I have a blog for a class I teach on World Religions. I posted this to that blog, and repeat it here.
A fuller title for this post could be "relating to people of other religions", but the title says what I want to say. We live in part of Manitoba that has a fairly high level of immigration. Once upon a time, immigration meant "more people like us" from Paraguay or Russia or Germany or Mexico. now it means people from all over the world. Filipinos make up the largest group of immigrants. Many others come from Asia and Africa. People who speak Low German and have a Mennonite background are no longer the overwhelming majority.
Christianity is still the primary religion represented among immigrants. But many from Europe are people who see their Christian or secular faith as so private that any question about faith makes them feel suspicious. Others from Asia and Africa are Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists. Although the overwhelming majority of Steinbach is still at least nominally Christian, we have many neighbours who represent other religions. How should we relate to them?
The European answer meshes with the Canadian approach: "Faith is private, and none of your business." I must admit that I have trouble with this approach. Private belief issues in public action, and refusal to admit who I am inside makes it harder for others to deal with the choices I make in public.
The desire to keep faith private is based in good sense. We see people around the world engaged in conflict, and faith seems to be an integral part of those conflicts. So we teach tolerance for all people and keep quiet about our faith. Does the fact of faiths in conflicts mean that we should keep quiet about faith or religion? I don't think so.
Many people in Africa and Asia are quite comfortable talking about religion, without assuming that the person they are speaking with must convert to their faith. The real roots of conflict in our world are political and economic. People then use religion to energize the conflict already felt for other reasons. What we need a primary commitment to peace and to respect.
Tolerance is such a weak word. Respect is much stronger. I can talk to you and listen to you respectfully. I do not need to accept that you are right, if I don't think you are; but I do need to continue to treat you fairly and respectfully.
As I said above, private faith results in public actions; so I would like to know what faith is behind the way that people live. I want to know if someone is a Christian or a Muslim, a Buddhist or an Atheist, and so on. I want to be free to say what i am (a Christian), without having my rights as a Canadian placed in jeopardy. I want to continue to respect and accept and work with all people around me, as Jews or New Age or whatever they are, with the freedom to say who they are and who I am. I want to relate to whole people.
A common concern is that such openness will lead to proselytizing. I suppose it might. Sometimes Liberal Party members try to convince someone from the NDP that he/she would be more at home in the Liberal Party. Is that a bad thing to do? Sometimes people who discuss bringing a a power line down the west side of Lake Winnipeg try to convince others that west is better than east. Is it wrong for them to do so?
It would be wrong to mistreat people with whom we disagree politically. One should not, for example, give less money to one school district than to another because it voted for the other party in the last provincial election. Nor should one break friendship with someone because the other thinks that the power line should be laid along the bottom of the lake. But we find out what is right and true in a free exchange of ideas in which we can say what we truly believe.
Religion is no different. We treat people from other religions as people. If we find they don't want to talk about it, we don't press the issue. If we find they are willing to talk about matters of faith, we may talk. At the least, we should be free to say who we are without embarrassment and without proselytizing.
Showing posts with label Miscellaneous. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Miscellaneous. Show all posts
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Christmas 2007
Our family has been watching old videos. Seventeen years ago we lived in Kentucky, then Zimbabwe, then Kentucky. Many memories surfaced as we watched the Heise family gathered together for our last time before Dad died. We sang hymns for about 45 minutes in February 1991, a wonderful time together even in death's shadow. Many more memories came with pictures of Mike and Lyn, and of the memorial to their daughter. We saw images of Zimbabwe, from Bulawayo to the Eastern Highlands, a beautiful country, so delightful, and today so ravaged by corruption and greed for power.
Memories are good. They remind us of who we are, for better or worse, and help ground our present existence. Those reminders took me off guard at times as we watched. During Vaughn's birthday party an old man carrying a bag stopped at the guest house, of which we were the hosts. I was taking the video of the children playing, and called out to him, "UBaba, tshaya ibell" -- ring the doorbell, father, implying that someone would take care of him.
I watched that clip, incidental to our family memories, and wondered at myself. Within the Ndebele culture an old man deserves respect. I showed some, by way of the courtesy of calling him "Baba", but I continued my own task of shooting the video. I wished as I watched that I had either stopped the video or handed it to someone else and walked over to him, greeted him with the courtesy due his years, and inquired after his health and life and finally his business with us. It would have cost me little, and would have also showed him a white person treating him with the kind of respect white people too rarely give to others.
