Introduction: “Let us arrive at a statement that is common to us all”
In February 2019, during the first-ever apostolic journey of a pope to the Arabian Peninsula - on behalf of Christians and Muslims everywhere - Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmad Al-Tayyeb engaged in several fraternal and open discussions about contemporary issues facing people in the world today. These mutual and friendly dialogues in Abu Dhabi resulted in the forging of an interreligious document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together. Dubbed, “the Abu Dhabi document,” on human fraternity (cited as ‘AD’ for future references) Francis and Al-Tayyeb propose that “Faith leads a believer to see in the other a brother or sister to be supported and loved… believers are called to express this human fraternity by safeguarding creation and the entire universe and supporting all persons, especially the poorest and those most in need” (AD, 2019). This document did not just serve as a list of theological agreements between two traditions. Rather it constituted a real pact and proposal between leaders of different religious traditions to all people of goodwill.
The Abu Dhabi Document challenges the world to re-discover and re-establish a new kind of universal ethic of ‘mission’; the mission of building a “human fraternity that embraces all human beings, unites them, and renders them equal” (AD, 2019). There have been religious groups in the past intent on covering up the truth of God’s justice, promoting structures of oppression rooted in force/violence, greed, and indifference. Faith, on the other hand, and the ethic of human fraternity requires cooperation, understanding, and most of all “living as brothers and sisters who love one another” (AD, 2019). Francis and Al-Tayyeb propose these three categories as the ethical framework for fraternal mission: “the adoption of a culture of dialogue as the path; mutual cooperation as the code of conduct; reciprocal understanding as the method and standard” (AD, 2019) This essay will follow this framework to distill an interreligious theology of mission for today.
One may ask, to what extent can one talk about ‘mission,’ or the study of ‘missiology’ outside of Christianity? While ‘mission’ was always a dynamic practice and concept throughout the history of Christianity, ‘missiology’ as an area of theological study only developed relatively recently in the 19th century. ‘Mission’ is a loaded word today carrying thousands of years of Christian baggage. ‘Mission’ is often and not wrongly associated with structures that propagated agendas of colonization, violence, and erasure of culture. While many people around the world still suffer the effects of these structures of sin and await reconciliation, is it appropriate to talk about ‘mission’ in an interreligious context, especially one between two faith traditions with contentious histories between them? Or is God calling us to a new sense of our common mission as brothers and sisters working together for God’s peace? This author contends that the Abu Dhabi document puts forth such a model of mission: one that utilizes a pluralistic perspective rooted in the belief in God’s absolute freedom and preference for the poor.
Mission in this sense cannot be associated in any way with proselytism or extending the institutions of faith over and against the goals of human fraternity. This essay seeks to reframe the way one may have traditionally interpreted missionary activity. Religion is not a pyramid scheme. ‘Mission’ should be understood in this essay in the widest sense of the term, as faith commitments/ethical convictions lived out and embodied by people in their context. These actions do not happen within a vacuum. ‘Mission’ always involves the wider community among whom actors live out and share their faith commitments. ‘Mission’ is the life of faith that moves mere belief into the realm of liberative praxis. As a result of the Fifth General Conference of the Latin American and Caribbean Bishops, the Apareceda Document describes mission in its primordial form as centered on human life and its flourishing;
Life grows by being given away, and it weakens in isolation and comfort. Indeed, those who enjoy life most are those who leave security on the shore and become excited by the mission of communicating life to others… here we discover a profound law of reality: that life is attained and matures in the measure that it is offered up in order to give life to others. This is certainly what mission means (Apareceda Document, 360)
This author recognizes from the outset the limitations of this essay as originating from a Christian perspective and framing. One cannot avoid one’s context, but one can hope to engage one’s ethical narrative and religious worldview with that of the ‘other’. The Abu Dhabi document is as much a call to Christians as it is to Muslims. So while this essay seeks to engage the Muslim tradition with the Christian, it will require a Muslim response to the extent that the theory of mission presented here resonates with a Muslim audience or doesn’t. Maybe Muslim brothers and sisters may interpret the praxis of the Abu Dhabi document differently in light of their knowledge of their own traditions. Maybe another word besides ‘mission’ will emerge as a more egalitarian praxis. It is this author's sincere and humblest desire to take the words of the Qur’an seriously when it encourages Muslims and Christians to “arrive at a statement that is common to us all.” (Qur’an 3:64) The Abu Dhabi document echoes this call and asks “that this Document become the object of research and reflection in all schools, universities and institutes of formation, thus helping to educate new generations to bring goodness and peace to others, and to be defenders everywhere of the rights of the oppressed and of the least of our brothers and sisters” (AD, 2019). This essay is a product of this call and an attempt at a faith-filled response.
