Posted on 12 February 2020
* Rev. Dr. Reynaldo Leão Neto (Methodist superintendent minister)
** Sayed Hashem Moosavi (Director, Islamic Centre of England)
***Dr Theodora Hawksley CJ (Theologian, nun and Novice)
****Florence Okoye (UX Designer, coder & founder of Afrofutures_UK)
To mark the birth event of Jesus Christ, according to the belief of many Christians, it is a good time to re-visit Jesus’s superior qualities that made him what he was. These are necessary for anyone who aspires to be a good follower of Christ, or a “Good Christian”. In a world inflicted with all kinds of illnesses these qualities are necessary to make a difference in the life of people and the whole planet. There have been many writings on this topic and Christmas is a good opportunity to highlight some of them. Muslims also value Jesus Christ as a great prophet and grant him an elevated position among other prophets. His mother, the Virgin Mary is also a great figure in the Quran. The two personalities provide a bridge that links the two great faiths. Common ground is what we expect to highlight in this seminar.
Tuesday, 17th December 2019
Dr Theodora Hawksley CJ:I work at the London Jesuit Centre, and so I’d like to approach the question of ‘How to be a good Christian?’ from a particularly Jesuit perspective. The Jesuits are a group of Catholic priests founded by St Ignatius of Loyola in 1540, and they have a distinctive spirituality –‘Ignatian spirituality’.
So I will begin by quoting an elderly Jesuit, Derrick Maitland SJ, who spent much of his life in Guyana. When he was asked about the essence of being a Jesuit, he responded very simply: ‘It is the love of Jesus. You can’t get away from it. The love of Jesus.’ You can see from his response -the clip is on Youtube- that this answer moves him deeply.
(Clip here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBQ84uD1n0I)
So I want to begin there: the essence of being a good Christian is the love of Jesus. Let’s unpack what it means to love Jesus.
- Love and sharing. First of all, St Ignatius tells us that ‘love consists in a mutual sharing of goods, for example, the lover gives and shares with the beloved what he possesses, or something of that which he has or is able to give; and vice versa, the beloved shares with the lover.’ (Spiritual Exercises 230). If we love someone, we want to share what we have with them, and they want to share what they have with us. God shares his life with us: gives us the gift of life, the beautiful gift of creation, of grace, of family and community, and the gift of Jesus Christ. So loving God means sharing what we have with God: our time, our gifts, our joys and sorrows. We are especially called to share our lives with God in prayer.
Especially in the Catholic tradition, love and sharing means community. Faith is not something that we do alone: nobody invents their faith, we receive it from the community that went before us, and we pass it on to the community that comes after us. Being a Christian means belonging to the Church.
- Love and likeness. The Greek philosopher Aristotle had a major impact on the Catholic tradition through the work of St Thomas Aquinas. In fact, we have Muslim scholars to thank for this! It was Muslim scholars who preserved the works of Aristotle. Aristotle writes about friendship, and says that ‘perfect friendship is between two people who are good, and alike in virtue…Like loves like, and this is especially true in the case of virtue, for virtuous people hold fast to each other, and neither go wrong nor let their friend go wrong.’ Like loves like. Probably I am not going to be friends with someone who wants to go bungee jumping in their spare time: I will be friends with someone who likes the same things as me. So ‘the love of Jesus’ means trying to be like Jesus: loving the same things that Jesus loves. It means trying to grow in the likeness of Jesus: always trying to know him better and follow him more closely. For St Ignatius, it means choosing what Christ chooses. So what does Jesus like? What does Jesus love?
- First, the Father. Jesus loves God the Father and is obedient to his will, seeking God in prayer and acting according to his desires: ‘I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but to do the will of him who sent me.’ (John 6:38)
- Second, we read in the gospels about Jesus’ love for those who are poor, weak, sick or marginalised. He does not choose to spend his time with the religious or political elites. Instead, he spends most of his life among peasants, and especially among those people thought of as sinners: prostitutes, tax collectors and so on. If we love Jesus, then we need also to love the people he loves. In the Catholic Church we call this the preferential option for the poor. At the end of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus tells a parable about the judgement at the end of time, when people are separated from one another. The righteous and the unrighteous ask the same question: ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and give you food, or thirsty and give you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?’ And the Lord responds: ‘Whatever you did to the least of my brothers and sisters, you did to me.’ (Matt 25:31-46). Jesus identifies with those who are poorest, and being a good Christian means doing this too.
