How can mutual cooperation corrupt?

"The world suffers from our lack of knowledge from each other and the traditions that rule us," said Rabbi Mel Gottlieb, president and dean of the academy's California chapter. "We must look ourselves in the mirror and begin to think much larger thoughts of love than remain crippled by our fears."

Protestant Seminary Joins Hands with Jewish, Muslim Schools (the link in the OP didn't work for me, if it doesn't for other, try this one).

It is the school I went to and in canada Emmanuel  is also connecting to the Muslim community - we are all the better for it.  LB quote says it all.

Corrupt it with what?  Is this a Reece's Peanut Butter Cup kinda thing?

"Hey!  You got Islam in my Christianity!"

"You got Christianity in my Islam!"

Thankfully, I am in a position to make Claremont pay for this regrettable compromise with Christian integrity.  I find myself in the role of occastonally mentoring United Methodist seminary candidates and advising them on the best schools for application.  I recently  dissuaded one candidate from applying to Claremont and encouraged them to apply to Duke, Princeton, SMU, and Garrett instread.  Thankfully, when I attend our Pacfic Northwest Annual Conference each year,  Clarement is rarely represented among seminary graduates entering ministry, despite the fact that ours in one of the most liberal UMC conferences in the USA.   We must persuade the UMC church to follow through their initial plans to sever realtions with Claremont or, failing that, to cut off funding to the school. 

Because the cooperation is with 'evil'.  It is hard to support the idea of tribal supremacy when members of the tribe put themselves on an equal footing with other human beings.

I cannot believe this - It is there that I studied with John Cobb and visit almost every year and support - without it and University of Chicago ( cts) I would not have become a minister nor stayed as a Christian...  in a real sense they 'saved' me.   I find your position not in keeping with some of your other posts.

 I note that UCC is going to offer some course to Muslims also--I read the article in my sister's UC Observer.  My first thought was, "Wow, crazy liberal Protestants."

Then someone at my regressive Orthodox church made an interesting comment when I mentioned it to her: "Goodness, they would have to be pretty broad-minded Muslims to do something like that [i.e., train at a Christian seminary]."

I thought about some more and she is right--they would have to be pretty broad-minded and those are exactly the Muslims we need to support.   I very much doubt that Osama bin Laden's followers would be signing up for such a project.

I know nothing about Claremont, but let me offer kudos to UCC for their project.

I am mentoring a clergy who studied at Harvard so he can learn process theology - he had a great education there but not in theology.

I truly don't see the problem.

 Most seminaries have offered courses on Islam and Judaism for decades as part of the training for Christian ministry.  At Queen's Theological College, (which is a UCC seminary in Kingston) one of our professors in the late 1980's was an orthodox Jewish rabbi. His courses on the Hebrew scriptures were very profound. The course he taught us on the Gospel of Matthew shattered a lot of our preconceptions. We were also taught Patristics (early church history) by a Russian Orthodox priest and we were taught Greek and New Testament by a former Jesuit priest. We also had a number of very solid professors who were United Church.  Such diversity in a Protestant seminary really gave us a solid understanding of the breadth and depth of the Christian gospel. I don't think anyone should fear knowledge.

These three traditions share roots, Jews and Christians in particular given that Jesus was a Jew and cited Jewish scripture frequently in his teaching. Having their clergy learning and studying together will enable clergy of each tradition to both learn more deeply about the shared roots while also learning and appreciating more about what makes their own tradition different. IOW, this can only help in both building bridges and building faith.

Mendalla

I agree, it would be great if UCC could support the training of progressive Muslim Imams in Canada.  But I'm a bit skeptical that they would be regarded as "true" Imams, or even true Muslims, by most Muslims in Canada.  Most of the Imams you hear about in Canada are from Saudi Arabia. 

Why wouldn't they be regarded as true Muslims by Muslims in Canada?  Presumably, they represent Canadian Muslims.

Azdgari, you need to learn more about Canadian Muslims. 

