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Scriptural Reasoning ("SR") is an evolving practice in which Christians, Jews, Muslims, and increasingly members of other faiths, meet (mostly in small groups) to study their sacred Scriptures together, and to explore the ways in which such study can help them understand and respond to particular contemporary issues. Different practices of shared interreligious study of sacred texts, and different "Schools", have emerged under the broad umbrella of Scriptural Reasoning, and this experimental activity continues to develop in novel ways.

What Happens in SR?

There is no single "approved" way of doing SR; several different varieties of SR exist, and SR continues to diversify and evolve.

However, it always involves participants from multiple religious traditions meeting, very often in small groups, to read and discuss passages from their sacred texts (e.g., Tanakh, the Bible, and the Qur'an). The texts will often relate to a common topic - say, the figure of Abraham, or consideration of legal and moral issues of property-holding. Participants discuss the content of the texts, and will often explore the variety of ways in which their religious communities have worked with them and continue to work with them, and the ways in which those texts might shape their understanding of and engagement with a range of contemporary issues.

A participant from any one religious tradition might therefore end up:

  • discussing with the other participants his or her own readings of the texts from his or her own tradition
  • discussing with them their attempts to make sense of the texts from his or her own tradition, and
  • in turn discussing with them the texts from their own traditions.

SR thus helps inculcate in the practitioners a "feel" for the Scriptures and reading practices of other traditions.[1]

Scriptural Reasoning has often been described as a "tent of meeting" - a Biblical mishkan (Heb. משׁכן Ara. مسكن) - a reference to the story of Genesis 18. Steven Kepnes, a Jewish philosopher, writes:

Participants in SR practice come to it as both representatives of academic institutions and particular "houses" (churches, mosques, synagogues) of worship. SR meets, however, outside of these institutions and houses in special times and in separate spaces that are likened to Biblical "tents of meeting". Practitioners come together in these tents of meeting to read and reason with scriptures. They then return to their academic and religious institutions and to the world with renewed energy and wisdom for these institutions and the world.[2]

Key Features of SR Theory and Practice

Certain facets of Scriptural Reasoning theory and practice may be highlighted:

Better Quality Disagreement

Unlike some forms of inter-religious dialogues, SR does not ask participants from different faith traditions to focus upon areas in which they are most nearly in agreement, or to bracket their commitments to the deepest sources of their traditions' distinct identities. SR allows participants to remain passionately faithful to the deepest identity-forming practices and allegiances of their religious communities.[3] SR provides a context in which the participants can discuss those commitments, and perhaps even become more self-aware about them. SR sessions therefore often highlight and explore differences and disagreements between religious tradition, and give rise to serious argument - in order to promote what has been called "better quality disagreement".[4] Moreover, SR does not assume any consensus between the participants as to how they understand the nature, authority or proper interpretation of the texts in front of them; so, to do SR one does not have to assume (e.g.) that the Bible fulfils the same role for Christians as does the Qur'an for Muslims or the Tanakh for Jews.[5]

Not Consensus but Friendship

SR is said to rely upon the existence of honesty, openness and trust amongst the participants, and more generally upon the growth of friendship among the participants in order to provide an appropriate context for disagreement. It is therefore sometimes said that the key to SR is "not consensus but friendship".[6] In order to encourage these relationships of trust, the practice of Scriptural Reasoning is often located geographically with a view to engendering mutual hospitality -- for example, by meeting in neutral academic spaces such as universities, or by peripatetically rotating between the houses of worship of different faiths (though there have been instances where a Scriptural Reasoning group has met regularly in a space owned by one of the three faith communities). The context for the meetings should be one of mutual hospitality and strict parity of leadership and control between the three faiths, as each participant is both host and guest.[7]

