles), it is looked down upon as a non-viable practice. Luckily, there are many who are open to such refreshing teachings. What impact would the lojong teachings intention have on humankind if they were embraced rather than the norms derived from the capitalist-materialist set? At the center of the teachings of lojong, is the idea of self-sacrifice. From my perspective, Jesus calls us to a sacrifice and his example falls in line with the general intention of the lojong prayer.
Review of One Group’s Interaction
I thought it might be helpful to share some insights derived from one group’s working with the lojong prayer facilitated by me. I had an advantage in that this group was very open-minded.
Friend 1
Of special appreciation is the impact that the crossing of tradition had on the participants. One of my friends (as part of a group of four going through this exercise) is from India. Many years ago he converted to an evangelical form of Christianity. Kumar was quiet and did not become involved early saying that the prayer was ‘too philosophical’. Yet when we entered into discussion on the ‘eight mundane concerns’, he jumped in and taught us on the ‘illusory and impermanent nature of experience’ and discussed the overarching ‘Brahma’ in Hindu terms. His entry spurned a deep philosophical discussion on Brahma as representing the real truth as the Sun; the Rays as relative truth. At the end of the meeting, he contributed a re-languaged prayer that integrated his Indian roots with his Christian faith that brought in the spirit from the Buddhist lojong prayer:
May we seek the Eternal,
May we go Wherever You Lead Us,
May Our Mind be As Yours,
May We Think as You,
May We Treat Others as You Treated Us,
May We Be Filled with Joy of Eternal Salvation,
May We Be Free and not Under Bondage.
I believe that my friend’s entry into the new prayer and his recovery of familiar childhood roots is significant. He was able to contribute from many places that span his life experience and integrate them into something he created spontaneously yet is consistent with the spirit of the prayer.
Friend 2
In this group was a friend with Christian roots, who has traveled through Buddhism to the Islamic faith. She was able also to integrate from a wide variety of perspectives. For this friend, the lojong prayer is a prayer of an actively living faith. Although it may appear to some to be highly passive, for Anne, the meditation requires an effort of great proportion. By extending the concept of ‘sentient beings’, the prayer calls the participant into a greater communion and gives one a sensitivity to the whole universe. It expands one’s universe of inclusion.
Friend 3
Friend 3 is a young man I will call Malcolm who identified himself as a Christian-Buddhist. Malcolm referred us to Luke 9.23[7] and Jesus’ teachings to the disciples to ‘deny oneself, take up the cross and follow me’. For Malcolm, he chose to concentrate on the humanity of Jesus. Humans take up the cross in facing the human emotions of negativity, pain and suffering. We cannot escape living in the world without the natural reality of pain and suffering. The lojong prayer pushes us away from focusing on a divine emphasis and instead requires that we enter into the reality shifting the focus to other as Jesus did. In this respect, the lojong prayer is a very grounded meditation. Malcolm also introduced us to Isaiah and the testimony that ‘suffering is inherently meaningful.’
Taking the Lessons Forward
All of the participants were grateful for the entry into the lojong prayer. Some of the themes that were of particular importance include this reality that on one level, our internal thinking is our own worst enemy. Negative interpretations and judgment need to be checked and many committed themselves to noticing when their minds drift in counter-productive ways. Some took the prayer sheet and their notes with them and may work with the prayer on their own. Most participants agreed that the self-emptying component and Jesus’ kenotic movement was more original to Jesus and has been lost in many Christian congregations and in the pulpit today. We discussed that the self-emptying component in America is often seen as being ‘feminine’ when in fact it is ‘Jesus-centered’. My own take is that it offers a counterbalance and more directed solution to many of the world’s central problems.
Many gained a new-found appreciation for the Buddhist way. We were able to assemble and in our sharing learned more about one another.
After we finished our discussion, I asked the group for permission to wrap up our meeting with a final prayer and a period of silent worship. For prayer, I read the final two stanzas of the lojong prayer, added the contributions made by the three participants from my notes and we sat in silence as some voiced their appreciation for the moment.
Conclusion
I find great affinity with the Buddhist lojong prayer and see many parallels in Jesus’ kenotic movement to the cross. There have been many links made between Buddhist emptiness and Christ’s Kenosis in inter-religious dialogue efforts. The language of the prayer in this exercise presented specific challenges in processing the prayer with others. This brings to attention the importance of matching language, structure and exercise to the audience of participants.
Expanding one’s compassion to sentient beings on the widest level and exchanging self for other (bodhichitta) presents a great challenge. Regardless of the results, it is a challenge worth entering into in a spirit of deep compassion for other and in self-forgetting. This is not a way of passivity but a way of wisdom and strength that knows a different path to joy and peace which also benefits and teaches other.
Some were attracted to a more rounded understanding of God which included mother apart from Mary (as mother of Jesus), the idea of finding means for overcoming our self-focus and a more pantheistic view that sees God in all living things which includes animals and plants. Others may not agree; yet we must search for ideas that solve many of the current problems on a specific level and provide a greater balance. Part of this greater balance comes in inviting other traditions into our circles and building a greater Story.endnotes:
[1] Jesus said, "I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there." (Gospel of Thomas, verse 77)
[2] ‘’Do not lay for yourselves treasures on earth…but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven…for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.’ (Matt 6.19-20) ‘That their hearts be knit together in love, to have all the riches of assured understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery of Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.’ (Col. 2.2-3), Luke 12.21, Hebrews 11.26.
[3] ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength…You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ (Mark 12.30-31)
[4] The parable of the good Samaritan. (Luke 10.25-37)
[5] ‘though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant…he humbled himself.’ (Philippians 2.6-8)
[6] ‘truly to see your face is like seeing the face of God.’ (Genesis 33.10)
[7] ‘If any person would come after me, let him deny themselves and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it.’ (Luke 9.23-24)
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This paper represents my core interest in Abrahamic faith connection. Some of the links are reaches -- there is some good stuff in here though. Among my interests, this project integrating Buddhist mechanisms generates the greatest passion (accompanied by social action cooperative action-shared story-art among varied faith communities). Missing in emphasis are the two namings of 'Jacob to Israel' and interim and the link of Joseph-Benjamin (Son of Sorrow) born on way to Bethlehem after leaving Bethel and 'forgotten brother Esau' (and well stories Genesis to Gospel of John).....significance of 'Bethel'...Mistakes are a part of this effort...intention good.
Three Flocks: Connecting the Gospel of John with the Book of Genesis
Introduction
Almost two thousand years have passed since the death of Jesus of Nazareth on a hill outside of Jerusalem. On each side of Jesus, hung on a cross, were two others. Through the Biblical account, in the gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John, Jesus spoke to God the Father before his death and uttered a final word. In the gospel of Mark, Jesus will cry to God, ‘Why have you forsaken me?’ and in Luke and Matthew, his words are ‘Into thy hands, I commit thy Spirit.’ In the gospel of John, Jesus says the final word ‘It is finished’.
The middle part of the first to the early second century was a period ripe with diverse gospel testimony. Beyond the gospels that will be accepted into canon and considered divinely inspired (Mark, Matthew, Luke and John), are a wide range of writings that speak to Jesus’ coming and resurrection from varied perspective. Scholars agree that many of the canonical gospel authors had access to the written works of others beyond the oral tradition such as the gospel of Thomas and the theoretical Q source.
Within the gospel canon of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John is an overlapping of story. The multiplicity adds richness as well as complexity to the interpretative process. New Testament scholars use the term double-tradition and triple-tradition to describe canonical gospel content that is found in two or three gospel narratives respectively. For example, the story of Jesus’ transfiguration is of triple-tradition because it can be found in Mark, Matthew and Luke but not in John. Many of Jesus’ parables are of double-tradition and triple-tradition; some stories or sayings are limited to one gospel.
The Markan priority is a leading theory that places the gospel of Mark as the first gospel written. If the reader look closely and follows key events among the canonical gospels (i.e. the transfiguration, Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Jesus’ crucifixion), a pattern of both progression and complementarity[13] is presented to the reader. This progression is from the first gospel (Mark) in which the disciples ‘do not quite get it’ to the fourth gospel of John (considered the last gospel written). Comparing text of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem and Jesus’ crucifixion in the gospel of Mark to John, the reader is witness to a revealing pattern:
Mark: ‘Blessed be the kingdom of our father David that is coming!’
Luke/Matthew: ‘Blessed be the King who comes in the name of the Lord!’
John: ‘Blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!’
Mark: ‘Father, Father, why have you forsaken me?’
Luke/Matthew: ‘Into thy hands I commit my spirit.’
John: ‘It is finished.’
Whereas contemporary Biblical scholars look to other criteria to determine the sequence of gospel canon, their findings are showing an interesting movement of Holy Spirit inspiration. Is there a progression of Christ from Mark’s ‘Davidic lineage’ (‘why have you forsaken me?’) to John’s ‘the inclusive ‘King of Israel’’ (‘it is finished’)? This project will be looking at the gospel of John’s portrayal of Jesus as it relates to ‘Israel’ and the higher mediating solution in ‘Christ’.
Canon 363
New Biblical scholarship is opening up fresh ways of understanding the mystery of Biblical assembly. Many hold to the ‘closed view’ of Biblical canon and revelation and feel that much of the new interpretative work (outside of disciplined holding-to-tradition and accumulated canon of commentary and scholarship) is not respecting the sacredness of Biblical text and t(T)radition. In the decades following Jesus’ death and resurrection, there was an explosion of oral and written testimonies of the Christ event. Many of the epistles of Paul were circulating in Asia Minor and Rome speaking to both Jews and Greeks before the four gospels were completed. Because pseudonymous works were common in the early period, modern scholarship is beginning to rightfully question the authenticity of some of the letters attributed to the apostle Paul. Some question if whole letters were not written by others in the name of Paul. Others are finding that it is very likely that many of Paul’s letters contain interpolations—or later additions in the form of critical statements that shift the emphasis of Paul’s intent after his death. Therefore, the new scholarship on Paul is exciting as the sacred text is being examined and the idea of closed revelation is being challenged.
The assemblers of canon had before them a wide range of texts in which to choose from in putting together the Bible. In general terms, twenty-seven ‘books’ (the four gospels, the fourteen epistles of ‘Paul’, letters and the book of Revelation) were selected from a wide range of texts. The recent findings of sacred scrolls at Nag Hammadi in southern Egypt (1947; many of the texts not available until the 1970’s) bring to attention that there was a great vitality and diversity of thought that surrounded Christ from both Jewish and Greek perspectives in the early centuries. Many of the unearthed texts, found in water jars hidden in caves in Nag Hammadi, point to a one time necessity among devoted ‘Christian’ groups to preserve sacred teachings. Could their timely exposure in the mid-twentieth century, (some forty-five different tractates found) be a call for an opening up and critique of canon and closed revelation?[14]
Looking back to the early centuries, the idea of setting a new canon among the emerging ‘Christian’ group came as early as the second century. Marcion (110-160) and his followers chose the gospel of Luke and ten epistles of Paul, taking out eschatological content (prophesies concerning Christ’s second coming), to guide their group in the mid-second century AD. Irenaeus, during this same period, was the first to call for the four-gospel set of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John.
Church Fathers Origen’s (185-254) and Eusebius’ (263-339) writings demonstrate that many books were taken into consideration running up to final canon establishment which occurred in 363 AD with the Council of Laodocia and Constantine. Some books that found themselves on the fringe of canon include the Epistle of Barnabas, the Didache, the Acts of Paul, the Shepherd of Hermes, Revelation of Peter and the Revelation of John.[15] It is revealing that books such as the gospel of Philip, the incomplete gospel of Mary and the gospel of Thomas[16], as well as the books mentioned above, if accepted into canon, would have greatly shifted the normative view of Jesus. According to sources, the Council of Laodocia’s canon did not include the book of Revelation. It was not until St. Athanasius’ Easter Letter of 367 that the book of Revelation was included and the canon that matches today’s Christian Canon was finalized (adding thirty-nine books from the Jewish tradition). Athanasius’ letter also suggested other books ‘profitable for instruction’: The Wisdom of Solomon, the Wisdom of Sirach, Esther, Judith, Tobit, the Didache, and the Shepherd.[17] The subtle differences in canon among varied Christian groups are referred to as apocryphal works.
An important matter to consider is that the Christian Bible that we know today in 2008, which includes a foundation of sixty-six books, was set by a group of European men in the year 363, over sixteen hundred years ago. The concern for the author is that the idea of a closed canon and closed revelation is limiting to solve the issues that we face today as Jews, Christians and Muslims. Our separate divinely-inspired and set positions put us in a precarious intra-relationship as Abrahamic faith traditions that share a common beginning; one that is potentially heading for a greater divisive end.Jewish-Christian-Muslim Beginning in Genesis
The suggestion of a greater Jewish, Christian and Muslim intra-relationship may place the reader in a predicament either through a lack of background knowledge or through the author’s own limitation. Let me make this background clear to you as it is read in the book of Genesis (a common book for Jew and Christian; the Muslim Koran (7th century AD) presents different stories of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses,…and the Jewish tradition adds additional riches to the tradition through the Rabbinic Mishnah and Midrash).
Jews, Christians and Muslims all worship the same God of Abraham and trace their lineages back to Abraham as founding Father. Abraham became the father of two sons; the first born Ishmael and the second Isaac. Ishmael and his mother the slave-appointed Hagar were expelled into the wilderness. In the Muslim tradition, as an example of shared story, there is the story of Abraham and Ishmael building the Kabba (a place of Muslim worship in Mecca) and a story of the sacrifice of Ishmael at Mount Olives (the Jewish-Christian sacrifice story is that Isaac).
In the book of Genesis is the story of Hagar and Ishmael and the first-born son and mother’s expulsion into the wilderness. It is in the desert that God will hear the boy[18] and respond offering Hagar a covenant at the well Beersheba. The story in Genesis continues with Isaac, the second born; who is given a greater covenant. Isaac will marry Rebekkah and another first and second born son story follows. Esau the first-born is tricked out of covenant and Jacob is favored. Jacob is named Israel, and after fleeing his brother Esau at Bethel[19], the story of Israel runs to the end of the book of Genesis. The first-born Esau, left out of the majority story, marries Ishmael’s daughter and so begin the descendents Edom who play a very subtle role throughout the rest of the Old Testament. The end of Genesis tells the story of the establishment of the twelve tribes of Israel. Edom and the descendents of Ishmael-Esau establish their own nation to the east in Arabia.
Thousands of years are included in the story of the people ‘Israel’ that runs throughout the Old Testament. In the book of Exodus, the story of deliverance, the ‘congregation Israel’ is led by Moses and delivered from the hand of Pharaoh (the Koran also includes similar subject stories of the exodus, the giving of the law, Moses, Aaron..). Stories of the rise and fall of kingdom and Israel’s intense suffering at the hands of foreign leaders are balanced against times of prosperity and independence. God’s covenants change as do his workings with the leadership of Israel. There is great hope that a Messiah will come from the Jewish people. Jesus is born a Jew, and instead of being the Earthly Messiah as expected by the Jewish people as a descendent of David, Jesus, the first-born Lamb of God, dies and is raised as the King of the inclusive Israel. It is in his resurrection that came through Jesus’ example, that Christians believe that humankind can be saved and resurrected. This Jesus ‘came from God and returned to God’, the same God as the God of Abraham. He came as the ‘true Light in every (hu)man’ (John 1.9) and all humankind should see themselves and others as ‘sons and daughters of this Light’ (John 12.36).
The Muslims, as descendents of the people Edom and Ishmael-Hagar, offer a call for a return to the One God through the revelations of the Prophet Mohammed in the seventh century. The Koran speaks of Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham, ‘the children of Israel’, Ishmael, Isaac, Joseph, Moses, Mary and Jesus and other Old and New Testament figures and events offering a rich traditional perspective.
The emerging discussion-of-difference is not what was in Jesus’ day between Jew and Samaritan[20]-Greek but what stands between Jews and Muslims today. And this is Jesus the Christ, the first-born sacrificed in compassion for the outcast; a group that includes the descendents of expelled first-born Ishmael and Esau into an inclusive Israel.
Table 1 (not imported) gives some idea of the macro focus of this project. The attempt is to align the macro intention with the micro at the cross with Jesus as the pathway to a higher reconciling point. Jesus, resurrected as the Christ, in fulfilling God’s will, shows the way to reconciliation that he showed to the Samaritan and Jewish group in the first century. The way of John’s Jesus is a path of movement; a path of holding to one’s own tradition while entering into increasing layers of difference and distilling the message of inclusion. The assumption in the table is that time is eternal and that the sacred Scriptures as they read should, beyond giving life to our own circles as Christians, be pointed to today’s predicament in the split between Jew and Muslim. Underneath the sacred and divisive scriptural word, in the Bible and in the Koran, is a Story that can be assembled to the greater unification of Christian, Jew and Muslim.
Among all things, which includes on a micro level the way of Jesus to the Christ at the cross as the mediating solution between you and me or he and she (wherever two or three are gathered) into a higher resurrected Light of Truth, Jesus died to break down the dividing wall of difference that comes from a one-sided ego perspective. Depending on the gospel translation, it is written that Jesus was crucified between two ‘thieves’ or ‘robbers’. On both a micro and macro level, we are in danger of taking to mind only a one dimensional perspective as robber and it can be said, that we need the gift of other’s perspectives of God for a deeper understanding. The light of the resurrected Christ draws us up to a binding compromise, a higher fulfillment that comes in partnership with the ‘other side’.
The covenants given in Genesis to both the descendents of Ishmael-Hagar and Isaac-Sarah should be known. As Christians, we should lift up the stories of both Jew and Muslim in our circles and serve in calling Jews and Muslims together to share their rich traditional stories into a greater Story of inclusion and fullness. The synergetic call in the reconciling effort is to identify a higher binding essence of neutrality, to return to the beginning of the story and to work together to heal the divisions that separate.
As example, as Christians, how can we help to reconcile the story of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac found in the Jewish and Christian tradition but also that of Ishmael as found in the Muslim tradition? God’s covenant given to both Hagar and Abraham-Sarah? Is there any benefit in linking the well stories of Jesus and the Samaritan woman in the gospel of John backward to the well stories in Genesis which include God’s covenant given to Hagar and the story of the three flocks of sheep at Jacob’s well. Jacob says: ‘It is high noon, it is not time for the sheep to be gathered.’ Consider Jacob’s weeping at the well when he gathers one of the three flocks, Esau and Jacob weeping at a potential for reconciliation into Israel, Jesus’ weeping at Lazarus’ raising from the dead, Mary’s weeping at Jesus’ tomb.
Why the Gospel of John?
John’s gospel gives us a way to the high point of resurrecting mediation in Christ. Of the four gospels, the gospel of John provides an additional answer into the unlocking of understanding Jesus as the Lamb of God, the inclusive Christ and the King of a greater Israel. In addition, the gospel of John comes closer to opening up linkages with the recently recovered gospels of Philip, Mary and Thomas and provides an entryway back into Jesus’ proclamation ‘before Abraham was, I am’ and the book of Genesis.
