Religious Pluralism?

Oh, Madagascar. The land of constant challenges. There have been a few questions I've been working through here in Mada already, but the biggest one right now has been this: 

Is there such a thing as a universal, all encompassing truth; one "right way" to God?  

Forewarning: what ensues is some spiritual wrestling (which is a process, and I by no means am a heavyweight champion) that gets kind of convoluted at times. This is also an incredibly long post, so stick with me and I'll reward you with some pictures. :-) 

I read this blog on Patheos the other day that was arguing that Gods love is a perfecting love- that He isn't content to leave us alone in our sin, but He rebukes and corrects us when we fall back into sin. The author then goes on to say that Christians aren't called to be tolerant, they're called to be loving AND loving people means "standing up for the truth even if people aren't going to like us for standing firm in the truth." Basically, I thought it boiled down to this- if you love someone, you call them out and hold them accountable for their actions. I've dubbed this the "perfecting love model". 

The perfecting love model is an argument I've come up against many times now.

It came up the other day, when I was reading a book I found at Pastor Kirsten's place (Your God is Too Small)-- it said, "We hear, or read, of someone who was 'a real saint: he never saw any harm in anyone and never spoke a word against anyone all his life.' If this really is Christian saintliness, then Jesus Christ was no saint. It is true that He taught men never to sit in judgement upon one another, but He never suggested that they should turn a blind eye to evil or pretend that other people were faultless."

The "coincidence" of running into the same question while just trying to relax and unwind convinced me that it was about time I should work out an answer to it, or at least my feelings on it. 

I have a few issues this whole model... For one, what actually is truth? Right? Isn't the 'truth' (or at least, our perceptions and understanding of it) constantly changing? Even in the hard sciences, where truth is less subjective, we're always discovering new things that change what we previously thought to be fact. (The world isn't flat, there are such things as quarks and leptons, the sun isn't infinite, dark matter exists, etcetera) 

So is there such a thing as truth? And if there is, do you think we'll ever truly reach it? 

I tend to think not...I don't know, I'm reminded of St. Augustine: "our hearts are restless until they rest in you". And I know it is possible to take that to mean we are never satisfied until we are followers of Christ, or any other slew of possibilities, but I tend to think of it like this-- we're always going to be looking for the truth (God, when we get Him right), but we're never gonna find it. We're always gonna be restlessly searching, from now till the day we die and finally rest in Gods hands. Then we'll know truth. 

At least, that's how it sounds to me. 

But for yet another issue, the whole argument is based on the assumption that the speaker (here, the Christian) is the one with divine, absolute truth who has an obligation to share his 'right' truth with everyone else. 

So I looked up some verses about love- Proverbs 3:12, 12:1, and 24:13, John 17:23, Ephesians 5:11, and Hebrews 6:12and 10:24 all kind of support the perfecting love model. Micah 6:8, Matthew 22:37-39, John 10:17 and 15:13, Romans 5:8, 1 Corinthians 4:21, Galatians 5:13, Ephesians 4:15, and 1 John 3:16-19 were ones that all could be used to oppose the perfecting love idea. 

So there's biblical support for it, but there's also verses that could contradict it as well. As it goes, if you cherry pick verses, you can support or oppose anything. 

Regardless of biblical support or dissent, I'm still not convinced that there is such a thing as 'absolute truth'. Doesn't almost every group with a belief system (generally speaking, of course) think that they and they alone have the absolute truth, and that everyone else either has only a half truth or is just plain wrong?

I don't know if I can believe that there is only one right religion, one right path to God, one absolute truth we must follow. Have you read 'The Life of Pi'? There's a quote in there that sums this whole thing up for me well: 

"Mamaji has two passports. He's Indian and French. Why can't I be a Hindu, a Christian, and a Muslim?"

"That's different. France and India are nations on earth." 

"How many nations are there in the sky?" 

"One. That's the point. One nation, one passport." 

"One nation in the sky?" 

"Yes. Or none. There's that option too, you know."

"If there's only one nation in the sky, shouldn't all passports be valid for it?" 

And I'm not sure at all how that fits into my faith. 

I just really don't think that it's realistic to think that God has revealed to us (Christians, Catholics, Lutherans, ELCA, LCMS, take your pick) alone what His truth and His will on earth is. No one has ever told me straight out that they believe their way to be THE right way, but it's often implied. Every time someone tells me that homosexuals go to hell unless they repent, or that it's so good I'm a missionary now because I can share the "reality of Gods love" with the people I meet here (which has its own disturbing implications, but more on that later)... Every time people use the Bible or the teachings of their church to justify political statements that would bring the entire country into alignment with their personal beliefs... To me, that's just like saying, "well, I think that God says its this way; so this is the right way to do it and I'm going to ignore what you think God says because obviously I'm more right than you." Maybe that's oversimplified, or overly sensitive, I don't know. But I do know that's how I hear it, the way that I read in between those lines. 

