Comments on: "Muslim and Christian"? Hardly.

By: andii

andii — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 17:28:13 +0000

I’d go with that: just my thoughts. It sounds like we’re discussing tactics rather than which game to play! And it seems to hinge on what we think of the report and the likely truth of the matter behind the report.

By: doug

doug — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 16:39:31 +0000

For me, inhibition is about stopping her exercising her office as a teacher. I don’t favour excommunication at all precisely because of all the reasons you want to take a more charitable approach overall. Assuming the truth of the report, she may need time and space to explore the questions that have seized her on an emotional level. The church and she and Islam may have things to learn from that open-ended process of discussion.

By: andii

andii — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 16:18:55 +0000

I can sympathise with the reaction about holding a teaching office and apparently being rather muddled. It is true that much of how it’s been presented would point that way. However, one of the ways the media tends to work is to fasten on the easily understood and to try to create easy oppositional positions for a sound-and-fury debate which sells papers better than the nuanced discussions often really needed. Hence my skepticism about how far to trust the reporting.
Also, in defence of the Bishop’s reaction (in addition to trying to work through the matter pastorally and not push her straight into an unequivocal and final renunciation of Christ), my understanding was that she was currently not actually holding a church post merely the equivalen of PTO. We are told she “will begin teaching the New Testament as a visiting assistant professor at Seattle University this fall”, which puts an interesting potential slant on the matter: I doubt this is fluffy dice theology. I’d love to hear her take on the textual history of the Qur’an too!

The really important thing is the issues around centred set and bounded set approaches, imho.

I’d be interested in why you favour inhibition but not excommunication. But note that I’m about to be moving my things to Nottingham tomorrow so may be offline for a few days, so no hurry required answering!

By: doug

doug — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 10:53:44 +0000

Yes, I do know how distorting the press can be. But it seemed to me that unless they have entirely misquoted her (in which case I shall apologise for my reaction) she is genuinely totally muddle-headed to say the least.
You are of course right that there may be discussions going on behind the scenes. My vehemence is probably a mix of working out the day’s frustrations on my blog, and real anger that someone should hold a teaching office in the church when it looks as though they haven’t got the first inkling of the church’s teaching themselves, hence my view that she should be inhibited (but not, not, excommunicated) — I see a big difference between the two.

By: andii

andii — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 10:14:15 +0000

Huge amount of agreement from me. I think I’m just a little less keen to assume the very worst without fuller facts than a newspaper article (knowing first hand how distorting journalistic processes can be). It may be fluffy dice theology, but it may actually be better thought out (perhaps in ways similar to the ideas my entry explores a bit). I was surprised at how sharply and vehemently you expressed yourself over this. I outline ways in which in could be possible to make this kind of ‘dual’ allegiance.

While I can see the case for inhibiting her, I am also aware that there may be discussions that have gone on which could make sense of not doing so. It is hard for me to think of a case for inhibition that isn’t also leading to excommunication. And I think that the pastoral realities may need to be considered too: inhibition/excommunication might force/drive an unreserved flight into Islam whereas the present may need to be a time of exploration. The interest will really lie with the religious institutions faced directly with this.

There is always the issue, too, of the psycho-spiritual dynamics of religious institutional allegiances which don’t always serve genuine spiritual exploration well.

All that said, I too worry about syncretism and recognise the formal incompatibilities between the faiths. I just think that we should perhaps read this keeping in mind the thousands of believers who are outwardly Islamic but for fear of the Muslims keep their primary allegiance to Christ secret. With them in mind I still think that the exploratory possibilities raised by this woman’s situation are important not to inhibit prematurely.

By: doug

doug — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:59:09 +0000

Okay, yes, good point.

By: Iyov

Iyov — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:27:30 +0000

I was thinking of her crucifix.

By: doug

doug — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:12:48 +0000

Sorry Jim, there’s always a problem (mis)interpreting the tone of short blog posts.
Iyov, there’s a considerable diversity of Islamic practice as far as I know, and calligraphy (which I assume this is) is one of the ways in which some strands of Islam have decorated mosques etc without breaking the prohibition on images. I have seen some particlularly splendid examples in India.

By: Iyov

Iyov — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 00:26:29 +0000

Given the extreme hostility of Islam toward iconography, it strikes me that here bead cross plus Allah medallion is rather haram. There is also an unstated but carefully implied suggestion in the article that her attraction to Islam is partially a matter of ethnic pride — she is quoted in the article speaking of her African heritage and the article carefully notes that she belongs to an predominantly African-American Muslim group.

I have heard the argument that one can treat Buddhism as pure philosophy without metaphysical or theological assertions, and thus it is possible to be Buddhist and belong to different religion. Similarly, Hazrat Inayat Khan founded a movement called universal Sufism that claims that one can follow a form of Sufism without being a Muslim. However, clearly, this is not the case here.

I agree with your assessment of the situation. I have similar feelings when I read of people who claim to be both Jews and Christians.

By: Jim

Jim — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 23:50:52 +0000

No cheap points at all- just disgusted at the sickening lack of theological insight that a person would have to have in order to claim to be both / and.