John B. Stetson RELS 105B Judaism, Christianity, and Islam Final Exam Paper 5/4/2019 Ritual and Hospitality in Christianity and Islam When comparing how two authors’ views on the topic of religious ritual and how it is perceived as an ethico-spiritual formational practice, no two authors are better to examine than Welsh Anglican theologian Rowan Williams and civil rights activist and member of the Islamic faith Malcolm X. Both are highly influential in the field and both give an insight into the ways these rituals of the two Abrahamic religions effect the community, worldview, and practices that all the followers of each respective faith hold. The two sources that will be analyzed are excerpts from each authors’ respective views and experiences with their faith. The first source is a chapter entitled “Eucharist,” from the book Being Christian by Rowan Williams, in which the theologian speaks on the importance and meaning of the sacrament of the Eucharist from his perspective and the perspective of them faith. The second source is a chapter entitled “Mecca” from The Autobiography of Malcolm X. This recounts the transformational experience that is the Muslim Hajj from Malcolm X’s point of view, and how it shook his world view to its core. Both Williams and Malcolm X deal with such issues as hospitality, repentance and God’s will on earth, and this similarity can be used to encourage a more accepting world in this modern era. Williams begins his chapter by speaking of the hospitality of Jesus Christ, in his words, a man who is “not only someone who exercises hospitality; he draws out hospitality from others.” (Williams 42) Williams speaks of the Christ’s hospitality in the stories of Zacchaeus, the tax 1 collector, as well as when Jesus comes to his disciples after his death and asks if they will offer him food to eat. This hospitality is seen as an aspect of Christ’s character deemed necessary to understand about the sacrament of the Eucharist. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is also something that Williams states as necessary to understanding the Eucharist. He states that the Eucharist represents that all those who participate in the sacrament are guests in the house of God. Williams then states that another portion of the sacrament is repentance, that every single person has the potential the betray and some have already betrayed, but that is another reason why the Eucharist is done, to ask for forgiveness and repentance for sins that will be forgiven due to the hospitality spoke of before. Williams finishes the chapter making the statement that the Holy Spirit is working through the Eucharist, to bring humanity and the world closer together. He calls the Eucharist the center of the world, and in this, through the Holy Spirit, and the feelings of hospitality and repentance one feels while preforming it creates the feeling to turn the world into a better place, free of pain and suffering and into one of God’s image. (Williams 59) Malcolm X starts his chapter on the Hajj pilgrimage describing what the Hajj is and what people told him it meant before he made the journey, to them it meant learning what it truly meant to be a Muslim. These were signs he writes, from Allah, to finally go on the Hajj and leave for Mecca. He writes of the hospitality of the people on his journey, beginning in Frankfurt, in which he is surprised due to coming from America, where black people were met with discrimination. This distinction of people treating him equally, no matter his skin color was something of a culture shock to Malcolm X. Another one of Allah’s signs to him is when a friend invited him to a Hajj party, who treated him like a brother and in his words, “Wherever I turned, someone was there to help me, to guide me.” (X 371) When beginning in group prayer he 2 realized he had never prayed in Arabic, which was the norm. But it is when he met Dr. Omar Azzam that he was truly shaken, he was a white man who helped house him for a time on this trip, and whose father was a nobleman. When he came to his house he was greeted with respect and hospitality he didn’t know he could receive from someone of his complexion. Dr. Azzam had nothing to gain from helping Malcolm X yet he helped anyways, and it was with this that he realized the error of his previous thought processes. He believed a white man was the attitudes and actions one takes, not just the color of their skin, but the hospitality he received on his trip and with Dr. Azzam made him realize that that was false. Everywhere Malcolm X went he was greeted with hospitality, brotherly love, and a love for their faith. On his first morning of staying, he prayed the most he had ever had before and even then, was blown away by the beauty of Mecca. He finishes the chapter by commenting on how he had never felt like a part of a stronger brotherhood in his life when he went there, and that there were pilgrims of all different colors with him, celebrating faith and exemplifying a unity that he thought could never exist. God had truly removed any label and through his signs had shown that everyone is truly equal. In both excerpts the concept of this unwavering hospitality is brought up in multiple occasions: Williams speaks of the different stories of Jesus Christ and how it relates to the Eucharist and Malcolm X speaks of the hospitality he faces at every turn while on the journey. Williams speaks of a more esoteric spiritual sense of hospitality in his book, while Malcolm X speaks of this hospitality in a more tangible sense, in his words, a brotherhood. There is also a similarity in the two pieces in the way they speak about repentance. To Williams, the repentance is present due to the meaning of the Eucharist, in that the ritual is a recreation of the meal before the most heinous betrayal, in which Judas betrays Jesus Christ. When carrying out this ritual, one 3 is supposed to be reminded of the betrayal of judas and that everyone has the