My belief is that the Scriptures are divinely inspired and that there is a continuation of divine inspiration in each Biblical translation. Whereas most scholars return to the Hebraic or Greek language root and the original historical context to gather meaning, the project’s method is to work within the universe of one translation and to search for a solution that comes from out of the words in a full inclusionary spirit speaking to today’s macro and hence micro context. Both methods can prove vital.
In this case, I will limit the universe of inquiry to the gospel of John and the book of Genesis using the Revised Standard Version. Hereby, the flow will consist of circular movements within the gospel of John in cultivating an increased understanding of the Christ Essence, as Jesus’ way to the Resurrected end and new beginning, and then the project returns to the beginning in the book of Genesis before Abraham. It is the project’s intention to explore the reality of Christ as the expression of non-division for John’s Jesus only divided against the dividers.
The second table (not imported) speaks to one of the challenges inherent in this project. The emerging idea is to foster an ability to see matters more non-dualistically as it relates to inclusion and exclusion. The working is to encourage a way of holding to one view while giving credence to an opposing view (i.e. baptism debate, Isaac-Ishmael sacrifice) and meeting in a higher transcending intersection. John’s Jesus urges us to be One, a God worshipped in spirit and truth transcending form and name. In a later chapter, the project will work with the Pharisaic tendency to collective judgment contrasted against the born blind man made to see who simplifies the ‘way of entry’: ‘If anyone is a worshipper of God and does his will, God listens to him’ which is significant in terms of Jesus’ Samaritan inclusion as it connects to a Muslim parallel.
The gospel of John best addresses the dual nature of One for Christians as John presents both a micro answer to developing and sustaining community (footwashing, Jesus’ urgings to be One) and a macro Universal contribution that speaks to the all inclusive ‘Israel’ reflected in Jesus’ identification as both a Jew and as a Samaritan: Our assignment in engaging with the gospel of John will be to identify the Christ Essence through John’s telling of the story of Jesus.
Table 2 illustrates the themes of our endeavor; Jesus, words and Scripture take the Christian to a resurrecting truth of Christ, the Word and the Spirit. Jesus resurrected to the Christ, Scripture resurrected to the Spirit, and words resurrected to the Word. This Word (‘Christ’) gives the Christian an Instrument to properly read and critique the words of Scripture. The Spirit seeks to transcend the letter and meet in an undivided Christ Light in the gospel of John. John’s gospel is a gospel of paradigm expansion. Underlying all ‘appearances’, is the resurrected and undivided Christ Light found in the Holy Spirit.
Globally speaking, the traditions of Jewish, Muslim and Christian, as relational Faith Traditions of Abraham, each have separate universes of Truth but can also contribute to a higher Transcending and Complementary Essence. This can help in recognizing the conditioned nature of our perspectives and the necessity to transcend our positions to a greater unifying point. This point is at the intersection of the cross; the higher mediating solution between two. This project has come from many hours of scriptural study with a compassion for the outcast represented by Ishmael and his mother Hagar. There is a covenant to protect, and a book of beginning in Genesis that can be read through the cross that attempts to integrate first and second born splits and bring richness to the Abrahamic Story and a greater Israel through also including the Koranic perspective. My hope is that other faith traditions and the people of the East can join in to suggest ways of overcoming our ego-centered perspectives so that we may meet in a more fruitful way in our intersection with others of difference.
Chapter One: John’s Jesus ‘Come and See’
Within its many layers, John’s gospel presents a story of paradigm expansion. The universe he creates in telling the story of Jesus in all its intricacy offers the reader wondrous challenges. One challenge is in identifying the Christ Essence contained within ‘Jesus of Nazareth’, the ‘Son of man’, the ‘King of the Jews’, which led him forward and into Jerusalem for the final time to receive His great glorification as the ‘Son of God’, ‘the Christ’ and ‘the King of Israel’.[21]
The movement from Jesus to Christ is in the linear story culminating in the glorifying resurrection on the third day following Jesus’ sacrifice between two (‘there they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them’, John 19.18). Jesus, hereby, is the ‘way, the truth and the life’ (John 14.6)[22] and is to be followed. But where and in what way is he asking us to go?
Before we begin our entry into the gospel of John, let me warn the reader that this is strenuous work. John’s gospel, in its high spiritual content, is also considered to be the most anti-Semitic gospel. I think a good way to read this gospel is in a highly symbolic sense; what John presents in the example of Jesus to Christ is a deeper movement to Essence that speaks to a Light Universal in all people, an entry into a way that transcends (yet includes) tradition[23]. The way will result in a challenge to the Pharisaic element and 'original family' who use a conditioned group collective or tradition in which to claim exclusive salvation and exclusive blessedness.
There is a clear revolutionary message that comes from John’s gospel and it is important to look at who Jesus engages with and what he says. There are Pharisees in every group as there are (Jesus) and others who seek to transcend form and to find some higher binding element that brings people together. The inclusive drive balances against the necessity for order and living out of tradition.
A good place to begin may be at the beginning with Jesus’ first question and his first two statements in his first interaction with his first two disciples. (I will also include Jesus’ last statement in the gospel of John on questioning):
‘John was standing with two of his disciples: and he looked at Jesus as he walked, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God!’ The two disciples[24] heard him say this and followed Jesus.’ (1.35-37)
Jesus’ first question: ‘What do you seek?’ (1.38)
Disciples answer with a question: ‘Rabbi (Teacher), Where are you staying?’ (1.38)
Jesus two statements: ‘Come and see’ (1.39) and ‘Follow me’ (1.43)
Jesus’ last statement on questioning: ‘So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. On that day, you will ask me no questions.’ (16.22)
Although there are different ways of interpreting what ‘on that day’ means, in one sense it could be seen as the day of the resurrection. Jesus appears to Mary first, saying to her, ‘Mary’ (20.16). Mary first recognizes Jesus as the gardener. Once her name is called, ‘she turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabboni!’ (joy without question).’ (20.16) Jesus tells Mary of his coming ascension to the Father:
‘…go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father, and your Father, to my God and your God...’ (20.17) ‘Mary Magdalene went and said to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.’ (20.18)…..
The significance of Jesus’ original question and answer sets the stage for John’s gospel. The two disciples immediately follow Jesus after hearing John the Baptist proclaim Jesus as the ‘Lamb of God!’ John has proclaimed that this ‘Lamb of God’ has come to ‘take away the sins of the world.’ (1.29b) John said, ‘This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, for he was before me…for this I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.’ (1.30-31)
Jesus, as Jew, was in a position to be the new King from the Jewish perspective, as a descendent of David. Yet instead of accepting this role, Jesus was being revealed to the people Israel and will show the disciples his way to a resurrected end and new beginning.
Philip to Nathanael: ‘Come and See’
The next day, following Jesus’ encounter with the two disciples Andrew and ‘the other’ (who name him Rabbi then: for ‘they came and saw where he was staying’ (1.39b) naming him ‘Messiah’), Philip is asked by Jesus to follow him to Galilee and Philip gathers Nathanael. In their excitement, both Philip and Nathanael, are tied to a historically-bound paradigm of Messiah[25]:
‘Philip found Nathanael, and said to him, ‘We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.’ Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’ (1.45-46)
‘Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and said of him, ‘Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom, there is no guile[26].’ (1.47)
‘Nathanael said to him, ‘How do you know me?’ Jesus answered him, ‘before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.’ (1.48)
‘Nathanael answered him, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ (1.49)
Philip[27] is, perhaps without knowing it, inviting Nathanael into an understanding of the Messiah which will be unveiled as they serve as Jesus’ disciples. One statement and three stumbling blocks are put up here as the gospel of John unfolds:
1. Jesus’ primary title is Rabbi or Teacher.
2. the references to Jesus’ sonship to God (‘Son of God’) will bring him into conflict with the Jewish authority.
3. the reference to ‘King of Israel’ will bring Jesus into conflict with Caesar and the Roman authority and
4. Jesus’ movement-expansion of designated ‘Israel’ threatens traditional understandings of Israel and the Pharisaic authority.
Jesus as Rabbi is inviting his disciples in to give them a revolutionary teaching about the son-ship or daughter-ship[28] of all that transcends tradition-identification (such as Jewish or Samaritan understandings of group-saving Messiah) and a God that infuses all in the form of Light. The words in chapter one may help us: ‘He gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.’ (1.12b-13)
The Samaritan Woman at the Well
Perhaps one of the most significant movements of the Jewish Jesus in John’s gospel is in his interaction with the Samaritans. Jews worshipped in the temple in Jerusalem. Samaritans, while holding many Jewish foundations such as Torah observance, worshipped a temple built on Mount Gerizim (of opposite direction). Jewish teachers such as the Pharisees and the Jewish people in general, because of different traditions and a contentious inter-relational history with the Samaritans, held them in the greatest contempt (and vice versa). As we know, Jesus walked among the Samaritan people and taught them. It is the Samaritan woman in chapter four of the gospel of John, who after engaging with Jesus, returns to the city and:
‘said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?’ (4.29)
What is the significance of Jesus’ visit and affiliation with a group despised but having similar histories and worshipping a different direction (mount Gerizim)? We know the beginning of this story as Jesus approaches the Samaritan woman at the well. She questions Jesus and he responds:
Woman: ‘Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well, and drank of it himself, and his sons, and his cattle?’ (4.12)
Jesus: ‘Every one who drinks of the water that I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life’ (4.13-14, combined)
Jesus banters with the woman and tells her about her past. Her answer speaks of Jesus as a great prophet: ‘Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.’ (4.19) Jesus is seen in different ways by the people.
Jesus gives to her a compromise on the issue of the direction of worship, Jesus states:
‘God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ (4.24)
Rather than an emphasis on tradition-bound insistence on place, Jesus is opening up a radical acceptance of mutuality between Samaritan and Jew. Although his words are challenging in stating:
‘You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.’ (4.22),
Perhaps there is a relationship here of Jesus’, ‘I come not to destroy, but to fulfill’, and that the relationship between tradition and inclusion is a great mystery. Salvation is from the God of the Jews extended outward to include the Samaritans.
After the Jewish Rabbi’s (Jesus’) teaching that those who worship God should do so in spirit and truth, the woman proclaims:
‘I know that the Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ); when he comes, he will show us all things.’ (4.25)
Jesus replies with a saying of full inclusion: ‘Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am he.’ (4.26)
Throughout John’s gospel, Jesus speaks in pronoun combinations that shape truths outside of title labels. Imagine the following possibilities here. Beyond Jesus’ agreement that he is what she says as she imagines and more, Jesus could be saying (taking into consideration Jesus’ previous statement, ‘I who speak to you am he.’):
1. I am God.
2. God is speaking to you.
3. You are contained within God (you within I and am).
4. Perhaps the greatest stretch is that within the Godhead, the ‘I am’, contains all three singular pronouns of I, you and he(she). The fact that Jesus, as Jew, is speaking these words to the greatest representative outsider to the Jewish tradition (Samaritan woman), and because ‘salvation is from the Jews’, then salvation is for all people, individually, into a greater One. ‘We’, as collective, in a negative form is represented by the Pharisees who use the collective to judge in terms of separating those outside of God and hold to a law and language of exclusion.
The woman leaves her water jar, goes into the city, and says to the people:
‘Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ? They went out of the city and were coming to him.’ (4.29-30)
The Samaritans come to Jesus and invite him to stay:
‘he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word.’ (4.40-41)
In a friendly interpretation, Jesus did not seek to convert or change them but he let them be; he gave them freedom to worship as they did in a good way and perhaps encouraged the ‘spirit and truth’ aspect. After Jesus left, the Samaritan people responded to the woman concerning Jesus:
‘We know indeed that this is the Saviour of the world.’ (4.42)
In some way, we could say that Jesus identified himself as a Samaritan. Later in John’s gospel, Jesus is confronted by the Pharisees:
‘Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?’ Jesus answered, ‘I have not a demon; but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me.’ (8.48b-49)
Jesus’ not addressing the first question, could reflect his sympathies and lack of identifying himself in limiting terms. Perhaps Jesus sees himself as a Jew and Samaritan.
Lazarus and the Jews : ‘Remove the Stone’
In chapter eleven, we have the final use of ‘Come and see’ in John’s gospel. The text identifies the following people present in Bethany when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead; Mary, Martha, the disciples including Thomas the twin, and other Jews.
Within the chapter, the pronoun ‘she’ is used four times referring to ‘Mary’ and ‘Martha’. The pronoun ‘he’ is used throughout the narrative and refers to ‘Lord, ‘Lazarus’, ‘Jesus’ and ‘Christ’.
Following Martha’s proclamation ‘Yes, Lord[29]; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world’ (11.27), Martha:
‘went and called her sister Mary, saying quietly, ‘The Teacher is here and is calling for you. And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him.’ (11.28-29)
Mary rises quickly and goes to the tomb followed by the Jews. Mary sees Jesus and falls at his feet. Jesus, touched by the weeping of Mary and the Jews, and perhaps as a premonition to his own death (cave burial), becomes ‘deeply moved in spirit and troubled.’ (11.33) He says:
‘Where have you laid him?’ ‘They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see[30].’ Jesus wept[31].’ (11.34-35)
‘So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’ (11.36)
‘Then, Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb; it was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ (11.38-39) Lazarus is raised from the dead! It is written: ‘Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him; but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.’ (11.45-46)
‘Come and See’ Wrap-Up
The three stories of ‘come and see’ are brilliant in revealing the breadth of Jesus the Christ’s resurrecting power and the extent of his mission. In the first case with Philip and Nathanael, there is a ‘right seeing’ that is associated with understanding Jesus as ‘Son of God’ (although this will be better understood) and his kingship for an inclusive ‘Israel’ (explained in time) that will be unfolding in the story.
In the second case with the Samaritans, we are given a lesson as to the extent of inclusion of John’s gospel and to an idea of a God who wishes to be worshipped in spirit and truth transcending difference in form. And in the raising of Lazarus, Martha’s deep understanding of the resurrecting power is brought back, raising her beloved brother from the dead and giving a potential foreshadowing to the power of the stone removed and the release of flowing eternal water and life, Spirit for all[32].
In the first case, we have Jesus’ ‘Come and see’; in the second, Philip to the ‘Jew without guile questioning whether anything good can come out of Nazareth’, Nathanael; the third, the Samaritan woman to her people (worshippers of a different direction) who saw Jesus as ‘Savior of the world’ and fourthly to a group of disciples and Jews who out of compassion for Lazarus, told Jesus, ‘Lord, come and see.’
The sequence of ‘Lamb of God’ (1.29, 1.36), to ‘King of Israel’ (1.49), to Inclusive of Samaritan as ‘Saviour of the world’ (4.42), to The Resurrecting Power Giving Life (11.44) as a Foreshadowing of Jesus Resurrection (21) is staggering in its pattern. Jesus remained a Jewish Rabbi until his death and in his resurrection (Mary, ‘Rabboni!’) taught the world the true path to and in God.
Jesus and the Pharisees: ‘We’ and Judgment
Throughout the gospel of John, Jesus’ greatest challengers came in the form of the Pharisees. As Jesus kept moving outward into new areas of ministry bringing sight and a simplified message to the people, the Pharisees were close at hand ready to correct his healing presence to those outside the fold and challenge him on the ‘law’. (i.e. Sabbath healing)
In the Encyclopaedia Judaica, the origin of the word ‘Pharisee’ comes from:
‘the Hebrew root parash and is generally believed to mean ‘the separated ones’ or the ‘separatists’. The entry suggests that ‘according to some scholars, ‘Pharisee’ would mean ‘those who are set apart’, i.e. avoiding contact with others for reasons of ritual purity, or those who ‘separated themselves’ from the heathens.’ (30, v 16)
This is significant for the gospel of John is very subtle in its inclusionary message: ‘the true light that enlightens every (hu)man was coming into the world.’ (1.9) Jesus came for judgment and his greatest challenge was directed at the Pharisees. He called them for their tendency to separate and to speak out of a judgmental and collective ‘We’ identification often centered on law and ritual.
We see opposite views when we contrast statements of 'we' as they relate to the ‘light in every person’ versus the Pharisaic use of ‘we’. Let us compare some of the various uses
followers:
‘And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.’ (1.14)
‘From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.’ (1.16)
‘We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.’ (6.69)
‘Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.’ (17.11)
Pharisees-Jews:
‘The Jews said to one another, ‘Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks?’ (7.35)
‘They answered him, ‘We are descendents of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free?’ (8.33)
‘Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?’ (8.48)
‘The Jews said to him, ‘Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, and so did the prophets; yet you say, ‘Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.’ (8.52)
‘Then they reviled him (the born blind man made to see), saying, ‘You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.’ (9.28)
Jesus’ direct hit on the Pharisaic way and judgment is found in chapter nine for:
‘Jesus said, ‘For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.’ (9.39)
One translation of this passage is translated in this way:
‘those who do not see (judgment) see and that those who see (judgment) may become blind.’
Judgment, of course, is a natural human condition and essential for discernment. What Jesus is challenging in this passage is the strong divisive Pharisaic element of collective judgment that runs throughout John’s gospel.
Part of the frustration is in receiving support of this interpretation in other Reformation Biblical commentaries (there is no collective ‘We’ in divisive sense)[33]. Therefore, in making this assessment, the author is entering new territory. (as much of this work)
One example of commentary on John 9.39 is given below by John Calvin:
Calvin on John 9.39: ‘So, then, they see, says our Lord Jesus Christ, who, deceiving themselves and others under a foolish confidence in their wisdom, are guided by their own opinion, and reckon their vain imaginations to be great wisdom. Such persons, as soon as Christ appears in the brightness of his Gospel, are made blind.’
This commentary does not address the ‘judgment’ aspect as presented. Calvin’s interpretation is a bit different than the assessment given encouraging a sight that comes in not judging who is in and out of God’s love and plan and points to an alternative perspective on ‘sin’. The passage continues:
‘Some of the Pharisees near him heard this, and they said to him, ‘Are we also blind?’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would have no (sin)[34] guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see’, your (sin) guilt remains.’ (9.40-41, RSV)
Inserting ‘judgment’, we have:
‘If you were blind (to judgment), you would have no (sin) guilt’
In a more radical way, not only is Jesus speaking against judgment but he is speaking against any form of exclusionary ‘we’. Jesus’ antagonism with the Pharisees is important to consider. Imagine the Light running through all of creation and in every person. The separatists stand ready to divide and cut up this truth usually through a tradition-bound paradigm and exclusive claim to God. Jesus stands in the midst of the groups of Samaritan and Jew (and all such separation, crucified in between two). Jesus continually works on a complicated pattern of ‘mutual acceptance’; that both allows separate traditions to stand (‘salvation is from the Jews’) but seeks unification in ‘spirit and truth’.
This is not to say that there is not judgment. It is not ours to give. The judgment to be given in following Jesus is in dividing against the dividers such as Pharisaic-like representatives. There is a clear divisiveness of judgment in John’s gospel. Jesus claims authority to ‘execute judgment’ as ‘Son of man’ (5.27). He speaks in chapter five:
‘Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and to those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.’ (5.29)
May I equate doing good as a natural result of a non-divisive vision? What to do with this second layer of the light as a corrector to behavior and as final judge? These are questions that will need to be put on the shelf for now.
Necessity of Being Born Anew
Jesus corrects Nicodemus in chapter three and emphasizes the importance of the new birth, ‘unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ (3.3) Jesus is speaking of a new birth in the Spirit (3.5); a re-birth that transcends blood associations.
