So, What about the Blind Men and the Elephant?

Last month I posted “Pondering Pachyderm Perambulation,” relating to the book Circling the Elephant (2020) by John J. Thatamanil. But there was more I wanted to say about that book and the important subjects it explores—so, here goes.  

What Do We Learn from the Blind Men?

There is value in pondering the old story of the six blind men and the elephant. But there are also problems that arise from a serious consideration of that fable/allegory. (Author Thatamanil considers five of those problems on pages 5 to 11 of his book.)

To me, a basic problem is this: If all you knew about an elephant was from what you learned from six blind men, would you have anything like an adequate idea of what an elephant is? Not at all.

True, you would know something about six aspects of the animal called an elephant, but that would be far from understanding a real pachyderm.

More importantly, one has to know something about an actual elephant for the fable to be instructive.

So, what does this say to those who take the old story as helpful for understanding the various religious traditions of the world? Does each tradition have something true to teach us about God (by whatever name God is called)? Perhaps.

But can we reach an adequate understanding of what God is really like by just putting all the religious teachings together? Not at all. One has to know something about God for the old fable to be helpful for interreligious discussion.

What about the Value of Religious Diversity?

Author Thatamanil seeks to develop a theology of religious diversity, asserting that such diversity is beneficial rather than problematical.

The fact of religious plurality certainly must be recognized, and as I wrote back in 2010, all of us should relate to different religious faiths with an attitude characterized by adjectives such as open, respectful, and dialogical.

There are, undoubtedly, benefits by learning from those of other religious traditions. But a full-blown pluralism that accepts all as more or less equally “true” or “good” is highly questionable.

Is religious diversity good when some forms are injurious to people, such as in supporting over/under relationships, racism, neglect of the social/physical world, etc., etc.? Aren’t, in fact, some religious views clearly better than others?

“Liberal” scholars such as Thatamanil and those who basically agree with him are loath to say so.

And, certainly, the differences within the various religious traditions must be fully recognized as well as the differences among those traditions.

Still, to say that all expressions of religion are basically the same and all are basically good, or bad, is seriously mistaken.

What about Social Ethics?

Knowing an elephant is partially like a tree, or a wall, or a rope, etc. says nothing about the beneficial or detrimental effects elephants have on humans.

Interreligious (or even intrareligious) discussions can end up without shedding much light on how the various religious views impact the way humans live and interact in society.

How do religious beliefs, of any tradition, impact living/loving in the “real world” (by which I mean the world in which people live their day-by-day lives)?

Back in 1975, Christian ethicist John C. Bennett (1902~95) published a seminal book titled The Radical Imperative: From Theology to Social Ethics. The emphasis was on moving from an emphasis on religious doctrines to focusing on the social responsibility of (Christian) believers.

Maybe now is the time to move from a theology of religious diversity to considering how religious faiths help or hinder the flourishing of human beings in society today.

In that regard, Thatamanil does recognize a fundamental problem in traditional Hinduism, the inherent caste system which lingers to this day, including the ongoing “discrimination and horrific violence against Dalits” (p. 105).

The caste system embraced by Hinduism is injurious to (Asian) Indians (even those in the U.S.; see here and here) to this day.

To speak metaphorically, the blind men sharing their limited views of an elephant can’t, for example, understand or deal with the harm caused by a stampeding elephant.

Pondering Pachyderm Perambulation

You will soon learn as you read this blog post about an old story, a new book, and the ongoing issue why I have used such an enticing (and puzzling?) title.

An Old Story

John Godfrey Saxe was an American poet. Saxe (1816~87) is now known mainly for his re-telling of the ancient Indian parable "The Blind Men and the Elephant” (1872), which introduced the story to a Western audience. 

Many of you know that old story, but it is worth reading again in its entirety, so please click here and take a couple of minutes to read what poet Saxe called “a Hindoo fable.”

Early versions of the old tale go back to at least  500 BCE, and its origins were probably far earlier than that. References to it are found in ancient Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain texts.

That old story has often been used in what the poet Saxe called “theologic wars,” but interestingly, the old fable has been used in teaching about the Peace Corps, in discussions of systems engineering (see here), and in a 2020 Psychology Today magazine article, to give but a few examples.

A New Book

John J. Thatamanil is Associate Professor of Theology and World Religions at Union Theological Seminary. His new (2020) book is titled Circling the Elephant: A Comparative Theology of Religious Diversity.

Thatamanil, born in India and a U.S. resident since the age of eight, is an impressive scholar and his book will be appreciated most by scholars in the academic field that used to be called “comparative religion.” Most others will likely find reading/understanding the book quite demanding.

