In an increasingly polarized world, we would all do well to reflect on and learn from our diverse religious traditions
By Benedict Rogers in UCA News
Candles have been lit and water splashed. Around the world, the past two months have been filled with religious rituals, prayers, fasting, cleansing, and celebration as almost all the world’s great religious festivals have coincided or followed in sequence.
The Islamic month of fasting, Ramadan, began at the end of February and concluded at the end of March with the celebration of Eid al-Fitr.
Shortly after Ramadan started, the Christian period of fasting — Lent — began, and approaches its culmination this week, to be followed by Easter.
Earlier this week, the Buddhist New Year — known in Myanmar as “Thingyan” and in Thailand as “Songkran” — overlapped with the Sikh festival of “Vaisakhi,” which marks the anniversary of the Sikh religion.
The Hindu festivals of “Maha Shivaratri,” “Holi,” and “Rama Navami” were also celebrated during recent weeks, as well as the Jewish Passover (Pesach).
Earlier in the year, we marked the Lunar New Year, followed by the Tibetan New Year (Losar), and recently the Tamil New Year.
One could regard the first four months of the year as an excuse for an endless stream of holidays and parties.
But there is something profoundly beautiful that links all these festivals.
Each one in its own way represents humankind’s search for meaning, forgiveness, cleansing, reconciliation, giving, and new life.
Each one symbolizes humanity’s outstretched arm to one another and a higher being.
And each one should be respected and treasured as such.
While each festival differs, and the theological beliefs which underpin them vary, there are some common signs and symbols.
Water and light are common themes.
On April 17, Christians celebrate Maundy Thursday and participate in ceremonies where the priest washes the feet of a select number of the congregation, in a re-enactment of our Lord Jesus Christ’s washing of his disciples’ feet.
This spring, Buddhists across Southeast Asia splashed water and colorful powders on one another as they celebrated the traditional Buddhist New Year. Although sometimes the scenes resembled water fights, the meaning was much deeper: purification, the washing away of the previous year, the renewal of life that arrives with spring.
From Thailand to Nepal, this joyous festival of renewal is one of the highlights of their religious life, enjoyed by young and old alike.
At the Easter Vigil Mass on Saturday night, churches around the world will begin their celebration of the resurrection of Christ by lighting the Paschal Candle from a fire kindled outside the church. This ritual is shared by almost all Christians — in the Eastern Byzantine and Orthodox Churches, the Paschal mass lasts the entire night.
From that one big candle, every participant lights their own candle, sharing the flame with the next, so the light spreads from one to another, while the priest or deacon chants “Lumen Christi” (the Light of Christ).
Candles are a prominent feature of the Jewish Passover, too, and of the Buddhist New Year and Vaisakhi. Later in the year, when Hindus celebrate Diwali and Jews mark Hanukkah — both translated as the “festival of lights” — candles are once again central to the festivities.
Lastly, fasting and alms-giving are vital components of many of the world’s religious festivals.
Ramadan is perhaps the most arduous form of fasting — abstinence from dawn to dusk from food and water for a month.
One of the five pillars of Islam — in addition to their declaration of faith (Shahada), five daily prayers (Salat), fasting (Sawm), and the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca — is the giving of alms, called “Zakat,” normally amounting to 2.5 percent of one’s annual income, to support the poor.
During Lent, Christians have a little more flexibility — it is left to personal choice what individual adherents sacrifice. For myself, I adopt a practice of fasting from food every Friday during Lent, from dawn to dusk, and devoting my fast and prayers to a particular country whose suffering is close to my heart.
This Lent, I devoted my Friday fast and prayers in weekly succession to Myanmar, China — including Tibet and the Uyghurs — Hong Kong, Taiwan, North Korea, Ukraine and the free world.
And through Lent, Christians make a specific point of giving up something we enjoy — alcohol, chocolate, coffee, social media or some other pleasure — and giving more to charity. Buddhists pursue a similar concept of alms-giving, donating food or other gifts to monks.
In all these festivals, there is a celebration of new life. Each one has something to teach us about how to live our lives in ways that are more other-centered.
In an increasingly polarised world, we would all do well to reflect on and learn from the messages of the world’s diverse religious traditions.
In a world where authoritarianism and extremism cause repression and persecution, a respectful dialogue between different religions is needed more than ever.
Across Asia and beyond, recent years have seen a rise in religious nationalism and intolerance. All of the major world religions are present in Asia. In some Asian countries, a particular religion is followed by the majority of the population; in others, that same religion is a minority and may face persecution.
