Christian-Muslim-Jewish friendship thread

[niminypiminy]

I've had a talk with Crescentmoon about starting a thread where Christians and Muslims can hold out our hands in friendship to one another. I feel like we have so much to offer one another, and I certainly would love to learn more about Islam, and to understand the ways in which my Muslim sisters live out their faith. Would anybody else like to join?

I'm niminypiminy, and I'm a member of the Church of England, and work, and have two children. I realise that I'd don't even know if there is an equivalent in Islam for the different denominations (aside from Sunni and Shia, which I'm not at all confident I correctly understand the difference between). I'm going to be offline for a couple of days, so can't get back to reply, but if anybody would like to use this thread to come together as Christians trying to live out our faith, and to prayerfully and open-heartedly welcome and understand each other...

[twistyfeet]

Messandmayhem. Just call your local reform synagogue. They generally welcome guests or have open days.

[stressedHEmum]

Jesus was a great social reformer, crescent. That's one of the most important bits of Christianity, I think. He challenged attitudes to the poor, the disabled, the marginalised, women and children and realised that those at the bottom of the heap were as important, if not more so, than those at the top.

It runs all through the Gospels. The healing of the blind, deaf, dumb and paralysed. The healing of lepers and those with mental illness, of the woman with menstrual problems (unthinkable, really, because she would have been permanently ritually unclean).

Then you have the time that he spent in Samaria, the healing of the Roman officer's child, eating with tax collectors and the like and the very fact that he travelled with WOMEN!

Top it all off with his emphasis on the compassionate aspects of the Law rather than the ritual and the way that he valued the contributions of the poor so highly (widow's mite etc.) and, I think, that He was revolutionary.

I think that we can all learn a lot from Jesus even if we aren't Christian. The example of compassion and of open-mindedness that He set is enormous. It certainly inspires me to do what I can for those who are suffering and challenges me to have a more caring, less judgemental or dismissive attitude to those on the margins of our society. I think that His example has always informed my political thought, as well, making me strife towards fairness and a more equal society because, as a Christian, you have to realise that Jesus came for everyone, not just the better off, the important, the bright, the "deserving", but those at the bottom or on the edges, those who are different, those we don't like and those we don't want to welcome.

it's a big challenge, but imagine what the world would be like if everyone tried to do that.

[stressedHEmum]

I think, crescent, that it's both explicit and implicit. As you say, Jesus taught that the 2 greatest commandments are

to love the Lord, your God, with all your heart mind strength and soul
and
to love your neighbour AS YOURSELF

He says that these two commands are the summation of the whole of the Law and the Prophets.

that's a really, really tall order. When you put it together with the new commandment that Jesus gave us - to love one another as I have loved you - and all his teachings on service (the greatest shall be least and the least greatest, the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, etc.) it has a great deal of force behind it. Service and justice should never be optional for a Christian, they are central to the faith. For me, it's all kind of summed up in the Golden Rule -do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I would like to hope that if was hungry, someone would feed me, if I was sick, someone would help me, if I was lonely, someone would befriend me, so this is what I try to do. but it's so much more than that.

It all means that we should guard our tongues and not speak nastily to people, that we should always try to be king and welcoming, that we should try to be considerate, empathetic and non judgemental -

"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way as you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. ?Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother?s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"

It's also incumbent on us to be law abiding, tax-paying citizens. when asked about paying taxes to the occupying Romans, Jesus told us to "render unto Caesar, Caesar's due."

I think that these things are also implicit in Jesus' actions - he healed people from all sorts of backgrounds, spent time with those whom others avoided, even his disciples were ordinary people who had no real importance in their society or who were actively disliked (Matthew was a tax collector). DO you know the story of Zacchaeus the tax collector? I think the lessons to be taken from that make it obvious that we should be fair, honest and try to make things better for those around us (amongst other things.)

To be honest, we all fall far short of this ideal, but it shouldn't stop us trying to live up to it or working towards it.

One of the things that makes Jesus seem more real to me is that the Gospels often talk about His emotions. He feels sorry for the crowds that follow him, he is moved to tears by the grief of his friends, he is tormented by fear and doubt in Gethsemane and loads more. it shows me that Jesus understood and really felt what it is to be human.

