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Permalink: http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/459
Fulcrum Subjects: Other Faiths / Anglicanism, Church of England Other articles by Richard Sudworth are available from this site Discuss this Article on the Fulcrum Forum See the 26 comments on this article The Church of England and Islam:
Hospitality and Embassy - Theologies of Religion in Process
1. Pre-Lambeth 1988by Richard SudworthPart I of IV (see parts II, III, IV)
A Common Word throws into sharp relief the significance of what our own Christian understanding of Islam is. What are, indeed, Christian foundations for good relations with Muslims and how are the confluent and divergent histories of our respective faiths understood theologically from within the Christian tradition? Subsequent to its publication, the website has hosted reflections from Christian leaders and theologians, conferences have been convened and dialogue processes begun.4 The Church of England, serving a populace living with the reality of a post-secular society, and pivotal in an Anglican Communion that represents communities in some of the most sensitive locations for Christian-Muslim relations, cannot avoid the question of Islam in its midst. Indeed, statements about Islam from senior Anglican leaders, Archbishop Rowan Williams and Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, have arguably drawn more media attention and created more controversy than any corresponding pastoral sermons in recent years.5 Whether posed formally by A Common Word, or informally by the presence of a mosque opposite a church or a majority-Muslim church school, what does the Church of England think Islam is and on what basis are relations to be founded? As Jacques Waardenburg has said, “The first issue is simply that of identity: who are the Christians and the Muslims about whose relations we speak?”6 Though the interface between Islam and Christianity may seem to inform so much of the contemporary discourse on religions, Anglican assessments of Islam can be traced back to the origins of the English Reformation. The Church of England Prayer Books of 1549, 1552 and 1662 all contain, in the rite for Good Friday, the prayer: “Have mercy on all Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics”.7 In the context of the broader Reformation across Europe, the “Turks” were a peculiar class of infidel representing a goad to Christendom to avert God’s judgment poised against a corrupt and errant Catholic Church.8 As the Church of England embarked on a more substantive encounter with Islam into the missionary era of the nineteenth century, the role of the Turk as “enemy” was recast into the drama of British imperialism. Thus, the Anglican apologist and colonial civil servant William Muir could write in his bestselling account of the faith of Islam, The Life of Mahomet (1858-61): “the sword of Mahomet, and the Coran are the most fatal enemies of Civilization, Alongside the pejorative judgments and clear discontinuity with Islam expressed in the Book of Common Prayer, there is another more sympathetic stream that is evocative of fascination and curiosity. Within Anglicanism, there is evidence of a persistent stream of inquiry into Islam and the orient, typified in the early initiatives by Archbishop William Laud to establish a chair in Arabic Studies at Oxford University. Through Laud’s personal commitment to knowledge of Islam and the Islamic world, Edward Pococke (1604-1691), chaplain at Aleppo, was appointed the founding lecturer in Arabic at Oxford University, translated the Book of Common Prayer into Arabic (1672) and wrote a history of the Arab world, Specimen Historiae Arabum (1650), which remained the authoritative text for a hundred and fifty years or more.11 The Anglican clergyman Charles Forster (1787-1871) continued in the vein of an open inquiry into the nature of Islam, offering a more irenic counterpoint to Muir’s characterization of Islam as inherently destructive to civilisation. His Mahometanism Unveiled (1829) caused considerable controversy by questioning the premise of Islam’s violence, recognising that “Islam is a spiritual religion” and “distortion and prejudice obscured facts in common understanding of Islam.”12 For many commentators, the Western Christian assessment of Islam, typified by the English Anglicans up to the Victorian age, was “a blend of patronizing disdain and romanticization of the Orient and the Levant.”13 Islam was essentially still “over there” in terms of the perception of the Church of England until the second half of the twentieth century. However, we shall see that the work of a number of Anglican missionaries has contributed to a vital and creative reflection on the nature of Islam and its relationship to the Christian faith. In exploring the Church of England’s