“Reciprocal Understanding as method and standard”: Finding Unity in Diversity
The Abu Dhabi document starts from a position of appreciation and respect for the diversity of religious traditions. Francis and Al-Tayyeb model human fraternity by their very willingness to work together on behalf of all people to promote peace and justice rather than working as solo agents within their respective traditions. As a Muslim/Christian agreement, the document itself takes on the pluralistic attitude of its creators. More than a theological challenge, the document proposes that religious pluralism is a gift ultimately willed by God. As such, it is incumbent upon believers not to argue or proselytize, but to embrace the freedom of human beings to be different.
The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings. This divine wisdom is the source from which the right to freedom of belief and the freedom to be different derives. Therefore, the fact that people are forced to adhere to a certain religion or culture must be rejected, as too the imposition of a cultural way of life that others do not accept; (AD, 2019)
Believers should promote freedom and reject all those ways in which religious traditions try to dominate others through a sense of superiority. While at different times in history some Christians and Muslims have adopted antagonistic attitudes toward one another, the creators of the Abu Dhabi document believe that pluralism is a traditional value that needs to be rediscovered from within their traditions. Diversity is certainly a positive value found in the Qur’an. Not only is the diversity of people and traditions ordained by God, but diversity is often instigated by prophets whose messages from God create different ethical paths.
Mankind was a single community, then God sent prophets to bring good news and warning, and with them He sent the Scripture with the Truth, to judge between people in their disagreements. It was only those to whom it was given who disagreed about it after clear signs had come to them, because of rivalry between them. So by His leave God guided the believers to the truth they had differed about: God guides whoever He will to a straight path. (Qur’an 2:13)
God is willing to work with all people to achieve God’s message of truth, and it is in God’s hands how God will lead each person to ‘a straight path’. The prophetic nature of this diversity is one constant between the Christian and Muslim traditions and will be examined more closely in the last section of this paper on ‘Dialogue.’ Both the Qur’an and the Bible describe a time when humanity acted as a single community, and in God’s wisdom God saw fit to diversify the people instead. This same pattern is found in the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 when “the whole earth had one language and the same words” (Genesis 11:1). The people’s attempt to “make a name” for themselves by building a tower to the heavens to evade being “scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth,” (Genesis 11:4) went against the divine imperative stated earlier in Genesis 9:1 to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” But this plan is short-lived as God saw fit to,
go down and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth. (Genesis 11:9)
What does this diversity do for humanity and how does it accomplish God’s will? On face value, historical differences between Christians and Muslims can seem insurmountable. Does diversity of thought and belief lead to anything other than conflict and division?
First, the insistence on diversity speaks to God’s nature. God’s purview is not isolated to one people or one culture. Such a view limits God who is “all hearing and all knowing.,” (Qur’an 2:256) and makes God as small as we are. God is greater than any one tradition in particular. Second, diversity reframes the telos of truth. It is not enough to simply know that one is on the right path. The Qur’an states that God, “assigned a law and a path to each of you. If God had so willed, He would have made you one community, but He wanted to test you through that which He has given you, so race to do good: you will all return to God and He will make clear to you the matter you differed about” (Qur’an 5:48). Only God will be able to resolve our deepest disagreements. In the meantime, believers are called not to idly sit by and wait for God to settle their disputes. Rather the Qur’an encourages people to ‘race to do good.’ Pluralism encourages believers to let go of their theological battles with religious ‘others,’ and focus rather on competing to do good.
Thirdly, religious pluralism does not imply religious complacency. The whole reason that there is diversity is so that relationships and true understanding between individuals and communities may flourish. The Qur’an reminds us that God “created you from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other” (Qur’an 49:13). Believers should take advantage of the gift of religious pluralism to get to know other people and learn more about the infinite ways God is working in the world. Religious pluralism creates a humble disposition among believers who trust that God listens to all people. It moves people to focus on doing good rather than merely asserting truth-claims, and it ultimately should lead people closer to one another in a spirit of mutual learning and understanding.
