Welcome to the second week of our exploration of the 2007 letter A Common Word between Us and You.  As I noted last week, A Common Word seeks to find common ground between the monotheistic religions of Islam and Christianity, and by extension Judaism.  The common ground proposed is 1) Unity of God, 2) Love of God, and 3) Love of Neighbor.

As a Christian I am delighted that A Common Word argues for the unity of God and the two great love commandments as the peaceful meeting point of our respective faiths.  Properly understood I have no doubt that this is correct. Like the authors of A Common Word, Christians understand these scriptural truths to be foundational to our faith.  Indeed, our Lord Jesus Christ explicitly made them central to his public and private teachings.  So this starting point portends the beginning of a fruitful dialogue.

For the moment, let’s leave the discussion of the unity of God to next week.  While Christians and Muslims share a common belief in the unity of God, how we understand that unity is clearly different.  It is important that we don’t gloss over the profound differences even as we both affirm the unity of God as an essential religious and spiritual truth.

A Common Word reminds Muslims, and explains to Christians, that man’s love for God, as understood in the Qur’an, is deeply rooted in obedience to God and the fear of God.  Man should know his place among the created.  A proper obedience and fear towards God will bring forth praise among the faithful for his greatness.  But God’s greatness isn’t just about obedience and fear, but also reflects his great mercy and forgiveness.  It is this combination of God’s attributes that causes man to love God.

Say, (O Muhammad, to mankind): If ye love God, follow me; God will love you and forgive you your sins.  God is Forgiving, Merciful. (Aal ‘Imran 3:31)

Let me comment here that the Love of God is a great starting point for Christians and Muslims to dialogue.  If I understand A Common Word correctly, the authors are equating the Qur’anic teaching on the love of God with the teachings of the Jewish Shema and the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ.  A Common Word seems to say as much when it quotes the prophet of Islam as saying, “The best that I have said—myself, and the prophets that came before me” to mean that his words and the best that have come before him can be equated with each other.  This is made clearer when A Common Word states, “that the Prophet Muhammad was perhaps, through inspiration, restating and alluding to the Bible’s First Commandment.”

Based on these comments I believe Christians and Muslims can begin a most helpful discussion with each other by digging deep into what it means to love God in their respective faiths.  It is important to be able to state that Muslims and Christians both agree in the abstract that Love of God is fundamental to their respective faiths; it is the beginning of a genuine friendship to explore what this means for the individual believer.

“None of you has faith until you love for your neighbor what you love for yourself.”

The section on “Love of the Neighbor” is a brief one in A Common Word.  Nonetheless, quotes from the prophet of Islam, as the one above, demonstrate Islamic teaching that is similar to that of the Christian Bible.  A further quote from the Qur’an emphasizes that a Muslim’s wealth is to be used to help not only kinsfolk, but also orphans, the wayfarer, and the needy.

Significantly, A Common Word interprets the second commandment to mean that within Islam, Christianity and Judaism, freedom to worship should be respected.  “In other words, that Muslims, Christians and Jews should be free to each follow what God commanded them, and not have ‘to prostrate before kings and the like’; for God says elsewhere in the Holy Qur’an: Let there be no compulsion in religion…(Al-Baqarah, 2:256). This clearly relates to the Second Commandment and to love of the neighbour of which justice and freedom of religion are a crucial part.”

This is an important concept, indeed, to be included in discussions between Christians and Muslims.  As with Love of God, agreeing in principle that Christians and Muslims share a basic understanding of Love of Neighbor should be celebrated; and that it is interpreted to include an understanding of justice and freedom of religion even more so.  No doubt further explorations into the legal meanings of justice and freedom of religion within Christian and Muslim societies and nation states can bring Christianity and Islam closer together in our common pursuit of world peace.

A Common Word closes with a plea for Christians to understand that Muslims are not their enemies.  “As Muslims, we say to Christians that we are not against them and that Islam is not against them—so long as they do not wage war against Muslims on account of their religion, oppress them and drive them out of their homes….”  There is much to discuss and clarify in this statement from the authors of A Common Word, including conversations that must touch on politics and the definition of the nation state in Western culture to name two.  Still, as a Christian I affirm this sentiment and likewise state that I am not against Muslims.  Lord willing, a love of God and love of neighbor will allow us to begin with the simple proposition that Muslims and Christians are not against each other but for each other’s good.

Next week I will raise a few questions for us to discuss about A Common Word.  Please be sure to comment on our blog site so that I can hear your thoughts on my reflections.

Dr. Joe Thomas, Assistant Professor in Church History

In the fall of 2007 a group of 138 Muslim leaders and scholars issued an open letter to Christians everywhere.  A Common Word between Us and You, as it is named, is a call for peace between Christians and Muslims and for an intensification of dialogue between the two great monotheistic faiths.   The robust response from Christian leaders, churches and academics has been overwhelmingly irenic and positive, rightly seeing this as a unique opportunity to interact with a segment of the Muslim community that is not radicalized.  The many Christian responses have also been engaging, noting key differences between Christian and Muslim beliefs.  Christian have also gently nudged Muslims to reflect more on how the fundamental truths expressed in A Common Word should lead Muslim nations and communities to embrace such notions as the right to change religions and greater freedom for religious conversation.  A Common Word has also allowed Christians to consider and to confess our own sinful interactions towards Muslims over the many preceding centuries.

