As those of you know who have followed our work with Interfaith Partners of South Carolina, we have for a number of years partnered with the governor's office in proclaiming January as South Carolina's Interfaith Harmony Month. This year due to the Covid virus we were unable to have the in person meetings and events which have grown ever more popular and diverse over the years and instead developed a number of wonderful virtual meetings and presentations which were very successful. In some ways it was a great blessing and that many events which were local for some and would require a fair amount of travel for others became equally available to all.
 
As a part of my contribution to the events I was able to conduct a couple of video interviews with real powerhouses in the interfaith movement. Dr. Barbara Fields serves as the Executive Director of the Association of Global New Thought which also engages in a lot of interfaith work. Perhaps the most famous aspect of their work is the annual Gandhi/King Season of Peace which takes place each year beginning January 30th and runs 64 days until April 4th.  She was program director for the 1993 Parliament of the World’s Religions. For more information please visit WWW.AGNT.ORG We had a lovely time, and to watch this nearly one hour interview click on Dr. Fields image
 
The secondary interview was with Dr. Larry Greenfield, Pres. Emeritus of the Parliament of World Religions. Dr. Greenfield has been involved in many interfaith initiatives over the years as well as an ongoing commitment to the Baptist movement with which she has been affiliated for many many years. Our interview also ran nearly to one hour in length and I believe we covered some exciting topics which I'm anxious to share with you. To watch this interview click on Dr. Greenfield's image

Siljander, Mark D. A Deadly Misunderstanding: A Congressman’s Quest to Bridge the Muslim/Christian Divide Harper-Collins 2008
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I learned about this book in a conversation with Rev. Donna Johnson as we were talking about what had inspired us in our own interfaith work. When our conversation moved in the direction of our perceptions about Islam and how we deal with its radical variants she told me about how profoundly this book by Mark Siljander had moved her and changed her understanding of the conflicts between the Abrahamic faiths. When I obtained the book and began to read it I at once saw that there were unique and radical notions here that were worth pursuing. Over the course of the next several days a read the book and began to make notes for this little review of it.

Siljander’s path to his understanding is both surprising and to my mind heroic. He came from a deeply committed evangelical perspective, believing the Koran to be the work of the devil and Islam to be an evil perversion of the traditions of Judaism and Christianity. There were catalytic events that caused extreme emotional reactions in him, which in turn prompted mentors of his to suggest ways in which to reconsider his attitudes and his understanding of the problem.

“This was not the path I set out to follow twenty-five years ago, as a conservative Republican congressman and Evangelical Christian just entering the world of Washington politics. At the time, I believed that Islam was a religion of violence, that the Qur’an preached the destruction of all non-Muslims, and that the Qur’an and Islam were of the devil, as godless as the great evil of communism whose defeat was then the defining purpose of American foreign policy. I believed that Islam and Christianity were contradictory at their core, that the Eastern Islamic and Western Judeo-Christian cultures were irretrievably opposed to one another, and that the only possible solution to this conflict was the conversion of “them” so they would come to think like “us.” My worldview could not have been clearer or simpler—or more myopic.”

Perhaps the most profound turning point was when one of his mentors suggested that he begin to study the Bible in Aramaic, the ancient language that Jesus had spoken when he walked this earth. Already an accomplished and natural linguist Siljander took readily to this new course of study and began to have pivotal insights which built on each other, and combined with later experiences looked at in this new light, ultimately resulted in the chief premise of this book A Deadly Misunderstanding. As an evangelical Christian Siljander regarded it as his highest duty to convert others to his Christian faith. Among his earliest and most important struggles was coming to terms with where this idea of conversion came from. He concluded after much conversation, debate and study that it had no real foundation in the teachings of Jesus. From this point forward he would introduce himself as a follower of Jesus as opposed to a Christian. This would serve him very well in opening conversations with Muslim and even Jewish individuals, for whom Christianity is inseparable from its history of warfare and genocide. It is worth noting how potent the image of “conversion by the sword” is in creating a demonic image of Islam, yet anyone who knows the history of the Crusades understands the irony of this.