understanding of Islam, I am seeking a theology of interfaith relations that seems to be authoritative for the context of Christian-Muslim relations in England whilst drawing from the Anglican tradition as a whole. In doing so, there is a recognition of the inclusive nature of Anglican theology, the adiaphora characteristic of the roots of Anglican self-identity supremely articulated by Richard Hooker in the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. Joan Lockwood-O’Donovan summarises Hooker’s contribution, the “theological architect of the Church of England”, as “a masterly account of the interaction of such judgments of divinely revealed truths and commands, rational principles of right, justice and equity, the universal and local traditions of the church, and particular exigencies of time and place.”`14 Thus, scripture, reason, and tradition15 need to be brought to bear in expressing the Church of England’s understanding of Islam; an understanding that will be especially attentive to context whilst sensitive to the global identities of a Communion of Anglicanism that is itself in encounter with a faith of universal aspiration. As Michael Ipgrave points out in his description of Anglican approaches to inter-faith relations, Lambeth Conferences are significant expressions of Church thinking for the Anglican Communion globally whilst lacking the definitive status of, say, Roman Catholic conciliar decrees.16 For this series of articles, then, I will be analysing a number of Lambeth Conference resolutions alongside formal statements and initiatives local to the Church of England. Lambeth Conferences Pre-1988
The Lambeth Conference of 1897 published an Encyclical Letter that sought to settle a policy for inter-faith relations and provides an early positing of the priority of the triumvirate of Christian-Jewish-Muslim relations: “In preaching His Gospel to the world we have to deal with one great religious body, which holds the truth in part not in its fullness, the Jews; with another which holds fragments of the truth embedded in a mass of falsehood, the Mohammedans; and with various races which hold inherited beliefs ranging down to the merest fetichism.”17 In this short statement one sees the framing of interfaith relations in the context of mission (“His Gospel”) and an evident tension in seeking out that which is truthful in other religious traditions whilst holding fast to the Gospel “lest that good, such as it is” become a “substitute for the Gospel”. At a time when the bulk of Anglican encounters with Muslims would be in the context of parishes and bishoprics established from missionary stations, the prior motive of evangelism seems to be paramount, tempered by the commitment to truth in the affirmation of what is consonant in other traditions. Within this schema, Islam offers something more than “merest fetichism”, but as embodying elements of truth, obscured by lies; Judaism as incomplete truths. It is over seventy years before Islam is addressed again during a Lambeth Conference. In that intervening period, two world wars and the steady dismantling of the British Empire witness a growing attention to ecumenical endeavours. The first World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh, 1910, marked what David Bosch sees as the “all-time highwater mark in Western missionary enthusiasm, the zenith of the optimistic and pragmatist approach to missions.”18 Bosch notes the harnessing of Enlightenment progress thinking in the resources available to world evangelization, as described in Edinburgh, that provided a symbiosis between Christian missionary endeavours and the colonial project.19 The carnage of two World Wars and, for the British, a steady dismantling of empire, began to undermine the optimism in the fruits of “secular science” that was so evident at Edinburgh 1910.20 Importantly for the Church of England, though, Temple Gairdner, Church Missionary Society missionary and Arabicist, was entrusted with presenting to Edinburgh 1910 on the nature of Islam and reporting back to the Church on the proceedings.21 For all the naïve optimism and combative overtones that are replete in the language of Edinburgh 1910, there are some remarkable statements that anticipate the work of Kenneth Cragg and inform so much of subsequent Anglican thinking. Islam was deemed a “living faith” “intense, more intimate and more comprehensive than sight”.22 As Vinoth Ramachandra points out, “The Report dares to ask: “Have we in our modern theology and religion sufficiently recognised what Islam stands for – the unity and the sovereignty of God?””23 From the heart of the missionary enterprise, and exemplified by Temple Gairdner, then, is an assessment of Islam that strives to see beyond the polemical, to encounter Islam in its genuine otherness, but with respect, and in Gairdner’s