In our lecture today Professor M (who asked us to simply call her by her first name, E) ended class with one of the more compelling descriptions of the difference between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam that I have ever heard. E described each religion as having a different take on the basic problem facing humanity, and so each asks different questions and so explained that naturally each approach has revealed a different answer. This is E's material and I am paraphrasing from what I remember.
Judaism's problem is Exile, from the promised land and more importantly exile from G-d - so the question perhaps is how to return to union with the Divine. The answer is return, I think. (She said this one first and I don't exactly remember. Definitely Exile is the issue though.)
Christianity's problem is Original Sin, a concept that doesn't exist in either of the other two religions, and so the answer is Salvation through Jesus Christ.
Islam's problem is Pride, human pride that drives us away from Allah. The answer is submission - complete submission to the Divine will.
It occurred to me on the short drive home that while yes, each of these is a very different approach there is a huge common ground already present. All of these traditions are starting with the basic acknowledgement that something has gone terribly wrong. I haven't started reading yet but I realize that part of this likely stems from a shared origin story, the story we Christians refer to as The Fall. Godly Play, a Montessori based religious education program that I am trained in and rely on for spiritual inspiration of all sorts, calls the story of Adam and Eve The Falling Apart. The story talks about how things that were once the same became different from each other after Adam and Eve ate from what the re-imagined story calls the Tree of Differences. Man and Woman fell apart from each other, Good and Evil fell apart, Human and God fell apart, and so on. Now we have to struggle through this world of differences, finding new connections between things that used to be together but aren't anymore. It is hard work, but because it is creative work it connects us to God.
So I was thinking about how much I like each of the ways that Judaism, Christianity and Islam conceptualize the agreed upon problem, that deep common knowledge that each of us has that things are not the way they are supposed to be. And I realized that perhaps these Religions of the Book have also fallen apart. It doesn't have to be a bad thing - I for one am often quite glad that man and woman fell apart so long ago. While fraught with danger it sure is fun and can be rewarding trying to put those differences back together. I think the work ahead in this class is something like that - the creative work of learning, engaging, and experiencing differences with an eye for communion, for the sacred in each way of knowing, and the holy work of finding the connections that illuminate G-d in us all.
