Edward Schillebeeckx and Interreligious Dialogue

Perspectives from Asian Theology

Chia

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781630879389
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

If Schillebeeckx had been Asian, how would he have responded to the phenomenon of religious pluralism? This book attempts to answer that question, beginning with a dialogue with the Vatican Declaration Dominus Iesus and discerning how Schillebeeckx's methodology has been applied in Asian theology. Employing the hermeneutical-critical method, Schillebeeckx asserts that the Word of God did not come down to us, as it were, vertically in a purely divine statement--it must be interpreted! In today's context of so many religions, so many cultures, and so many poor, God's Word invites the church to be a sacrament of dialogue. Through dialogue the church will be challenged by other religions and challenge them in return. Christianity will then be put in its place, as well as given the place which is its due.

1

Interreligious Dialogue and the Church’s Teachings1

The Second Vatican Council has been regarded as the most significant moment for the Roman Catholic Church since the Protestant Reformation and the Council of Trent. Unlike Trent, which was a reform council, Vatican II was a renewal and updating (aggiornamento) council. It was convened by Pope John XXIII for the purpose of encountering the demands of the modern world at a time when the Church was stable and almost at its best. Vatican II was not a doctrinal council to arrest heresies—as was Vatican I (which arrested the threat of modernity) and Trent (which countered the challenges posed by the Protestant Reformation). Instead, it was a renewal council, aimed at bringing about transformation within the Church itself for the sake of self-improvement and to bring it up to speed with the development of the culture that surrounds it.

As a renewal council, Vatican II set the Church on the path to a totally new and fresh outlook, not only in its manifestation but in its thinking and theology as well. The most significant aspect of this is no doubt Catholicism’s relations with other religions. It gave rise to what has since been known as “interreligious dialogue.” This dialogue ministry takes a variety of forms and engages specific methods. It involves not only the members of the hierarchy but that of the entire community as well. It can also be seen as the Church catching up with the transformations taking place in the modern world and grappling with the fact that the various religions are already encountering one another. This last fact is happening not without consequences, some of which are serious while others can even be deadly.

The Urgent Imperative of Dialogue

Indeed, interreligious dialogue has become a buzzword in many other facets of life. At this particular moment in history there is no denying its importance and critical necessity, not only for the survival of the religious communities but for the entire world’s survival as well. As some has put it, the alternative to dialogue is none other than death. Death, of course, is given expression by the major problem besieging humanity in recent times: conflict and violence, as brought to the fore by the September 11 attack, which was followed soon after by the October 7 attack. September 11 comes to mind for those who regard the “war on America” as the most heinous act committed against humanity. October 7 comes to mind for those who regard the “war on Islam” (beginning with the first DU bombs dropped on Afghanistan in 2001) as abominable and ruthless.

It doesn’t help that each side is calling the other “terrorists” and spreading propaganda that incites its population towards hate. The image of the millions of impoverished Muslim farmers, widows, and orphans affected by the bombings as well as the hundreds of thousands who have died on account of the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq feature most often in the minds of those on one side of the conflict. Likewise, images of violence perpetrated against Western targets, from Bali to Riyadh to Amman to Athens to London, have reached the living rooms of most American and Western homes.

While many will rightly not label this as a war of religions, the numerous cases of backlash against Muslims in America and other Western nations and the violence perpetrated against churches in Muslim nations suggest that there are others who do perceive this, even if wrongly, as the West’s war against Islam and vice versa. Unfortunately, the West is also synonymous with Christianity in the minds of some who reside in non-Western nations. Also unfortunate is that the word “Muslim” is very often applied as an adjective whenever the noun “terrorism” is bandied around. The most unfortunate casualty in all this is that the world is being dichotomized, not unlike how Samuel Huntington caricatures the “clash of civilizations,” dividing the one sacred world and its people into us and them, where either word can mean either Muslim or Christian.

This us-versus-them phenomenon does not seem to be abating. If anything, it seems to be on the increase by the day. Conflicts committed in the name of religion have become everyday occurrences in some parts of the world. Enough people have been killed for the sake of religion and enough are also killing in its name. Suffice to say that religious communities have not been appropriately effective in their efforts at containing the fanatical abuse and instrumentalization of religion. This, perhaps, has as much to do with the lack of attention given to promoting positive attitudes towards the beliefs and practices of other religions, as with the lack of opportunities for promoting interactions across the adherents of the different religions. Instead, religious communities are generally parochially minded and wont to keep their followers confined to their own, thus segregating them from believers of other religions. Besides, religious leaders are also wont to proclaiming the superiority of their own religion while at the same time condemning the religions of others, thus reinforcing the us-versus-them mentality.

