In a book on Christianity written by Hans Kung, the writer identifies at least Five Areas of interaction between the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic creed. As religions, the Abrahamic faiths stand on their own accord, but as peacemakers to the Western and Eastern cultures, it is imperative that we listen to Kung's analysis and create peace in the individual and collective believers of each faith.
1.All three religions concentrate their “faith in one and the same God of Abraham...the great witness to this one true living God.” God said that he would illuminate Abraham's children like the stars in the skies. The stars are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Let's bring these stars together instead of seeing them as separate telescopes!
2.All three religions ascribe to “a view of history which does not think in cosmic cycles but is directed toward a goal: it has its beginning in God's creation, is confirmed by God's action and saving signs in time, and is directed toward an end through God's consummation.” Part of this historical viewpoint may have included violence before and still violence now, but the ultimate goal is historical non-violence. When will all nations promote this powerful message once again beginning when Abraham stood on a mountain with a son, whose name we do not need to know to understand the story. God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son, and Abraham willingly does this violent action before God intervenes. That story needs to be read as a moment when God says to all: no more violence toward human beings. Let there be harmony. I demand it!
3.All three religions contain “the ever new proclamation of the word and will of God by a whole series of prophetic figures.” Let's keep our theological concepts to ourselves and simply say we need to understand these prophetic figures in their own religious and historical contexts, but, more importantly, we need to listen to them now. Prophets speak against the status quo of selfishness and lead us all to a better understanding of love through God's covenant with all three religions. We may not always like what a prophet says, but they keep us from living within the confines of cultural relativism so that we can experience the absolute authority of God. Let the prophets speak to us now, as a message to search for God's domain rather than man's colonial mindset that has existed in our Western culture in so many empires: the Assyrian, the Babylonian, the Persian, the Macedonian, the Roman, the Ottoman, etc. Too many empirical and colonial fascination for us to return directly to God, but we must!
4.All three religions describe “the record of revelation to the human being, given once and for all and remaining normative, in the form of revelatory writing. Whether or not there is an agreement on theology, can we not deny the power of the Jewish revelations, the Christian revelations, the Islamic revelations. Reading them humbles me to the floor before God or Allah. Listening to them multiplies peace within my soul. Thinking about them comforts me instead of drawing me away from religion. However, if there is no peace, if cultures cannot adjust well to other cultures, and if we cannot live together within the same territories, then the revelations are meaningless to me and us. We are mocking Yahweh, Jesus (Isa), Muhammad (peace be upon him), and Allah. Do we want to mock the revelation or put down our swords and fight a real spiritual battle called co-existence—something the prophets might call righteousness and justice!
5.All three religions are “grounded in the will of the one God.” We have our Ten Commandments. We have our ethical orientations. We have our holy days! We have everything grounded in an ethical framework given to us ultimately by God. Yet, let us not forget God's will “on earth as it is in heaven.” If heaven is peaceful, as the saying from God reveals to us, then why is earth so unlucky? Let's bring heaven to earth now before it is too late and before three of the greatest Western religions collapse because of egocentric and explosive rhetoric. We are one earth!
--Jinglett
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