Do not confuse religion with God

COMMENT It is almost typical of religious groups to make idols out of their religion. We should be cautious not to confuse religion with God. Religion is not God.

When religion replaces the centrality of God and seeks to place itself or its propagators at the centre, it becomes an idol. When religion is biased in favour of the ‘same kind' than ‘human kind' for all socio-economic and political advances, it becomes communal.

When religion is used as a means to create power, authority, privilege and wealth based on gender, race, colour, creed etc., and condemns and negates life of the ‘other', it becomes an oppressive political tool to subjugate the ‘other'.

When religion is used to judge the ‘other', it takes on the role of God, which is blasphemy. Though not intended as such, this may be one side of the reality of religions today in any society.

Religions and its scriptures are supposed to enable humanity to attain life in God and to be a non-communal liberating and life giving medium to fulfil the aspiration of humankind towards a fuller humanity.

They are meant to liberate people from dehumanising situations and relationships, enable them to experience freedom of thought and to develop them on the basis of social justice both within and outside the religion. It is meant to be a protector of God's creation and not of God.

Therefore, in a multi-religious context, a God centred approach is where we ‘think' of the other as the part of God's creation and his/her religion, faith, scripture, culture, race, language, colour, creed, gender etc., as unique experiences tied to his/her identity.

Hence, arguing about whose God is true and whose God are false does not come under the jurisdiction of religion and its followers.

We cannot meet the ‘other' on the assumption that his/her experiences are false and restrict his/her scripture and God experience based on our exclusive experiences.

Such a judgmental approach is a negation of the religious, cultural experience and identity of the ‘other' and places the other in an inferior position in our pluralistic society.

It is not enough to say that we have come to know God through our religion and religious scripture. We may be good in knowing the places, peoples', verses and chapters in our religious scripture, yet fail to have real encounter with God outside our exclusive religious experience.

Religious experience

It is outside our religious experience that we see the diversity of God's creation, viz., diversity of race, creed, colour, language, religion, gender, and various struggles of people.

Although scriptures, creeds, doctrines, prayers, and hymns are considered sacred by each religious tradition, it is also based on the experience of those who have understood God in their socio-religious-political context.

In that respect, it is not our story, but the story of those who have encountered God. For those who have encountered God, it was ‘real knowing of God', as distinguished from the scriptural or institutional ‘knowledge about God'.

In that way, the scripture guides, prompts, challenges and inspires us today to have a real encounter with God.

However, we should not limit our experience of God only through the written scripture (what the scripture says about God) or tradition and dogma (what others tell us we should believe about faith and God).

We should not limit our encounter with God to our scriptural knowledge, but make it real through our actions and deeds, outside our exclusive religious experience.

We must allow it to speak to us of what God can enable for us and for the 'other' in the particular socio-religious-political context in which we live today by allowing it to interact with the ‘other'.

A Quran and cross

Religion and scripture are meant to be non-communal and seeks to liberate the humanity from dehumanising situations and relationships.

A Muslim girl chants slogans and holds up a Quran and a Cross during a rally to demonstrate the unity between Muslims and Christians at Tahrir Square in Cairo March 11, 2011.

This means that when we are talking about Christianity or Islam or Hinduism or any other religion today in our multi-religious society, we are not talking about the history of these religions that existed many years ago, but the Christianity/ Islam/Hinduism/Sikhism/Bahai/Buddhism or any other religion that is existing today in our multi-religious and multi-cultural society and how followers of these religions can meaningfully relate their religion, scripture and spiritual experience to the ‘other' today for the common good of all Malaysians.

Hence, we do not have to be afraid of the scripture and religion of the ‘other' in our society.

Perhaps, in our quest for security and privilege, we tend to identify only our understanding of God with God, denying, tolerating and restricting the experience of the ‘other'.

We often tend to act like a judge for our God and create enemies in the name of our God, our religion and our scripture.

'Metal box'

We often attempt to shut, nail and lock our God, our religion and our scripture within our ‘metal box' for fear of the ‘other' or force the ‘other' to follow our path. When our God is challenged, we think God is being challenged.

Hence, we become defenders of our God and our religion, form God's infantry and soldiers of the faithful and even take weapons and kill our fellow beings or destroy him/her whom God has created, as if we are at war with the ‘other' - all in the name of our human understanding of God.

