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BIOS Vol. 1, Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Hospitality, Power and the Theology of Religions:Prophethood in the Abrahamic Context
Paul Hedges
Introduction
The main focus of this paper will be the way in which the
biblical concept of ‘hospitality’ may be useful within
interreligious encounters, focusing upon what I will term a
sense of ‘radical’ hospitality that considers the example of
Jesus in embracing openness to others. I will use this to
explicitly address the question of prophethood in Muslim-
Christian dialogue, considering both whether Christians may
learn from Muslims about Jesus through thinking about him as a
prophet, and whether they may regard Muhammad as a prophet.
However, I do not intend to become concerned with the specific
debate of what this encounter will entail – that is something to
be worked out in specific encounters between Muslims and
Christians. Rather, my aim is to ask what legitimacy the
Christian tradition gives for being open to new insights, even
what some may see as ‘transgressions’ of the tradition in such
encounters. As such, this paper is not so much on the practice
of Muslim-Christian dialogue, but instead an exercise in the
theology of religions, or the theology for dialogue,1 that may
proceed or ground such encounters.
1 Although my language here resembles previous positions such as David Brown and Kenneth Cracknell, Towards a Theology for Interfaith Dialogue (London: Church Publishing House for the Board of Mission and Unity, General Synod, 1984), what I am suggesting goes beyond these and may be seen as building on or from such theology rather than opposing it.
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In considering the way in which a Christian Theology of
Religions may proceed in the contemporary context I would
suggest that certain key issues need to be raised. As such, it
may seem that I am approaching my central topics in a very
roundabout way; nevertheless, it will hopefully become apparent
that these are a necessary part of the discussion, and ones
which focus us upon important discussions and concerns. The
issues are: the relationship of the theology of religions
discourse to the church; the specific context(s) in which
theology of religions, broadly conceived, is developed; and,
questions of power in the construction of theology of religion
discourse.
One of these issues is the presentation of a theology of
religions (or theology for dialogue – a point I will address
briefly below) that will attain the assent of an ecclesial body
and the church community. Those involved in the dialogue between
religions2 have long come to realize that great worth and value
is embodied in the religious Other beyond their own tradition
(there are of course some who, whether due to theological
sensibility or personal circumstance, do not. However, the
overwhelming weight of discourse, I would argue, bears out this
assertion).3 Yet, despite this recognition of the value of non-
Christian religions and the religious Other, and the fact that
much worthy work has been achieved within the theology of2 Attention needs here to be given to contemporary metatheory in Religious Studies and more widely that problematizes the term ‘religion’. I am very much aware of such debates and have argued elsewhere that the continued deployment of the term as a strategicallyuseful concept is legitimate. Cf., Paul Hedges, Controversies in Interreligious Dialogue and the Theology of Religions (London: SCM Press, 2010) especially chapter 2.3 While perhaps representative of primarily ‘positive’ examples, the testimonies and accounts found in the following give some indication of this: Sandy and Jael Bharat, A Global Guide to Interfaith: Reflections from around the world (Winchester: O Books, 2007); Marcus Braybrooke, Pilgrimage of Hope: One Hundred Years of Global Interfaith Dialogue (London: SCM Press, 1992).
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religions by individual theologians, it has done little to touch
some key debates within the broader ecclesial discourse. As I
have argued elsewhere, much theology of religions is stuck in an
impasse between pluralistic approaches and particularist
approaches: that is to say, respectively, a radical openness to
the Other in terms of recognizing their worth and value, and a
desire to assert the radical difference of all religions (I will
discuss the typology more below).4
At the same time, most religious institutions are often
tied to an inclusivist type approach, whereby the Other is
absorbed, in a process of radical fulfilment, to an image that
fits what is already known in the home tradition. However, both
the particularist and inclusivist, unless bounded by certain
prejudices and presumptions, often place a plea for something
approaching radical Openness within their approach, but always
feel constrained to modify this in relation to what they feel
their tradition would deem acceptable.5 As such, the theology of
religions needs to speak in language that will appeal to the
core ecclesial community in terms that will be conducive and
persuasive, and to this end the use of biblical language and
authority is important. It is no good basing a worthy theology
of religions in the language of rationality and generic good
will because many within the Christian tradition may harbour the
suspicion that this fair sounding rhetoric requires a detour
from what are perceived as essential biblical principles.6 The4 Hedges, Controversies, 9-10. On the description of the typology in termsof the motifs of radical discontinuity, radical fulfilment, radical difference and radical openness, see p. 30.5 Rowan Williams has argued that we must be free to find truth in the Other beyond our own tradition yet at the same time understanding the way that Christ must bound Christian understandings (‘Anglicanism and Other Faiths in the Future’, unpublished lecture delivered at The Presence of Faiths Symposium, Anglican Network for Interfaith Concerns, Lambeth Palace, 8th December, 2011).6 Cf. Hedges’ Controversies, 31-2.
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theology of religions must therefore exhibit its own biblical
credentials when addressing the Christian community.
