Service of Documentation and Study on Global Mission(SEDOS): Mission as interfaith dialogue
First, let me thank SEDOS for the invitation to give the Opening Lecture at this Seminar. I want to start by looking back at events on Easter morning. On that day, we rejoiced that God who became flesh and lived among us, has overcome death. We felt filled with gratitude and hope, knowing that the source of all life lives, and we renewed our commitment to be an instrument of hope and life in the world. During the Easter vigil, on Easter Saturday night, in Churches throughout the world, many people were baptised into the Church. Some of those who were baptised were adults who until then had no concept of God in their lives, but many others were ‘converts’ and had known God through African traditional religions, or Islam or some other faith community expression. Should we rejoice that they have now freely chosen to become Christians and be baptised? Why do we rejoice since we now believe that people can be saved whether or not they are baptised?
We woke up on Easter morning to hear the tragic news of Churches bombed in Sri Lanka and so many people, who had come to Church to celebrate Life, lost their lives at the hand of terrorists, who we presume to be Muslim, and in response people of all faiths rose out in a great wave of sadness expressing sympathy and solidarity. Others unfortunately expressed a strengthening of their anti-Muslim sentiments and others voiced their abhorrence of all religions as a source of evil.
The mystery which we have celebrated at Easter as well as the unfortunate fact of violence done in the name of religion, put before us very starkly some of the central challenges at the heart of our understanding and practice of Mission as Interfaith dialogue. These are questions that must come before us as we reflect on the whole concept of mission in a world of religious pluralism and cynicism and indeed on mission as interfaith dialogue.
At this Seminar we are gathered to share and reflect on our mission in a pluralistic world, with a particular focus on the fact of religious pluralism. The truth is that there was never a time in human history when the world was not one of religious pluralism! What has changed of course is our attitude as Christians and as missionaries towards this reality.
Interfaith dialogue is something that is spoken of today in all circles, both religious and political, and any amount of writing is available on it. Indeed, the last SEDOS Bulletin is dedicated to this topic and provides very interesting and well-informed reflections on it. Here at this seminar there is a great line up of speakers who will speak from both their studies and their lived experiences of dialogue. Therefore, in this Opening Lecture I want to share some of my own reflections on mission as a member of a religious congregation founded for mission ad gentes, how this brought me to see interfaith dialogue as a very particular and necessary part of living this missionary call today, and my journey of reflection and practice in that field firstly in Nigeria and now in Ireland. My experience is of Muslim-Christian relations more than of other interfaith relations. However, I hope that in sharing my thoughts, I will highlight some particular challenges which mission as interfaith dialogue presents, both in our understanding of mission and in the actual practice of dialogue.
- Reflections on Mission ad gentes; the ‘specific missionary vocation’
After my First Profession, I was sent on a mission to Argentina to work in the area of mission awareness. I worked there for seven years, living among the poor in slum areas outside Cordoba and later outside Buenos Aires, and was very much involved in the activities of the Pontifical Missionary Societies. In our seminars and talks and other activities, we spoke of the ‘alarming’ fact that about half the world’s Catholics were Latin Americans but only about 5% of the world’s missionaries hailed from Latin America. We constantly reminded people of the fact that only a third of the world was Christian and there was a great need for Latin America to share the faith it had received with the billions of non-Christians in other parts of the world. Certainly, our work among the poor where we lived, and the fact that we formed and accompanied many young people to go on mission to poorer parts of Argentina, was very worthwhile and fulfilling. However, the focus of our mission awareness was something which I later reflected on in some depth.
Why were we so alarmed by the fact that only a third of the world’s population is Christian; should this fact be of any concern to us as missionaries and is increasing the percentage of Christians in the world really the aim or even an aim of mission? I put this in very simplistic terms for the sake of today’s presentation, but I think the question was and still remains valid and is one which is soundly before us when we speak today of mission as interfaith dialogue.
After Argentina I went to Rome to study Missiology in the Gregorian. Even though I had already done a degree in Theology in Maynooth, here in Rome I was for the first time introduced to the depth and beauty of diverse religious traditions. I took some courses on Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, African Traditional Religions, and also did a closer study of the Church of the Latter day Saints (Mormons). It was indeed a wakeup call to realise that I had spent years studying theology but had not at all been introduced to all these rich faith traditions where billions of people have experienced and worshipped God and live in communities guided by the moral codes developed within these faith experiences. I know that today in many seminaries and theology faculties students do tend to study a little on other religions but for the most part our theology as Christians, our understanding of revelation, and even of mission, is drawn almost entirely from Christian sources with little or no wealth drawn from other faiths. This in itself speaks volumes and is a serious challenge.
