... in the footsteps of Abraham

Sydney
16 February 2003

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... in the footsteps of Abraham

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... in the footsteps of Abraham

By Sr Trish Madigan

One of the largely unattended dramas of our time is the profound questioning occurring at the core of each of the Abrahamic faiths - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - as they confront issues and problems unique to our modern (some would say post-modern) age.

The extent to which each religious family is able to address its own issues, which are a challenge to its self-understanding and identity, may well determine to what extent the world community will ever be able to live in peaceful harmony.

In the words of the theologian Hans Kung which have since become almost a slogan of the World Conference on Religion and Peace: "There will be no peace on earth until there is peace among the world religions."

For Jews a central issue to be faced is their relationship to the land of Israel in the context of the achieving of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.

Genuine and open discussion about the policies being followed by successive Israeli governments has been difficult to achieve in a climate of fear in which anything less than total and unconditional support for Israel is met with charges of disloyalty and anti-Semitism.

However, there are signs this is changing with growth in support for a number of Jewish peace groups such as Not in My Name and Brit Tzdek v'Shalom, the Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace.

In pointing to the values of justice, compassion, human dignity and fairness embedded in Jewish tradition and by their advocacy of civil rights they claim to be critical of Israel because of, not in spite of, their Jewish values.

They say we are all harmed in our humanity by oppression directed at any single group or individual.

Their commitment to nurturing Israel's well-being through a negotiated settlement is a hopeful sign in the midst of much pain and devastation.

For Muslims the question is how to bring their religious heritage into dialogue with a world increasingly shaped by the unrelenting forces of modernisation and globalisation, in which they perceive themselves to be under attack.

Modernity, carried to Islamic cultures by Western colonisers, often impacted brutally on the Muslim world and, in a protective reaction, Islamic tradition closed in on itself.

Yet tradition is not something fixed in history; it is essentially dynamic, lived anew in each generation in new shapes and forms.

Moderate Muslims are becoming more aware of the need to promote dialogue with contemporary western culture and are beginning to find a path which steers between fundamentalist Islamicist theocracy and sterile secularism. In attempting to find a way to shape a modern Islamic identity Muslims also are making a hopeful contribution towards building a civilisation of peace.

For the Christian Churches, leaving behind their fragmented identity of the past few centuries and journeying towards Christian unity, the issues to be confronted are centred on the internal renewal that is required if the Church is to carry out effectively its mission to proclaim that the reign of God is already among us (John 17:21).

Ecumenical documents consistently emphasise the constant need for renewal, both personally and structurally within the Church, recognising that while the essence of the Church never changes the outward forms in which the Church expresses itself have always been varied.

In his encyclical of 1995, Ut Unum Sint, Pope John Paul II reminds Christians of the importance of remaining open to the 'new situation' of today in addressing questions which affect every level of the Church's life.

In these ways Jews, Christians and Muslims continue today to tread in the footsteps of Abraham, their ancestor in faith, whose vocation was to be the embodiment of God's blessing on all the nations upon earth.

Sr Trish Madigan is liaison officer for the Archdiocesan Commission of Ecumenism.