Aside from these global and macro-level realities, it won’t be too far-fetched to suggest that at our base realities, in our local communities and churches, the situation is not significantly better. Even as there may not be interreligious conflicts, one cannot claim that interreligious harmony actually exists. Tolerance and polite coexistence are more likely the prevailing attitudes. In this regard, parishes and religious communities have virtual walls that seem to be keeping their own in and the peoples of other religions out. At times, the parish pastor does not even know the name of the Muslim imam or the Buddhist monk living in the mosque or temple down the road from the church. Thus, not only is the call for the praxis of interreligious dialogue timely and prophetic, it can also help chart out a very different future for the Church. It is hoped that this future would see Christians dismantling the walls of prejudice and segregation in favor of erecting bridges of dialogue, peace, and interreligious camaraderie. Needless to say, a lot of effort needs to be invested if this is to become a reality.

Ambivalence of the Church’s Teachings

In addition to the abovementioned global and societal realities urging that interreligious dialogue be enhanced, intraecclesial factors suggesting the same also do abound. In particular, much work still needs to be done by the Church, especially on the official and hierarchical levels, with regard to her attitude towards other religions. Notwithstanding the directions set forth by Vatican II and the many laudable and constructive efforts on the part of Popes Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI in reaching out to leaders of other religions, the Church’s overall commitment to interreligious dialogue remains ambivalent at best.

Not only have some actions and statements from the Church’s hierarchy seemed unsupportive of this mission, they sometimes reveal a Church that is somewhat fearful of it as well, at times even acting in ways that seem to undermine dialogue. The most significant instance in recent times has been the promulgation of the Vatican document entitled Dominus Iesus. Released by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) on September 5, 2000, Dominus Iesus is subtitled “On the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church.” This document actually represents the most recent of the teachings of the Catholic Church specifically on the topic of interreligious dialogue, and for that reason will be employed here as a critical signpost that cannot be ignored. While a lot has and can be written about Dominus Iesus (both positive as well as negative), it suffices that we look at some of the key points of antagonism here.

The Vatican Declaration Dominus Iesus

Presented by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger at no less than a press conference, Dominus Iesus was said to be drafted in reference to the “contemporary debate on the relationship of Christianity to other religions.”2 Ratzinger immediately points to the crux of the problem, namely, the mistaken notion that “all religions are equally valid ways of salvation for those who follow them.” “This is a conviction,” Ratzinger regrets, “that is widespread by now not only in theological circles, but also in increasingly broad sectors of public opinion, both Catholic and non-Catholic.” Almost in the same breath he unequivocally identifies the source of the problem, namely, “relativism.”

“The fundamental consequence of this way of thinking,” Ratzinger counsels, is “the substantial rejection of the identification of the individual historical person, Jesus of Nazareth, with the very reality of God, of the living God.” Such ideas render dialogue a “radically different meaning from the one intended by Vatican II.” Specifically, “dialogue, or better, the ideology of dialogue, replaces the mission and the urgency to conversion: dialogue is no longer the way to discover the truth,” claims Ratzinger (emphasis in original text). “Dialogue in the new ideological conceptions,” Ratzinger summarizes, “is instead the essence of the relativist ‘dogma’ and the opposite of both ‘conversion’ and ‘mission.’”

Ratzinger then posits that “such a relativist philosophy is found at the base both of post-metaphysical Western thought and of the negative theology of Asia.” “The result,” he continues, “is that the figure of Jesus Christ loses his characteristic of unicity and salvific universality.” Such relativism can only be “accompanied by a false concept of tolerance,” which in turn is “connected with the loss and the renunciation of the issue of truth.” “Without a serious claim for truth,” Ratzinger advises, “even an appreciation of other religions becomes absurd and contradictory, since one has no criterion to determine what is positive in a religion, distinguishing it from what is negative or the fruit of superstition and deception.” While advocating that “everything of beauty and truth that exists in religions must not be lost, but instead must be acknowledged and prized,” he cautions, however, that this does not mean we ignore “the errors and deceptions that are nonetheless present in religions.”

Ratzinger submits that while religions and cultures have no choice but to meet and so be engaged in dialogue with one another, “this, however, has nothing to do with the abandonment of the claim on the part of the Christian faith to have received as a gift from God in Christ the definitive and complete revelation of the mystery of salvation.” More important is that “we must rule out that mentality of indifferentism based on a religious relativism that leads one to think that ‘one religion is as good as th...