EN:

“Who is my neighbour?” is a good question for both the Bible and today, but it is a complicated one. In this paper, I will focus on unpacking the idea of “love of neighbour,” first in its Levitical context, then in certain New Testament passages, and finally in contrast to its relationship with the concept of “stranger.” The term “neighbour” (רֵעַ) has multiple meanings in a Hebrew Bible context, and similarly, there are distinct meanings of “neighbour” within the New Testament – specifically between the gospels and the Pauline letters. I argue that the common understanding of the “Good Samaritan” passage, that Jesus promotes accepting everyone as neighbour, is incorrect; instead, I suggest that the literature demonstrates how a non-neighbour reveals how real neighbours should behave. The scope of the article is to demonstrate how discussions about “neighbour” and “stranger” can be used to segue into questions to dialogue between Christians and Jews.

EN:

A personal and critical essay written by a Muslim religious leader and scholar about the changes they have experienced and witnessed in the ways interfaith dialogue intersects with the public square. The author draws upon twenty-five years of experience, highlighting specific examples affecting the Muslim community, mostly in the United States. The author argues that interfaith dialogue can create space for engagement on issues of public policy and common concern, but that no encounter is ever naïve, and since digital and social media have facilitated the spread of misinformation, such encounters are more complex than before. Further, research on the disproportionate attention negative displays of emotion attract puts minority groups, typically stereotyped as angry and irrational, in a difficult position to express themselves authentically as they try to defend their rights and dignity. Principled interfaith engagement can achieve effective policy results and provide vital moral support to a beleaguered faith community and may create a principled foundation for engagement on other issues. However, this is not always the case, and various parties might express disappointment, even betrayal when “the other side” does not show up for their cause. Nevertheless, continued engagement that allows politically misaligned interfaith partners to express their views according to terms they consider authentic helps avoid greater polarization that is corrosive to social cohesion. At the same time, conveners of interfaith dialogue should be attentive to the structures of power embedded in the programs they create to avoid reinforcing patterns of hierarchy and exclusion.

EN:

This essay was presented at the “Who is my Neighbour? Theological Education in the Global Villiage of the 21st Century” symposium hosted by the McGill School of Religious Studies in the Fall of 2022. It offers an accessible set of reflections on how a liberal biblical theology can help people connect with the content of the Bible in ways that speak to their lived experience, thereby allowing the heart of the Bible to become more familiar and more widely accessible. In modern society, where the letters G-O-D seem like antiquated fiction and where the church has often failed to adequately and meaningfully explicate the Bible in ways that people can connect with, such a sound, gracious liberal biblical theology can be a source of renewal for both Liberal Protestantism and Christian theological education. To demonstrate this I will undertake an exercise in liberal biblical theology, contrasting the traditional Trinitarian language used by G. B. Caird (1951) to explore the unity of the New Testament with more accessible theological language, language arrived at by drawing from the work of Ralph Harper, Samuel Terrien, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Eric Fromm, Howard Thurman, and Robert Frost.

EN:

In fashioning a response to the question “Who is my neighbour?” – which informs the subject of the symposium on “Theological Education in the Global Village of the 21st Century” – this essay explores the contributions of the Igbo theological anthropology of the neighbour. Igbo theological anthropology considers the neighbour, not simply as one with whom my home shares a boundary, but as one who finds refuge in my heart (onye agbataobim), that is, one with whom there is mutual dependence, vulnerability, and support. This relational understanding of the neighbour in Igbo theological anthropology further derives from the Igbo conception of the human person as “the beauty of life” (mmadụ), and the corresponding attitude of love, “the act of beholding” (ịfunanya), which the sight of, or rather, the encounter with every human person, ought to evoke. The article will outline the significance of these insights for theological education in our time. Such education, the essay argues, ought to take seriously again the fact that there is something irreducibly astonishing about the human person – each and every human being – regardless of geographical boundaries, physical proximity, as well as social, political, and economic connections.

EN:

This paper offers a brief analysis of a survey created with the intent of better understanding the student experience of those enrolled in McGill University’s Bachelor of Theology. The questions were crafted with the objective of understanding how certain demographic features – education, age, ethnicity, and origin of province or country – have affected the experience of students in the Bachelor of Theology program during their first semester. The paper reviews the survey data with the aim of offering some tangible ways to better meet the changing needs of current and future students in McGill’s Bachelor of Theology program.