In my regrets I wonder also if perhaps I wish this only because then I would have shown myself a better person. Such habits as caring genuinely for others are developed throughout a lifetime, not manufactured for the moment in Bulawayo.
For Christmas 2007 then, I have an early resolution -- to learn from the best of southern African cultures the value called "ubuntu": an acknowledgement of the other person's value as part of the human family, expressed in word and deed whenever I interact with others. This resolution I know I will break, but seeking to carry it out, a practice that takes a lifetime to perfect, is worth the effort.
Christmas Joy to all in my own family and in every part of our world.
Memories are good. They remind us of who we are, for better or worse, and help ground our present existence. Those reminders took me off guard at times as we watched. During Vaughn's birthday party an old man carrying a bag stopped at the guest house, of which we were the hosts. I was taking the video of the children playing, and called out to him, "UBaba, tshaya ibell" -- ring the doorbell, father, implying that someone would take care of him.
I watched that clip, incidental to our family memories, and wondered at myself. Within the Ndebele culture an old man deserves respect. I showed some, by way of the courtesy of calling him "Baba", but I continued my own task of shooting the video. I wished as I watched that I had either stopped the video or handed it to someone else and walked over to him, greeted him with the courtesy due his years, and inquired after his health and life and finally his business with us. It would have cost me little, and would have also showed him a white person treating him with the kind of respect white people too rarely give to others.
In my regrets I wonder also if perhaps I wish this only because then I would have shown myself a better person. Such habits as caring genuinely for others are developed throughout a lifetime, not manufactured for the moment in Bulawayo.
For Christmas 2007 then, I have an early resolution -- to learn from the best of southern African cultures the value called "ubuntu": an acknowledgement of the other person's value as part of the human family, expressed in word and deed whenever I interact with others. This resolution I know I will break, but seeking to carry it out, a practice that takes a lifetime to perfect, is worth the effort.
Christmas Joy to all in my own family and in every part of our world.
Friday, November 02, 2007
Whose Religion?
I teach several courses that include questions about what is true, how we know what is true, and the like. A recurring theme is the fact that everyone has a perspective, a way of looking at life, a way of processing the raw data of reality that bombards us each day.
I remember learning about the beginning of the United States. My school days, when I learned such things, are long gone; but I remember among various influences the desire to be able to worship freely, without interference from the State. People who were religiously disenfranchised in Holland or in England found a place where they could worship according to their own conscience. The way that the United States encapsulated this religious freedom in the Constitution is one of our better moments. We have much to be ashamed of, and much to be proud of in our history. Enshrining religious freedom in the First Amendment and in our laws is one of our better actions.
Of course, the action has been interpreted in different ways throughout our history. Earlier in our life as a nation, the First Amendment functioned to prevent the new country making one denomination the official church of the new state. Americans who had left the established Church of England behind avoided establishing another church in their new country, even when it was the church of their own choice. More recently, as the United States becomes increasingly pluralist (religiously and culturally), the First Amendment has come to serve as a way to keep religion in general out of the public square.
The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) is well known for its activities in protecting the civil rights of Americans, often with respect to the First Amendment. A statement from its web page on religion is instructive:
"Some people, however, mistakenly use the word "public" when they really mean 'governmental.' This can be seen, for example, with Ten Commandments monuments. The right of churches and families to erect such monuments on their own property is constitutionally protected, regardless of whether it is public or private and regardless of whether someone is offended or not. A Christian cross that is fully visible from a public sidewalk is constitutionally protected when placed in front of a church. But if that same cross were moved across the street and placed in front of city hall, it would violate the Constitution. The issue is not 'religion in the public square' - as the rhetoric misleadingly suggests - but whether the government should be making decisions about whose sacred texts and symbols should be placed on government property and whose should be rejected."