- Love and sensitivity. When we love someone, we are sensitive to their needs, likes and dislikes. We care about the things they care about it. For example, the kind of relationship we have with people we meet on the tube – just trying to keep out of their way, knowing nothing about them- is very different from the relationship we have with a spouse or a family member. So being a good Christian means not just being attentive to God’s desires, but also valuing and caring for the things that God values. God has given us the beautiful gift of creation. A lot of the time, we interact with the gift of creation like we interact with people on the tube: we are focussed on our own needs, and we are not really aware of them, and we do not care much about them. But being a good Christian means interacting with creation in a way that shows sensitivity and care: not destroying, not taking more than we need, not damaging, but living sustainably and carefully. Creation is something that is precious to God, and so it must be precious to us.
- Finally: St Ignatius says that ‘love ought to manifest itself in deeds rather than in words.’ He was a very practical saint! Being a good Christian is not just about believing the right things and saying the right prayers, but about manifesting our faith in our deeds. It is how we behave, how we treat God and others, that really shows what we believe.
So – being a good Christian. It is about the love of Jesus. Love that is sharing in prayer and in community. Love that is growing in the likeness of Jesus, trying to choose what Jesus chooses, and loving the people that he loves – especially the poor and marginalised. Love means valuing what God values, and in our own context we might focus especially on valuing the gift of creation. And loving Jesus means not just talking about it, but doing it!
Rev. Dr. Reynaldo Leão Neto: What makes a good Christian?
Good Christians all rejoice
With heart and soul and voice!
Give ye heed to what we say:
Jesus Christ is born today!
Ox and ass before him bow
And he is in the manger now
Christ is born today!
Christ is born today!
Carol John Mason Neale
What makes a good Christian is love: free, generous, unconditional, available, merciful, compassionate, kind, dedicated to the poor and oppressed to seek justice for them and peace for all. A love so strong that is adaptable and responsive to the needs of the context. A love so strong that loves the whole creation: green, environmentally aware.
At Christmas, Christians – and hopefully others who sympathise with them – celebrate the love divine shown in the life of a son of a migrant family, the holy family, whose teenage mother found herself unexpectedly pregnant and whose older step father accommodated the whole situation based on his spiritual life of visions and dreams. A child that grew up not to be bitter against the world though the world seemed to be against him from the beginning. Jesus grew up to show the world his love and love to the end. So, at Christmas we should celebrate the love that Jesus Christ showed us – a deep love, a substitute for hate. And we should remember that his message of “love above all things” led him to death on a cross. That is the love that Christians remember and try to imitate at Christmas and throughout their
Lives.
Love came down at Christmas
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas
Star and angles gave the sign
Love shall be our token
Love be yours and love be mine
Love to God and all the world
Love for plea and gift and sign
Carol: Christina Rossetti
A good Christian loves God above all things and his/her neighbour as they love themselves. To love and serve God in that way, is the path to perfect freedom, the path to holiness of life, to a positive mind set. It is a spiritual, moral, intellectual choice. The ‘love that came down at Christmas is chosen for life, chosen daily in opposition to the ever downward spiralling negative, hateful attitude so prevalent in our world.
Christmas is a celebration that invites us all people of love and good will. Glory be to God in the highest and peace on earth to all people.
I’d like to reflect on this Christmas with reference to love in three ways:
- Mystical: loosing ourselves in love as a way to find ourselves in God.
- Ethical; love as a way of living our lives free to serve God and others and to serve the causes of justice and peace and ecology.
- Contextual – a decision to love not by principals of a law given in antiquity or any time in the past but love free to respond to the situation we find ourselves in.
Mystical love.
