Interfaith Table

A Non-believer’s Call for Inclusion at the Interfaith Table

(Intended for a Christian congregation)

by Stephen L. Gibson via podcast, 4/4/2007

Good evening. First and foremost, at the risk of sounding patronizing I want to commend you for the warmth, tolerance, and commitment to the free exchange of ideas that you have exhibited by allowing me to be here and speak with you tonight.

Never in my life have I seen a situation where there is too much dialogue in the world. If you ever watch the so-called “debate shows” on TV—which I call “shout shows”—you might agree with me that there is often too much of the wrong kind of dialogue; but never is there too much dialogue. So in the words of Isaiah 1:18, which you honor tonight, “Come, let us reason together.”

In fact, I want to share an observation with you: to me, this is a comfortable place, as are most churches. I will go as far as to say that there are few places on earth where people come together in as warm, accepting, affirming, loving, and supportive an environment, as when they worship together.

Now some who share my agnosticism and my non-theistic views—terms I think we need to define in a moment—point to how nice you all are to one another, and to this accepting environment you’ve created here tonight, they say, “Ahh, that’s rubbish. It’s hypocritical. They’re not that accepting in their private lives. This guy is prejudiced. This woman wouldn’t talk to me on the street, but she puts on this happy face in church and pretends—only when she goes to church.”

Don’t you love that label, “hypocrite?” When I hear such criticisms, I like to make two points:

First, nobody ever claimed that any Christian was perfect, right? But what you do is identify a high standard and a high ideal. Is that a bad thing? Of course not! I have long said that failure to achieve a high standard does not negate or nullify the ideal of that standard. In other words, just because I can’t do it today, doesn’t mean I should stop striving to be better and become all that I can fully be as a human. If I study the violin, but play poorly, does that mean that I should stop even trying to play it well? Or that it is impossible to play it well? Of course not! (There, I just tipped my hand, part of the great value of your religion is that it is a system, a system of constant reminders that we can do better. We owe it to ourselves—and we owe it to the world—to do better).

An additional point I like to make about “hypocritical behavior”: practice makes perfect! If one morning a week I paste a fake smile on my miserable, sad, droopy face, I say “good for me!” Forcing myself to be nice for an hour sure beats failing to practice the skill at all. So if this whole “friendly environment thing” is just Meryl Streep-worthy acting, that’s okay by me. As a point of fact, that’s what worship IS! Worship is an act.

Beginning many years B.C.E., and up through today, ancient practices of worship have centered upon doing—they have been about re-enacting mythological stories, to experience them and live them, and to escape our self-centered world and experience something more: something meaningful, and something “divine.” That is what worship is! By being actors in a “divine” drama, we can experience “otherness.”

Now, since I used the term divine, I should probably define that in a moment; and when I define agnosticism and atheism, I will do just that. After all, honesty and authenticity are very important virtues to me; I don’t want to mislead you about what I mean when I use the word “divine,” but more on that in a second.

My point is that by putting on our loving faces of acceptance and caring, we are worshiping. We are experiencing a world that is beyond ourselves, helpful to others, and useful in shifting us to be more than we can be without conscious effort. But alas I digress.

I know that you know who Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are. You probably even know that together they have pledged something like $60 billion for health and education initiatives. But how about Mahatma Gandhi, the pioneer of peaceful, civil disobedience and tolerance in India? Has he helped the world? Is the world better off because there was a Gandhi? How about Thomas Edison, Carl Sagan, Bishop John Shelby Spong, Mark Twain, the Dalai Lama, George Washington, Thomas Payne, Alexander Graham Bell, Confucius, Abraham Lincoln, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson? Are we better off?

Well as you may guess from my interfaith theme—and since you are Christians—I selected these names for a reason. My research indicates that each of these people held worldviews and religious beliefs that were (are) far different from the Christian views with which I was raised—and I would venture that if you could spend the next few weeks researching the beliefs of any of the persons I just mentioned, you’d be unlikely to call any of them Christian, certainly not if you base your definition on any convention or accepted doctrine. Obviously one name on the list is that of a Hindu, one a Buddhist, one a Christian, and several deists; but the point is that I would argue that these were (are) not people who share your faith. But again I ask, is the world better of for having the input of these people?