The task of translation is fraught with peril and often requires choices which emphasizes an important aspect of what one is seeing and wanting to convey, yet often at the expense of the complete truth of what was said. This is a problem for the most scrupulously honest translator, but even more so in the work of someone with a political agenda. Thus it is the case that translations of Scripture are often very different from the original intent and meaning of the authors. There are many points of inflection that illustrate this in the history of the evolution of the Christian Bible. The Council of Nicaea, a council of Christian bishops convened in the Bithynian city of Nicaea by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 325, being a prime example. In that case not only were there debates on the meanings of words and phrases based on the agenda of the individuals in that counsel, there were also debates about which books should be included in the canonical text. Some of that discussion was of course motivated by the difficulty of proving the origin of some of those works, and clearly in other cases the messages contained in those debated books were anathema to the dogma they were trying to sculpt. For another example consider the Protestant Council of Trent 4 April 1546, which declared which books were to be officially considered canonical. To look at some of these excluded works I suggest you obtain a Catholic version of the Bible which contains the Apocrypha, the collection of books excluded from Protestant Bibles.

Retreating back to the simpler problems of translation, and disregarding agendas, Siljander carefully outlines a number of words and key phrases that are at the heart of disagreement between the Abrahamic faiths. Siljander arrived at his understanding of the importance of the Aramaic language as the root of both Hebrew and Arabic through a number of discussions over a number of years with Islamic, Judaic and Christian scholars and holy men. In many cases the Mullah, Rabbi, Minister or priest exclaimed “this is revolutionary” after hearing Siljander’s arguments. The notion of “a deadly misunderstanding” becomes very clear and specific over the course of this book.

Another critical consideration that goes well beyond any discussion of the value of particular translations of Scripture is the fact that throughout the world the bulk of believers have never read their scriptures, instead they have relied upon teachers who inevitably present to them portions of Scripture which serve their agendas. Radical Islam is the product of two very potent forces, one: the fact that the vast majority of Muslims do not even speak Arabic, and it is a tenet of that faith that in order to understand Islam one must read the Koran in its original Arabic. This is doubly difficult in that even if you are from a country in which Arabic is the official language, reading the Koran is very much like an English speaker attempting to read the old English of Beowulf which looks much more like German than any English we learned in school. And two: the undeniable impact of decades of colonization, brutalization and the theft of natural resources by the Western world in those places where radical Islam finds its most fertile ground.

Well beyond any academic exercise, Siljander’s book is really an exciting and well written journal of a very long, complex and arduous journey towards understanding and bridge building. In an early trip to Syria within a period of 24 hours he was nearly shot by both Palestinian and Israeli forces. With over 30 years of work in government and civil service including six years in the US Congress and an appointment to the United Nations General Assembly, his journey has taken him all over the world. Some of those journeys took him, practically alone and without any US government sanction, into very hostile countries to meet with leaders who were open enemies of the United States. Also early in his career when he was rabidly anti-Islamic a contract was taken out on him by the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who would later be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin. Years later when Arafat was visiting Washington DC Siljander was asked to host a private party for him. And although he found this deeply disturbing he did in fact host this party and further found himself being asked to help Arafat craft a speech he was to give the following day. He wanted to include some references from the Koran about Isa, as Jesus is called in the Koran. It may surprise some Christians that there are many mentions of Isa/Jesus in the Koran and in fact one of the books is about him, and another about his mother Mary. Siljander gave him six quotes to choose from and to his surprise Arafat used all six in the talk that he gave.

Siljander met with many heads of state and high officials in all of the Abrahamic faiths. He pursued his unique path to peace in spite of the many on all sides who had enmity towards him. Perhaps the most difficult phase of his work came after 9/11. His advocacy for understanding and communication with representatives of Islam was considered practically treasonous by many of those around him. It was also much harder for him to gain the trust of Islamic leaders, nevertheless he worked very hard to support Islamic moderates and to educate Americans about the misunderstandings which he saw as the cause of all of this conflict.

I too believe that the scholarly understanding of the roots of the misunderstandings between the Abrahamic faiths could be revolutionary. What will determine whether it is or not, is whether or not enough people, a critical mass, become aware of these ideas. I encourage you to do as I have done, read it, talk about it, and buy extra copies to give away. To purchase this book click on the title credit at the top of this page to go to Amazon. It is available cheaply as a used book and is also available for Kindle.

UICC (Unified Interfaith Community Coalition of Beaufort) began in response to the Mother Emmanuel 9 assassination June 17, 2015. We work to ease tensions and promote harmony in the Beaufort County region of SC's Lowcountry. Founded by Rev. Jeannine Smalls, Pastor Grace AME Church, sister church to Mother Emmanuel. This is our third January/New Year celebration.

I had a number of video assignments while at the Parliament of the World's Religions this past November in Toronto. I did record some videos that were just for sharing through these pages and among them was this address by Dr. Karen Armstrong at the Plenary on Understanding at the 2018 Parliament of the World's Religions. To see this 15 minute video click here. She is the founder of Charter for Compassion. I have found her writing to be clear, succinct and full of insights.