The book begins with “Introduction: Revisiting an Old Tale” (pp. 1~19). In the first thirteen pages, Thatamanil briefly summarizes the old story and discusses some of the criticisms leveled against it.

He informs his readers, “This book is a Christian exercise in pachyderm perambulation” (p. 11). In more common words, it is about circling the elephant, the author’s metaphor for how he “seeks to make theological sense of the reality and meaning of religious diversity” (p. 12).

The first chapter begins with a discussion of the question “Should Religious Diversity Be a ‘Problem’ for Christians?” (pp. 21~29)—and for the next 230 pages Thatamanil argues that the answer to that question should be No.

The Ongoing Issue

So, how do people of one religious faith relate to people of other faiths? Traditionally, the usual stance of Western Christians was the “we are right, they are wrong” position.

But through the years, interreligious contact increasingly morphed the views of many Christians toward inclusivist, as opposed to exclusivist, views—and then more and more toward pluralistic views.

Thatamanil critically examines those three positions in chapter two. He wants to move beyond all three of those widely held viewpoints—or at least to what he calls “relational pluralism,” as elucidated in chapter three.

And then the concept of religion itself is discussed in the fourth and fifth chapters. This prompts us to raise questions such as, In comparing Christianity to other religions, what form of Christianity is chosen? And what form of, say, Islam?

Do we compare the Christianity of the Quakers and Mennonites with the Islamic jihadists?

Or do we compare the Christian militants through the centuries with the Buddhism represented by people such as Thích Nhất Hạnh–or the Muslim family that lovingly cared for my Christian friend Delores (see here)?

In spite of all that Thatamanil wrote in his scholarly book, and the ongoing intellectual issues that he dealt with so admirably, perhaps the most serious religious issue today is not how the various religions “see” the “elephant” differently but how people increasingly don’t see the “elephant” at all.

And even those who do argue most about the various facets of the “elephant” increasingly belong to the same religious tradition—and those embracing significant agreement increasingly belong to different religious traditions.

_____

** I received the book introduced above under the auspices of the Speakeasy book review plan that is headed by Mike Morrell. In addition to this article, I have posted a much fuller summary of the book on my supplementary blogsite (see here).

”The Only Real Pluralism”

Skeptics and Believers: Religious Debate in the Western Intellectual Tradition is an excellent series of lectures by Dr. Tyler Roberts, professor at Grinnell College in Iowa.

Roberts (b. 1962), who has a Th.D. degree from Harvard University, gives 36 lectures in the DVD series produced by The Teaching Company. I have heard only about a fourth of them to this point, but I have been impressed with him and his lectures.

A few days ago I watched and listened to “Pluralism—Religious and Secular,” his 35^th lecture in the series. In it Roberts identifies and discusses five possible contemporary models for thinking about religious diversity.

He begins with a discussion of the usual three: exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism, the tripartite analysis presented by Alan Race in 1983, although he doesn’t mention Race. (I wrote about Race and my dissatisfaction with his threefold division in my blog posting on 8/10/10, which can be accessed here.)

Roberts goes on to suggest two more possibilities: “postmodern confession” and “secularism.” I plan to write more about secularism soon, but now I want to think more about the fourth position, which I found pregnant with meaning.

Postmodern confession is an idea developed by John Milbank, a British theologian best known as a leader of the “Radical Orthodoxy” movement.

I have not read Milbank sufficiently, but according to Roberts he (Milbank) argues that there is really no such thing as pluralism. The idea of religious diversity or religious pluralism, he says, is a concept that developed in the modern West.

In reflecting upon the world religions, I think Milbank is correct on that point. Certainly Judaism has never been pluralistic, except for some modern (liberal) expressions of that ancient faith in the U.S. And Islam does not recognize pluralism, with maybe, again, a few exceptions of liberal Muslims in the U.S.

Hinduism and Buddhism may well be considered inclusive religions, but it would be a push to call the position of traditional or most contemporary Hinduism or Buddhism pluralistic. Milbank seems to be right: religious pluralism is a Western idea that has been developed mostly by liberal (or cultural) Christians.

Roberts summarizes Milbank’s position: “Christian exclusivism is the only real pluralism because it is the only real respecter of difference.” He makes that contention because of the centrality of love to (true) Christianity.

This sort of Christian exclusivism is, as Milbank suggests, paradoxically, “the only real pluralism,” for, properly understood and practiced, it is the position which respects differences and enables people of any or all religious traditions to flourish.