I like what I see on the ACLU's web page. I agree with much that I find there. But their statement quoted above gets at the difficulty I feel. To express that difficulty, I digress into the history of my own church. The Brethren in Christ have roots going back to the Anabaptists, who began in Switzerland, Germany, and Holland at the end of the 16th Century. The Swiss Anabaptists in Zurich, Switzerland began as followers of Zwingli, and his movement against the Roman Catholic Church. I remember in seminary learning about the way that Zwingli and his young followers sought to purify the church in Zurich.
They cleaned out the decorations and symbols of the Roman church, scrubbing their sanctuary clean of all the religious symbols they could. There was one problem. The pulpit set in a clean sanctuary, with white walls and no other symbols, became a powerful new symbol, reflecting the new church's commitment to the preached word. The Anabaptists followed through on the power of the new symbol more consistently than did Zwingli, which became a basic cause of their own separation from him to form their own church.
In a similar way, a public square (or governmental square, in the ACLU terminology) scrubbed clean of religious symbols is itself a symbol of a particular religious commitment. The commitment to "no religion" is a commitment to secularism, in which secularism functions precisely as every religion always has.
One reason that some Christian conservatives have felt pushed out of public discourse in the United States (and in Canada, where I now live) is that they recognize, however vaguely, that their Christian religion has been supplanted by another religion. The problem is not that Christianity needs to be enfranchised, but that Secularism needs to be disenfranchised. What a genuinely free public/governmental square looks like is another question. In this essay I have tried to lay out a basic problem that operates within the USA and Canada, especially in the Academic community (where I make my living) and in that part of the public square which is controlled specifically by the government.
No new ideas here; just a problem to keep wrestling with: Whose religion does the country live by?
I remember learning about the beginning of the United States. My school days, when I learned such things, are long gone; but I remember among various influences the desire to be able to worship freely, without interference from the State. People who were religiously disenfranchised in Holland or in England found a place where they could worship according to their own conscience. The way that the United States encapsulated this religious freedom in the Constitution is one of our better moments. We have much to be ashamed of, and much to be proud of in our history. Enshrining religious freedom in the First Amendment and in our laws is one of our better actions.
Of course, the action has been interpreted in different ways throughout our history. Earlier in our life as a nation, the First Amendment functioned to prevent the new country making one denomination the official church of the new state. Americans who had left the established Church of England behind avoided establishing another church in their new country, even when it was the church of their own choice. More recently, as the United States becomes increasingly pluralist (religiously and culturally), the First Amendment has come to serve as a way to keep religion in general out of the public square.
The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) is well known for its activities in protecting the civil rights of Americans, often with respect to the First Amendment. A statement from its web page on religion is instructive:
"Some people, however, mistakenly use the word "public" when they really mean 'governmental.' This can be seen, for example, with Ten Commandments monuments. The right of churches and families to erect such monuments on their own property is constitutionally protected, regardless of whether it is public or private and regardless of whether someone is offended or not. A Christian cross that is fully visible from a public sidewalk is constitutionally protected when placed in front of a church. But if that same cross were moved across the street and placed in front of city hall, it would violate the Constitution. The issue is not 'religion in the public square' - as the rhetoric misleadingly suggests - but whether the government should be making decisions about whose sacred texts and symbols should be placed on government property and whose should be rejected."
I like what I see on the ACLU's web page. I agree with much that I find there. But their statement quoted above gets at the difficulty I feel. To express that difficulty, I digress into the history of my own church. The Brethren in Christ have roots going back to the Anabaptists, who began in Switzerland, Germany, and Holland at the end of the 16th Century. The Swiss Anabaptists in Zurich, Switzerland began as followers of Zwingli, and his movement against the Roman Catholic Church. I remember in seminary learning about the way that Zwingli and his young followers sought to purify the church in Zurich.
They cleaned out the decorations and symbols of the Roman church, scrubbing their sanctuary clean of all the religious symbols they could. There was one problem. The pulpit set in a clean sanctuary, with white walls and no other symbols, became a powerful new symbol, reflecting the new church's commitment to the preached word. The Anabaptists followed through on the power of the new symbol more consistently than did Zwingli, which became a basic cause of their own separation from him to form their own church.
In a similar way, a public square (or governmental square, in the ACLU terminology) scrubbed clean of religious symbols is itself a symbol of a particular religious commitment. The commitment to "no religion" is a commitment to secularism, in which secularism functions precisely as every religion always has.
