When I arrived in San Francisco 34 years ago, I met Father John Keene, a Friar of the Atonement. What impressed me about him was his genuine sense of welcome plus a hint of ecclesial equality. Not a territorial man. He exuded a rare confidence that all of us were valued siblings in the family of Divine Trust.
It wasn’t until much later that I learned about The Rev. Paul Wattson, an Episcopal priest who singularly put the dream of corporate reunion with the Roman Catholic Church into action, and together with Mother Lurana White brought The Society of Atonement over to Rome. To those who keep score, it might appear the Episcopalians lost and the Roman Catholics won. But that would miss the point. The point for Paul Wattson was not who won. “W-O-N.” The point is one…“O-N-E.” Paul Wattson took Jesus’ prayer “that we all might be one” to heart and put it into action. I would like to dedicate this lecture to his spirit and vision.
On the theme of Episcopalians and Roman Catholics, I would like to point out the generosity of Father Stephen Privett and the University of San Francisco. Together they conferred an honorary doctoral degree on this Episcopalian a few years ago. I am honored to be within the wide embrace of this noble university and am grateful for the sense of hospitality that pervades this place.
Tonight I come to you as a laborer in the fields of interfaith. I only want to cover what I have seen and felt and wondered about. This is not a lecture based on sound, extensive scholarship. For the last 20 years, I have been engaged in interfaith work at a practical and experiential level. Laboring in the soil of interfaith searching for the soul of interfaith. What I want to share with you tonight are subjective observations about 1) The difference between ecumenism and interfaith work; 2) The difference between interfaith organizations; and 3) The difference between my faith and my interfaith.
I. The difference between ecumenism and interfaith
In my mind, ecumenism is the yearning among Christians for unity in the family of Jesus Christ. Ecumenism is the spirit that broods upon the waters of all Christian gatherings, drawing people toward a new creation of Oneness. Ecumenism is the other side of the coin of mutual hatred among competing exclusive Christian claims.
In the 1940’s, when I was a boy in Huntington, West Virginia, at Washington Elementary School all the students were released to go to Bible study in a nearby church. We went to the Baptist, Methodist and Episcopal Churches but we never went to Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church. Why? They were the enemy, the farthest reach of the Protestant Reformation. Luther’s 95 theses on the Schlosskirche in Wittenberg were felt at Washington Elementary in Huntington.
On the other hand, when Archbishop Levada was made Cardinal in Rome, he invited me and my wife, Mary, to his service of elevation. Something had happened to me between Sacred Heart in Huntington and St. Peter’s in Rome. It was the electricity of ecumenicity. That’s what happened. The scandal of Christian wars flipped to the other side of the coin toward Christian Oneness.
When I got out of seminary in 1961, ecumenism was in the air. In Wheeling and Weirton, West Virginia, where I served, clergy from most all denominations would bring parishioners and we would hold joint services in each other’s sanctuaries. It was magical. Before this no one would have dreamed that a Pentecostal preacher, a Roman Catholic priest and a Lutheran pastor would jointly lead a prayer service.
The World Council of Churches was a revelation. Same with the National Council of Churches. Faith and Order studies explored steps toward unity and faced obstacles to unity. Interim steps for Holy Communion between separated groups. Dialogues flourished. And I grew up in the priesthood riding that wave.
I was elected as President of the Ministerial Association of Weirton in 1966, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. In our town, the black people lived next to the steel mills and couldn’t live with the white people on the pleasant hills surrounding our town. Ecumenism meant that the Christian leaders came together in order to take social action. In our case, “Open Housing.” I need to say that exactly at this time I was trying to buy land and build a new church, and I needed the strong financial backing of all my white congregation. You get the picture.
One night, I was asleep when the phone rang. It was David, a Baptist minister down at the YMCA. The blacks were about to march through the city and demand Open Housing. My wife, Mary, said, “Don’t you think you ought to go down there and march?” I’ll tell you, as an Episcopalian I would have turned over in bed. But as an ecumenical officer, I got down there and marched. It was scary…thrilling...so much to lose…so much to gain. It was a blessed night. Open Housing came soon after in our town. Any Christian leader who lived through the Civil Rights Movement will never doubt the power of Christians acting ecumenically. (And by the way, we got the church built too.)