Milbank’s ideas resonate with what I have been thinking recently: I respect adherents of other religious traditions not because of their faith (that is, not because I have thoroughly examined them and judged them worthy of respect) but because of my faith in Jesus Christ.

Since Christ taught, and exemplified, love for all people, I respect (love) others with different religious faiths or worldviews because that is the demand of love. Accordingly, I accept and affirm the freedom of all others to believe and to practice whatever they think is right and good, so long as it is not injurious to others.

Things Change

Things change, and in order to live successfully we generally have to accept even unwelcome changes and move on.

Sometimes things change because of tragic fires. The three-story school building where I was a student from 1945-55 was destroyed by fire in 1956. The farmhouse in which I lived during those same ten years was struck by lightning and burned down in the early 1960s. Last month a large portion of the west side of the square in my home town, Grant City, Missouri, completely burned down. (The picture of the latter fire is from the files of the St. Joseph News-Press.)

Things change, and we have to accept new realities and move on. A fine new school building was constructed in Grant City after fire destroyed the old one; the community moved on and was better off after the fire. My folks built a comfortable new house up the road from where the old house had been, so they, too, recovered from the shock of forced change and moved on to better things. And now those who owned the buildings and operated the businesses on the west side of the square in Grant City have to deal with unwelcome change and move on.

Things change in other ways. For example, the United States of America is much different now than it was when it was formed nearly 235 years ago. While this country was founded largely by Protestant Christians (although some of the “founding fathers” were not at all “orthodox” Protestants), gradually more and more Catholics and Jews came to this country.

There was considerable animosity toward the Catholic immigrants for decades, but fifty years ago this month, despite considerable (prejudicial) opposition by Protestants, a Catholic was elected President. Since then, for that reason and because of the impact of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), there have been increasingly cordial relationships between Protestants and Catholics.

There have also been pockets of prejudice against Jews in the U.S., but as the percentage of Jews has not been nearly as large as that of Catholics there has not been as much animosity toward them for the most part. Now there are sizeable numbers of Jews in most large U.S. cities—so much so that along with Christmas and Christian holidays, Hanukkah (which begins on Dec. 1 this year) and other Jewish holidays are commemorated even by some public schools.

Things change, and now there are large numbers of American citizens who are Muslims, Buddhists, and people of other religious faiths, a larger number of such persons than could have been imagined when I was a boy. As citizens, their religious freedom must be recognized and protected.

Beyond Exclusivism, Inclusivism, and Pluralism

Diana L. Eck, a professor at Harvard University and the Director of The Pluralism Project there, is the author of Encountering God: A Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to Banaras (1993, 2003). That book was the subject of the discussion at the Vital Conversations gathering in the Kansas City Northland earlier this month, and I found it to be quite good and helpful.

The subtitle of Eck’s seventh chapter is “Exclusivism, Inclusivism, and Pluralism,” which is the usual tripartite description of Christians’ attitudes toward non-Christian religions. The use of those three terms has become increasingly common since the publication of Alan Race’s seminal book Christians and Religious Pluralism: Patterns in the Christian Theology of Religions in 1983.

Eck (b. 1945) represents many contemporary, non-conservative Christians who understand the development of those positions as follows: (1) For more than 1,900 years the primary position was that of exclusivism: Christianity was thought to be the only true religion. (2) In the twentieth century, a better position, inclusivism, slowly became more and more accepted: Christianity includes all that is true and good in other religions. (3) But in recent decades pluralism has come to be seen as the best position: all the major world religions can be considered equally true, good, or salvific (able to effect salvation).

As those of you who have read my blog postings over the past year may guess, I am not satisfied with this three-fold division, mainly because all three are “isms,” that is, ideological positions. As I have said before, nearly all “isms” are questionable from the stance of Christian faith, mainly because an ‘ism’ usually represents an ideological standpoint, a rival “faith.”

Certainly, religious plurality has to be recognized as a fact in our world, especially here in the United States. But there is a big jump from the recognition of plurality to propounding the position of pluralism. The main problem of pluralism is that it necessitates a relativistic view of truth, another issue I have previously discussed.

So, rather than a position characterized by some “ism,” I suggest that a better way to look at the religious faith of other people is with an attitude or stance characterized by several different adjectives, words such as open, respectful, and dialogical. Of course, an open attitude that is respectful and dialogical may be all that many people mean by pluralism. And that is more or less how Eck ends her chapter on the subject.

