Raimon Panikkar

Read this beautiful commentary on a man who was one of the greatest influences and inspirations in my life. For me and for my wife Cathy, one of the most telling tributes to the kind of person Panikkar was came from our kids, John and Moira. We visited him in 1991, on the long trip through Europe on our way to my sabbatical in India. Of all the many theologian-friends of mine whom John (14 at the time) and Moira (11) met as we tramped our way through Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany, Raimon was the only one they really enjoyed. He connected with them and engaged them. We still have a photo of Raimon showing John how to drink from a Spanish skin-canteen. … His dream of a world of greater interreligious and intercultural dialogue goes on through all the people whose lives he touched and inspired.

That’s quite an achievement.  Finding a common word about the economy between Buddhists and Christians who share few common words about “theology” (Buddhists are uncomfortable with the word, theology) will be surprising to many.  It’s an indication, I think, that religions can more easily find agreement about ethics than they can about doctrine.

In any case, our “Common Word” will soon be announced once it has been vetted by the organizations who sponsored our dialogue (the World Council of Churches and the Lutheran World Federation).

For the moment, I can offer a preview of the content of our Common Word under the slogan: “The Way to the Global Is through the Glocal.”  That’s cutesy, I know. But it contains a powerful insight.  Let me try to explain briefly.

Throughout our conference, as I tried to make clear in earlier blogs, we – both Christians and Buddhists – agreed that to understand and do something about the financial crisis that now surrounds us, we cannot talk only about personal or individual greed.   Rather, we have to recognize and grapple with the reality of structural greed. Personal greed takes on the form of structural greed, and structural greed takes on a life of its own.  So to prevent similar economic catastrophes from happening in the future, we have to deal with the greed that has become incarnated in the structures of the global economy.

But how do that?   These structures of greed are incredibly powerful, living as they do, not just in the neoliberal economic policies of Wall Street, but also in the politics of Washington, Berlin, London, Tokyo –as well as in the public media that determine how people think of their nation and its economic policies.

So it’s not very promising to start from the top of the economic, political, and media systems.  It seems impossible to start with trying to dismantle greed in its structural forms.

But that doesn’t mean that we should therefore simply start from the bottom – that is, from the level of personal greed.  Of course, we must always seek to transform individual hearts. But that is not enough to change structures.

Therefore – and this gets to the heart of our Common Word – we should focus our energies not on the structural level, nor on the personal-individual level – but on the local level.

On the grassroots level, in our local communities, at the roots of civil society we should try to create structures that will insure economic policies and practices that will promote the democratization of the economy – that will prevent economic power from being concentrated in the hands of a few, that will provide a process of checks and balances for economic transactions.

We identified four examples of such local efforts that are already taking shape in different parts of the world: local exchange and trading systems (LETS) in which trading is done in local and regional currencies, cooperative banking, decentralized energy, and localizing the production and exchange of goods necessary for basic needs such as water and food.

Such local efforts, which are based in personal values  and which try to create local structures of greater economic participation, will not remain just local.  As these local realizations of a new way of organizing the market and the production and exchange of goods increase, and especially as they network with each other, they will have a transformative effect on global structures.  They will become “glocal.”

But, at the end of the process, the Buddhists reminded us Christians, that all these efforts on the “glocal” level meant to transform the “global” level, won’t really work unless we are also continuously working on the “personal” level.  Our efforts to transform the world have to be rooted in our efforts to transform our own hearts.

As Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us:  We cannot make peace unless we are peace.

So the message of our conference is this:  As we all seek to transform our hearts from self-centeredness and expand our hearts toward compassion for others, we work on the local level, trying to create new ways of organizing our local economy that, we hope, will gradually transform the global economy.   Our focus is the local. Our goal is the global.  We act glocally.

We’ve come together to talk about the financial tsunami that moved out from Wall Street in 2007 and covered most of the world. Our questions: why did it happen? And especially: What can we do about it?

We start this evening, Sunday, and will be talking and deliberating – as well as praying and meditating – together for the next four days.

This is exactly the kind of dialogue that I, with many others, have been trying to move along – dialogue based primarily on solidarity with all suffering sentient beings. In this case, the sentient beings are suffering because of economic conditions that have led to a horrible and deplorable disparity in the way the goods of the world are shared.

This is the kind of dialogue that certainly doesn’t exclude the hard work of studying and learning about each other’s traditions and the inspiring work of sharing in the spiritual-mystical treasures found in the religions of the world.  But it sets the context, or prepares the ground, for such theological and spiritual sharing by first deliberating and acting together to address eco-human suffering.

