Each Wednesday,     Tim Carson shares 
the wonderings of heart and mind and the inspirations and quandaries of the spirit. You are invited to wonder along with him through the telling of stories, reflections on faith and observations on the events that shape our lives.  

Tim Carson

 

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Wednesday Wonder
September 28, 2016

At a recent clergy retreat the guest presenter was Brian Carwana, the executive of Encounter World Religions Center in Toronto, Canada. His multiple presentations included a description of the origins of the many religious traditions and how they relate to one another. He also lifted up the distinctiveness of the traditions; they are not all the same and hold remarkably different world views and understandings of divinity in the world. Through that exploration of distinctiveness, however, a common thread wound around the roots of many. It was an extraordinary lectureship.
 
Of course, it is easy to make the complex trivial as we "simmer down" religions like Islam, Jainism or Hinduism. We look for one definition though there are as many varieties of expression as there are forms of Christian faith. As was pointed out, The Klu Klux Klan and Mother Teresa are both identified as Christian.
 
Though understanding and reconciling the theologies and practices of different Christians is important on the way to the unity of the church, it seems to me that in our present moment, the more urgent task is to develop a robust understanding of the many families of world faiths. That is not easy work; it is much more complex than it seems. But by doing so we may actually bring clarity to our own faith - what it is that we actually believe about God, self and world and what also might need to shift.
 
Of course, you can make the case that we cannot possibly explore the other great traditions as long as we experience such great poverty of understanding in our own tradition. That poverty is real and there is no denying it. We do have to deepen our own knowledge, practice and commitment in our Christian way. That said, I am becoming persuaded that it is impossible to be an active Christian in our present world without knowledge of our religious neighbors - how they describe and connect to the ultimate, what their attitude is toward the world, how they understanding the problem of existence, and how deliverance, harmony and peace is achieved.
 
There are Christian answers to all these. But these answers will be brought into greater clarity when placed alongside the perspectives of the many religious traditions. That the byproduct of such exploration could create more empathy, shared conviction and peace can only be a tremendous bonus.  
 

@Timothy Carson 2016

 

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