Maybe I do, but your statement about me cannot possibly answer the question I posed.

Read some of the stuff on the long thread about Muslims.  I don't want to post it all again.

What, that intellectual cesspool and trainwreck?  If that's your source, then I'll give your position all the respect it deserves.

Beserk... what does the word "mentoring" mean to you?  I would hope a mentor would resource me with a breadth of awareness. I would not want to be manipulated into conformity with the biases and prejudices of a narrow thinker.

Are you expected to make judgements on behalf of students?  Are you expected to instil fear of difference and diversity?

The three faiths have the same god... they are Abrahamic in origin... three great faiths from one taproot is quite something.... it seems to me that exposure to each other in a learning environment is a superb way of revitalising the source to the enrichment of all seekers after truth and wisdom.

I can't see any point in continuing this discussion, if that is the extent of your argument.

I had no argument, Mely.  I had a question, one for which you apparently have no substantial answer.

UCC is doing what it can--there are limits to what it can do.  Also, my reading on the topic suggests that radical Imams are a big part of the problem.    

The issue is complex.  Saudi Arabia has spent a huge amount of money on training Wahhabis and getting them placed as Imams wherever it can.   This helps spread the radicalization, especially of the youth.

It is not a question of who is and is not a "true" Muslim--there is no clergy in Sunni Islam that could, say, excommunicate someone as the Catholic Church might do.  The issue is to try to fight back against the extremists by supporting the moderates and reformers.

The issue with the Wahabbi's is well known and large numbers of Muslims are concerned themselves about Saudi Arabia's oil dollar fueled program.

If you think these comments of mine are "train wreck" or "cesspool", you are not very well informed on the issue.
 

Thank you, EO.  That offers helpful context.

EDIT:  Since you edited your post, I will respond to the edited additions.  I hope my initial comment above (left unchanged) doesn't convey the idea that I find your response a "cesspool" or "trainwreck".  I stopped following the thread to which Mely refers some time ago, before your content was added.  At the time, it was a trainwrecked intellectual cesspool.  I had no reason to believe that anything had changed there, until this last post of yours.

All that has been discussed and documented on the so-called train wreck thread.

I am not following that thread either anymore.  The topic is too vague and would need to be broken into specific areas to make it more coherent.  

All I meant was that it was possible to be concerned about radical Islamic extremists without being a hopeless bigot.

I agree.  Why did you feel that such a point needed to be made to me?

I am pretty new here and don't know people's background and opinions.   Maybe I am paranoid.  

Fair enough.  I've jumped the gun on people enough times that it'd be hypocritical to say anything about that. :)

I would be interested to hear Omni's opinion on this. For me, I see no problems with what the school is doing - nor with what is happening at Emmanuel. The students there will have a far more rounded education than those at other Christian theology schools and that can only be a good thing.

Before I start off I'd like to make a comment on Irony.  The US spends billions of dollars fighting the drug trade from South America...when almost all of the drug trade's profits COME from the US.  The US spends billions of dollars every year in it's "wars for freedom" against "radical islam" when the support for such "radical islam" comes mostly from Saudi Arabia, and is funded by the oil the US is dependant on.  IRONY.

Now, to the topic; I think it is a great idea!  Far too often I see people making assumptions about Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.  What better way to actually learn about the three great Abrahami religions than to co-exist with them in the same theology school??  I personally would love to study at such a place!  Despite Mely's pessimism and Berserk's comments I think that this could be a force for good in the world. 

Every single Imam that is trained in Canada is one less Wahabbi running around.  One more moderate ''voice'' (I say voice in quotation marks because all too often people don't understand that there is not "standing clergy" in Islam, and think that only the comments of what they percieve to be "standing clergy" to be valid comments on the state of Islam in the modern world.  Why are so many muslims radical?  I think the question one should be looking for is why are so many Imams radical?).

I'll leave it at that for now, and come check back later!

As-salaamu alaikum

-Omni

P.S.  Happy Advent for all you practicing Christians!