Another important issue is the need for the theology of
religions to be grounded in specific contexts and encounters,
rather than to be overly broad. Recently a number of authors
have argued that a search for a generic theology of religions
concerning how Christianity relates to all other religions is
flawed because our relationship to, understanding of, and
approach to, any one particular religion may be different from
the way we relate to another tradition.7 I do not entirely agree
with this assessment, nevertheless, it is very clearly the case
that the contextual basis for dialogue will vary depending upon
the tradition engaged. For instance, in dialogue with the
Abrahamic traditions certain common terms and points of
understanding, however diversely interpreted both between and
within the traditions, exist, such as the ideas of God and
prophethood. This allows a communication on these points in ways
which Christian dialogue with, for instance, Advaita Vedanta or
Theravada Buddhist traditions would not permit. However, it is,
of course, the case that these very similarities can be a cause
of tension, and both the concept of God and prophethood provide
good examples. To take the latter, Hans Küng points to the fact
that, when approaching Christianity, Muslims have often found
themselves rather affronted by the fact that, on the one hand,
they offer high praise for Jesus and show his status as a
respected prophet within their tradition but, on the other hand,
find no reciprocal respect accorded to Muhammad from the
Christian side, with most Christians indeed finding it difficult
7 See, for instance, John Cobb, ‘Rethinking Christian Faith in the Context of Religious Diversity’ in John Cobb and Ward McAfee (eds.), The Dialogue Comes of Age: Christian Encounters with Other Traditions (Minneapolis, MN:Fortress Press, 2010), 23-4.
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to accord him even the title of a prophet.8 Although a problem
that was raised many years ago, it remains unresolved and a
source of continuing tension.9 Now, a variety of questions are
raised by this issue and need to be addressed: the problem that
Christianity has always had with Islam, a religion that not only
antedates it but also offers an explicit rejection of at least
aspects of it;10 the theology of Prophethood within both
Christianity and Islam;11 and the basis for finding common ground
between Christianity and Islam (a matter on which much progress
has been made more recently12). The complexity of these issues
lies largely beyond the scope of this paper, but it provides the
context in which we will discuss the central themes.
The third issue I would like to raise is the contentious
matter of power. This lays open the question of the theology of
religions in its contemporary debates; an area which I would
suggest is seeing something of an upsurge of interest. As has
been argued, and as indicated above, the current debate has
shifted away from its traditional ground between exclusivists
and inclusivists, or even between these two and pluralists, to a8 Hans Küng, ‘A Christian Response’, in Hans Küng (ed.), Christianity and theWorld Religions (London: Fount, 1987), 24-8.9 Martin Bauschke, ‘Islam: Jesus and Muhammad as Brothers’, in Paul Hedges and Alan Race (eds.), Christian Approaches to Other Faiths, SCM Core Text Series. (London: SCM Press, 2008), 200-202.10 On issues relating to this, see Paul Hedges, Preparation and Fulfilment: A History and Study of Fulfilment Theology in Modern British Thought in the Indian Context (Bern: Peter Lang, 2001), 256-60.11 Many excellent works discuss this area, and notable example of some classic and recent ones include: Kenneth Cragg, The Call of the Minaret (London: Collins, 1986 [1956]); Oddbjørn Leirvik, Images of Jesus Christ in Islam, 2nd edition, (London: Continuum, 2010); Clinton Bennett, Understanding Christian-Muslim Relations (London: Continuum, 2008); Paul Heck, Common Ground: Islam, Christianity and Religious Pluralism (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2009).12 For a good overview of developments, and references, in the so-called ‘Common Word Process’ see Vebjørn L. Horsflord, ‘Reaching for the Reset button for Christian-Muslim Relations: Recent Developments in the Common Word Process’, Studies in Interreligious Dialogue, 21:1 (2011), 64-78.
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debate between pluralists and particularists. I assume some
degree of familiarity with this terminology by the reader, but
nevertheless I briefly sketch an understanding of the terms and
how this new dialectic has arisen. First developed by Alan Race
in 1983,13 the typology for the theology of religions began with
a threefold classification of exclusivism-inclusivism-pluralism,
but has more recently generally been expanded to include a
fourth paradigm often termed ‘particularities’.14 Much of the
debate on the typology concerns soteriology; however, this may
not be the best way to frame the issue, although, perhaps, to
some degree at least, it is unavoidable in Christian contexts if
questions of ultimacy are raised.15 Rather, I would suggest, the
typology may usefully be seen as tendencies, wherein the radical
discontinuity of the exclusivist approach suggests that a chasm
exists between revelation and all other systems, as such only
one religion is the path to truth, and all human endeavour must
lead away from God. In these terms it represents openness only
to one’s own tradition.16 The radical fulfilment of the
inclusivist is an attitude that sees all value of the Other
ultimately overshadowed by the superior truths of one’s own
tradition. These two approaches have, however, proved
problematic in an increasingly globalized world, where issues of
interfaith encounter and multifaith societies have become
pressing matters. The radical openness of the pluralist to
13 Alan Race, Christians and Religious Pluralism: Patterns in the Christian Theology of Religions (London: SCM Press, 1983).14 Hedges, Controversies, pp. 17, 20, and 27-9.15 Cf. Hedges, Controversies, pp. 19-20; for an argument that soteriology must provide the central focus, see Perry Schmidt-Leukel, ‘Exclusivism, Inclusivism, Pluralism: The Tripolar Typology – Clarified and Reaffirmed’, in Paul F. Knitter (ed.), The Myth of Religious Superiority: A Multifaith Exploration (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2005), 13-27.16 To use the terms of Abraham Velez de Cea:‘A Cross-cultural and Buddhist-friendly Interpretation of the Typology Exclusivism-Inclusivism-Pluralism’, Sophia, 46:1 (2007), 456.
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recognize the potential for at least equal truths coming from
the Other has proved a step too far for many, and so in recent
years a new option of particularities has arisen,17 wherein it is
suggested that radical difference is the best option – instead
of seeing the Others in terms comparable to my own, it is
suggested that the truly ethical approach is to see them in
terms of absolute alterity such that I cannot speak of them even
in the terms of an exclusivism-inclusivism-pluralism paradigm;
they are not another (comparable) religion as such, rather they
are each an alien system.