We remember the beginning in John: ‘born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh nor the will of man, but of God.’ (1.13) Right here and right in front of one in Jesus. Nicodemus questions Jesus and Jesus replies:
‘Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand this?...And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life…For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…and this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil…But he who does what is true comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God.’ (3.10, 14, 16, 19, 21)
The author is not advocating that ‘vision of the Light within all’ (‘came or coming’ but eternal reality beyond form and at death) is the necessary sole component. John's Jesus is calling all into this undivided Light. If we see beyond the differences as ‘children of God’ (1.12) and are born anew in the Spirit, then a full inclusionary vision will result in good deeds because of a more intense awareness of the Infinite nature of the triad of ‘Loving God with all mind and heart, and one’s neighbor as oneself.’ It is only the Pharisaic mentality that sees deep divisions based on tradition and law and holds to an exclusionary perspective that Jesus addresses here, beyond those clearly lost in evil deeds.
Jesus was for the one beyond any group affiliation. Jesus said, ‘For this is the will of my Father that every one who sees the Son (and will be clarified) and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.’ (6.40) Jesus calls for full inclusion and a simple truth.
The gospel of John speaks on ‘seeing’. What was it that the born blind man made to see has to teach the reader as he encounters the Pharisees (collective dividers)?
Jesus and the Born Blind Man Made to See
The gospel of John gains momentum as both a sense of fragmentation and urgency surfaces for the ‘Pharisees-Jews’ (symbolic sense within each tradition) as the deeply held collective understandings of the ‘Messiah’ and exclusive favor fall apart before their eyes. The collective expectation is challenged in the form of Jesus’ interactions as he moves forward to full glory on the cross.
The story of the born blind man made to see in chapter nine, just as the story of the Samaritan woman at the well in chapter four, point to this complete paradigm shift to a simplification in the message of inclusion, where the forms of security are being dropped and the status quo of institution and power are challenged. There is fear and realization; a fear and realization that ‘the light that enlightens every man was coming into the world’ (1.9) and that a new dawn was coming into being challenging people's understanding and calling for a new vision.
We see this shift in the simple story of the born blind man made to see. Coming out of the temple, Jesus is quickly met by a ‘man blind from his birth.’ (9.1)
Notice the symbolism here. What does it take for a person to receive his sight and see and believe in a new understanding of the Lord? He is calling us to the same movement. We are all born blind in a sense of original tradition. Jesus is calling all to a transcend-and-include view[35] that simplifies the criteria for entry and makes greater connections with those outside one's own tradition. Jesus sets out to heal giving the man the capacity to see for the first time.
Jesus ‘spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle and anointed the man’s eyes with the clay, saying to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.’ (9.6-7)
Within a short time, John weaves the neighbors, Pharisees and parents into the story. The story continues:
‘The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar, said, ‘Is this the man who used to sit and beg?’ Some said, ‘It is he’; others said, ‘No, but he is like him.’ He said, ‘I am the man.’ (9.8-9)
This interpretation runs on two levels; the second is the question of who did the healing. Is the man Jesus, as some say, the ‘Son of God’, the ‘Christ’, the ‘King of Israel’?
The people are answering a different question here and are divided (enter into to John’s pronoun artistry);
some say that Jesus is he, the Son of God, the Christ-Messiah, the King of Israel. (based on their own interpretation of those titles and hopeful expectation)
others say, no, he is only a resemblance but falls short.
the born blind man made to see testifies: The man is God (I am), (and God is in man).
The blind 'person' made to see is asked how he received his sight.
The new man answered, ‘The man called Jesus made clay…’ Within Jesus contains the resurrecting power of Christ in God (Son of God) to those who believe in him (he who is-was sent). They said to him, ‘Where is he?’ He said, ‘I do not know.’ (9.12)
The man is taken to the Pharisees for the healing was done on the Sabbath, ‘and there is a division among them.’ (9.16c)
The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, and took him to his parents. His parents deferred from entering into conversation for they feared they would be put out of the synagogue (put out of their collective group; a form of self-preservation). They say: ‘He is of age, ask him.’ (9.23)
The new man speaks confidently and the Jews tell him: ‘You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.’ (9.28) The man answered,
‘Why, this is a marvel! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners[36], but if anyone is a worshipper of God and does his will, God listens to him.’ (9.30-31)
This is a very simple formulation that transcends the Jew-Samaritan debate. The matching translation of ‘marvel’ is found in Jesus’ interaction with Nicodemus regarding the necessity of being born anew.
After the new man’s distilled inclusive testimony, the Pharisees ‘cast him out.’
‘Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of man?
He answered, ‘And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?’
Jesus said to him, ‘You have seen him, and it is he who speaks to you.’
He said, ‘Lord, I believe’; and he worshipped him.’ (9.35-38)
The born blind man was healed through Jesus to God. And from the lesson, the message was distilled to a simple one: worship God and do his will and God will listen. There is a new birth in the Spirit that comes not ‘of blood nor the will of the flesh nor the will of man, but of God.’ (1.13) All are Son (Daughter) in the Spirit.
‘While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons (daughters) of light.’ (12.36)
‘…and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.’ (12.32)
Chapter Two: ‘I am’
On one level, Jesus was a man born into a tradition who had great power. He kept to his tradition as Rabbi and Teacher yet sought a greater inclusion. We have seen how he moved among the Samaritans and encouraged a mediating solution in worshipping the Father in spirit and in truth. We have seen how his miracles such as healing the born blind man gave the man new sight where the message of inclusion was simplified to ‘if any person worship God and does his will, God listens to him.’[37] His preaching and prophesy to a coming change where the collective is expanded to include others set him up against his own people and eventually ended in his death on a cross. (Jews, Muslims and Christians who take the same inclusive path within their own traditions are open to the same symbolic result)
This section will enter difficult territory as the author will attempt to both identify the titles of this movement and link the gospel text in the gospel of John going back to the book of Genesis in the Old Testament. Of particular interest is in Jesus’ engagement with the Jews when the discussion turns to Abraham and Jesus proclaims ‘before Abraham was, I am.’ (John 8.58)
This is significant for Jesus as the way points to many ‘I am’ statements in the gospel of John that refer to his historical importance as shepherd of One Flock. There is a sense in the linear flow of history that Jesus’ message and way points to a new triad that runs ahead and is particularly parallel to his movement with the Samaritans.
In today’s world, the duad of Jew and Samaritan and Jesus’ solution as discussed can be especially significant for today as we move forward into the s(S)tory that includes the Muslims. This triad points to the beginning in the formation of Israel in the book of Genesis and the monotheistic God of Abraham.
This complex entry of understanding the flow of the three religions of Abraham will be addressed as we venture forth. Important to remember is that there is a way in Jesus to Christ that embraces one’s own tradition but seeks a greater unification with ‘other’ by simplifying the message of inclusion and finding that the other’s story brings greater richness to the s(S)tory.
But also call to mind that a challenge to the more fundamentalist and exclusive function within each faith may very often result in persecution and suffering. I will not be speaking against any one tradition of course but will be encouraging an open mind and a willingness to see the triad of Jew, Christian and Muslim in a new way; with new eyes.
In order for this to be possible, it is important to consider the Christ Essence taken back and running through the story in a reconciling sense; as the resurrecting power between two just as Jesus was crucified in between two ‘others’. Consider Jesus as first-born sacrificed in relation to other first-borns separated and the pains in familial separation.
‘I am’: the book of Exodus or Genesis?
To begin, we will review some of Jesus’ ‘I am’ statements in the gospel of John. Jesus says:
‘I am the bread of life.’ (6.35)
‘I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’ (8.12)
‘I am the door to the sheep.’ (10.7)
‘I am the good shepherd.’ (10.11)
'I am the resurrection and the life'
‘and where I am, there shall be my servant.’ (12.36)
This new call is in a servant spirit for God calls us all to be servants. At first we must be servants in order to be called to be sons, daughters and heirs. In stating, ‘I am the door to the sheep’, Jesus is taking us back to the beginning to tell us that it is the great ‘I am’ that is the door. This ‘I am’ takes us back to the God of Israel and Abraham as entry point for the sheep. (this is the radical interpretation I am exploring)
Many associate the ‘I am’ with God in the book of Exodus where God appears to Moses from out of the burning bush and refers to himself as ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ (3.4) Moses asks God his name and God says: ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ (3.14) Jews and Christians generally equate this ‘I am’ and ‘God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’ as the ‘God of Israel’ and in some respects they are correct as it relates to the book of Exodus and in the great deliverance from Egypt.
Powerfully, Jesus calls the Jews on this understanding in John’s account in his statement ‘before Abraham was, I am.’ (8.58) He reminds them that the beginning of the ‘I am’ goes back further before the formation of Israel when God addresses Abraham and gives him the inclusive covenant:
‘Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you shall all the families of the earth bless themselves.’ (Genesis 12.1-3)
In chapter fifteen, we have another interesting passage:
‘After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, ‘Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.’ But Abram said, ‘O Lord God, what wilt thou give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, ‘Behold, thou hast given me no offspring; and a slave born in my house will be my heir.’ And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, ‘This man shall not be your heir; your own son shall be your heir.’ (Genesis 15.1-4)
In doing some exegesis, the following possibilities arise:
1. the ‘word of the Lord’[38] is in a Christ sense.
2. in the second instance, Abram is making a statement of potential truth: ‘a slave born in my house will be my heir.’ As we will address, the ‘Abraham-Isaac-Jacob lineage’ is missing an important branch in the beginning of the lineage of the Muslims; first born slave Ishmael expelled and first born Esau tricked. Slave Ishmael and mother Hagar are given a covenant in Genesis 17. Ishmael will marry Esau’s daughter and so begins the break.
3. the ‘word of the Lord’ is indicating that Abram’s own son shall be his heir. In Genesis, Abraham refers to Ishmael as ‘son’ (‘Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram named his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael’, 16.15). When the stronger covenant is given to Isaac, Abraham cries: ‘Oh, that Ishmael may live in thy sight.’ (17.18) Ishmael is circumcised with Abraham: ‘Then Abraham took his son Ishmael…he circumcised them…that very day Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised.’ (17.23-26).
Many other linkages will be made between the Genesis text with the gospel of John in reviewing the story of Abraham. For this section, we will make two connections as it relates to the idea that underlying the Bible text is a long story of inclusion between the three groups. The metaphors and symbols can be constructed to make a new Story in Christ.
‘I am’ the Door (God) and Shepherd (Jesus)
There is some indication that among the ‘I am’ statements in the gospel of John, it is important to read them in the sense of Jesus’ proclamation, ‘the Father and I are one’ keeping in perspective that he also says: ‘the Father is greater than I’. Chapter ten presents the reality that Jesus-God is-are speaking potentially when scripture reads:
‘I am the door of the sheep.’ (10.7)
‘I am the door; if any one enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.’ (10.9)
‘I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me, as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep…so there shall be one flock, one shepherd.’ (10.14, 16)
My interpretation is that ‘I am’ is the door to the sheep. Jesus is the shepherd to the ‘I am’ before Abraham (Jesus tells the Pharisees, ‘before Abraham was, I am’, 8.58) and Abraham was glad to see his day (8.56). Could this be the resurrection day?
Our goal is to go back further in order to understand the beginning before Abraham. The idea is to make comparisons between the gospel of John and the book of Genesis that will help us to better grasp the significance of the ‘I am’ as door, the split of first-born son and Jesus as the path to reconciling Christ Essence (as he was to the Samaritans) as Lamb of God. To begin, let me briefly review the split in first born and second in the book of Genesis:
Ishmael was the first born son to Abra(ha)m through Sarai’s attendant Hagar. After Isaac his brother was born, Hagar and Ishmael were expelled into the wilderness where God attends them. (actually there are two Hagar wilderness stories, Genesis 16.7-14, 21.14-21, notice the Abraham involvement and compassion for Ishmael)
Isaac was the second born son to Abraham through Sarai and receives a fuller covenant;
the story continues with the birth of Esau (first) and Jacob (second), twin sons of Isaac and Rebekka. Esau is tricked out of his birthright and according to the Genesis text, seeks to kill his brother Jacob in early adulthood. Jacob, who will later be named Israel, flees for Paddanaram to avoid Esau and gather a wife from his mother’s brother Laban.
Three Flocks at Jacob’s Well
On the way to Paddanaram, Jacob comes to a well:
‘Then Jacob went on his journey, and came to the land of the people of the east. As he looked, he saw a well in the field, and lo, three flocks of sheep lying beside it; for out of that well the flocks were watered. The stone on the well's mouth was large, and when all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone from the mouth of the well, and water the sheep, and put the stone back in its place upon the mouth of the well.
Jacob said to them, "My brothers, where do you come from?" They said, "We are from Haran." He said to them, "Do you know Laban the son of Nahor?" They said, "We know him." He said to them, "Is it well with him?" They said, "It is well; and see, Rachel his daughter is coming with the sheep!"
He said, "Behold, it is still high day, it is not time for the animals to be gathered together; water the sheep, and go, pasture them."
But they said, "We cannot until all the flocks are gathered together, and the stone is rolled from the mouth of the well; then we water the sheep."
While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father's sheep; for she kept them. Now when Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban his mother's brother, and the sheep of Laban his mother's brother, Jacob went up and rolled the stone from the well's mouth, and watered the flock of Laban his mother's brother. Then Jacob kissed Rachel, and wept aloud.’ (Gen 29.1-11)
What can be said about this passage as it relates to what we have reviewed? Making connections along these lines are generally not done and often looked at with great suspicion. I ask you to remember the following:
The Samaritan woman at ‘Jacob’s well’ and Jesus’ promise for living water and eternal life and urging to worship the Father in ‘spirit and truth’ despite different worship directions (Jews-Jerusalem, Samaritans-Gerizim, John 4).
Lazarus being raised from the dead at the tomb and Jesus wept. (Jews and Lazarus community; could Samaritans be part of this group, see Jesus’ final weeping and parallel to tomb, stone and resurrection?)
Three flocks of sheep for ‘out of that well the flocks will be watered.’ (Gen 29.1-12)
When all the flocks were gathered, the stone would be removed, and all would be watered. (reference to Jesus’ living water and eternal life and ‘the stone had been taken away from the tomb’ and Mary, 20.1)
Jacob proclaiming that it is noon (as ‘Jesus wearied at the well…noon ‘sixth hour’, John 4.6) and it is not time for the flocks to be gathered.
Jacob tells the men, ‘water the sheep and go and pasture them.’ And they indicate that it cannot be done until all three flocks are gathered together, and the stone is rolled away (Jesus’ resurrection) then we water the three flocks of sheep.
Jacob takes the initiative, rolls back the stone and waters only one of the three flocks. Jacob wept aloud. (Can the weeping be for pain of understanding exclusive destiny?)
There is much here and many gaps in the information. But one thing is true; this connection has not been made for intra-Abrahamic peace: Jesus to Christ shows the way and the power of the resurrection is so that the three flocks of Jew, Muslim and Christian can be gathered together. (See John’s ‘Feed my lambs’, ‘tend my sheep’, ‘feed my sheep’ at breakfast, 21.15+)
Jesus as ‘Lamb of God’
‘This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, for he was before me.’ I myself did not know him; but for this I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.’ (1.30-31)
The first title for Jesus in the gospel of John comes from John the Baptist in chapter one. The day following John’s questioning by the Pharisees as to his identity and purpose, John sees Jesus ‘coming toward him’ and said:
‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!’ (1.29)
John will repeat the same title a second time on the next day as he stood with the two disciples. He looked at Jesus as he walked, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God!’ (1.36) In both instances, it is not clear at what distance Jesus was when the words were given but we know in the second, Jesus engages with the ‘two disciples’. John’s title for Jesus’ ‘Lamb of God’ is immediately followed by verse 1.37:
‘The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.’ (1.37)
Hereby, in the first chapter of gospel of John, the sequence of spoken titles (and key phrases) for Jesus are:
1. Lord. (John the Baptist)
2. Lamb of God. (John the Baptist) ‘who takes away the sins of the world.’
3. ‘he might be revealed to Israel.’ (John the Baptist)
4. ‘he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ (John the Baptist)
5. Son of God. (John the Baptist)
6. Lamb of God. (John to two disciples, which mysteriously potentially includes ‘other whom Jesus loved’. They come and see where he was staying)
7. Rabbi. Son of God! King of Israel! (Nathanael, ‘the Israelite in whom there is no guile’ to Jesus), Philip and Nathanael go to Galilee.
8. Son of man. (Jesus)
What kind of connection, will I try to make? It has something to do with the lineage of ‘Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’ without taking into consideration Ishmael and Esau and descendents. It has something to do with the Passover, when thousands of innocent Egyptian first-borns were slain due to collective association. (resurrection of s(S)tory)
The sequence of titles; John the Baptist’s call of Jesus as ‘Son of God’, through two namings of ‘Lamb of God’ (consider the third at passion-resurrection), to the Israelite’s recognition of ‘Son of God’ and ‘King of Israel’ in potentially expanded sense to Jesus’ title of ‘Son of man’ (all as children of Light). Jesus uses the title ‘Son of man’ throughout and there is a sense that he is speaking that his way of Son is to the Father. (will call all people to me.)
So what does the title ‘Lamb of God’ mean in a traditional sense?
An entry defines ‘Lamb of God’ in this way:
‘Lamb of God is one of the titles given to Jesus in the New Testament and consequently in the Christian tradition. It refers to Jesus' role as a sacrificial lamb atoning for the sins of man in Christian theology, harkening back to ancient Jewish Temple sacrifices in which a lamb was slain during the passover, the blood was sprinkled along the door, and the whole of the lamb was eaten.’
In another entry:
‘Lamb of God - The Passover Lamb
The Lamb of God is dramatically revealed in Exodus 12 and 13, with the Jewish Feast of the Passover. This is perhaps the most compelling foreshadow of the coming Lamb of God, the Messiah. The Passover Feast occurs each year on the 14th day of the Jewish month of Nisan. It is eaten in remembrance of the Lord "passing over" the houses of those who had sacrificed the Passover Lamb and sprinkled its blood on their wooden doorposts and mantles, while the angel of death visited those who had not sprinkled the blood of the lamb.
The angel of death was the final of ten plagues sent by God to redeem His people from slavery in Egypt, the land of their bondage. Approximately 1,500 years later, on the 14th day of Nisan, the Passover Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, was sacrificed upon a wooden cross for the sins of all mankind. When the Day of the Lord comes, those who have covered themselves in the blood of the Lamb by accepting Christ will be kept safe while the world pays for their rebellion against God.’
http://www.allaboutjesuschrist.org/lamb-of-god.htm
I propose to put the idea of Jesus as ‘Lamb of God’ within the eight points on the previous page. The ‘Son of God’ is to be revealed to Israel. The Israelite Nathanael recognizes Jesus as the ‘Son of God’ and the ‘King of Israel’[39]. This is an Israel that is inclusive of ‘Samaritans’ (those who worship in different form; or a Samaritan group that is inclusive of Jews!), maintains tradition-root (‘salvation is from the Jews’), omits strong judgment (Pharisaic mentality and ‘we’), unified in Christ Essence, reconciled between two (on cross), without guile (seeking authentic mutual respect) , who see the light in all, worship in spirit and truth and distill the message of inclusion (born blind to see).
