Spreading the word in opposing territory

A story tells of a Catholic and an Episcopalian who were discussing

the ways of God. They could not reach a definitive conclusion and the

Catholic said to the Episcopalian, “Well, we will just have to

continue to disagree about the ways of God -- you in your way and I

in his.”

Underlying this seemingly benign conclusion is an expression of

religious triumphalism.

While missionaries see their activities as noble efforts to open

the blind eye, they are engaged acts of disrespect. The missionary

says that the beliefs and practices of other faiths do not provide a

meaningful way of life and path to salvation. Unless a person accepts

the conviction of the missionary, his eternal soul is doomed.

Missionizing is an effort to win another person’s acknowledgment of

the error of his ways and recognize a higher, self-evident truth. The

goal of this thoughtlessly directed religious zeal is the

annihilation of a person’s present faith and the demolishing of

another religious culture. To claim that another faith lies outside

the consummation of God’s covenant is an act of spiritual

imperialism. It reduces the person who is the object of the

missionary’s assault to a theological category.

To say, for example, that my religion cannot possibly be

fulfilling, that I cannot find union with God in commitment to my

faith, that I am blind to another religion’s exclusive claim to

truth, that my historic role has been abrogated, are implications to

be resented and resisted. To the missionary, only his faith is

legitimate. But each faith insists on its own validity and integrity.

My faith was not merely a prelude to another faith and my Scripture

is not a pale forerunner of a fuller revelation.

Lurking behind every missionary statement is the belief that we

have the complete truth and you have virtually none, that you are

out-of-date, obsolete and second level. No matter how the missionary

coats his efforts with high-minded justifications and approaches with

superficial kindness, his position is one of attack. Rather than

arrogantly seek to colonize my mind, heart and spirit with his faith

and supplant my belief with his, the would-be missionary would do

well to perfect his own spiritual being, a full-time proposition for

anyone.

RABBI MARK S. MILLER

Temple Bat Yam

Newport Beach

“Agree to disagree” doesn’t mean you shut your brain off.

I have studied in depth every major religious system and many of

the minor ones. I own and have read most of their holy books. I did

not grow up in a Christian home; I grew up neutral, leaning toward

Eastern mysticism and new age. My journeys led me to Jesus. These

explorations gave me a strength and confidence in my new beliefs.

During the Soviet era, I was in Eastern Europe and ministering

covertly. The KGB had been pursuing us. During one conversation in a

small village, a woman said, “My government tells me that the U.S. is

a fairy tale. But you are here. Maybe what they say about

Christianity is false as well.”

The Soviet fear of Christianity caused people to be more curious

about it. It is the draw of the forbidden. I have invited Muslims,

Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons and more to speak with our

congregation, so that our students get real information about these

traditions and become convinced of their choice. I have so much

confidence in the doctrines of our faith that I don’t fear needing to

censor information to our people.

On the other hand, I would be racist (or worse) if I limited those

to whom I talk to, reach out to or offer services, based on their

ethnicity, race, economic status, gender or sexual orientation. What

would we think of a doctor who limited his remedies to certain groups

of people?

The strength and uniqueness of the American democratic experiment

is that we have always been able to discuss faith and religion freely

between members of our society. We are not Saudi Arabia, which is one

of many countries where it is illegal to change your faith.

There is no love without choice and God created us to love him. To

love him, we must have the choice to walk away from him. That is what

makes the relationship so beautiful -- it is by choice.

Judaism is unique in that the religion and the race have common

roots. You can be born ethnically a Jew, you can choose to practice

Judaism or some can do both. Jewish prophets like Hosea, Micah and

Amos all lamented that God wanted people’s hearts and not their

sacrifices.

Christianity began as a revival in Judaism. The call of Jesus was

to abandon belief in sacrifices as a relationship builder with God

and go back to the faith of Abraham. Abraham’s relationship with God

was based on his faith in God, not on circumcision or any sacrifice.