And that comes off as arrogant and short sighted; and frankly, unrealistic. 

Because the reality is that we are flawed, imperfect creatures that are always gonna screw it up. I mean, come on, that's almost guaranteed, isn't it? We are a MESS. Why would God leave such a big and important thing like perfecting others or living up to his standards up to us, who are bound to get it wrong? In addition to that, the idea that humanity could ever come close to imitating God (or His will, or His love, etc.) is laughable. We just aren't capable-- and that's the entire point of our faith!!

I can't help but think that this idea of us as being called to love our neighbors by perfecting them is kind of pretentious. In a way, it's like we're elevating ourselves to Gods level. 

All that relates back to another article I read a while back: "You say you believe God is in control, right? Do you really believe that? Or are you worried that you somehow have to make that mean anything at all through your own actions? If His power over the world is in any way dependent on your own, maybe you need to find a bigger god." It's a sassy statement, but also kind of true, right? Why should God, the all powerful, the almighty, omnipotent Creator of the entire universe need US to help 'fix' or 'perfect' humanity? 

This has all been on my mind in context of religious pluralism here in Madagascar. The FLM (Fiangonana Loterana Malagasy, Malagasy Lutheran Church) seems to be in constant contention with the people to whom they're trying to minister to over their traditional religion of ancestral worship. It's very complicated, and I don't pretend to even have the beginnings of a basic grasp on the topic. The tiny bit of knowledge I do have only begins to scratch the surface... But this is what I (think I) do know:

There are aspects ancestral worship that a lot of Christians would say is heresy or going against God and the teachings of Christianity. Some Malagasy would view the ancestors as a kind of a "bridge" to God... Which kind of interferes with the idea of Jesus as our way to understand God better. After all, doesn't the Bible say, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me"? 

And there are aspects of ancestral worship that many of us in the West would call superstitious- the belief that ancestors can curse or bless, holding certain places as sacred because spirits dwell there, etc.  

I also know, from my sociological training if nothing else, that ancestral worship is a large part of the culture here. It relates so strongly back to the culture of emphasizing family, that when Malagasy Christians refuse to participate (especially in famdihana- the turning of the bones), they are often ostracized from their family- the most heartbreaking thing ever, because to Malagasy, your wealth is your family. There is nothing more important than family.

Many people here genuinely want to worship Christ, fully and completely. But the church here (from what I've seen thus far, the FLM especially) seems to be telling them that they have to decide...abandon ancestral worship, possibly lose your family, but gain the acceptance of the church...or stay true to tradition and lose the church. 

Ancestral worship is tradition, something that sets the Malagasy culture apart and differentiates it. Tradition isn't something to be ignored or glossed over- it's a beautiful, unique piece of the tapestry of human belief and history that should be celebrated and appreciated. 

Why can't we integrate the two, Christianity and traditional Malagasy culture? 

Is there truly only one nation in the sky, and only one passport to get there?

Who's to say that their religion doesn't have some pieces of truth in it? And who's to say that Christianity maybe doesn't have the entire truth? What if the only way to know the whole 'truth' (which I'm defining as God) is by combining all of our various pieces of truth? 

What if that's religious pluralism, in its purest form?

So.... That's the whole mess. Kudos to those of you who made it through the entire, jumbled ball of my thoughts.

 But this is what has been running through my mind for a while now. Well in reality, almost forever. Since I actually started thinking at all about Christianity and faith with any sort of intellectual questioning. 

Madagascar just kind of pushed it back up, front and center in my brain, demanding to be seen and wrestled with. 

I hope I didn't offend anyone, or blaspheme too much. I'm only trying to engage with my faith, and work out the questions that've been eating at me. I'd love to hear others thoughts and responses to help form a better theory/opinion, so leave a comment! 

And, FINALLY, some pictures as promised. I hope to get a few more soon, hopefully of my students and my workplaces! Woo! 

Start of the rainy season = the road outside my house is now a reddish brown river. 

The view of my neighborhood from outside my bedroom window. 

A quote shared by my fellow YAGM Merydith, which I fell in love with. 