About time that the three Abrahamic religions joined hands!

Look, us atheists are doing everything we can to give you a common enemy, but you still distrust one-another.  If you three can't come together over the threat posed by rational thought, it just ain't gonna happen.

I'm afraid you may be right, chansen.

But there's always hope.

Actually, I am favour of all religions joining hands, including atheists and agnostics. This forum is an attempt in that direction, is it not?

Just to be clear what Emmanuel College is doing: it is offering a course entitled " Islamic Spirituality in a Health Care Setting, the first course offered in Emmanuel College’s new Canadian Certificate in Muslim Studies program. For now it’s a non-degree pilot program, but in the coming years, the school plans to add a master of pastoral studies track for Muslims, more Muslim professors and perhaps a centre for Islamic studies.

The full article can be found at

http://www.ucobserver.org/faith/2010/09/muslim_studies/

This idea of interfaith studies is really an old idea - McGill did and does that - and Harvard did and does this - from the 60's on.  Chicago did this and does this from the 60's on ( I studied the three faiths there, though our understanding of Islam was not as good as it is today)

Just like Judaism and Christianity - there are fundamentalists within Islam  and it is only through openness to Islam that we will help turn the tide.   We know the harm fundamentalism does in both Judaism and Christianity and the more ecumenical and inter faith our training is the more we create a more humane, harmonious, beautiful world, we counter fundamentalism ( and it is also true the true believers use this move as a sign of unfaithfulness and this is why there is a push within the Muslem community on the part of some for purity, and why there is an equal push back for a more 'canadian' Islam.  If we continue to worry about the extremes the more we make it difficult for the moderates to create a new reality.)

Comparative religion is one of the courses I regularly taught in a university for 12 years.  At Princeton Seminary, I took a course on Comparative Religion, and other courses were taught on Hinduism and Buddhism.  The course I taught and the one I took at Princeton were exclusively descriptive and respectaful of all religious traditions.  I never critiqued these other religions in class; on the contrary, I stressed the many lessons Christians can learn from them.  That said, I believe that, as a pastor, the missionary effort to convert adherents of other faiths to Christianity is an essential aspect of fulfilling Jesus' great commission of Matthew 28:16-20.  This stress on evanglelism does not imply that all Hindus, Buddhists, etc, will not inherit eternal life.   God is the final arbiter of that issue.   But Bible-based Christianity views itself as the source of God's fullest revelation.  The new Clairmont inter-faith initiative presupposes that this perspective is too narrow and intolerant.  But for me, Clairmont offers just enough Christian spirituality to vaccinate seekers against the real thing.   It is not hard to sell alternative seminaries like Princeton and Duke as far superior places to get a good and balanced theological education, with their theologically diverse and well balanced faculity and student body. 

Having studied at Claremont you criticism is not based in fact - Berserk.  The courses ( and teach)I took in interfaith was not that different from what you learned and taught.  One can suggest that the question of why this faith is important to me might have the impact of the person asking the question might take the same path.  Conversion is not to impose but to invite, to suggest what the other might be missing, but not in the sense we have the only truth,  Yes there is something in Christianity that gives a full experience of God but it is a difference in degree not kind.

You forget that I'm not objecting to the Claremont that used to be.  My thesis advisor was close firiends of James M. Robinson and one of my best professors at Princeton was Bill Mordoch, a transfer from Claremont ,though he was not retained due a personality clash with Bruce Metzger. 

I know you are not talking about the past, however in my latest conversations with friends on faculty at Claremont I find there is still a deep theological committment that I found there - for example there is the John Cobb chair in theology and they now offer a phd in process thought, one of the few that does that.  Now that could also be a problem for many traditional christians do not like process theology.... so I think you are over reacting.

If you had even read a little bit of that thread you would know that it was Omni who posted about Wahabbi extremism being sponsered by Saudi Arabia and spread around the world. 

