Don't I Know You?

Pause For Thought with Reverend Val Ogden, Ecumenical Minister at The Dorking Christian Centre

Well I’m taking the risk of courting controversy at this hour of the morning. I worry a bit about this assumption that learning from each other’s faiths is unquestionably a good thing. It depends, surely, on what we’re learning, who’s telling us and how intelligently we’re processing what we find. I mean, suppose someone learns about Christianity – the faith that’s etched deeply on my heart – largely through history books, and finds that – in the name of Jesus Christ apparently – Christians have played a significant role in the bloodshed of the Crusades, the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade, that there was Christian support in some quarters for apartheid in South Africa and that evidence of discrimination against women in senior Church leadership is still alive and well. Mmm – really? says the eager learner, ‘that’s what your Christianity’s all about is it?’ I wouldn’t feel proud. But then neither would Abdul Rehman Malik I imagine who spoke last Monday, if the same eager learner concluded that at the heart of his faith - Islam - was a violent interpretation of jihad and the call to terrorist action.

How about then, deciding to learn only from the best in each other’s faiths? Quite intentionally. Taking on board that no world religion is blameless in the way its followers have presented the faith sometimes. All have failed and fallen short. But when we long to learn from the best in each other’s scriptures and traditions, not the worst; well now, there’s a priceless gift to the world. When I do that, as a Christian, I hear my Buddhist friend’s plea that ‘In anger or ill-will let no one wish any harm to another.’ And I hear the heartfelt cry from the Jain tradition, ‘Let all beings be engaged in one another's well-being.’

I’m inspired by the naming of God in the Qu’ran as the Sovereign, the Holy One, the Source of Peace and Perfection, the Guardian of Faith, the Preserver of Safety, and all this helps me to look again at how for Christians, God is revealed so amazingly in Jesus – the Jesus who said – I give you a new commandment; love one another just as I have loved you. Please don’t look for and learn from the worst of my faith. I know all too well that it’s there – to our shame. Please - look and learn instead from our best bits – because there are plenty of those around too.