But rather than focus upon the differences of the beliefs of some of our deist founding fathers like Washington, Franklin or Jefferson … I want to point out what the people on this list have in common with you, and with me.

You see we live in a world that remains divisive. We live in a world where we are far too eager and willing to focus on differences—on the things that divide us rather than unite us. We strap bombs to ourselves and blow up busses—or crash planes into buildings—because of our disagreements, and our differences—particularly with regard to interpreting ancient texts! We are at war abroad, but we are at war at home—a culture war if you haven’t heard (stem cell research, abortion, gay marriage, sexual ethics and practices, etc.)

So my message for you today is a plea for intellectual honesty in our discussions and discourse—for tolerance, and for an effort to locate and celebrate the many areas of common ground that we share. While we human beings may disagree about important differences in how we experience and try to understand the biggest of all mysteries, are not 90% of our aims the same? Are not love, kindness, tolerance, compassion, sympathy, self-improvement, comfort, community, family, personal development, and the golden rule universal ideals? We can focus on the differences, or we can focus on cleaning up together after the proverbial hurricane.

Importantly, I want to point out that the picture I am painting of a free and tolerant environment for belief—or lack of belief—is precisely the environment in which religion best thrives! You may not realize it, but the US leads the developed world in religiosity, and I strongly suspect freedom of religion is the reason. You see where governments or faith-based institutions (like the old Catholic Church) become totalitarian dictators who get to dictate belief to the masses—eventually the people respond with cynicism. Think about it. If some brand of Christianity—that wasn’t yours, by the way—was to be dictated by some massive institution and forced upon you, is it not likely you would come to resent that arrogance? Or gain a sense of distaste for what you saw as the corruption of your faith?

The point is this: through freedom, religion thrives. Through tolerance, religion thrives. That’s why we live in the most religious nation on earth, with the lowest acceptance of evolutionary theory (for better or worse). And it is that spirit of freedom that you honor by allowing me to come talk with you tonight. You’re comfortable in your faith. You’re not afraid of allowing a Jew to believe in Hebrew scripture alone. You’re not afraid of a Mormon. And it is my hope that by the end of the evening you won’t be afraid of an atheistic agnostic either, especially one who is an advocate of the Jesus story on a number of levels.

You’re tolerant enough to allow humans their right to hold a belief—stupid, irrational, or ignorant as it may be. By the way, it is worth noting that my definition of tolerance does not mean that we shouldn’t engage in intellectually honest discourse, dialogue, and even debate with those whom we disagree. I argue that we have an obligation (in honor of freedom) to do so, but that we must do it at the appropriate time and place, and in the appropriate manner and spirit of polite and loving human interaction.

Back on that list of philanthropists and people who have contributed mightily to the world, should be many Christian names as well! And in a second, I want to highlight one such name—a Christian Archbishop of the Melkite Greek Orthodox Church, named Elias Chacour. But first, I want to define the two terms I just used to describe myself, because they are woefully misunderstood: “agnostic atheist.”

“Agnostic” is a term coined by T.H. Huxley, and it was based upon the Greek Gnosis, which means knowledge. Properly used, I will argue a great many of you are actually agnostics. But you are what we would call theistic agnostics. You believe in god, and still agree that there are elements of faith that are based upon faith and cannot be known for certain. Agnostic essentially says, “I don’t know.” We are all agnostic to some degree.

“Theism,” on the other hand, expresses ones belief in God and one’s own ability to conceptualize or somewhat define who or what god is. After all, if you say you believe in something you must have some sense of what it is in which you believe—some definition (e.g. god is all-powerful, god is the creator of everything, or is loving, etc.).