Nevertheless, despite its popularity in much contemporary
theology especially in post-liberal circles, it is clear that
serious problems underlie this approach that renders it almost
untenable.18 Despite this, by and large, the pluralist camp is on
the back foot in this debate (it is also worth mentioning that
the pluralist camp is itself internally diverse, and that
internal debates exist which parallel something of the
particularist critique19), and this is partly due to the changing
context in which theological debates are conducted. Here the
post-liberal theological climate that seeks to assert the
internal theological voice above the voice of external
criticism, and the stress on each religion returning to its own
resources has left the traditional pluralist apologetics side-
lined. It will be my argument, however, that this need not be
so, for not only can the pluralist launch a meaningful
17 See Paul Hedges, ‘Particularities: Tradition-Specific Approaches’, inHedges and Race, Christian Approaches, 112-35.18 See Hedges, ‘Particularities’, 120-30.19 See Perry Schmidt-Leukel, ‘Pluralisms: How to Appreciate Religious Diversity Theologically’, in Hedges and Race, Christian Approaches 85-110; David Ray Griffin, ‘Religious Pluralism: Generic, Identist, and Deep’,in David Ray Griffin (ed.), Deep Religious Pluralism (Louisville, KN: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005), 3-38; and Graham Adams, Christ and the Other: In Dialogue with Hick and Newbigin (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010), 132ff.
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theological counter to the particularist, but that, in fact, a
return to Christian theology’s own resources undermines the
particularist logic in favour of the pluralist case. This may
also, however, lead us to reshape some aspects of certain
classical forms of pluralism – a matter we will touch upon in
due course. In broader terms, power is an issue within these
debates because the terms of the typology are associated with
powerful Western voices in the debate, while the colonial and
imperial legacy and continuing power structures related to this
in postcolonial contexts mean that these voices possess an undue
potency.20 In particular, the exclusivist and inclusivist
approaches, especially the former, can be seen as allied to
certain imperialist or colonial agendas and mindsets, in that
generally only when allied to superior military or political
force do we tend to see Christianity coming to different
cultures seeking to entirely displace that Other.21
Particularity has also been exposed, in at least some
forms, as a discourse that effectively silences the Other,
because by insisting upon radical difference there can be no
legitimate criticism from the Other towards your own tradition.22
The pluralist stance has also been accused of advancing a
monolithic Western Enlightenment hegemony that shapes the
religious Other in its own image,23 however, part of my argument
below is that such a position is far from inherent in all
20 On this see, as two representative examples, Robert J. Schreiter, TheNew Catholicity: Theology between the Global and the Local (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis 2004), and R. S. Sugirtharajah, Postcolonial Reconfigurations: An Alternative Way ofReading the Bible and Doing Theology (London: SCM Press, 2003), 14ff.21 See Hedges, Controversies, 106-7.22 Hedges, ‘Particularities’, 129-30.23 Cf., Gavin D’Costa, The Meeting of Religions and the Trinity (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2000).
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pluralisms, especially in as far as it is shaped by radical
hospitality.24 I will develop this further in what follows.
These three issues provide a context in which this
discussion is placed, which will focus on looking at what a
theology of hospitality to the religious Other should look like.
Why then not begin here directly? My answer to this question
returns us to the three issues we have just discussed, centred
on the argument that Christian theology needs to look inwards to
its own resources for coming to terms with the religious Other.
The answer also takes us forward, for it is my contention that a
central focus of this return to Christian resources in the
theology of religions could be, or indeed should be, the
question of hospitality, which could provide useful insights
into such issues. I will therefore now relate the way
hospitality can relate back to our three issues. First, it can
provide a meaningful engagement with biblical principles which
will resonate with ecclesial communities. Second, I would
suggest it will allow us to give an application to specific
instances, such as how, for instance, Christianity can
meaningfully engage with the question of Prophethood within the
Abrahamic religions, particularly in relation to Islam. Finally,
much of this debate focuses on the subject of power. According
to many of its critics, the pluralist hypothesis represents a
continuance of Western colonial hegemony, although in the realm
of intellectual and spiritual capital rather than at the more
physical level. It represents, according to this critique, an
attempt to impose an Enlightenment narrative of religious
levelling upon traditional religious metaphysics, asserting its
own meta-truth claim of the Real. If correct, it is certainly a
serious charge, and would militate against a pluralist position,24 On the issue of pluralisms and power, see Hedges, Controversies, 129-33.
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and, therefore, if a pluralist position wishes to reassert
itself it must do so by engaging in ways that show this is not
its aim and rationale.
I argue the notion of hospitality would be useful in this
in that, if we understand it as radical hospitality (as I will
discuss below), we can see that the basis for a Christian
theology of religions lies not in a realm beyond the religious
discourse of the tradition, but rather within that tradition.