language, love. The burgeoning concern for ecumenical unity is evident in the Encyclical Letters of the Lambeth Conference of 1930 which talk of “that great human family of which God is the Father”.24 The parallel tracks of mission and unity that become embodied in the World Council of Churches are evident, too, in the call for ecumenical relations on the basis that “Every extension of this circle of visible fellowship would increase the power of the Church to witness to its Lord by its unity.”25 It is in the Lambeth Conference of 1968 that the language and imperative of dialogue becomes first apparent, though. In a decade exercised by the applied ecclesiology modelled in Vatican II, interfaith dialogue is seen not in the context of a theology of religions but in the reality of plural life, which includes atheism and Marxism. Thus, Resolution 11 encourages “positive relationship to the different religions of men (sic)” as will “call Christians not only to study other faiths in their own seriousness, but also to study unbelief in its real quality”. Resolution 12 further recommends “a renewed and vigorous implementation of the task of inter-religious dialogue already set in hand” and “commends similar assistance for dialogue with Marxists and those who profess no religious faith”.26 Michael Ipgrave assesses this shift to situate the religions within a wider diversity of belief systems as expressing the priority of dialogue with diversity rather than with an attention to a theological assessment of the realities of that diversity.27 In the Lambeth Conference of 1978, Resolution 37, there is a return to the framing of interfaith relations within the “Gospel” but this is opened out to include “the obligation to open exchange of thought and experience with people of other faiths”. There is no mention of atheistic ideologies this time, suggesting perhaps the previous 1968 Conference’s own preoccupations with the foment of the Cold War, student protests and the nascent social liberalism of that era. There is a recognition of the “vocation” of churches in, again, a broader mission of “theological interpretation, community involvement, social responsibility, and evangelization” where specific other religions predominate (Hinduism, Buddhism, Taosim, Confucianism, and Islam). No theological assessment of these faiths is attempted. However, there is a very specific mention of the need to “seek opportunities for dialogue with Judaism”, hinting at the especial obligation to remedy of Christian-Jewish relations post-Holocaust that had so charged the climate of Vatican II. Prior to Lambeth 1988, then, there seems to be no coherent and substantive analysis of Islam by the Anglican Communion. From a predominantly missionary, and oftentimes imperialistic vantage point, Islam then begins to be seen in the context of ecumenical and dialogical relations. The challenges of atheism and secularism in a growing plural polity seem to have exercised the Anglican Communion more than Islam, per se from the 1960’s onwards. As the analysis moves into the 1980’s, it is worth noting that, given the longstanding history of coexistence and encounter between Anglican churches and Islam, the period of considered institutional reflection is remarkably brief. Footnotes
1 A Common Word between Us and You, available from http://www.acommonword.com/index.php?lang=en&page=option1 downloaded 14th January 2009 2 A Common Word notes that the other “People of the Book” are Jews but otherwise focuses attention on this theme with respect to the relationship between Christians and Muslims only 3http://www.acommonword.com/index.php?lang=en&page=option1 p. 1 4 See the A Common Word website for the progress of various initiatives: http://www.acommonword.com 5 see Williams, R. “Archbishop’s Lecture: Civil and Religious Law in England: A Religious Perspective”, 7th February 2008, downloaded from http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/1575 on 24th April, 2008 for the text of what has become known as the “sharia law speech” of Archbishop Rowan Williams and Nazir-Ali, M. “Extremism flourished as UK lost Christianity”, Daily Telegraph 11th January, 2008, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1574695/Extremism-flourished-as-UK-lost-Christianity.html downloaded 17th October 2008 for Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali’s “no-go areas” article 6 Waardenburg, J. “Critical Issues in Muslim-Christian Relations: theoretical, practical, dialogical, scholarly”, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Volume 8, No. 1, (1997): 9-26, p.12 7 For an analysis of the development away from this characterization of Jews in the liturgy of the Church of England Prayer Book, see Richard Harries’ After the Evil: Christianity and Judaism in the Shadow of the Holocaust, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) 