DESCRIBING RELIGIONS IN 500 WORDS 

RELIGIONS ARE DIFFERENT 

Once I had finished the section on prayers, I realised I had done only half the job. On their own the prayers give the impression that we are all singing from the same song sheet.  But that gives a misleading impression.  I learnt from my experience in India that religions are like layer cakes. I was continually surprised by similarities and by differences. 

So I decided that a book of multi-faith prayers also needed a brief description of each religion. I took 500 words as the limit.  Here are my experiences of doing this, in the order that I carried out the consultation/writing.

WESTERN CHRISTIANITY

First, I had to check whether this was possible.  I wrote an account of Western Christianity and stuck to my words limit.  It was bracing  to try and put 2,000 years of history into such a small compass.  For instance , the Councils of Nicaea, Ephesus, Chalcedon, Constantinople etc were summed up like this. “A series of church councils decided on what was the right way to talk about God and Christ.”  

So I reckoned that the thing was possible.  So I asked each of my collaborators on prayer if they could write 500 words about their own religion.  I wanted the descriptions to get the ‘feel’ of each religion right.  However, not surprisingly, no one took me up on my less than generous offer.

Instead, I asked each participant over coffee or tea if they could give me a series of headings. I would then use these to create the descriptions, and ask them to checkup on them afterwards.  This did work well.  Here are some of the things I learned in the process.

BUDDHISM

I talked to Lelung Rinpoche, of the Lelung Dharma Centre in North Harrow, about Buddhism, I discovered at least two varieties of Buddhism I had not heard of before, Pure Land (very popular) and Tantriana/Vajrayana.

ISLAM

I was fortunte to talk with a Muslim colleague, Imam Siddiq, who gave me a detailed list of headings for my description of Islam. These included the beliefs: the oneness of Allah, the prophets , the books and the angels, of which there are thousands. And of course the Five Pillars such as Zakat or charitable giving , which is meant to be 2.5% annually of one’s capital wealth, not income!

JUDAISM

Helen Freeman was my Jewish contact, a senior rabbi at the West London Synagogue.  I wrote about Jewish history starting with the Second Temple period, but struggled to keep that down to 250 words.  I then met up with Helen again and we discussed the rest of it.  West London is an Independent Reform Synagogue.  Gender equality is important, so the opening section was titled  Patriarchs and Matriarchs. Also,  ‘Lord’ is never used to refer to God.  Instead ‘the Eternal One’ is used, a much better translation of ‘ Yahweh’.  What was new to me was that ‘Torah’ doesn’t just mean the first five books of the Bible. It means the whole body of authoritative teaching.

SIKHISM

I had read a short book on Sikhism, but that only took me so far.  When I asked a Sikh chaplain to help me choose some Sikh prayers. But I did not realise that what I was asking was impossible because Sikh prayer is long!  It consists of reciting a series of ‘banis’ or hymns morning and evening.  The morning ‘banis’ take about 25 minutes, ideally between 3 am and 6 am.  If you want, you can listen to them electronically on headphones.  

 I learnt this from a charming young man when I eventually visited a Sikh Gurdwara in Southall. He described Sikh prayer to me, and gave me the headings I should use.  He also offered me a delicious vegetarian free meal in the gurdwara’s canteen.

HINDUISM

I had no-one to consult about Hinduism, as the Shree Ram Mandir in Southall did not return my emails. But I then remembered the nine weeks I spent in South India before my ordination. I read through the small diaries I kept at the time and they brought it all back to me.  I found a small book called ‘Facets of Brahman or The Hindu Gods’ by Swami Chidbhavananda. This gave me the main headings:  Philosophy, Epics, Puranas and Rituals.  I certainly would not have thought them up myself.   In the end I found someone I could show my account to, a trustee of the Shree Ram Mandir.  I showed it to him in his Brilliant restaurant (that was the name) and he was very complimentary. In our conversation I realised that I had left out the two central concepts of Hinduism, Karma (consequences) and Moksha (liberation).

EASTERN CHRISTIANITY

The history of Eastern Christianity is very different from that of the West. It consists of a thousand years of suffering persecution.  The great missionary period was in the ninth century among Slav people and even reaching China.  And there is a much greater emphasis on the Holy Spirit.  I was aware of this history through my visits to Orthodox churches in Greece, India , Palestine and the UK, so was able to write up a reasonable description myself.

Finally in August I met two Orthodox priests, one in the Bulgarian embassy, the other in the Greek Orthodox Church in Oxford.  They approved of my account, but some of statements were corrected. For example,  after the iconoclastic controversy the making of 3D images was officiously discouraged rather than forbidden;  and the Crusaders’ capture of Constantine in 1204 did not completely sever all links between east and west.

THE  LAUNCH 

The official launch of the book was at 7.00 pm on Thursday 19th October at Holy Trinity Church, Prince Consort Road, by the Albert Hall.  Andrew Willson, chaplain at the Multi-Faith Centre of Imperial College was there, and a good selection of my friends and acquaintances. At the end there was free wine, juice, bread and cheese afterwards.  It was a very good evening!

The following week, Tuesday 24th October, I was to put on, at St Mary Abbot’s Church, Kensington, an Interfaith Symposium on Prayer. This was to consist of brief statements from Jewish, Hindu, Muslim and Christian representatives. But because of the volatile situation with the war in Gaza, we decided to postpone it to 31st January. I hope for a wider representation of faiths as a result.