This may, in turn, require a due humility that might militate
against the inevitable imbalance of power in the area of the
discourse. Indeed, we will see that hospitality will involve us
in letting go any claims to the authority of our position. It
may also be noted that, related to the issues we have sketched
above, that if the primary need in the contemporary Christian
theology of religions is to move beyond the impasse of openness
and particularity, which in traditional formulation lays open to
challenges of asserting power over the other (see above), then
perhaps we may move forward by holding the two in balance. This
argument has found support in similar moves made by others, and
has been welcomed as the most appropriate contemporary
response.25 To move beyond this impasse, we must walk a delicate
tightrope between listening, learning and changing in response
to the religious Other, but also of witness and integrity to our
own system.26 I suggest the biblical theme of hospitality is an
excellent resource for this balancing act, which can help
maintain the tension of unity and plurality. This, of course, is
not a full answer to the problem of power, but recognition of it
25 See Hedges, Controversies, pp. 228-30, and Hendrik Vroom, ‘Pluralism vs. Particularity, Openness and Commitment: A Review Article’, Studies in Interreligious Dialogue, 21:1 (2011), 117.26 Adams, Christ, 172-5.
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at least and an attempt to negotiate the delicate issues that
lie folded within it.
Hospitality: a Radical Biblical Virtue27
The notion of hospitality is one which is gaining increasing
ground within Christian reflection on the religious Other, with
numerous theologians and Church meetings and documents endorsing
the concept. 28 Moreover, there are a number of ways in which a
Christian theology of religions could move towards the concept
of hospitality. For instance, the Belgian theologian of
religions Marianne Moyaert has taken a hermeneutical model based
primarily upon the thought of Paul Riceour,29 while Amos Yong has
suggested that a more theological basis of looking at the
biblical narrative provides us with this impetus.30 I would
suggest that this latter approach is more useful for us if we
want to ground a theological argument within the Christian
tradition; however, work such as Moyaert’s provides useful
contemporary perspectives which can be added.
But what of hospitality itself? As Alan Race has rightly
noted, hospitality must mean more than simply the permission to
dialogue with the Other, something granted now for many years.
Certainly, in recent uses it has come to be seen as more than
this, and in what follows I will offer an outline of what
hospitality is and may mean before suggesting an application.
27 I have elsewhere argued for the importance of hospitality in this area, and employing a similar argument I extend what I said there to further issues and in relation to some new points (see Hedges, Controversies, 231-7). In particular I make use here of the work of Moyaert, Shanks and Adams.28 See Hedges, Controversies, 231-7 for a discussion and examples, as wellas examples cited below.29 Marianne Moyaert, Fragile Identities: Towards a Theology of Interreligious Hospitality (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010).30 Amos Yong, Hospitality and the Other: Pentecost, Christian Practices and the Neighbour (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2008).
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Throughout the Bible hospitality is a key practical
virtue, and it is a concept that is making a comeback in
contemporary theology.31 To understand its context, we must be
aware that ‘Biblical hospitality is not a cozy concept about
entertainment or making contacts’.32 Rather, in the Near Middle
East, and in much of the Mediterranean region of the time, it
involved a forging of new relationships where those beyond a
kinship group – aliens and strangers – were made into guests, or
part of the host network of intimate relations.33 Jesus gives a
prime example of this in his example and words, with people who
are not within his system being not just mutely received but
actively welcomed and embraced, and this includes both those
beyond society, whether they be lepers or others, as well as
religious others – which would include for the Judaism of Jesus’
day, Samaritans, and others.
This inclusion of the ‘other’ amounts to something more
than just giving shelter or acceptance for, as Westermann has
rightly noted in this context, ‘The stranger comes from another
world and has a message from it’34 meaning we must let the
religious ‘other’ challenge us. If there truly is a message then
we need to listen and attend to it, not as something of
curiosity or passing interest, but as something which may
radically challenge our very worldview. I shall address an
instance of such challenge in the Gospels, where we see Jesus
challenged and changed by a religious ‘other’. Before outlining
31 For some contemporary examples: see Elizabeth Newman, Untamed Hospitality: Welcoming God and Other Strangers (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2007); George Newlands and Allen Smith, Hospitable God: The Transformative Dream (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010); Luke Bretherton, Hospitality as Holiness: Christian Witness amidst Moral Diversity (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006).32 Hedges, Controversies, 233.33 Bruce Malina, The Social World of Jesus and the Gospels (London: Routledge, 1996), 228-35.34 Claus Westermann, Genesis 12-36: A Commentary (London: SPCK, 1986), 277.
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that example, though, it is worth mentioning that this notion,
that we may be changed in this encounter, is also advanced by
Graham Adams who, using Andrew Shank’s notion of Jesus as ‘the
Shaken One’, suggests that we, like Jesus, must also find
ourselves, and our traditions, ‘shaken’ by this encounter with
the religious other.35
The Gospels of Matthew and Mark relate parallel stories of
Jesus’ encounter with a Gentile woman, where, after first
rebutting her, saying his mission is to the Jewish people, Jesus
becomes more hospitable through the encounter.36 Elizabeth Stuart
explains:
In Mark’s narrative the abolition of the purity laws [Mark
7.1-23] is followed by the story of the Syrophoenician
woman (7.24-30). The structuring of the narrative is
significant: after making a full-scale attack on the
purity system Jesus has his theory tested by a Gentile
woman. His reaction is shameful. But this woman, the
fiercely protective mother, demands the hospitality that
he has declared to be possible (albeit implicitly).37
Here we see Jesus’ radical openness. He lets his thinking be
informed by the religious other, the Gentile woman. Durwood
35 Adams, Christ, 130-1, although Adams does not detail this, rather merely postulates it from Shank’s notion of Jesus as the Shaken One; see pp. 10-12 & 14-18.36 I make a specific case based upon a theological reading of particular biblical texts, albeit recognizing that other readings and interpretations are possible. It is beyond the scope of this paper to enter into discussions of hermeneutics and the various possible readings, as well as other biblical verses, which it might be claimed would problematize these readings. The specifically theological natureof the readings is therefore emphasized.37 Elizabeth Stuart, ‘A Difficult Relationship: Christianity and the Body’, in Elizabeth Stuart and Lisa Isherwood, Introducing Body Theology (Trowbridge: The Cromwell Press, 1998), 59.