ability to be a Judas, and that everyone has sinned, this creates an obligation to repent and heal during this time. Malcolm X’s repentance is one also born out of the experience of the ritual, one that is created out of the very hospitality he experienced. It was because of this hospitality and the realization that all are equal to God that Malcolm X reflects at the morals he preached beforehand as a part of the Nation of Islam group in the United States. Before his experiences on his Hajj, he believed that to be white was to have prejudice and to discriminate against all black people, because this is the reality he saw through his worldview. But after the hospitality and his experiences with Dr. Azzam, a white man who gave him his bed and housed him out of the kindness of his heart, Malcolm X repented and asked for forgiveness for the ignorance he held so harshly before and for the Knowledge he now had. Another similarity is the view on God and how the two authors believe the rituals exemplify God’s will on the earth and on humanity. Williams tells more of a God that influences through the Holy Spirit to create a world void of suffering and one in God’s image while Malcolm X tells of a God that exhibits himself through signs and symbols to create a more equal and world without the discrimination of color of wealth. Both authors show how these rituals effect believers and their worldviews, as well as shaping the very character of those who believe and participate in these religious rituals. The rituals of the Eucharist and the Hajj help form both spiritual and ethical beliefs in those in the faith in slightly different ways, but both result in a mindset whose goal is making the world a better place. Having such rituals so based in hospitality instills a belief in people that hospitality is a value that should be very revered and celebrated. The Eucharist creates more spiritual hospitality, where all are welcomed to the table of the Lord to receive salvation, while the Hajj 4 creates a more physical brotherhood bond between those who experience it with each other. But either way the result is a hospitable environment that believers create among them. The second way the rituals effect the believer’s worldviews is through repentance, which creates an experience like Malcolm X’s, in which the realization of ignorance or sin is met with repentance and a desire to change. This repentance that the believers of both faiths go through is a personal one, but it results in a desire to change the world for the better, and to create a more cohesive peaceful world, one that is free of the topic in which the believers repented. Even though they are separate faiths, reading both literatures result in a view of the effects of ritual on the ethics and spirituality in its followers by giving a more esoteric view, a more personal experience. In reading both, one realizes the desire to create a better, more peaceful world, with equality and love for all is a goal that both faiths share, and it is in this realization that one can coexist in a more cohesive yet collaborative way. Both religions deal with such issues as hospitality, repentance and God’s will on Earth in very similar way, and it is this similarity that could be used to create this more accepting world in this modern era that both are striving to obtain. 5 Works Cited Williams, Rowan. Being Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2014. X, Malcolm, and Alex Haley. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: Grove City Press, 1965. 6 RELS 105B Judaism, Christianity, and Islam Take-home Final Exam Outline For this course’s take-home final exam, students will write a short essay of comparative analysis which focuses on two figures whose writings we read and discussed over the course of the semester (i.e. the assigned readings besides the Oxtoby, Hussein, and Amore text book). The purpose of this exercise will be to see how comparing and contrasting two figures might provide insights into how religious traditions deal with a range of issues from the role of scriptural narratives in religious communities to the challenges of confronting modernity to the place of ritual in shaping adherents’ characters and worldviews. Students are able to choose any two figures as long as they are from the same section. (this guarantees that the figures you choose are discussing the same topic, which thus ensures that you are comparing apples to apples, as it were). You may choose any two figures from the following three sections: o Formative Periods and the Power of Scriptural Narratives (Heschel, MLK, Jr., and al-Bisṭāmi) o Modern Period and Its Challenges (Rubenstein, Sobrino, and Iqbal) o Ritual and Practice as Ethico-spiritual Formation (Plaskow, Williams, and Malcolm X) The essay will be composed of five sections: 1) Introduction including thesis statement 2) Brief summaries of each figure’s writings 3) Comparison of the writings which draws out their similarities and differences 4) What such a comparison might tell us about how these religious traditions have dealt with the particular topic that is the focus of that section. The topic of each section is as follows: a) formative periods: the power of scriptural narratives in the life of the religious community; b) modern period: how religious traditions confront and negotiate the challenges of modernity; and c) ritual and practice: how rituals as social practices shape the character and worldviews of believers 5) Conclusion Your essay should be 4-6 double-spaced pages using 12-point Times New Roman font. Feel free to use which ever citation style you’re most comfortable with (MLA, APA, Chicago/Turabian), but make sure to be correct and consistent in your use of it! You are to submit your take-home final exam to SafeAssign by the end of our scheduled exam period, which is Saturday, 5/2 at 7:00PM, though you are free to submit it before then.
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