Religious pluralism does not just stop at respecting people of faith at the exclusion of unbelievers. Francis and Al-Tayyeb are both concerned with calling even unbelievers to the mission of human fraternity. “This Declaration may constitute an invitation to reconciliation and fraternity among all believers, indeed among believers and non-believers, and among all people of goodwill; this Declaration may be an appeal to every upright conscience that rejects deplorable violence and blind extremism; an appeal to those who cherish the values of tolerance and fraternity that are promoted and encouraged by religions” (AD, 2019). How can one reconcile this extension of cooperation to unbelievers with how unbelievers have been treated historically by both Christians and Muslims alike?
In the Qur’an, the word ‘kufr’ has often been translated to mean unbeliever or infidel, with passages sometimes being interpreted as blanket condemnation of all people outside institutional Islam. However, this term has the literal meaning of ‘covering up’ and ‘concealing’ the truth. It also has the qualities of signifying one who is ‘ungrateful’ and ‘arrogant’. There are many instances where ‘Kufr’ is used to describe people who remain silent amid oppressive systems (5:79), those who participate in oppressing the weak (4:168; 14:13), and those who refuse to support the poor out of their own means (2:254; 3:179; 9:34; 41:7). In Qur’an, Liberation & Pluralism: An Islamic Perspective of Interreligious Solidarity Against Oppression, scholar Farid Esack states that “Kufr was connected to the active and violent opposition to the prophets of God and a determination to destroy their mission” (Esack, 1997, 137). He goes on to say that Kufr is antagonistic to the ideals of justice promoted by the prophets, but individual instances of the use of ‘kufr’ require interpretation.
A common thread of issues connected to justice runs through the exegesis of the phrase: collective guilt and punishment, facing the consequences of one’s deeds and the relationship between those sent as prophets of God and those struggling for justice… The qur’anic commitment to justice and the linking of the prophets to those who enjoin justice, on the one hand, and kufr to those who support injustice on the other, require a determination to make such distinctions, and to search for the hermeneutical means to make this possible (Esack, 143)
Esack affirms the meaning of ‘kufr’ as one who rejects a gift. As stated above, pluralism is seen as ordained by God, and it would certainly be a rejection of God’s gift to work against the diversity of our respective traditions. There is an overarching theme of pluralism being connected to prophecy, and prophecy being connected to a mission of justice to the poor and oppressed. This mission includes religious ‘others’ insofar as all people are willing to cooperate in doing good, and reject those paths that lead to further oppression, indifference, and concealment of the truth. The ultimate value expressed across these readings is not simply belonging to ‘the correct tradition.’ Even religious ‘others’ can be led by God to fulfill God’s mission on earth. There is perhaps no greater image of this model of mission than the one offered by Jesus of Nazareth in his parable of the Good Samaritan. In Luke 10:25-37, Jesus responds to an expert in the law who questions him about what one must do to gain eternal life. When pressed to define who one’s neighbor is and to whom one owes their love, Jesus tells the story of a Samaritan - a non-jew - who is the only one to come to the aid of an oppressed person. While a Levite and a priest simply pass the beaten man on the side of the road, the Samaritan - a religious outsider - represents the true exemplar of what it means to fulfill one’s obligation to the law of Moses. After seeing a man beaten half to death on the side of the road, the Samaritan was “moved with compassion. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, treating them with oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him” (Luke 10:34).
Ultimately it is the image of this religious ‘other’ that inspired Pope Francis when he wrote Fratelli Tutti in 2020, a follow-up to the Abu Dhabi document. The Good Samaritan is the model for building human fraternity precisely because, despite being a religious ‘other,’ he exemplified the care for one’s neighbor that the law of Moses truly demanded. Francis writes,
The parable eloquently presents the basic decision we need to make in order to rebuild our wounded world. In the face of so much pain and suffering, our only course is to imitate the Good Samaritan. Any other decision would make us either one of the robbers or one of those who walked by without showing compassion for the sufferings of the man on the roadside. The parable shows us how a community can be rebuilt by men and women who identify with the vulnerability of others, who reject the creation of a society of exclusion, and act instead as neighbours, lifting up and rehabilitating the fallen for the sake of the common good. At the same time, it warns us about the attitude of those who think only of themselves and fail to shoulder the inevitable responsibilities of life as it is. (Fratelli Tutti, 2020, 66)
“Mutual Cooperation as the Code of Conduct”: Can we work together?
