Time to Exclude, and Invite, and be True

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 8:08 pm By Robert Hunt

Recently my friend Mike Ghouse wrote an article promoting a kind of interfaith Christmas. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ghouse/interfaith-christmas-making-god-boundless_b_2347856.ht) Well intentioned, but also deeply problematic. Mike wants to reinforce Christmas as a civil religious holiday for a religiously plural society. I think we’d all be better off if it returned to being the cult celebration exclusively for Christians. I will admit that its easy for non-Christians to get on board with Christmas. Jesus, as Mike points out, taught and did many good things that... Read more

Finally Getting It.

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 8:08 pm By Robert Hunt

The Arab Spring is already becoming a bloodbath in Egypt because the Muslim Brotherhood cannot see that its political vision of an Islamic state was a failure from the beginning. And finally major US Muslim organizations seem to get it. The Cpuncil on American Islamic Relations, CAIR, has urged the Egyptian government to not uphold the death penalty against those currently being accused of blaspheme. This isn’t actual support for complete freedom of speech, but it is a positive step... Read more

Do Jews, Christians, and Muslims Worship the Same God?

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 8:08 pm By Robert Hunt

Do Jews, Christians, and Muslims Worship the Same God? Abingdon Press, 2012 (with Baruch Levine, Bruce Chilton, Vincent Cornell, and Martin Marty) This book poses a question that each of the four main authors is obliged to immediately deconstruct and examine. The reason for this examination of the question is aptly introduced in the second essay by Jacob Neusner. From the a philosophical and logical standpoint the answer must be yes. But these are not religions constructed on the worship... Read more

Global Religion and Isolationist Dialogue

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 8:08 pm By Robert Hunt

As I read through various newspapers these last few weeks the news brought me this: Christian churches burned in India, with pastors and members terrorized by Hindu nationalists while the police did nothing. More threats by Arab and Iranian Muslims against Israel, with a backdrop of hatred for Jews stoked by Muslim leaders. Shi’ite and Ahmadiyya mosques in Pakistan burned by Sunni extremists, and vandalism of mosques in the US by Christians. And so on. Yet in the last few... Read more

Freedom from Religion in Santa Monica

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 8:08 pm By Robert Hunt

A victory has been won in Santa Monica by those seeking freedom from religion in public. (http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/judge-denies-bid-park-nativity-displays-17762364#.ULIajIX5gnY.) While it is perfectly understandable that some (Christian and atheist) may prefer the considerable beauty of the Palisades Park to be unmarred by any type of display, this may by a pyrrhic victory for atheism. For about 60 years different Christian groups have mounted life-size nativity scenes on public land in the Palisades Park. Beginning in 2009 atheists asked for spaces for displays,... Read more

Faith, Religion, Dialogue, and Exclusion

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 8:08 pm By Robert Hunt

Yesterday I attended a meeting to discuss the study of interfaith and/or inter-eligious relations and dialogue. Very quickly the discussion turned to the problem of how these terms include and exclude. For example the word “faith” excluded people who are religious,but whose religion doesn’t typically see being religious in terms of faith. They say “interfaith” excludes them. On the other hand those that come from a tradition that sees Christianity as essentially a matter of faith and not religion say... Read more

Religious Obligations, Morality, and the Modern Pluralistic State

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 8:08 pm By Robert Hunt

States should only enforce those social obligations that are shared by all members of a society and which can be justified on the basis of publicly and universally available facts. In my last blog I showed how the classical Muslim interpretation of the Qur’anic verse, “there is no compulsion in religion” is different from the Wester concept of freedom of religion. This difference is rooted in different understandings of the relationship between a state and the religious obligations of its... Read more

No compulsion in religion . . . .

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 8:08 pm By Robert Hunt

The Qur’an, in Chapter 2, verse 256, states “There is no compulsion in religion” or in some translations “Let there be no compulsion in religion.” This is very different from the Western concept of freedom of religion. The verse from the Qur’an, often cited, raises several questions. First – to whom does it apply? Classically it was taken to mean that “people of the book” could not be compelled to be Muslims. On the other hand both theoretically and historically... Read more

Take Thou Authority?

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 8:08 pm By Robert Hunt

The issue of pedagogy, how to teach what is being taught, must permeate every course in the semianry curriculum. Otherwise the pastoral ministry will continue to become the adjunct magisterium for an impotent and declining church. As seminaries and seminarians consider how to engage the real religious diversity of the Nones they face some pretty serious issues with communicating about both scripture and its authority to shape community life. When I graduated from seminary in 1982 we had been given... Read more

None(s) in Church?

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 8:08 pm By Robert Hunt

A gospel that offers non-Christians a bland religious mono-culture will be justifiably rejected as irrelevant. If we are serious about reaching the Nones with the gospel we will need to invite them into the center of our church life; bringing their world, their worldview, and their complex life experience. And changing ours. In a recent blog Brian McLaren offered anecdotal evidence that he effective exclusivism of almost all Christian churches is a turnoff to young Americans. I hear the same... Read more