However, the unfolding tragic events in our world as well as our own actions show us the extent to which we are ignorant of our God.

For even as we say our God is truth, love, just, righteous and compassionate, we often fail to love and show compassion to the ‘other'; often we fail to be truthful, just and righteous to the ‘other', thereby we disprove our religion, our God and our 'exclusive' religious/spiritual experience.

The ‘true' character of our religion, our scripture and our exclusive religious experience as claimed by us is compromised and disproved when we fail to co-exist with the ‘other' and fail to be stewards of the ‘other' and God's creation.

The ‘true' becomes the ‘false' not because God is false, but because of our false witness and testimony and our inability to live out our religion, scripture and exclusive God experience.

The tsunami, the earthquakes, nuclear disasters, terrorism, war, colonialism, religious and ethnic conflicts, climate change, illiteracy, poverty, exploitation, peoples quest for freedom and justice and our personal and societal struggles etc. reveals the failure of the human kind to take care of God's creation and the ‘other'.

All these demonstrates the extent to which God longs to transform our vulnerable and failed situation; and a revelation that shows us what God can still enable for us in spite of our failure and what God requires from us, namely our engagement for and with the ‘other', who is different from us.

The experience of victims of these events becomes a real encounter with God. They encounter God in their quest for a fuller humanity, which is denied to them in this world. We too meet God when we meet their need for a life in all its fullness.

There is often a dichotomy between our faith and action when we become defenders and protectors of our God, religion and scripture but destructor and enemies of our fellow beings and God's creation because of our God understanding, our scripture and our exclusive religious experience. In all this, God remains the true God in spite our failure to witness God to the ‘other'.

That is why our understanding of God, our image of God, can ever be more than a limited understanding, and our experience and words about God, we must learn to admit, reveal our own struggle and yearning to describe our God experience...for in spite of our scriptural/religious knowledge about God, our experience of God is partial and incomplete because over and over again we fail to live our God experience even as we hold on to our faith in God.

This is why we must meekly accept that God is superior than our finite ability to understand. The more we try to go up the ladder in our knowledge about God, the more we should humbly admit that we are still far away from having a perfect experience of God.

This is the constant and common struggle of the humanity. Hence, we must persistently ask God to "help our unbelief" and continue to seek God rather than claiming advanced knowledge about God.

Therefore, we are incapable of placing our religion, our scripture and our exclusive God experience as superior to others and restrict the freedom of the religion and scripture of the ‘other'. Instead of restricting, we must allow it to interact in the society, outside our exclusive space, and living it through our deeds and actions.

By keeping God at the centre to connect us to the space of the ‘other', we are not negating our unique experiences, but affirming the diversity of God's creation.

It is in this space of the ‘other', the authenticity or erroneousness of our God understanding, our faith, our religion, our scriptural interpretations and teachings and our exclusive spiritual experience is tested, challenged and transformed.

It is where our understanding of what God can enable for the humanity who belongs to a different religion, ethnicity, colour, language, culture, gender, political ideology etc., are challenged and converted.

Deeper understanding

This will pave the way for a deeper understanding of our God experience, our scriptural teaching and interpretations and our faith. Therefore, religion, scripture and God experience of the ‘other' must be allowed to ‘happen' in a community for God's sake, our sake and for the sake of the ‘other'.

Hence, it is important for different religions and its propagators in Malaysia to jointly direct our society in the right path, guiding it to be open and enabling it to meet the fullness and diversity of reality around them and understand the reality of their God, who is also the God of the ‘other' in the ‘marketplace', the common space accessible to all Malaysians.

Life in any society cannot flourish in all its fullness if difference and diversity become controlled in favour of a dominating ‘exclusive' religious or cultural experience.

Therefore, we must not approach the religion, scripture, religious experience, race, creed, gender, language, culture etc., of the ‘other' with repressive fear and suspicion, but with wonder because our identity as part of God's creation, and as a human being is tied to the identity of the ‘other', who is different from us.

Here, we need to stand on equal footing with the ‘other' to know more of our God and what God wants us to do for and with the ‘other' in our society.

 

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REV THOMAS GEORGE is a priest of the Mar Thoma Church and is an activist of the interfaith network in Malaysia.

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