Entering this class, I was not entirely sure, what to expect or think. So as I muse through my copious notes on the class and the readings, I will try and interact with the line of questioning I was engaging when entering this class: what is the church, what is it about Christianity in general that has tried to be so totalitarian… when the message of Jesus Christ was love, and the basic tenants of Christianity articulated by Paul all centered initially on inclusivity, erasing the boundaries of otherness between Jew and Gentile…and somehow now we find ourselves in current day Christianity in little fragments of Churches, most still claiming that they in some way, have more truth than the others… My questions mostly stem from my lifelong quest to really try and understand at a religious and personal level, how it is that people who have strong beliefs in differing doctrines can have such a vehement ability to impersonalize and dehumanize one another. It’s not always a hate, but the more I consider the failing interactions between even people who are technically supposed to be united in some way or another, the more I consider it dangerous to try and engage individuals through the lens of a totalitarian system which tries to universalize a religion to all sorts of people, no two of whom are alike. So I will be engaging all my thoughts and the material from class as a struggling Catholic wrestling with my own presuppositions of the world and trying to learn a more Christ-like attitude to engage with people and to apply to the larger problem of whatever it is that makes up “Church.”
One of the first questions I wrote down in my journal, the first day of class was “Can we have belief in an absolute truth and not be relationally forceful? My conversion and internal faith perspectives spur this question….” Levinas began to play in my mind and my conception of God and faith… I did not grow up in the universal sort of absolutist faith system that considers reason the likeness and image of God. Reading Levinas’ Totality and Infinity, I gleaned a lot more of the perspective of God that I have, and of others, which I feel needs to be integrated more deeply into the Catholic faith. When approaching the Catholic Church’s overall perspective of persons, I find Levinas’ preface to be very instrumental in identifying the demon in the rough of what I have been straining against religiously, both in engaging with God and other persons: “The relation between the same and the other is not always reducible to knowledge of the other by the same, nor even to the revelation of the other to the same, which is already fundamentally different from disclosure.”[1] Levinas’ own questions about the Other, rejecting knowing as the most appreciative knowing of the Other… encouraged me that the purpose of recognizing Other in what it fully was, was not to absorb it into the totality of my thought and identity—like I have often been afraid happens in my Church… it is not a possession, it is a mysterious wonderment to relate with something wholly apart from myself, fundamentally constituted in a reality I can never fully step into. My approach to Church has always been to try and open myself up wide enough to encompass whatever is being offered in the particular denomination or culture I am present with, worshipping with… to assimilate it into myself. And perhaps my identity allows some adoption, but I will never be fully constituted in or by the group/person/identity which is different from me. I must learn to relate with it in its difference.
Levinas’ discussion of desire and the Desired was precisely put in the most romantic terms in which I love to consider my God, my Jesus… which is never fully sated, even in its absolute state, as he recognizes in “Metaphysics and Transcendence,” for the Desired is so absolutely other, my longing will simply drive me to a perpetually deepening in the sojourning of this life. Maybe this would drive a stake of despair into some hearts, but the revelation of these words to me, and the realization that my quest after an incorporeal, yet somehow physically present Body of Christ on earth…. And maybe even a mystically knowing-by-experience with this Jesus despite the distance of heaven… gave me a sense of hope. Mine, I realized, in relationship with God and Church, is a “metaphysical desire (that) has another intention; it desires beyond everything that can simply complete it.”[2] Levinas makes a beautiful transition from the categorical and impersonal language I am used to hearing when metaphyics is discussed to draw it into his intimate redefinition of transcendence, and experience of love and desire: “To die for the invisible, this is metaphyics.”[3]
For Levinas, God is a Stranger to me, because I can only know Him in the glimpses of relational experience I catch now and again evades me grasp so I can never pin God down into a systematic totality… but rather, Levinas reaffirms that my identity and the identity of the Other necessarily remain distinct and relate in a way that does not try to dominate the Other.[4] This I struggle with a bit applying to God. At least in the freedom I perceive in my own life, the free will with which I make decisions and act out volitionally my own morality and personal relationships, I could agree with Levinas’ suggestions that the equal relationship with Other is permitted to remain Other is only in a condition where there is no power hierarchy. Yet… what theological difficulties does this present? What about the doctrines of omnipotence, omnipresence, etc? Can God be all-powerful if the relationship I establish with Him is based on my perception of no power hierarchy between us? Rather, I think this is a more easily applied to Church relations. Why cannot different denominations simply look at one another encounter the Divine in other another however He is held differently[5]? Perhaps I have tarried too long on just a portion of my beloved Levinas and should move forward to engaging our other readings, reading from them what I can apply to my own struggle with Christianity in the rather universalizing system I am part of.
