Just to share with you a small part of the wonders I sometimes have to read for my classes. I read this while the last 2,5 minutes of Coldplay - Fix You was playing in the background.
Murray Rogers, Anglican priest who has spent over forty years in Asia and the Middle East, on those he encountered of a different faith:
"I gladly share, without fear of disloyalty to Christ, their treasures of experience, their perceptions of the Mystery, their ways of breathing the Reality beyond all name and form. 'I' and 'they' have almost disappeared and in their place it is 'we'. No longer am I driven to fight crusades to bring 'them' over to 'my' side, as if Christ were on 'my' side. Fanaticism, including Christian fanaticism, is seen to be what in fact it always is, an appalling insult to the Divine Mystery lying beyond and within creation."
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4 comments:
Pardon, but 'fourty'? I guess you were in a rush writing that ;)
More on-topic; good to see people that have such a way with words.
Oh pardon me :P
Trouwens, je mist nu wel mijn post hieronder, die moest k nog even afmaken. Dus die staat er nu pas op.
Kus voor Geertje!
Nee hoor, the power of RSS is strong ;)
Ik zal binnenkort weer eens wat foto's op zijn blogje zetten.
"Fanaticism, including Christian fanaticism, is seen to be what in fact it always is, an appalling insult to the Divine Mystery lying beyond and within creation."
Well put!
Sadly, though, contrary to what this person suggests, collective identity in Asia and the Middle East is often constructed by means of an essentialist dichotomy between "us" and "them" ("East" versus "West", for example). In some cases, religion clearly serves as a tool of differentiation (mainly, but not exclusively, in Islamic contexts). So even though I would very much like to agree with this man, I think his assessment of Asian thinking is too optimistic. Even in Asian societies that are not characterised by religious exclusivism, ethnic and nationalistic exclusivism is widespread (Japan, Vietnam).
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