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Foster describes Matthew’s version of Jesus’ encounter with a
Canaanite woman (Matt. 15.22-28) as an “actual interreligious
dialogue”.38 Moreover, he suggests the Canaanite woman’s
understanding initially exceeds Jesus’ own, for she realizes the
possible extent of his Christ role through challenging him to
extend this beyond his Jewish context. The radical nature of
this is erased in standard Christian exegesis, where it simply
becomes a foreshadowing of the church’s Gentile mission. (This,
we may suggest, returns us to the theme of power, in terms of
the way that a dominant reading, in this case that of the Church
as it develops as a predominantly Gentile and missionary
tradition erases a contextual reading of a story of a Galilean
rabbi in his encounter with a religious other – the question of
power is not simply a one-sided affair of a dominant tradition
over and against others, but a polyvalent one where various
intra-tradition understandings are affected). However, what we
see is the limits and blind spots of a tradition being
challenged, and horizons opened by encounter with the religious
other. If this occurs to Jesus, then we must also let ourselves
be changed through encounter with the religious other. Indeed,
the biblical witness to hospitality means that we must do this
without domesticating the other on our own terms, that is, in
Shanks and Adams’ terms we must be ‘shaken’ or, in theology of
religions discourse, we must move beyond a notion of fulfillment
to one of openness. Rowan Williams usefully explicates this
issue:
To work patiently alongside people of other faiths is not
an option invented by modern liberals who seek to
38 Durwood Foster, ‘Christian Motives for Interfaith Dialogue’, in PeterPhan (ed.), Christianity and the Wider Ecumenism (New York, NY: Paragon House,1990), 26.
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relativize the radical singleness of Jesus Christ and what
was made possible through him. It is a necessary part of
being where he is; it is a dimension of “liturgy”, staying
with the presence of God and the presence of God’s
creation (human and non-human) in prayer and love. If we
are truly learning how to be in that relation with God and
the world in which Jesus of Nazareth stood, we shall not
turn away from those who see from another place.39
Hospitality, to see from the other’s place, to be with them in
that experience can be said to be the Christian way of life.
Indeed, that this hospitality is our calling, as Christians, is
exemplified by the author of Hebrews: “Do not neglect to show
hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained
angels unawares” (Heb. 13.2). I suggest, therefore, we are
called to a radical openness to the religious Other, but from
within the particularity of our own tradition (for we cannot
approach others except from where we stand now); and without the
radical call to disavow power over the other, that the tradition
at its best demands, we risk binding the other to our own
agenda. Now, this I think is important in theological terms and
runs counter to much contemporary post-liberal and Neo-orthodox
Christian thinking. Rather than looking inwards to our own
tradition, and seeking resources from within itself alone to
turn to the world, we see our inspiration in the other. To be
radical is not to assert difference and insist upon your own
scandal of particularity,40 but rather to assert that your
particularity is one which has no boundaries and therefore39 Rowan Williams, ‘Christian Identity and Religious Plurality’, Plenary Session address, World Council of Churches Assembly, Porto Alegre, 2006.40 For a discussion of asserting the scandal of particularity, see Adams, Christ, 129-30.
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allows you to be touched by, but also touch, the other – even
if, at the same time, insisting upon your own vision and its
demands for ethical action and its (potential) universality to
touch others.
So what does this claim mean for us as Christians today
amidst the plurality of a multi-religious world? In this context
we can see that hospitality means more than simply acknowledging
the religious other as someone to pay respect to. It certainly
entails being more than a ‘host-guest’ relationship in different
cultures. Within biblical terms, hospitality demands that we
lower our borders to accept the wisdom from the religious other,
to see what insights they can offer us, and, correspondingly, to
follow Jesus’ example in dialogue, to adjust our own stance and
position. So far, I think, what I have said is relatively
uncontroversial for those involved in dialogue.
Indeed, my contention may, to some extent, seem quite
mundane; for instance, the World Council of Churches’ 2006
document, ‘Religious Plurality and Christian Self
Understanding’41, uses similar language where ‘hospitality’ is a
‘hermeneutical key’ that requires ‘radical openness’. However,
while this document suggests that we should respect ‘the dignity
of all’ and that ‘God may talk to us through others to teach and
transform us’, I do not think that the general usage of
hospitality employed in the Christian theology of religions and
interfaith dialogue discourse goes far enough to understand the
radical implications that hospitality may hold. As such, Race
has asked ‘Is Hospitality Enough?’ to which my answer is that it
can be. However, it is not enough simply to maintain that some
insights from others may teach us things which we can then fit
41 See: www.oikoumene.org/fileadmin/files/wccassembley/documents/english/pb-14-religiousplurality.pdf
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within our own system of thought; this remains within the
conceptual reality of radical fulfillment, where the other is
simply domesticated.42 Rather:
to be truly hospitable means not just to let the Other
enter our world but to enter theirs too. What that means
in religious terms is also a challenge to us: our faiths
and traditions remain relative and partial until they find
their ultimate end, and it seems embracing other religious
ends and ideas must share in that end.43
Understood in the terms of a radical commitment to the other,
Christian hospitality is the denial of power; however, it is not
about empty claims of respect that fail to deliver, but the
chance to transform our thinking. Hospitality remains a comfy
virtue as long as it does not affect our central beliefs and
core values. However, to truly listen to the alien, to the angel
from another world, will mean a radical discomfiture of our own
position. I will now seek to give expression, at least briefly,
to the question of what radical hospitality, and true radical
openness, to the religious other might mean.