[Tuo]

Lovely post, Stressed. I really agree about the focus on Jesus' emotions. I would add, in illustration of your point about loving your neighbour, http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+10%3A25-37&version=NIV the parable of the Good Samaritan.

There are many things that are wonderful and illustrative about this story. It reminds us that our neighbours are not only those people who are like us, but also those whom we have perhaps been accustomed to look down on or to disregard or to see as a problem. It really illustrates the point that Stressed made about how 'neigbourliness' in this sense is a two-way business (we give as we are able and receive as we have need). In this sense Jesus' agenda can be seen as having a 'political' side to it, in that he's really concerned with how we live in community with others in the here-and-now (not just looking towards the hereafter), and not just in communities of like-minded souls either, but in mixed communities where there are immigrants, and refugees, and people who wield power over others, and people with disabilities, people who find it hard to fit in, but who are, nonetheless, part of the community, within which we need to work to live well, not just for ourselves but for others.

But this story also illustrates really nicely, I think, and in keeping with the ethos of this thread, how Jesus doesn't just come and overturn the old law and say that it's all a load of rubbish and no-one needs to follow it any more because he has come along with something new. Rather, the story is rooted in Christianity's Jewish roots. When Jesus says 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind?, he is quoting the Shema, the most fundamental prayer of Judaism. He does say in various other places that rigorous adherence to some of the more specific and detailed laws is not necessary in order to achieve salvation... I suppose he simplifies the Law and takes it right back to this fundamental root. But at the centre of what he recommends here is something that his Jewish questioner would absolutely have taken for granted. So although the 'hero' of this story is the Samaritan, Jesus is not in any way 'rubbishing' priests and Levites in general; he is simply saying that it doesn't matter what your status is in society or within your own religion - what matters is how you behave towards others. But what will ultimately determine how you behave towards others is your understanding (whether you understand it through having studied it, as the priest and Levite in the story would have done and as would Jesus' questioner, or instinctively, like the Samaritan) of that law that Jesus quotes first: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbour as yourself.

[Tuo]

Bother... My keyboard is on its last legs and keeps putting in spaces where they are not wanted.

Trying again with the link: The Good Samaritan

[niminypiminy]

Great posts from Stressed and Tuo. I'd just add that although Jesus does say he comes to fulfil the law not to destroy it (I've just been re-reading the Gospel of Matthew and it is very striking how much this is the theme of that gospel), and although it is clear that Jesus was a devout Jew, in other respects he makes a huge challenge to the Judaism of his day.

One of the themes of the Old Testament is the dawning realisation on the part of the Israelites that they have to be a holy people. Pleasing God isn't simply a matter of offering sacrifices in the temple, but of dedicating their whole lives to God, and of living in a holy (meaning set apart for God) way. Holiness was about an entire way of life, and its rules were set down in the Mosaic code.

When Jesus does is to challenge first century ideas about the holy life being about strict adherence to the code, and particularly to its provisions about purity and impurity. It would have been impossible for many people to have kept these (all agricultural workers, for instance), so many Jews would have been unclean, and so unholy -- and would have been unable to ritually clean themselves.

If you look at Jesus's actions and his parables, time and time again he challenges the holiness practices of his time. He touches lepers and haemorrhaging women -- people so disgustingly unclean that they would have contaminated anybody that touched them. He seeks out the physically maimed and touches them (not only that, he cures them with his own spit!). He seeks out people shouting out obscenities and blasphemies, and talks to them. He seeks out not-us people like Samarians, and he seeks out people working for the occupying enemy, like tax collectors, and he will even heal Romans (that is, the hated occupying forces). And what is more, he does all this on the holy day. And then he goes on to say that the whole basis of holiness, of keeping oneself clean for God is completely wrong: it is not what goes into us that makes us unclean, it is what comes out of us.

The depth of this challenge cannot be underestimated. Jesus is taking 1st century Judaism and turning it round stripping it back to the basics and saying 'don't live like that live like this'. And the way of life he lives out is crazily revolutionary: seek out the outcasts, seek out the people no one else wants, touch them, treat them as your family; give away everything; forgive and forgive and forgive; become a servant of the lowest; model yourself on the powerless; love as if it was the only thing of any importance. It's so radical that it's no wonder it got up the nose of the Jewish establishment of his day (all those Pharisees), and it's no wonder that none us who follow him can manage to keep with the programme!