Debates over Authority

A significant characteristic of Scriptural Reasoning is the fact of there not being a single authority or "official" locus for the practice, but rather an honest debate and creative disagreement between different practitioners over matters of SR theory and praxis, particularly in relation to the question of where the sources of authority lie for the governance and conduct of SR. There are debates over differing understandings of the "particular" dimension of Scriptural Reasoning -- namely of SR being a "temporary tent of meeting" between Jews, Christians, Muslims and others, the participants being members of ancient autonomous faith traditions each with their own well-established religious laws, rules and customs around shared text reading, such as articulated in Islamic sharia and Jewish halakha. There are debates as to the relative importance of these "particular" or autonomous sources of authority within different faith communities relative to the the precedents and guidelines for SR practice generated by the teaching and writing of some of the founder personalities of the "Society for Scriptural Reasoning" (SSR).[8] There is disagreement between different SR practitioners in relation to applying these relative emphases, some arguing that SR and its secondary literature, such as that published in the Journal of Scriptural Reasoning, be at all times unequivocally subordinate to the autonomous authority and particularity of each faith's traditional rules governing interfaith study,[9] while others dispute these views as misunderstandings of the nature of SR, with some of the initial founder SR practioners discouraging the official seeking of traditional Islamic sharia or Jewish halakha sanction for the practice of SR. There are debates between different sides over structural developments in Scriptural Reasoning, related to their variant understandings of "particularity" and of "eldership-apprenticeship" in SR practice.[10] Some practitioners contend that such critiques themselves arise out of a misunderstanding or misrepresentation of Scriptural Reasoning as practiced by founder SSR members.

The Contribution of Traditional Faith Authorities to SR

While participants in Scriptural Reasoning derive from all three faiths within the Abrahamic family, and now Sikh and Hindu participants, there has also been comment from some traditional religious-juristic authorities in regard to appropriate participation of members of their communities.

Jewish

While SR was originally born out of a pre-extant intra-Jewish dialogue of "Textual Reasoning" (see below), and many participants come from both Orthodox and Progressive streams of Judaism, the Court of the Chief Rabbi of the Commonwealth, the London Beth Din has maintained a cautious approach to Scriptural Reasoning, on grounds of the classical position in halakha that the practice of Jewish study of the New Testament with Christians remains problematic.[11] While there appears to remain less halakhic difficulty in regard to Jewish text-based study with Muslims, the London Beth Din has nonetheless confined its advice to matters of the appropriate handling of Jewish sacred materials in SR in order to avoid desecration of the Holy Name,[12] explicitly without implying sanction for Orthodox Jewish interreligous reading of the sacred texts of other religions.[13]

Islamic

For not dissimilar historical reasons to the Jewish community, in the light of the history of forced interfaith disputation in medieval Europe particularly after the Reconquista, some Islamic religious authorities have expressed a concern that disparities in political power and control of a Scriptural Reasoning group between the Christian, Jewish and Muslim participants can adversely affect the sensitive process of shared interpretation of sacred texts. For this reason, reproducing pre-existing Islamic rulings around interfaith text study dating from the medieval period, senior Islamic authorities in London have issued a fatwa according to sharia law ruling that Muslims are not permitted to participate in any Scriptural Reasoning group - wherever in the world that group may be - unless such groups are led and administered on a basis of the strictest equality and parity between the three participating faiths.[14]

Origins, History and Emergence of Different Approaches to SR

Historical Precursors

Thanks to its origins in Jewish "Textual Reasoning", the practice of SR has been shaped by reflection on the traditional Jewish practice of hevrutah (also translit. chevruta Heb. חברותה): dialectic text study. The concept of dialectic group textual study within a single tradition owes its origin to the Hebrew root: haver (Heb. חבר) meaning "friend", from which the term hevrutah Heb. חברותה derives.[15] Within classical Islam, al-Ghazali's Ihya 'Ulum al-Din (Ara. إحياء علوم الدين) devotes a chapter to the principles of scholarly friendship founded on mutuality in the advancement of religious understanding.[16] Ancient reflections on friendship across traditions are more elusive.

