On Admiring the Religious Other
THE FAITH DIVIDE
Eboo Patel is founder and executive director of the Interfaith Youth
Core, a Chicago-based international nonprofit that promotes
interfaith cooperation. His blog, The Faith Divide, explores what
drives faiths apart and what brings them together.
On Admiring the Religious Other
Brother Wayne Teasdale was like a character out of a movie, a cross
between Zorba the Greek, St. Francis of Assisi and the mad scientist
from the Back to the Future series. He would give twenty dollar bills
to homeless people on the street, evenly discuss politics with
mentally ill people in coffee houses, gaze deeply into the eyes of
dogs and, with complete sincerity, pronounce them "very spiritual", a
declaration which alternately pleased and alarmed their human owners.
I met Brother Wayne when I was a young teacher in Chicago, a few
months out of college, trying to make sense of faith identity and
activism. He took my youthful confusions seriously, and I loved him
for that.
That Brother Wayne seemed so clear about his identity amazed me. He
was a Catholic monk with a PhD in Philosophy who had spent years
studying at Hindu ashrams in India and was now entering a serious
theological dialogue with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. His apartment
in the Catholic Theological Union complex was filled with pictures of
Jesus, CDs of Indian meditation music and books on Buddhism. When he
lectured on Zen koans, he often had a rosary with him.
Didn't he see these things as mutually exclusive, contradictory? Not
at all, he would tell me. He was a Catholic monk who had learned a
great deal from Hindu philosophy and Buddhist practice. He was
interested in the similarities and the differences – both enlarged
his Catholic commitment. Buddhism's non-theism expanded his
understanding of God. Hinduism's diffuse authority structure gave him
a deeper appreciation for the Vatican.
Brother Wayne reminded me that many of our most significant Abrahamic
religious leaders – Thomas Merton, Bede Griffiths, Badshah Khan,
Martin Luther King Jr. – had a deep admiration for Eastern spiritual
traditions.
Of course, admiration sometimes comes about in unexpected ways.
There is a great story about a Christian missionary who goes to India
to convert Gandhi, promising his congregation that he will introduce
the Mahatma to the Bible and Jesus. He is surprised when Gandhi
professes love for both, saying that he read the Sermon on the Mount
when he was a young student in London, and it reignited his interest
in faith.
Gandhi was a proud and devoted Hindu, but he did not feel that his
faith commitment to one tradition meant he had to denigrate others.
In fact, to Gandhi, insulting other faiths was a violation of the
Hindu ethic.
When this missionary returned to the West, his Christian compatriots
eagerly asked him about Gandhi's conversion.
The missionary responded that the most Christ-like person of the 20th
century was an Indian Hindu.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/eboo_patel/2007/04/on_admir
ing_the_religious_othe.html
Related articles:
Jesus through Sikh eyes
Jesus through Hindu eyes
On admiring the religious other
Jesus never himself speaks of himself as God
NOTE: If this page was accessed during a web search you may wish to browse the sites listed below where this topic or related issues are discussed in detail to promote global peace, religious harmony, and spiritual development of humanity:
www.adishakti.org/www.al-qiyamah.org/
www.adi-shakti.org/ — Divine Feminine (Hinduism)
www.holyspirit-shekinah.org/ — Divine Feminine (Christianity)
www.ruach-elohim.org/ — Divine Feminine (Judaism)
www.ruh-allah.org/ — Divine Feminine (Islam)
www.tao-mother.org/ — Divine Feminine (Taoism)
www.prajnaaparamita.org/ — Divine Feminine (Buddhism)
www.aykaa-mayee.org/ — Divine Feminine (Sikhism)
www.great-spirit-mother.org/ — Divine Feminine (Native Traditions)