In his introduction to Between Relativism and Fundamentalism (2010), a book which he edited, Peter Berger (b. 1929) refers to pluralism as a “less-than-fortunate term” since the “‘ism’ suggests an ideological position.” But he goes on to define pluralism as often used now as simply “a situation in which different ethnic or religious groups co-exist under conditions of civic peace and interact with each other socially” (p. 4).

If that’s what religious pluralism means, I can agree with that. Certainly, that is the kind of society we need. But I still wish there was a better name for that position, and I want to identify with a view that goes beyond exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism.

Ideas about God and about the Moon

Is there a man in the moon? There is a long tradition in the West that says there is. Or is it a rabbit pounding rice (mochi)? That is the old Japanese view. Look up “man in the moon” on Wikipedia (here) and you will find a great variety of ideas about who lives in the moon. It also seems that in the past some people actually thought the moon was made of green cheese.

Of course, because of modern telescopes and then actual travel to the moon, no educated person today believes there is some person or animal living on or in the moon or that it is made out of anything other than rocks and minerals of various sorts.

But what does this have to do with God? Well, people through the millennia have had different ideas about God, just as they have had about the moon. Can we assume, though, that whereas there is some basic truth about the nature of the moon, there is no essential truth about God? Should we believe that any idea about God is as good as any other?

In his book The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (1989) by Lesslie Newbigin, about whom I wrote in two previous postings (2/1 and 2/8), the British missiologist contends that religious pluralism “is the belief that the differences between the religions are not a matter of truth and falsehood, but of different perceptions of the one truth; that to speak of religious beliefs as true or false is inadmissible” (p. 14).

It seems quite clear that there are different perceptions of God or Truth, but all those perceptions are not equally correct, just as most of the varying ideas about the moon were not true. But, of course, we don’t have direct information about God like we have about the moon. Or do we?

Isn’t there experience of God? If there is, it is certainly not the same as experience of physical objects, like the moon. Experience of God is beyond the realm of science. But does that make it any less real?

The Bible is full of references to hearing God speak, sensing God leading, communicating with God through prayer, and other such experiences. Is there any validity to such experience claims? Or are those claims just subjective experiences with no real contact with an “objective” Being? I think that there are people, many people, who have experienced God to varying degrees and that those experiences are real and not just subjective feelings.

One question being considered by many today, though, is this: Is it only people who are Christians or in the Christian tradition who have experienced or can experience God? Again, I think not. But that doesn’t mean that all ideas about God are equally valid or true, just as all ideas about the moon are not equally true, and most have been clearly false, even though it is the same moon that is observed.

In Praise of Eboo

Dr. Eboo Patel is an impressive young man. (I say young, for he was born in 1975 and that makes him seem quite young to me.)

Eboo is the Founder and Executive Director of the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC). He is also a member of the President's White House Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and last month he was named by U.S. News and World Report as one of the twenty-three "Best Leaders" in the United States.

Tomorrow, November 10, Eboo will be the speaker at the Festival of Faiths gathering in Kansas City. I very much would like to attend that meeting and hear him speak. Unfortunately, that is the same night Dr. James Cone speaks in Gano Chapel on the campus of William Jewell College, and I feel a greater need to attend that lecture. (Dr. Cone's talks at 7:30 Tuesday evening and 10:15 on Wednesday morning are open to the public, and I would encourage those in the area to attend, if possible.)

I am especially appreciative of Eboo's work because of what I read in his book, Acts of Faith (2007), the book we will be discussing at the Vital Conversations meeting this week: Wednesday, Nov. 11, at Antioch Library. (Those living in the North Kansas City area are heartily invited to attend this meeting.)

In his book, Eboo tells about April Kunze, an evangelical Christian, becoming IFYC's first full-time staff member. In the hiring process, he said to her, "We can both believe our religions are true, we can even privately hope the other converts, and we can work together in this organization to serve others. In that way, we, an Evangelical Christian and a devoted Muslim, can model what we say this organization is about: people from very different faith backgrounds finding common purpose in helping others" (p. 163).

That is the kind of pluralism Eboo propounds, and that is the kind of "pluralism" I applaud. Even though he calls his position pluralism, I think it is more an attitude of accepting and respecting plurality. As I have written before, I am generally opposed to any ism, so I am wary of talk about pluralism. But I think that understanding, respecting, and working with people of other religious traditions or expressions of faith is very important.

Thus, I praise Eboo for the significant interfaith work he is doing. He is an excellent example how one can be a dedicated believer of a particular faith tradition and also respectful of other traditions. And his call for working with people of other religious beliefs for the betterment of society is one I pray will be heard and heeded by more and more people.