Hospitality and the Theology of Religions
Let us return to the theology of religions typology and ask how
this will relate to hospitality. As we have seen, there are four
basic paradigms. I will briefly discuss how each relates to what
I have said above of hospitality. The exclusivist view refuses
dialogue and encounter. If truth is embedded within one
tradition, and one tradition only then there can be no extension
of hospitality to the religious other in the sense I have argued42 Hedges, Controversies, pp. 23-5 and 3043 Hedges, Controversies, 236.
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it entails. Especially, as many exclusivists hold, if other
religions are primarily characterized by sin and the failure of
human reason, then we neither should, nor meaningfully can,
enter their religious worlds to see what values they may hold
for us. Clearly, I would argue, we find here a theological
failure when judged by the standards of biblical witness.44
The inclusivist, also, cannot practice hospitality because
understood – as I have argued it must be – by the motif of
radical fulfillment, it only encounters the other by the
reversal of hospitality, in that it refuses the otherness of the
other and absorbs it within its own system. As I have indicated
at a few points above, such an approach of domestication is not
in accord with what I am arguing radical Christian hospitality
truly entails.
What then of the particularist? The claim is that the
‘other’ is truly ‘protected’ by virtue of being refused
incorporation within ‘my’ system; by recognizing utterly and
radically their alien nature and strangeness. Now, to this we
could make various responses. Moyaert has invoked Riceour and
notions of narrative identity,45 while I have argued that it is
historically untenable and an affront to the other.46 However,
here, the focus is on hospitality and its theological
implications. What does the biblical text, the heart or
cornerstone of the Christian message have to say? Clearly,
44 The notion of religion as human sinfulness is of course a key feature of Karl Barth’s work which is often cited as typical of exclusivism. It should be noted, though, that Barth has also been argued not to be a ‘typical’ exclusivist in a move designed to underline the typology; however, such an argument seems based upon a very reified conception of the typology that differs from the looser and more heuristic deployment of it which I advocate, and which is employed in Race’s original formulation (see Hedges, Controversies, 17-29).45 Moyaert, Fragile, 179ff.46 Hedges, ‘Particularities’, pp. 122-5 & 127-30
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within this understanding of hospitality, the other is conceived
as capable as entering my world, and I theirs. As we have seen
in Jesus’ own example, the response is not to claim a particular
cultural-linguistic heritage that is inviolable and
untranslatable into the language of the other. Indeed, we see
the opposite. The other becomes the means by which I am
transformed, and my understanding enlarged. As such, I would not
just argue along with Moyaert that the particularist system is
hermeneutically flawed, but also contrary to the biblical
witness, and to the theological integrity that comes from this.
I would argue that, here, the question of power may be reversed.
While the particularist may claim to respect the other, the
argument for untranslatability actually hinders an attitude of
hospitality, and it has been argued that it acts as a ‘kind of
“cultural condom that protects reality from its own pleasure and
makes reality a pure enjoyment of itself… The xenophilia in fact
conceals a xenophobia that experiences the other not only as
different from itself but also as threatening to itself”’.47 This
is an interpretation that accords with one I have offered
elsewhere and which sees the particularist project as a means to
deny criticism and retain control.48 In similar vein, invoking
Ricoeur, Moyaert sees it as a refusal of the other, and a
sacralization of one’s own tradition.49
Moreover, as I have argued above, this must mean more than
letting the other speak to me at the edges of my understanding.
If the other is truly ‘other’, and here I think the post-liberal
emphasis on alterity is important, we cannot, qua what is often47 Rudi Visker, Vreemd gaan en vreemd blijven: Filosofie van de multiculturaliteit, Amsterdam: SUN, 2005, 37, quoted by Marianne Moyaert, ‘Absorption or Hospitality: Two Approaches to the Tension between Identity and Alterity’, in Catherine Cornille and Christopher Conway (eds.), Interreligious Hermeneutics, (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2010), 68-9.48 Hedges, Controversies, 127-849 Moyaert, ‘Absorption’, 76.
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understood as Hickean pluralism, simply speak of worlds of
meaning meeting and agreeing on simple common formulae – for
instance that we move from ego-centredness to reality-
centredness.50 If the other truly is alien he or she will
disrupt, disturb and challenge my expectations. I will be
changed not just in small ways, but as through the revelation of
an angel. As such, pluralists must understand their approach as
one that goes beyond boundaries and borders. To be truly
hospitable is, it can be argued, not simply to refuse power over
the other, but to lose the power of fixed and predetermined
issues of insider/ outsider, truth and falsehood – to allow
questions of criteria to be refashioned again and again.
Hospitality and a Theology for Dialogue
Having outlined, in theoretical perspective, what is entailed in
the theology of religions by way of an understanding of the
radical hospitality of Jesus; it remains to suggest what it
means to work this out in practice. So let us therefore return
to the question of prophethood. What would a radically open
hospitality before, say, Islamic claims of the prophethood of
both Jesus and Mohammed? To understand that Muslims see God
speaking to them through the life and works of Muhammad would
require us to lower our barriers of resistance to the way they
see spiritual truth mediated to them.51 Certainly, there is much
in Muhammad’s life that would have parallels to Christian
conceptions of prophethood, certainly as mediated through the
Hebrew Scriptures.52 Moreover, we could ask what insights may be
gained in terms of what may be learnt about Jesus from seeing
50 John Hick, An Interpretation of Religion (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989), 36-55.51 Cragg, The Call of the Minaret, 61-3.52 See Küng, ‘Christian’, 25-6, and Bennett, Understanding, 198-9.