So let me explain it this way: If you and I had a long conversation about God and faith, eventually as I repeatedly ask how you know, some of you would say, “I don’t know for absolutely certain, but I choose to believe in this God anyway. That’s why they call it faith.”

I’m not trying to put words in your mouth, many of you wouldn’t say that, but I’m trying to define a term: unknowability is agnosticism.

On the other side of the coin, I tend to look at the same unknowns and say, “I choose not to put the great mysteries of the universe and the unknown into a box, to contain them and define them. To me, all attempts to define the supernatural—that which is outside all human knowledge, constraints of mind, language, and intellect—are in fatally flawed. All I can do is marvel at—and perhaps have fleeting experiences of this otherness, or that which is obviously beyond my current ability to understand. Therefore, I cannot call myself a theist. I am, technically, then, an atheist.”

Where an agnostic theist, says “there are areas about which I cannot know, but I choose to believe,” an agnostic atheists says “there are areas about which I cannot know; therefore I choose not to believe. I choose not to define the unknown as a God.

Now, having defined terms, let’s continue. Have any of you heard of Elias Chacour, and his brilliant book, “Blood Brothers”? Nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, but not yet having received it, how many of you know the name of Elias Chacour.

Elias Michael Chacour was born in 1939, in the village of Biram—in Upper Galilee in British Palestine—to a Palestinian Christian family, members of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church. At the age of eight, like many Palestinians he was evicted, along with his whole village, by the Israeli authorities. Not unlike the holocaust in many ways, he was forcibly displaced from his home. He became a deportee and a refugee, but remained in the region. Because he remained in his homeland, he was granted Israeli citizenship after the state was created in 1948.

So understand this please. He is a Melkite Priest—a Christian—who is a Palestinian, AND an Israeli!! And I thought I felt alone in my own conflicting allegiances, and my own inability to see the clear lines of black and white that are so plainly seen by so many others. To many people, this clarity is so evident they can say, “I’m right, and you’re either with me, or against me.” Honestly, I envy those people sometimes. If my world were that simple I’d surely sleep better at night. But my world has become overwhelmed by a glorious rainbow of gray. If that sounds funny, it should. I mean that. My world is both glorious and wonderful in its complexity and mystery, but darkened at times by loneliness of not belonging to any one of these homogenous groups.

Elias Chacour wrote a fantastic book about his experiences. It is called Blood Brothers, and it is a profound story of faith, love and tragedy, among and between his blood brothers: Jews, Druze, Christians, and Muslims. Prior to 1948, they lived together in harmony. They are all his family, and the divisions and misdeeds on all sides of this issue have ripped at Elias and tortured him for his entire life.

But rather than focus on those differences, he has done something extraordinary! He has persistently, and doggedly, and painfully toiled and risked his own comfort and existence to find common ground, to live his faith, but to help others, even in their own faith. He’s not going to change their faiths! He doesn’t feel that need. He lives his faith. He realizes convincing every single person that his faith is wrong and ours is right, cannot be the primary aim if we are going to get along, eat at the same interfaith table, and clean up along side our Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and Mormon brothers and sisters after a natural disaster or a Tsunami. At a minimum, we have to be sufficiently tolerant to be able to continue to communicate. And wouldn’t it be something if we could learn to love?

No, Elias lives his faith. In my opinion, he is an angel. What I call an earth-angel, since I do not condone descriptions of ghosts and spirits in the indescribable, supernatural realm. On the other hand, I disagree with those who say angels do not exist, even if I am restricting the term to an earthly realm.

Richard Dawkins calls such pseudo religious usages of worlds typically reserved for supernatural religion “Einsteinian,” because often great scientists like Hawking or Einstein will speak of the unknown mystery and grandeur as divinity in a non-traditional, non-theistic sense. Xenophanes, a great Greek philosopher, said that if horses had Gods they would look like horses. Personally, I fear overly defining the unknown, so again, to be clear, I am using my broad definition of divinity that says it is all that I can’t know, the mysterious intangibles that cannot be defined, contained or put in a box. For me, it is the discoveries of science, as science gives us more and more knowledge of natural complexity. Or it’s musical chords. For you it may be something quite different.