Abraham's Sacrifice
If we take Jesus’ ‘Lamb of God’ title back to the beginning in Genesis, we cannot help but make an interesting connection to Abraham’s sacrifice. Just as the Exodus text proclaimed God as a ‘God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’, Abraham’s sacrifice is seen in only one way in the Jewish and Christian traditions: the sacrifice of his only son, Isaac. This one sided linear thread has run from the beginning; all is built on it from a Christian perspective. The son sacrificed was Isaac. But what about Jesus’ teachings of the door, and imagining both Abraham’s apprehension and pleasure in seeing Jesus’ day?
Beyond taking into consideration the connections made throughout the Genesis text of Abraham’s affinity to Ishmael, how might we see the reconciling presence present at the sacrifice of Abraham’s ‘only son’ in Genesis? Consider that the solution of this project is a reconciling of Story taking into consideration the Muslim’s tradition and story and claim that it was Ishmael who was sacrificed? I will first list some linking Abraham and Ishmael texts in Genesis:
1. ‘Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram named his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael.’ (16.15)
2. When the larger covenant is given through son Isaac (which will be lessened through Jacob), Abraham said to God, ‘O that Ishmael might live in your sight! (Ishmael is given blessing and will be the ‘father of twelve princes.’[40])
3. At God’s command, ‘Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised.’ (17.24)
4. When Sarai expels Hagar and Ishmael, ‘the matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son.’ (21.11)
I will also add an additional layer connecting the word ‘lad’. After ‘the matter was very distressing on account of his son’, God says to Abraham:
‘Do not be distressed because of the lad and because of your slave woman (mother Hagar addressed in later chapter)…’ (21.12)
Abraham takes bread and water and gives it to Hagar and sent her and Ishmael away. In the wilderness, Hagar sets Ishmael opposite him a good way off, ‘Do not let me look on the death of the child.’ It is written:
‘the child lifted up his voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, ‘What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him fast with your hand; for I will make him a great nation.’ Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the skin with water[41], and gave the lad a drink. And God was with the lad.’ (21.16-21)
The text above comes from the second story of Hagar at the well. It is important in many ways:
1. Abraham gives bread and water to Hagar and Ishmael. (Jesus’ bread and living water)
2. God hears the voice of Hagar-Ishmael and responds. (the child lifts his voice and wept as Jesus wept, remove the stone, Lazarus is raised and Jacob will weep).
3. God hears the voice of the lad, Ishmael. (thinking ahead to Abraham sacrifice story)
4. The ‘he is’ reference is that the voice of the lad falls within the ‘voice’ of Christ-God. (more later; throughout John’s gospel, ‘I am he’.)
5. The NRSV reads, ‘Come, lift up the boy’ (strong reference to Samaritan woman at well, come, see)
6. Hagar sees a well of water. (reference to Jacob’s well and Jesus and Samaritan woman at well, Jesus with Lazarus community and to Jesus’ resurrection and living water.)
7. The lad will partake of this water and God is with him.
There is a second significance of this use of ‘lad’ in the story of Abraham’s sacrifice of his ‘only son’. At this time in the story Genesis, the principal covenant is given to Isaac. Ishmael could be seen as a ‘slave’ (son of slave woman Hagar) during this time.
The story begins with God saying to Abraham, ‘Abraham!’ (1), and Abraham replies, ‘Here am I’.[42] Abraham saddles his ass[43], and ‘took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac.’ (22.3) (close reading):
‘On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off. Then Abraham said to his young men, ‘Stay here with the ass; I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.’
And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they (slave and son, my add) went both of them together. And Isaac said to his father Abraham, ‘My father!’ And he said, ‘Here am I, my son.’ He said, ‘Behold, the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?’ Abraham said, ‘God will provide himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.’
So they went both of them together.
When they came to the place of which God had told them, Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound up Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. Then Abraham put forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.
But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, ‘Abraham!, Abraham!’ (2) And he said, ‘Here am I.’ He said, ‘Do not lay your hand upon the lad or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.’ (22.4-13)
There are two main ideas I wish to emphasize here: one is the potentiality that Ishmael was one of the two of the young men and perhaps the lad on the excursion up to the top of the mountain and was present at the sacrifice. I say this for these reasons:
1. The phrase, ‘took two of his young men with them, and his son Isaac’ is peculiar and there is a potential that in a creative reading (taking into consideration that Muslims hold to the view that it was Ishmael that was sacrificed) Ishmael could have been present as one of two-three.
2. If 1 is true, then ‘I and the lad will go and worship’ could be that Ishmael and Abraham went to worship and returned, then the wood is laid on Isaac, and both Ishmael and Isaac go together with Abraham.
3. Isaac’s call could be in wonder at what will happen, and who shall be sacrificed? Abraham’s test. Abraham returns to Isaac.
4. Isaac is bound and is laid on the altar.
5. Abraham may have had it in his mind that the lad Ishmael present may need to be sacrificed; through Abraham’s strength both lineages are preserved.
6. In the passage following, the covenant is reinforced and ‘Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beersheba; and Abraham dwelt at Beersheba.’ (22.19) Beersheba is where ‘God heard the voice of the lad and the angel called to Hagar from heaven.’ (21.17)
We are still working off the ‘Lamb of God’ label of Jesus. Even if I am incorrect in my assessment above, the connection that I am making is that Jesus is this ‘ram’ or ‘the lamb offered by God’ for this break in the story between Muslim and Jew (and as representative reconciling Spirit of all). The ‘Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world’ connected with the ‘before Abraham was, I am’ is Jesus seeking for an inclusive story and a movement away from Pharisaic exclusivity (one-sided perspective). In the Muslim tradition, the story is that Ishmael is the one sacrificed by Abraham. It is true that the Muslim formation of story came through the revelation given to Mohammed, peace be upon him, in the early seventh century and some six hundred years after Christ. Given today’s context, perhaps it is time the three flocks are gathered, the door back to the ‘I am’ is opened, and Jews, Christians and Muslims return to a sharing of tradition in a greater spirit of cooperation in the Christ Essence (a uniting essence beyond name).
As a Christian, at least that is what I believe Jesus is calling us to in a macro sense. Sharing in story and serving in the Christ essence, seeking the ‘light in all people’ beyond form in a complementary way bringing together two where slave is heir.[44]
Amen. Allelujah. Peace on Earth.
Chapter Three: John’s Naming
‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ (1.1)
For two thousand years, people have been trying to communicate this Word. I do not propose to really know a word or words to wrap around the light in the darkness that sustains and keeps us going beyond Christ. I do propose that I will at least strive with all my being to enter into the gospel of John in the spirit in which it was written. In some ways it is advantageous to imagine a spinning prism of light that is good and true and right and people try to put a word to it.
The huge proclamations (‘Son of God!’) are important as they come from the mouth of those ‘sent’ but just as important are the tender proclamations exhibited by the quiet and unassuming. Jesus avoided such strong proclamations and instead went with the more human; his father is our father and we too can be sons and daughters of God. The male language is difficult for those who wish for a shift in patriarchal Father imagery. I have no solution for that. I do know, however, that Jesus’ emphasis was on setting the pathway and opening up heaven to man and woman and to all people alike. Gentle proclamations run throughout; the born blind man made to see called him ‘Lord’ and ‘man’ and Mary’s first reaction after seeing him as a gardener in the resurrection was an emphatic ‘Rabboni!’. John’s Jesus taught us that all can do it; can follow him into increasing layers of inclusion and gather community where tradition is embraced and a higher Essence is sought.
endnotes:
[1] In this case, Ishmael as first-born son of Hagar in the book of Genesis representing the first separation in the story of Abraham.
[2] All three Abrahamic faith traditions (Jew, Christian and Muslim) flow out of the same root.
[3] In this case, word combinations in Scriptures.
[4] I will be using (E) to denote the Christ in fullness, and a small case (e) as a movement into; therefore e(E) designates an entry (e) into the fullness of (E). The Christ Essence (E) transcends and includes all three traditions; each are a movement to the God of Abraham which can also be designated (E); therefore each three traditions take us to (E); Christ Essence (E) unifies the three separate traditions in (E) God.
[5] ‘Monotheism in its literal meaning, oneness of the godhead (i.e. one God). Encyclopaedia Judaica, Second Edition, V 14, 448. We see Abraham’s compassion exhibited in his plea to God in Genesis for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah to be spared as example. We see it in Abraham’s plea for Ishmael: ‘Oh that Ishmael may live in your sight.’
[6] Jacob is named Israel two times; the first after wrestling with a ‘man’ (Genesis 32.24, RSV), ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved’ (32.30b); the next morning Esau appears seeking reconciliation (33.4, ‘they weep’, Jacob states: ‘truly, to see your face is like seeing the face of God’ (33.10), Jacob-Israel flees to Shechem (33.18) (place of settling for later Samaritan group), Dinah is defiled, Jacob-Israel group slay men of community after demanding circumcision (34.15), and God orders a return to Bethel (35.1) naming him Israel a second time (35.10). (More in later chapter) Later in Genesis, Jacob is haunted by Joseph-in-Egypt’s demand in Godlike form, Joseph to Jacob-Israel: ‘You shall not see my face, unless your brother is with you.’ (43.5) Israel said, ‘Why did you treat me so ill as to tell the man that you had another brother?’ (43.6) Creatively thinking, link this other brother as ‘Benoni, son of sorrow’ born in Bethlehem (35.18) as Rachel dies in childbirth (as Jacob-Israel ‘journeys away from Bethel’ (the actual brother spoken of)) and other brother Esau, who with Jacob ideally form ‘Israel’. In Isaiah: ‘I will have mercy on Jacob, yet choose Israel.’ And Micah: ‘I will surely gather all of you, O Jacob, I will gather the remnant of Israel; I will set them together like sheep in a fold.’ (Micah 2.12)
[7] ‘And when she was in her hard labor, the midwife said to her, ‘Fear not; for now you will have another son.’ And as her soul was departing (for she died), she called his name ‘Benoni’ (son of sorrow). (35.17-18) Link to debate of ‘son’ at Abraham sacrifice in later section.
[8] Esau is the only patriarch whose death is not mentioned in the book of Genesis.
[9] t(T) denotes various denominations-groups within each of the three Traditions (T), Jewish, Muslim and Christian. There are even t(t)(T) associations such as the various sects within Quakerism for example.
[10] In terms of seeing the goal in a macro sense (Abrahamic reunification) can help us in our own community circles.
[11] s(S)tory; as bringing together Jewish and Muslim, Christian stories into a larger Story.
[12] ‘Christ’ as the ‘the resurrecting and unifying Light that rises above and is expressed by many names.’
[13] ‘Complementarity’ is a term used to indicate that the differences can be put together in a complementary way; the Christ as Saviour to Jews and to all Israel representing all Gentiles or non-Jews and hence all people.
[14] The authorities will detract the significance of the finds by promoting such Gnostic concepts such as ‘Da Vinci code’ conspiracy theory or the Judas document. Some of the documents are questionable as to authenticity and the question of objective and fair translation is something to be considered. Many of the teachings are quite cosmic and considered ‘secret’ whereas some are critically important and more grounded shifting the normative Christian view established in early councils.
[15]http://www.orthodox.net/faq/canon.htm, Daniel F. Lieuwen, ‘The Emergence of the New Testament Canon’,
[16] Three books whose characters are given special prominence in the gospel of John.
[17] Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (2nd series), (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1978), IV, 552
[18] In some translations, it is the mother’s cry.
[19] Bethel as the area where the first covenant is given to faithful Abram in whom ‘all the families of the earth will bless themselves.’ (Gen 12.3) This verse follows: ‘I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse.’ (Gen 12.2)
[20] Consider the parallels between the Samaritan and Muslim group in relation to Jews (in 2008, there are less than 200 Samaritans and approximately two billion Muslims); Samaritans and Jews had a similar tradition (both held to Torah observance and had a contentious history), both held to an exclusive Messiah, Samaritans and Muslims both worship in a different direction from Jerusalem; Samaritans worshipped Mount Gerizim and Muslims worship toward Mecca. Jesus called for a distillation of message of inclusion: the Father is to be worshipped in ‘Spirit and truth’.
[21] Although he was wrongly crucified as ‘King of the Jews’. Jesus told the Samaritan woman, ‘salvation is from the Jews’. Indeed, but he died so that the paradigm is expanded to call all who believe in this message of full inclusion.
[22] ‘I am the way, truth and life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.’ Imagine this re-worded for three faith traditions; ‘No one comes to God, Allah or Yhwh but through this understanding of full inclusion and richer celebration’ rather than death, destruction and separation.
[23] Jesus held to his Jewish roots while seeking a greater inclusion; Mary calls him in Hebrew Rabboni in his resurrection appearance (John 20.16), he is given a Jewish burial. (John 19.40)
[24] As customary in the gospel, there are always subtleties; in this case, there is an opening for an unknown disciple-. We know the first disciple in this encounter is Andrew. We know he gathered his brother Peter. There is a potentiality that this happened after the two disciples ‘came and saw’. Given the mystery in the resurrection, the second disciple in this case could be the mystery disciple (‘the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved’, 20.2), found at the resurrection with Peter. (for further review, see John 1.35-42)
[25]Ginsberg in Encyclopedia Judaica, calls the translation (Messiah) ha-mashiah ‘the anointed King and charismatically endowed descendent of David who the Jews of the Roman period believed would be raised up by God to break the yoke of the heathen and to reign over a restored kingdom of Israel…a strictly post-Biblical concept.’ (EJ, 110) wikipedia indicates that ‘Messiah is a term used in the Hebrew Bible to describe priests and kings, who were traditionally anointed.’
In the case here, we will use a general and simplified term for Jewish Messiah as ‘an anointed one (messiah), descended from his father through the Davidic line of King David, who will gather the Jews back into the Land of Israel and usher in an era of peace.’ Wikipedia.org, 2-22-08.
Samaritans too held to expectations of a Messiah called the Taheb, the Samaritan ‘Messiah’.
Taheb means restore or return. ‘Taheb’ is the return of the tribes back to Israel, to the true word of the Torah…There will come a restorer, a prophet like Moses according to Deuteronomy xviii,15 and 18. This restorer will carry the rod of Moses working signs to prove of his mission. He will not be a priest but a prophet. His name is not known but he will be of the tribe of Joseph. He will join Ephraim (Israel) and Judah unto the once original Israel to the initial place of worship on Mount Gerizim. He will restore all that was lost through the years from the Torah.’ http://members.tripod.com/~osher_2/html_articles/taheb1.htm
[26] Guile: ‘cunning, deceit, treachery.’ (OED)
[27] In a radical interpretation, I wonder the Samaritan connection in Philip and the Lazarus community. Could they be Samaritans?
[28] ‘While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.’ (John 12.36)
[29] ‘Lord’ is used only in resurrecting and believing sense. It is found many times in the gospel of John: John the Baptist calling to make straight the way of the Lord referring to Isaiah (1.23), an interesting phrase separating Lord and Jesus in chapter four: ‘Now when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing..’ (4.1), Lord reproduces bread (6), the woman brought in adultery (8), blind man made to see (9), the Lazarus community (11), Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem (12), washing the disciples feet and speaking of where he is going (13-14), Mary at the resurrection (20), Jesus at breakfast with disciples (21).
[30] ‘When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was deeply moved and troubled.’ (John 11.33)
[31] ‘Wept’ can be found throughout the Bible: Ishmael wept and God hears (Genesis 21.16), Esau weeps at his lost blessing to his father (Gen 27.38), Jacob kisses Rachel and waters the one flock of sheep (Gen 29.11), Jacob-Israel and Esau weep together (Gen 33.4), Jacob-Israel weeps for his son Joseph thinking he is dead in pit ( Gen 37.34), Joseph’s ‘heart yearned for his brother’ (Benoni) (Gen 43.30), Joseph weeps and Egypt and household of Pharaoh hear (Gen 45.2), Joseph weeps on Benjamin and Benjamin weeps on Joseph …’(Judges 21.2): ‘And the people came to Bethel, and sat there till evening before God, and they lifted up their voices and wept bitterly.’…’But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white…’ (John 20.11-12) ‘Salvation is from the Jews….’
[32] Jesus resurrection at tomb, the stone ‘had been taken away from the tomb’. (John 20.1) Taking into consideration the linkage between well-tomb, water-Spirit as it relates to Jesus’ resurrection back to Hagar at the well and covenant, the three flocks and Jacob in Genesis 29 and Jesus’ raising and Samaritan woman at the well is significant.
[33] As Jesus indicated, ‘he who rejects me and does not receive my sayings has a judge; the word that I have spoken will be his judge on the last day.’ (12.48) This work is attempting to indicate that this word is Christ, the undivided. The difficulty for me in this paper is that I have not addressed word or light in the conscience that guides behavior; instead the paper is focusing on ‘vision’ or ‘paradigm’. ‘He who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life; he does not come to judgment but has passed from death to life.’ (5.24) The inclination is to promote that each three traditions have their own separate forms for guiding community; they guide separately yet can meet in something higher. (Relationship of narrative, ethical teachings, Christ). Narratives can be shared for richer Story, ethical teachings for each group, Christ to serve as balm to transcend and critique divisive portions of each of the three worldviews reflected in Scripture(s).
[34] Translation ‘sin’ in NRSV.
[35] A Ken Wilber term.
[36] Sin equated to seeing division and not the light that is in all humans.
[37] Samaritan and blind man teachings significant to heal rift between Jew and Samaritan and in today’s context, Jew and Muslim.
[38] ‘Word of the Lord’ appears only two times in Genesis:
(15.1): ‘Fear not, Abram, I am your shield, your reward shall be very great.’
(15.4): ‘This man shall not be your heir, your own son shall be your heir.’
[39] Although Jesus is erroneously crucified with the exclusive label as ‘King of the Jews’. He is called the ‘King of Israel’ upon entry to Jerusalem. ‘Salvation is from the Jews’ extended to include; one’s tradition is the foundation but there is a full inclusive promise in Christ.
[40] ‘The princes of the people gather as the people of the God of Abraham.’ Psalm 47.9, ‘and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven.’ Hebrews 12.23.
[41] The Samaritan woman: ‘so the woman left her water jar, and went away into the city, and said to the people.’ (John 4.28)
[42] Reversal ‘am I’ found later with Moses.
[43] As Jesus’ riding into Jerusalem hailed as the King of Israel.
[44] Galatians 4.7: ‘So through God you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir.’
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The third paper is on William Penn, Quaker great, as a great universalist. His is an understanding of a central Light and forms around; an emphasis on the spirit and truth.
The ‘Quaker Christian’ and The ‘Rule of Christian Faith and Practice’: William Penn’s Vision Completed by the Schismatic George Keith, 1699.
by Blair Weaver
At the end of the seventeenth century, two forces of thought came together in the documents of the Quaker-turned Anglican George Keith and the Quaker William Penn. Following the Keithian controversy of 1690-1696 that debated the concept ‘Christian Quaker’ and temporarily divided the Philadelphia Quaker community, the final testimony of explanation addressing the theological base of the rift came in William Penn’s The Christian Quaker and his divine testimony stated and vindicated from Scripture, reason and authority (1699) and George Keith’s response in his The deism of William Penn and his brethren destructive to the Christian religion (1699).