[stressedHEmum]

Tuo and niminy, what brilliant posts. They mirror what I think exactly. Jesus was a devout Jew but his understanding of what that meant was so different from what the religious leaders of the time thought that it's hard to get a handle on. I actually love the bit where He says that it's what comes out of us that makes us unclean, not what goes in. You can be as "holy" and "pious" as you like, but if you don't speak and act in a holy and loving way, it's all a sham, really and vice-versa.

it's the opposite way around that I think many Christians struggle with. Lots of people are quick to judge people by the way they dress, the food they eat, their haircut, tattoos or whatever, and they forget to look at the way that person lives. It's a good job that God sees what's in our hearts and looks beyond our physical circumstances.

[Tuo]

Thanks niminy, that's really helpful. Your last two paragraphs really chime with some of what I was feeling when I was in Jerusalem... such a troubled place, but that kind of inclusiveness and crossing of boundaries gives some cause for hope, maybe.

Stressed couldn't agree more.

I wanted to ask crescentmoon about the way in which ideas about our role in society (or our commitment towards others in our community) is expressed in Islam. I think that the general image we often get (though the media and so on) is one that's all about individual rules (you must pray in this way, you must cover your head, or whatever...), whereas I know from a few conversations with colleagues that there is definitely a social impulse as well (e.g. a colleague told me that one of her parents has a medical condition which means that it's not safe for them to fast in Ramadan, so instead they make food for poor people in their town and do other acts of charity). Can you tell us more about this aspect?

[stressedHEmum]

I think that there is a great social imperative for Muslims as well, Tuo. Alms -giving is one of the pillars of Islam, I think. When I was in Egypt on holiday (I know, but my experience if Islam is very limited), our tour guide was very keen to talk about his religion and the links with Christianity and Judaism. He, and everyone that he knew, gave a percentage directly from their wages in some way to allow the church to help the disadvantaged.

The picture of Islam painted in our media is so skewed and unbalanced, it's really hard for people who live in a place where there aren't any Muslims (like me) to really get a proper idea and that then causes fear, resentment and mistrust. People are afraid of what they don't understand (this is at the root of the terrible, terrible sectarianism you get around here, too, as far as I can see.) It's very sad.

[niminypiminy]

One of the most amazing acts of love and charity I have ever witnessed was a couple of years ago when the English Defence League held a march in Cambridge to protest against the mosque being built here. The members of the mosque responded by cooking food and offering to feast the marchers. It still brings tears to my eyes to think of it. And personally, one of the kindest things anyone has ever done for me was when I was pregnant and hungry, and had my lunch on the tray of a canteen I used to go to near work, and opened my purse and found I hadn't any money at all. I burst into tears and a Muslim woman came over, gave me a tissue and five pounds to pay for the meal. I bless her to this day.

[Tuo]

Need a 'like' button for your post, niminy...

Have a lovely weekend crescentmoon.

[madhairday]

Some lovely, lovely posts here.

Sorry I've not joined in as much, but reading eagerly.

Lovely post about Jesus turning round 1st c Judaism, niminy. :)

[niminypiminy]

Reflecting on my own story about the woman who bought me lunch, it strikes me that of course I knew she was a Muslim because she was wearing the hijab. It seems to me that Muslim women, in particular, take upon themselves the responsibility of being publicly religious, of saying 'I am a person of faith', in a way that we who are Christian don't have to do. We can hide; we can pass for secular. It seems to me that we have something to admire and to learn here about what it means to walk openly with your faith through your daily life.

[Tuo]

Fantastic posts, crescentmoon, and a lot to take in. It has been really interesting and enlightening for me not only to see a series of rules and regulations, as it were, but to see where they come from and what the purpose of them is. So, for instance, it makes a really big difference to understand that being able to replace fasting with a payment is not just paying to be 'let off the hook' as it were, but has a practical, charitable purpose, which is totally in line with the spiritual reasons behind the fast itself.

It was also interesting that you said that 'membership of a mosque is far more fluid than membership of a synagogue or a church'. Does that mean there isn't a strong sense of 'belonging' to a particular mosque or to the group of people who meet and worship there? It seems to me that this is quite important to Christians - perhaps because Jesus said 'where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them' (Matthew 18:20), giving importance to this idea of community...