What makes a good Christian is love. But we love because God loves us first. We embrace because God embraces us first. We welcome because God welcomes us first. The essence of a religious life is to lose ourselves in the love of God in prayer, contemplation and also in action and active love of others.
That love that makes a person good comes from God. It is divine love. Not selfish, not self centred but self giving. Religion is the intention of the heart to love God, ourselves and others.
The love that makes a good person comes from God. It is divine love – not selfish or self centred love. But self giving. Religion is the intention of the heart to love God, ourselves and others.
The religious experience is at one level of a mystical nature, an experience of being loved by the eternal, embraced and sustained by the creator of all things, whatever way we describe that reality. “The love that came down at Christmas embraces us, lives in us and through us. St Augustine described this all embracing experience in his prayer: You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
This commonality must actually be the basis of our inter-religious meeting. We meet here because we share a common experience, a religious/spiritual, emotion experience of the all-embracing love of God.
Any goodness in us rests in this intimate relationship with God. We love because we have been loved first, St Paul said. We produce good fruit, generous fruit because we remain in the vine. This experience comes before any moral or ethical instance. The opposite, any goodness of the religious person is at its trust nature dependent, rooted in that mystical experience of the love of God.
Ethical
To speak as a Methodist, John Wesley saw the life of a disciple of Jesus as a life of seeking holiness. Holiness he described as loving as God loves.
The life of holiness is not a life without mistakes, errors, even sin. It is simply a life dedicated to love as God loves. ‘Be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.’ (Matthew 5.45). This saying of Jesus that appears in the Sermon on the Mount was for Wesley, the founder of Methodism an invitation to love perfectly as God loves. The doctrine is called perfection in love or sanctification.
Wesley also coined some memorable mottos that would lead a person to be a good Christian, for example:
Methodists are friends of all and enemies of none.
Do all the good you can
By all the means you can
In all the ways you can
In all the places you can.
At all the times you can
To all the people you can
As long as ever you can
Wesley had three general rules:
Do no harm
Do good
Stay in love with God
He also had some practical advice:
Earn as much as you can
Save as much as you can
Or spend as little as you can
Give as much as you can.
There would be other practical teachings in the direction of allowing love to take the centre stage. Wesley engaged with the poorest in the country, travelled extensively to visit them and stayed with them; for long periods he was a vegetarian; in his own time he was a kind of animal rights campaigner; a frequent prison visitor. He set up schools for poor children and infirmaries.
The Methodist way of life is not far from the teachings of St Francis and St Ignatius of Loyola and many others who emphasised a life of dedication to spiritual growth, seeking to help others, justice for human beings and respect for the environment. This is the way to be a good Christian and it is not dissimilar from the teachings of Prophet Mohammad to being a good Muslim.
Contextual
If the two points above show community, where we are most likely to agree with one another and share similarities and beliefs is with regard to the mystical dimension as part of the nature of the religious experience and on the ethical dimension of the religious life as deeply inspired by the love of God. We may however disagree on how contextual love needs to be.
Though the pattern of religious life might even be a repeating one, similar for different religions Christians would realise that a life of love cannot be totally determined by the letter of the law, even when Christians considered holy scriptures revealed in the past. Christmas is the incarnation of a particular context that impels Christians to love in a contextual manner as well.
Could the law of love be lived in a prescriptive and rigid manner? By its very nature and its compassion love needs to be adaptable and flexible and sensitive to the people and times it relates to. It seems that it cannot be strictly based on previous revealed, unchangeable behavioural or dogmatic edits. St Paul says that the law of love is to be written on human hearts. “You yourselves are the letter we have written on our hearts for everyone to know and read.” It is clear that Christ himself wrote this letter and sent it by us. It is written, not with ink but with the spirit of the living God, and not on stone tablets but on human hearts.”
This is – in my view- a response that Christmas, the incarnation of love, requires in exchange a full incarnation of our situation. “Love incarnate, love divine” as the carol I sang I the beginning goes.
St Augustine says: Love and do what you may.