Today as we celebrate the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King I was moved to make this triptych image to illustrate the spiritual genesis of Dr. Kings Non-Violent philosophy. It is well known that King was deeply influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s successes using nonviolent resistance. King argued that the Gandhian philosophy was ‘‘the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom’’.

What is perhaps not so well known is that Gandhi was deeply influenced by the American writer Henry David Thoreau whose book ‘Walden; or, Life in the Woods’ was required reading when I was a High School student in the 1970’s. Thoreau’s lesser known ‘On Civil Disobedience’ came to Gandhi’s attention while working his first job as a lawyer for an Indian company in South Africa. The ruling white Boers discriminated against all people of color. Gandhi became an outspoken critic of South Africa’s discrimination policies. When the Boer legislature passed a law requiring that all Indians register with the police and be fingerprinted, Gandhi refused to obey the law. He was arrested and jailed. While in jail, Gandhi read the essay “Civil Disobedience” by Thoreau.

​Gandhi adopted the term “civil disobedience” to describe his strategy of non-violently refusing to cooperate with injustice, although in later years he preferred the Sanskrit word satyagraha “devotion to truth”.  I find it delightfully ironic that an American writer’s work should find its way to Africa and influence a man who changed the history of the Indian sub-continent and then found its way back to America where it continued to be profoundly influential. Today I celebrate all three of these spiritual giants.
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I would like to clarify some terms before starting this somewhat contentious subject. Interfaith is most commonly understood as an open dialogue between different religions/sects/denominations. Interfaith comes in a number of flavors, but most folks involved in this work are looking for commonalities upon which they can base further exploration, I tend to be on the radical fringe of this in that I buy that old perennial philosophy notion that at its roots all religions are one, I’m willing to hold hands with anyone and sing Kumbaya, part of this is an insatiable curiosity and a deeper appreciation of spiritual diversity. I will admit that I do foresee a time when a universal religion is possible. I’ll also admit that I am very possibly wrong on this point, but I wanted to get out of the way the argument against old hippies and dreamers such as myself. To put it succinctly I use the phrase “One God, Many Paths” and am quite willing to believe they are all different paths on the same mountain leading to a single peak. Many who I work with and have deep respect for will admit we are all on ‘a’ path but not on the same mountain, or even the same mountain range for that matter.

Inter-religious work is a more pragmatic approach which recognizes that many of the tensions and misunderstandings in the world have as their cause doctrinal differences between religions. Because this cannot be left out of the dialogue, we must recognize painful histories and difficult relationships between religions, perhaps a prime example is Christianity versus Islam. Those committed to Inter-religious dialogue are seeking to find commonalities that enable dialogue which may result in the kinds of compromises and agreements that will resolve issues that are intense enough to lead to war and the violation of the civil rights of others.

Ecumenical, or Intrafaith work, has more to do with working out the differences in a given religion or faith path that will result in cooperation and potentially even unification. This is a high-level vision held by certain leaders in the Catholic Church and their counterparts in Orthodox Christianity who would like to be rejoined under a common Holy See. To a lesser extent you’ll find these approaches within various sects of Christianity that have split within their own denomination, the various Baptist conventions or Lutheran Synods may be other notable examples.

Didn’t want to get so bogged down in definitions, but perhaps that was useful to get clear about the issue I’d like to address in this post. Among the concerns of those committed to Inter-religious dialogue is the pursuit of social justice. Nowhere in my own spheres of Interfaith/Inter-religious dialogue work is this clearer than in the work we are doing in the United Interfaith Community Coalition of Beaufort which was organized by Grace Chapel AME’s pastor Rev. Jeannine Smalls in response to the tragedy that took place at the Mother Emanuel Chapel in Charleston, SC. My first connection with UICCB was attending the first annual memorial service at Grace Chapel which was very widely attended by people of all faiths.

The first meeting that I attended of the organization itself had a few ministers from the black community but most of the participants represented the white mainline religions of the city of Beaufort and surrounding communities. I point that out because I believe that some of the black ministers chose not to continue to participate for the very same reason that many more fundamentalist Christian pastors never did participate, and that is the fear that others would try to convert them or that their own faith would be watered down by merely listening to what others from different faiths might have to say. I’ll leave my personal feelings out regarding those who hold these views and focus on what I would like to say to them.

