…at the interfaith luncheon I went to today (imperfectly paraphrased here by yours truly):
Rabbi: “I take great comfort in knowing that God will never become a man, even as my dear friend [an Anglican priest] takes comfort in knowing that God became a man.”
Muslim: “Jesus is a prophet, born miraculously. He lived a perfect life, didn’t die on a cross…he will return as the messiah, and then die and be resurrected.”
Rabbi: “Learning is the hallmark of the Jewish tradition.”
Muslim: “Islam did not start with the Prophet Muhammad, it started with Adam.”
Rabbi: “The liberal feels that the Torah has to be brought into line with society. The fundamentalist feels that society has to be brought into line with the Torah.”
Muslim: “There are fundamentalists in each of our traditions: Islam, Christian, Jewish. There are secular fundamentalists as well.”
Rabbi: “Christianity and Islam are daughter religions. They cannot exist without reference to Judaism.”
4 responses so far ↓
1 J // Feb 16, 2006 at 12:36 pm
It’s funny to me that each of these religious leaders seem to be trying to “one-up” each other. Is there space for removig comparisons and contentions and just allowing the freedom to believe? Is there a network of common belief(s) that all can agree on w/o having to make hierarchical comparisons?
Though this post isn’t about gender, I wonder if the reason you haven’t quoted the Methodist minister who spoke is because she was doctrinally undogmatic. She was also female–do you think this makes a difference in her need to assert authority? Do you think this makes her feel more secure in her beliefs or maybe too insecure to be assertive on such a male-dominant panel? Just curious.
2 John // Feb 16, 2006 at 2:29 pm
You make some good points. I think that my assembly of disconnected comments in this post is causing some misunderstanding. This isn’t a dialogue, but selected quotes from a panel discussion. I thought it would be interesting to arrange it this way. The panel discussion itself was a rather straightforward and respectful sharing of religious viewpoints. I picked the boldest and most interesting statements to list here.
I struggled with whether or not to put any of the minister’s comments in. Quite honestly, she didn’t say anything interesting. She generally deferred to the Rabbi, and when she didn’t, her comments were unorganized and wishy-washy (although I personally agreed with her more). I’m not sure how much of this was related to gender issues, how much of it was general fear of public speaking, how much of it was that the other two were skilled (impromptu) orators and how much of it was her less dogmatic tone.
I hope that it’s not bias on my part that filtered her comments out. Probably not: at the last interfaith function I attended, a Muslim woman’s words resonated with me much more than the male rabbi’s, and if I were pulling quotes from the OC Quaker meeting, most of them would be from women.
3 Josh // Feb 18, 2006 at 12:25 am
Does gender really have any relevance?
Should it have relevance?
4 John // Feb 18, 2006 at 10:13 am
First of all, that Jana and I are working within the context of an constant discourse between us concerning the role of women in society (and esp. in religion). So gender is relevant within the context of the greater iceberg of our conversation, the tip of which you see here.
Second, because I completely excluded the minister’s remarks, I critically examined my motivations for doing so. Was it merely the fact that her comments seemed uninteresting and her presentation was less confident? Or did I have some inherent biases against her being Christian and/or female? Both were quite possible.
Third, from our perspective, we are very concerned about the lesser status of women in most religious traditions (especially in Mormonism, but the Abrahamic religions, for the most part, continue to subordinate women to men). Female religious authorities in particular have to struggle in today’s world.
For these reasons, as well as others, the gender question seems very relevant to me.
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