Allah and Compassion

Late in March, I spent some time thinking about interfaith dialogue, compassion, and the interaction of Islam and Christianity. A book and a conference directed me in that direction.

I read “Allah: A Christian Response” by Miroslav Volf. I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I would not describe it as an easy read because some of his thinking on the trinity becomes quite abstract and he requires significant recall from early sections of the book to prove points in the later sections. Miroslav takes classical Christianity and shows how it is not the antithesis of Islam, but that the two religions can be compatible. In some ways, the conclusions he comes to reminded me of my own writing and thoughts about the interacting of two stories, Stories Pt. 1.

Through reading this book, I was confronted by my own presupposition that Islam, at its root, is a more fundamentalist religion than Christianity. Although Miroslav does not completely deconstruct this, he challenges one to act in charity to other religions. Charity towards their theology and beliefs, a humble approach that forces one to interact with the breadth of other religions, rather than pigeon holing religions and their believers.

Upon completing the book, I was confronted by the awkward fact that I am not as willing to be evangelized by other religions to the same extent I desire to share Christianity. I think this realization is vital. The ability to actually hear from other religions is the ground upon which fruitful conversations can occur.

Do I recommend the book? Yes. Specifically, anyone who is interested in missions, evangelism, or international development work would do well by considering Miroslav’s method for interaction.

The conference I went to was on compassion. It was hosted at Vancouver School of Theology. The keynote address was by Karen Armstrong. To get a feeling of who Karen is, why compassion matters, and what my day looked like watch Karen’s TED talk.

A highlight for me was the breakout group discussion. In my group were 3 VST profs, Muslims, Baha’I, New Age, Buddhists, a Christian who converted to Islam, some Anglicans, and me. It was fantastic. I have gone to Church a number of times in the past year. I have always felt awkward and excluded. Here with a bunch of strangers I was included. We met on the common ground of compassion and had real, open, and honest conversation. Specifically we discussed whether we thought compassion was innate, or something that needs to be taught. Like all great conversations, we did not conclude, but we went away pondering how to act in compassion.