I loved that quote from Rabia Al Adawiyya. I have real difficulty imagining Hell and Heaven in the traditional way as 'places' of pain or reward. So for me Heaven is precisely about seeing/experiencing the 'essence of God's love' and about being one with God, and Hell is about the absence of that vision of and oneness with Love...

[stressedHEmum]

Fascinating posts, crescent, and a lot to think about. It's really good to be able to see how Islam works and how it is so much more than just a list of "rules". Giving charity should be a joyful thing because it helps both the giver and the receiver. I don't know much about the history of Islam, either. it must have been a daunting task for Muhammed to try to unify the tribes in mono-theism and to try to change attitudes to other people. God was surely working through him and upholding him as well as opening the hearts and minds of those who heard his message.

I thought that it was quite interesting, as well, about people not being attached to any particular mosque. It can be a bit like that with church, although people here tend to be members of their local church. We can still attend church anywhere we like, so if we go on holiday, or whatever, we can go along to the church where we are. CoS services tend to be much the same where ever you go - although some are more modern than others. They are mostly a kind of hymn sandwich - hymn, prayer, hymn reading, hymn, sermon, hymn, offering, hymn. (Is there singing in a mosque?) So, it's quite easy just to slot into an unfamiliar church. You will always be made welcome, too, which helps.

In answer to your question, the ideal in Christianity is that we do things purely out of love, for God and for our fellow man. We do them to draw closer to God and out of love for love's sake.

it wasn't always like that, though. In my flavour of Christianity, historically there was a lot of emphasis on fear of God and on his wrath and punishment. Scottish presbyterianism has its roots firmly in Calvinism with all its fire and brimstone. People were taught to fear God rather than love Him and to act out of that fear to avoid His punishment and an eternity in the fiery pit of doom. There was an obsession with sin and with "missing the mark". Nowadays, thankfully, we focus on God's love and forgiveness and we no longer believe in the evil that is predestination.

we believe (in my brand) that we cannot earn salvation. There is nothing that we can do, works wise, that will gain us the grace of God. We do works solely (ideally) from love for God and through the power of His spirit working within us. Salvation comes from believing in Jesus and accepting him as our Saviour - which should motivate us to other things.

it's my belief that "good works" help us become more the person that God would like us to be, that they spring from His grace and that they allow us to draw nearer to Him. I also think that these "works" allow others to see the face of Christ through us, whether they are believers or not, and that others can be touched by God's love through our actions. we should act out of love because that's what Jesus did - His whole life was an act of love. it's an impossible goal to attain, but that shouldn't stop us trying.

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us.If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.? 1st John 4:18-20

[stressedHEmum]

Crescent, that poem is lovely. Fasting really does focus your mind on God, I feel, and on all your blessings. I think there are just fewer distractions when you aren't thinking about what to cook or eat. I love the image of God sending a laden table down to Jesus and His disciples, it reminds me of the 23rd Psalm - my table thou has furnished in presence of mine foes, my head thou dost with oil anoint and my cup overflows Even in the midst of great difficulty, God gives us all that we really need and more.

I love the book of James. I think it is a very under-read book of the Bible, perhaps for the reason that it makes people face up to their own shortcomings. It is all about how we should conduct ourselves and how we should live out our faith and people can find that a bit hard to take, because we all fall short.

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it ? not forgetting what they have heard but doing it ? they will be blessed in what they do. James 1:22-25

This, I think, is absolutely central wisdom and it leads on to the fact that faith should lead us to works - you can't have one without the other.

I think that there are far more similarities between us than differences. At the very heart of our faiths there is the love of the one God, who remains the same, regardless of how we address Him or how we pray to Him. The ideas of faith, love, hope, service and helping others bind all of us together.

Muhammed definitely had the right of it. None of us can be saved apart from the grace and mercy of God. All those Christians that go about telling people that they are "saved" are being a bit premature, if you ask me. Some of them think that being "saved" means that they can act however they like with impunity - a kind of once saved, always saved mentality. That's not how I see it at all. I also don't understand the idea that some Christians have that no-one but them will be "saved". The Bible says that no-one comes to the Father except through the son, but it doesn't say how that comes about in any detail. Jesus dies for all mankind and intercedes for us all with God. God's grace is there for all of us, not just a special few and none of us mere mortals can judge who is touched by it, and nor should we even try.