Too often, religion has been intertwined with ethnicity or weaponized as a tool of identity politics.
Too often religion has been coerced, co-opted, misused or restricted by authoritarian regimes — such as the military regime’s ultra-Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar or the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s campaign of ‘Sinicization’ of religion across China, in which Beijing has forced churches, mosques, monasteries and temples to display portraits of Xi Jinping and the party’s propaganda banners.
And too often, religion has been hijacked by extremists in pursuit of hate-filled ideology — as with Hindu nationalism in India, where the governing BJP party has put in place discriminatory policies against its minority Muslim population, and with radical Islamism in Indonesia, Afghanistan, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and across the globe.
Some argue that the answer is to do away with religion. But while I defend the freedom of conscience of atheists and humanists — as illustrated by my advocacy a decade ago for jailed Indonesian atheist Alexander Aan, whom I visited twice in a remote Western Sumatra jail — I disagree.
Firstly, it is unachievable because much of humanity is intrinsically religious. Mao Zedong tried to destroy religion during China’s Cultural Revolution, and only succeeded in driving it underground. The Soviet Union tried to destroy its Orthodox Church, but people continued to worship in secret.
Secondly, it is morally wrong. Everyone, everywhere, has a right to freedom of religion or belief — a fundamental right set out in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Others argue that every religion is the same. Again, I disagree. Certainly, many religions draw from common histories and beliefs — the three Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam share a common ancestry of prophets and writings.
But while there are common principles and themes — all of which point to doing good to others, seeking purification, redemption, and reconciliation — the theologies, practices, cultures, and spirituality of each religion are different. And rightly so. They should not be morphed into one unrecognisable blancmange, but rather respected and celebrated for their diversity, and accepted in their co-existence.
Instead, we should adopt the principles of one of my heroes, the former Chief Rabbi in the United Kingdom, Jonathan Sacks. The titles of three of my favourite books by Rabbi Sacks contain the message we need to hear: The Dignity of Difference, To Heal a Fractured World, and The Home We Build Together.
What we need is not the end of religion, nor the morphing of religions, but the passionate defence of the right of every person to believe, change, practice, and share their beliefs, peacefully and non-coercively, and the promotion of a healthy dialogue and respect between religious adherents. As Rabbi Lord Sacks wrote: “The greatest single antidote to violence is conversation, speaking our fears, listening to the fears of others, and in that sharing of vulnerabilities discovering a genesis of hope.”
One of my dearest friends and greatest inspirations was Pakistan’s religious freedom champion Shahbaz Bhatti, his country’s first Christian Federal Minister for Minorities Affairs, who was assassinated outside his mother’s home on March 2, 2011, by the Pakistani Taliban for his opposition to Pakistan’s draconian blasphemy laws, which carry the death penalty for insulting Islam.
I worked with him closely, spoke with him several times a week, travelled with him, and on one occasion, missed a bomb by five minutes in Islamabad.
Whenever I am in Rome, without fail, I make a pilgrimage to the Basilica di San Bartolomeo all’Isola, where his personal Bible is displayed in a commemoration to modern-day martyrs. I frequently reflect on the words he spoke a few months before his dreadful murder.
“I live for religious freedom, and I am ready to die for this cause. We have a commitment to bring a change in the lives of people. We will bring a change in the life of those who are living in darkness.… We will bring a smile to the faces of those living under severe harassment and victimisation.”
He continued: “This is the key objective of my life — to live for those who are voiceless, who are suffering. We need to change the plight of those who are living in the darkness of persecution … and bring justice for those who are denied justice.”
Shahbaz challenged head-on the “forces of intolerance” and called on his audience to join with him in this struggle: “Let’s pledge that we will work together to promote harmony and tolerance. We will bridge the gaps among different faiths. We will strengthen this world with the message of peace and tolerance.”
As we Catholics prepare to enter into the Easter Triduum, let us draw inspiration first and foremost from our Lord’s Passion, but also from the examples of martyrs like Shahbaz and the teachings of the world’s other religions.
For as Rabbi Sacks wrote: “Against the fundamentalisms of hate, we must create a counter-fundamentalism of love… ‘A little light,’ said the Jewish mystics, ‘drives away much darkness.’ And when light is joined to light, mine to yours and yours to others, the dance of flames, each so small, yet together so intricately beautiful, begins to show that hope is not an illusion. Evil, injustice, oppression, and cruelty do not have the final word.”
Let us pour water, light candles, and emerge from our fasting with joy, renewed with resurrection hope to continue the fight for justice, human rights, peace, and reconciliation throughout an aching world.
This article was originally published in UCA News.