One reason that some Christian conservatives have felt pushed out of public discourse in the United States (and in Canada, where I now live) is that they recognize, however vaguely, that their Christian religion has been supplanted by another religion. The problem is not that Christianity needs to be enfranchised, but that Secularism needs to be disenfranchised. What a genuinely free public/governmental square looks like is another question. In this essay I have tried to lay out a basic problem that operates within the USA and Canada, especially in the Academic community (where I make my living) and in that part of the public square which is controlled specifically by the government.
No new ideas here; just a problem to keep wrestling with: Whose religion does the country live by?
Monday, October 08, 2007
Thanksgiving Thoughts (with little reference to thanksgiving)
Today is Thanksgiving Day in Canada. I am grateful that Lois continues to recover, although with occasional headaches and mild mood swings. A concussion will do that to you! We are expecting two families to join us for supper -- one from Zambia, and one from Singapore/Korea. It should be an enjoyable evening.
But my thoughts turn instead to something that I am reading, a History of South Africa by Leonard Thompson. Given that I grew up in Zambia and Zimbabwe, and given my continuing concern with Southern Africa as a whole, Thompson's work is of great interest to me.
I could reflect on various aspects of the story: the way that the indigenous peoples worked with and fought with each other; the story of the European settlers, whose efforts transformed the region for good and for ill; the difficulty of encompassing all the divergent stories in one primary story of the country as a whole. But I make two points only.
One builds on the last of the short list above: divergent stories held in tension within one story. Going to school in Rhodesia of old, I learned the story from the White Settler perspective. Our story was the narrative into which the stories of subject peoples were expected to fit, and within which their lives were supposed to find meaning. Now that perspective is reversed, and our story is seen as smaller than we thought -- important, but only a part of the whole. Our story now derives its meaning from the narrative of the majority peoples of Southern Africa.
The change in perspective is humbling, but necessary if we are to understand what our part really has been in this part of the world. The majority narrative may not understand our story fully; but the total picture surely belongs to the indigenous people of Africa. We are made part of the whole, and the meaning of our part depends on the whole.
Two is a mild critique of one statement that Thompson makes. He suggests that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was ultimately a failure, by which I think he means that it did not bring about a full reconciliation between the races of South Africa. In this he is certainly correct; but I suggest that his definition of success is unnecessarily strict.
Without the TRC, we do not know what would have been over the past 10 years of the new South Africa. Certainly deep divisions remain, primarily (but not exclusively) along racial lines. Certainly many hurts continue to fester. But so difficult and damaging were the decades before 1994 that even a successful TRC could not simply heal all that had happened. It may be that these past 10 years would have been worse, not simply the same, as they in fact were.
Insofar as I have a point, it is this: the story is always more complex than any brief history can describe. Thompson knows that and does a superb job of writing succinctly and accurately. But here (and at a few other points in the book) I think he forgot what he knows. Greater credit than he gives is due to De Klerk, and to other White activists over the past 200 years, and to ordinary people Black and White who were not simply pawns of apartheid.
I don't know if South Africa will move beyond the depressing histories of Zimbabwe and other countries where one-party rule has led to brutal dictatorship. It may; it may not. I don't know. But so far, the progress made is worth a Thanksgiving.
But my thoughts turn instead to something that I am reading, a History of South Africa by Leonard Thompson. Given that I grew up in Zambia and Zimbabwe, and given my continuing concern with Southern Africa as a whole, Thompson's work is of great interest to me.
I could reflect on various aspects of the story: the way that the indigenous peoples worked with and fought with each other; the story of the European settlers, whose efforts transformed the region for good and for ill; the difficulty of encompassing all the divergent stories in one primary story of the country as a whole. But I make two points only.
One builds on the last of the short list above: divergent stories held in tension within one story. Going to school in Rhodesia of old, I learned the story from the White Settler perspective. Our story was the narrative into which the stories of subject peoples were expected to fit, and within which their lives were supposed to find meaning. Now that perspective is reversed, and our story is seen as smaller than we thought -- important, but only a part of the whole. Our story now derives its meaning from the narrative of the majority peoples of Southern Africa.
The change in perspective is humbling, but necessary if we are to understand what our part really has been in this part of the world. The majority narrative may not understand our story fully; but the total picture surely belongs to the indigenous people of Africa. We are made part of the whole, and the meaning of our part depends on the whole.
