Interreligious conversations (2)

I would like to add one other theological perspective to the first post on interreligious conversations. Virigilio Elizondo’s and Jacques Audinet’s approach to mestizo thought also provide a challenging framework for interreligious perspectives. Indeed, the process of mestizaje claims a positive and creative work within the histories of identities and allows a deep, existential, life encompassing approach to these. It also provides an intriguing approach to the process of incarnation. Of course, the concept of mestizaje needs more exploration and clarification, particularly if and when christians may come to use it with regard to theological key-concepts (such as incarnation). Christians will consider, indeed, that faithfulness to their identity and its main (unchanging) characteristics reflects faithfulness to God’s own self-revelation.

While aware that they are a human endeavour in many respects, religions nevertheless also claim faithfulness to self-revelation of God (this is the source out of which they arise) and, therefore, to some characteristics, attitudes, beheaviours or contents that reflect and embody this self-revelation of God. There is a fine and difficult balance between faithfulness to God who gives and reveals Godself and human creativity – this is the tension of which theologians as Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer had to take account in the midst of a very heavy and threatening political situation.

The way in which we think about “identities” and religious identities in faithfulness to God’s self-revelation (within God’s relationships to people and to creation) is crucial with regard to the structure of interreligious conversations. I am not sure that we already have a fully satisfactory understanding of this concept.

Interreligious conversations (1)

A very good master thesis on presuppositions for feminist islamic-christian dialogues (Sporen weven naar ontmoeting. Mogelijkheidsvoorwaarden voor feministische Islamitisch-Christelijke Dialogen) by a K.U.Leuven Faculty of Theology student, Joke Lambelin, made me reflect on interreligious conversations (I prefer the word “conversation” to “dialogue”, as it connotes life together and not only an intellectual discussion). Joke Lambelin studies feminist and post-colonial approaches in general and then more specifically in the work of Amina Wadud-Muhsin and Kwok Pui-Lan, to end with personal reflections in which for example the classical approach “exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism” is criticized as androcentric, in whic feminist post-colonial criticism is given space, in which the word “difference” suggest an approach in the line of sustainable conflict transformation, and in which attention is paid to community building.

The feminist and post-colonial approaches illustrated by Joke Lambelin confirm a set of perspectives in an approach to interreligious conversations, that I would consider very important.

• The emphasis on “life together” and “community building together” also means that we should reconsider static approaches to identity (as if interreligious dialogue were taking place between clearly and definitively defined identities that would not evolve in the process of the conversations themselves, although this does not mean a relativization of these identities) and that we should not enter the conversations with an attitude of fear for the different other (who represents, rather, an opportunity, as in the conversations we discover and deepen our own identities).
• The femnist and post-colonial critical attitudes also point to the complexities of interreligious conversations, interwoven as they are with history, culture, economics, politics, etc.
• Karl Rahner’s understanding of “anonymous christians” does not, in my opinion, primarily refer to an inclusive position (as if the label “christian” could be applied to non-christians outside of their will or intention) but rather to the fact that God enters into relationships with people (also non-christians) in the way God enters into relationships with christians (this is a really theological meaning). This suggests the introduction of a new concept, “reciprocal anonymity”. “Anonymity” here means the willingness to treat someone who does not belong to my own faith tradition or religion as someone who does: a non-christian is treated with the same respect as a christian (which means that christians accept that they will learn about their own being christian from non-christians). The “reciprocal” indicates that one hopes that the anonymity works in both directions, that a christian, for example, may be treated as n anonymous buddhist or jew by fellow human beings from other religions. This reciprocity cannot be forced upon others, only hoped for or asked for. If it is not given, it is no reason to abandon one’s own attitude of anonymity.
• The sustainable conflict transformation model certainly offers a good approach to interreligious conversations. Of course, here the word “conflict” is used in a very broad sense. Conflict transformation refers to the building of sustainable life together, as is also meant in approaches such as restorative justice. These “secular” approaches may well represent a fruitful methodological addition to theology and religious reflection. The issue of interreligious conversations is not primarily to solve intellectual conundrums, but to built up life together in such ways that a space is opened for God’s self-revelation and self-gift.
• Another very fruitful “secular” approach is provided by social psychology, by authors as René Bouwen and Kenneth Gergen in social or relational constructionism whereby the response to a challenge always also means the building of the community responsible for addressing the challenge.
• Religions will have to look inwardly to discover resources that allow them to enter into conversations with one another aiming at opening the space for God and God’s work amongst us. In christianity some of these resources are clear: the incarnation (indicating God’s entry into the world), the Kingdom of God (as a promise and a grace for the whole of creation and, therefore, for all), Jesus’ capacity to discover God’s presence and challenge even in those places where he himself because of his background did not expect to meet God, etc.

These are some ideas or suggestions that may help to think about interreligious conversations amidst a situation in which our “classical” models are not satisfying anymore as has become clear out of the feminist and post-colonial criticism. However, I think that we are still a long way from a generally accepted model.

