“Samaritan”, for me, is a symbol of all that I want to exclude from my little agape! Jesus by sitting and chatting with the Samaritan woman and ready to receive a drink from her suggests that I should break those little barriers I erect between others and me, sometimes in the name of morality, faith, and religion!
This spirituality of inclusion that Jesus left behind has been very carefully manipulated, in the past and in the present for the exclusion of many – continents, religious communities, even committed Christians but with different sexual orientation.
Christians, I see, continue to define their identities in terms of exclusion! Much of the Christian theology, liturgy, hagiology and so on have been developed contrary to the spirituality of Jesus. They express and affirm a distorted Christian exclusivism.
Fortunately, we have better examples of inclusion in other religions. One such is the Dalai Lama calling Mother (now Blessed) Teresa a “Bodhisattva”, an enlightened person, somewhat a synonym for Buddha, who is committed to the salvation of others. It is bigger than the Christian notion of “saint”. In this I see a Buddhist attempt to include and celebrate a Christian soul. But I am yet to see a similar Christian attempt to include and celebrate a so-called non-Christian.
And as an Anglican Christian I find it frustrating to see hardly any coloured saints, except the apostles and may be three other - a Chinese, a Japanese, and an African mentioned in the Anglican long list of saints!
This spirituality of inclusion that Jesus left behind has been very carefully manipulated, in the past and in the present for the exclusion of many – continents, religious communities, even committed Christians but with different sexual orientation.
Christians, I see, continue to define their identities in terms of exclusion! Much of the Christian theology, liturgy, hagiology and so on have been developed contrary to the spirituality of Jesus. They express and affirm a distorted Christian exclusivism.
Fortunately, we have better examples of inclusion in other religions. One such is the Dalai Lama calling Mother (now Blessed) Teresa a “Bodhisattva”, an enlightened person, somewhat a synonym for Buddha, who is committed to the salvation of others. It is bigger than the Christian notion of “saint”. In this I see a Buddhist attempt to include and celebrate a Christian soul. But I am yet to see a similar Christian attempt to include and celebrate a so-called non-Christian.
And as an Anglican Christian I find it frustrating to see hardly any coloured saints, except the apostles and may be three other - a Chinese, a Japanese, and an African mentioned in the Anglican long list of saints!
Jesus broke down barriers and established the rule of the compassionate God! His was a spirituality of inclusivisim similar, or greater to that of Dalai Lama! But can Christians learn inclusion of others from Dalai Lama?
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