John Du2019Arcy May. Coventry Press, 2019, (p210)
ISBN 9780648497783.
John Du2019Arcy May, an ecumenical scholar, gave a series of lectures in 2015 in the University of Frankfurtu2019s Inter-cultural Theology programme. In this new thoughtful book he presents a u201cconsiderably augmented and updatedu201d version, with a particular focus on potential readers in his native Australia.
Mayu2019s starting point is that the way particular societies operate is shaped in important ways by the presuppositions and worldviews of the people who make up that society. Stated that way it is, perhaps, an obvious enough point. But he argues that the connections between these u2018religionsu2019 and politics is often u201cextremely complexu201d and need to be much better understood if (as he aspires to) these traditions are in some sense to serve together as unifying forces across religious and cultural boundaries. His goal is, as he puts it, u201cto call into question the crass secularism of Western observers and dent their complacencyu201d.
The heart of Pluralism & Peace, and its greatest value to this reader at least, is the chapters in which he steps through a series of Asian-Pacific case studies illuminating the religions, and associated world views and values, that dominate each of those societies, and how the religious perspectives in turn interact now with the politics and the functioning of the respective society. There is also some valuable discussion along similar lines for pre-European Australia.
Mayu2019s call is for what he describes as u201ccollaborative theologyu201d. His aim is that this collective project should come to serve as something that might over time allow religion to serve as the u201cspiritual resourcesu201d that would make possible what he terms an u201cethical globalisationu201d. Without it, he argues, we can expect only a future of conflict and destruction.
His own political priors are on show. He is very much opposed to the policies of successive Australian governments around illegal migrants and u201cboat peopleu201d. He doesnu2019t seem that keen on a market-based economy either. Fair enough, but in a sense the one cultureu2014and the forces and beliefs that shaped itu2014that he doesnu2019t really take seriously enough seems to be his own.
It is good to be able to critically assess oneu2019s own culture, and the policies to which it gives riseu2014and perhaps more polite to critique oneu2019s own than others. But it isnu2019t clear to me that May fully recognises the implications of just how secular most Western countries, including Australia and New Zealand, have become, even as those same Western countries/cultures (for all their faults) remain at the leading edge of technological advance and economic performance. It still seems to me more likely that religion will be pushed to the margins in more and more societies, as the elites of those societies pursue the economic fruits (if not the democratic systems) of the West, than that theologies, collaborative or otherwise, will take back the public square any time soon.
There is clearly value in understanding other religions/societies. Every society has that web of meaning, a way of making sense of the world, that we call u201creligionu201d. But May never grapples satisfactorily with the fact that the worldu2019s main religions have overlapping, often mutually inconsistent, truth claims. That isnu2019t just true of Christianity, Islam or Judaism. Consider the exclusive claims of the Chinese Communist Partu2014interestingly, China is an example May doesnu2019t touch onu2014and the consequences of those exclusive claims for serious disciples of any other faith.
In our case, of course, the exclusive claim is reflected in the words of Jesus: u201cNo one comes to the Father but by meu201d. And evangelism and making disciples, forming worldviews and shaping behaviour, is what we are called to. Melanesia, to take one of his case studies, is better for the proclamation of the gospel there. So is New Zealand. Our confident proclamation is that one day every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Mayu2019s response to these competing truth claims isnu2019t that satisfactory. One option he suggests is u201cdouble religious belongingu201d. Perhaps it works across Christian denominations (identifying perhaps as both Baptist and Anglican); perhaps it might even work for political ends, which May seems to focus on. But once we get beyond mere denominational differences Iu2019m pretty sure such divided loyalties werenu2019t the gospel Peter and Paul proclaimed. The Roman authorities, on the other hand, would have been delighted with such a model; their civil society wouldnu2019t have been threatened. The world wouldnu2019t have been turned upside down or the gospel gone out to the very ends of the earth.
Review: Michael Reddell