This is the challenging teaching that comes from Christmas. It is challenging for Christians too. Many would find a clear rule of life much better and comforting rather than trying to live with an open mind to respond in love to a reality that never keeps still.
I conclude with a prayer:
Loving God
The light of the minds that know you
And the strength of the wills that serve you;
Help us to know you
That we may truly serve you
Whom to serve is perfect freedom
Through Jesus Christ our Lord
Amen.
Florence Okoye: When I first read the theme of the panel based around the question of ‘What is a good Christian?’ I initially thought of two particular responses which I might describe as the reflective and the earnest.
I’ll start with the earnest.
I spend a lot of my time thinking about complex systems and emergent phenomena particularly how they relate to the relations between humanity and technology. I’m interested in the different ways we understand technology and how this impacts the way we make it, use it and ultimately how it evolves.
In practice, dealing with the realities of complexity and the opportunity for exclusion and exploitation, this often involves using methods which designs technology and services collectively with users, rather than simply centralising power into the role of the designer.
Part of this approach emerges from a fundamental understanding of what it means to be ‘good Christian’. This is the earnest response to the question, that to be a good Christian is about intentionally seeking and serving those who have been ‘Othered’, the marginalised, the excluded; the poor and the helpless. It’s something that is often affirmed reading about how Christ encounters the ‘Othered’, how often he puts himself in their path yet still awaits them to be ready, seeks out consent, demonstrating not just how we as Christians need to behave with others, but how God genuinely prefers to get to know us.
And what of the reflective response? I call it reflective because it’s a tactic that Jesus often used in theological and philosophical discussions, this turning attention away from himself by asking another question, or reflecting in order to answer with a deeper principle rather than deflecting, to avoid the discussion. Sometimes there’s something almost sarcastic and tetchy about such responses, other times one suspects Jesus just enjoys teasing the people who come to him, particularly his peers, with question after question, concern after concern.
In Mark’s Gospel when he is asked a question interestingly similar to the theme of today’s discussion – what does it mean to be a good follower of God – he initially replies, “Why do you call me good – no one is good except God alone”. Whether it was to disarm by dismissing either the dubious flattery or the habits of rote respect, we’re reminded of the basic truth. That only God is Good and if we really want to go deeper, that is not just an adjective, but the nature of the thing itself.
And so there’s the reflective answer. The question is all wrong. There is no such thing as a good Christian, because none of us is God. This is the framing for our adherence to whatever principles we might claim to have, whether they are the summation of the commandments, or the exhortation to do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God.
And that’s where I was going to stop, with some additional talk of the tension between the reflective and the earnest, except as it happens, over the past weeks, I have been actually quite forcibly reminded of something else, or rather someone else.
For those Christians like myself who would claim to be part of an apostolic and catholic faith, it is currently the season of Advent, a season that marks the beginning of the Christian year where we fast, we meditate, we think and we wait.
There’s a set of readings one is always likely to hear during this time and those dwell on the person called John the Baptist, something of a bookless prophet in certain traditions. His role was to prepare people for Jesus (according to one Gospel, they were second cousins) by preaching repentance and encouraging people to start a ne way of life. And it’s him who for whatever reason has been a nagging presence as I prepared for this talk.
There’s several interesting things about John the Baptist. He tells people to be accountable, to seriously look at themselves and the world they have helped create; he insists that people help repair the harm they have caused (clarifying that repentance isn’t just ‘saying sorry’, it’s working to undo the wrong that has been done).
But he also questions. He questions those coming to him for spiritual healing and guidance; he questions himself if he has misunderstood something about Jesus and in doing so he questions Jesus. They don’t read as particularly polite questions either. They are bluntly inquisitive, without deference.
As this questioning aspect remained with me, it gradually grew into a realisation that there is another response to the theme of being a ‘good Christian’. And this response is not a critique of the earnest, nor an evasion of the reflective, but a means to both. There is an intense seriousness to John’s interrogations, whether of himself, his fellow humans or of Jesus. There is a lesson in that it is by an intentional interrogation that we can see yet alone serve the Other; it is by this questioning, this needling that we can recognise and own our limitations.