The discussion concerning Islamapobia interested me quite a bit… partly because out of the three “Religions of the Books,” only Islam and Christianity and “universal” in the sense of making disciples and evangelizing. Judaism seems quite content to take only those who are willing to approach it and conform to it rather than inviting others to enter. Throughout our discussion in class, I wondered about the competition of conquest between the two religions, and if it were ever possible to claim a universal truth while not becoming too particularizing (in terms of membership or exclusive beliefs) when brought to a global context? Is pluralism the answer to solving monolithic systems of monotheistic and strictly principled religion like Christianity and Islam? Farid Esack mused a bit on pluralism within Islamic tradition in Qur’an, Liberation & Pluralism: noting that liberalism has difficulty interacting with some more traditional notions of religious concepts in Islam, Esack distinguishes between a hermeneutic of pluralism with the aim of liberation from the hermeneutic of pluralism simply for the sake of integrating liberal ideology into a patriarchal religious system.[6] This chapter sought to redefine the labels and titles used in the Qur’an to dynamically assess the behavioral expectations of the labels’ content in progressively redefined context. Esack refuses to allow personal accountability to slide under the guise of group identity, but recognizes that religious individuality is open for perpetual transformation, thus making the group identity dynamic as well.[7] This recognition that the pluralistic group identity would be an extremely useful tool to integrate into Catholic understanding of tradition.
To some degree, I recognize that Catholisicm prides itself on the pluralism caught up in the universal religion, perhaps much like Islam, but sometimes I wonder about the extent of the pluralism. I must confess this musing is a bit uniformed… I do realize the diversity of Religious orders in the Catholic Church, as well as the multiple rites which are part of the larger Catholic Churches, beyond the Roman Latin rite most popularly celebrated in the West.[8] Yet how inclusive are these seven various rites of the Church, and would the Catholic Church be willing to expand those? Well, in recent news the worldwide Anglican Communion led by Archbishop Williams has announced plans to rejoin the Catholic Church: “Under the terms of an apostolic constitution (formal decree), disaffected conservative Anglicans will be able to join the Catholic Church while retaining their distinctive liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions.”[9] Is this a move of absorbing the Other, or is the preservation of the Anglican rite a type of inclusivity, as described in Esack’s Chapter 5, “The Qur’an & The Other: Pluralism and Justice.”
Interestingly, Esack points out that while “the Qur’an does not regard all people and their ideas as equal,” it does proceed “from the premise that the idea of inclusiveness is superior to exclusiveness.”[10] Utilizing another scholar’s comparison of inclusivity to working democracy and exclusivity to fascist political parties, where inclusivity is “not merely a willingness to let every idea and practice exist” but rather is “geared towards specific objectives, such as freeing humankind from injustice and servitude to other human beings so that they might be free to worship God.”[11] These principles as well, I think, can be applied to the Catholic Church, as well as all other church denominations that see themselves as universal. So perhaps to all my Catholic counterparts, I have a very skewed ecclesiology… but if the body of Christ is truly to be composed in relationship of the parts to one another, we cannot afford to be exclusive, but rooted in the same declaration of Christ sinlessly living, unjustly crucified, and resurrected, seated at God’s right hand in glory, can we not learn to treat one another in relationship with humility? So I conclude an all-too-brief reflection with a few verses from Romans 12:
3 And through the grace that I have been given, I say this to every one of you: never pride yourself on being better than you really are, but think of yourself dispassionately, recognizing that God has given to each one his measure of faith. 4 Just as each of us has various parts in one body, and the parts do not all have the same function: 5 in the same way, all of us, though there are so many of us, make up one body in Christ, and as different parts we are all joined to one another.[12]
[1]Reader: Levias, Emmanuel. Totality and Infinity. 28.
[2] Reader: Levinas, “Metaphysics and Transcendence,” Totality and Infinity. 34.
[3] Ibid., 35.
[4] Ibid.,39.
[5] ‘scuse me for a moment, I just realized I was using patriarchal language, or what is perceived as non-inclusive language when speaking about God. I don’t believe God has gender, in my thinking, I still am trying to resolve the patriarchal origins of the text, but I tend to think the authors had a purpose in using certain gender for God. My theology proper is rather conservative… I am very open to using female pronouns when speaking the Holy Spirit aspect of the Divine Trinity… I am just trying to clarify here that I am not attempting to be sexist, simply speaking from a conservative background, in an explorative state with my Christianity.
[6] Reader: Esack, Farid. Chapter 4, “Redefining Self & Other: Imam, Islam & Kufr,” Qur’an, Liberation & Pluralism, 116.
[7] Ibid., 144.
[8] According to a web page published by The Minnesota St. Thomas More Chapter of Catholics United for the Faith, March/April 2000, called “The Rites of the Catholic Church,” “The Catechism lists seven rites. These rites so listed: Latin, Byzantine, Alexandrian, Syriac, Armenian, Maronite, and Chaldean,2 are actually families of liturgical expression.” Accessed 22 Oct 2009. <http://www.mncuf.org/rites.htm>.
[9] “Rome’s Anglican Option May Change Both Churches.” 21 October 2009. Sourced from News Website, “The Age,” through WAtoday.com.au. <http://www.watoday.com.au/opinion/editorial/romes-anglican-option-may-change-both-churches-20091021-h8zc.html>.
[10] Reader: Esack, Farid. Chapter 5, “The Qur’an & The Other: Pluralism & Liberation,” Qur’an, Liberation & Pluralism, 175.
[11] Ibid.
[12] New Jerusalem Bible, Copyright 2009 Catholic Online. All materials contained on this site, whether written, audible or visual are the exclusive property of Catholic Online and are protected under U.S. and International copyright laws, © Copyright 2009 Catholic Online. Any unauthorized use, without prior written consent of Catholic Online is strictly forbidden and prohibited. Accessed 25 October 2009. <http://www.catholic.org/bible/book.php?id=52>.