Today, 2013, the ecumenical movement, in my opinion, has become less vibrant for several reasons. First, the emerging ecumenical instinct was harnessed into an unworkable organizational design. We simply took industrial, hierarchal models and slapped them on the ecumenical instinct. Thus we had local ecumenical organizations, national ecumenical organizations, global organizations. Lots of money, tons of bureaucracy, and unsustainable. Ecumenism begs to have spontaneity and amateur status.
Second, the ecumenical movement primed the pump and prepared the way for a greater expansion of religious unity: to wit, the interfaith movement. There was a moment when the clergy were together and the rabbis were excluded. That had to change. Ecumenism morphed into interfaith. A greater Oneness was needed.
When the extremely moving memorial service for the teachers and students of Sandy Hook School was held, it wasn’t led just by Christians, but by Jews and Muslims and others as well. There is a new religious reality in towns and cities, and it is interfaith in nature.
I don’t want you to get the wrong impression of me but…I have to say my greatest interfaith moment of inspiration came to me while, again, I was in bed late one night. As I thought about all of the killing in God’s name, I imagined on the other hand that there must be billions of people the world over who had an interfaith instinct for peacemaking but who lacked a means of expression and an organizational design to capture and channel their religiously primitive desire to take positive action together…leading not from doctrine but from the heart.
So I woke up the next day and committed the rest of my life to being a catalyst for the creation of…something. Here I was, an ecumenical veteran and an invincibly ignorant interfaith want-to-be, deeply promised to God, to create an interfaith community, discover an interfaith vocation, to devise an appropriate interfaith organizational design, and raise interfaith money. Starting from zero. My vow to God took its place along with my vow to Mary and my ordination vows.
The first thing I did was to go to all 87 congregations of our Diocese and explain to them what I was called to do. It took two years, and I always preached on the same passage of scripture: Simon Peter saying to the Gentiles, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to him.” (Acts 10:34) (By the way after those two years, they didn’t fire me.)
Here is how far I have come in Interfaith. When I was in seminary back in the late ’50s, I asked some of my professors about people of other religions. Could they be saved? The answer was always the same: “Don’t go there. If you do, you’ll probably end in universalism or syncretism – and you’ll end up denying the scandal of particularity, that God was in Christ.” So I just didn’t think about it for decades.
On the other hand, last November, the King of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah bin Adul-Aziz, invited 100 leaders of nations, religions and interfaith organizations to Vienna to dedicate his new and wonderful Interreligious and Interfaith Centre. Sitting at a banquet in Hapsburg Palace, I started thinking – in 1683, the Christians repelled Muslim forces in the Second Siege of Vienna. And here we are in 2013, and the man of the hour in Vienna is a Muslim King who is honored for his interfaith instincts. And I thought…”Boy the King and I have come a long way.” From faith to interfaith.
II. The difference between interfaith and interfaith
Probably one of the most elastic words available to us is the word “interfaith.” Interfaith peace, interfaith violence, interfaith religion, interfaith non-religion. Just say “interfaith” first and then secondarily fill in the blank. Because of the wide variety of possibilities, “you can’t tell the players without a program.” I want to provide you with such a program tonight.
Our world is becoming interfaith whether we like it or not. Football teams are interfaith. So are neighborhoods and schools and Silicon Valley and marriages and even some individuals are multi-faith. This tide is rising. In this kind of world there are three possibilities. We can 1) leave it alone and let interfaith seek its own level; 2) we can harness its power for good; or 3) we can mobilize it for terror and triumph. Let me speak to these three possibilities.
First, a couple of months ago I was sitting in a big auditorium in Europe and the International Head of the Boy Scouts got up and said, “We have 34 million Scouts. That makes us the largest interfaith organization in the world.” He said that Muslims, Jews, Christians and a host of others raise their hand and declare “On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God…” The Boy Scouts are primarily about Scouting, but incidentally interfaith in nature. Interesting.