So what is a Good Christian?
Well, firstly there is no such thing. What there is are people who are not afraid to question, to irritate, even to annoy, in the service of God and the Other (the two are entwined, after all). What there is are a people who are not afraid to be difficult to hold themselves and their communities accountable. What there is are a people humble enough to be reflective, loving enough to be earnest and bluntly inquisitive enough to be both.
Sayed Hashem Moosavi: This is a very good and appropriate question.
The best and perhaps the shortest answer to this important question is to follow a complete Christian model.
The next question is whether such a perfect model has ever been introduced to the Christian world, and how can such a perfect model be accessed?
This question is not specific to Christians only, it is also applicable to Muslims and perhaps all of humanity and it is “How can one be a good person?”
It seems that this question had been on the minds of the early Muslims, “How can one be a good Muslim”, so God Almighty acknowledged this question and gave a precise answer as follows:
«لَقَدْ كَانَ لَكُمْ فِي رَسُولِ اللَّهِ أُسْوَةٌ حَسَنَةٌ»
Certainly you have in the Messenger of Allah an excellent exemplar.
«قَدْ كَانَتْ لَكُمْ أُسْوَةٌ حَسَنَةٌ فِي إِبْرَاهِيمَ وَالَّذِينَ مَعَهُ…».
There is for you an excellent example (to follow) in Abraham and those with him.
«وَضَرَبَ اللَّهُ مَثَلًا لِلَّذِينَ آمَنُوا امْرَأَتَ فِرْعَوْنَ… 11، وَمَرْيَمَ ابْنَتَ عِمْرَانَ الَّتِي أَحْصَنَتْ فَرْجَهَا فَنَفَخْنَا فِيهِ مِنْ رُوحِنَا…12»
And Allah sets forth, as an example to those who believe the wife of Pharaoh.
And Mary the daughter of ‘Imran, who guarded her chastity.
According to the verses above, the divinely sent prophets and perfect humans are the best people whose speech and behavior are good models for us whether one is a Christian, a Muslim or a follower of any other religion.
So, in answer to the above question, it can be said that one of the most appropriate ways to become a good Christian is to follow someone who is the best Christian in the world, and of course he is no one else but Jesus Christ.
How can this great man who lived among us centuries ago be a model for our lives today?
The easiest way to learn from the lives of these great men of history seems to be to pay full attention to their words and deeds that have been quoted to us by God Almighty in his scriptures; (Torah, Bible and Qur’an).
In this article we will mention some of the beautiful words and behaviors of Prophet Jesus (peace be upon him) that are mentioned in the Holy Quran.
Qualities of Jesus Christ in Holy Quran
- Jesus son of Mary, a model of parents respecting and avoidance of oppression
The Almighty God in the Holy Qur’an, in expressing the precious attributes of Jesus Christ, introduces him as being among the highest of moral standards, so that every believer should strive to embody in his life.
One of the prominent attributes that God Almighty introduces to his servants is the consideration and appreciation of parents and avoidance of oppression in their lives. An important moral standard that all human beings need in their individual and social lives,
«وَ بَرًّا بِوالِدَتی وَ لَمْ یَجْعَلْنی جَبَّاراً شَقِیًّا».
(He has made me) kind to my mother; He has not made me self-willed, and wretched.
- His inviting others to worship and serve God
The call to godliness and the avoidance of idolatry have been the main and most central program of all the divinely sent prophets. Jesus Christ (peace be upon him) also did not miss any effort in fulfilling this spiritual duty and responsibility.
In a verse of the holy Quran Almighty God calls mankind through Jesus Christ to worship Him and not stray from the right path.
« فَاعْبُدُوهُ هذا صِراطٌ مُسْتَقیم».
“Worship Him. That is the Straight Path”.
In a narration from Jesus Christ regarding worship of Almighty God he says: Blessed are those who spend some parts of nights in worshipping God; they are the ones who inherit an enduring light.