Some SR commentators have cited ancient activities of interfaith textual study as historical precursor conversations to the modern practice of Scriptural Reasoning, such as may be found in the Late Medieval period in parts of Western Europe, notably in Muslim Spain and in medieval France and Italy. In this respect, text-based discussion and debate between Christians, Jews and Muslims formed a substantial part of the genre of interfaith polemics in the Middle Ages which gave rise to sefer nizzahon (Heb. ספר ניצחון) Jewish apologetic discourse and Islamic radd (Ara. رد) literature around Christian interpretations of the Bible.[17] Sirah Rasul Allah (Ara. سيرة رسول الله) literature, the Prophetic biographies by Ibn Ishaq and Ibn Hisham, record the meeting and Biblical-Qur'anic discussions of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christian Delegation of Najran, while the Andalusian jurist and theologian Ibn Hazm sets out in his treatise (Ara. الفصل في الملل والأهواء والنحل) al-Fisal fi al-Milal wa al-Ahwa' wa al-Nihal sharia regulations in relation to Muslim participation in dialogue, study and debate with Christians and Jews.[18]

Society for Scriptural Reasoning

The founding participants of the "Society for Scriptural Reasoning" include David F. Ford, Daniel W. Hardy, and Peter Ochs.[19] Its origins lie in a related practice, "Textual Reasoning" ("TR"), which described Jewish philosophers reading Talmud in conversation with scholars of rabbinics.[20] Peter Ochs was one of the leading participants in Textual Reasoning.[21] When he and Daniel Hardy met as members of Princeton's Center of Theological Inquiry, and included David Ford in their study together, the idea for a mode of reasoning across traditions was developed. Peter Ochs was involved in an Islamic study group, through one of his doctoral students, Basit Koshul. Gradually, the practice of reasoning in the light of texts from the three Abrahamic traditions became established - an interfaith and interdisciplinary method of reading sacred texts along two axes - one between people of different faiths, and the other (as in TR) between text scholars and scholars of other sciences.

With the growth of Scriptural Reasoning in the United States and transatlantic collaboration, under the auspices of the Cambridge Inter-faith ProgrammeDavid Ford introduced SR to Great Britain, where there were already pre-existing and long established practices of Jewish-Christian-Muslim scripture study such as those developed by British and German scholars at the annual Jewish-Christian-Muslim Conference[22], the Al-Nisa Society, Leo Baeck College and the Centre for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations in Birmingham.

In the course of the development of Scriptural Reasoning in the UK, discussion and disagreement began to emerge among SR practitioners as to the direction and governance of SR.

Scriptural Reasoning Society ("The Oxford School")

Some of these discussions and criticisms centred on the question of accepting "asymmetries of hospitality",[23] namely conceding that particular practical circumstances may lead to one faith tradition acting as host and exercising a leadership role in a multi-faith SR group. Some SR practitioners argued that this development did not correspond to their understanding of the academic literature of Scriptural Reasoning to date, which they understood consistently to uphold principles of strict parity between the participating communities - while other SR practitioners argued that parity between the religious traditions involved can be maintained in informal ways.

In addition, discussion revolved around the alleged "instrumentalising" in the UK of the practice of SR interfaith study of sacred texts in particular, and some kinds of interfaith activity in general. Concern was expressed that Scriptural Reasoning in the UK risked being "commodified" in order to attract sponsorship from UK government and Home Office-financed agendas in relation to the Muslim community, and the alleged closeness of the Cambridge Interfaith Programme and its partners to such state-sponsored activity.[24] Members of the original Society for Scriptural Reasoning have not accepted that such instrumentalising or commodification has taken place, and argue that the allegations of the critics are a misreading of their practice.

While the "Society for Scriptural Reasoning" in the UK continues to evolve in ways shaped in part by the continued involvement of the founding participants, and their friends from all three traditions who had been involved in SR since its earliest years, these discussions and controversies gave birth to new Scriptural Reasoning "schools". Some SR practitioners, including those involved in the pre-existing forms of Jewish-Christian-Muslim text study at the JCM Conference, founded the "The Scriptural Reasoning Society" (SRS) or "Oxford School" tradition of Scriptural Reasoning.