These two works speak to the tensions inherent in questions regarding the (in)fallibility of Scripture, the person of Christ, the notion of primitive Christianity and the relationship of Spirit and Scripture. The entry into the critique and hence revelations go back to the early days of the Christian Reformation in Europe. This paper will review an important development in the Cambridge Platonists; a seventeenth century group of European intellectuals-religious who drew from a wide variety of philosophical sources both Platonist and scientific-mystic. Both Penn and Keith were influenced by the Cambridge Platonist group and member Henry More.
After a review of the Quaker encounter with the Cambridge Platonists as setting the stage for the final confrontation between Keith and Penn, the paper will look closely at the barbed dialogue contained in the final word between these the two giants in Penn and Keith. It is the author’s intent to show that Penn had a universal vision that both promoted the Light of conscience in all men and took Reason to a higher universal convergence that the schismatic one-sided Scriptural-bound Keith could not accept nor see. Therefore, this paper passes by the multitude of reasons for the Keithian rift in early Philadelphia, some of which reflect Keith’s genuine heart-felt concern, and instead looks at the development of Penn’s thought as it is shaped by More and Keith finding expression in his work The Christian Quaker in 1699.
William Penn
Hugh Barbour, in ‘William Penn, Model of Protestant Liberalism’, introduces the opinion that ‘William Penn intended no synthesis of thought.’[1] He bases his opinion on Penn’s humanist strand: ‘the total transforming of men, ethics and society by God’s spirit with a humanist’s trust in reason and conscience already at work within all men universally.’[2] Quakers, it is said, were well fed by Penn’s ‘exuberance and pragmatism and his uncritical openness about ideas.’[3] Barbour places Penn as a raiser of important issues for both Quakers and Protestants alike and teaches us that Penn’s ideas ‘developed gradually’.[4] Were Penn’s ideas unique? Barbour writes:
‘William Penn’s ideas cannot be claimed as unique. Yet Penn drew a unique intensity in both his universalism and his radicalism from his Quaker community, from its wrestling with ‘the Light within’, and from his own experience of the unity of world truth and the radical depth of evil. He was no mere blender of ideas.’[5]
Penn represented the best of what was found in the Cambridge Platonists, a group of seventeenth century philosophers, who sought to challenge creed and lift up Reason. Labels are deceiving; it is incorrect to assume that the Cambridge group was of one mind and soul. Some refer to the Cambridge group, a whole entity open up to diverse forms, as ‘Latitudinarians’. Referencing Burnet, Ignatius defines the Latitudinarian spirit:
‘They loved the constitution of the Church, and the liturgy, and could well live under them; but they did not think it unlawful to live under another form…They continued to keep a good correspondence with those who had differed from them in opinion, and allowed a great freedom in both philosophy and divinity.’[6]
Some historians consider that it is the spiritual component of German pietism (and the Cambridge Platonists engaged with Boehme) and the European latitudinarians that have provided the richest depth to the Christian movement. We see these two movements opening up in early Quaker writings. Reverend Mauritz Kaufmann explains:
‘In their combined effect, Latitudinarianism in England and the English-speaking countries overseas, on the one hand, and Pietism in Germany and the neighboring countries in northern and central Europe, influenced by German thought, on the other, appear as mutually supplementary movements, the one more practically, the other more ideally, affecting the course of European thought and life. Thus they succeeded in establishing the supremacy of reason and the complete autonomy of conscience, and brought about a partial recovery from religious lethargy and moral enervation.’[7]
Quakers were naturally attracted to the exploration going on in the Cambridge circle; at both Lady Anne Conway’s Ragley estate and at Henry More’s Christ’s College at Cambridge. Whether it be through direct contact (as in the case of Keith) or through the mutual beneficial sharing of ideas (Penn through letters and reading), the early Quaker movement was, in one part as in relation to many, deeply affected through their mutual enriching engagement with the Cambridge Platonists.
Cambridge Platonists and the Quakers, 1672-1677
Clearly, ‘Penn was not a direct disciple’ of the Cambridge Platonists as indicated by Barbour. Barbour states that ‘Penn shared deeper outlooks of the humanists: that the world is one and is rational; that we are taught about it by the philosophers of all faiths and eras.’[8] The only records that we have of Penn’s engagement with the Cambridge group are through two letters: a letter from Henry More to Penn in May 1675 and in Penn’s response to Lady Conway later that same year. Despite this lack of direct contact, Barbour assures that Penn was influenced by the ideas of the Cambridge Platonists in ‘their love of erudition, their sense of the universality of men’s awareness of truth, and their teachings on inspiration and prophesy.’[9]
George Keith’s experience, however, with More and Conway was direct as he became a disciple of Henry More and served as a close confidant and Quaker convincer to Lady Anne Conway. Keith ‘visited More at Cambridge in the spring of 1674 and 1675 on (More’s) annual trips to London to meet with leading Quakers.’[10]
Majorie Hope Nicolson, through her analysis of an anthology of letters centered on the person of Lady Anne Conway (1642-1684) published in 1930, indicates that ‘the modern student can see what More himself never entirely realized, though he had a suspicion of it before he died, that Henry More and the Quakers were integral parts of the same movement; two inevitable aspects of a whole.’[11] This movement seen in a long view, and not of Nicolson’s opinion, is one of a parallelism that poses the challenge in reconciling Scripture and the Spirit.
Nicolson places More and the Quakers of the early days as seeing ‘eye to eye’ and states that ‘their message was essentially the same.’[12] She writes: ‘In its (Quakerism’s) essentials, the emphasis on the light within, the belief in unmediated human communion with the Divine, the casting off of shackles of convention…(More’s) theology had much in common with Quakerism.’[13]
Yet we see a different strand through a close reading of the letters. It is interesting to view the letters centered on Lady Conway in the period of 1674 to 1677 as they offer a view into the relationship of More, Keith and Penn. Henry More writes to Lady Conway on August 11, 1674: ‘But I perswaded G. Keith when he came, both to sup with me and dine with me the next day, and I had I believe 9 or 12 hours discourse with him, and setting aside his Schismaticallness, which I roundly told him off, and the ridiculous rusticity of that (Quaker) sect, that I found him a man very considerably learned, of a good wit and quick apprehension, and which is best of all, heartily breathing after the attainment of the new life of a Christian.’[14] Henry More, twenty-four years Keith’s senior, uses a Fatherly and mentoring tone in all his letters. Keith absorbs More’s intention which is to be called into More’s power and rhetorical artistry: ‘He (Keith), after a (time) beg’ed of me one of my Echidiridion Metaphysicum…he gave me a little book…of the Oriental Philosophy, and particularly of the profound wisdom of Hai Ebn Yokdan.’[15]
William Penn and Henry More
Approximately nine months following on May 22, 1675, the elder More, then sixty-one years old, wrote a lengthy letter to the thirty-one year old Quaker William Penn in London. This is seven years after Penn was imprisoned in the Tower of London after writing the Sandy Foundation Shaken and two years after his father Sir Admiral William Penn’s death. In their introduction to More’s letter to Penn, Dunn and Dunn indicate that the letter demonstrates the difficulty that most Christians had in understanding ‘the Quaker’s greatly-reduced emphasis upon Christ as a divine entity distinct from, yet of the same nature of God.’[16] We will find the challenging distinction in Christ-Jesus-God-Light-Spirit language and the balance of Spirit and Scripture-Word running throughout the More-Keith and Penn debates.
More uses the ‘Familists’ as a label tag to guide Penn throughout his letter. Dunn and Dunn identify the ‘Familists’ as ‘the Family of Love…a vehemently anticlerical, radically antinomian, and vaguely communistic and pantheistic sect of Anabaptist origin.’[17] More’s letter is lengthy; over nineteen pages as in translated book form.
There is a tone of subtle condescension and a corrective sense in his letter to the young Penn. More uses his discussions with George Keith as a springboard to his treatise: ‘I was pleased with my converse with G.K. who so freely and declaredly affirmed to me, that he, (and he putt in the rest of the Quakers) did heartily believe the History of the Gospell, or the literall sense thereof.’ He expresses his hope ‘according to the measure of their sincerity, the Quakers faith and practice will grow more ample and articulate, (till) they reach at last the full stature of Christ in the primitive and Apostolick times.’[18]
The first two-thirds of More’s treatise-letter to Penn is an urging for the Quaker group to re-consider the importance of baptism and the practice of the Lord’s Supper as central to Christian Faith and Practice. In arguing for the importance of a water baptism, More comments: ‘And that Baptisme is a forme of admission into the Church and profession of our Faith in Christ the Son of God…those that would lay aside baptisme, are especially that would lay aside the Person of Christ.’ [19] The Lords Supper, according to More, is ‘instituted by Christ and declared so to be by St. Paul as well as the Evangelists Matthew, Mark and Luke.’[20]
More’s letter takes a turn after his plea: ‘this omission of the Lord’s supper by the Quakers, is part of that smutt of Familisme that still lyes upon them.’[21] He opens up with a view that is quite Anglican in form and reflects one side of the debate on the Christ:
‘For the eternall Logos is not the anointed as Christ signifies, but the Anointer, he that imparts to us the unction of the Holy Spirit, that teaches us all thinges. But it is this logos in conjunction with the Divine Soul of the Messias incarnate of the Virgin Mary etc. that it is the speciall object of our Christian Fayth, in which all must believe that believe the Historie of the Gospell…dependence on the person of Christ in the orthodox sense.’[22]
More is setting the ‘orthodox’ view on the form of baptism and communion and in the person of Christ. He places his argument within the context of the Trinity, three that bear record: the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost. He will link ‘Life’ as the same as the ‘Holy Ghost’ (More is referencing 1 John in Greek in his argument) as ‘that eminent light of men…in all ages and places of the world.’[23] He equates Wisedom with ‘the Logos or Divinity of Christ’ that enters ‘Holy Soules’ making them ‘friends of God and Prophets’ or ‘Lights of the world’. The ‘noble illuminated Soules’ that have come into this world are fixed on the ‘most eminent example, ‘the Soul of the Messias come into the flesh.’[24]
More’s emphasis, as will be Keith’s in his later dispute with Penn, is on the person of Christ and the Word made flesh reflected in the ‘letter’: ‘The true light is not to be understood of the mere logos, but of the Soul of the Messias incarnate and visible person of Christ.’[25] More argues for a kind of apostolic succession; ‘soul of the Messias united with the logos become incarnate…by virtue of the Records and Historie of his life and doctrine, and of the lives and doctrines of his Apostles…borne of a Virgin…gift of the Holy Ghost…doctrines of Christ…’[26]
Henry More’s call to Penn and the Quakers in August 1675 to regard baptism and communion with his emphasis on apostolic succession and on ‘Institution’ challenges Nicolson’s statement that he and the Quakers were essentially saying the same thing. Whereas More calls for an open tolerance he manipulates it. He turns his profession of ‘loving others…and not giving offense’, into his subtle criticism of Penn's No Cross, No Crown, the Quaker use of ‘thou’ and ‘cap-honour’ as their ‘ignorance and mistake.’ The whole ending of his letter is infused with language that places More as a concerned patron or father for the ‘wayward’ Penn.
Penn’s Answer, 1675
Penn responds in indirect manner by writing a letter to Lady Anne Conway, in lieu of a visit, and has Quaker George Keith deliver it to her in November 1675 at Ragley. In the letter, Penn indicates that he has sent George Keith to her ‘in the Spirit of Jesus.’[27] His letter, interpreted as a response to More’s letter (for Penn knew that Lady Conway and Henry More were close confidants and that George Keith, a close Friend was deeply attached to the two) is languaged as to communicate Penn’s and the emerging Quaker stance on the Jesus and Christ understanding. After all, Penn was in the process of forming his own theology. He writes to begin his two page letter, brief and to the point, understanding that Lady Conway was a deep philosophical presence and drawing closer to the Quaker way against the wishes of Henry More. Penn writes:
‘We preach the Light of Christ in the conscience, which is god’s faithfull and true witness, that the worldly, pompous church has slain…thos that are in the fleshly religion (insensible of this pure light and spirit of Jesus) they are in Babilon…the outward Jew, circumcision, Christian, that is born of the fleshly nature in religion (form without eternal life and powr) persecutes him that is born of the spirit…now that which gathers to be one of that blessed church which is of the lamb’s spouse is the light and the spirit of Jesus.’
‘I have been acquainted with Papists, Protestants, Presbiterians, Independents, Baptists, and I know that they have formerly felt some touches of the divine powr, that raised up the soul above formality…our testimony is, that all turne their mind unto the light, and spirit of Jesus within them.’
‘That a witness, a living faithfull and true witness thou mayst be in thy generation, to him immediate powr and worke in the soul against all lifeless letterall, formall worships, in which heavenly fellowship cannot be found…this inwardly slays and mortefys, and brings into fellowship of the mistery of the death and resurrection of Christ and his assencion too, into the heavenly place: for the children of the resurrection, live in heavenly places, in Jesus Christ…God almighty keep and preserve yee to his eternall kingdom.’[28]
One cannot be sure that Penn’s letter to Lady Conway is a direct response to the letter of Henry More to Penn. Whereas some sources indicate that Penn met More in person, this cannot be proven in the research undertaken. We do know that George Keith spent extended periods at Ragley with Lady Conway. We know that Henry More met with George Whitehead and John Whitehead in 1675 as More asked questions regarding ‘touching the soul of Christ’. George was ‘defensive’ but John was ‘agreeable’ as testified in a letter from More to Lady Conway, November 9, 1675: ‘John easily agreed with me in those questions, which only amounted to this; that Christ besides his body had also a soul, and a soul like ours in all thinges, sin onely excepted’ whereas George was ‘smug and plump’ and ‘more expert’.[29]
Penn’s letter, however, reflects a very different understanding than what More communicated to him. Even a spontaneous letter, written quickly, can give a good glimpse into what Penn’s emphasis was in November 1675. Penn’s letter speaks principally of three things; the significance of the ‘Light of Christ in the conscience’, the ‘pure light and spirit in Jesus’ and the sense of ‘the soul raised up beyond formality’. There is a sense of transcendence that offers a complex picture of Penn’s developing understanding of the relationship between Jesus and the Christ and the Word. More does not mention Jesus but instead the emphasis is on the person Christ and its link to Scripture. In Penn, there is a sense of a movement upward in his use of words such as ‘eternal life’, ‘divine power’, ‘raised up’, ‘heavenly fellowship’ and ‘resurrection’.
George Keith and Henry More, 1674-1677
Nicolson presents the Keith-More relationship as the central focus of her work in reviewing the Cambridge Platonists and Quaker link. It is clear that George Keith was deeply attached to both More and Lady Anne Conway. Keith’s letter written in prison to Robert Barclay in March 1676 speaks of his deep love of the pair: Give my best to Quakers and Conway and More, ‘If thou dost see her remember my dear love to her and show her that I am busie answering H. More’s papers unto me, and have near finished my answer…if thou happen to see Henry More remember my dear love to him and notwithstanding of his mistakes I would have Friends be very loving and tender to him, as indeed I find still a great love to him in my heart.’[30]
Nicolson calls ‘the meeting of Henry More and George Keith at Cambridge and at Ragley one of the significant episodes in the history of seventeenth century religion.’[31] Whereas I do not agree with Nicolson’s assessment that More as ‘older divine grew in tolerance and increased in understanding’[32] or that More ‘in that time of schism and hatred, (stood) alone upon a lofty height above all sects whatsoever as sects (and so could) gaze upon the naked Truth of Christianity’[33], I do agree that Lady Conway may have passed beyond to a deeper understanding. She wrote to More in February 1676, after a long bout of terrible suffering, while being attended to by Quaker caregivers prior to her convincement:
‘but I must profess that my converse with them is upon a contrary account, to receive health and nourishment from them (speaking of the Quaker company). They have been and are a suffering people…I find them so still, and very serious…the particular examples of great patience under sundry heavy exercises, I find begettes a more lively fayth and uninterrupted desire…than the most learned and Rhetorical discourses of resignation can doe…’[34]
Whereas Penn may understand this sense in transcending form and even reason to something higher, there is a sense that More, despite his passionate endeavor and endearing nature (as reflected in Conway’s and Keith’s attachment to him), cannot quite understand the ‘second dimension’ spoke of by Conway and understood by the Quakers.
Keith’s strong identification with and schismatic nature that runs parallel to More resulted in his special care and love toward the elder Henry More in 1676. The union between Keith and More is especially significant for Keith’s identification will be translated into a later event when Keith turns against Penn and the Quaker group in Philadelphia in 1690. Nicolson is correct in assessing that Keith’s ‘thinking on the meaning of terms which the Quakers constantly employed-reason and revelation and the light within-which began in long talks at Ragley, echoes through every sentence in his later attack on Quakerism in his The Deism of William Penn.’[35]
The Cambridge Platonists offered much to the early radical and universalist groups. In reviewing the lives and thought of More, Conway and Cudworth (and there are many more philosopher-theologians-mathematicians and scientists in this group), the general foundations for inquiry identified for the Cambridge Platonists are: the infallibility of intuition, the high place of reason, an attack on materialism and atheism, moral ideas as innate in man and introducing and integrating from a variety of thought-forms. Cudworth will be referenced in glowing terms in Penn’s The Christian Quaker (1699). In his works, ‘Cudworth attacks the materialist philosophy of Hobbes and maintains the belief that moral ideas are innate in man.’[36] Henry More formulated ‘moral axioms that could be recognized as self-evidently true. More, wanted to enlist reason to show how one could move beyond narrow egoism to a universal benevolence.’[37] Lady Anne Conway’s contribution is in her critique of Cartesian dualism that opposes More.[38] Part of her argument was on the ‘convertibility of matter and spirit…she indicates that matter and spirit are not totally different substances but are able to change into each other.’[39]
To America, 1682-1694
Lady Conway died in early 1679 two years after her Quaker convincement. Penn will travel to Penn Silvania to develop his ‘Holy Experiment’ in Philadelphia in 1682 and will stay for two short years before returning to London. Keith will move to East Jersey in 1685 to serve as a prominent Quaker leader. Keith is called to Philadelphia and accepts a gift of five hundred acres of land from William Penn in 1689. Keith is affected by what he witnesses as a waywardness in Quaker faith and practice and sets out to make changes. What results is the Keithian controversy that offered a real challenge to the thriving Philadelphia Quaker community. Whereas Keith had some valid concerns for improving Quaker structure (he was able to convince many to agree with his intent), his tactics and disrespect for tradition and protocol reflected a man set out to destroy and disrupt.
It was evident that the great George Keith had decided to align with a group that was more in line with his beliefs in what is essential to a rule for Christian faith and practice. After a trial in London in 1694, where his confrontational and disruptive stance continued, the Quakers and Keith decided to part company. Keith continued to speak strongly against the Quaker way, converted to the Anglican church in London and wrote his final treatise against Penn’s 1699 work The Christian Quaker and his divine testimony stated and vindicated from Scripture, reason and authority.