8 See MacCulloch, D. Reformation: Europe’s House Divided 1490-1700, (London: Penguin Books, 2004), pp. 53-57 & 550-555 on the significance of the threat of the “Turk” in framing the context of Reformation across Europe 9 Quoted in Ansari, H. “The Infidel Within”: Muslims in Britain since 1800, (London: Hurst & Company, 2004), p. 61 10 Ansari, H. “The Infidel Within”, p. 61 11 Khalaf, S. “Protestant Images of Islam: disparaging stereotypes reconfirmed”, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Volume 8, No. 2, (1997): 211-229, p. 215 12 Bennett, C. Victorian Images of Islam, (London: Grey Seal Books, 1992), pp. 28-9 13 Khalaf, S. “Protestant Images of Islam”, p. 211 14 Lockwood-O’Donovan, J. “The Church of England and the Anglican Communion: a timely engagement with the national church tradition?”, Scottish Journal of Theology, 57, (2004): 313-337, p. 325 15 It is beyond the scope of this study to assess the legitimacy of the Anglican triad of scripture, reason, and tradition though it is worth noting Lesslie Newbigin’s Barthian critique of the distinct nature of these sources in Newbigin, L. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, (London: SPCK, 1999), pp. 52-65. For Newbigin, there has been a split between faith and reason, dating back to Aquinas and responsible for modernity’s “classical distinction between theory and practice” which operates to the detriment of embodied, local witness, Le Roy Stults, D. Grasping Truth and Reality: Lesslie Newbigin’s Theology of Mission to the Western World, (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2009), p.131 16 Ipgrave, M. “Understanding, Affirmation, Sharing: Nostra Aetate and an Anglican Approach to Inter-Faith Relations”, Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Volume 43, No. 1, (Winter 2008): 1-16, p. 2 17 “Encyclical Letter, Lambeth Conference, 1897”, The Anglican Tradition: A Handbook of Sources, edited by Evans, G. R. & Robert Wright, J., (London: SPCK, 1991), p. 360 18 Bosch, D. J. Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1991), Transforming Mission, p. 338 19 Bosch, D. J., Transforming Mission, p. 336 20 Bosch, D. J., Transforming Mission, pp. 334-341. Bosch identifies Edinburgh 1910 as the source of the re-birthed ecumenical movement. The challenges to Enlightenment optimism of two world wars have accelerated the cause of unity that has been embodied in the dichotomy of unity and mission at the inception of the World Council of Churches in 1948, Bosch, D. J., Transforming Mission, pp. 457-461 21 Padwick, C. E., Temple Gairdner of Cairo, (London: SPCK, 1929), p. 198 22 Gairdner, T. Edinburgh 1910: An Account and Interpretation of the World Missionary Conference, (Edinburgh: Oliphant, 1910), pp 128-9 23 Ramachandra, V. The Missionary Message in Relation to Non-Christian Religions: The Edinburgh 1910 Commission IV Report and Beyond, available from http://www.towards2010.org.uk/downloads/t2010paper04ramachandra.pdf p. 3, downloaded 21st July, 2009 24 “Encyclical Letter, Lambeth Conference, 1930”, The Anglican Tradition, edited by Evans, G. R. & Robert Wright, J., p. 389 25 “Encyclical Letter, Lambeth Conference, 1930”, The Anglican Tradition, edited by Evans, G. R. & Robert Wright, J., p. 391 26 for extracts of Lambeth Conference resolutions on interfaith matters to 1988 see Ingham, M. Mansions of the Spirit: The Gospel in a Multi-Faith World, (Toronto: Anglican Book Centre, 1997), pp. 141-143 27 Ipgrave, M. “Understanding, Affirmation, Sharing”, p. 2 Bibliography
Ansari, H. “The Infidel Within”: Muslims in Britain since 1800, (London: Hurst & Company, 2004) Bennett, C. Victorian Images of Islam, (London: Grey Seal Books, 1992) Bosch, D. J. Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1991) Evans, G. R. & Robert Wright, J. (eds.) The Anglican Tradition: A Handbook of Sources, (London: SPCK, 1991) Gairdner, T. Edinburgh 1910: An Account and Interpretation of the World Missionary Conference, (Edinburgh: Oliphant, 1910) Harries, Richard. After the Evil: Christianity and Judaism in the Shadow of the Holocaust, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) Ingham, M. Mansions of the Spirit: The Gospel in a Multi-Faith World, (Toronto: Anglican Book Centre, 1997) Ipgrave, M. “Understanding, Affirmation, Sharing: Nostra Aetate and an Anglican Approach to Inter-Faith Relations”, Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Volume 43, No. 1, (Winter 2008): 1-16 Khalaf, S. “Protestant Images of Islam: disparaging stereotypes reconfirmed”, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Volume 8, No. 2, (1997): 211-229 Le Roy Stults, D. Grasping Truth and Reality: Lesslie Newbigin’s Theology of Mission to the Western World, (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2009) Lockwood-O’Donovan, J. “The Church of England and the Anglican