Axdgari, wondering why OC wrote that it was possible to be concerned about radical Islam without being a bigot, wrote:

Probably because of the rude and off-hand way you dismissed me and the long Muslim thread as an  "intellectual cesspool and train wreck".  Did you know that OC and I are sisters? 

I made no comment on whether you were responsible for the state of that thread.  Threads on entirely valid and important topics are capable of being turned into the moral equivalent of mentally-handicapped midget wrestling for food-stamps - even temporarily.  There's enough bitching, vitriol and dodgy information in that thread that I am unwilling to sift through it.  I would be willing to read a specific post, if you were to give the page and #/time.

By the way, what is the relevance of your familiar relationship to EO?

Well I started the thread, and have been posting most of the "dodgy"  information, and the vitriol on the thread is directed at me, so it is not unreasonable for me to take your remark personally.    The reason there is bitchyness and vitriol on the thread is because most people at wondercafe  think the topic is NOT valid or important (or at least not polite). 

 I just mentioned it in passing that EO is my sister--no significance.  I suppose I was trying to figure out why you were being civil to her but not to me.  

Wahabbis' strike again!  In their view, only their narrow interpretation of Islam is correct.  So they consider Shiites to be non-Muslims.

We desperately need to support moderate Muslims....

From article in Wall Street Journal,

========= Start quote

Violence Erupts in Saudi Holy City

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia—Violent clashes broke out between residents of the Saudi holy city of Medina on the day minority Shiite Muslims commemorated the death of their most sacred saint, a security official said Saturday.

The official refused to elaborate on the cause of Thursday's clashes, but a Shiite news website called Rasid reported that hundreds of Sunni hard-liners attacked those participating in the commemorations, known as Ashoura. The day of mourning marks the killing of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson Hussein in the year 680 in present day Iraq.

The slaying of Hussein is a defining moment in the history of Islam and helped seal the split between the faith's two main sects, Sunnism and Shiism. In recent years, attacks by Sunni extremists have marred Ashoura commemorations in Iraq, Pakistan and other places of strife.

Shiites are 10% of predominantly Sunni Saudi Arabia's 22.6 million people. They complain of discrimination, saying they are barred from key positions in the military and government and are not given an equal share of the country's wealth.

During Thursday's clashes, security forces were deployed to disperse the crowds, the security official said.

The Rasid website said residents of Medina's Asbaa neighborhood, which is mostly Sunni, used poles and stones in their assault against Shiites in the nearby Qabaa district, home to a number of Shiite places of worship.

Several Saudi newspapers reported the violence, but for the most part without mentioning any sectarian element.

Though one paper, Al-Riyadh, blamed ``young zealots who were wearing black clothes,'' in a reference to Shiites participating in the mourning rituals.

The Saudi Medina daily said 38 people were arrested, three policemen were injured and 36 cars were damaged.

The Al-Watan daily said security forces fired gunshots in the air after failing for two hours to end the clashes.

Sunni distrust of Shiites is both religious and political. The hard-line Wahhabi school of Islam, which is the state religion in Saudi Arabia, considers Shiites infidels.

The government is thought to fear that Saudi Shiites will be emboldened by the increased power of Shiites in Iraq since the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein. They also are concerned that Shiite power Iran will use fellow Shiites to destabilize the kingdom. AP-TK-18-12-10 1015GMT

=== end quote

follow

Interesting!  I guess a conservative response might be to suggest that, in your educational experience, there was some influence of the type that the article was concerned with.  It is revealed in your response "gave us a solid understanding of the breadth and depth of the Christian Gospel,"  It is the modifucation or liberization of the Gospel that is of utmost concern.  If the Gospel is changed to meet the "needs" of other faiths to become inclusive of other faiths or behaviors indicated social trends then it becomes something other than the Gospel of our Lord, Jesus.  The Gospel is intended to transform lives; not to accept all thought, belief and behavior.

The Gospel is not so wide and it does not need widening.  I think it much more appropriate to state that a seminary should give us a much more solid understanding of the breadth and depth of the Christian experience.