A great exodus from the Levant – an area including Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq – is a new diaspora of life and death. How should we respond? These people represent ancient civilizations of the Levant, which birthed and nourished the world’s three major monotheistic faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. However, their growth brought discord and contention: Jews honored “Yahweh,” Christians called on “God,” and Muslims praised “Allah.”
This diaspora is a world-changing movement. Its surge of refugees, a challenge to society and the church – including the ELCA – provides us opportunity to reconcile with and accept people of diverse faiths and cultures. Will this new diaspora mean continued contention and even violence over religious diversity, or can we reach out in peaceful reconciliation to accept cultural and faith diversity?
A Muslim school was built just across the street from two public schools and three blocks from my longtime neighborhood in Las Vegas. A month ago I attended the public hearing of the Muslim school’s proposal to expand. Others from the neighborhood were present and asked questions. No one opposed the proposal, and it was forwarded to the county commission for approval. We are becoming a diverse, multi-cultural, multi-religious neighborhood. Will the church commit to and appreciate, accept and encourage such diversity?
Nations are now pressured to receive this mixture of peoples of different cultures and religions fleeing from war and death, from hunger; fleeing for safety and shelter, for freedom from oppression and for opportunity. But opposition, perhaps even racist, is appearing in response. Will religious exclusivity impede our acceptance of diversity of cultures and faiths?
From the years I lived and worked in Japan, one of my favorite theologians was Koyama Kosuke. He taught me the “boundary breaking Christ.” We need personal boundaries, of course, for the protection of our own lives as well as to help us respect the dignity, wholeness and sacredness of each other person. Koyama meant the Christ who was and is for all people, transcending any boundaries that we might choose to erect geographically or between cultures, languages, economic statuses, racial stereotypes – and religions.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest who served in China from the early 1900s, wrote of the “cosmic Christ” as the “omega point” of the evolving direction of the entire universe. Perhaps this new diaspora can nudge the church to serve and nurture the flourishing in Christ of all life – even across faith boundaries.
I view the current Levantine diaspora as opportunity for us as people of Christ to live love, appreciating that every person is created in and of Christ (Colossians 1:16a).
I trust that through this diaspora the ELCA will recognize that we, Christians becoming, can grow and learn more of both the beauty and the suffering of life from other faiths.
I pray that this diaspora will urge us to remove boundaries that racism creates, that religious exclusivism promotes, and that the cosmic Christ will draw us toward healing and peace between and among peoples of diverse cultures and faiths.
I believe that this diaspora can shape in us behaviors of welcoming, accepting and serving all people so that we provide educational opportunities and freedom for these children and adults from the Levant. The ELCA calls us to repentance, reconciliation and commitment to inclusivity, ending racism.
We can respond to the opportunity of this diaspora to accept, appreciate and respect people of diverse faiths and cultures as fellow servants of the “cosmic Christ” evolving toward reconciliation in Christ, the omega point.