Sub-prime canoeing

The Lesse is a well-known river in southern Belgium, a chosen place for canoeing. Canoes are rented out by some enterprises along the river. This morning there was a news item on the radio that about 30 unexperienced people had to be rescued: they were canoeing while the river was too wild. The claim of the commander of the rescuers was that the enterprises renting out the canoes had been doing this although they knew that the river was dangerous. In my personal opinion, these enterprises allowing for what I would call “sub-prime canoeing” (in view of some practices on house markets), bear heavy responsibility for what happened.

What the heck is motivating some people to allow others to run into danger, with consequences not only for these others, but also for our societies in a larger context? What can be done to avoid such sub-prime practices?

Dogmatic and mystic approaches to religion

In the literary supplement of August 24, 2007 to one of our main Belgian newspapers, De Standaard, a K.U.Leuven colleague, Rik Torfs (Faculty of Canon Law), reviews Guus Kuijer’s book: Het doden van een mens (Killing a human being). Rik Torfs particularly highlights one idea: the difference between dogmaticians (who think that religion can be understood as a system that humiliates human beings into respect towards God) and mystics (who emphasize love and the soul’s capacity to unite with God). The church today often presents itself from its dogmatic side, and that is the reason why people turn away from it, not because of their being concerned alone with themselves and not with God.

I agree with this view up to a certain point, but it also appears to me as to easy an interpretation of today’s reality and as to simple an opposition (between dogmatic people and mystics). Mysticism that is referring merely to an interior experience falls short – I think – of the profoundly community (and, therefore, ecclesially) oriented aspects of the Christian faith. Are Christians not called to believe precisely that life in common is a real possibility in view of the Reign of God? Is that not an important part of the Christian faith, much more than an interiorly satisfying psychological certainty about God’s existence? When the latter does not contain in itself that reference to the profound connectedness of all with all in God, then I fear there is something wrong with describing the experience as mystical. Even what we consider our most profound inner experiences can egoistically lure us away from the real encounter with God – the more profound our interior experiences are (and they may be experiences of desolation as with Mother Teresa), the more we are in need of thorough discernment along the criterion of commitment to life together.

This is not a plea, of course, for a “dogmatic church”, the structures of which would do away with the in depth experiences of commitment. But I am convinced that in the Christian perspective at the heart of the mystical experience lies the desire of God in us to spread out to the whole of creation, an ecclesial desire that spreads its wings to explore the whole of reality with which one is connected. Reducing and confining religious experience and the church to mere rules and structures is in danger of forgetting the burning bush at the inside of the world’s ecclesial desire – there is a danger, then, that the church and our faith fall prey to authoritarian abuse and ideologically covered-up flight from our responsibilities in the world. Forgetting that the mystical experiences brings us in touch with our creational and ecclesial belonging by reducing it to a mere private peak experience, is just as dangerous.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Time magazine’s September 3, 2007 issue publishes an article by David Van Biema on “Mother Teresa’s Crisis of Faith“. The Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk published correspondence between Teresa and her confessors and superiors over a period of 66 years in a book entitled Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light. These texts show that Mother Teresa lived the largest part of her life in terrible interior agony, not feeling the presence of God or Jesus, whom she deeply longed for. She felt dry, in darkness, lonely and tortured, and this while she animated and directed the work of her congregation at the service of the poorest and loneliest on the streets of Calcutta. David Van Biema does a good work at presenting her inner road over 50 years of spiritual desolation and separation of God, suffering discreetly and learning to share in Christ’s own agony in the world, participating in His desolation.

In the so-called “third week” of St Ignatius Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises, the time spent on the suffering and crucifixion of the Lord, attention is paid to God’s absence and retiring, to God’s “powerlessness” over against murderous evil. In a paradoxical way, in the suffering Christ the absent God is present, is there with us, sharing our lives, so that in our suffering also God is present as the suffering Christ. In this perspective, the felt absence of God does not indicate God’s non-existence, but rather God’s intimate presence to suffering reality.

Climate Sceptics: the great climate warming swindle

In March 2007 the British Ch4 offered a documentary under the title The Great Climate Change Swindle.  This documentary criticizes what it calls the so-called scientific consensus on human made climate change. Of course this documentary has been hotly debated – but given the fact that it is extremely well made, it manages to create more confusion at a moment when all of us should unite to develop both mitigation and adaptation strategies with regard to global warming, and when a political space and will should emerge to allow for this.

I want to take my bearings from some reflections by Peter Tom Jones and Vicky De Meyere in an excellent article that will be published very soon in the Flemish-Dutch periodical Streven under the title “Het verbeten tegenoffensief van klimaatsceptici”, “The Stubborn Counter Offensive of Climate Sceptics”. In their article they first stress the urgency of the climate issue, based on the IPCC reports: the earth is warming up and human beings are the main responsibles for it (a fact confirmed in an article in the August 2007 issue of Scientific American: The Physical Science behind Climate Change). In a second move they rely on the war of trenches waged by the climate sceptics and illustrated precisely in The Great Climate Change Swindle. The confusion created by the climate sceptics touches on various levels: is global warming real? are human beings really responsible for it? is the problem really so serious as the climate scientists claim? does it make sense from an economic point of view to tackle the problem forcefully right now? Of course, climate sceptics also question the personal integrity of those scientists who warn for human made climate change. Our authors refute all those arguments. In a third move they attempt to look for the origins of climate change denial in the perspective of social psychology. The fourth and last move is a call to concrete action at individual, political, juridical, economic and educational levels.