A snack my host mom, Francine, just brought me... A MASSIVE bottle of water, spreadable cheese, and some little toast-like-cracker things that are wonderful! I am loved. <3

Liver, Fish Fins, and Bananas

Malagasy food is good. It's really not so different from anything I've had before, but there have been a few......new.....experiences I've had with food, some funny, some interesting, some terrifying.

1. When a fellow YAGM and I were at a restaurant and decided to be adventurous and order by which item had the longest name in Malagasy. The waitress looked at us like we were nuts, but we insisted. When our food came, we quickly found out the reason for the strange looks- turns out we had ordered cow tongue. It had a good taste, but the whole thing was a mind game of trying to trick your brain into not thinking about the fact that your tongue was touching tongue. 

2. Ampalibe is the weirdest looking darn fruit ever. It's close to the size of a large watermelon, oval in size, greenish-yellowish-brownish, and covered in bumps. Odd looking fruit, on the inside as well as the outside. A friend and I bought a bag of the flesh of the ampalibe, and wow. What a strange fruit. They're a bunch of segments, pale yellowish flesh in a shape that looks suspiciously like garlic. The flesh isn't that thick, but it's wrapped around a massive pit. The texture of the fruit itself I can only compare to bamboo shoots. It's the closest comparison I've found. It was sweet, but not pleasantly so. It had a very strange, kind of bitterish aftertaste.

^not my picture, but the best I could find online. 

3. I have eaten so much liver here now. More than I ever planned on. If I had gone my entire life without ever once eating liver, I don't think I'd've been too upset. 

4. Ronono soja is delicious. I literally have no idea what it is. None whatsoever. Ronono means milk, but milk means something different than we're used to in the U.S. Soja, as far as I can tell, is something akin to soybean powder stuff. But there's a hotely right outside the church who sells little mini mugs of ronono soja for 200Ariary a piece, and I'm telling you, it's magical. It's hot and vaguely milk-like and overly sweet. We usually get mofogasy with it, which are little sweet, sticky, dense breads made out of rice. If only I could live off ronono soja and mofogasy.....

5. Salad doesn't mean salad here. Salad, to me, is lettuce with some veggies or something. Salad, here, is a.... Kind of like a small veggie tray with various cold cuts of bologna and salami on top. 

6. The first day I was in my new family's house, they asked me what I ate for breakfast. I panicked. All of my Malagasy vocabulary (limited to begin with) fled my brain instantly. I remembered 'kafe' (coffee) and was struggling to find other food words... The only thing coming to mind was 'akondro' (banana). So I told my family I eat coffee and bananas for breakfast every morning. Confession time: I don't like bananas. Well, that's not true. I don't dislike bananas-they're actually kind of pleasant. I've always wanted to enjoy them. But for whatever reason... Any time I take a bite of banana, I automatically feel like I'm going to puke and start gagging. It's bad. As for coffee, well I drink it occasionally and I enjoy it, but it's not really a staple in my diet. But now, since those were the two Malagasy words I remembered, I get an entire teapot of coffee every morning for breakfast as well as being ambushed with bananas at random times: after dinner, at lunch, one time my mom came up to my room in the middle of the day with a plate full of bananas. A plate. Full. Of. Bananas. 

7. You know how everyone has that one irrational phobia? Mine is fish. I am petrified of fish. If it looks anything like a fish, I'm out. We were served a massive, fancy fish at orientation in Antsirabe (complete with head, fins, tail, the whole 9 yards) and I quite literally had a panic attack at the table because the fish was looking at me with its bugling eyes and gaping mouth and ugh *shivers* It makes no sense, but that's why it's an irrational fear. At any rate, my family's served fish 3 times now, and each time it was a damn struggle to keep my cool and not flip out. I've been very proud of my efforts- there's been minimal panicking, and I have managed to eat some of my fish. But lord, my family are pro fish eaters. My dad plucks off the fins and pops them right in his mouth. You can hear them crunching, like some kind of obscene potato chips. My brother, Francio, leaned over the other night and eyed my leftover fish and asked "you gonna eat the head?" He picked that sucker up and just went to town on it, getting every last bit of edible meat from the skull- and probably even some parts that weren't edible. 

8. Do we have musk melon in the U.S.? I don't think I've had it before now, but there is a word for it in English, so maybe. Here, it's called voatongo (I believe), but I call it the potato fruit. I swear, the inside flesh of that melon, when you chew it, has the exact consistency of mashed potatoes. It's vaguely sweet, but mostly tasteless. It's exactly like eating a bunch of mashed up potatoes with nothing else on them.