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him through Muslim eyes. If all God-language is, as scholars
such as Sally T. McFague have cogently argued, essentially
metaphorical, could not the image of ‘prophet’ be amongst those
which help give us a fuller picture of what it may mean to
relate to Jesus as one who mediates the divine to us.53 Indeed,
in Christian terms, there is much to commend this approach, as
historical Jesus scholarship has shown it seems almost entirely
improbable that Jesus ever spoke of himself, and probably didn’t
imagine himself, as Messiah, rather his life and teachings can
be coherently seen within a pattern of Jewish and Israelite
prophetic tradition.54 As such, in some ways, it may even be that
Islamic thinking on Jesus transcends some Christian conceptions.
This, naturally, brings us back to the question of Islam,
Christianity and prophethood, especially in the light of
hospitality. The message of an angel from another world
(invoking here the notion of Muhammad’s vision from Gabriel),
the revelation and understanding of Jesus in the Quran, hadith,
and Islamic tradition must become a resource for us in
reconfiguring how we speak of Christology.55 Of course, this will53 Sally T. McFague, Models of God: Theology for an Ecological and Nuclear Age (Philadephia, MA: Fortress Press, 1987), 32-4.54 Acknowledging that it is hard to sum up the many diverse strands in contemporary historical Jesus scholarship, I nevertheless think it fair to say that almost no reputable scholar suggests that Jesus ever spoke of himself, or probably thought of himself, as a Messiah-figure,the main exception to this probably being Tom Wright; see, for instance, N. T. Wright and Marcus Borg, The Meaning of Jesus (London: SPCK,1999), pp. 47-52 & 96-100. Against this most scholars place him, in some form, within a prophetic line (although some such as Marcus Borg (Wright and Borg, Meaning, 59-64) may prefer such terms as ‘mystic’, orfor Geza Vermes (Jesus in his Jewish Context, London: SCM Press, 2003) ‘Rabbi’,or Ed Sanders, who sees Jesus as a temple restoration prophet (E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, (London: SCM Press, 1985)). Such a prophetic identity is generally confirmed by studies which place the Jewish context centrally, especially, as shown by Markus Cromhaut in relationto a detailed study of identity in the Galilean context (Markus Cromhaut, Jesus and Identity: Reconstructing Judean Ethnicity in Q, Cambridge: James Clark and Co., 2007, 371. 55 See Leirvik, Images, 221ff.
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be uncomfortable, heretical even, within the tradition; although
many, including pluralists like Hick, have already formulated
Christologies that would not be averse to taking Islamic
thinking on board.56 However – and here is the rub – such work
must be seen and understood to emanate from within the Christian
tradition itself, rather than being, as pluralism’s critics
would aver, an Enlightenment narrative imposing itself on
theology.57 While anachronistic language, we may speak of Jesus
encounter with the Canaanite woman, or as another example the
parable of the Good Samaritan (though examples could be
multiplied), as ‘heretical’ to his Second Temple Jewish
tradition; nevertheless, as we have seen, his example, I would
argue, leads us to transgress the reified boundaries that we
make for ourselves so as to be comfortable in within our
traditions as fixed and bounded realities.58
To extend this discussion of what may or may not be
allowed within the limits of the tradition I come back to the
question of power or, to be more precise, pluralisms and
particularities as power claims. I have argued that, at least
from a Christian perspective, to exercise hospitality means to
admit the other into our world in ways that challenge our own
self-identity and belief; and I would suggest that only a
pluralist perspective understood as Radical Openness to the
56 Perry Schmidt-Leukel, however, argues that a pluralist theology is compatible with a Chalcedonian two-natures Christology. For a discussion of the issues see his Transformation by Integration: How Inter-faith Encounter Changes Christianity (London: SCM Press, 2009), 159-70.57 See, e.g., Christopher Sinkinson, The Universe of Faiths: A Critical Study of John Hick’s Religious Pluralism (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2001), 104ff.58 For further discussion on this, and the theology of identity, it is worth consulting Tanner and Fletcher (Kathryn Tanner, Theories of Culture: A ~New Agenda for Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press 1997), and, Jeanine Hill Fletcher, ‘Religious Pluralism in an Era of Globalization: The Making of Modern Religious Identity’, Theological Studies, 69 (2008), 394-411), parts of whose arguments are brought together in this context in Hedges, Controversies, 33-44.
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religious other allows this. The particularist, by contrast,
must deny that the other can enter the particularist’s closed
system as a bearer of a message from another ‘world’. As such,
the erasure of the religious narrative lies not with the
pluralist but with the particularist.59 Indeed, arguably, the
analogy of religion as a language marks the triumph of an
Enlightenment narrative against the religious one.60 Understood
in these terms therefore, the refusal of power and the respect
for the other is truly only possible from a pluralist position,
a changeover which reverses the usual assumptions of the
dominant narratives within much contemporary discourse within
the theology of religions.61
To recognize the other, in these terms, surely means that
we cannot, on principle, disallow that Muhammad may be seen as a
prophet. Various arguments may be raised, such as the assumption
that prophethood was closed with John the Baptist, or that in
explicitly denying aspects of the Christian message Muhammad is
placed beyond the acceptable limits of the tradition (with the
assumption made that a prophet’s words come from God and this
therefore seeming to raise issues with this), however, it is far
from clear that these are in any way decisive. Moreover, from
the standpoint of radical hospitality, where we recognize that
an insistence upon a closed system isolated from challenge by
other is essentially ‘un-Christian’, the presuppositions often
placed in the way of acknowledging Muhammad as a prophet are59 Hedges, ‘Particularities’, 130.60 Whether the ‘linguistic turn’ should be classed as a post-Enlightenment move rather than an Enlightenment one is debateable, however, by arguing that religion should be understood in linguistic terms, the particularist stance clearly seeks to implant an external (Western, rational, Logo-centric?) category upon all traditions in a monolithic way. On this issues, see Paul F. Knitter, Introducing Theologies of Religions (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002), 224-7, and Hedges, ‘Particularities’, 115-7 and 126-7.61 See, for instance, D’Costa, The Meeting of Religions.