I don’t think that we can continue to seriously doubt human caused global warming, even if we still have to learn the precise extent of it (reports, such as on the melting of arctic ice, seem to indicate that it is even more serious than our usual models predict), but these are rear battles that should not occupy us too heavily, given that now is the time to take decisions and to move into action. I hope religious and political authorities will understand that. I say “hope” as I see that this is not yet the case and that politicians and religious leaders, for various reasons (economic and political self-interest, distrust of science, etc.), as well as many of us who are frightened by the perspective that sustainable life for all requires profound changes in our life styles, are practical climate sceptics unwilling to pay the price of action and commitment. Therefore, this is also a spiritual and an ethical issue. It may help to realize that the globally unsustainable life styles of a few mean distress to many human companions, and that global warming will first and foremost strike the poorest of our fellow human beings. This should trigger in us creative and productive anger and compassion.

The preferential option for the poor

This afternoon, I enjoyed reading an overview article by Georges De Schrijver SJ on the history of Latin-American liberation theology. I was not surprised, of course, that the preferential option for the poor takes on a central place in his reflections. But I was struck by the intellectual and practical vulnerability of this idea and reality. How easy it is to pervert its deeper meaning and practice. To avoid that, one of the key insights is that, in the thought of Latin-American theologians of liberation – and Gustavo Gutiérrez is a good example – the preferential option for the poor is always connected to the notion of “sujeto“: the poor become the actors and protagonists of their history, and the preferential option for the poor can only be understood in that perspective. Solidarity, common discernment and practices are not something brought to the poor – that would be a very paternalistic approach -; they arise in the conversation with them and out of their creative and proactive view on the realities that oppress them.

The idea of “sujeto“, in my opinion, adds to what usually in Western philosophy and theology is understood when the expression “subject” is used. This often refers to an autonomous subject, that is free to make its own decision and to decide about its own life. “Sujeto” is involved in a common history, that is being constructed precisely from the perspective of people who cannot decide about their own destiny, who have no voice because their oppression is so strong that their perspectives are smothered. Their “cry” reaches the surface of a voice when deep solidarity is exercised, so that the structures of oppression are recognized and fought against – together. Therefore, there is always a process of reconciliation involved that touches us in our ways to live together. To become a “sujeto” – or to enter into alliance with the poor so as to become “sujeto” together with them – requires from the Western “subject” to enter into a process of conversion, of letting go of autonomy and freedom that are closed on themselves. This is very demanding for all of us.

When that movement of (intellectual and practical) conversion is not endeavoured, the chances for a perversion of the preferential option for the poor become strong. The autonomous, creative “subject” decision maker finds it in its power to decide what to do for the poor and what the poor should do to change their situation. The perverse logic of a marketable gift (“I give you something but that also means that I am in control and that I can tell you what I expect in return from you”) enters into play. One could still speak about a “preferential option for the poor” as one is, indeed, doing something for the poor, and the poor may even profit from this something. But, there is a risk of sell-out in a very paternalistic perspective. The preferential option for the poor requires that we are brothers and sisters to one another, friends who share the same responsibility for the world in which we live together – not that some of us are all powerful fathers and others needy children. When I formulate it this way, one also perceives that the images we have of God enter into play. Too easily, by speaking about God as “Father” or “Mother”, do we think that in our relations with others we also have to be fathers or mothers to the others, that we can play God with regard to the others. We easily forget that the Father-God by becoming our brother, turns us into brothers and sisters of one another. At times we will need fatherly and motherly attitudes towards our brothers and sisters, but that can only be with the clear intention of outgrowing these perversions very quickly.

The Spanish expression “opción preferencial por los pobres” is more complex than the English “preferential option for the poor”. The “por” invites us to read the “for” also as “because of”, suggesting an alliance between brothers and sisters, between friends. We should test all texts that use the expression “preferential option for the poor” on this respect for the alliance and, so, for the creative and pro-active poor.

PS. I feel that I have to add a remark, as I fear that some will say that in what I say appears an idealization of the poor, as if they are the really creative ones, the really good people in our history. But I do not really want to work in terms of abstract intellectual categories of “rich” and “poor” – the point of departure is the reality of the relationships between human beings, relationships that become perverted if and when, in all honesty, we have to describe them as: this one is rich and that one is poor, and there are structures that maintain this state of affairs. The preferential option for the poor addresses a broken alliance between all human beings — the brokenness appears in the fact that in all honesty we have to speak about rich and poor on the basis of the structure of the relationships — and challenges us to restore that alliance out of the fact that we share life and creation, all of us. The cry of the poor reminds us of the brokenness of the alliance and, therefore, of reality; allowing the cry to become a voice by recognizing its creative (non-resentful) potential is the best path to restoring the alliance and reality.