Let me state this very clearly, the deep bigotry and racial hatred that resulted in the heinous murder of those nine individuals has not been washed away by the blood of those innocents, nor the healing gestures of forgiveness made by families and friends. If anything this last election cycle revealed that these feelings are much closer to the surface and are much more widely spread than any of us could’ve imagined who worked so hard in the ‘60s and ‘70s in the cause of civil rights, in the cause of women’s rights and in the prospects of peace. I believe it must be said that faith leaders, the ministers and pastors of our communities, must come together despite all doctrinal differences and declare that these attitudes and behaviors are unacceptable and to work as spiritual leaders to uncover the root causes and to exorcise them in the name of all that is holy.

I would hope that we can agree to disagree about those aspects of our differences which have nothing to do with civil rights and common human decency and that we could come together in a prayerful attitude and accept the mission that all who minister to the souls of others must accept in order to be faithful to their calling. There are some things that call for an assembly of conscience, that demand of us that we stand together and declare our truth. Can I get an Amen?

Even though I grew up in a Mormon community in semi-rural Utah, my mother’s love of art exposed me at an early age to religious Icons. I did not find them in churches but in books and found them beautiful and moving perhaps because I sensed the divinity behind them, not because I knew anything of Saints and the role of iconography in religion. As I grew older I saw Icons from many cultures and religions particularly Buddhism and Hinduism. Several years ago while at a Contemplative Aging retreat at Mepkin Abbey I had a conversation with Sister Annie, a Franciscan Nun, about St. Francis which lead to a discussion of the work of a colleague of hers Sister Kathleen Warren, who had produced a Movie and book called In the Footprints of Francis and the Sultan: A Model for Peacemaking which lead me down a fabulous rabbit hole, but that’s another story. Although I'll provide this link to a flyer I produced for the workshop I presented on the film. The cover for the movie was an exceedingly luminous Icon of St. Francis and Sultan Malik al-Kamil. I used that Icon to illuminate Rev. James King’s evocation of St. Francis’ prayer at the end of his article in the last issue of CommUnity. The artist is Brother Robert Lorentz and these green texts are links to his Robert Lentz website and Trinity Stores where some of his work is on sale.

Brother Robert has certainly stretched the bounds of western iconography. Here is a quote from him “The majority of my critics are uncomfortable with the way I move back and forth between the cultures in which I have had to live since childhood. They want tidy, black-and-white worlds that I have never known. From childhood I have had to deal with a Technicolor world in which I was never quite sure why there were so many fences. Byzantine icons stay safely behind Byzantine walls and look out at the rest of the world. Catholic images are hemmed in by Catholic fences. My icons ignore walls. They belong wherever there is life.”

Here below are wondrous examples of his work which I view as a deep contribution to our Interfaith work. Click on image to see it fully.

On October 9th, 2016 Interfaith Partners of South Carolina presented “Peace in the Park” a festival/celebration at Saluda Shoals Park in Columbia, SC, a perfect venue for this event. As promised there was fun for all ages! Art, crafts, music, dance, entertainment, nature walks, and an art contest for young people! Ten different religions each had an activity area for crafts and games, the Commons area featured music and dance – both performing and participative, and many people enjoyed the nature trails with a local birder-naturalist, the afternoon topped it off with a giant spiral dance. Hundreds of people from many religious traditions came to celebrate peace, harmony, respect and dignity.

The weather was perfect although hurricane Matthew had reached even this far inland on Friday and Saturday, there was not much damage in evidence and the mood was celebratory! I arrived late in the afternoon due to a speaking engagement earlier in the day. This year featured a youth art contest organized by Dr. Will Moreau Goins and his dedicated team. Dr. Goins is the current president of IPSC and has dedicated his life to preserving, presenting and performing Native American music traditions, beadwork and storytelling. He weaves the ancient past, mythology and the present with dramatic narratives and song. He was the 2008 Recipient for Native American Traditions in South Carolina’s Jean Laney Harris Folk Heritage Awards. The Peace in the Park art competition showcased some wonderful work from a very diverse sampling of young people.

Of great personal delight for me was the strong presence of the Sikh community. I knew almost nothing about them before attending the Parliament of the World’s Religions which my wife Chris and I participated in Salt Lake City, UT October of last year. The Sikhs fed more than 7,000 of us each day. They have done so for each of the modern Parliaments and 150 of them flew in from England to support the 2015 event. My talk at UUC Columbia was about the Parliament and I was pleased to tell a number of Sikhs about my experience with Langar (the name for ritually prepared meals served as an offering of service) and how one of my slides featured a picture of their Golden Temple at Amritsar where they feed more than 250,000 people three meals a day, every day of the year. A crowning experience of my visit to the “Peace in the Park” event was being honored with a Sikh turban to wear for the rest of the afternoon. Attached is a picture that one of them took of me.

