A rabbi reflects on Abdullah's initiative

Rabbi Michael Lerner, the editor of Tikkun magazine (a bit like Sojourners but Jewish) has a long reflection on the World Conference of Dialogue, convened by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. An excerpt is below. The whole article is here, at Diplomatic Traffic.

What the advanced-consciousness-Muslims whose wisdom was in full flower at this conference seem to be promising us is that the coming spiritual renaissance of Islam may provide a foundation for precisely this kind of tolerant, loving, and generous form of religion that becomes a beacon for future generation. This kind of Islam will speak to people who may be experiencing the crisis of spiritual emptiness of the contemporary world but are not willing to embrace fundamentalisms of any sort or give space to worldviews that do not include tolerance, mutual respect for others, and a true
spirit of generosity. This is precisely the kind of renewal that many of us in the NSP are seeking to build in the Christian and Jewish worlds today.

It may be hard for many of us to imagine a world in which Islam becomes identified with these values of love, generosity, kindness, tolerance, social justice and peace. Such a development for Islam, or for that matter for Judaism and Chrisitianity, would certainly be an incredibly wonderful development. For those of us who despair about Christianity or Judaism having gone astray from the loving elements in their founders' visions that these religions now embody, in at least part of their practice, exactly the opposite values from those that made these religions catch fire in the hearts of their adherents (that may be what it means to see the Burning Bush), the notion that Islam might be the spark that generates a new religious revival based on mutual respect and spiritual intensity could dramatically expand our understanding of the endless potential for God to surprise us, un-do our conceptual certainties, and open our hearts to each other.

Well, I won't hold my breath for that in Islam or any other religion. As moved as I was by this conference, I believe that the historically significant process that the King of Saudi Arabia helped advance in Madrid will take decades to fully mature in the actual reality of daily life in Saudi Arabia. In fact, I expect that we are more likely to see progressive visions from Islam emerge from the diaspora communities of Muslims in the U.S. (see the work of the Zaytuna Institute in the SF Bay Area), Canada, England, and France, and from Jordan, Egypt, Turkey and Palestine. But none of these will have as much lasting impact as the transformation, however difficult and long it may take, that was set on path by this process initiated by King Abdullah. Similarly, those of us who are seeking to build a renewal in Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism have our work cut out for us, and overcoming the out-of-balance energy toward repression, distrust, fear of the other, and commitment to 'domination as the path to security' (the legacy of what I call 'the Right Hand of God') will be a task that will not be completed in my lifetime, not even in Western religions. But I think it is very important to acknowledge victories and steps forward, and I believe that we are seeing now a major step toward strengthening the Renewal forces in Islam, and I am grateful to have been part of that experience.

I also came away with a hopeful attitude about what is possible in the way of Middle East peace once the Israeli people come to the place of being willing to give up the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan, and to the consciousness of recognizing that their security will come more from a spirit of generosity and caring for others than through domination and occupation. But that, too, is not around the corner. All the more reason why we at Tikkun and the Network of Spiritual Progressives have to be willing to remain true to our faith that love and generosity will eventually triumph in the hearts and minds of all people on the planet, and that our task is to do what we can to accelerate that process so as to relieve the suffering that is happening as long as the old paradigm of fear and domination continue to shape the policies of states around the world.