John le Carré’s “The Mission Song”

I finished reading yesterday evening one of John le Carré’s latest books, “The Mission Song”. As in another recent book, “The Constant Gardner”, le Carré addresses situations of abuse and injustice in Africa. The plot, a kind of coup in Eastern DRC so as to allow the greedy exploitation of natural resources, looks very real and the story line – a polit thriller – is well designed and allows to enter into the mind of a person who undergoes a conversion. I am impressed by the end (those who fight with the destitute and marginalized, will end up marginalized themselves, sharing the fate of those people they fought with and defended).

Over the last years there is growing awareness of the illegal exploitation of natural resources in DRC as a source of oppression and war. Transnational corporations are increasingly forced into accepting codes of conduct (see for example the Kimberley process), but they often adhere only by mouth. Attempts to bring such corporations to court often fail as the situations are complex and intricate. It strikes me, however, and a novel like “The Mission Song” helps to raise this awareness, that in a way those of us who ask for those natural resources and are willing to pay the price for them (the price should be as low as possible, of course), stimulate some transnational corporations to do their worst. They want to profit, of course, and these kinds of profits should be questioned. But we should not forget that often their profits arise from a response to a demand coming from people who are willing to pay the price and close their eyes on what happens.

Are we amongst those people?

Church reluctance with regard to environmental issues

Although there are, within the Christian churches and the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) in particular, many texts and movements that seriously address today’s environmental challenges and more particularly global warming, one may also at times feel a reluctance to enter the public debate and to take matters as seriously as they should be, particularly at higher hierarchical levels. Sometimes, one can’t escape the impression that environmental challenges remain peripheral or are even considered as if drawing away our attention from the really important issues. For people who feel the urgency of the environmental challenges and who are increasingly aware of the huge number of people suffering worldwide from ecological degradation and the consequences of global warming, this kind of opposition is painful and it may even enrage them. I think we should try to understand the reasons for reluctance towards environmental challenges before allowing our passions to get the upperhand. Dealing with these objections is a way of responding to the environmental challenges. This is particularly true, when we become aware of the fact that we can address these challenges only “together”. We may, therefore, have to learn from the objections and difficulties by attempting to answer them. I attempt to make a list of these difficulties without claiming to be complete.

(1) Many of us certainly find it difficult to understand and envision what climate change means on a global scale. It is, in a way, too big and too complex an issue – our minds are overwhelmed and there may be paralyzing fears or anxieties in our hearts. Moreover, we will have to live with global warming – it is not a problem we can do away with – and it may seem to many of us that the initiatives we take do not immediately change the situation in which we find ourselves. We cannot avoid anymore; maybe there is some space for mitigation and we will certainly have to adapt. Over the coming years, as social disruptions and natural disasters or extreme weather conditions increase, these feelings may actually become more dominant. “What can we do? It’s all so much bigger than ourselves …”. Here lies, I think, a spiritual (learning to deal with our fears and discouragement) as well as a very practical task (what can we do at our micro level in the face of these challenges).

(2) Environmental thinking and climate change require us to think in the long term, to take decisions and to change attitudes and life styles now, although their effect will be felt only in a future that we don’t consider “near” to us. This is difficult for many of us, particularly when we feel pressed by urgent issues – hunger, conflicts, the immediate consequences of natural disasters, … We deal with matters when they pose a problem and find it difficult to act or think in order to avoid matters to become a problem. We think short-term and reactively … Environmental challenges require pro-active long-term planning and strategies. The task here is to learn to think and act pro-actively with a view on the long-term, even amidst urgent and pressing short-term issues. We can learn to individually change our reactive setup of mind; we can also build institutions that allow long-term pro-active thinking and foster that attention in the public debate.

(3) Over the past years it has not always been easy to get good and reliable information on environmental issues. Very often, indeed, the information we receive has been “handled” (as was clear in some of my previous postings) to allow for or even cover up egoistic financial and economic interests. This means that the real situation has been misrepresented, that confusion has been spread, that serious scientists have been silenced or discredited, and that science itself has come under suspicion (an activity for which sometimes religion has been used) or is being relied upon beyond its capabilities (e.g. by conceiving of climate change as a mear scientific or technical challenge, so that our societal life-styles are not questioned). The task here is to provide reliable information and to take on an honest attitude with regard to science, technology and life-styles. This is not easy, as this may involve the unmasking of huge economic and financial interests, and as it may require that, particularly in the rich world, we reconsider our globally unsustainable life-styles. Religions and churches can play a very important role here and they should be very careful not to squander away their credibility by allowing themselves to be used to cover up the real abuses and injustices brought about by the powergames in political and economic global interactions. A serious reflection on neo-liberal and capitalist modes is urgently needed.

