Evangelism Today Part One

Some time ago, I went into a new store that had opened in my home town of Parkhill, Ontario and engaged the owners who I didn’t know.  When they found out I was an Anglican Priest one of them asked what the “official” position of the Anglican Church was on Islam.  I asked why they were interested in knowing this and was asked in return if I knew what “Islam” meant.  I admitted that I didn’t know and was informed that it meant “surrender”. 

The woman I was speaking to was emphatic that she believed this meant that non-Muslims should surrender to the rule of Islam.  That is not her exact words but it my recollection of the conversation. I responded to the effect that I thought that it meant that Muslims should surrender to the will of God and that similarly Christians are called to live their lives following Jesus Christ. Looking back, I wish that I had engaged her more constructively but I was caught somewhat by surprize with Muslims not being a significant presence in and around Parkhill to say the least.  Also, I must confess I hadn’t thought much about the position of my church on other religions.  I was not actually aware of what the Anglican Church position on this issue.  Anglicans are, course, part of the Christian Church that has had a long and difficult history in holding that it was the one true faith and the only way to salvation was through Jesus Christ.  It has had a checkered history of forcefully converting people to Christianity with checkered results.

However, in a multi-cultural country such as Canada and a world that is much smaller that when the church was sending out missionaries to convert the natives – with the best of intentions i.e. the belief that they were saving their souls – how are we to relate to our neighbours of other religions or people of no religions? 

Well, I decided to actually investigate and educate myself on this subject.  I had been aware that the issue of the Anglican Church has dealt with one aspect of the its relations to the Jewish faith at our recent General Synod - our national governing body.  There was approval to delete an invocation calling for the conversion of Jews from the Book of Common Prayer, and replace it with a prayer entitled “For Reconciliation with the Jews.”  Certainly, this is a positive step forward, if not something that should have happened many years ago. 

I also found some information of the Web site for the Anglican Church which enlightened me on the subject.  Under the heading of Ecumenical Relationships was this statement which is addresses the issue, “As members of the Anglican Church of Canada we believe that we are called to continue the ecumenical faith journey, in which we discover in sign, symbol, and practice God’s presence in ourselves and in others, at the same time learning afresh from the living heritage of our Anglican identity.”

Under the heading of Interfaith Dialogue there is a quote from Hans Kung, a Roman Catholic theologian, “There will be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions. There will be no peace among the religions without dialogue among the religions.”  This is followed by a statement on the position of the church.

The Anglican Church of Canada pursues formal dialogue with people of other faiths together with the other member churches of the Canadian Council of Churches. We also participate in the Canadian Interfaith Conversation, which gathers representatives of different religious groups who believe that people of faith can contribute positively to the benefit of all people in Canadian society.

There are no statements, thank God, about conversion of others.  Evangelism today must take the form of demonstrating the love of Christ to others as Jesus Commanded us. As the early Christian hymn stated they will know we are Christians by our love.  That is the best way to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ to the world.

Next week I will continue on this theme with some very positive information that I became aware of recently that is very helpful on the approach we can use in interfaith dialogue; work done by the Snowmass Conference. 

Blessings on your journey.

Religion and Science Dialogue

One of the joys of being retired or at least semi-retired is that I have more time to do some of the thing I would not have had time to do previously (or at least would not have made time for).  One of the joys this summer has been to catch up on past episodes of Tapestry, the wonderful CBC radio program on things spiritual and religious hosted by Mary Hines.  Mary does a beautiful job of delving into the different subjects and people being interviewed to get at the heart of the subject.  The show is often interspersed with humor which I think is wonderful as she delves into the “laughter at the heart of things” (a phrase I must credit to Helen Luke).  I would encourage you to listen in to the program which is on CBC Radio 1 on Sunday afternoons or explore past episodes on-line at your leisure. 

Another program I have discovered which touches more directly on what I want to discuss today is Faith and Witness, a podcast which explores ecumenism in the church today.  It is an undertaking of the Canadian Council of Churches.  Faith and Witness explores a number of big theological issues such as salvation from the perspective of different denominations in Canada.  The goal is understand where different denominations are on major issues and to explore the common ground among those denominations. 

The programs are interesting and ecumenism is a worthwhile undertaking.  However, when I was listening to a couple of the episodes I couldn’t help thinking that the discussion would be completely foreign and completely uninteresting to 99.9% of Canadians.  I believe what is truly needed most today is a discussion of a common basis/understanding between people of religious faith and the religious none’s as they are classified on the census.  A large part of that is, I believe, a lack of common language which will help define what we are talking about.  This hopefully might be used to discuss things religious and spiritual from a common starting point.  We can also begin to address the assumptions (often wrong) that we have about the different perspectives that people bring to the discussion.  This is what the ecumenical movement tries to do with different denominations within Christianity.  

This was brought into focus for me by an article in the Globe and Mail this past week.  The August 5^th edition had an article entitled “Magic in the machine” which explored the phenomenon of consciousness from the current understanding in psychology and neuroscience.  Consciousness is a topic which is of great interest to me particularly in the area of dreams and Jungian psychology.  There seems to be a great divide between those studying the brain from a scientific basis and those who approach it from the spiritual/metaphysical perspective.  There is, I believe a consensus that human being are conscious but consciousness cannot be put under the microscope and examined as a physical entity therefore as quoted in the article, “  The scientific and philosophical consensus is that there is no non-physical soul or ego, or at least no evidence for that.”  The implication is that unless scientists can find hard evidence for it, it is not worth discussing.

He article did a good job of exploring the subject given the limits of a short newspaper piece.  However, one statement stood out for me and independently for Lorna as well.  The article stated, “We no longer believe in a numinous life force, an élan vital.  So what’s the big deal about consciousness?”  My question is, who is we and what is the statement based on?  If there is no numinous life force then this life on earth is all we get.  There is no continuation of the life force or soul or spirit beyond the material life we now live.  Here we have assumptions and perspectives that are not universal and need to be explored.  This is where Tapestry excels in exploring how different aspect of the experience of the Divine play out in our lives. 

Richard Rohr does a wonderful job of exploring the False Self or Ego and the True Self which is the person God intends you to be.  The ego, despite the lack of evidence for its existence, is a force which often keeps us from God—the ultimate being.  It is exactly this ultimate question, which science will never find what it considers satisfactory evidence for the existence of, is one of these issues that keep us in (at least) two solitudes.  I will close today with a quote from Richard Rohr which explores the True Self.  I may explore this use further if the spirit inspires me to:   

Your True Self is that part of you that sees truthfully and will live forever. It is divine breath passing through you. Your false self is that part of you that is constantly changing and will eventually die anyway. It is in the world of passing forms and yet it sees itself as a central reference point—which is never really true. The false self is passing, tentative, or as the Hindus and Buddhists might say, “empty.” Richard Rohr Daily Meditation August 8, 2016

I don’t not have a sermon to share with you today as I had Sunday off from official duties only providing the music for St. Alban’s in Souris.  Blessings on your journey.