The approach toward other religions expressed in the Abu Dhabi Document resonates with some of the language used in the Second Vatican Council Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate. The council calls all people to a new work, to a mission greater than the conflicts that exist between them.
Since in the course of centuries not a few quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Muslims, this sacred synod urges all to forget the past and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all humankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom. (Nostra Aetate, 3)
In this statement, the council is not urging people to forget their faith traditions. Such an interpretation would contradict an important desire of the council to return to the sources of tradition, as it encouraged religious orders to do in Perfectae Caritatis, promoting a “constant return to the sources” and “to the original spirit” of the institutes’ founders (Perfectae Caritatis, 2). Rather, the council is encouraging all people to let go of hostilities that have historically prevented them from promoting the common good of all peoples. This also means that the path toward a fraternal mission between us can be found in our respective sources.
Sources in the history of Islam and Christianity point to a ‘common work’ between us. The Qur’an and certain hadiths attest to an encounter between the Prophet Muhammad and a delegation of 14 Christians (possibly Melchite Orthodox) from Najran (Yemen) visiting Medina (Ramadan, 2006, 114). It is unclear when exactly this event took place, but the event is profound nonetheless because of what one can learn about the Prophet’s own response to the religious ‘other,’ and the generosity of the Prophet in sharing life and faith with them. The delegation wanted to hear and learn about the Prophet’s faith and ultimately what he thought about Jesus. While the Prophet Muhammad laid out the connections between his prophetic work and that of Jesus and invited the Christians into Islam, the delegation could not accept the Prophet’s words about the Trinity. Before the delegation left Medina, they wanted to pray in the Mosque, and while the Prophet’s Companions did not want them to, the Prophet himself permitted the Christians to pray in the mosque facing east. Such a gesture of religious hospitality cannot be taken for granted. In Tariq Ramadan’s In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of the Prophet, the encounter demonstrates the Prophet Muhammad’s respect for the freedom to be found in faith. Ramadan writes,
The delegation went home. The Christians had come to Medina, inquired about the message, listened to the contents of the new religion, put forward their arguments, prayed inside the mosque itself, then gone back without suffering any harm, remaining Christians and perfectly free. The first Companions were not to forget the Prophet's attitude. They were to draw from it the substance of the respect that Islam demands of its faithful, whom it invites to go beyond tolerance, to learn, listen, and recognize others’ dignity. The command “No compulsion in religion” is in keeping with this respectful approach to diversity. (Ramadan, 116)
While the nature of the Prophet’s responsibility toward people of other faith commitments is varied in its representation in the Qur’an, Esack wonders to what extent the Prophet Muhammad is responsible to people of other religions if their faith commitment was authentic. Esack argues that “the Qur’an, thus, is explicit only about inviting to God and to the ‘path of God’” (Esack, 174). The Prophet still had a responsibility to challenge people’s deviation from their own faith traditions while also presenting “the Qur’an’s own guidance for consideration and acceptance.” (Esack, 173). The process of challenging and inviting is the responsibility of all prophets, and everyone’s responsibility today in cultivating a new prophetic consciousness in the world.
The Najran delegation acts as a corollary to an encounter between two religious leaders almost 600 years later in Damietta, Egypt. St. Francis of Assisi, the Umbrian mendicant who began his own religious order of ‘lesser brothers,’ visited Egypt in 1219 during the Fifth Crusade. At the time, Christian crusaders, at the behest of Pope Innocent III, were besieging the Muslim city of Damietta. Francis by all accounts wanted to either be martyred for his faith or succeed in converting the Muslims. This was a rather typical, if unfortunate, perspective of Christian mission at the time. Yet something profound occurred during his visit to Egypt that changed the trajectory of his journey. After experiencing the gruesome nature of war and failing to convince the Crusaders to stop fighting, he disobeyed the directives of the Church officials and entered the camp of Sultan Melek-el-Kamel. We know very little of what Francis and the Sultan said to one another. However, we at least know the substance of their encounter from Francis’ companion Jordan of Giano, who writes,
[Francis] was led into [the Sultan's] presence and was received by him with much honor and was humanely cared for in his illness. And when he decided to return, because he could do nothing there, the Sultan had him accompanied by an armed escort to the Christian army which was then besieging Damietta. (Hermann, 1961) [emphasis added]
Jordan of Giano does not write to slander an unbelieving enemy. At a time of literal war between different religions, Jordan of Giano recognizes how the Sultan, a political and military leader of the people Pope Innocent III declared war on, demonstrated an ethic of hospitality, respect, and care for his brother Francis. Jordan of Giano admits that there is something about this encounter that transcended the times they were living. The perceived failure of the mission can only be justified because the mission "had been sent before its time, and since the time for each thing is written in heaven" (Hermann, 1961).