The Scriptural Reasoning Society, a registered charity, was founded as a network of local Scriptural Reasoning groups formed by a collaboration of academic institutions and diverse places of worship. The Scriptural Reasoning Society places greater emphasis in its written "Community Ethic" on SR as an egalitarian practice, with parity between the participants, and the principle that the religious laws and teachings of the participating faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam alone are the sole sources of authority in Scriptural Reasoning. The Oxford School also emphasises the role of "Scripture, Tradition and Reason" as equally important determinants of the textual scholarship and religious life of faith communities -- hence "Scriptural-Traditional-Reasoning" which respects traditional methods of reading of Scripture by Jews, Muslims and others using oral tradition and classical commentaries.

Resources and New Developments in SR

There is now a Journal of Scriptural Reasoning (formerly the National Society for Scriptural Reasoning) based in the USA and a scriptural reasoning network of active local groups based in Great Britain which together continue to produce a shared web-based resource of Scriptural Reasoning texts formatted in both original language and translation. In the UK, there is a web-based contact site managed independently with partners in the US and UK, and also local groups of friends who simply informally meet to study sacred scriptures as independent groups.

Some Scriptural Reasoning groups in the United Kingdom have started to develop this academic practice in a civic setting among faith communities as a "Faith and Citizenship Programme", among young people as "Tools for Trialogue", and as part of training programmes to support the Jewish and other communities in confronting religious intolerance and antisemitism, "Scriptures in Dialogue". The practice of online Scriptural Reasoning texts discussion is being piloted.

An important future progression in the development of Scriptural Reasoning is the inclusion of other faith communities and the study of Vedic and other scriptures outside the Jewish-Christian-Muslim family, which is being pioneered by various independent groups.