But back to the point, let me tell you what Archbishop (Melkite Greek Catholic Church) Elias Chacour is doing today. “Come, let us reason together,” says Isiah, and indeed education and understanding—through togetherness and dialogue—is where Father Chacour is investing his efforts.

Let me start with a Wikipedia summary:

In the early 1980s, on an empty hillside now known as the Mount of Light (Jebel an-Nour), a classroom building was begun. It was built to permanently house a school that had begun in a community center. This school is the way Elias’ Chacour is changing the world. What was originally an interfaith high school, has now expanded considerably and includes a primary school and a community college. The Mar Elias Educational Institutions now has 4,500 students, representing all major religions and ethnicities in Israel (as does the faculty).

In his school, which is bringing together our future—children who are Jews, Druze, Muslims and Christians—rather than teaching what divides them, he is teaching what unites them, and letting them reason together. (In my first book I wrote about something I call the Law of removal – which basically says it’s easy to hate/misunderstand what we do not know and understand. The solution lies in communication and mutual understanding.)

Today, Chacour travels often between the Middle East and countries around the world, teaching and advocating non-violence. I have had the opportunity to hear him speak in my hometown, and it is an amazing experience. He has received several international peace awards. On March 10, 1994, Father Chacour received the prestigious World Methodist Peace Award awarded annually by the World Methodist Council. On Feb 19, 2001, it was announced he was to receive the Niwano Peace Prize which he traveled to Japan to receive.

I want to point out that as Vice President of my local Board of Education, we are very proud of being accredited by the North Central Association, a prominent institution with very high standards. Well guess what, the Mar Elias Educational Institution is North Central accredited! This is amazing to me, and a testament to the quality of education being delivered!

But please, hear this point: Elias Chacour has helped rebuild masques in the villages where he has served. Is he afraid for his faith? Is he worried that someone might not “get” his truth of God versus their own? Are you kidding me! Not a chance! His faith is profoundly strong, and he is building bridges, and is living his faith—not imposing it on others by force.

Let me give you the nutshell of my message for you tonight. Behind the dogma that divides us, is an inclusive faith tradition that compels us forward—to better ourselves and the plight of others.

Now, when I defined myself as an agnostic atheist, that is a label that divides us. You may have even felt stress or repulsion when I first mentioned it. That’s understandable. But like many labels, this “agnostic atheists” label one is not always a good fit either.

In fact, aggressive or rude atheism is problematic for me, and I’d like to share with you the reasons why that is, and why I don’t wear a T-shirt that says atheist. (I need to come back to a point surrounding t-shirts. Would someone volunteer to remind me of a follow-up point that is very important?) While there are many areas in which I have great concerns about dogmatic literalism and supernatural claims in this world, many of which our vividly and critically illustrated in my new book, here are the reasons why I am not aggressively anti-religion, and why I am asking that you still allow we non-literalists to be included at the interfaith table of compassion, love, and cooperation:

 Already mentioned: many religions offer a system of constant reminders that we can do better. We owe it to ourselves, and we owe it to the world, to do better.

 Institutions like yours are a family-like support structure—a true community that is difficult to find elsewhere in our crazy lives.

 At the time of a death, for instance, this infrastructure is rushed into production and support.

 Good people, all my friends and family, believe these things. Is it my desire to sit down with a great grandmother and pummel her with my view of the irreconcilable differences between the three synoptic gospels that make literalism impossible?