(4) There is a painful and tricky competition going on between religion and science within the Christian churches, which finds it apex in the discussions concerning evolution theory and creationism. I think that in the background of this lies not, in the first place, an issue about “content” (descriptive approach to creation and to the world as it is), but rather a set of difficulties about the relationships between faith and science. This has led some scientists to throw out religion and theology alltogether or to make them part of a larger “evolutionary” human history; it has resulted in forms of religious fundamentalism that are highly distrustful of science and its results. As Lord May of Oxford has pointed out, this is not without consequences in the environmental debate. It is crucial that a new balance be constructed between religion and science – the infighting between two approaches that need not be killling competitors, takes up too much energy at a moment of environmental urgency.

(5) The RCC is an enormous international organisations, with grassroots connections and operating at nearly all levels of human interactions and societies. It is, therefore, aware of how people in various places on earth react differently to the environmental challenges. It is aware of the criticism voiced by the so-called South with regard to Western attitudes on ecology and environment. Has not the Western discourse on the environment been an attempt (and doesn’t it continue to be so) to safeguard its own globally unsustainable life-styles at the expense of the development of the poor people? It is not surprising, therefore, that RCC authorities are critical in the face of Western environmental discourse that might well result in attempts at further exclusion from the poor. But it seems to me that, in the face of the crisis we are facing worldwide, this argument and this perspective may well side track us from the urgent matters at hand right now. However, this debate reminds us that crisis-response cannot be trustworthy it it does not also address the long-term views on development and changing life-styles. Here again, there lies an enormous task ahead. Our crisis response risks to be only “cheap charity” (the rich give to the poor and decide how the poor have to live – a paternalistic approach) if it is not born out of solidarity that arises in the context of creational togetherness. What has become very clear, however, is that environmental issues are also issues of global social justice.

(6) Over the past years RCC key documents from Rome have highlighted human dignity and the concept of human person. Environmental issues have – it seems to me, but this would require more in depth study of the matter – been viewed from that perspective, and this explains the use of the expression”human ecology”. To some this will appear as exaggerate anthropocentrism and even dangerously biased if the concept of “dignity” – which is always also contextual – is understood in the Western neo-liberal sense. A ‘cosmological’ debate – taking into account theology, anthropology, ecology, social justice – is urgently needed. To do this, the Western mind, profoundly influenced by (post-)modern approaches – will have to allow itself to be creatively criticized by philosophical and theological approaches from elsewhere in the world. This is an urgent theme for interreligious conversations in which also (post-)colonial perspectives can find a space.

(7) Again in the RCC, the environmental reflection has been hampered by attitudes that, with regard to sustainability, touch on family planning and population control. For Christians, family planning and population control reach out into the theological realm: can human beings control God’s gift? can human beings play God over their lives and the lives of others? is the world (as creation) to be understood as “to be managed” according to human made rules? … There are theological and general moral issues at stake here, concerning how we relate to God, but also to the world. The questions of human control and power arise to the surface. Even if one may critically regard what one considers to be conservative and irrelevant RCC positions on sexuality, one may nevertheless be sensitive, particularly with regard to the environmental debate, to the control-issues that are addressed here: can one plead, on the one side, for a world that one cannot control and that one has to respect, and on the other side for full control on human life? Is there not a contradiction here?

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I am aware that these questions and issues still need further reflection. I just wanted to open up some perspectives, that are willing to take into account the difficulties raised by those whom many of us consider to be fundamentalist or conservatist. One need not agree with the answers they give, but they surely raise some important questions. But, however this debate may evolve in the coming years, I am convinced there are three factors that we will have to reckon with when facing the environmental crises today:

(a) there is urgency: the lives of many are at risk and we face immense suffering in the years to come. How are we going to react, while at the same time also setting up more long-term, pro-active, strategic thinking? The perspectives of those who suffer the consequences of climate change are crucially important, and their needs, frustrations and anger will dominate political debate in the near future. We do not have the luxury to enjoy needless discussions and debates.

(b) we will have to face crises, but in the long term we will also have to change life-styles, taking into account the vision of sustainable life for all and for creation.

(c) a new balance between religion/faith and science has to be developed – they are not competitors and neither of them should be overrated.

Political censorship on climate change research

In an August 14th The Independent (UK) article, referred to by the Common Dreams network, Andrew Gumbel confirms the political pressure exercised through Paul Wolfowitz and the Bush administration on World Bank specialists to minimalize references to climate change. He also fits this in a broader silencing and cover up as appears for example in a March 2007 GAP report (GAP stands for: Government Accountability Project) that is available on the GAP website. It is worthwhile to quote some passages from the report’s “executive summary and synthesis”:

This report, which presents and synthesizes the findings of a year-long investigation to determine the extent of political interference at federal climate science agencies, demonstrates how policies and practices have increasingly restricted the flow of scientific information emerging from publicly-funded climate change research. This has affected the media’s ability to report on the science, public officials’ capacity to respond with appropriate policies, and the public’s grasp of an environmental issue with profound consequences for our future. (…)

The investigation found no incidents of direct interference with climate change research. Instead, unduly restrictive policies and practices were located largely in the communication of “sensitive” scientific information to the media, the public, and Congress. In this context, “sensitive scientific information” is meant to signify that science which does not support existing policy positions or objectives in research dealing with the effects of climate change or greenhouse gases on hurricanes, sea levels, Arctic ice loss, marine life, and human society.

