Nostra Aetate - In Our Time

47 hen I left politics in 2003 I began to read all of the holy texts – the Avesta, Upanishads, Gita, Old Testament, New Testament, and finally the Koran. I also read some inter- pretations of the Bible and the Koran. Consequently, it occurred to me ask an important question: What is the single, best verse in all of the holy books? My answer would be framed by the idea that the verse should define: v Myself v The relation between me and others v The relation between me and the text v The relation between God and me v The relation between existence and me. I felt the effort of finding this single, remarkable verse to be an enormous privilege because it encouraged me to read every text with a sense and belief of the believers of the text. This was a great lesson. The clergyman in our village told me 50 years ago that I should read the Old Testament like a Jew, the New Testament like a Christian, and he recited to me a poem by Rumi. I invite you to recall T.S. Eliot’s exquisite phrase in which he says: “ The purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink. ” The main source of this phrase is Rumi but, of course, accurate translation is impossible. Rumi says: “When my blood is moving through my veins or flourishing in my heart, I paint the blood by poem.” If I were as Moses, I should be a perfect Jew, and if I were as Jesus, I would be a perfect Christian. I think that this idea is the essence of a new theology that we are longing for in this crucial time. Coming back to my task of finding the best or most suitable verse to act as the basis of a new theology, I found it in the New Testament, inMark, 2:28 where Jesus speaks to the Pharisees: “Jesus said to them, the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” I think that these glorious words of Jesus Christ have the capability of being a cornerstone of a new theology. I think that “the Pharisees” in this context is a met- aphor for all clergymen, Rabbis, Ayatollahs, Sheikhs, Cardinals, Bishops, Monks, Gurus, etc. The root of this term should be taken into consideration – “ Pharisee ” is derived from ancient Greek Pharisaios, and from Ara- maic Pərīšā , meaning “ set apart, separated ” . I also think that the Sabbath in this context is a metaphor for all religions throughout the history of humankind. The message is profound and obvious – that clergy- men and religions are for man, not the other way around. Let me borrow a thought-provoking German term to explain my view about theology. The word Gestalt in the German language is untranslatable, especially when found in philosophical texts. Gestalt does not mean simply shape or structure, it means deep structure. For example, an Omega watch has 115 pieces. The watchmaker uses all of the pieces, putting every one in its special place, relating every piece to each of the others. Deep structure is evident at the moment that the watch begins to tick. Without the tick, or without all of the pieces working together, we have the shape of a watch, we even have the structure of a watch, but we do not have a watch. So, without the watch’s deep struc- ture – its real nature, the sound of its soul, the managing of the seconds, the vital watch-ology, if you like – we cannot manage our time or our life. By this I mean that theology should be for the benefit of the people. Secondly it should be understandable. At the beginning of Karl Rahner’s book, I Remember: An Autobiographical Interview with Meinhold Krauss , he creates a caricature of a theologian delivering a speech during which Jesus Christ, sitting among the audience, NOSTRA AETATE AND THE RELIGIONS OF ABRAHAM W Dr. Mohajerani speaks at KAICIID’s inauguration in Vienna, Austria on November 16, 2012