hospitality, power and the theology of religions: pluralisms, particularities, and the abrahamic...

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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http://www.oikoumene.org/fileadmin/files/wccassembley/documents/english/pb-14-religiousplurality.pdf

http://www.oikoumene.org/fileadmin/files/wccassembley/documents/english/pb-14-religiousplurality.pdf


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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hospitality, power and the theology of religions: pluralisms, particularities, and the abrahamic...

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