The title for A Common Word between Us and You is taken from a passage from the Qur’an:

Say: O People of the Scripture!  Come to a common word between us and you: that we shall worship none but God….(Aal ‘Imran 3:64)

A Common Word seeks to find common ground for Christians and Muslims to live in peaceful co-existence.  As the letter notes, Christians and Muslims together make up over 55% of the world’s population.  If there is no peace between the two religions there will be no peace in the world.

So what is the common ground that exists between Christians and Muslims?  A Common Word argues that Christians and Muslims find unity in each religion’s foundational principles: love of God and love of neighbor, with the unity of God undergirding the two great commandments.

It is no surprise for the readers of “A Word from Urbana Seminary” to hear that Christianity teaches the oneness of a loving God, and that His love is reflected back through those made in His image by their love for Him and for each other.  The teachings of Jesus in Mt. 22:34-40 and Mark 12:28-31 state this plainly.  And as Jesus states in Mt. 22:40, “On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” What is probably new to our readers are the authors’ claim in A Common Word that Islam teaches the same two great commandments.  We will reflect more on this over the next few weeks, but let us agree for the moment that this is an unexpected and helpful starting point for Christian and Muslim dialogue and even friendship.

Finally, as part of their call for peace between the Christians and Muslims, A Common Word recognizes that there will be no peace without justice and freedom of religion among and between the followers of Christianity and Islam.  Significantly, the authors of A Common Word argue that part of loving your neighbor entails embracing these two fundamental human rights.

One can see now why this document has generated such excitement and the reason there has been such a robust and positive response from Christian leaders around the world.  Let me know what you think.

Dr. Joe Thomas,   Asst. Professor of the History of Christianity

You can access A Common Word between Us and You at http://www.acommonword.com/.

by Brent Dickman, Master of Divinity Student

True Grit – the Oscar-nominated film that occupied my thoughts for days after viewing.  By the Coen brothers, it is based on a 1968 novel by the same name that was made famous in 1969 when it was turned into a feature film starring John Wayne.  The Duke (Wayne) would win his first and only Oscar that year for his performance.  The new film by the Joel and Ethan Coen strives to be more true to the original work, while undoubtedly drawing much visual and cinematic inspiration from the earlier movie.

The film has been a hit with both audiences and critics but surprisingly very little has been said about the film’s deeply religious aspects.  Even Christianity Today failed to reflect on such themes.  Yes, the film does treat standard Western themes just as death, justice, friendship, and issues of gender.  But, as Stanley Fish, writing for the New York Times, so succinctly considers, it is about so much more than that.

True Grit is a deeply theological film. Proverbs 28:1 (“The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion”) opens the film and sounds of hymns like “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” comprise the soundtrack.  It is, as Fish rightly points out, a film about God’s grace.  But it isn’t a Sunday School lesson.  It’s a Coen brother’s film.  And that is what makes it so fascinating.

The Coen’s are Hollywood’s masters of the darkly comedic.  They put amusing characters into grisly situations that if less comedic would seem appalling.  (One need look no further than the woodchipper in Fargo or the meeting of Brad Pitt and George Clooney in Burn After Reading).  True Grit is no different.  It uses its humor to examine the absurdity and incongruity that exists between what we expect in life (justice, fairness) and what we so often get (injustice, unfairness).

In such an incongruous and, in its way, comically absurd world, what does it mean to believe in a God who is just, sovereign, and full of grace and mercy?  True Grit examines the life of Christian faith from the eyes of a fourteen-year-old Presbyterian female from the Old West, Mattie Ross (played by Hailee Steinfeld).

So what is it trying to say?  Well, honestly I am still trying to figure that out.  Fish, commenting in his review, sees the Coen-made world of True Grit to be one where God’s grace, in Calvinist fashion, is given or withheld according to his mysterious and sovereign will.  Which means that it is neither given to all nor given according to an individual’s merit.  The “comical absurdity” of such a world is that justice and judgment, salvation and damnation, are, to quote Fish, “distributed, as far as we can see, randomly and even capriciously.”

You will have to decide for yourself whether or not the film stands in praise, judgment, or some sort of indifference to this theology.  Have the Coen’s created a nihilistic world and filled it with a teenage Calvinist for us to both laugh at, because of her naïveté, and to admire, because of the strength of her faith and convictions?  Or have they created a world were Calvinism is undeniably correct in order to reveal the sort of heroic faith that is necessary whenever we trust in God and stand up to sin and injustice?  Is it possible that they are laughing at Calvinism even as they are admiring it?  I have no doubt that repeated viewings will help bring it all into focus, but until then I would love to hear what other people who may have seen the film have to say about these themes.