Praise the Name of the Lord: Meditations on the Names of God in the Qur’an and the Bible by Michael Louis Fitzgerald, and: Dialogue of the Heart: Christian-Muslim Stories of Encounter by Martin McGee
2019; Duquesne University Press; Volume: 54; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/ecu.2019.0011
ISSN2162-3937
Autores Tópico(s)American Constitutional Law and Politics
ResumoReviewed by: Praise the Name of the Lord: Meditations on the Names of God in the Qur’an and the Bible by Michael Louis Fitzgerald, and: Dialogue of the Heart: Christian-Muslim Stories of Encounter by Martin McGee Sara Haq Michael Louis Fitzgerald, Praise the Name of the Lord: Meditations on the Names of God in the Qur’an and the Bible. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2017. Pp. 150. $16.95, paper. Martin McGee, Dialogue of the Heart: Christian-Muslim Stories of Encounter. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2015. Pp. 156. $21.00, paper. In November, 2018, an indigenous group killed American missionary John Allen Chau during his mission to bring “a football and Bible” to the Bay of [End Page 292] Bengal. His death has raised yet again the issue of missionary zeal as a critical component of colonialist projects. This event sheds a light on why, now more than ever, it is important to move past apologist arguments defending weak bridge-building projects and bring a more critical lens to work focusing on interreligious dialogue. Dialogue of the Heart and Praise in the Name of the Lord are books categorized for students and scholars of theology, interreligious dialogue, and comparative religion. McGee tells the story of the nineteen Catholic priests and nuns killed by Muslim extremists in 1990’s Algeria, while Fitzgerald takes a theological approach by presenting a comparative study of the names of God in Christianity with some of the ninety-nine attributes of the Divine in Islam. Unfortunately, both books read as though written primarily for a Christian audience, one that is not convinced of the basic humanity of Muslims. While both authors set the intention of not erasing key theological differences, these books perpetuate an erasure of difference in the context of power. For example, McGee discusses the Algerian church and its efforts at “seeing moderate Muslims as fellow believers” (p. 77) to show them Christ’s love (p. 32), without acknowledging and critically engaging with the history of French colonialism in Algeria. When a Christian encourages seeing Jesus in the Muslim other without critically addressing historical power dynamics in previously colonized parts of the world, it is like convincing an abusive husband to see the face of his mother or sister in his wife in order to grant her basic humanity. She continues to have no personhood of her own. Instead of decentering one’s self, he sees her insofar as relationship to the self. In this way, one inadvertently upholds the neocolonial project of erasing histories of power and abuse. While McGee spends a section defending the differences between the Catholic Church and Evangelicals (pp. 84–87), he later contradicts himself by defining the success of missionary work as conversions (pp. 95 and 97). Fitzgerald’s book is organized into chapters centering on particular characteristics of God, but it lacks relational thinking and analysis. E.g., the chapter on “The God of Goodness and Mercy” includes a subsection on the Qur’ān, then the Hebrew Scriptures, and then the New Testament. (pp. 51–69), without weaving together the various subsections. What is needed here is what Raimon Panikkar called intrareligious dialogue, a dialogue that grows out of a [End Page 293] deep lived knowledge of multiple regliospiritual traditions, which is not limited to dispersing information but, rather, is invested in transformation, including self-transformation. While Fitzgerald mentions Sufism in passing (p. 109, n. 6; p. 123), a deeper engagement with Sufi metaphysical philosophy is desperately needed. E.g., the claim that “there is no dualism in Islam” (p. 71) has been refuted in Sufi philosophy. When Fitzgerald presents the relationship between Godly love and human love in the New Testament (pp. 66–67, 113–116), it is one of the many subsections that would benefit from a deeper engagement with Sufi philosophy’s understanding of the intra-relationship between human and divine. Sara Haq University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA Copyright © 2019 Journal of Ecumenical Studies
Referência(s)