Deep calls to deep APRIL 06

I have just read a paper written by Ben Quash called ‘Deep calls to deep: the practice of Spiritual Reasoning’, which I enjoyed immensely. (the Paper is on the Doha website in pdf form) I read it in the context of having been stimulated by David Ford’s paper at the Fulcrum ‘Gospel in Context’ Day Conference on Friday ( the text is already available online ‘Gospel in Context: Among Many Faiths, by David F Ford www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=101)

He presented a vision of interfaith interaction that had a depth I have not yet encountered. Beyond the normal 'tea, samosas and smiles'. I caught a glimpse (an escatological one !?) of the possibilities of a very different place in interfaith engagement.

This in turn was in the context of the interfaith gathering that I attended in Doha , along with Canon Ben Quash and many others. At one level it was the peak of its field - a gathering of a rich variety of people and experiences, but it a context which, when I reflect on it back home, I experienced as stale and in a strange way very secular. This was to do, I feel, with the environment - a modern, luxurious, 5* star hotel, and a mode of operation, based on the scientific conference paradigm. This positioned me as a passive (and exhausted!) listener, rather than a co-locutioner in an ongoing conversation. Obviously it had its moments of surprises and genuine interaction. There we were a lot of ‘real characters’ there. At times some of the under-the- surface-issues also emerged, which was I felt helpful. (conflict and difference is not something to be avoided but welcomed and embraced) And as always these gathering are an opportunity for rich networking. I gathered a good handful of business cards to add to my collection!

It was after all an event hosted by the Qatar Government and was dialogue or ‘trialogue’ ( a new word I learned at the conference!) on a different level - official, diplomatic, politically correct, - and as Ben put it in his paper ‘justified on the basis of a thin and generalised notion of ‘tolerance’. I long for something not quite so ‘thin’, but much ‘thicker’ or deeper.

Hence, in contrast I really liked the idea in the SR papers of the 'tents of meeting' of ‘peoples of the book’, Jews, Christians and Muslims, from their different traditions or ‘houses’, which moves the conversation from the official discourses generated by the institutional ‘Temples’ into more interrogation and mutual struggle. More ‘wrestling’ with texts. But I think I prefer the word dialogue or conversation to ‘debate’. Maybe the concept of debate conjures up for me, images of oppositional, polarised argument (our Houses of Parliament and Law Courts are a prime examples, where seeking after truth does not seem to be on the agenda)

But the concept of SR resonated with my own experience of sitting and talking together in Pakistan, with Muslims, Christians and Hindus (usually all addicted to Heroin – or in various stages of recovery - and hence somewhat neutralised from their religious Temples!) But these were genuinely interfaith ‘trialogues’ - In particular the way they encountered the scriptural text of the story of the prodigal son was deeply moving. They found their own story reflected in the Scriptural story. This was obviously on a very different level from Scriptural Reasoning where religious leaders encountering their own text. It was much more grass roots - more a Scriptural story telling or Scriptural encounter, but when I read of SR it felt ‘strangely familiar’
I’m not sure how much actual ‘reasoning’ there was in our groups of recovering addicts – certainly a lot of reacting / responding and story telling/sharing. And it was very much ‘hosted’ by one ‘house’ - in this case our Christian drug rehabilitation project - although we tried to make it ‘neutral’ ground it did not achieve the level of ‘mutual’ ground.

My Masters thesis, ‘Faith Conversations’, I felt also resonated with what Ben and David have outlined in the SR approach. Well it resonated for me. I would be interested to know if others discover synergies or not ! It also comes from a different starting place. I wrote it for a course in Systemic Management and Consultancy - which is rooted in a systemic, social-contructionist approach, But the common denominator is the concept of ‘interrogation of texts’. In my case ‘stories as text’ generated through a process of ‘faith conversations’ which we engaged in, over a period of about year in CMS.

I always had in mind for these conversations to be fundamentally interfaith, but the starting point was very much intra-faith’, drawing on our own wide network of CMS contacts. This has lead to an ‘in-house’ (ie within the Christian ‘house’) online discussion group called simply ‘faith conversations’, which currently has 75 very interesting and varied members, all of whom are academics and/or practitioners who seek to engage with the ‘house of Islam.’

I myself, am interested in going deeper (‘deep calls to deep’) and would be interested in exploring a SR group in London some time. Apparently one such group meets at St Ethelbergas. It maybe something we could eventually duplicate in Woking to take our own interfaith encounters to a new, deeper level.

London   29 April 06