Footnotes

  1. ^ For an example of an SR discussion, see Mike Higton's detailed description of an SR group's conversation about a particular Qur'anic passage. For a more general description of SR, see David F. Ford, "An Interfaith Wisdom: Scriptural Reasoning between Jews, Christians and Muslims" in David F. Ford and C.C. Pecknold, The Promise of Scriptural Reasoning (Malden, MA / Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 1-22 and in Modern Theology 22.3 (2006), 345-366.
  2. ^ See Steven Kepnes, 'A Handbook for Scriptural Reasoning', Modern Theology 22.3 (2006), 367-383:368
  3. ^ See the section of David F. Ford, "An Interfaith Wisdom: Scriptural Reasoning between Jews, Christians and Muslims" in David F. Ford and C.C. Pecknold, The Promise of Scriptural Reasoning (Malden, MA / Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 1-22: 1-2, and in Modern Theology 22.3 (2006), 345-366: 345-346, on 'Core Identities in Conversation'.
  4. ^ See the Scriptural Reasoning Society website. Cf Steven Kepnes, 'A Handbook for Scriptural Reasoning', Modern Theology 22.3 (2006), 367-383:368 - 'SR is about serious conversation between three religious traditions that preserves difference as it establishes relations.'
  5. ^ David F. Ford gives the following maxim for SR: 'Acknowledge the sacredness of the others' scriptures to them (without having to acknowledge its authority for oneself) - each believes in different ways (which can be discussed) that their scripture is in some sense from God and that the group is interpreting it before God, in God’s presence.' ("An Interfaith Wisdom: Scriptural Reasoning between Jews, Christians and Muslims" in David F. Ford and C.C. Pecknold, The Promise of Scriptural Reasoning (Malden, MA / Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 1-22: 5, and in Modern Theology 22.3 (2006), 345-366: 349, emphasis added.)
  6. ^ The phrase is coined in Nick Adams' description of SR in his Habermas and Theology (Cambridge: CUP, 2006), ch.11; for other examples of its use see the Scriptural Reasoning Society website and an interview with David Ford in Religion and Ethics News Weekly. It builds on earlier claims such as that of Steven Kepnes, 'A Handbook for Scriptural Reasoning' (Modern Theology 22.3 (2006), 367-383:367) that SR 'builds sociality among its practitioners'. Cf the claim in the Student Journal of Scriptural Reasoning guidance on Starting SR Groups: 'After about three sessions of this kind, a successful group should begin to nurture a sense of friendship in study and an emergent sense of direction'. See also below some ways in which friendship has been named as an important element in some of the practices of religious textual study that have been identified as historical precursors of SR.
  7. ^ See the Scriptural Reasoning Society's 'Oxford Ethic', p.2: 'It may be appropriate for meetings of a Member Scriptural Reasoning Group to take place in rotation between different venues associated with different faiths, or for meetings to be hosted at a neutral venue such as a secular university or community centre.'
  8. ^ For examples of principles of SR praxis and references to the role of "elders" and "apprentices" as drafted by Society of Scriptural Reasoning founder members, see the reference cited above by David F. Ford, "An Interfaith Wisdom: Scriptural Reasoning between Jews, Christians and Muslims" in David F. Ford and C.C. Pecknold, The Promise of Scriptural Reasoning (Malden, MA / Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 1-22 and Peter Ochs Journal of Scriptural Reasoning 2:1 May 2002 The Rules of Scriptural Reasoning
  9. ^ See the Oxford Ethic of the Scriptural Reasoning Society, in particular Article 3 on Subordination and Subsidiarity
  10. ^ In 2007, the proposed establishment of a "Scriptural Reasoning Reference Group" of referential oversight comprising some SSR founder members, led to a debate over whether or not such structural developments in Scriptural Reasoning constituted a "Fourth Position" (i.e. structures beyond the positions of the three participating faith communities) ["We’re working on putting together this reference group for the development of SR which David Ford will probably chair and which amongst other things will take on the supervision and development of the website," unpublished correspondence from Cambridge Inter-faith Programme 30 April 2007; "The precise conditions and circumstances in which original language texts may or may not be used are exactly the kind of issues on which the [Scriptural Reasoning] Reference Group should guide us. The group will contain eminent people with considerable experience and stature from the three traditions, and it plans, I think, to link with other such groups in the USA." unpublished correspondence 25 May 2007], with contested viewpoints expressed on both sides of the conversation, and practitioners in the original Society for Scriptural Reasoning have not accepted that their practice can aptly be described as a "Fourth Position". See reference opposing the suggestion made of the Scriptural Reasoning Reference Group (comprising some of the original founder members of the "Society for Scriptural Reasoning") having jurisdiction or ability to make decisions over Islamic matters concering handling and publication of Quranic texts in Scriptural Reasoning, in English version of the Fatwa on Scriptural Reasoning