 Perhaps the most important reason I reject the arguments of those who are aggressively anti-religion, is its arrogance. That dismissal of your institutions says that not only are you guys self-delusional about supernaturalism, but for thousands of years humanity has been completely and utterly wasting its time with this stuff, this “how to find the spark of divinity within us and become more.” I believe that in some cases aggressive anti-religion people are as emotion-driven as the next folks. They are, candidly, angry. (BTW, those aggressively anti-religious people are what you might have called atheists before tonight—now you know there is a difference, right? Just as some Christians are quite different, so too are people who don’t believe in God.) But I think some of these people are hurt and angry, feeling that they’ve been duped by the literalists. I know. I’ve been there! Aggressive atheism can be fueled by embarrassment. It can pride itself on being smart: Daniel Dennett, whom I love, coined the term “brights” to distinguish atheists from the rest of us. While I don’t think he is angry, many who adopt such arrogant terms are. How does provoking and angering people help? It isn’t going to make them say, “Oh, now I see it your way.” Where does that end, and how is that helpful?

 Furthermore, there is value in the Christ story. Whether it is literally true, or a profound piece of Jewish midrash, allegory, and mythological truth used to illustrate eternal, spiritual truths, or even Gnostic insights into why we have pain and suffering—there are some profound lessons about love, acceptance, and tolerance that can be found in the Jesus Christ experience. Unfortunately, by focusing on differences, and by literalizing and supernaturalizing everything, we miss the countercultural, anti-establishment, tolerance-promoting, carrot and stick message of any apocalyptic Jesus Christ. o I’m no scholar or theologian. Lest I preach to you about your religion, but let me just identify a couple things about the Jesus Christ figure that intrigue me and draw me to him:  Jesus was an accepting rule-breaker: He was not a literalist. He hung out with the lowest people in society, those lepers and tax collectors among others. Certainly he seemed to accept women into important positions. He broke all the rules to be inclusive, and to say maybe there is another way to interpret our current beliefs. While it is true that the Jesus figure could be harsh and judgmental, he was simultaneously non-dogmatic.  (Mark quote about: the law. He was objecting to literalistic, man-made laws of religion.

In the epiphany ending of my A Secret of the Universe, I explore, in-depth, the dangers of arrogance, dogmatic adherence to literalist interpretations of sacred texts (the kind Jesus cautioned against), and the dangers of demanding clear answers to unknowable mysteries. In the story, a couple of great tragedies illustrate the point. Without giving much away, I wish to share with you a parable that is used in a pivotal funeral scene at the end of the book.

It is a story first told in the 13th or 14th century, but popularized in 1779 by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, in a dramatic play called Nathan the Wise. Its authorship is a little unclear, but some say it may have come from Boccaccio. In any event, it appears in various versions throughout centuries of literature.

Essentially, the story goes like this. A man who had received a ring from his father. It was not an ordinary gift, however, because he was not an ordinary man. He was the son of his father. And this ring was not an ordinary ring because beyond its extraordinarily beauty and value, it possessed mystical and magical powers. The ring literally provided the wearer the favor of God, and a deep, mystical knowledge of Him.

Also bequeathed with the ring was the power to bestow it upon a favorite son, thus entrusting only the worthiest of heirs with the clan’s favored status before God.

This tradition repeated itself for generations until the ring reached a man who had three sons. Fortunately, or sadly, he loved all three sons equally, which created a dilemma. How could he choose?

As the years went by, and as every parent experiences, there were special times with each child. In fact in his weakness, the father promised the ring, on separate occasions, to each of his three boys.

This created an even greater problem that plagued the old man’s mind, until one day he found a solution. He secretly sent for a jeweler and instructed him to create two exact replicas of the ring – whatever the cost.

When the rings were delivered, even the father could not distinguish one from the other. In his excitement and joy he gathered his three sons, invited them into a room one at a time, and individually presented each with his precious gift of love and divine favor.

The hands of time moved on, of course, and eventually the man died. Upon his death, however, there was unrest. The sons each claimed the divine rights of the original ring. Each wanted to control the future selection of God’s ‘favored one’ through his own fatherly gift. They fought and argued among themselves.

The problem, of course, was that there was no way to discern who had the real ring! How could future generations trust and believe they were truly God’s favored, when no one knew for certain? How could this work?

