Jews, Christians, and Muslims working together

Violence in scripture

Theolog has an excellent post today about violence in scripture.

“Muslim leader Maher Hathout asked rhetorically before a packed sanctuary, ‘if we are so good, why are we so bad?’ … The keys to being good, he said, include justice, compassion and the ability to forgive, adding that doing right or wrong often gets impetus from one’s tendencies toward inclusion or exclusion respectively.”

“Confronting troubling principles in our faith’s teachings is often painful…”

“It is crucial to understand sacred texts in all three traditions through the lens of critical inquiry and contemporary thought…”

Well worth a read, and we’ll be keeping a lookout for the “Abrahamic Peace Initiative” referred to in the article.

Dave

Add comment June 27th, 2008

The Roots of Violence in our religions

By Dave

A new book by Bruce Chilton, “Abraham’s Curse: The roots of violence in our religions” was reviewed recently in the Jerusalem Post.

Chilton focuses on the story of the binding of Isaac / Ishmael as the archetypal story of martyrdom, but also finds numerous correctives from sacred texts in each tradition that clearly indicate that God does not want human beings to sacrifice ourselves or our children.

Chilton’s bottom line is that “the time is now for the Abrahamic religions to find a safe way down from Mount Moriah”, ie we need to overcome our violent histories and learn to live with each other.

Abraham’s Curse is available at Amazon.

2 comments May 30th, 2008