Two is a mild critique of one statement that Thompson makes. He suggests that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was ultimately a failure, by which I think he means that it did not bring about a full reconciliation between the races of South Africa. In this he is certainly correct; but I suggest that his definition of success is unnecessarily strict.
Without the TRC, we do not know what would have been over the past 10 years of the new South Africa. Certainly deep divisions remain, primarily (but not exclusively) along racial lines. Certainly many hurts continue to fester. But so difficult and damaging were the decades before 1994 that even a successful TRC could not simply heal all that had happened. It may be that these past 10 years would have been worse, not simply the same, as they in fact were.
Insofar as I have a point, it is this: the story is always more complex than any brief history can describe. Thompson knows that and does a superb job of writing succinctly and accurately. But here (and at a few other points in the book) I think he forgot what he knows. Greater credit than he gives is due to De Klerk, and to other White activists over the past 200 years, and to ordinary people Black and White who were not simply pawns of apartheid.
I don't know if South Africa will move beyond the depressing histories of Zimbabwe and other countries where one-party rule has led to brutal dictatorship. It may; it may not. I don't know. But so far, the progress made is worth a Thanksgiving.
Saturday, June 09, 2007
Random Blogger Thoughts
1. My last blog (May 30) was written to continue various Mother's Day thoughts. It was also my 57th birthday. Time passes, as we observe often, and we grow old(er). 
The picture shows an earlier and younger day: Daryl at 13 or 14, Denise at 6 or 7. Yesterday Denise turned 50. The week before I turned 57. Some things don't change. My blog shows that I still start things and have trouble finishing them.
2. Donna was remembering the summer of 1966 in her blog. Other summers come to my mind. The summer of 1968 I spent mowing lawns in York, Pennsylvania. The next year, summer 1969, I spent in San Francisco. Now I watch PBS specials telling me how special and amazing the summer of 1969 in San Francisco was. It was broadening, certainly. I remember also the moon landing that year, and dropping my glasses on the floor to prove that they were unbreakable. (They weren't.)
3. Vaughn is home for a couple of weeks. We've played some table tennis, watched some soccer (and hockey and basketball), and talked some. I've joined facebook now, but I feel like an intruder there. Vaughn is at the upper end of age in facebook, if the pictures and profiles speak true; so I am really over the hill! But where else can one join a group of people who have eaten at Eskimo Hut in Bulawayo? Or a group named "Climenhagas Anonymous"? I had never thought of my name as something to enter group counselling for: "Hi. My name is Daryl, and I'm ... a Climenhaga." There are a fair number of Climenhagas who surface in facebook, but only three Slagenweits. None of whom I know.
4. Last Tuesday I went to an emergent conference in Winnipeg. Alan Roxburgh joined us for a conversation (which is what emergent likes to call itself). Al's contribution was on target: learning to live as strangers and guests who come to our neighbours with no set agenda in our hands, to stuff into their unwilling hands; learning to live with people and discover their stories as part of our own and of God's story. Much more to be said, of course. The only drawback for the evening was that Al stood on a stage (at Ellice Theatre -- itself a wonderful movement within Winnipeg's city centre) and we sat below him in the theatre seats. Hard to converse as equals in such a setting, but one trusts that the conversation will continue in Winnipeg's (and Steinbach's) churches and cafes and pubs and parks.
5. Last evening Lois invited several families who have been part of her intensive English class in Steinbach to join us for dessert. We had 15 of us sitting around conversing in English and Spanish, with a variety of accents. Her invitation extends Roxburgh's thoughts: entering other people's lives, in this case by extending hospitality. Southeastern Manitoba is experiencing huge immigrant growth, so I sat next to a truck driver from England, as he described crossing the channel and driving through Spain. "Winding roads through the mountains. The Italians go through mountains, but in Spain they go around. Harder to drive." A delightful evening as the light faded into darkness somewhere after 10 pm.