I remember how, over the past years, in discussions on human induced climate change and its consequences, friends and collaborators refused to believe what they called unnecessary pessimistic and dramatic views. One of their arguments was: ‘if it were as serious as you claim, politicians would already have taken measures to respond to the crisis”. These discussions were painful, as I often did not manage to transmit the seriousness of the issue and as I felt that two dangerous arguments were used to dismiss the problem: (a) “we trust politicians”, and (b) “you are prone to exaggeration.” It is now proven that we cannot trust some politicians and that their attempts at silencing the issue were bordering on the criminal. One is wondering why they did behave in that way and, to be frank, I see only one serious reason: economic and financial profit (cf. the scientists paid by some oil companies to disqualify research as done by the IPCC – facts that were uncovered by organisations as Source Watch and Exxonsecrets), as well as the refusal to make oneself unpopular as a politician while addressing a challenge that would force us to change our life styles.

I am not sure that economic interests and an all too naive trust in scientific and technical advances will not continue to blur political decision making, but at least efforts as those of GAP will make us conscious of how easily powergames influence on real politics. Both in the public sphere and in the media there lies an important critical role. The situation is too urgent and there is too much at stake for many people.

David Hollenbach and Peacebuilding in Colombia

In this week’s issue of The Tablet, I read a very interesting article by David Hollenbach on efforts at peacebuilding in violence torn Colombia: “Lessons from the Wounded Edge”. David provides a lot of examples of courageous grassroots initiatives, in the line of what I was in touch with during an Antwerpen workshop on Peace Building Leadership some years ago, where a group of Colombian women presented an initiative called “Cartografía de la Esperanza”, developed in collaboration with An Vranckx who worked at IPIS and is teaching in the University of Antwerpen. They connected – through processes of shared leadership in dangerous and threatening situations – women from various villages in violent zones to design practices of resistance against violence and survival. It is wonderful to see the resilience of grassroots people in the face of violence that surrounds them and against which they seem to be helpless and resourceless. A hopeful sign in Colombia is that these people also receive the support of the Church, which enables them to become part of a broader spectrum of peacebuilding activities at various political and social levels. This multilevelled work is crucial in the case of violent conflicts.

From the point of view of theology, I particularly like this article’s title in which reference is made to the “wounded edge”. It is a very accurate way to describe the double perspective implied in the preferential option for the poor. On the one side, there is the willingness and the urge to give voice and space to those who suffer the conflict and its consequences. But this could still be interpreted in a very “paternalistic” and “colonialist” way: “let’s listen to those poor people, but we will then tell them what to do to solve the conflict, as we know better” – a form of easy charity. Therefore, there is another side to the preferential option for the poor, and that is expressed in the word “edge”: those poor harbour the creativity to solve the conflict, they are at the creative edge and they are, in the Latin-American sense of the word, “subjects” of the peacebuilding history.

David’s article is precious reading for those interested in the conflict in Colombia, for those looking for how to deal with complexities of peacebuilding efforts, and for all of us who are invited to make the “preferential option for the poor” a dimension of their actions and thoughts.

World Bank and Climate Change

A Aug 12th, 2007 Los Angeles Times article by Judy Pasternak and published on the Common Dreams website, “At World Bank, Climate Change isn’t Part of the Equation” leaves me concerned. J. Pasternak’s main claim runs as follows: “At the World Bank – heavily influenced by its largest shareholder, the United States – the effect of projects on climate change is not even calculated.” The reason for that is given by Kristalina Georgieva, the bank’s strategy and operations director for sustainable development: “Our biggest obstacle has been that politically, [climate change] is very controversial”.

I am not surprised by this state of affairs. The US government – with its emphasis on issues of “energy” and on “technical” solutions – reflects a point of view that is not uncommon: it is an approach that many people will feel secure with (we have a grip on “energy” and “technology”), and it is also an approach that fits in well to defend the economic and financial interests of some great enterprises. Moreover, it provides us (the rich) with an excuse not to change our excessive and unsustainable lifestyles and to continue to present them as a criterion and ideal for the poor and for those countries that are rapidly developing by modeling their growth on the western way of life. This state of affairs, in my opinion, avoids precisely the political debate and issues – politics have been reduced to a mere means of pressure … in my book, and I am sure that Ricardo Petrella would follow me in this, this represents a perversion of what politics is.

I am sure that within the World Bank there are forces that attempt to change the situation – K. Georgieva’s statement is a proof of that. The World Bank has websites on environmental issues and on climate change. What can we do to encourage the World Bank to take on its responsibility and to develop these websites as leading opinion makers?

