My pilgrimage of expanded worldview and renewed eyes for God’s diverse and growing Kingdom takes us to London, England. If your are just jumping into this series, read my introduction to the Travel as Pilgrimage series.
Speaker’s Corner
There is a park in the middle of London that has one area designated as “Speaker’s Corner.” When we first drove by it (in our huge and cheesy open air tourist bus…) I thought it was an area for politicians to come and give their shpeel on their proposed policy. After driving by I found that it was a place where ANYONE was welcome to come, stand on a ladder or box of some kind and just let loose. They could talk about any topic to anyone who was willing to listen. This intrigued me…
We continued to tour the city, but intentionally came back to Speaker’s Corner. There we hundreds of people crowded around various speakers who were getting fired up on issues of war, religion and philosophy. It was interesting to note the overwhelming majority of discussions revolving around Islam and Christianity. There would be a Muslim on one ladder and a Christian on another a few yards away. In general, there was plenty of space in the middle of the speeches for public dialog. Someone in the crowd would shout out a point of contention and begin to dialog with the speaker in front of the masses. Others would join in and the discussion continued…
Occasionally a more heated dialog would take place that was a bit out of control and led to offensive words, but this was very rare. On one hand it was very saddening to see all the points of disagreement we allow to lead to relational disconnect. On the other it was really encouraging to see a group of people not only culturally “allowed” to speak in such raw ways, but willing to discuss and process in such a way. I have to imagine a similar spirit of honest dialog when Jesus was a kid speaking in the “temple courts.” We have drifted so far from this form healthy dialog in most of our cultures.
Beard to Beard Conversation
I stood intrigued by one of the speakers who was doing his best to disprove the existence of the Divine Trinity when a gentleman tapped me on the shoulder and asked me what I believed. I began to share with him of my love for Jesus and my resolve to do my best to live out His ways on a day to day basis. I also mentioned that I didn’t necessarily relate with many of the “Christians” who have chosen to preach a message far from what I see as central to Jesus’ inaugurated Kingdom. I asked him of his beliefs and he mentioned that he was a Muslim. He had a sweet beard, much more impressive than mine…
We began about a half hour conversation on the teachings of Jesus, the letters of Paul in the New Testement and the Mosaic Law. He was a very humble man, with many great things to say and during our discussion quite a few people gathered around to listen in. Much of what he had to say had to deal with Pauline writing being inaccurate to the teachings of Jesus. He mentioned that if it weren’t for the books that Paul wrote, Christianity and Islam would be very similar. Sharing back and forth I came to realize that we could learn alot from each other, but trying to convince each other was not going to get us anywhere. I explained to him that our conversation was great, but a debate was not what we needed. We shared what we believed and what we were most passionate about and respectfully listened. After acknowledging our mutual respect for each other we shook hands, thanked each other for the conversation and went on our ways. It was beautiful. A small piece of heaven on earth. Maybe if we create more contexts like this, there would be more communication and understanding and less hatred and violence…
Pilgrimage is less about a destination and more about interacting with the dynamic individuals and perspectives encountered along the way.
What conversations and individuals have deepened the insights of your pilgrimage whether at home or abroad?
Picture: This is a picture Jan apparently took during our conversation
Although I am not capable of growing such a nice beard, I did enjoy the article. Currently I’m reading Jacques Dupuis. I’ve been looking for some examples that show ways of dialoging with other religions, with the hopes of enhancing the understanding of my own. It seems like your experience came close. I will keep my eyes open for more!
Keep working on the beard, that’s the key! “A Common Word” and “A Christian Response to A Common Word,” are recent documents developed by Muslim and Christian leaders as an attempt to sustain peaceful interfaith dialog. Also, Catholic scholar John Hicks has a lot to offer in regard to dialog between religions.