This encounter led to the first rule in the West to include a section on mission to non-Christians. In his Early Rule of 1221, Francis articulates an ethic of mission that is imbued with the Franciscan conception of minority, of being “subject to” all people in service. Francis articulates two modes of mission; "One way is not to engage in arguments or disputes but to be subject to every human creature for God's sake and to acknowledge that they are Christians. The other way is to announce the Word of God, when they see it pleases the Lord” (Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, 1999, 100). Francis’s conception of mission transcends the proselytizing and violent models of the Crusader culture. Francis adopts a new way of living out the gospel among religious ‘others.’ Ultimately, Francis’ model of mission is ‘minority,’ or being ‘lesser’ and ‘subject’ to all. Both encounters, in Damietta and in Medina, act as foundations for the kind of cooperation called for in the Abu Dhabi Document. Both accounts end with Christians and Muslims remaining within their respective traditions, and both accounts are motivated by a sense of respect and care for religious ‘others’. And while no converts were made, these accounts point to a deeper sense of mission than merely extending institutional reach. Both encounters support the Abu Dhabi document’s call for “men and women of culture in every part of the world, to rediscover the values of peace, justice, goodness, beauty, human fraternity and coexistence in order to confirm the importance of these values as anchors of salvation for all, and to promote them everywhere” (AD, 2019)
“A Culture of Dialogue as the Path:” From Mere Tolerance to Prophetic Mission
The missiological perspective of the Abu Dhabi Document can best be described as what Stephen Bevans and Roger Shroeder identify as a Type C theology of mission as a commitment to liberation and transformation in their book, Constants in Context: a Theology of Mission for Today. The Abu Dhabi Document puts the good of the whole person and all people, particularly the vulnerable, at the center of its mission. Francis and Al-Tayyeb go to great lengths to dedicate this document in the name of all the oppressed throughout the world; refugees, orphans, widows, the poor, the destitute, and the innocent victims of war, terrorism, and systemic injustices. They are the reason for this document and their welfare is the goal of the mission of human fraternity. While the mission of human fraternity must involve an effort to include all, this inclusion cannot allow us to lose sight of the marginalized in our midst. Mission cannot maintain the status quo of human life, because “Being human means, therefore, to be concerned with justice and committed to service,” (Bevans/Schroeder, 2004, 321).
Type C theology is not only the earliest model of Christian mission identified by Bevans and Schroeder, but it is the model of mission best suited, in their opinion, for the 21st century: “Our conviction is that prophetic dialogue best names the service to which God is calling it [the church] in these first years of a new century and a new millennium. Prophetic dialogue, in other words, is the phrase that best summarizes a theology of mission for today, keeping the church constant in this context.” (Bevans/Schroeder, 395)
Dialogue, as envisioned by Bevans and Schroeder, is multifaced and can be expressed in different ways. In the dialogue of life, people of varying faith commitments seek to share life with one another in concrete expressions, such as sharing meals, work, or civic duties. This kind of dialogue can help overcome basic fears about one’s neighbors and bring about deeper ties of friendship and understanding. Dialogue of theological exchange occurs when experts from religious traditions share their knowledge and ultimately wrestle with intellectual problems together. Dialogue of religious experience occurs when people share their spiritual expressions or ritual practices with one another in a spirit of prayer and inculturation. The fourth method of dialogue is that of action, which occurs when an honest interreligious effort is made to set aside differences to agree on a common solidarity with the poor and marginalized. (Bevans/Schroeder, 383-384) Francis and Al-Tayyeb utilize these methods in their relationship with one another, but it is clear that the dialogue of action is a necessary element to the creators’ vision of fraternity as solidarity with the oppressed. The Abu Dhabi document argues for a dialogue that goes beyond mere tolerance. Not only are people called to avoid unproductive discussions, but they are also called to build relationships with one another, “so that each can be enriched by the other’s culture through fruitful exchange and dialogue” (AD, 2019).