This final break, by once very close Friends who had shared so much and taken part in establishing the movement Quaker; William Penn and George Keith, who along with giants such as Fox, Barclay, Penington and Whitehead, to name just a few, came together in spirit for a moment, as the separatist Keith and his beloved William Penn, ready and poised in artistry, set out to battle wits again in their final definition of the rule of faith and practice for the (Quaker) Christian. What was Penn trying to communicate in his notice to ‘the Noble Bereans of this Age’ in his re-working of his 1674 version of the Christian Quaker in 1699? and what was Keith’s response? We will return to the same challenges discussed before as the relationship between matter and spirit, word and Word, Jesus and Christ…
London 1699: Penn and Keith
At the end of the seventeenth century in 1699, both Penn and Keith, in London, were busy immersed in London and in a sense global politics. Seven years before, on the 20th of April in 1692, George Keith was publicly disowned at a meeting of the Ministers of the Society in Philadelphia. The Declaration was confirmed at the next General Yearly Meeting, held in Burlington, on the 7th of July following.[40] The rift was torn asunder.
It is difficult to assess what Keith’s expectations were as he made the trans-Atlantic trip across the sea. His trial was set in London in 1694. In one account, his character and approach to defending his person is called ‘passion’ and his hope for reconciliation ‘hopeless’.[41] His rejection was confirmed. Sprague’s account in 1859 affirms: ‘From this time he denounced the Quakers in general, with both the tongue and the pen…in 1700, he formally joined the Church of England, and was ordained as Bishop of London…he returned to America in 1702 as the first Missionary to America of the Society for Propogating the Gospel in Foreign Parts.’[42]
Keith’s tract, the Deism of William Penn, and his Brethren, Destructive to the Christian Religion written in London in 1699, serves as his final break with the London and American Quakers (along with his work criticizing Robert Barclay’s An Apology written in 1702.)
Penn’s final word comes perhaps in reaction to Keith’s American group the ‘Christian Quakers’ who had separated from the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Penn’s work, The Christian Quaker and his divine testimony stated and vindicated from Scripture, reason and authority, apparently sets out to set aright and define the true Christian Quaker Rule of Faith and Practice. His work is an extension on his previous work, the Christian Quaker, written in 1674.
The review here will principally look at Penn’s Epilogue ‘Of the General Rule of Faith and Practice’ contained in his 1699 edition. After doing this, the paper will shift to George Keith’s schismatic response which reflects his inability to embrace and understand or accept Penn’s universal vision.
Hugh Barbour ends his article ‘William Penn, Model of Protestant Liberalism’ with the following insight:
‘(Penn’s) books were rarely quoted by the Puritan liberals whose ideas became the mainstream of ‘the Kingdom of God in America’. In the nineteenth century, American liberal religion, especially the Unitarians and Transcendentalists, picked up many of the themes of the Cambridge Platonists…Today’s Quakers are still faced by Penn’s dilemma, how to recognize and affirm truth insofar as it may be shown in any man, and yet respond to man’s need for moral challenge and social transformation…For Quakers and all Protestants, both Penn’s teaching and the logos, the ‘Word-God’ is the Light of conscience as well as natural law, and his political practice and rough-sketched theories renew the challenge to unite reforming zeal with universal human understanding.’[43]
It is difficult to put a label on William Penn. We will find littered through Keith’s response many erroneous labels; Atheist (24), Antinomianism (25), Ranterism (25), Paganism (30), Moralist, Heathenism (34)[44]. Is William Penn a Latitudinarian? The Elwell Evangelical Dictionary defines Latitudinarianism as a label that became ‘attached to a group of Anglican divines in the late seventeenth century whose thought displayed a high regard for the authority of reason and a tolerant, anti-dogmatic temper…they reacted against the Calvinism of the Puritans and were broadly Arminian in outlook. They aligned themselves with progressive and liberal movements in the contemporary intellectual world.’[45]
The book, The Life of William Penn the Settler of Pennsylvania, includes a maxim of Penn’s which may apply: ‘And yet the latitudinarian that I love, is one that is only so in charity: for the freedom I recommend is no skepticism in judgment, and much less so in practice.’[46]
Whatever label one puts to the great William Penn will be limiting. It is clear that in Barbour’s words Penn was not a blender of ideas but he did seek a higher unifying scope from out of his intensely deep Christian roots and Biblical mastery. Whereas Keith used his Biblical mastery as a sword, we will see in Penn’s Christian Quaker that he is using the Bible in a unique way pointing to a new understanding of ‘Christian’ Faith and Practice. Penn’s valediction in his epistle introducing the 1699 version, ‘I am A Christian Quaker, and Your Christian Friend’ sets the tone.
Penn’s Christian Quaker, 1699
William Penn wrote his revision treatise in London before his return to America in 1699. Although there is a chance that the revision was completed on Penn’s cross-Atlantic voyage to America and then sent to London for printing, this cannot be substantiated. It is affirmed that Penn’s second version taken from the 1674 Christian Quaker work was printed in London by T. Sowle in 1699. His epistle to the work speaks of ‘the unweariedness of the unplacable Pharisee and subtile Scribe…(who) endeavour to Pervert the Right Way of the Lord.’[47]
The bulk of this presentation will be to review Penn’s Epilogue ‘of the General Rule of Faith and Practice’, ‘of the Judge of Controversie’ and ‘the Conclusion’ placed at the end of his twenty-three chapter work. He opens his 1699 epilogue with a call to the True Faith that overcometh the world in the context of ‘many Faiths in the world.’[48] His work will be about communicating and differentiating between a General Rule of Faith and Life (Scripture) versus the General Rule of Faith and Life for the Quaker Christian (Light of Christ).
The work reviewed is set up in a structure of objections and replies. Penn describes the General Rule: ‘the Constant Measure or Standard, by which Men in all Ages have been able to Judge of the Truth of Error or Darkness and the Good or Evil of Thoughts, Words and Actions.’[49] Faith is an ‘Assent of the Mind…as to resign up to God…the Great Creator and Saviour of his People.’[50] Penn, on page 206 writes: ‘the Creating Word that was with God, and was God, in whom was Life, and that Life was the Light of Men…was He[51], by whom God in all Ages hath revealed Himself; consequently, that Light or Spirit must have been the General Rule of Men’s Knowledge, Faith and Obedience, with respect to God.’[52]
Penn introduces diverse thinkers; Justin Martyr, Augustine, the Cambridge Platonist Dr. Cudworth, Pythagoras to show the universality of Light and Wisdom. At this juncture of Penn’s presentation, he presents the manifested Light as an inner knowing ‘for God (who is Light, 1 John 1.5) has shewn it to them.’[53] ‘The Light of Christ in the Conscience’ is the General Rule; the same Rule as given to Enoch, Noah, Abraham…Jethro &c’.
Penn focuses on the word ‘General’. Read closely: ‘that which was before, and since they were in being, must needs be More General than they; But that was this Light in the Conscience, the Law and Guide of those Patriarchs (for the Scriptures began long after, in the time of Moses) consequently must be the General Rule.’[54] Though Penn does not mention women, he would endorse the truth that this Light comes in the female Quaker Public Friend for example or in Miriam or Esther.
Another objection is set: ‘the Light within were so before Scripture was extant, yet since the Writings of holy Scripture, the Scripture and not the Light, hath been the General Rule.’[55] Penn directs the reader into a recognition that the Scripture the objector refers to was formed for a ‘limited’ group: ‘Palestine or Canaan and the Jews and not for All Mankind’. In Penn’s argument, God is defined in universalist terms. He writes of ‘God the overseer’, ‘the Living Rule, the Root of the Soul’ and the ‘Noble Precepts (writ in Man’s heart)’ to refer to the Gentiles and Socrates-Plato respectively. To these, Penn urges the readers to understand that ‘God is their Father, neither shall they ever be abrogated; for there is in them a Great God that never waxeth old.’[56]
Penn sets up another objection that points to the argument that Scripture has been the General Rule since they were created and remain so. Penn describes the ‘‘same Light’ that existed before Christ’s coming in the Flesh and since, where the Scriptures never reached...therefore still the Scriptures have not been, neither are the General Rule…where the word General implieth the Nature of the Thing itself, respecting Mankind from the Beginning of the World to this Day, and so to the End.’[57] Penn places the Scripture not as the Rule of Faith and Practice but as a Rule: ‘If the Rule, then The General Rule: For whatsoever is The Rule of Faith and Life, excludeth all other from being General, they being but particular in respect of it self; Therefore, not The, though A Rule of Faith and Life.’[58]
Penn addresses the Universal Faith in Man; Inward and Spiritual begotten in the Immortal Word:
‘If the Faith of God’s People in All Ages be of One Nature, then the Rule but of One Nature…And if the Faith be of One Nature, the Rule is of One Nature also. And since the Faith is Inward, Spiritual, begotten of the immortal Word, in which is Life, and that Life was the Light of Men, and that this Word of Life and Light was the Rule…therefore the Rule must be Inward and Spiritual.’[59]
Penn is using Reason and taking from Scripture to make his case that Scripture cannot be The Rule. His nine points in ‘Of the General Rule of Faith and Practice’ section argue against Scripture as the sole Rule of Faith and Practice. In Penn’s argument, Scripture has proven to be both imperfect and fallible. His argument is very modern touching upon contemporary questions and objections regarding the potential infallibility of Scripture.
One of his concerns and objections is to the distance between event and writing and the fact that the established canon is both imperfect and incomplete: ‘they were many Hundred Years in Writing, and are now Imperfect also as to Number.’[60] William defends the books outside of canon; ‘Enoch’s prophecy is mentioned by Jude, but not extant in the Bible, the book of Nathan…The book of Shemaiah, the book of Jebu, the epistle of the apostle Paul to the Laodiceans…’[61] are outside of canon. (How Penn would react to the Nag Hammadi finds would be interesting: their existence and unearthing certainly reinforces this picture of imperfection and incompletion).
Penn comments on the great complexity and sometimes contradictory evidence found in Scripture and difficulties inherent in discerning a clear ‘General Rule.’ He writes: ‘where to allude Aptly, and not wrong in the Sense, is Difficult, and requires a clear and certain Discerning…the doctrines are scattered throughout the Scriptures, those Societies given forth verbal Confessions of their Faith, have been necessitated to toss them to and from, search here and search there…’[62] Penn calls for a ‘clear’ and ‘certain’ discerning which he infers comes from the ‘Light’.
Penn addresses the modern question regarding the question of original and copy and the multitude of translations: ‘If the Scriptures are the Rule, they must be so in the Original…If the copies must be the Rule, it were to be wished we knew which were the nighest to the Original, there being above Thirty in Number…the Variety of the Readings which we find among those Copies, amounting to Several Thousands; And if the Copies cannot, how can the Translations be the Rule?’[63]
Penn challenges the reader who holds to Scriptures as The Rule of Faith and Practice in Opposition to the Spirit and challenges those ‘Professors of Religion’ to how they find themselves in such position: ‘Is it by Tradition or Revelation? I mean, the Internal Testimony of the Spirit; or the External Award and Determination of Men: If the former, they must unavoidably come over to us; for then the Spirit will, and must be both Rule and Judge: If the latter, I ask how are they assured that they are not miserably Abused by Carelessness or Design: since we see, that using utmost diligence, both Translation, Transcription and Printing are subject to numerous Mistakes.’[64]
The case that Penn is making is important and challenges the ideas deeply held on the infallibility of Scripture as a closed canon. He discusses the Council held ‘360 Years After Christ’ and how the Original was altered through being ‘tossed and tumbled through many Hands, and of many Judgments and Opinions…Some were received, and some rejected, and it is not improbable that they were also abused.’[65] He discusses the fact that ‘some of the Scriptures taken in by one Council for Canonical, were rejected by Another as Apocryphal…how visible it is that they contradicted each other, and as true that they both erred.’[66] Penn makes his case that these inconsistencies point to the truth that ‘If the Scriptures were the Rule of Faith and Life, then because they cannot be the Rule in their Translations, it cannot be the Rule for the Greatest Part of Mankind; indeed to none but Learned Men: Which neither answers the Promise relating to Gospel-times which is universal; nor the Necessity of all Mankind for a Rule of Faith and Life.’[67]
An important matter to hold in one’s heart, and especially as it relates to Keith’s response, is that Penn is not advocating a turning away from Scriptures as a Rule of Faith and Practice-Life. Penn is speaking to an opening up of the Spirit that is universal and in all men and cannot be contained within any one system. He will speak of the Light that brings peace and guidance to the unlearned, a unifying Spirit, that also allows people to critique their own systems as limiting and imperfect. Penn writes: ‘there are a Thousand Cases, and not a few occurring almost daily, in which the Scripture cannot be a plain and distinct Rule and Guide: Yet has not God left himself without a Witness in any Bosom; for his grace that brings Salvation has appeared unto all Men, teaching them that believe in it, to deny ungodliness and worldly Lusts, and to live soberly, righteously and godly in this present World. And Christ Jesus the Eternal Word has for that End lighted every Man coming into the world to Discover, Reprove, and Instruct about Faith and Practice.’[68]
One could bring together Penn’s uses of ‘Law and Light in the Conscience’ with ‘God, Christ, his Spirit and Grace’ as he takes it backward to ‘God’s mercy with the Jews, according to his Covenant with faithful Abraham.’[69] Penn draws a similarity between the ‘Rebellion to the Law and the Light within.’ Penn challenges those who may wish to ‘lay down Instituted Religion’ for ‘Scripture is but the Mind and Teachings of the Divine Light in others, declared or recorded’[70] and urges our ‘Self-denial and walking in the Spirit’.[71] Penn refers to these works as ‘External Mediums’ and questions whether they shall ‘turn the Light and Spirit out of the Office of Rule and Judge?’[72] The Lord said that he will write the Law on People’s hearts: ‘There is nothing more clearly laid down in it, from Beginning to End, than the Rule and Reign of the Spirit. My Kingdom, said Christ, is not of this World.’[73]
Penn’s use of ‘Christ’ in his language is not made to overshadow the significance of Jesus or the Holy Spirit but to include them. He answers the objection regarding Moses and the law with the following statement: ‘For admitting the Law written by Moses were The Rule (a Rule I grant it was) to the Jew outward, yet Christ, the Spiritual Leader of a Spiritual Israel, writeth his spiritual Law in the Heart, as Moses, the Outward Israel’s Leader writ the Law upon Tables of Stone.’[74] Penn enters into support from Scripture (Malachi, Hebrews, Isaiah, Luke, Revelations, Joel, Job, Romans, Galatians, 1 John) to reinforce the point that the Kingdom, the Law, the Rule, the Temple are all Spiritual for Christ said, ‘My Kingdom is not of this World, but within.’ This is the light that is in all men, Christ, the Lord. Penn writes: ‘As many as walk according to the Rule, Peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.’[75]
Penn places the Scriptures in a Quaker frame. The Scriptures are to be reverently studied and fulfilled in Christ. The search for Penn is in ‘the Spirit’s testimony and Evidence which gave them forth…they are to be reverently Read, Believed and Fulfilled.’ Penn speaks to the direction that rational activity may take one as found in Lady Conway's late revelation: ‘They that come to be led of the Spirit, arrive at the End for which the Scriptures was given forth.’[76] Penn: ‘It is the Testimony of the Spirit which is The True Rule for believing and understanding the Scripture, but the Spirit of Truth must be The Rule for our believing and understanding Them.’[77] Later, Penn labels the ‘Rule for Reading, Understanding and Believing’ to be ‘the Divine Light and Spirit of Christ.’[78]
Penn defines his understanding of the difference between A Rule and the Rule of Faith and Practice: ‘By The Rule of Faith and Practice, I understand, the Living, Spiritual, Immediate, Omnipresent, Discovering, Ordering Spirit of God; And by A Rule, I apprehend some Instrument, by and through which this Great and Universal Rule may convey its Directions.’[79]
Time does not allow for the author to compare the texts of William Penn’s 1674 Quaker Christian and his revised version in 1699. Upon a short glance, the two works appear to be almost completely identical. Penn’s decision to re-publish his words some twenty-five years later point to his prophetic vision and to the consistency of his universality. It is as if he is placing the words in front of his hearers as Jesus did and the Pharisees and those hard of heart cannot grasp their significance once again. We will see this in Keith’s penetration into Penn’s words (for we can assume he read Penn’s 1674 version); Keith simply cannot agree with Penn’s universal vision and reacts with division and disdain.
Penn concludes his work: ‘Turn one’s mind inward that one may know and do his will, that one may come to be Experienced and Expert in the School of Christ…which is so far from lessening the Authority of the Scriptures of Truth, that unless This be Man’s Rule (circumcision in the Heart, of the Spirit) and Judge in the Reading and Believing of them, he can never understand them Rightly, or keep their sayings Faithfully.’[80]
George Keith’s Reaction
We find George Keith’s response to Penn’s Christian Quaker in his work, The deism of William Penn and his brethren destructive to the Christian religion, exposed plainly laid open (1699). The intention is not to write off Keith’s ‘concern’ as solely schismatic although Keith, like More, was quite divisive and oppressively opinionated (in contrast to Penn’s emphasis on self-denial and openness to ideas). Keith had a passion for a Christian form in which Scripture, baptism and communion were The Rule of Faith and Practice. Keith had witnessed the dangers inherent in a Christian Faith and Practice that held to an inner Light without Scriptural inquiry. Whereas he ranted against one extreme of a purely Spiritual focus that sought no division, Keith’s reaction went to an opposite extreme that sought a material universality in imposed Anglican doctrine and belief. Penn was able to bridge both worlds of material and spiritual and Keith was unwilling to accept Penn’s broad scope. We see Keith’s More-esque reaction in distorting Penn’s words, and as his inclination was in Philadelphia, rather than lifting up the thoughts of others and seeking inclusion in a grander story, he used Scripture as a Pharisee to attack the ideas of Penn.
The Deism of William Penn
Deism is defined as ‘a belief in a god of nature -- a noninterventionist creator -- who permits the universe to run itself according to natural laws’.[81] Given the fact that the review of Penn’s work shows his deep allegiance to God, Christ and Scripture, Penn’s ‘deist’ strand may relate to his concern that man needs to intervene in critiquing his own forms and allow new revelation with a more tolerant and inclusive view.
Keith sets out to ‘refute the grand Error of William Penn and his Brethren.’[82] His consistent phrase of contention is with Penn’s ‘the Light Within…to all Mankind, to Christians, Jews, Mahometans and Heathens of all sorts, Protestants and Papists, is the general Rule of Faith and Life to them all.’[83] Keith criticizes Penn’s understanding that ‘these…are true and good Christians, and ought to own and acknowledge one another as Christian Brethren and Members of one Universal Church.’[84]
Keith is adding some input into Penn’s ideas here; for the research done cannot find the phrase of inclusion putting together ‘Deist’ with ‘Jew and Muslim’ in Penn’s writings. Either Keith is completing Penn’s ideas through his long hours of discussion with his good Friend or the Information regarding Jew and Muslim is either Keith’s construction or an idea somewhere reflected in Penn’s work not found in this research.
