Hans Gustafson - Learning from Other Religious Traditions: Leaving Room for Holy Envy

The Author(s) 2018

Hans Gustafson 1

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Hans Gustafson

On November 22, 2012, early morning snow flurries silently fell over the lake from gray overcast skies on the late autumn earth-toned Minnesota landscape outside my brothers country house. Our mother died the day before after a battle with ALS,

We didnt follow the strict code of Shiva . We had no right to grab or claim a Jewish tradition as our own. After all, we were not Jewish nor did we desire to represent ourselves as such. We did not want to practice Shiva . Shiva is for Jews to practice. Rather, we simply told friends and family that we all moved into my brothers house for the week and that they were welcome to come spend time with us, which of course they all did. It was a time for us to stop, be together, and remember my mother . We needed it. I remember being envious that the Jewish tradition has such a rich practice of mourning built into their tradition, and I reflected on how non-Jews could be inspired by this. This was a powerful instance of holy envy.

The well-known theologian and Lutheran Bishop of Stockholm Krister Stendahl Michael Reid Trice captures well this attitude in the face of another tradition: Jesper Svartvik, Krister Stendahl Professor of Theology of Religions at Lund University and the Swedish Theological Institute in Jerusalem , defined holy envy as the willingness to discern, to recognize and to celebrate what is good, beautiful and attractive in other religions and to let it remain what it is, i.e., something which is holy but which wholly belongs to the other.

Stendahl possessed the knack for popularizing catchy phrases, to be sure. His call to always leave room for holy envy offers a refreshing alternative to interreligious understanding by pivoting away from, what for centuries served as the Christian default modus operandi vis--vis other religions, apologetics , a practice that sought to defend, often arrogantly, the Christian God and Bible . Stendahl likened apologetics to the sound of mosquitos coughing,

Avoiding the task of replicating the sound of mosquitoes coughing, this volume represents rather an effort, from scholars and leaders of various religious identities , to reflect on instances of holy envy in various traditions. The contributors offer examples of this virtue of remaining open to finding beautiful elements in religious traditions other than ones own aspects that others might learn from and perhaps even incorporate into their own religious life if applicable and appropriate. These elements might include stories, practices, values, and concepts that inform and constructively help us to rethink and revise our own religious identities and practices. They raise questions, insights, and challenges in so doing, which serve as, all the more, constructive parts of the process.

This book contains nine chapters that are either from, or draw on, traditions such as satr Heathenism , Catholicism, Hinduism , Judaism , LDS Mormonism , Lutheranism , Presbyterianism , Sikhism , Sufism , Western Buddhism , and Zen Mahyna Buddhism . The volume opens with Chap. on Nietzsche and the Jewish Jesus: A Reflection on Holy Envy by Benjamin E. Sax, which explores how Nietzsches The Anti-Christ inspired not only an unexpected charitable reading of Jesuss life and thought in the New Testament, but also an unlikely sense of holy envy. The reader is reminded that the topic of Jesus can be rather tricky for Jews and, to be sure, the legacy of Christian anti-Judaism often provides the hermeneutical lens for how many Jews interpret the life and teachings of Jesus in the New Testament. Sax admits that incorporating and appreciating aspects of Jesuss life and teachings into a Jewish religious way of engaging the world can be an anathema to classical and to many forms of modern Jewish thought. The irony and power of how Nietzsches Jesus could inspire a contemporary Jewish thinker to admire and connect to the Jesus of the New Testament is explored in this chapter.

In Chap. , Ibn al-Arabi and the Virtues of Holy Envy in Islam, Meena Sharify Funk explores holy envy in Islam and argues that it can be understood as implicit to the thought of Muhyi al-Din Ibn al-Arabi (11651240 CE), a Sufi mystic and Muslim philosopher. In particular, Sharify-Funk focuses on Ibn al-'Arabi's conception of the insan al-kamil (the perfected human being), who is graced with the understanding that the essence of religion is inherently connected to the wonder of divine friendship ( wilaya ). Other concepts such as tajalliyat Allah (the self-disclosure of God) and wahdat al-wujud (unity of being) in Ibn al-Arabis thought that are analyzed as well. Inclusive implications emerge when these concepts are taken together to form a universalism , in which appreciation for differences surpasses mere toleration for differences or deviations from ones own understanding of truth to become an authentic expression of spiritual belief and practice.

In Chap. , The Ritual of Everyday Life, Tracy Sayuki Tiemeier recognizes the extraordinary ritual power Hindu women have in their everyday lives. In so doing, she asks what a Catholic theology of gender might learn from Hindu womens everyday rituals such as kolam (ritual designs drawn on thresholds), household pujas ( worship ), and womens vratas (vows), all of which transform womens bodies and channel power ritually through them to their families and society. This ritual power comes through the gendered body, and not despite it. While Catholic theologies of gender also place significant emphasis on the gendered body, they can tend to be overly abstract and simplistic, which places women into one of two types (Eve or Mary). Tiemeier contends that a more realistic theology of gender must be centered not on types but instead on actual women in the midst of their lives. She compares Hindu womens rituals with mujerista theology (Latina and Hispanic womens theology) with an aim to reconstruct a broader ritual theology that decenters the male hierarchy, recenters the sacred on the gendered body engaged in the world, and expands the Catholic sacramental imagination into the ritual of everyday life.

In Chap. and Hindu traditions. The term Heathen is commonly used a self-identifier by practitioners of satr, a new religious movement that revives, reconstructs, and reimagines Norse polytheism as a living religion in the contemporary world. Seigfrieds chapter is inspired by a comparative reading of prophetic material from the Old Norse poem Vlusp (an important text in the satr tradition) and the Sanskrit Mahbhrata (an important text in the Hindu traditions). The author admits his holy envy of the rich and detailed literary and philosophical traditions of Hinduism and inspires him to a close reading of the two texts, examination of analogues in other religions, reflection on a scholarly turn to non-Abrahamic traditions, and a discussion of the implications for interfaith action.

In Chap. , A Hindu Gift of Bestowal: ankaras Concept of Grace in a Buddhist Context, John Cha reflects on the possible role grace might play in liberation within Indian philosophical and theological systems that maintain non-dual worldviews. Even though it may appear that the efficacy of grace requires making a distinction between the giver of grace (e.g., god, spirit) and the receiver of grace (e.g., human person), Cha demonstrates how non-dual and monistic worldviews can embrace the concept of grace by drawing on the philosophy of the eighth-century Hindu advaitin ankara. How might ankaras idea of grace enhance the soteriological thinking in Yogcra Buddhism , and specifically in the philosophy of fifth-century Buddhist intellectual Vasubandhu? Cha endeavors to show that grace can indeed function in a non-dualistic context, specifically when attention is given to liberation occurring within the immanent sphere of the human condition.