We all overthink it; that hard question about what becomes of us after our body is decomposed and the brain, so foundational to consciousness and thus our self has become dust. We can’t help it really. Studies have shown that the one thing we cannot consciously imagine is the cessation of our own consciousness. (“The End”, Jesse Bering, Scientific American Mind 19:5) 34-41, 2008.) And there are a thousand occurrences (an accident and near brush with death, the death of... Read more
The best way to insure human rights in a modern society is to insure that God has none except those vested in the voice and vote of individual citizens. Recently a group of Muslim scholars from across the world signed a document called the Marrakesh declaration. Based on their reading of Muhammad’s original treaty with the people of Medina the scholars affirmed the rights of religious minorities under Muslim rule. (http://www.marrakeshdeclaration.org/) But it isn’t only document from a group of Muslim... Read more
The single most important question in interreligious dialogue today is not theological. Is anthropological. And it arises because between the different religions there are fundamentally different ways of understanding not merely what it means to be human but how humans find out what it means to be human. At a recent interfaith dialogue involving Jews, Christians, and Muslims a Jewish woman asked both Christians and Muslims present to explain why they used the exclusive and excluding masculine pronoun to refer... Read more
The question of whether Christians and Muslims worship the same God is for all practical purposes purely theoretical. Whether or not we worship the same God we do not worship together. Muslims may visit, but usually do not join in Christian worship because Christians worship Christ, which Muslims believe is a violation of God’s Oneness. And Christians may visit, but cannot join Muslim prayers because Muslims assert that Muhammad is God’s prophet, which Christians cannot easily accept if they take seriously... Read more
Who will be the watchman on the wall to warn when danger approaches the people of God? The Bible tells two big stories. Each begins with the Spirit of God hovering over the face to the waters and each ends only when a new heaven and a new earth are cast above the cataclysmic end of the old. One story is the story of God’s ever expansive grace and love, which however focused it may be on a person, or... Read more
“Jesus is the reason for the season.” I keep hearing it: the older cliched version of the culture wars. Yet Christians need to accept that Jesus isn’t the reason for the season, and never was. The season of mid-winter celebration existed before Jesus was born. In the Northern Hemisphere cultures have celebrated the end of the darkening days for millennia. They have marked the winter solstice as the beginning of the period in which the days grow longer and the... Read more
A Wheaton Professor, Larycia Alaine Hawkins has been suspended for posting on Facebook that Christians and Muslims, “…as Pope Francis stated last week, worship the same God.” This has been picked up by the Washington Post and is already being analyzed here at Patheos. This isn’t a new question, and both articles above note nuanced responses by Christian theologians. The latter of these by Baptist Theologian Timothy George represents a pretty standard evangelical answer. “Is the Father of Jesus the God... Read more
Yesterday a group of prominent Dallas religious leaders of all faiths met to begin acting formally for a better future for the city of Dallas. I was privileged to moderate the discussion and see us adopt our first formal statement and ongoing structure. This is the result: At a meeting of the Dallas Area Multi-Faith Task Force organized by the Thanksgiving Square Interfaith Council the following statement was released: Today we are deeply concerned that the flourishing of the city... Read more
To understand anyone you have to ask how do they understand themselves. But now Americans prefer to sooth their anxiety about Islamic radicalism with the violence of our own rhetoric, the puny ineffectiveness of openly carrying weapons and satisfying our lust for revenge by attacks on innocents and an occasional report of a successful drone strike. Below I’ll try to put in systematic insights from a number or researchers, journalists, and activists. Graham Ward, Farah Pandith, and our own Dallas area Muslim... Read more
Or at least irrelevance. I note that in major cities across the United States, certainly mine, religious leaders are not longer a first call from either the local press or local politicians. Unless of course they make themselves news in ways that embarrass their fellow Christians. Which isn’t news since Hauerwas and Willimon wrote Resident Aliens 26 years ago but which still hasn’t been taken on board by most Christians or their leaders. So I’ll state it: We do not... Read more
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