The sons sued one another and came before a judge. Each testified that his father had specifically selected him, and had bestowed upon only him, of his own hand, the magical, powerful ring. Each refused to believe his father would lie, and therefore accused the other two of some malicious trick to gain access to the real ring. The judge was incredulous and declared that unless they brought their dead father back to life so he could testify, they were wasting his time. But at the last minute before dismissing them, he had a thought.

The judge said to the three men, ‘You say that the ring makes you the favored, beloved of God, above all others, and it makes the wearer loved and followed by all others as well. We shall let the ring decide the case. I ask you, which of you is most loved by the other two?’” Bill’s audience listened intently.

The judge cried, ‘What? No answer? Your rings seem to work incorrectly, reflexively, leaving you with only the love of yourself. Shame on you. The real ring must have been lost, and to replace it your father must have made these three.’

The judge then sent them away, but not before expounding, ‘If each of you believes this gift from your father to be genuine, each of you should behave as if it were. Perhaps your father wished to end this tyranny of conflict with his passing. In which case, rest assured that he loved each of you very much.

‘So to honor him, you must love one another accordingly, abandon your prejudice, and prove the virtue of the ring. You must be humble, benevolent, and act as God would have you act.’

The point is not which ring was the original ... . That is irrelevant, and this ... this is the message that has not been heard, but has been preached for all of time. This is the message we must hear if ware are to clean up after hurricanes together, feed the poor, or cooperate on the many other common endeavors and ideals held by virtually all belief systems. And throughout history, the earthly angels like Elias Chacour have tried to tell us about love and tolerance and self-improvement through their actions, not with their words ... . Let it be ... that we listen.

I said I’d come back to the point of a T-shirt. I’ve seen two t-shirts lately that bothered me: one on a real person and one for sale (so I can’t say I’ve really seen it on people). The shirt I saw on a person said “God Hates Fags.” The other shirt has a picture of Jesus on it and says, “There’s a sucker born again every minute.” Let me ask you, and I’m truly just asking because I don’t yet know how I feel about these shirts, is either of these helpful to the dialogue? Is a t-shirt that implies you’ll rot in hell for not believing in my god, different than a t-shirt that says you’re an idiot for believing in God?

Ladies and gentlemen I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you allowing me to share some thoughts with you. The interfaith table has many seats, and we have much work to do in order to make the world a better place. I wish you well in your journey into otherness through Jesus Christ, a wonderful choice of paths. It is my sincere wish that you will also welcome a place at the interfaith table for me, the agnostic atheists, or the humanists—or those unbound by labels that divide us—in addition to the Druze, Jews, Muslims, Mormons, Buddhists, Jaines, and others.

And perhaps, together, we can focus not on the dogma and rules that segregate us, but on the common ground that that unites us and helps us to live the deeper meaning of our faith traditions that compel us forward to better the world.

Lastly, perhaps we can leave the metaphor of the interfaith table for a moment, get up, push away our meals, and get into a boat metaphor, wherein we can work together to row in common directions. And where the Muslim needs to not row so that he can stop and pray, we’ll accommodate him—not because we tacitly endorse all his views or actions, but because discussion and cooperation is impossible if we can’t allow one another their human right to disagree with us. So similarly, where the Jew can’t eat the pork sandwiches we brought along, we’ll respect that. And where the materialist naturalist has to stop and study rock formations, we’ll tell her to make it quick.

You get the point. We shouldn’t delude ourselves, it won’t be easy. I personally, am not going to care what consenting adults do in their bedroom, and at the appropriate times I’ll tell you why I think you misinterpret your ancient texts and teachings if you belief otherwise. At the same time I understand that belief is very important to you, based on you reading of the texts, and that you strongly disagree with me. But I’m suggesting that it will take maturity, and mutual respect for other faith traditions and other beliefs, to agree to disagree on the differences sometimes, and to follow Elias Chacour in finding common ground as we row upstream, together.

Amen, let it be.

You can learn about Stephen Gibson’s groundbreaking novel about belief, and download the free discussion guide, at www.asecretoftheuniverse.com.

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