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seriously undermined. It is, not, however, the intention of this
paper to work out, or argue through, the question of whether, or
how, Christians may accept Muhammad as a prophet. Rather, the
intention has been to suggest something of the practical
implications of hospitality in relation to the theology of
religions and interreligious dialogue. Indeed, I would suggest
that a theology of religions inspired by hospitality which leads
us to the openness and boundary transgression I have discussed
(to listen, with seriousness, to the message from another world
and to allow it to transform us) moves us beyond what is
sometimes seen as the problem with the theology of religions,
that it prejudges the outcome of encounter,62 towards what may be
termed a theology for dialogue. Indeed, as David Tracy has
argued, unless the possibility of true movement, of a radical
alteration exists, then dialogue never actually occurs, because
only when we are fully open to the other can we engage in the
act of fully listening and responding to a message that may be
utterly different from our own without pre-judgment upon it. In
Tracy’s terms, true dialogue means the possibility of change,
the very act of openness to the other places one’s own self ‘and
one’s tradition(s), or the fragments of a tradition, at risk’.63
As such, the notions of hospitality and Radical Openness
outlined here take us beyond a ‘simple’ theology of religions,
namely, an internal Christian discourse on what to make of the
religious other (although this internal discourse is where the
argument comes from and what grounds it in its particularity as
Christian theology) to a theology that allows the dialogue, in
62 This critique is sometimes made by those within Comparative Theologywho seek to see it as a separate discipline against the Theology of Religions, however, a rebuttal of this and an argument for the unity of the two can be found in Hedges, Controversies, 53-4.63 David Tracy, ‘Western Hermeneutics and Interreligious Dialogue’, in Cornille and Conway, Interreligious Hermeneutics, 4.
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Tracy’s terms, and so becomes a theology for dialogue – a
theology that allows for alteration and transgression.
Paradoxically the enclosed Christian discourse (the
particularities of the faith) employing its own resources and
internal conceptions is that which at the same time transgresses
and breaks down the closed tradition that some theology has
tried to put in place. My argument is then that a truly
particularist Christian theology must become a pluralist
Christian theology. The act of transgression is grounded in the
very confessional limit that is ordinarily held to negate such
transgressions.
Conclusion
While seemingly contentious, my argument is that rather than
violating Christian tradition, a radical openness to learning
and engagement with the religious other that will lead to
transgressions of what is often taken as Christian orthodoxy is
actually required by the tradition itself. Certainly, the
theological approaches exemplified through the typological
categories of exclusivism, inclusivism and particularities
cannot be maintained within an approach that understands radical
hospitality in Jesus’ example to be at the heart of the
Christian message. To use the language of Shanks and Adams, we
must be ‘shaken’ in our following of the ‘Shaken One’ who calls
us beyond the boundaries of our own limited conceptions and
closed categorizations into a deeper relationship with those
others who lie beyond the borders of what is often seen as a
closed world of Christian theological discourse. I have
suggested something of what this might entail in relation to
rethinking the concept of prophethood in Muslim-Christian
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encounter, but it obviously has a much wider application in
terms of hospitality to all religious Others.
Summary (into German …)
This chapter considers the biblical virtue of hospitality in relation to interreligious
encounters, arguing that far from being a comfortable concept that it offers a radical
vision of transgression. Countering some common usages of hospitality in
Interreligious Dialogue and the Theology of Religions, which suggest that Christianity
can offer space within its borders to meet the Other, it is suggested that Jesus’ own
example of encounter with religious Others, alongside a biblical/ contextual
understanding of hospitality, mean that we should understand our tradition’s borders
as flexible and our tradition as being open to challenge, where we truly learn from the
Other. This discussion is focused by three concerns. One is the contemporary discussion
in the Theology of Religions between pluralist and particularist paradigms. Another is
the issue of power within dialogue and interreligious encounter. The third is the issue
of Prophethood, especially in dialogue with the Islamic tradition, but with implications
for Trialogue, where Christian refusal to accord the status of Prophet to Muhammad is
examined in the light of a radical biblical examination of hospitality.
Author Note:
Paul Hedges is Reader in Interreligious Studies at the
University of Winchester, UK, and has taught for other British,
Canadian and Chinese universities. He has published widely in
interfaith areas, including Preparation and Fulfilment (Peter Lang,
2001), Christian Approaches to Other Faiths, Core Text and Reader (both
co-edited with Alan Race, SCM, 2008 and 2009), and Controversies in
Interreligious Dialogue and the Theology of Religions (SCM, 2010). He is
General Editor of the multivolume set Controversies in Contemporary
Religion (Praeger, 2014), and on the Editorial Board of Studies in
Interreligious Dialogue and the Journal of Religious History.
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