What counts most, what presses most, is, as Buddha told us, to remove suffering.  In trying to do that, we prepare for everything else.

In the following days, I’ll try to report on what happens here in Chiang Mai – how Buddhists and Christians can complement each other in addressing the immediate financial crisis and the deeper causes that brought it about.  And how this practical “dialogue of solidarity” might lead us to a deeper “dialogue of learning” and a “dialogue of spirituality.”

What a privilege it is to be here.

On Aug 3, your press secretary, Robert Gibbs, speaking for your administration, said that you did not want to take a position on the controversy surrounding plans to build a Muslim Center near Ground Zero.   When asked what was the opinion of your administration, Mr. Gibbs replied that it was “a matter for New York” and that you did not want “to get involved in local decision-making.”

That’s hard to believe.  I suspect – no, I’m quite certain – that you do want to get involved,  but that you, or your advisers, are afraid of the political repercussions from the growing anti-Muslim movement on the right. (It was a Tea-Party group that first sounded the conservative attack on the Manhattan Muslim Center.)

I am convinced that you really do want to come out publicly and defend the rights of our Muslim fellow-citizens to establish a center close to Ground Zero  – a center that is intended to provide space for dialogue between Christian Americans and Muslim Americans and that will show a different and more authentic face of Islam rather than the one embodied in the actions of extremists.

Why am I so certain that you want to so speak publicly on such an issue?  Because you said so!

May I quote for you what you said in your speech in Cairo on June 4, 2009?  And allow me to nudge your conscience on each of these statements:

• “The attacks of September 11th, 2001 and the continued efforts of these extremists to engage in violence against civilians has led some in my country to view Islam as inevitably hostile not only to America and Western countries, but also to human rights. This has bred more fear and mistrust.” –  (Such fear and mistrust are being fostered by the ugly rhetoric of the opponents of the Center.)

• “So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, and who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. This cycle of suspicion and discord must end.” –  (You have an opportunity to help end this suspicion and discord by taking a clear and strong stand for the rights of our Muslim fellow-citizens.)

• “I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles – principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.” –  (You said this in Cairo to Egyptians.  I beg you to now say it now in Washington, D.C. to Americans.)

• “I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly the things we hold in our hearts, and that too often are said only behind closed doors. There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground.” –  (Please, say openly these things that you hold in your heart. Call all sides involved in this controversy to listen, learn, respect, and seek common ground.  It is so important, it would be so helpful, for you to pronounce just these words in the midst of this controversy.)

• “ It is my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t. And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.” — (Such negative stereotypes of Islam are rampant in most of the public statements of those opposed to the Muslim Center.   Please, carry out your “responsibility as President of the United States.” )

Mr. President, we need your leadership.  Please, speak your mind!

That’s what I felt as I rode the train back from Washington, D.C. the night of June 7, after attending a meeting at the White House on “Advancing Interfaith and Community Service on College and University Campuses.”  It was organized by the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

It made clear to me, and I dare say to all of the 110 invitees, that those of us who are committed to promoting better relations and more effective cooperation between the religious communities of this country (and the world) have a friend in the President who now lives in the White House.

That’s a statement I don’t make easily.  I travelled to this meeting with my left-leaning guard up:  politicians are keen, and experienced, at using religion and religious leaders for their own political purposes.  If religion is supposed to be one of those sources of truth spoken to power, it suits “power” to befriend, and soften, “religion.”

I soon lowered my guard and opened my mind and heart.  Joshua DuBois, former Pentecostal minister, and presently Executive Director of the Office on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, together with his energetic and articulate Deputy Director, Mara Vanderslice, made it clear to us, in both the content of what they said and the way they said it, that they were genuinely interested, as Vanderslice put it, “to increase collaboration between universities, colleges, and seminaries in their interfaith activities and White House efforts to call religious communities to cooperate for the greater good of our society and the world.”

Mara Vanderslice, Deputy Director, White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships; Joshua DuBois, Executive Director of same, Rev. E. Terri LaVelle, Director of Veteran Affairs.

DuBois made it clear, especially for secular critics who fear transgressions of church-state borders, that this effort of the Obama Administration places its focus on bringing religions together not on the basis of shared beliefs but on the basis of shared action. This reflects what President Obama said in his first talk at a National Prayer Breakfast: he clearly recognizes the enduring differences between religions; he’s not out to boil those differences down to one common religious soup.  But Obama, and his administration, believe that the religions do have one thing in common: the desire to serve – the desire to respond to human needs and problems and do something.