Keith cannot understand how Penn and his Brethren can be both ‘Deists and true Christians at once.’[85] According to an Internet source, those who hold to a deist affiliation believe in some form:
‘Laws reveal themselves through ‘the light of reason and nature’…Reliance on the power of reasoning exchanges faith for human logic…few Deists follow practices of Christianity, Judaism…The Bible is not accepted as the infallible word of God…Deists refute evidence of Jesus’ incarnation…Deism has no creed, articles or faith, no holy book…man is qualified what reasonable path to follow regarding morals…’[86]Keith insists again that Penn’s group ‘lay themselves so open as to be rank Deists while they at the same time pretend to hold the Christian Doctrine…which is as great a Chimera or Impossibility…as to be a Horse and Man at once.’[87]
Keith’s Objections
It is very complicated to get at the core of Keith’s objections in the Deism of William Penn for he is prone to great shifts and alterations of terms. He claims that ‘His Mistake’ was in ‘confounding the Term Rule of Faith with the Term Inward Objective Medium…’but the material Objects of Faith, all the things in Scripture that ought to be believed, are the Rule of Faith (this is his Objective Medium of Credibility).’[88] Keith states: ‘That which is only, strictly and properly speaking, the Rule of the Christian Faith, is the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures; especially respecting the great Fundamentals and Essentials thereof.’[89]
He erroneously indicates that if ‘Penn can prove that there is but one General Rule of Faith and Life to all Mankind, the next step is, by good Consequence, that all Mankind ought to have but one Faith, one Religion.’[90] This was not Penn’s argument. Penn was not calling for one religion but a unifying Assent. Keith calls Penn ‘Unsuccessful and Fallacious’ in Penn’s statement that Faith is ‘an Assent of the Mind…as to resign up to God…as the great Creator and Saviour of his People.’[91] Keith indicates that this is not the ‘Faith of God’s Elect, and of the Heirs of Eternal Salvation, that is grounded upon the Faithful Word of God.’[92]
Keith cites 1 Timothy and the book of Acts to bring together ‘the Light within’ with ‘God, or the Word or the Spirit’. This allows him to equate God’s love with ‘the Word Incarnate, Jesus Christ God-man, as he died for our sins.’[93] In contrast to Keith’s emphasis on death and the Man Christ as atoning for man’s sins (crucifixion), Penn emphasizes the Assent-resurrection, the Word Christ as a point of greater unification.
The argument of Keith turns to the book of Micah. Penn concentrated on Micah 6.8 (‘He has showed you, man, what is good; and what the Lord requires from you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God’) as relating to ‘the light of Christ in the conscience’ for All Men and All Times. Keith points his reader to verse 6.7: ‘shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of the body for the sin of the world?’ Keith works the passage into a testimony that ‘Justice, Mercy and Humility are more acceptable to God and the greater things of God’s laws, than all outward sacrifices…Faith was required in the people Israel which came, not by the common dictates of the light in every conscience but by special revelation.[94] Keith follows that it can be proved that ‘the Faith of Christ the great Sacrifice, as he was outwardly to be offered up…as remission for sin.’[95] Therefore, Keith works his argument out that ‘the Light within every Man gives them not this Faith (so) the Light within every Man is not the Rule of the Christian Faith.’[96]
Keith certainly does not agree with Penn’s definition that ‘a Christian is one that by the knowledge and Doctrine of Christ excels in Moderation’ and that ‘Abraham, and the Ancient Fathers were Christians’.[97] Keith again shifts Penn’s ‘Doctrine of Christ’ to ‘the Doctrine of Faith in Christ, as God-man, for remission of Sin, and Eternal Salvation.’[98] Keith insists that this general Law or Rule of Faith is ‘Salvation of Christ Crucified.’[99]
Penn’s emphasis is on ‘the new creature’ in ‘Jesus Christ’, an ‘assent of the mind as to resign up to God, and have dependence on him, as the great Creator and Saviour of his people.’[100] Keith insists that this discovery must be through ‘certain propositions’, in ‘some form of Words mentally conceived and apprehended’ and it follows in this strand (in Keith’s mind) that therefore that the ‘Rule of Faith must be in certain propositions consisting of words and sentences, such as God delivered to the Prophets, and which were recorded in Scripture, such are, That the Word was made Flesh, that a Virgin should Conceive and Bear a Son, and that the Son should be Saviour of the World; that by his Death he should reconcile us unto God; that he should rise again from the Dead, and on the Third Day, and ascend into Heaven….’[101] Penn would argue that this is not The Rule but A Rule and not General to All People.
Keith continues misquoting Penn: ‘his primary Rule, and nothing from the Scriptures, which he calls secondary…if WP have such a perfect complete Primary Rule that teacheth him, without Scripture, all what he ought to know, believe or practice, I cannot understand of what great use the Scripture can be unto him, this primary Rule hath taught him all before-hand, otherwise it is not primary.’[102] Penn was clear in his comments regarding the importance of Scripture; he wrote about the importance of ‘Reading and Believing’ the Scriptures. He emphasized that they are to be studied and read in the Spirit of Christ.
Of special interest are Keith’s continual comments regarding Jews and Muslims. Over six times he attacks Penn’s understanding of God’s-favor for other groups in statements inclusive of ‘Jew and Mahometan’. In his response to Penn’s point that Scriptures flow out of separate Societies and are therefore not General, Keith lashes out: ‘And if he hath no other Principles of Precepts taught to him by the Light within, but what every Deist, Mahometan or Jew, who are enemies to the Christian Faith have, then let him speak out more plainly, though I think he has spoke very plain already: If the Light within him has taught him any other Principles or Precepts, than what Deists, Jews and Mahometans have, let him tell us, that he may convince us, that the Light within every Man is the Rule of Faith.’[103]
Penn saw the ‘Gospell times’ as universal. Keith questions how the Books and Tracts of the Quakers can vindicate ‘both the Sufficiency of the Spirit, and true Light within, in all the Faithful; and also the Sufficiency of Scriptures without’ while also ‘excluding the Lord Jesus Christ God-Man without us, from being our All Sufficient Saviour.’[104] Penn places the Saviour label on God as the ‘Great Creator and Saviour of his People’[105] in Christian Quaker.
Keith clearly struggles with the question of the inter-relationship in Penn’s statement: ‘the outward Israel had it as well as the inward Israel.’ This seems to present the crux of the matter, for Keith asks: ‘where then is the distinction, and difference between the one and the other?’[106] Keith calls ‘the true State of the Controversie between Quakers and their Opponents’ to be ‘whither the inner teachings of God, of Christ, and of the Holy Spirit come to believers without all outward means.’[107] Penn’s emphasis is on ‘the Immortal Word, in which was Life the Light of Men.’[108] Penn stated, ‘This was God’s Promise, and the Privilege and Blessing of the New Covenant, that as the Outward Jew had an Outward Law, the Inward Jew should have an Inward Law.’[109]
Keith is so combative and Pharisaic-schismatic in his delivery that it is clear that there will be no reconciliation between Keith and Penn, and Anglican and Quaker. Keith calls the reader to John 10.3: ‘To him, the gatekeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice: and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.’ The Keithian Rift with ‘Penn and His Brethren’ offers sharp distinction. In tangible ways, perhaps the Anglican group won through their attack. But in the long run, the author goes for Penn and the Quaker challenge in finding an Assent that takes in All. Indeed, both are of supplementary movement; ‘integral parts of the same movement; two inevitable aspects of a whole’[110] as indicated by Nicolson. Unfortunately, the failure to reconcile the two is in the inability to understand Penn’s unique vision.
Penn’s Message in Part
William Penn called for a New Creation for Mankind and a Complete Universality and Inclusivity. Although the author cannot speak to Penn’s complete vision, there is a sense in the research that Penn’s emphasis on the Word Christ and the Assent of Mind with God the Creator and Saviour pointed to a redefinition of ‘Christian’. Penn did not discount the importance of Scripture in ‘Christian’ (nor in his own) development. He did point to a higher Assent, however; one that broke down the divisions of man, created a Lens in which to Read and Study-Profess Scripture properly and one that saw the Christ light in all people found in the man Jesus’ journey to his resurrected glory as Christ.
Keith’s grounding was in the Man Christ and in the doctrines of the Church. This passion makes him worthy of veneration but he never quite understood the Assent to the Resurrected Christ as his Friends Conway and Penn. Nor did he grasp the teaching of Penn that the reading of Scripture should be done in the open and inclusive spirit of Christ. Unfortunately, Keith’s knowledge of Scripture was used as a sword to those who thought differently whereas Penn embraced different thought, sought no blending of ideas, yet was unique in finding a corrective and unifying Light in Christ.
endnotes:
[1]Hugh Barbour, ‘William Penn, Model of Protestant Liberalism’, Church History, Vol. 48, No. 2, (June, 1979), 156.
[2] Ibid, 156.
[3] Ibid, 156.
[4] Ibid, 156.
[5] Ibid, 157.
[6] Martin Ignatius, Latitudarianism in the 17th century Church of England, 4.
[7] M. Kaufmann, Latitudinarianism and Pietism, Chapter XXIV, Trinity College, Dublin, (1908), 763. found at: http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/camenaref/cmh/cmh524.html#763
[8] Barbour, 160.
[9] Barbour, 172.
[10] Mary Maples Dunn and Richard S. Dunn, The Papers of William Penn, Vol. I, University of Pennsylvania, 1981, 6. Beyond the correspondence with Penn, More is visited by ‘Robert Barclay, John and George Whitehead and George Keith…Keith, Isaac Penington as well as many unnamed Quaker women were frequent visitors at Ragley between 1675-1677.’ www.oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/philosophers/conway.htm.
[11] Majorie Hope Nicolson, Conway Letters: The Correspondence of Anne, Viscountess of Conway, Henry More and their Friends, 1642 to 1684, London: University Oxford University Press, 1930, 379.
[12] Ibid, 381.
[13] Ibid, 383.
[14] Ibid, 391.
[15] Ibid, 391.
[16] Dunn and Dunn, 304.
[17] Ibid, 324.
[18] Ibid, 306.
[19] Ibid, 308.
[20] Ibid, 309.
[21] Ibid, 312.
[22] Ibid, 313.
[23] Ibid, 314.
[24] Ibid, 314.
[25] Ibid 315.
[26] Ibid, 317.
[27] Nicolson, 402.
[28] Ibid, 402-403.
[29] Ibid, 404.
[30] Ibid, 427-428.
[31] Ibid, 413-414.
[32] Ibid, 413.
[33] Ibid 412.
[34] Ibid 422.
[35] Ibid, 380.
[36] www.alcott.net/alcott/home/champions/Cudworth.htm. ‘Cudworth is seen as influential among the New England Transcendalists and provided critical support for Waldo Ralph Emerson’s belief in the infallibility of intuition.’
[37] Ibid, .
[38] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/conway/
[39] Louise D. Derksen, ‘Anne Conway’s Critique of Cartesian Dualism’, internet.
[40] William B. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1859), 25.
[41] Ibid, 26.
[42] Ibid, 27.
[43] Barbour, 175.
[44] As printed out copy on EEBO of George Keith’s The Deism of William Penn and his brethren destructive to the Christian Religion, exposed and plainly laid open, London: printed for Brab. Aylmer at the Three Pigeons against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill, 1699.
[45] D. F. Wright, Elwell Evangelical Dictionary, www.mb-soft.com/believe/txn/latitudi.htm
[46] W.L. Weems, The Life of William Penn, the Settler of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia: Uriah Hunt and Sons, 1852, 95.
[47] William Penn, The Christian Quaker and his divine testimony stated and vindicated from Scripture, reason and authority, London: T Sowle, 1699, A2.
[48] Ibid, 205.
[49] Ibid, 205.
[50] Ibid, 206.
[51] Penn’s use of ‘He’ shows his universalist intent.
[52] Ibid, 206.
[53] Ibid,207.
[54] Ibid,207.
[55] Ibid,208.
[56] Ibid,208.
[57] Ibid,209.
[58] Ibid,209-210.
[59] Ibid,211.
[60] Ibid,211.
[61] Ibid,212.
[62] Ibid,213.
[63] Ibid,216.
[64] Ibid,216
[65] Ibid,216.
[66] Ibid,217.
[67] Ibid,218.
[68] Ibid,219.
[69] Ibid,220.
[70] Ibid,221.
[71] Ibid,253.
[72] Ibid,221.
[73] Ibid,221.
[74] Ibid,222.
[75] Ibid,224.
[76] Ibid,226.
[77] Ibid,227.
[78] Ibid,237.
[79] Ibid,227.
[80] Ibid,250.
[81] www.allaboutphilosophy.org/deism.htm
[82] George Keith, Deism of William Penn and His Brethren, London, 1699. Page 1 of 35 on EEBO.
[83] Ibid,1.
[84] Ibid,1.
[85] Ibid,2.
[86] www.allaboutphilosophy.org/deism.htm.
[87] Ibid,2. It may be worth investigating Lady Conway’s Critique of Dualism that went against Henry More’s theory.
[88] Ibid,3.
[89] Ibid,3.
[90] Ibid,5.
[91] Ibid,5.
[92] Ibid,5.
[93] Ibid,6.
[94] Ibid,7.
[95] Ibid,7.
[96] Ibid,7.
[97] Ibid,9.
[98] Ibid,10.
[99] Ibid,11.
[100] Ibid,13.
[101] Ibid,13.
[102] Ibid,14.
[103] Ibid,16.
[104] Ibid,18.
[105] Penn, 206.
[106] Keith, 20.
[107] Ibid, 21.
[108] Penn, 211.
[109] Ibid, 222-223.
[110] Nicolson, 379.
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Religious Education and Global Praxis : Engagement and Enhancement
by Blair Weaver, Earlham School of Religion, 2007
Creating my own philosophy of Christian religious education is an exciting task. Paraphrasing the words of one religious education philosopher[1], one can best speak out of personal experience and that I shall try to do. I come to the rich endeavor from outside any particular Christian denomination but find strong affiliation to and with the Christian Story and Vision. I ask the reader to be open to what I will attempt to communicate; it is a creative comprehensive sense that I have in mind. Addressing the complexities of the religious education dilemma will be at the heart and my own tendency to a more monastic way and ecumenical Spirit will be exposed as I integrate a new vision. It mirrors my own experience; that of building a strong Christian foundation and then moving outward into other traditions and ways of thinking and then returning home to the Word and Christ renewed and excited for new possibilities.
There is something inherently awkward in attempting to propose a new model; brought on by reaching for the new and also in my own struggle in writing. I am hopeful that the reader will show some leniency and recognize that this is a reach; and somewhere the multiple leaves on the tree of suggestion brought on by my idealism will be blown by the wind of correction. Something will stick as the vision comes toward one in tandem with something unknown.
I will include in my philosophy three general concentric circles: 1. the individual is at the core and then 2. the group and 3. the larger world. We will be working on the internal outward within the ‘sacred place’ of the church or meeting and ‘Sabbath’. At center are the two circles of transformation; the individual-in-community within the Christian Story and Vision. Taking from Thomas Groome’s philosophy, it is the Christian Story and Vision as reflected in the Bible and the smaller story and vision of the community gathered (for this example I will use the Quaker tradition) that present the ground from which to work out of. It is my leaning to import the following at the beginning; the first is the importance of a continual remembrance of and return to the end of ‘loving God and neighbor[2] as self’ and secondly, the criticalness of sacred Scripture[3] (the Bible and in this example, the writings of Fox, Penn, Penington, Woolman, Barclay….) in gaining our bearings and in building our foundation.
And so the vision will work outward and then like a Light shoot back at the core. Not every one in the group will want to venture out but like traditional aboriginal cultures there is a place for everyone in the group. Some can stay and relish in the depths of Christ and/or hold to a final realization such as ‘the Spirit of God is within you’. But the religious experience should be for the community, and my philosophy of religious education speaks to the differences and today’s necessity for seeing Christ as solution on a ‘global’ scale in the long run.
Table 1 (on Mars) gives a graphical representation of the Christian religious education model that will be proposed in this paper. We will begin with the Christian foundation (the Worship Sabbath and peripheral Christian Religious Education) and then work our way outward:
Worship Sabbath and Building Christian Foundational Community
The foundation for the Christian community is in its worship and Sabbath. In my view, the central aim of the Christian religious endeavor is in creating sacred place in Jesus’ name (‘Love God and neighbor as self’), celebrating in Holy Spirit community with an emphasis on God in neighbor-‘Other’ and in moving outward in a form of global praxis that engages with ‘Other’ through conversion to Other rather than conversion of Other.
Worship Sabbath is the core ‘home’ where the growing Christian community gathers to celebrate the Christian Story and Vision with a multi-creative engagement with sacred Word. The content for Worship Sabbath is the sacred Word (both Scriptural and tradition-selection) and the environment is contemplative and free from restrictions.
Whereas the form of creative ideas in linking content in comprehensive fashion (the whole educative experience as link to Sabbath) is managed, the integrative linking of Sabbath discovery is left to participants and worship coordinators.
My own view is that the Sabbath environment is composed of three pods; contemplative, dialogue and art (three separate areas). All three activities are centered on the text of the day only to come together toward the end of worship to share (if they wish, can be unspoken). The art activity will be focused on the young and those who wish to join to create something of meaning.
The aim of Sabbath environment is to create space of rest where people can come ‘as they are’ and thus choose to be involved in whatever way the Spirit leads them. The aim of Sabbath Worship is to strengthen Christian foundation in a contemplative, other-focused (God and Other) sacred place and to allow Others outside tradition to participate in Sabbath restful celebration-worship.
Sabbath Worship is the center into which all religious education realizations flow (re-languaging); a time for rest for a group of people who share a striving spirit to move into greater Christian understanding in two ways. To handle this, my philosophy of CRE speaks to the two groups; those who wish to hold to the traditional view which is a form of Christian exclusion and those who seek a more comprehensive-post modern and global view. It is my thought that both can thrive in singular Christian community; the transformation of individual in Christian community (circles one and two) and those who seek to be involved in circles one and two yet increasingly engage with Others of difference ecumenically.
Peripheral Christian Religious Education
Peripheral Christian religious education supports Worship Sabbath in developing richer Christian foundations that focus on Tradition (the Bible Text and story) and tradition (i.e. the Quaker heritage and texts of selected Quakers). There are a wide variety of various alternatives (traditional Bible study class, testimonies, telling the Jesus story, art) that may serve the PCRE (surrounding Sabbath) educational process. The emphasis is on the Scriptural text, the power of the Holy Spirit and an artistic sense of the sacred. For Christian foundational community, it is important that the whole Bible is studied (Cully).
The aim of PCRE is to strengthen the Christian foundation as it relates to Tradition and tradition. I identify with Groome’s ‘shared praxis’ approach where the community comes together to reflect on experience and guide their actions within the Christian story. In this way, Scripture breeds theory and theory meets experience and in the process theory is shaped and altered, deepened. We return to Scripture with new eyes excited to what it has for us. The community in PCRE relies on both nurture and frank speech. Whereas I can appreciate Iris Cully’s nurturing stance in teacher-student relationship, I can also see a necessity to use a ‘frank speech’ approach in authenticity to prune one another collectively and in small-group.[4] The environment in Peripheral Christian Religious Education and Worship Sabbath should be as egalitarian as possible. The community is a body and the members as ‘children of Christ’ strive to grow in the knowledge and love of Christ. I do not believe in a strong separation based on stages and age (child and adult). Because we are copying beings (and especially children), I think that learning in group can prove beneficial and that all should share in teaching and learning.