Saturday, May 05, 2007
Late Nights
These weeks are my busiest of the year, even busier than Christmas. Three weeks ago was the last week of classes. One could see students standing straighter as the load of assignments lifted, and teachers bowing over as the same load descended. Two weeks ago I was marking at full speed, while also taking in the faculty retreat. This week were the doctor of ministry modules. I direct the programme, so although I did not teach, I was still on call throughout. The last paper is now finished; the modules are over. Two more weeks of classes in Global Studies (which I am responsible for arranging) lie ahead, but the heaviest times lie behind.
This is the context, then, for last Sunday. Just before 11 pm the phone rang: one of our incoming doctoral students was stranded at the airport. I started calling around, trying to find out what had happened, and finally got in touch with the student himself. Albert's flight from Calgary had been cancelled. He had been put on a flight from Vancouver which stopped over in Calgary, and arrived about 45 minutes late. Meanwhile the student who was to pick him up arrived at the airport, found no evidence of a flight from Calgary, and after waiting an extra half hour, he went back to Providence.
All this we figured out later. At 11:25 all I could do was put on some clothes, get in the car, and drive to the airport. I met Albert at 12:30 am, brought him back to our house (quicker than stopping by the school) by 1:30, and then went to bed. Of course the adrenalin was flowing, and I went to sleep rather later than that. Sometimes you can't just "go to sleep".
The next morning Albert and I were up on schedule and off for the day at Providence. What I notice about the whole thing is how little trouble it actually is to respond to surprise events. I was tired; but doctors in emergency rooms would smile at the thought of so little. Truck drivers regularly deal with harder schedules. To lose sleep one night is less than new parents experience every night -- and forget remarkably quickly as their children get older.
Instead I notice how I had a good chance to be with Albert, and appreciate his genuine interest in what is happening in my life and at the school. We had a brief chance to talk about some research he hopes to do. In all, it was a serendipitous event, good to find oneself in, rather than an imposition or hardship.
There are of course lessons for how to handle airport pickups: provide the person being picked up with a number to call (a cell on the pick up person would work well) to give any changes of plans when they happen. But more important is the goodness of the events we experience. My sister asked recently what lessons others have taught us. I remember this from my mother: good and bad things happen all the time and you can't help that; but you can decide how you will respond to what happens. That personal choice usually matters more than anything. I wish I could always remember that.
This is the context, then, for last Sunday. Just before 11 pm the phone rang: one of our incoming doctoral students was stranded at the airport. I started calling around, trying to find out what had happened, and finally got in touch with the student himself. Albert's flight from Calgary had been cancelled. He had been put on a flight from Vancouver which stopped over in Calgary, and arrived about 45 minutes late. Meanwhile the student who was to pick him up arrived at the airport, found no evidence of a flight from Calgary, and after waiting an extra half hour, he went back to Providence.
All this we figured out later. At 11:25 all I could do was put on some clothes, get in the car, and drive to the airport. I met Albert at 12:30 am, brought him back to our house (quicker than stopping by the school) by 1:30, and then went to bed. Of course the adrenalin was flowing, and I went to sleep rather later than that. Sometimes you can't just "go to sleep".
The next morning Albert and I were up on schedule and off for the day at Providence. What I notice about the whole thing is how little trouble it actually is to respond to surprise events. I was tired; but doctors in emergency rooms would smile at the thought of so little. Truck drivers regularly deal with harder schedules. To lose sleep one night is less than new parents experience every night -- and forget remarkably quickly as their children get older.
Instead I notice how I had a good chance to be with Albert, and appreciate his genuine interest in what is happening in my life and at the school. We had a brief chance to talk about some research he hopes to do. In all, it was a serendipitous event, good to find oneself in, rather than an imposition or hardship.
There are of course lessons for how to handle airport pickups: provide the person being picked up with a number to call (a cell on the pick up person would work well) to give any changes of plans when they happen. But more important is the goodness of the events we experience. My sister asked recently what lessons others have taught us. I remember this from my mother: good and bad things happen all the time and you can't help that; but you can decide how you will respond to what happens. That personal choice usually matters more than anything. I wish I could always remember that.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Monty Python
I didn't mean to break a long silence in so ignominious a way. I am in the last week and after of the semester, and grading has squeezed out any journalistic impulse. But this news story from NPR "All Things Considered" at least notice. A crowd of 4,382 "coconut-bangers" playing along with "Always look on the bright side of life". Wow!
Well, back to the papers.
Well, back to the papers.
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