IPSC has a long and rich tradition in South Carolina and had it’s beginnings in the 1970’s as a Christian/Jewish ecumenical initiative and was headed up by Dr. Carl Evans, University of South Carolina Professor Emeritus, he retired from the Department of Religious Studies in 2009 having been a member of the faculty since 1974. Dr. Evans is also past president of IPSC. Unity ministers Ed Kosak of Unity of Charleston and Rev. Peggy Konkel of Unity of Columbia are active in the IPSC as well. Click on Interfaith Partners of South Carolina if you would like to visit their website and to see the good work they sponsor and/or support.

Here is a link to Holli Emore's lovely celebration of the event: Peace in the Park. I love the song which she used as well, it is One by One by Michael Stillwater.
 

Yesterday I traveled to Beaufort, SC to attend a meeting with the Unified Interfaith Community Coalition of Beaufort. I approached them about becoming involved after attending the Mother Emmanuel Nine Annual Memorial Service which they had produced so beautifully. See my earlier post for more about that event.

I parked in the shade next to the beautiful Parish Church of St. Helena which is in fact in historic Beaufort on Church Street. Getting out of my truck I saw Mayor Billy Keyserling walking my way and had a chance to chat for a few minutes on the way to our meeting which was being hosted this month at First Presbyterian. I had worked with Billy in 2001 as a computer consultant but had not seen him since his election as mayor. He has always seemed to me to be a well inattentioned, soft spoken and very capable gentleman, who has deep roots in the city of Beaufort. Entering the church we were joined by Rabbi TZiPi Radonsky, who has also been active in Interfaith Partners of South Carolina.

The meeting lasted several hours with a group composed of various Ministers, Rabbis, the honorable mayor Billy Keyserling, the Chief of Police, his Sargent in charge of community relations as well as a few others with stakes in the community. I had hoped that the organization might expand into Beaufort County but it became obvious that there were deep issues specific to the city of Beaufort which needed to be addressed before they can expand their scope. Rev. Smalls of Grace Chapel AME who heads up the group, did make it clear that I would be welcome and encouraged me to attend in August.

The vast majority of the time was spent discussing the problems that exist between our black citizens and various law enforcement agencies. While it should be noted that the Beaufort Police Department was recently commended by the Department of Justice for the way in which its employees match the demographics of the community, it is obvious that there have been incidents and ongoing conflicts from the past which are not easily forgotten. All in attendance were anxious to develop approaches and programs to address these concerns. Rev. Smalls announced that their new church building will soon be completed and they intend to repurpose their historic chapel on Charles Street as a Center for Social Justice.

Later in the afternoon I met with Dimitri Cherny for dinner, he is running for Congress in the first district. I discussed this meeting with him to compare his perceptions with mine, in the context of his work along similar lines in Charleston. Dimitri has been involved with the 'Black Lives Matter' movement for the past few years in Charleston, has worked with the Chief of the Charleston Police Department in related matters, and with the Charleston Area Justice Ministry (CAJM), which currently has the participation of twenty congregations. It was a very fruitful discussion. I can assure you that good work is being done by people of all races in these two cities at least, although there IS much left to be done yet.

There is some controversy over the use of the words “Ecumenical”, “Interreligious” and “Interfaith”. Some might say that what I am addressing here is not strictly “Interfaith”, but the work I am involved has elements of all and I choose to use Interfaith as an umbrella word placing the emphasis on the highest level of dialogue. I wanted to share this because you’ll find that although I am quite enamored of and committed to the spiritual ideals of the Interfaith movement in general, for me this is a spiritual practice and discipline; nevertheless I do see profoundly practical needs finding remedy in dialogues just like the one I attended earlier that day.

In these times, with the tragedies our nation is experiencing all too often and with the increased intensity and focus we’ve seen this summer, it is essential that differences are resolved. To my way of thinking no one is better equipped to facilitate this than we in the Interfaith movement. Faith leaders can initiate these conversations from the pulpit and facilitate the hard talks that are necessary within their communities. They can then come together in organizations such as The Unified Interfaith Community Coalition of Beaufort to share these findings amongst themselves and arrange forums to communicate their concerns and propose solutions to the various authorities that can then implement policies, programs and procedures that will make a difference.