Communion: a timely engagement with the national church tradition?”, Scottish Journal of Theology, 57, (2004): 313-337 MacCulloch, D. Reformation: Europe’s House Divided 1490-1700, (London: Penguin Books, 2004) Nazir-Ali, M. “Extremism flourished as UK lost Christianity”, Daily Telegraph 11th January, 2008, Padwick, C. E., Temple Gairdner of Cairo, (London: SPCK, 1929) Ramachandra, V. The Missionary Message in Relation to Non-Christian Religions: The Edinburgh 1910 Commission IV Report and Beyond, available from http://www.towards2010.org.uk/downloads/t2010paper04ramachandra.pdf downloaded 21st July, 2009 Waardenburg, J. “Critical Issues in Muslim-Christian Relations: theoretical, practical, dialogical, scholarly”, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Volume 8, No. 1, (1997): 9-26 Williams, R. “Archbishop’s Lecture: Civil and Religious Law in England: A Religious Perspective”, 7th February 2008, downloaded from http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/1575 on 24th April, 2008 Reports in Chronological Order:
A Common Word between Us and You, available from http://www.acommonword.com/index.php?lang=en&page=option1 downloaded 14th January 2009 Richard Sudworth is a Church Mission Society mission partner, working for a confident, relational engagement with other faiths. He is also a pioneer ordinand at Queens Foundation, Birmingham and is studying part-time for a PhD in Christian-Muslim relations at Heythrop College, University of London. Richard edits and writes his blog: Distinctly Welcoming
Discuss this Article on the Fulcrum Forum Forum Posts About This Article:Posted by: Clare Saturday 10 October 2009 - 05:55pm wggrace you are quite right I am using the wrong word as Celinda kindly pointed out to me - I did post a reply acknowledging this but I compunded my error by posting it on the wrong thread! Posted by: wggrace Thursday 8 October 2009 - 09:30am I think Celinda is closer to the mark in her understanding of the term judaisers than Clare. Clare seems to say that the Judaisers, a word invented in the 19C to discuss issues within Pauline theology especially in Romans and Galatians, can be equated with the Jews in John's writings. There are fundamental differences however. In the use in Pauline theology, Judaisers are Christians presumably but not necessarily from a Jewish background, who think that Gentile Christians need to identify with the trappings of Jewish identity. I say not necessarily Jewish as it is possible that Gentiles who have made the full transition to Judaism and only then to Christ, or after making the transition to Christ go onto to embrace Judaism, may have formed an important part of this party within Christianity. The Jews in John are not Christians, Jewish or otherwise. They are Jews of course, which as I said above need not be true of the Judaisers in the Pauline context. What makes them stand out is their apparent determination to thrust Jewish Christians out from the Jewish community and it is this which arouses the opposition of the Evangelist. Thus the debate in Pauline letters concerns debates between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians about the role of the Jewish law, perhaps with Jews and Gentiles on both sides of the debate. But in all cases a debate between Christians. But the debate in John's Gospel is between Jews, some of whom are Christians and some who wish to exclude these Jewish Christians (i.e. who are NOT Christians). This latter group is referred to by the Evangelist as 'The Jews'. There is a book which I have never read by Steve Motyer which tackles the issue of antisemtitism in John's Gospel. Although I have never read it, I am confident that it is most helpful on this issue as Steve is always enlightening. Posted by: Celinda Sunday 4 October 2009 - 03:50pm Thanks, Clare, and I agree with you about how we should treat the Koran. About "Judaizers"--I thought that term referred to those who wanted new Christians to be circumcized and follow the dietary laws of the OT, and wasn't used as so much as a term of opprobrium, but simply as a way of referring those who strongly felt that you had to be fully Jewish before you could be fully Christian. If it was ever used as an excuse to persecute someone, rather than simply a way to set policy as Christianity developed, it was a wrong interpretation. Posted by: Clare Sunday 4 October 2009 - 09:46am Nor do I, Celinda. The word 'the Jews' in John is better translated as 'the judaisiers' and is polemic about a particular group and absolutely not about the Jewish people as we now understand them. (I still think the polemic is a bit OTT at times, but I also love this gospel)The point I was making was that our texts and traditions have been held up to justify all sorts of atrocities so it is not suprising that the same is true of other religions. We would