The same could be said about Alcoholics Anonymous. Bringing your addiction to a moment of helplessness and appealing to a Higher Power are central to its impact. AA is primarily about the cure of addiction, but incidentally it is interfaith in nature.
When a Jewish man marries a Christian woman and they move into an apartment and lock the door, they have to figure out interfaith, talk it out, live it out. Interfaith will seek its own level. Interfaith operates on the margins just outside the comfort level of religions and ecumenical instincts, out there where we all are in the unknown and have to discover how to get along. The rising tide of interfaith living in ordinary circumstances vastly dwarfs the self-conscious effort of all of us who work in interfaith organizations.
Second, all of us in the United Religions Initiative are like the members of a lot of other groups which try to harness the potential power of interfaith and then use this energy for the good of civil society and the good of individuals.
Some folks in their conviction go off in an interfaith direction that resembles religion. They conduct interfaith worship services, have ordained interfaith clergy, interfaith seminaries, interfaith scriptures and hymns, interfaith scholars. When faced with the question of how to structure their enthusiasm, they reached for a religious model and thus they are off pioneering a new faith inspired by the model of organized religion.
But most interfaith thinking assumes that we are in unchartered waters and therefore innovative models need to be created. Some models are hierarchical, some grassroots. But an overriding assumption is that we are not a religion, but a bridge building organization between religions. Religions aim at communion of the human with the Divine; interfaith aims at making civil society more livable. Personal salvation is not an interfaith goal. Making the world a more humane place is the point of interfaith at its best.
One of the keys of interfaith is that it has to outgrow itself. It has to start somewhere. Has to be dreamed up by some people. Located on some map. Tainted by the limitedness of some group. Interfaith doesn’t fall down from the clouds. There is no “extra virgin interfaith.” The only interfaith we have is the one that some people started and the next generation has to outgrow its parochial beginning. To enshrine its beginning is to kill it. To grow beyond its origin is to give it potential.
So much of interfaith seeking its own level has to do with money. My motto is: international interfaith is money. If you have it, you do it. If you don’t have it, you just talk. And the interfaith world is full of talkers. For this reason there are only a couple of viable international interfaith groups.
Third, the other interfaith category is the one where people mobilize interfaith in order to bring terror and triumph. You read about this daily in the news where one group hijacks a religious tradition and visits death and mayhem on the people of another tradition or with other schools within one religion. So when you read about pilgrims going to pray at a shrine or a special holy day and being annihilated by a bomb, you can register this as an interfaith action.
Not all interfaith is laudable. Actually it is scary. Like one country having a Muslim Nuclear weapons and another country having a Hindu nuclear weapon, another country having a Jewish nuclear weapon, another country having a Christian nuclear weapon creating a scenario of mutually assured religious destruction. This reality and potential for terror and triumphalism add an ominous dimension to our understanding of interfaith.
III. The difference between my faith and my interfaith
This is the most important section of my talk…for me. When I chose this outline, I couldn’t wait to see what I would say. I’ve been walking around the world laboring in faith and interfaith for two decades but I’ve never sat down to articulate – to myself – the relationship, my personal relationship with my faith and my interfaith.
This question came up first for me in 1996 when I was a preacher at the Mar Toma Church convention in Kerala, India. In the morning we had a service on the banks of the Pamba River for 125,000 people. The big service came in the afternoon: 200,000 people. In the evening was the small service for 85,000. Every day for seven days. 95 percent humidity, 95 degrees.
An extra duty for us preachers was that we led Bible study each morning at daybreak. On one such morning, I had a little lectern with a loudspeaker which carried sound up into the jungle. I said in passing that my main intent in coming to India on this trip was to begin the United Religions Initiative. To get the faiths to cooperate for the good of civil society. This was not good news for these folk,s who had come to be inspired to convert Muslims and Hindus to Christianity. A horde of people carrying Bibles came charging out of the jungle yelling, “Who is Jesus Christ for you?” There is nothing like that to help you come to grips with your faith and your interfaith.