My own congregation was founded for mission ‘ad gentes’, which John Paul in Redemptoris Missio 33/34 & 37 defined as sent out to non-Christian peoples and situations. I wondered how we could possibly understand and live our mission if we knew little or nothing about the faith experiences of these people to whom we were sent. In Redemptoris Missio, the Pope spoke of interreligious dialogue as part of the Church’s evangelizing mission (RMi 55), ‘to discover in them the ray of truth that enlightens all people’ and to be done in an attitude of respect for the other religions and out of a desire to get to know and to learn from other religious ways. However, ‘the Church alone possesses the fullness of the means of salvation’. To me this seemed rather arrogant and disrespectful, since I knew in my heart that Christ never preached the Church, but he proclaimed the Kingdom, and he never pointed to himself but always to the Father. Yet I could not deny my faith; I really do believe Christ is the Incarnate God and that the Good News of Christ is meant for all people. It was primarily for this reason that I decided to focus my studies in missiology on the whole area of interfaith dialogue, concentrating on dialogue with Muslims and listening to women’s voices within various faith communities. This for me was challenging and fulfilling, in terms both of my studies and of my missionary activity in Nigeria for the following number of years. It continues to inspire and challenge me today as I work in leadership in Ireland.
- Interfaith dialogue as a path of Mission or Mission as Interfaith Dialogue?
Certainly, in the past fifty years, with documents such as Ecclesiam Suam, Ad Gentes, Evangelii Nuntiandi, Redemptoris Missio, Dialogue and Proclamation, and now the teachings of Pope Francis, much has evolved in Church teaching on mission ad gentes and on our attitude towards other religions. There is greater respect for not only cultures but also other faiths and the acknowledgment that people can be saved through them, in ways known only to God, without explicit faith in Christ.
Through the many discussions and studies on mission, we have moved from defining mission ad gentes to mission inter-gentes, or mission ad extra or even mission ad altera. Many of us who are international congregations ad gentes, with increasing members from the younger churches, focus now on mission ad extra, going outside our own national and cultural boundaries and witnessing through intercultural community living and ministry. We also emphasize mission ad gentes as being directed to the marginalised and vulnerable in our societies, witnessing and proclaiming Kingdom values through the promotion of human dignity and working for justice, reconciliation, and healing in today’s fractured globalized world, with great attention now being paid to the promotion of climate justice. We speak about dialogue, which Stephen Bevans terms prophetic dialogue[1], being an essential component of all mission.
In the year 2000, Robert Schreiter, writing about the Challenges today to Mission ad gentes, addressing the ongoing nagging question of what is the specific identity of missionaries ad gentes in a changing world, said that missionary institutes who focus on ad gentes have some considerable tasks ahead of them so as to have a renewed sense of mission which is faithful to our calling, prophetic in our response and filled with hope for the coming of God’s Reign. He saw our task as primarily related to an understanding of the relation of dialogue and proclamation and the whole area of the theology of religions.[2] Almost twenty years later, I feel that challenge remains. I believe the answer can be found in a more sincere and concrete reflection on and involvement in mission to and with those who are not Christians (traditionally the ‘gentes’) – that is deepening in an appreciation and involvement in mission as interfaith dialogue. I think the call is for missionaries to sincerely be, not so much development workers, but ‘contemplatives in action’ (RMi 88), contemplating with people of other faiths the greatness of God who has spoken to us through the ages, who we have heard in diverse ways, and who we are called to know more clearly, love more dearly and follow more nearly – together. I sincerely believe that it is with people of other faiths that we can grow in an understanding of what our mission is and it is together with them that we can live our mission in prophetic dialogue today. It is also in this way that we can not only grow in deeper knowledge of God who is Communion but we can more authentically witness to God as Communion. Thus we can say that interfaith dialogue is not one path of mission but rather Mission ad gentes is best understood and lived as Interfaith prophetic dialogue.
- Reflections on interfaith dialogue based on my own experience
I wish to share some reflections on mission as interfaith dialogue, from my own experience as a missionary in Nigeria and in Ireland. I lived and worked in Northern Nigeria for seven years, very much engaged in the field of Muslim-Christian dialogue. I spent two years there doing research on the interreligious conflict regularly experienced there and focused especially on women’s role in interfaith dialogue and peacebuilding. I have now been in Ireland for the past six years, working as Provincial leader of my own congregation and very much involved with the leadership bodies of religious and missionaries as we seek ways of offering a relevant response as Church in Ireland today. In Ireland, I have only some small concrete involvement in interfaith dialogue, but I continue to reflect on this as a missionary priority.
Source: sedos.org
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