hate it if Muslims told us our religion was anti-semitic on the basis of a particular reading of the fourth gospel which has been used sinfully to justify all sorts evil. We should extend the same courtesy to Muslims as we would like ourselves and always go for the most charitable interpretation of their texts and traditions. rather than the most negative ones. Us Christians have let ourselves off the hook too quickly regarding our previous anti-semitism. Yes we've repented of that - superficially at least - but not addressed the roots cause- our need to derive and identity that comes from being 'better' than other religions rather than founding our identity on Christ. previously we saw ourselves as 'better' than those evil Christ-killers, now we see ourselves as 'better' than those evil terrorists. In so doing, not only do we bear false witness against our sisters and brothers and against the reality of our own sin, but we also stop trusting that in Jesus we have all the justification we need - we do not need to be 'better' because we know ourselves to be loved. I have this real fear that sooner or later some mad Islamists will do something so awful that the whole Muslim people will be scapegoated - the gas chambers or whatever horrific 21st Century equivalent we invent will be full of Muslims rather than Jews this time. Posted by: Celinda Sunday 4 October 2009 - 02:08am What Clare says about the Gospel of John is reflected in one of the resolutions passed at TEC's General Convention this year (readings suggested to accompany the Gospel to warn the listener). An amendment was suggested which said the warnings would be against how the gospel had been taken at times in history, rather than the Gospel itself, but it failed. When I first heard the claim against the Gospel several years ago, I was very surprised because of a growing up experience of my own--it was my mother's favorite gospel, but at the same time my mother was deeply opposed to anti-semitism (she quit a women's group because a prospective member was said to have a name which "sounded Jewish", for instance). It's quite terrible that the gospel was taken to mean what Clare mentions, but I simply do not believe that such an interpretation was the intent of the writer. Posted by: Clare Saturday 3 October 2009 - 10:22pm Dispassionate analysis is far more likely to show that the gospel of john has a good claim to be the father of modern anti-Semitism. Is our memory of the centuries we have perpetrated anti-semitism really that weak or are we projecting our own guilt elsewhere. Muslims are fast becoming the 'new Jews' with rubbish along the lines of the protocols of Zion being published in so called respectable places. Looks like christians are not only colluding with this but actually leading the charge. Wake up and smell the islamophobia! Posted by: Dave Monday 28 September 2009 - 09:52pm The common good is best served by a critical examination of the life and teaching of Mohammed. We need to look in particular at how he treated the Jews in Medina and his relationships with his own people. I fear that a dispassionate analysis with show that he has a good claim to be the father of modern anti-Semitism and terrorism David Posted by: Deleted user 1222 Wednesday 23 September 2009 - 06:09pm It seems that the encounter with Islam is framed by a backward moving rentrenchment into Christianity. I rather would just look at some of the larger theological issues for comparison. For example, Christianity has a self-limiting God expressed through Greek culture, for which those forms have been critical - the Septuagint and therefore the forms of ideology in the New Testament, and subsequent developments up to the creeds and more. And Islam starts as a sort of religious tribal communism, out of which is a God wholly transcendent and without any self-limitation. To me it just demonstrates the relativity of both positions, but more so the Christian one as it is more culturally limited especially if it absolutises some of these concepts. Posted by: Dave Wednesday 23 September 2009 - 11:37am How does this impact on to the churches relationship with Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses? David 
Posted by: Jody
Wednesday 23 September 2009 - 09:15am
Dear Friends we have just published the final part of Richard Sudworth's article: The Church of England and Islam: Hospitality and Embassy - Theologies of Religion in Process, 4. Generous Love - 2008 and Beyond. Please use this thread to discuss. blessings, Jody
Posted by: Jody
Tuesday 15 September 2009 - 09:11am