Warmest temperatures on record

In one of its news items entitled “Global Land Temperatures Warmest Ever in January, April“, the Environment News Service (ENS) refers to a press release of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on extreme weather and climate events, and to a speech by Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in Chennai, India. The interest of the news item lies in the fact that it refers to precise measurements (facts that cannot be denied easily – there can be no doubt that temperatures are rising) and that it highlights the fate of the poorest people as a consequence of climate changes that will affect the food situation.

We will have to learn to live with the consequences of increasing temperatures and more extreme climate conditions, consequences that will impact heavily on our lives and particularly on the lives of the poorest amongst us. These are global phenomena, affecting the whole world. Therefore, the challenge to deal with this threatening situation involves us all, and the concern for (global) social justice demands that we particularly take into account the fate of the poorest amongst us. How are we going to secure sustainable life for all of us, even if that means for some of us to lower our material ways of life, and for others amongst us to abandon non-realistic expectations leading to globally unsustainable ways of life. As done by the WHO for example, the World Health Organisation, political planning should prevail on a worldwide scale – this will require that political decision making be made less dependent on economic profit and growth schemes, as was already urged by Riccardo Petrella in his 1997 reflection on globalisation: Ecueils de la mondialisation. Urgence d’un nouveau contrat social.

In his speech, Jacques Diouf emphasizes the importance of scientific and technological advances. I cannot but agree with that perspective, while at the same time I strongly feel that this is not enough. Climate change and its consequences will not be answered just by science and technology, but requires profound changes in life style – to cope with the immediate situations that are arising and that urge us to “share” and “pool” our resources and capacities, ánd in view of the fact that global warming is most likely due to human activities. I do hope that the recent initiative of President Bush (USA) to convene a meeting on climate change will do more than focus on technological means, how important those may truly be. The interesting, but also frightening thing, particularly in the eyes of those who are pessimistic on human nature, is that the global crisis in which we are involved requires a change of mind: the core issue is now sustainable life for all of us. “Sustainable” and “all of us” are key words here.

Mestizo theology

Yesterday I spent the day in Paris, visiting two good friends. Virgilio Elizondo is the Notre Dame professor of Pastoral and Hispanic Theology, an author of many theological books and articles, and lies at the origins of “mestizo” theology. Jacques Audinet is a Paris sociologist, who has also written about “métissage”. The theme of our conversations was, of course, mestizo theology.

Virgilio and Jacques conceive of “mestizaje” not only as an opportunity for creative human development, but also as a deep and inescapable part of human nature. No one of us can boast some kind of pure identity, a kind of self that would not be already the result of the encounter with others or of others. Of course, in concrete reality, as on the border between the USA and Mexico, the word “mestizo” is often used in pejorative sense: the mestizo person is neither this, nor that … there is no clear identity and, therefore, the person is split, the playground of opposing identities and forces. A first step, then, is to assume one’s identity ambiguity as a gift, an opportunity in which a new identity arises, with its own perspective on reality and its own creative abilities to act upon reality and transform it.

Virgilio’s theology is an invitation not to shy away from mestizaje, the dynamism and the movement to encounter the other, not as an opposite other, but as a part of the constitution of myself. In the intimate encounter with the other [intimate means: the other is part of myself], something new arises with new possibilities and opportunities. I view Virgilio’s approach also as the basis for an ontology of being: does not all real being arise from processes of mestizaje? Is not, therefore, identity always on the move, reshaping and rediscovering itself in the intimate encounter with others? Ultimately, one could maybe even argue that no other is ever a separate stranger, as in this world in some way the other is always also part of me.

Obviously, such mestizo understanding of reality, has social and political consequences: excluding mechanisms, in which some others are “othered” because that is what I want – for various reasons -, are not true to the deep structure of reality. Moreover, the same goes for these approaches that consider identities as unchangeable and well definable entities. Clearly, this does not mean that there exists no reality game between the same and the other, a game which precisely also brings about new forms of mestizaje; but this game of differences can only be conceived on the background of a more profound co-dependence and interrelatedness that are not undone by these differences. “Othering” cannot, therefore, become excluding: it would deny the very ground on which it stands.

Also in theology itself, mestizo thought offers interesting perspectives. On a fundamental and hermeneutical level, differences are not destructive oppositions, but opportunities towards processes of mestizaje that will provide new perspectives on reality.  The church(es) can be understood as the spaces in which such mestizaje is made possible and even promoted as an opportunity to more profoundly encounter God. Mission and evangelisation are not the urge to bring a clearly defined message to those who have not yet heard it, but the desire to encounter those others and to mix with them, as in this process of encounters the truth about the structure of reality and the encounter with God arise. Each encounter holds the opportunity to say the encounter with God anew.

Mestizo thought is an eye-opener: it turns a switch in our mental schemes and allows us to view reality in a new light. Mentally, we do not easily move into this direction, as we fear to lose our feelings of security built on identities that enter into conflicts by upholding their own unchangeableness in the face of others. Mestizo thought offers us a possibility to set aside our fears of others, our fears of not being unchangeable.