Schroeder and Bevans call this “prophetic dialogue.” Prophetic dialogue and liberation find expression across Muslim, Jewish, and Christian theologies. For Bevans and Schroeder, there need to be “both moments of unmasking, when the truth of injustice is told, and a moment of constructive suggestion, when the principles of the gospel and Christian social doctrine are presented” (Bevans/Schroeder, 371). This aligns with the prophetic mode identified by both Esack and scholars like Walter Brueggemann who see the Exodus community as an archetypal narrative for a prophetic consciousness of liberation. In the Prophetic Imagination, Brueggemann writes that
“The mythic claims of the empire are ended by the disclosure of the alternative religion of the freedom of God. In place of the gods of Egypt, creatures of the imperial consciousness, Moses discloses God the sovereign one who acts in his lordly freedom, is extrapolated from no social reality, and is captive to no social perception but acts from his own person toward his own purposes… Moses dismantles the politics of oppression and exploitation by countering it with a politics of justice and compassion.” (Brueggemann, 2001, 16)
Brueggemann argues that the prophetic mode both criticizes and energizes. While models that support oppression and injustice must be dismantled, the prophet also energizes people into a new mode of being in the world, a new mode defined by a reversal of ethical expectations. Esack also sees the Qur’an as a force for justice in the world as it obliges its adherents to destroy oppression and establish right relations (Esack, 105). This ethic, says Esack, is rooted in the pluralism of the Qur’an and constitutes a universal call to liberative praxis.
The context of this pluralism, though, was not a vague commitment to all forms of otherness; indeed some forms of Otherness are vehemently opposed and the Qur’an does not hesitate to encourage the severest forms of opposition to them. Instead, the Qur’an roots its own pluralism in a common struggle against oppression and injustice. Rather than a fashionable interfaith dialogue, we see an unarticulated solidarity with the marginalized and exploited that crosses narrow doctrinal lines. The basis of the pluralism being postulated in the Qur’an is, one may say, liberative praxis. (Esack, 203)
This essay has been progressing in a method proposed by the Abu Dhabi Document itself which articulated its ethic as “a culture of dialogue as the path; mutual cooperation as the code of conduct; reciprocal understanding as the method and standard” (AD, 2019). These three methods represent the structure of Francis’ and Al-Tayyeb’s proposal for an interreligious mission and ethic. As demonstrated above, understanding the sources of our respective traditions is integral to any attempt at interreligious work. A survey of biblical and qur’anic texts indicates that diversity among cultures and religions is willed by God. This pluralism moves believers to learn from one another and cooperate in doing good rather than arguing over the truth. This prophetic work is not an innovation of our respective traditions but represents a core constant between them. All of this should lead to fruitful dialogue that benefits everyone but should seek to benefit the poor and oppressed before all else. In fact, solidarity with the poor constitutes a universal element of our mission together as believers, one that transcends all conflicts between us.
The Abu Dhabi document is not shy in calling all people to a new way of sharing life together. In the Christian tradition, sharing one’s faith commitments with others has typically been understood as the church’s ‘mission.’ But what this ‘living out’ and ‘sharing’ looks like exactly is varied across time and context. However, it remains a question to what extent in the 21st century we are asked to share our faith commitments at all. Both Pope Francis and Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmad Al-Tayyeb propose that God is not just calling people individually within their traditions, but together to form a new kind of human fraternity that is grounded in the spirit of our founders and energized by an ethic of dialogue and liberation. This author believes that such a mission is not impossible but will require partners of all faith traditions and nonbelievers to cooperate in forging such a liberative reality. For, as Esack writes
The responsibility of calling humankind to God and to the path of God will thus remain. The task of the present-day Muslim is to discern what this means in every age and every society. Who is to be invited? Who is to be taken as allies in this calling? How does one define the path of God? These are particularly pertinent questions in a society where definitions of Self and Other are determined by Justice and injustice, oppression and liberation and where the test of one’s integrity as a human being dignified by God is determined by the extent of one’s commitment to defend that dignity. (Esack, 175)
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