Children of the “God of Abraham, Jesus, and Mohammed”

The sounding of the “singing bowl,” used in Buddhist practice to facilitate meditation and trance induction, marked the call to worship at the United Methodist sponsored Interfaith Peace Conference at Lake Junaluska this September.

Perhaps this was an appropriate beginning for the annual conference, which was organized to “build a community of peacemakers across faith lines,” according to retired United Methodist Bishop Kenneth Carder. This year’s third annual conference was themed “Peace for the World’s Children,” and was intended to advocate on behalf of children throughout the world who suffer from poverty, war, and disease. Notable speakers included Bishop Carder, Marion Wright Edelman of the Children’s Defense Fund, and Luther Smith of Candler School of Theology at Emory University.

 “God suffers with [the children],” said Carder at the first keynote address. “So why are we engaged in focusing on children and peace? We want to help relieve the suffering of God, our God – the God who will continue to suffer as long as a child suffers needlessly.”   He gravely intoned that the lack of care for the world’s children, on the church or state level, threatens the credibility of the “world’s great faiths” and world governments. “Justice is not protecting the privileges of the privileged,” he said. “Justice is enabling the least and most vulnerable.”

In keeping with the spirit of interfaith inclusivism, Carder led the congregation through Jewish, Christian and Islamic scriptures that illustrated the “unique quality of this God” to uphold children. After reviewing Christ’s declaration in Matthew 19 of children’s primacy in the Kingdom of God, he went on to describe the Islamic prophet Mohammed’s attitude towards children. “Mohammed is reported to have always been kind to children,” he said. “It was his practice whenever he returned from a journey to let the children who met him on the way ride before him and behind him – and he always greeted them first.”

“At the heart of our three great religions that are represented here this evening… is a God who knows the suffering of children, who sees their plight their cries, and who enters into their suffering,” said Carder. It wasn’t clear whether the God he referred to in the Christian tradition was distinct from that of the Islamic faith, though when referencing the Abrahamic traditions, care was taken to use inclusive language.  “The state of the least of these threatens the very vision portrayed by the God of Abraham, Jesus and Mohammed,” he declared, perhaps intentionally paralleling the Patriarchal formula. 

Lobbying on God’s Behalf

What might have been the most pessimistic forecast for America’s long-term spiritual health was laid out by Dr. Edelman, director for Children’s Defense Fund and well-known welfare state advocate.  Materialism and poor policymaking were targeted as the main culprits for the nation’s moral malaise. “God has blessed our nation with very great material wealth, but we’ve not shared it fairly, with our children or with our poor,” she said. “Our [monetary] and military might have not translated into moral might.”

Edelman’s speech (covered in full here) condemned U.S. policy for its failure to adequately provide for the needy in society, blaming in particular the misappropriation of resources within the economy. “Something is awry with the world,” she said, “when the net worth of the 1,100 richest people, all billionaires, exceeds the combined income of the poorest 25% or 1.5 billion people.”  She was also heavily critical of U.S. military spending, which she argues dwarfs all other government expenditures to the detriment of others and contributes to the death-toll of children abroad.

The panel discussion on the final day of the conference, which coincided with the United Nations’ International Day of Peace, seemed to play up the United Methodist Church’s role in lobbying for specific legislation. Panelists included Bishop Carder, Rev. Neal Christie of the General Board of Church and Society’s (GBCS) Education and Leadership Formation, Laura Dean Friedrich of Protestants for the Common Good, and Mary Love, Professor of Education at Hood Theological Seminary.

Neal Christie launched into the discussion by highlighting GBCS’s role in backing legislation that has fit the UMC’s agenda, in particular crediting the United Methodist Church for the passage of health care legislation earlier this year.  “Thank God for the United Methodist Church, because that legislation wouldn’t have passed – and your legislators know it,” he said. “The one church that was highlighted on the floor of the joint session of Congress, as many of you may know, was the United Methodist Church.” He went on to list several other legislative initiatives that the UMC is backing, including the National Criminal Justice Commission Act and the DREAM Act, an amnesty program for young undocumented immigrants.

Carder responded enthusiastically to Christie’s call to political action. “Don’t be hesitant to reclaim the prophetic voice of the church. We’ve got to counter the Glenn Becks of this world,” he said, affirming the importance of reaching the places of power (Congress, in particular) through an “ecumenical” alliance of diverse faiths, including the Jewish and Islamic traditions.  “This may be an overstatement, but the Old Testament prophets were lobbyists on behalf of the reign of God,” he said, lining up the UMC’s lobbying efforts with the work of the Holy Spirit.

The conference concluded with a send-off address by Luther Smith of Candler School of Theology. His delivery seemed the least politicized, instead remarking that the issue of children’s welfare addressed at the Peace Conference was a cause that deserves the attention of adherents of all faiths, on either side of the political spectrum. “We have few opportunities,” he said, to work for a cause with such “clarity that this is unambiguously important and right.”

Luther’s speech lighted on a topic that had hitherto been little discussed: the role of parents in raising and shaping their children’s lives. “I have seen parents involve their own children with [other] children with disabilities and poverty and homelessness, to help their children to have a sensitive and responsive heart to their peers,” he said. “And they have seen it as part of what good parenting is, and I would hope every faith community sees it as what good religious education is.”

Next year’s Peace Conference, themed “Economics and Peace,” plans to investigate systemic causes of poverty in the world, and the ways in which wealth can be distributed more equitably. Muhammad Yunus, developer of the oft-emulated microfinance model, is among those planned to speak.