Common Ground: A Challenge

A full page advertisement appeared in today's New York Times entitled "Loving God and Neighbor Together: A Christian Response to A Common Word Between Us and You. It is a response to 138 Muslim scholars and clerics who sent an open letter "to leaders of Christian churches, everywhere."

http://www.acommonword.com/

The following response was drafted by scholars at Yale Divinity School's Center for Faith and Culture, and is endorsed by 300 other Christian theologians and leaders. Some of the names I recognize include Richard Cizik, of the National Association of Evangelicals, Harvey Cox of the Harvard Divinity School, Bill Hybels of Willow Creek, Rick Warren of Saddleback and Jim Wallis of Sojourners, among many others.

Here are some excerpts, to give you the spirit of the letter:

"Preamble

"As members of the worldwide Christian community, we were deeply encouraged and challenged by the recent historic open letter signed by 138 leading Muslim scholars, clerics, and intellectuals from around the world. A Common Word Between Us and You identifies some core common ground between Christianity and Islam which lies at the heart of our respective faiths as well as at the heart of the most ancient Abrahamic faith, Judaism. Jesus Christ’s call to love God and neighbor was rooted in the divine revelation to the people of Israel embodied in the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18). We receive the open letter as a Muslim hand of conviviality and cooperation extended to Christians world-wide. In this response we extend our own Christian hand in return, so that together with all other human beings we may live in peace and justice as we seek to love God and our neighbors.

"Muslims and Christians have not always shaken hands in friendship; their relations have sometimes been tense, even characterized by outright hostility. Since Jesus Christ says, “First take the log out your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye” (Matthew 7:5), we want to begin by acknowledging that in the past (e.g. in the Crusades) and in the present (e.g. in excesses of the “war on terror”) many Christians have been guilty of sinning against our Muslim neighbors. Before we “shake your hand” in responding to your letter, we ask forgiveness of the All-Merciful One and of the Muslim community around the world.

"Common Ground

"What is so extraordinary about A Common Word Between Us and You is not that its signatories recognize the critical character of the present moment in relations between Muslims and Christians. It is rather a deep insight and courage with which they have identified the common ground between the Muslim and Christian religious communities. What is common between us lies not in something marginal nor in something merely important to each. It lies, rather, in something absolutely central to both: love of God and loveof neighbor. Surprisingly for many Christians, your letter considers the dual command of love to be the foundational principle not just of the Christian faith, but of Islam as well. That so much common ground exists – common ground in some of the fundamentals of faith – gives hope that undeniable differences and even the very real external pressures that bear down upon us can not overshadow the common ground upon which we stand together. That this common ground consists in love of God and ofneighbor gives hope that deep cooperation between us can be a hallmark of the relations between our two communities.

"Love of Neighbor

"We find deep affinities with our own Christian faith when A Common Word Between Us and You insists that love is the pinnacle of our duties toward our neighbors. “None of you has faith until you love for your neighbor what you love for yourself,” the Prophet Muhammad said. In the New Testament we similarly read, “whoever does not love [the neighbor] does not know God” (1 John 4:8) and “whoever does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20). God is love, and our highest calling as human beings is to imitate the One whom we worship.

"Since Muslims seek to love their Christian neighbors, they are not against them, the document encouragingly states. Instead, Muslims are with them. As Christians we resonate deeply with this sentiment. Our faith teaches that we must be with our neighbors – indeed, that we must act in their favor – even when our neighbors turn out to be our enemies. “But I say unto you,” says Jesus Christ, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good” (Matthew 5:44-45). Our love, Jesus Christ says, must imitate the love of the infinitely good Creator; our love must be as unconditional as is God’s—extending to brothers, sisters, neighbors, and even enemies. At the end of his life, Jesus Christ himself prayed for his enemies: “Forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

"The Prophet Muhammad did similarly when he was violently rejected and stoned by the people of Ta’if. He is known to have said, “The most virtuous behavior is to engage those who sever relations, to give to those who withhold from you, and to forgive those who wrong you.” (It is perhaps significant that after the Prophet Muhammad was driven out of Ta’if, it was the Christian slave ‘Addas who went out to Muhammad, brought him food, kissed him, and embraced him.)

"The Task Before Us

“Let this common ground” – the dual common ground of love of God and of neighbor – “be the basis of all future interfaith dialogue between us,” your courageous letter urges. Indeed, in the generosity with which the letter is written you embody what you call for. We most heartily agree. Abandoning all “hatred and strife,” we must engage in interfaith dialogue as those who seek each other’s good, for the one God unceasingly seeks our good. Indeed, together with you we believe that we need to move beyond “a polite ecumenical dialogue between selected religious leaders” and work diligently together to reshape relations between our communities and our nations so that they genuinely reflect our common love for God and for one another."

http://www.yale.edu/faith/abou-commonword.htm

I think the sentiments expressed and efforts for reconciliation are not merely worthwhile but even critical in the context of world events, and I would have no problem signing such a statement myself.
However, I wondered if such a statement of common principles could be drafted between theists and atheists, neither compromising their core principles but each each seeking to find productive common ground, a statement that Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins, and you as well as the signatories of the Yale statement could sign.

So that would be my challenge. What is the irreducable and indisputable common ground between theists and atheists?

Maybe it's because I'm a middle child, I try to find a middle ground before any two seemingly hostile world views. Thus, my common ground with paganism is a love for nature, with Mormonism a love for family, with Catholicism a love for tradition, and so on.

But even that subjectivizes more than I want. The question I'm asking is not what is my common ground with atheists, which is my admiration for doubt and argument. The question is: what is the common ground between theists and atheists. I don't even want to conditionize that presumed common ground by nationalism-- that the common ground of believer and unbeliever is the Consitution, for example. I am prepared, however, to accept the caveat that fanatics who give themselves labels of one kind or another will never concede that common ground can exist, so there must be some assumption of good will just as there was with the Muslim and Yale statements.

As I said, this is a challenge. But I would conceptualize the case as follows. First, I would ask: what is it that I have in common with-- to put a face on the discussion-- Richard Dawkins and Pope Benedict XVI, besides, in the former an Anglican upbringing and in the latter a love for cats? If we strip away their respective rhetoric, affiliations, and ideas, the factual answer must be: a great deal, and we know that without even knowing them very well. And what is that I presume we all know? It is firstly self-evident that they are humans, and that implies a commonality of physiology and psychology, the differences of which make them individuals but the similarities of which make them humans. They have blood, brains, kinships, and life-spans. It is secondly self-evident that they both possess an inner world, and this manifests itself in art, family ties and friendships, dreams, ambitions, speculation on ethics, interests in politics and literature, and so on. Again, the differences that are manifested here make them respectively individuals but the similarities provide at least the start of the recognition that despite ideological differences we have more in common than we have do not have in common.

I might also suggest that any striving for common ground begins by dispensing with theology, metaphysics, and god-talk of any kind, not because many people don't find that important, but because such language are reasons for articulating differences that divide us. (On the other hand, I think it may be possible to identify common or transcending ethical principles, so long as those principles are not conditioned in religion, faith, or the law. But as a practical matter, this raises complex philosophical issues, that probably cannot be reduced to a single statement.)

Finally, I may end with the premises that I originally proposed-- that the search for common ground is a journey that can only be undertaken given fundamental assumptions by all concerned of goodwill, communication, and rationality, the inability or the denial of which renders such an exercise as futile.

And, of course, there is this.

http://www.cracked.com/article_15663_god-fuse-10-things-christians-atheists-can-agree-on.html