All that came later.

Early Christ followers were all Jews and considered themselves

Jews. They worshiped in the Temple, went to synagogue and called

Jesus their Rabbi. To this day, we regularly celebrate rites linked

to our ancient Jewish roots. Our two most important rites, baptism

and communion, come from Jewish rites.

With this in mind, Avodat Yisrael is not asking people to leave

Judaism, nor to stop being Jewish. The goal is that in their Judaism

they would learn from their Father Abraham and find the faith with

which he became the “Father of many nations.”

SENIOR ASSOCIATE

PASTOR RIC OLSEN

Harbor Trinity

Costa Mesa

When the Council of Christians and Jews, which had succeeded a

Council of (Christian) Churches, became obsolete in the early 1970s,

I wrote this statement of purpose for the just-then-forming Berkeley

Area Interfaith Council: “The surest liberation from idolatrous

religion is to have to meet God in people who are very different from

ourselves.”

I defined “idolatrous” as worshiping -- trusting wholly in -- what

is not God, less than God, and suggested substituting “ingrown,”

“private,” “nationalistic,” “culture-centric” or “ethno-centric,”

etc. I said that for me, “meet God” means “fill our most basic

needs,” “have what we cannot do without,” “be enabled to live fully,”

“know the most basic truths,” “find true happiness,” “get fundamental

strengths” and the like. I still have business card-sized giveaways

with all this on them!

There is a very old and, I trust, fictional story about a

parishioner in a very well established Episcopal congregation asking

the priest, “Is it possible for a man to achieve salvation outside

the fold of the Episcopal Church?”

After interior combat, the pastor answered, “Yes, there might be

such a possibility, but no gentleman would avail himself of it.”

A contemporary cartoon conveys a similar message by having one

well-dressed Episcopalian say to another, “Everyone in this town who

should be an Episcopalian already is one.”

If such humor is at all close to truth for any of us, surely we

all will benefit measurably from regularly meeting God in people who

are very different from ourselves!

THE VERY REV. CANON

PETER D. HAYNES

St. Michael & All Angels

Episcopal Church

Corona del Mar

Protecting the vitality of the congregation is always a concern of

any religious organization. There are spoken and unspoken

expectations between churches concerning the solicitation of each

other’s congregants, with sometimes differing ideas about the extent

to which community outreach and advertising is appropriate.

The Zen tradition of “ask three times” suggests that solicitation

and advertisement should be minimal. Unless a person has enough drive

to “ask three times” for permission to enter a training center, their

chances of learning how to meditate and pursuing a Zen practice are

not very good, therefore they shouldn’t be encouraged.

At our center, we treat all those who come to an introductory

workshop as adults fully capable of judging for themselves whether

pursuing more classes or training might be worthwhile to them. In

this spirit, we have only a small sign on our building and our

regular practitioners soon learn that talking about Zen has limited

value. Zen awareness practice is best shared by people trying their

best to live with care and attention to whatever is present, rather

than expounding principles.

The Zen school doesn’t hold beliefs, even religious ideas, in very

high regard. Bodhidharma, the Indian prince living in 500 C.E., and

the founder of Zen in China, stated there should be “no reliance on

words and letters.”

Zen is founded on meditation and action, not beliefs

(interpretations). So there shouldn’t be any antagonism toward other

groups holding differing beliefs. All beliefs are suspect, whether

they be Christian, Jewish, or Zen if, in relying on beliefs, we are

not experiencing our lives directly.

As one of the old Zen teachers said, “It’s like tasting water --

we know for ourselves whether it is cool or warm.”

Living our lives in awareness is not a complicated affair that

requires religious canon. As Zen practitioners, we respect the

ability of each person to direct their spiritual or religious path in

order to taste and drink deeply of their life. It’s disingenuous to

interfere with that process beyond a simple sign on the door.

REV. CAROL AGUILAR

Zen Center of Orange County

Costa Mesa