Global Praxis : Engaging with Other Religions : West Meets East[5] Threat and Necessity
The greatest threat to the world species is in religious division and institutional structures-dogma that both perpetuate division and claim exclusive truth. While not discounting the various dangers and evils inherent in the modern world, it is clear that we are at the end of a long linear landscape. Either we will find more positive ways of engaging with others of difference or we will find ourselves approaching the end of eschatological narratives and toward world catastrophe. Jesus himself was an outgoing One; increasingly engaging with others of difference and simplifying the criteria for entry (‘spirit and truth’) preaching a gospel of inclusion. Therefore we must do the same.
Radical Otherness : Kenotic Christology in Post-Modern Revolution
In his book, In the Company of Others, David Jensen explains: ‘The church, must empty itself of the facile claim that it alone has all the answers: it must cease viewing the Christian life upon a narrow path that leads directly to its own sanctuary and instead travel a road that harkens to the presence of God in the midst of a pluralistic world.’ (DJ, 150) Ken Wilber contributes in his call for a global vision; a series of ‘transcend and include’ stages of self-transcendence calling for ‘de-centering, transcendence, decreasing egocentrism’. Wilber discusses the different paradigm in post-modernism where ‘different worldviews create different worlds, they aren’t just the same world seen differently.’ (KW, 52)
This fact points to the need to extend Jesus outward and engage with the world in a different way. Jensen insists that ‘in order to become more faithful disciples, Christians need the insights of persons who profess distinctly different religious commitments.’ (DJ, x) My philosophy of Christian religious education attempts to find a balance and integration between ‘the moralism of following Jesus (insiders) to the ethical claim of others and the demand of difference in the Christian life (outgoing ecumenists)’. (DJ, xiv.) But what might this going-outward ecumenically, in recognition ‘of the beauty and sacredness of others as unique persons of difference’ (DJ, xiv.), look like?
John Cobb and David Jensen can assist us in understanding the process of engagement-enrichment in global praxis. The process is not to create a new synthesis but to ‘radically open’ to Other while ‘grounded in our own tradition’. In my own understanding, I see the global praxis exercise (engaging with increasing layers of difference) as seeing Christ in all and reflected in their tradition. There is some tension. Wilber speaks on ‘transcend and include…(where) the greater the degree of development, the greater the burden of inclusion.’ (KW, 297) Jensen speaks of ‘confessing Christ and confronting the Other as two prongs of the same religious commitment.’ (DJ, 2) We enter into the dialogue with the joy of the mystery of Christ and his inclusion for all of humanity. Jensen: ‘Recognition of Jesus as the Christ evokes a multiplicity of voices and a constellation of images…Total harmonization between them all is neither possible nor desirable, for the words we use will never exhaust the images or meanings of the One whom we proclaim.’ (DJ, 32)
The Process : Table 2
Jensen speaks of a kenotic approach to engagement: ‘Only by ‘emptying’ the imperialized, individual subject can one take seriously the reality and subject-hood of the Other, only then is the door to mutual relation with another opened.’ (DJ, 82) Later in this paper I will address the Buddhist contribution to this portion of the dialogue. The call is to engage with Other ‘not in the frozen absolutes of the past, but in the imaginative and mysterious possibilities of today.’ (DJ, 91) I do not think that this call is inconsistent with Jesus’ teachings: Jesus went to the Samaritan woman, told her that the Father is to be worshipped in ‘spirit and truth’ and stayed two days with the Samaritan people (considered the greatest form of ‘Other’). Jensen suggests a new vision for understanding Christian discipleship: ‘the Christian life is not marked by others conversion to Christianity (my way of belief), but my conversion to others.’ (DJ, 144)
Engagement and Practice
Therefore the aim of Christian religious education calls the community and its individuals outward in kenosis to engage with other ‘religious’ traditions (and hence non-violently). Beyond studying the sacred texts of ‘religious Other’ and learning from guest teachers, Jensen suggests that the apex or core of engagement should be in ‘shared practice’: ‘The kenotic approach suggests that transformative understanding occurs wherever persons partake in one another’s religious practice, whenever they share them with conviction. I learn from an Other when I empty myself of my own customary practice and am drawn by another’s text or ritual.’ (DJ, 163) His suggestion is that this engagement is done with a ‘core confession’ using the following examples: for Christians; Jesus Christ as the incarnate One, for Jews; God’s covenant with Israel and for Buddhists; teaching on Enlightenment. He adds: ‘we need others not so we can be religiously eclectic, but so that we might become better (Christians), better respondents to the new life in Christ.’ (DJ, 183)
John Cobb calls for a ‘deep commitment to one’s own tradition, when understood as requiring dialogical openness to other traditions, can lead to a surprising transformation of everyone involved.’ (JC, 2) Can we not admit that we have a ‘piece of the truth’ and need others in order to both make for peace and enrich our own understandings? Are we as a church in possession of all needed knowledge?
Dialogue and Appropriation
Cobb is an advocate for ‘dialogue among religious traditions centering on the practical needs of the world.’ (JC, 11) Cobb holds that there are ‘real differences among the religions but each of them contains something special that can contribute to the general well-being of humanity.’ (JC, 49)
Therefore from out of dialogue and realization of a need for a ‘globalized theology’ (JC, 59) comes the necessity for a ‘mutual effort to transform and save the world.’ (JC, 95) Out of shared dialogue and global praxis, Cobb presents the challenge to a Christianity willing to be transformed: ‘as a Christian I am challenged to learn as much as I can, and to appropriate as richly as I can, from these other traditions.’ (JC, 46)
Buddhism as Transformer of Christianity
Cobb suggests a ‘transformation of Christianity through the appropriation of Buddhist wisdom.’ (JC, 179) He writes: ‘The Buddhization of Christianity will transform Christianity in the direction of a greater and deeper truth, a new and better quality of life, and a fuller ability to serve Christ in the political sphere.’ (JC, 46) Therefore, one of the areas of potential study in global praxis for the CRE endeavor could be in engaged Buddhism.
Eastern religions, such as the multiple strands of Buddhism, not only help to enrich the picture of Jesus and bring to the fore His aspects lost out to the West but present interesting forms of practice centered on mindfulness, wisdom and universal compassion. There are many potential entries into Buddhism[6] that could serve as global praxis content in study and engagement:
Shantideva’s Way of the Bodhisattva: Mahayana Emptiness and the Bodhisattva.
Thich Nhat Hanh’s Mindfulness: Lessons on being mindful and present.
Dalai Lama on Lojong Meditation: A meditation exercise on ‘Other’.
Shunryu Suzuki’s Zen Mind, Beginners Mind: Meditation postures and following mind content.
D. T. Suzuki’s Essays on Zen Buddhism: essays on Zen Buddhism schools and the varieties of Zen practice.
What Buddhism offers the world is in its rich differences. The Bodhisattva waits as enlightened being devoted to serve until all beings reach enlightenment. Lojong meditation is a prayer for all sentient beings with an emphasis on self-lessening and compassion for those who suffer in a world that pulls them in every direction of desire. Zen brings satori or enlightenment, a flash of insight in which one ‘judges things from a new point of view…upsetting artificially constructed frameworks.’ (DT, 261) Suzuki calls for a satori: ‘a new birth…the re-valuation of one’s relationship to the world.’ (DT, 261) Suzuki’s description of satori sounds much like Jesus’ ‘Come and see’: ‘a general mental upheaval which destroys all the old accumulations of intellectuality and lays down a foundation for a new faith…the awakening of a new sense which will review the old things from an angle of perception entirely and most refreshingly new.’ (DT, 262)
The aim of Christian religious education should be to enact a ‘great upheaval’ in vision: a vision that seeks to find solution to the ‘global crisis’ and ‘the healing of the Earth’ that can happen only outside of ‘foundation’. For this, a foundation is needed; a foundation deeply grounded in (T)tradition. A foundation that will allow for global spiritual explorers to ‘transcend and include’, to experientially engage with Others of difference and to thereby enrich all participants (including the foundation).
Ken Wilber : Global Consciousness
Ken Wilber speaks of the necessity for a ‘global consciousness’. He says that one cannot simply step into a new formation or a new Utopian view. What is called for, according to Wilber, are ‘interior stages of growth’: ‘Global problems demand global consciousness for their solution, and global consciousness is the product of at least a half dozen interior stages of growth.’ (KW, 300) I am not quite sure how to take Wilber’s matrices and integral efforts. I do know that there will be no new World religion (unless imposed) and that what is needed is similar to what I have been attempting to frame: foundations open to Others and each enhanced in dialogue and shared practice focused on the common good. Wilber maps out the progression to World Soul Intuition: ‘precisely developing from sensory-biocentric to ego-centric to socio-centric to world-centric to World Soul…a worldcentric locus of moral awareness that insists on universal compassion.’ (KW, 258) He goes on: ‘moved away from, or differentiated from, an exclusive identity with your sociocentric roles, and you particularly begin to scrutinize the rightness or appropriateness of your sociocentric and ethnocentric positions, which previously you would not – and could not even question.’ (KW, 170) And so comes ‘a capacity to take the role of other…a shift, a continuing decrease in egocentrism…the overall direction of development in humans – the telos of human development – is toward less and less egocentric states.’ (KW, 164) I will go on because I find his ideas interesting.
Wilber speaks of Flatland Paradigms which ‘do not demand actual transformation, just this ‘one-step’ learning of the new paradigm.’ (KW, 140) He adds: ‘the aim here is mutual understanding. Not that we necessarily agree with each other, but can we at least understand each other?’ (KW, 103) And again: ‘it is not that the earlier view is totally wrong and the new worldview is totally right. The earlier one was adequate, the new one is more adequate.’ (KW, 61) What I am attempting to do is to reinforce the two ‘divisions’ in the church-meeting and show that both have a place. The traditional Christian view builds and rests in foundation. The global post-modern view seeks to take Christ out into the world in non-traditional ways to integrate and lift up the beauty and sacredness of other. It seeks new creative interpretations of Scripture. Wilber calls this the ‘self-transcending drive of the Kosmos’: ‘to go beyond what went before, and yet include what went before, and thus increase its own depth…as depth increases, consciousness increasingly awakens, Spirit increasingly unfolds. To say that evolution produces greater depth is simply to say that it unfolds greater consciousness.’ (KW, 37) And so the great importance of art and expression in the Christian endeavor: ‘The Kosmos, it seems, unfolds in quantum leaps of creative emergence…what is creativity but another name for Spirit?’ (KW, 22) What is holding us back from the potential?
Re-Languaging : Dewey and Boff
Many will say that engaging with Buddhism is not correct because Buddhism is non-theistic. Jensen presents Lindbeck in his book and the ‘language dilemma.’ To Lindbeck, ‘religions are self-enclosed linguistic systems and like languages, they can be understood only in their own terms, not by transporting them into an alien speech.’ (DJ, 12)
John Dewey calls for religion to be languaged in ‘adjectival form’ ‘denoting attitudes that may be taken toward every object and every proposed end or ideal.’ (JCA, 276) Faith, to Dewey, ‘signifies being conquered, vanquished in our active nature by an ideal end and then working to bring that ideal end (God)[7] into existence as far as it lies in our power.’ (JCA, 277) Language takes us somewhere like a boat to the Other side. Language takes us to a core realization. And it is important that we emerge outside of the ‘linguistic systems’ and move in ‘the spirit and truth’. Leonardo Boff spoke of the core realization and perhaps what Christ can mean in the multi-overlapping identity and linguistically pluralistic world: ‘Every time a human being opens to God and other, wherever true love exists and egoism is surpassed, when human beings seek justice, reconciliation, and forgiveness, there we have true Christianity and the Christic structure emerges within human history…Christianity not only exists where it is explicitly professed and lived in an orthodox manner but emerges whenever a human being says ‘Yes’ to goodness, truth and love.’ (LB, 248-249)
The content of Christian religious education therefore includes the beneficial texts of other religions and interaction with Others of difference. Those texts can help us in our understanding of Others and strengthen our own Christian foundation in Jesus Christ. The environment of the world and ‘Others of difference’ can be our teacher as we seek what is good, true and reflects love.
Global Praxis : Abrahamic Faiths
In Genesis 12.1-3, God told Abraham: ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you…and in all you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ (RSV)
Part of my philosophy of Christian religious education content includes the study of Genesis and the Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Islam, Christianity) to a goal of inter-religious dialogue and shared practice among Abrahamic faith communities..
Lewis Mudge is a leading proponent of a ‘greater ecumenism’. Whereas he acknowledges the riches that Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian and many other religious cultures offer, his motivation is to search for peace among the Abrahamic faiths. He states: ‘These (Abrahamic) faiths have been among the worst religious troublemakers through the centuries. Just to achieve a world without their involvements in religio-political violence would be more than well worth doing.’ (LM, 18) Therefore, Mudge places ‘inter-Abrahamic relationships’ as ‘the central issue’ of Christian inter-religious dialogue. His concern is for a ‘next ecumenism’; an ‘approach to what Christian theology in a pluralistic world now needs to be and seems at present so ill-equipped to become.’ (LM, 2)
For this movement to take place, he follows what we have been discussing; the necessity for ‘enlarging categories’ and ‘taking in new horizons’ in a ‘common theological project’.
Mudge’s emphasis is on ‘the gift of responsibility for Abrahamic blessing as a pivotal category’ (LM, 7). God offered Abraham and Sarah and Hagar and Ishmael to ‘bring through their descendents a covenantal blessing.’ (LM, 9) He states: ‘loyalty to the scriptural promises gives us a way to not let ourselves be used by political, economic or ideological forces.’ (LM, 9) Our call, according to Mudge, is to: ‘bring life to humankind…the gift of responsibility for interpretation – in the presence of, before the face of, the Other—that is intrinsic to the covenant Promise. And in turn, such responsible-to-Promise interpretation by Jews, Christians, Muslims – not to speak of other religious communities – is a ‘gift of responsibility’ to humankind in another sense: a gift of the presence of people whose behavior brings ‘blessing’ rather than ‘curse’’. (LM, 9)
Mudge is an advocate for a shared practice of ‘reading related scriptures together’ in inter-religious dialogue. Jews, Muslims and Christians share stories as it relates to Abrahamic blessing. Through an analysis of New Testament passages, Mudge points out that ‘the people of God have a responsibility not only for inheriting blessings (salvation, grace, well-being) for themselves, but for seeing to it that God’s intention that all the earth’s families are blessed is carried out.’ (LM, 15)
Following Mudge’s lead, the aim of Christian religious education should be to familiarize the Christian community with the shared responsibility of the Abrahamic faiths in building peace in cooperation with other ‘faith’ traditions. Mudge, in addressing the Faith and Order Commission at the National Council of Churches Ecumenical Conference at Oberlin in 2007, suggests ‘a program of shared reading of passages and others, including Qur’anic parallels, by representatives of the different faiths.’ (LM, 15) He gives examples of inter-religious dialogue models that are being experimented with in the United States and the Middle East that bring together Jewish, Christian and Muslims in the challenging task of ‘weaving a network of trust, solidarity and responsibility…to resist all ideological and political forces that seek to tear it apart.’ (LM, 17)
Table 3 (will somebody ever read this?) is a graphic representation of a global praxis aim of this Christian Religious education model. I propose that a thorough study of the book of Genesis by the Christian community is a good entry point in understanding the Abrahamic faith challenge (Mudge’s entry into New Testament passages as they relate to the Abrahamic covenant is also helpful).
The Abrahamic faith initiative is in its early stages and there are an increasing number of books of inter-textual analysis as it relates to the topic. A second movement for the Christian community would be to find ways of engaging with both the Judaic and Muslim community and search for means of fellowship. Suggesting a shared common good cause and working together in social action service could prove an excellent way of building community of Others-in-solidarity.
Conclusion
The aim of this effort has been to offer a view on what an expansive Christian education model might look like. The focus has been on creating a model that blends both a traditional Christian base with a more modern and global view. At center has been a worship-focus that seeks the sacred in place, in text and in ‘Other’. Engaging with an increasing level of ‘Others of difference’ is a luxury that we cannot ignore as concerned Christians. The principal concern is to create sound and vibrant Christian community foundation. With this, we must ‘extend our categories’ and see Christ in other traditions and thereby enrich our own endeavor in realizing a greater human fellowship; a fellowship that seeks a ‘radical openness’ to the diverse manifestations of the ‘Christic structure’ in the world and builds solidarity to bring greater peace and justice to Earth.
Bibliography: (LB): Boff, Leonardo. Christ the Liberator. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. 1972. (JCA): Campbell, James. Understanding John Dewey. Chicago, IL: Open Court. 1995. (JC): Cobb, John. Paul Knitter, ed. Transforming Christianity and the World. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. 1999. (DJ): Jensen, David. In the Company of Others. Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press. 2001. (LM): Mudge, Lewis. Abrahamic Faith Tradition Paper. NCC Ecumenical Conference. Oberlin, OH. 2007. (DT): Suzuki, D.T. Essays in Zen Buddhism: First Series. New York, NY: Grove Press. 1961. (KW): Wilber, Ken. A Brief History of Everything. Boston, MA: Shambala. 2000.
endnotes:
[1] Thomas Groome: ‘the only religious education I know sufficiently to share reflections on is the one I know from my own practice.’ Groome, Thomas, Christian Religious Education, (1980), 3. [2] In a Samaritan sense. [3] There is a Holy Spirit mystery and power that lies where ‘two or three are gathered in (Jesus’) name.’ This name of Jesus is contained in the spiritual-situational ethic of ‘loving God and neighbor as self.’ As I explore, the name of Jesus, in engaging with Others (of different traditions) moves further toward a spiritual ethic. Nonetheless, my own understanding is that within the Christian community (circles one and two), the complete story (both t and T) and Word hold within them a Spirit that directs both the community and the individual to the Truth in Jesus that suggests increasing layers of engagement with Others of difference. [4] My understanding of teacher-student-community relationship pulls from the letters of Paul and understanding Paul as ‘psychagogue’ using Hellenistic Stoic-Epicurean models. Each student is unique flowing out of conditions and experiences and carry with them unique mental dispositions and defenses (a radical change of commitment away from the ‘world and its inputs’ is needed). Therefore, the teacher, as ‘physician for the soul’, understands the uniqueness of his or her students and setting and uses appropriate ‘medicine’ for enacting a conversion and strong commitment to the aim of community. [5] Whereas traditionally much of the scholarship of CRE has been within the philosophies of the West, the global expansion that has brought the world to our current state calls for a greater merging of West-East philosophies. [6] And also interesting inter-religious topics of sharing. i.e. General 4 Noble Truths/8-Fold Path and Original Sin/10 Commandments, Buddhist Emptiness and Kenosis, the Bodhisattva and Christ. [7] To Dewey, God can be redefined as ‘the unity of all ideal ends arousing us to desires and actions…rejecting the pride of the elect.’ (JCA, 280). Common experience links mankind; ‘the flow of experience is the flow of experience that all humans face.’ (JCA, 282)
hope you enjoyed and got this far. comment and suggestion are welcome, peace. BW
