This slim but illuminating volume emerges from the 2014 Building Bridges seminar held under the stewardship of Georgetown University. It is divided into five parts: the introductory overviews (part 1) and the closing reflection (part 5) frame three parts, on the themes of sin, forgiveness, and reconciliation, with preassigned scriptural texts associated with each theme.
Each part provides two essays that, taken together, significantly advance our understanding of the topic at hand. In part 1 Kärkkäinen's overview essay on the Christian perspective lays out a taxonomy that, despite its brevity, is breathtaking for the clarity with which it differentiates between two main Christian traditions of “conceiving the Fall and sinfulness” (3). Kärkkäinen perceptively connects divine forgiveness to the call for repentance, and the church's work of forgiveness and reconciliation to the call across traditions to “collaborate in stopping violence” (9). Brown's essay on the Muslim perspective begins with a powerful story that alters prejudicial understandings of Sharī'a as harsh and rooted in the violent justice of “an eye for an eye” by positing the power of forgiveness and reconciliation exercised by the one wounded.
Given the secularization of sin on the one hand, and a religiously plural world on the other, in part 2 Schwöbel makes a compelling case for deepening interreligious understandings “by engaging with the sign systems of religious practice and experience” (24) so as to find in the particular larger resonances relevant to understanding the human condition across traditions. Schwöbel and Shabana turn to scriptural texts in Christianity and Islam respectively, to illustrate the dire consequences of human sin, and the roles of repentance, divine forgiveness, and living in grace in overcoming such consequences.
If for the Abrahamic faiths sin—whether conceptualized as primordial or as moral injury—is responsible for the human condition of suffering and mortality, then forgiveness and redemption are its necessary panacea and essential for spiritual growth. In part 3, Eastman argues that forgiveness and redemption are “mutually informative” (75) and explores the “link between forgiveness for human wrongdoing and redemption from human bondage to sin” (76). Divine forgiveness and reconciliation make human repentance possible (77) in the Christian view; for the Islamic view, presented by Khalil, God is ever forgiving, so much so as to outstrip divine wrath, yet the forgiveness has actively to be sought, suggesting that repentance, which presumes awareness of wrongdoing and taking responsibility for it, is a necessary precondition for divine forgiveness. As with the Scripture dialogues on sin, the texts presented in the dialogues for forgiveness, with additions made by the seminar participants, show the centrality of faith in turning away from sin and toward forgiveness and repentance.
If forgiveness entails self-awareness of moral culpability and repentance, the next stage in spiritual growth calls for reconciliation, a concept that, according to Sheldrake in part 4, goes beyond mere tolerance or conciliation rather to “nurture a sense of human community and to heal the wounds of division in today's radically plural and often violently divided global culture” (97). Sheldrake notes that “proclaiming human reconciliation is not incidental to Christian life but lies at its very heart” (105) in addressing “alienation from God, divisions within the human community…, and estrangement from wider nature” (101). Concomitant with reconciliation is a call to hospitality extended toward the stranger, “those who are actively despised or otherwise excluded” (102). Such a reading becomes highly relevant given contemporary social, political, and environmental challenges that relegate issues such as migrants fleeing war, increases in poverty, undocumented immigrants, and an increasingly warming world to the margins of concerns preoccupied with unmitigated economic growth. Turning to Islam, Asfaruddin notes that the concept of reconciliation is grounded in God-consciousness/devotion to God (110) and deepened in love for God, which “translates into love for one's fellow beings” (111), extended by the twentieth-century theologian ‘Abduh to include justice, such that a commitment to justice and love of God together animate reconciliation toward peoples of all faiths. Asfaruddin highlights the Qur'anic commandment to get to know one another (li-ta‘ārafū) to extend the concept of reconciliation to “all the coresidents of the global village” (115), thereby making space for an Islamic ethical response toward divisiveness in the human community.
Part 5, the closing reflections, is a remarkable testament to the deepening of awareness that ensues as scriptural texts are discussed interreligiously, bringing to light divergences and profound resonances between traditions. This volume, well worth a read, is of particular interest to those interested in how two religions, Christianity and Islam, think about the human condition, and the ethics of being human, and for the broader question of approaches to moral injury and reconciliation.