This is where, the White House believes, religious believers, despite their real differences, can come together – and even be joined by secular humanists who also want to serve: they all can stand and act shoulder to shoulder in imaging and achieving “what good might look like.”

That last phrase came from Eboo Patel, the young, dynamic Muslim founder of the Interfaith Youth Core and one of the 25 members of Obama’s “Council of Advisors” for the White House Office on Interfaith. Patel delivered a short keynote address to launch the meeting and further conversations.

His main point was that “Interfaith, ” – the one-word designation for the dialogue and collaboration of religions that must replace the competition and clash of religions – is at what Malcolm Gladwell would call “a tipping point.”  Our society is coming to the realization (but is not quite there) that if our nation, as well as the community of nations, is going to effectively deal with the problems confronting us, religions are going to have to get along with each other and make their contribution.  That means that whether you’re a religious believer yourself or not, you’re going to have to deal with religion – with religions in the plural.

This is where Steven Prothero, Professor of Religion at Boston University and well known author of Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know, and Doesn’t, offered his input. He highlighted both the growing awareness that “religious literacy” is today becoming an essential part of being educated.  When one goes to college one should expect just as much to learn about religious diversity as one expects to learn how to dissect a frog.  The term “interfaith” must become as much a part of our general knowledge and concerns as “ecology” and “human rights.”

And for religious believers themselves, Patel pointed out to the affirming nods of all participants, this presents a challenge.  Religions today stand before four possible paths: 1) religious communities can become bubbles, and try to shut off the rest of the world; 2) they can become barriers and by insisting that “my God is better than your God” increase the tensions among nations; 3) they can become bombs, and actively call their followers to resort to violence to defend their identities or supremacy; 4) or, they can become bridges of mutual respect and collaboration.

Clearly, the reason why the White House called us religious types together, and the reason why we all responded eagerly and hopefully, is that we share the conviction that now more than ever we can, and we must, make sure that at this “tipping point,” religious believers and religious leaders become bridges – or in the terms of the White House, partners in service.

The religious experts, leaders, scholars and organizers who attended this meeting felt that what they were trying to do was confirmed and affirmed.  It was a relief and a reassurance to know that this President understands “faith-based initiatives” to mean “multi-faith based initiatives”  — with the emphasis on service.

Personally, I found this meeting to be a confirmation both of what I have been trying to do as a scholar over the past 40 years and of what we are trying to do here at Union with the redefined Paul Tillich Chair.   As I tried to lay out in my 1995 book, One Earth Many Religions, the most promising and the most urgent kind of interreligious dialogue doesn’t begin with interreligious conversations about what we believe; it begins with interreligious collaboration about issues that concern us all.  If we start there, if we can become friends in such solidarity of action, we will create the spaces of trust and respect in which we can, and will want to, talk about the beliefs that ground us and animate us in our efforts to serve.

When I summarized this at the end of the meeting, Mr. DuBois pronounced a Pentecostal “Amen.”

I rode the train back to New York with a palpitating sense of gratitude – and hope.

What Eagleton is saying applies, I think, to a lot of liberals.  And we have a lot of liberals here at Union. (I’m one of them.) We seem to have a bit of an allergy to people who speak passionately.  So often in class discussions, when someone waxes passionate about what they are proposing,  warning signs start to flash on  faces around the circle.  Is it because passion sounds like proselytizing? Like someone is imposing their views on us as the only really true view?  This is especially the case when passion is about religion.   It’s one thing to be passionate about the Yankees. Quite another to be passionate about Christianity.

But being passionate is not necessarily the same thing as being authoritarian or exclusive or narrow-minded.  When you’re passionate about something it’s because you think it is true and valuable. That doesn’t mean you necessarily think it’s the only thing that is true and valuable. (Okay, Yankee fans might.)   If I really believe that something is true and good, I’d better be passionate about it. I’d better want to tell others about it.  Otherwise, I don’t really believe it’s true and good.  We need more passion.

But it has to be passion that respects and is open to the passion of others.  And that means,  I think, that if we need to speak with passion, it should be passion-plus-humility.  We’re convinced about what we believe and we want to tell others why.  But if we’re humble as well as passionate, we will recognize that the truth that we hold, as sound and beautiful as it is, can never be the whole truth. There’s always more. And that leaves room for other truths and other people who are passionate about their truth.

If we can be passionate and at the same time humble, we won’t scare people with our passion.   On the contrary, our passion will be a dialogical passion — one that calls out the passion in others.