Church as a discerning community / Victims and Perpetrators

I just returned home from a very interesting lunch discussion with Philip J. Linden of the Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans, and Malik Juma Muhammed, a student at Yale University in New Haven. We talked about the situation in New Orleans, the sufferings of many people over there, the difficulties to rebuild a city that lies in the shifting river Delta of the river Mississippi and that is very vulnerable to further heavy huricanes, and the efforts to continue the teaching work at XULA. We moved then to two topics that touch on Malik’s research theme: hermeneutics and ecclesiology.

When dealing with ecclesiology, there are three perspectives that keep drawing my attention. (a) Church means more than just a gathering of faithful, who relate to one another on the basis of their individual religious experiences. It is also, and fundamentally, a community of discernment, a “public space” in which faith and its relationship to the world in which we live are communally discerned. “Communally” here also means: taking into account a tradition, i.e. connecting with the past and with those who have been building church over the centuries. In that sense, the core of ecclesiology is communal apostolic discernment (CAD): church is being built through our joint efforts at faithfully (following Jesus Christ, that is, for Christians) committing to the world in which we live.

(b) Church as such also touches the core of our faith. We believe in the church, both as the space in which we share our faith with others, and as a core element of the content of our faith. That is a difficult point for many of us, as at times we are tempted to say: “let me believe in Jesus/God, but I cannot believe in the church” … we consider the church as a handicap, a difficulty that we have to overcome when we attempt to believe. But, when we look at the story of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, and when we wonder about what exactly may well be the good news (eu-angellion) that he proclaims to us and lives with and for us, then – at least I think so – we will touch Jesus’ desire, hope and faith that the dream of the Kingdom/Reign of God is a reality that invites us today, here and now, to build up life together. Trusting that we can build up life together and that this “we” ultimately is holistic and non-exclusive (including even the whole of creation) is a very difficult thing: our day to day experiences and everything we know about the world in which we live seem to contradict this trust. The christian faith, I think, is precisely about this trust and this faith on the basis of a word spoken to us and a life lived for us in Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, who proclaimed the Reign of God, i.e. the fullness of live together for the whole of creation.

(c) Church, in its relationship to the Reign of God, also refers to a vision and the attempt to discover the content of the vision by enacting it, incarnating it. We know about the vision, but we cannot even begin to imagine its concrete form: this really is too difficult and challenging. Nevertheless, we can begin to act on the basis of the vision of the Kingdom, by attempting to build it up amongst ourselves in the concrete circumstances of our lives and, sometimes, against all odds. There is an important (eschatological) tension here, where the vision as a promise becomes a grace that allows us to, precisely, work towards the vision, thereby discovering cautiously and sometimes through failures and mistakes, its features and contents. This is a discernment process together, in which we relate in the Spirit to Jesus, who proclaims and embodies this vision in such a way that he is even referred to as the logos (law, structure) of creation (a word that refers to our foundational connectedness and life together).

We then moved on to talk about an idea for which I have received from one of the Jesuit doctoral students at the Faculty of Theology in Leuven, Elias Lopez: how conflicts of oppression and injustices will only really be addressed when victims and perpetrators become capable of also recognizing oneself and one another as perpetrators and victims respectively. We could write this down as: V(P) (the victim is also perpetrator), and P(V) (the perpetrator is also victim). This does not deny the real suffering of those who pay the bill of injustice and oppression – those voices and realities should always be respected – but it highlights the fact that, in situations of oppression, the simple formula V-P does not sufficiently articulate the complexity of the situation. Indeed, sometimes victims, in the structures of oppression, become perpetrators by strengthening precisely these structures of oppression: they so much claim their status of victim that the conflict cannot be transformed anymore (they do so because it is advantageous or, in some cases, even comfortable to them to be considered the victim), or they imagine the transformation of their victimhood only from the perspective of life as the oppressor lives (that means that they themselves want to become like the oppressor, bringing about new but similar situations of oppression). The same goes for the perpetrators: there is a challenge for them to recognize that the structures of oppression in which they are caught up also dehumanize them and that they may have become the victim of structures that they maintain because they are afraid to lose their (comfortable) positions. There is a lot of hermeneutics at play here that has been unmasked by some feminist or black theologies: to really face a conflict of oppression, victims need also to analyze how, in the structures and processes of oppression, they themselves are at risk of becoming oppressors; to really face a conflict of oppression, perpetrators have to face their evil and recognize that they themselves are victims of structures of evil which they maintain and for which they are responsible at the same time. It is not sufficient, therefore, when in conflict, to ask the question of who are the real victims and perpetrators (that in itself is often already a very tricky issue), one also needs to address the structural questions of which attitudes amongst those who are involved in a conflict (victims, perpetrators, bystanders, third parties, …) will in fact strengthen the oppression or maintain the conflict. This are very difficult and hard questions, that require a lot of respect of the other. These, again, are questions of communal discernment. They are also questions of ecclesiology, as precisely in these situations of conflict the challenge consists in embodying the vision of the Kingdom for all alike.