- His Elucidation and Explaining of Divine Realities
Elucidating and explaining divine realities is a special characteristic of Jesus Christ in the Qur’an. The prophetic movement is a cultural and intellectual one where they seek to help their followers distinguish truth from falsehood.
Hence, God the Almighty mentions this great attribute of Jesus Christ as follows:
« وَ لَمَّا جاءَ عیسى بِالْبَیِّناتِ قالَ قَدْ جِئْتُكُمْ بِالْحِكْمَةِ وَ لِأُبَیِّنَ لَكُمْ بَعْضَ الَّذی تَخْتَلِفُونَ فیهِ فَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ وَ أَطیعُون».
When Jesus brought the manifest proofs (in support of his truthfulness), he said, “I have certainly brought you wisdom, and I have come to make clear to you some of the things that you differ about. So be wary of God and obey me.
- Jesus Christ was one of the Righteous
«وَ یُكَلِّمُ النَّاسَ فِی الْمَهْدِ وَ كَهْلاً وَ مِنَ الصَّالِحین».
He will speak to people while in the cradle and in adulthood, and will be one of the righteous.
« وَ زَكَرِیَّا وَ یَحْیى وَ عیسى وَ إِلْیاسَ كُلٌّ مِنَ الصَّالِحینَ».
And Zachariah, John, Jesus and Elias, each one (of them) was of the righteous.
5) Serving Creatures
Jesus Christ on many occasions had recommended that his followers serve others; not only human beings, but even animals.
In this context, it has been narrated that, when Jesus came to the sea with the apostles, he threw a loaf of bread into it. One of the apostles said to him, O “Spirit of God, why did you do this? That was your share!” Jesus said: “I threw it in for one of the marine animals. The reward is great. “
6) Being honest and trustworthy
This is undoubtedly one of the most important moral attributes that we need not only for being a good Christian, but indeed for being a good human being. This has been emphasized many times in the commands of all the great divinely sent prophets, including Jesus Christ.
May God bless us all for being his good and decent servants.
*Rev. Dr. Reynaldo Leão Neto was born in Brazil. He started his ministry as a 19 year old student and later moved to the UK to work with ecumenical and inter-faith relations.
He is now a Superintendent Minister in London. He got his PhD from the Centre for the Studies of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Birmingham University. He was chairperson for nine years of the Grassroots Interfaith Programme, Luton, UK. He is a member of the Brent Multi Faith Forum Steering Committee and was a member of the Methodist-Roman Catholic International Dialogue Commission for the last quinquennium. He is a Research Fellow, Queen’s College, Birmingham UK.
**Sayed Hashem Moosavi is the Director of the Islamic Centre of England. He was educated at Imam Sadiq University in Tehran and at Feyziyeh Seminary in Qom. Among his teachers were Ayatollah Hoseyn Vahid-Khorasani and Ayatollah Naser Makarem-Shirazi. He was Chancellor and teacher at Al Mustafa Islamic College in the Philippines for seven years. He also taught at Al Mahdi Institute in Birmingham between 2000 and 2005. He is now a lecturer at the Islamic College for Further Education in London, where he teaches the Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence, Islamic History and Hadith (prophet’s tradition). He wrote several books on Islamic jurisprudence.
***Dr Theodora Hawksley is a theologian who trained at Durham University and the University of Edinburgh. Her academic work focuses on peacebuilding and Catholic Social teaching. She is the lead for Social and Environmental Justice at the London Jesuit Centre.
****Florence Okoye is a UX Designer, coder and founder of Afrofutures_UK, an interdisciplinary collective dedicated to exploring how technology both shapes and reimagines the black experience. Inspired by afrofuturist writers and thinkers such as Octavia Butler, Kodwo Eshun and Reynaldo Anderson, Afrofutures_UK is especially interested in using creative technology to reveal untold histories of the black community which can be a source of inspiration for developing a more intersectional future. Afrofutures_UK has hosted workshops in comic creation and coding (from Arduino to web development), engaged academics through open conferences and citizen science jams, and has also explored radical artistic practice to share and evolve new narratives.