Dear Friends we have just published: The Church of England and Islam: Hospitality and Embassy - Theologies of Religion in Process: Part III Initiatives of the Church of England, by Richard Sudworth as this thread is already begun, please continue to use it to discuss these articles. every blessing, Jody Posted by: jerome106 Saturday 12 September 2009 - 12:12am In E. M. Forster's Passage to India the British headmaster and his Muslim friend discuss their different world-views and approaches to life: The headmaster says: "I travel light!". The Muslim thinks: "So this is why the headmaster and others were so fearless! The had nothing to lose. But he (the headmaster) himself was rooted in society and Islam. He belonged to a tradition which bound him, and he had brought children into the world, the society of the future. Though he lived so vaguely in this flimsy bungalow, nevertheless he was placed, placed". Forster's description of Aziz, the headmaster, captured exactly how the Muslim sense of placement, of being defined by one's social world is still very much alive in every Muslim country. For centuries Islam has covered, encircled, and projected its prophetic vision of the ordering of all human society onto every Muslim who is and will submit to the worship of the one God who has no companion let alone a spirit. Muslims live this singular discipline and marshall their lives and those of millions of people in all the world's continents that once were Christian. An ancient Muslim tradition quotes a dialogue between a Christian monk and a Muslim official who says: "why has God handed you over into our hands". Islam is more than a faith. The Quran reports much more about Moses the lawgiver and warrior than it does Abraham the believer. More must also be done in contemporary discussions with and about Muslims than that envisaged even by the almost 50 year old Nostra Aetate. Posted by: Colin Tuesday 8 September 2009 - 05:16pm First of all, Richard, thanks for the work that's gone into this. Its very helpful and highlights a number of issues. I await the rest of the articles before any further critique. I would suggest this would help Christian in his struggle with obfuscation as so far this has been an historical analysis rather than a way forward Colin Posted by: Celinda Tuesday 8 September 2009 - 03:29pm I don't see any obfuscation at all. I see a refusal to look patiently at all the sources, like the ones Laud initiated and the person who wrote that article in 1829. I see no indication that we are bound to consider Muir's report as more authoritative than the others. Oversimplification (which I think David and Christian are doing) does not help in stating truth or imitating Jesus. We do need to make a vital Christian witness. We don't do it by ignoring something we find difficult to follow. Posted by: Richard Sudworth Tuesday 8 September 2009 - 01:16pm I'm not sure what to make of "Christian's" evident struggle with the articles published so far other than to affirm my agreement with the Colossians passage quoted! But it is one thing to believe in the central tenets of one's own Christian faith and another to be categoric about the entirety of another's religious tradition. One of the difficulties of a Christian engagement with Islam is the nature of some of the similarities which necessitate some sifting of the truths (with a small "t"). I hope, as you read the articles, and David H. do stick with the remaining two pieces also, you will see that the contemporary Church of England is far more able to allow for the existence of the very real differences that do exist, too. My contention is that, contrary to much public perception, the Church of England's current stance on interfaith theology and practice makes it a much more comfortable place for evangelicals to be than it has been for over 30 years. Posted by: Christian Tuesday 8 September 2009 - 11:04am Having waded through parts I and 2; I am at a loss of words for all the obfuscation I have endured, other than to attach the following comment made by Paul (kin of Abraham?) to the Church at Colossaie. COL 2:6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. COL 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. COL 2:9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority. 11 In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. COL 2:13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. Posted by: Dave Tuesday 8 September 2009 - 09:54am Celinda, Please do not put words into my mouth. My point was simply that Muir had articulated an understanding of Islam which I understand was the dominant one in 19th Century England and the church at that time. I do not consiser which church he belonged to as a relevant factor in determining the wisdom of his analysis. Thus I thought that Richard's conclusion was at variance with the body of this article but apparently I misunderstood him. The second article states that "Nostra aetate famously shuns an assessment of the status of the Quran or Muhammad". As the article later makes clear this is the basis of much of the criticism of the current Anglican