The CSME and religious pluralism
published: Tuesday December 27, 2005
Rev Lennox Scarlett, Contributor
THE CARIBBEAN Single Market and Economy comes into effect at the end of the year. With this new economic order comes the free movement of goods, services and people. This means the opening up of the Caribbean islands' borders to the free movement of nearly seven million Caribbean nationals.
People in search of employment opportunities, business expansion opportunities, and wider educational opportunities will be engaged in searches to satisfy the need for more. While the CSME speaks basically to economic enterprises, technological explorations and advancements and the free movement of capital, this opening up will also occasion the influx of a plethora of religious traditions from around the region. This will give rise to more and more persons having more and more opportunities to learn religions other than their own.
Jamaica is by no means purely Christian, but certainly a large percentage of Jamaicans are from the Christian tradition. Many Christians adopt the exclusivist approach, which shuts out even the thought of entertaining dialogue with those from other religious traditions. Christianity is the religion; or, as others would say, it is a way of life. There should be no other. But, is this so? We may be surprised that there is much we can learn from the Hindus, Muslims and others. The opening up of borders gives the opportunity for many exchanges to take place, including in this the religious exchange.
I've found that increasingly it is difficult to raise any religious question among young people without discussing it against the background of some world religions, because students and others want religious questions not only within the framework of Christian ideas. Religious pluralism has undoubtedly entered into the consciousness of the younger generation. The opening up of the borders will no doubt present challenges for some old among us, as well as some young, but as Caribbean people we will, in the long run, learn from each other.
TIME FOR AWARENESS
With the religious challenges, there will be cultural and social nuances which will be different from our own. Mode of dress, food, dialect will be different. There will be different approaches to business engagement. The truth is, the knowledge that will be required to make religious pluralism a newly experienced reality is not just knowledge of their religious systems or ideas or customs. It will also, and especially, be knowledge of the religious persons themselves. It is one thing to confront a religious truth in the abstract - on printed pages or in classroom lecture or by mere corridor talk; it is quite another enfleshed in the life of a friend, a colleague or an in-law. That is what will happen with this CSME undertaking. Not only will ideas, technologies and economic systems be migrating, but so will persons. Our neighbours in the future might be not only Baptists or Rastas, but Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists. No longer are people of other persuasions, peripheral or distant, the idle curiosities of travellers' tales.
This means, therefore, we are to be alert and aware of the developments happening around us, and realise that the CSME will not just have political and economic implications, but will involve religious Caribbean nationals becoming our closer neighbours, colleagues, competitors and friends.
Because we are coming so close to each other, we are going to be learning each other's languages, both literally and figuratively. To have a friend, a neighbour or a colleague who has found meaning according to a religious path that apparently is quite different from Christianity will not only impress some, but for others will be disturbing. A Zen Buddhist who has found peace through a practice that does not even teach the existence of God, or a Hindu who has discovered 'salvation' in the realisation that there is no essential difference between her and other persons and a tree - what does this mean for Christian belief? Such friends, we know are not religious fanatics. They are normal, happy human beings, getting their jobs done, raising their families as well as, or even better, than us Christians, and living lives of love, of service, and of commitment. There could be something we can learn from them.
Rev. Lennox O. Scarlett is the Chaplain of the Knox Complex of Schools.
©1997-2005 Gleaner Company Ltd.
published: Tuesday December 27, 2005
Rev Lennox Scarlett, Contributor
THE CARIBBEAN Single Market and Economy comes into effect at the end of the year. With this new economic order comes the free movement of goods, services and people. This means the opening up of the Caribbean islands' borders to the free movement of nearly seven million Caribbean nationals.
People in search of employment opportunities, business expansion opportunities, and wider educational opportunities will be engaged in searches to satisfy the need for more. While the CSME speaks basically to economic enterprises, technological explorations and advancements and the free movement of capital, this opening up will also occasion the influx of a plethora of religious traditions from around the region. This will give rise to more and more persons having more and more opportunities to learn religions other than their own.
Jamaica is by no means purely Christian, but certainly a large percentage of Jamaicans are from the Christian tradition. Many Christians adopt the exclusivist approach, which shuts out even the thought of entertaining dialogue with those from other religious traditions. Christianity is the religion; or, as others would say, it is a way of life. There should be no other. But, is this so? We may be surprised that there is much we can learn from the Hindus, Muslims and others. The opening up of borders gives the opportunity for many exchanges to take place, including in this the religious exchange.
I've found that increasingly it is difficult to raise any religious question among young people without discussing it against the background of some world religions, because students and others want religious questions not only within the framework of Christian ideas. Religious pluralism has undoubtedly entered into the consciousness of the younger generation. The opening up of the borders will no doubt present challenges for some old among us, as well as some young, but as Caribbean people we will, in the long run, learn from each other.
TIME FOR AWARENESS
With the religious challenges, there will be cultural and social nuances which will be different from our own. Mode of dress, food, dialect will be different. There will be different approaches to business engagement. The truth is, the knowledge that will be required to make religious pluralism a newly experienced reality is not just knowledge of their religious systems or ideas or customs. It will also, and especially, be knowledge of the religious persons themselves. It is one thing to confront a religious truth in the abstract - on printed pages or in classroom lecture or by mere corridor talk; it is quite another enfleshed in the life of a friend, a colleague or an in-law. That is what will happen with this CSME undertaking. Not only will ideas, technologies and economic systems be migrating, but so will persons. Our neighbours in the future might be not only Baptists or Rastas, but Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists. No longer are people of other persuasions, peripheral or distant, the idle curiosities of travellers' tales.
This means, therefore, we are to be alert and aware of the developments happening around us, and realise that the CSME will not just have political and economic implications, but will involve religious Caribbean nationals becoming our closer neighbours, colleagues, competitors and friends.
Because we are coming so close to each other, we are going to be learning each other's languages, both literally and figuratively. To have a friend, a neighbour or a colleague who has found meaning according to a religious path that apparently is quite different from Christianity will not only impress some, but for others will be disturbing. A Zen Buddhist who has found peace through a practice that does not even teach the existence of God, or a Hindu who has discovered 'salvation' in the realisation that there is no essential difference between her and other persons and a tree - what does this mean for Christian belief? Such friends, we know are not religious fanatics. They are normal, happy human beings, getting their jobs done, raising their families as well as, or even better, than us Christians, and living lives of love, of service, and of commitment. There could be something we can learn from them.
Rev. Lennox O. Scarlett is the Chaplain of the Knox Complex of Schools.
©1997-2005 Gleaner Company Ltd.
