March 3, 2008

Presenters at an interfaith seminar about how Christians and Muslims understand Jesus.

There are those moments in life when everything seems to come together, and you can hardly wait to share the experience with others. I had one of those moments on a recent Saturday morning when Jakarta Theological Seminary hosted a seminar entitled, “Jesus Christ: Points of Contact and Points of Disagreement between Islam and Christianity.” Maybe my nerdiness shows when I admit I am that excited about a seminar, but I hope you will see why I feel this way as I describe it.

Bambang Subandrijo

The panel at the seminar consisted of three Indonesians. The first person to speak was Bambang Subandrijo, an alumnus of the seminary who has just finished his dissertation, which has the same title as the seminar. He began the speech by acknowledging that, at the beginning of his research, he was very anxious about how it might be received by Muslims. Much to his surprise, he was always met with the deepest appreciation. For most of the people with whom he spoke, it was the first time a Christian had taken the time to ask them what they thought of Jesus. Now, at this crucial point when he offers his work to the public for the first time, he is much more anxious about whether Christians are ready to hear what he has to say.

In both Islam and Christianity, he sees reflected the same fundamental truth: that humans have no adequate words for the Infinite. When attempting to describe finite human experience of the Infinite, followers of both faiths describe God as truly singular and beyond compare. For Muslims, Jesus is one of the most important prophets of Israel. In Islamic texts, Jesus is the only prophet given the honorific titles of Word of God and Spirit of God, as well as being called the Messiah. The Qur’an refers to Jesus as the sign, the image, and the icon of God, much like Colossians 1:15, “He is the image of the invisible God.” Mr. Subandrijo pointed out that the narratives about Jesus are longer in the Qur’an than they are in the Bible. The gist of the narratives is that Jesus represents God’s mercy; in other words, for both Muslims and Christians, in his words and deeds Jesus expresses God’s will for God’s people. Mr. Subandrijo concluded that for greater understanding between our two faiths, we should focus on orthopraxy rather than orthodoxy, in which Jesus’ words and deeds expressing God’s desire for shalom for all human beings are shared by Muslims and Christians alike.

Hasibullah Satrawi

The second speaker, Hasibullah Satrawi, is a researcher for the Moderate Muslim Society here in Jakarta. He spent the last five years studying Arabic and Qur’anic interpretation in Cairo, Egypt. He started his presentation by describing a story about Jesus in the Qur’an, one that surprised even him. The story is of a conversation between God and Jesus. God says to Jesus, “Are you and your mother teaching people to worship yourselves as gods?” Jesus responds humbly and diplomatically, “You know everything; you would know if I had said that. I told them to serve you. If you decide to punish them, they become your servants, but if you forgive them, then you are the noble and wise One.” According to Mr. Satrawi, the Qur’an relates this story as a sign of Jesus’ commitment to reconciliation and forgiving love, in much the same way Christians think of Jesus. Like Mr. Subandrijo, Mr. Satrawi noted that Jesus is called the Word of God, an honor never bestowed on any other prophet, not even Muhammad. He said that the Qur’an praises Jesus in a number of remarkable ways, including highlighting the story of the virgin birth.

In order to better understand Christianity, Mr. Satrawi said that he had been trying to study our theological history, but that he became very confused trying to remember all the councils and gatherings of the early church, much less trying to understand the doctrine of the Trinity itself. In spite of his frustration (which may well be shared by not a few Christians who have tried to sort out all those councils and multiple declarations), he is still very positive about finding points of commonality between Islam and Christianity. He reminded us that the three religions—Judaism, Christianity and Islam—are one family. Like squabbling siblings, we spend far too much time pointing out each other’s weaknesses and bragging about our own strengths. Instead, he feels, we should remind each other that as humans, each one of us has been created in the image of God and given the privilege of being partners with God in caring for creation. “Let’s be one again,” he asked, as we remember what we have in common rather than what keeps us apart, and as we work together in caring for one another and for the world.

Trisno Sutanto

The third and final speaker was Trisno Sutanto. Mr. Sutanto is Roman Catholic by birth, but he introduced himself by confessing that he had not been to church in five years, because he had been visiting Muslim communities throughout Indonesia. Wherever he went, he said he was met with warm welcomes and undisguised astonishment: no other Christian had expressed interest in visiting them. One of his goals was to hear what Muslims had to say about Jesus. Over and over again he ran into obstacles with doctrine. Muslims are adamant that God is one therefore Jesus cannot be a second God. Mr. Trisno noted that for Christians this can be hard to spell out practically: his own son asked him, “Daddy, if Jesus is God, who’s he always praying to?” Therefore, Mr. Trisno’s recommendation is that we unburden ourselves of the need to insist on our ontological definitions of God, i.e., what God is inside God’s self, which are, after all, only our rather feeble attempts to explicate the Inexplicable. In the end, our differences are negligible because both faiths confess the one real and absolute truth: God is one. Like Mr. Subandrijo, he suggests we focus instead on orthopraxy. He posed the question, “What if we thought about religion as not focusing so much on what we believe as on how we treat others in our everyday life?” With the many problems threatening humankind: poverty, disease, climate change, human trafficking, and so on, should we not be working together rather than against one another merely because of our doctrines? He concluded his presentation by quoting Augustine, “The son of God became a son of man to make many sons of God.”

As a paraphrase amenable to the beliefs of Islam and Christianity, I offer a similar sentiment, “The Image of God became human to make us realize the image of God within each of us.”

I hope you share my excitement in seeing this group of Christians and Muslims join together for a few hours here in Jakarta to recognize the image of God in one another, brought together by the power of the one true Image of God himself, Jesus Christ.

Rebecca Young

The 2008 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 94