I was recently asked by a reporter to discuss why it is that Christians, Muslims, and Jews have so much tension between them. A complex question \u2013 but one for which at least one answer is emerging.<\/p>\n
We do not speak one another\u2019s language, and indeed increasingly\u00a0refuse to do so. Christians learn about Muslims and Jews. We gather all sorts of facts and information. But we don\u2019t speak Jewish, and really we don\u2019t even try. We speak in English (or whatever our native language) about Jews and even to Jews. And the same is true in our speaking about and to Muslims.\u00a0We learn about them, but we don\u2019t speak their language.<\/p>\n
And, for that matter, this is true about the way that Muslims and Jews speak to each other and Christians.<\/p>\n
Language is about a lot more than just shared words and concepts. It is built on a foundation of shared presuppositions about the world\u00a0and the basic experiences of different communities and individuals. When we talk to each other it will be those assumption and values (shared or different) that determine what we talk about, the way in which we deploy language to communicate, and whether we are fascinated or bored, engaged or isolated with or from each other.<\/p>\n
One example of this came up in a recent dialogue I moderated. The Jewish participant enthusiastically shared a frequently told story from the Talmud. In it a group of rabbis actually quote scripture to God. They quote God\u2019s word to tell God to get out of their discussion. For the Muslim participant in the dialogue this story was both shocking and blasphemous. And it created no mutual understanding.<\/p>\n
The reason for this\u00a0failure of understanding\u00a0is that in Islamish (to coin a word) the human speaker always takes a\u00a0standpoint of complete humility vis-a-vis God. A child who speaks German (or Spanish) knows to always use formal language for strangers, elders, and any person of higher social statues. A French speaker knows to always refer to himself or herself in the masculine or feminine form. And a Muslim always places God in an exalted place in theological discourse.\u00a0 As he or\u00a0she would do with the prophets. Islamish is an inherently hierarchical language. The place in which you locate yourself, always in an attitude of submission to God and utmost respect for the prophets, is part and parcel of how you speak it. Phrases like \u201cthanks be to God,\u201d \u201cif God wills,\u201d \u201cBlessings upon him\/her,\u201d punctuate all speech.<\/p>\n
Jewish (to use an old word in a new way), especially the Jewish spoken in the Talmud, is not hierarchical in this way. The social world of the Rabbis anachronistically places together voices from many different historical periods and constantly flattens the social distance between the rabbis,\u00a0God and the prophets. Stories move easily between earth and heaven, and the God whom it would be blasphemous to name is addressed with easy\u00a0familiarity.\u00a0What is blaspheme in Islamish is intimacy in Jewish.<\/p>\n
Christian is yet another language, especially the modern Protestant dialect of\u00a0Christian. For theology\u00a0we have neither a\u00a0hierarchical language like Islamish nor an intimate language like Jewish. Our language is strongly immanent and instrumental. We neither submit to God nor argue with the Divine.\u00a0We subject\u00a0the objective concepts of God and neighbor to various linguistic manipulations to achieve our particular goals.<\/p>\n
For us Islamish seems too passive and Jewish too inconclusive.<\/p>\n