At that moment I sort of staggered around mumbling something about the Good Samaritan and the Syro-Phoenician woman. But I hardly convinced them or myself. Nevertheless, they had the right question. When it comes to evangelizing the world in Jesus’ Name, how can you make room for interfaith? If you cut a wide swath for interfaith, don’t you bleed off your zeal for conversion? If Christianity loses its evangelical muscle, won’t this Christian body wither away? That’s the question.
And my answer? It all depends on the sound of Jesus’ voice. I have heard Jesus speaking with two different voices. One is a definite hard command, “Follow me.” The other is exceedingly merciful, as in saying to the woman caught in adultery, “I don’t condemn you.” For instance, he charges, “Go ye into the world and baptize…” But on the other hand he says, “I have sheep who are not of this fold, I must bring them also.” There is a time for evangelism and at the same time a time to make room for people who are way beyond our understanding, and they happen to be the desire of Jesus’ heart and concern also.
People often come up to me and quote Jesus, saying “ ‘I am the Truth, the Way and the Life; no one comes to the Father but by me.’ No one. What do you think of that, Bishop?” I always answer: “It depends on the sound of his voice when he said it. Was his voice saying, ‘you can’t go to heaven unless you belong to my group?’ Or was he saying, ‘you can’t get from where you are to the Throne of God unless you go through law keeping, justice, mercy, sacrifice, compassion?’ That’s the way to the Throne of God and I am that Way, that Truth, that Life.” Is his voice creating an exclusive club or a path open to everyone?
Let’s talk more about the voice of Jesus. It is often demonstrative, “Little girl I say to you, arise.” “My God, why have you forsaken me?” To dead Lazarus he yells, “Come out.” He yelled at unclean spirits. “Touch my hands and my feet.” Jesus had a commanding voice and it is heard. My faith, my Christian faith is fashioned by that voice. The commanding voice of Jesus that I hear.
There is a hymn called “Blessed Assurance” and in that hymn are these words, “echoes of mercy, whispers of love.” My interfaith work is not inspired by Jesus’ commanding voice; my interfaith work springs from Jesus’ whispers and echoes of magnanimous, gentle hints of radical inclusiveness.
In a parable he says, “Do you begrudge me my generosity?” As if to say, “Are you telling me whom I can love and save? There are no limits to my mercy.” Does the heart and creativity of Jesus reach beyond our religion? The quiet heroes of so many of his stories are people of other religions and cultures. And he says “Blessed are the poor in spirit” – no qualifications like “Christian poor.” Just “the poor.” “For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” Jesus had a quiet voice of total embrace. I hear that voice in echoes of mercy and whispers of love and they inspire me.
But here comes the next relevant question. If I venture out into no man’s land, out there on the battlefield where religious violence has prevailed for centuries, will I meet some people from the other side who have heard echoes of mercy and whispers of love from their most esteemed Divine Voice? Interfaith isn’t a lack of faith; it is a leap of faith. It is postulated on the psalmist’s phrase, “Deep calls to deep.” Can we afford to jump out of our well-dug trenches and expect to find kindred spirits rushing toward the barbed wire ready to embrace us, willing to build a garden with us?
I started this evening’s talk speaking about ONE. Jesus praying that his followers might become One. The ecumenical challenge is to grow a heart for that prayer and a readiness for Oneness amidst all of the varied followers of Jesus. The interfaith challenge is to grow a heart for the Oneness that exists in atoms and Muslims, galaxies and Buddhists, nature and Jews, universes and Universalists. The giant Oneness that exists in the mind of God and throbs in the heart of God. Kinship…In all things and through all things and beyond all things. Interfaith kinship that is not born of the flesh, or culture, or faith’s commands, but born of echoes and whispers. Echoes of mercy and whispers of love.
So thank you for listening. As you can tell, I am not about to write a theological textbook. I am a parish priest at heart, very practical and way over my head in international interfaith work. I thank my hosts for forcing me to put my thoughts down on paper and to the audience for the compliment of listening.
Thank you all.
The Right Rev. William E. Swing
Founder and President, United Religions Initiative