  11. ^ See Talmudic references to the New Testament, Tosefta Shabbat 116a; also Sanhedrin 59a, Hagigah 13a, Avodah Zarah 26a
  12. ^ Further to this advice, the traditional Jewish practice of altering the Hebrew Name of God on Hebrew SR texts in order to prevent desecration is increasingly being adopted by Scriptural Reasoning groups of all schools
  13. ^ The Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks makes the distinction between "side-by-side" interfaith dialogue for common social action over and against "face-to-face" forms of theological interreligious engagement such as Scriptural Reasoning, with the latter category of activity being viewed with greater reservation by Orthodox halakhic authorities
  14. ^ See fatwa on Scriptural Reasoning issued by the Shari'a Court of the Islamic Cultural Centre and London Central Mosque which is available at the Islamic website on Scriptural Reasoning and in Arabic as well as English version
  15. ^ See Mishnah Pirkei Avot 1:6.
  16. ^ See Abu Hamid al-Ghazali Ihya 'Ulum al-Din (Ara. إحياء علوم الدين) Dar al-Kutub al-'Ilmiyya, Beirut n.d. Book XV
  17. ^ See Moses Ha-Kohen Ezer Ha-’Emunah (Heb. עזר האמונה) ed. Y Shamir in Rabbi Moses Ha-Kohen of Tordesillas and His Book Ezer Ha-’Emunah Coconut Grove Florida 1972, Jacob ben Reuben Milhamot Ha-Shem (Heb. מלחמות השם) ed. J Rosenthal, Jerusalem, Taqi al-Din ibn Taymiyyah al-Jawab al-Sahih li-man Baddala Din al-Masih (Ara. الجواب الصحيح لمن بدل دين المسيح) Dar al-Kutub al-'Ilmiyya, Beirut n.d. and ‘Ali b. Rabban al-Tabari Al-Radd ‘ala al-Nasara (Ara. الرد على النصارى) ed. I-A Khalifé and W Kutsch Mélanges de l’Université Saint Joseph 1959 36:113-48
  18. ^ Ibn Hisham al-Sirah al-Nabawiyya (Ara. السيرة النبوية) Dar al-Kutub al-'Ilmiyyah, Beirut n.d. I:537-574, Abu Muhammad Ali b. Ahmad Ibn Hazm al-Fisal fi al-Milal wa al-Ahwa' wa al-Nihal (Ara. الفصل في الملل والأهواء والنحل) Dar al-Kutub al-'Ilmiyyah n.d. Book VII
  19. ^ See David F. Ford, 'An Interfaith Wisdom: Scriptural Reasoning Between Jews, Christians and Muslims' in David F. Ford and C.C. Pecknold (eds), The Promise of Scriptural Reasoning (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 1-22: 4.
  20. ^ See David F. Ford, 'An Interfaith Wisdom', 3: 'Scriptural reasoning had its immediate origins in "textual reasoning" among a group of academic Jewish text scholars .... on the one hand, and philosophers and theologians, on the other hand....'
  21. ^ Ford, 'An Interfaith Wisdom', 3-4 describes the involvement of Ochs in Textual Reasoning. The fullest description of Textual Reasoning can be found in Peter Ochs and Nancy Levene (eds), Textual Reasonings: Jewish Philosophy and Text Study at the End of the Twentieth Century (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), especially in Peter Ochs' and Nancy Levene's introductory essays (2-14 and 15-27). This book also indicates some of the ways in which TR relates to SR - see e.g., Daniel Hardy's essay, 'Textual Reasoning: A Concluding Reflection', 269-276.
  22. ^ See the website of the JCM Conference Europe hosted by the Ökumenische Werkstatt Wuppertal in partnership with Leo Baeck College, London and other institutions
  23. ^ The term was coined by David Ford in written public correspondence in support of the governance arrangements of one Scriptural Reasoning group in the UK hosted and led wholly by an Anglican institution ["The solution proposed [to the dispute around faith leadership of an SR group in London] is in terms of a governance model using principles of equality, symmetry, neutrality, etc. This holds out the hope of an immediate 'fix' in legal/constitutional terms rather like the way secular modernity responded to religious conflicts...but Scriptural Reasoning in my experience has so far not been convinced by it. The "asymmetries of hospitality" (e.g. the role of Anglicans in initiating St Ethelburga's) are part of the messiness (and providence!) of actual history, which always requires making the most of particular resources and rarely conforms to our abstract principles." unpublished publicly circulated correspondence from David Ford 24 January 2007]
  24. ^ The Labour Peer Lord Ahmed of Rotherham criticised the then Prime Minster Tony Blair in regard to a Conference convened and hosted by the Cambridge Inter-faith Programme in 2007 on Islam and Muslims in the World Today as to its being a "Colonial style of governing" through its alleged selective inclusion and exclusion of particular Muslims The Guardian 4 June 2007

External links

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scriptural_Reasoning&oldid=267003503

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