approach to Islam. As I see it this approach puts a low value on Jesus and a low value on truth. As suchg it should be resisted by evangelicals. I hope that makes things clear David Posted by: Celinda Tuesday 8 September 2009 - 02:24am David H--in your opinion, was Muir's the only work on Islam by Anglicans in the mid 17th and 19th centuries that had value? It's the one you cite a couple of posts back, and the most negative one. You make no reference to the other work referred to in the article we are discussing. That, to me, is a pretty big elephant in the room. Posted by: Dave Monday 7 September 2009 - 09:34pm The moral character of Mohammed or rather lack thereof and the inspiration or otherwise of the Koran ore rather big elephants in the room. No wonder the CofE has failed to get to grips with Islam Posted by: Celinda Sunday 6 September 2009 - 04:19pm I agree with wggrace. Also--could the very different attitudes of Archbishop Laud (mid 1600s? --I'm thinking about the Arabic studies chair at Oxford), Forester (1829) and Muir (1858-60 or thereabouts) have something to do with differing relationships between England and Islamic countries during those times? Posted by: wggrace Sunday 6 September 2009 - 09:21am Is part of the problem that Islam is not so uniform that one can really talk sensibly about "Islam is..." Perhaps that is the problem with Muir, although I have never read him and am not likely to having heard what he says. He speaks of an Islam that was perhaps true in some places with some people. But now? In other places? With other people? Equally the Islam of today is extremely variegated. Can we say "Islam is..."? Surely we have to say, "This version of Islam is like this and we can relate to it is this way and this other version of Islam is like that and we need to relate to is in a different way." Posted by: Richard Sudworth Friday 4 September 2009 - 11:03am Thanks for your comments. The "institutional reflection" that I am suggesting is only relatively recent, for me, is constituted by formal Lambeth resolutions and statements by Archbishops. Up until the 1980's, Islam was only ever addressed incidently, as outlined in the first paper (whether in the Book of Common Prayer or to broader statements on mission by Lambeth Conference). The reflections of Muir, initiatives of Pococke and the waves of missionary scholarship from Gairdner, through Cragg, are constitutive of individual passions and concerns not institutional trajectories of the Church of England. The challenge is to arrive at some coherent and specifically "Anglican" assessment of Islam relevant to today that may well draw from and affirm some of these significant forebears. Posted by: Peter Waddell Friday 4 September 2009 - 10:53am No - I don't think the issue is how long the period of institutional reflection has been, but rather in what sense Muir's could possibly be called a substantive assessment of Islam. At least from this article, it appears to judge that Islam is simply false and destructive. You don't have to be an appalling theological liberal to suspect that that isn't quite good enough... Posted by: Celinda Friday 4 September 2009 - 04:41am William Muir's was one of several analyses mentioned in this very interesting article, and probably the longest (four best selling volumes published 1858-61). I was surprised to read that Muir's predominantly negative view of Islam ("inherently destructive to civilization") came a generation after the more positive view in the Charles Forester book (1829); Forester had said "Islam is a spiritual religion," and "distortion and prejudice obscured facts in common understanding of Islam." And I was amazed that almost two centuries before that Archbishop Laud "established a chair in Islamic Studies at Oxford"--that he "had a personal commitment to knowledge of Islam and the Islamic World." I would like to know more about Edward Pococke (1604-1691), the founding lecturer in Arabic at Oxford. About David H's observation about the statement at the end of the article ("the period of institutional reflection is remarkably brief"): we need to know, I guess, what is meant by "the period of institutional reflection." Thanks to Fulcrum for publishing this article, which I am sharing with a cousin who is doing a doctoral dissertation on missionary activity in Turkey in the 19th century. Posted by: Dave Wednesday 2 September 2009 - 10:10pm I am surprised by the conclusion as the article indicates that William Muir gave Anglicanism a coherent and substantive analysis of Islam. David
Posted by: Jody
Wednesday 2 September 2009 - 03:38pm
Dear Friends we have just published part I of a IV part series entitled 'The Church of England and Islam', by Richard Sudworth. Please use this thread to discuss the article. blessings, Jody |
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