Paideia Academic Conference

Hsselby Slott
23.05.2004
Text and Multiculturalism
Bishop Krister Stendahl

Multiculturalism is a fact, not an option as it sometimes appears in neo-conservative

discussions. It is not an option; not in Europe either. The Jewish European Diaspora
situation has changed drastically. Formerly the experience was not one of multiculture
but rather bi-culture: a binary relation to an overwhelmingly dominating Christian Europe
and Christian tradition. Actually, Jewish Christian relations has had a mesmerizing
effect on both. Multiculturalism is the great liberation from that kind of fixation,
symbolized by what I call the ambiguous bond between the Jewish Bible and the
Christian Old testament. The binary relation between Judaism and Christianity has led to
pretty gruesome things. Perhaps the multicultural situation in Europe can be the liberation
from that one-to-one mesmerizing relationship.
Therefore I think that also for the study of Jewish texts, multiculturalism gives a new
space. As the multicultural world is recognized, it becomes increasingly clear that In the
eyes of God we are all minorities. And almost all minorities are majorities somewhere
else. The establishment of the state of Israel is the establishment of that physical,
geographical, political majority, by which the Jewish community, the Jewish reality
became global, became lifted into the multicultural reality.
So much about multiculturalism but what about texts? Texts, the signature of Paideia,
strangely related to the fact that when Greek culture took as its signature the word
Paideia it had just emerged from its oral stage. And now we are almost at the other end
of that momentous move...
What happens to my text in multicultural situations? The text holy to me? What happens
to my holy scripture the sacred or sanctified traditions the privileged literature and not
least the privileged interpretation of them all? There is a word in Swedish which I cant
translate and its tolkningsfretrde - who has the right, the self-evident right, as it

seems, to be the interpreter of text and the canon? Canon in all senses, from Bibles,
Koran, Vedas, Quitas, all the way to the curricula in K-12 and on to the PhDs.

There are many canons in multiculturalism. What happens? What happens when we are
just one among the many, and it creeps into our consciousness that that is so. We do not
need to travel in order to be aware that we are just one out of many. I think that what
happens to my Holy Scripture, my holy canon, my revelation, is that it becomes potential
wisdom for the others and their truths become potential insight for me. Listening to the
other is to overhear. What is it to overhear? It is to listen with a greater freedom, the
freedom where one can tune in and out, agree and not, and wrinkle ones forehead or
nod... Overhear, or if I dare to use the image, to receive e-mail where some things are
worth downloading.
This is a sound of relativism. Here I speak as a theologian. In religion my truth does not
make a lie of the others. The great watershed in intercultural and inter-religious relations
was the opening of the second Vatican council, when Pope John XXIII declared contrary
to centuries of tradition, that this council would not utter condemnations. Formerly all
council decisions had each paragraph stating the faith followed by what was called the
anathema the condemnation of those who thought otherwise. But Vatican II did not
utter condemnations. That implies a new attitude toward truth.
I am a devout pluralist. In my rather long reflection on these things I found that the
Jewish tradition taught me something, had an insight, which I did not have. And that was
what was expressed for example in Micah 4 in connection with one of those wonderful
passages about swords turned into plowshares and peace; where everybody is sitting in
peace under their own fig tree: And all the peoples walk each in the name of its God,
and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever. Now, that is a
pluralist view of the ultimate. That is rather unique, almost as unique as the last pages of
my Bible where it says: and I saw no temple in that city in the heavenly city. Imagine
that: a religious tradition that doesnt imagine heaven as a super-cathedral or its
equivalent.
So, these are insights in this multi-world where we listen to the other not as if it is ours
but as in overhearing. We have of course the option, as one has tried especially in the

spirit of the Enlightenment, to find a common denominator. But the strange thing is that
most of both religious and cultural traditions have their power, their charm, and their
beauty in that which is specific rather than in that which is general. We found out in the
United States in the 1960s that the old idea of the melting pot actually was a gentle form
of, to use a strong word, genocide: The minority absorbed and overcome and
overwhelmed. So the time came when we had to start to think in multi-terms. We started
to wonder about the universal claims which we inherited and which we had identified
with the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was very good in stressing the individual and
very good in stressing the universal, but it had no patience with the particular. Think of
the slogan from the French revolution To the Jew as an individual everything, to the
Jew as a people nothing. And they still have difficulties with the head scarves in
France
So, the time has come to understand the community of communities each with their
distinct cultures. You might ask: But does the centre hold in a multicultural, multireligious, plural world? That depends on the kind of metaphor you choose: it seems that
in moving from the Ptolomeian to the Copernican view of world and beyond, there are
galaxies upon galaxies and it still hangs together somehow. So perhaps, there are many
centers. Oneness, to bring everything into one formula, one entity is perhaps not as
glorious as we have been given to think. How much diversity do we need in order not to
oppress or suppress? Come to think of it, our much prized and praised Monotheism is
perhaps not without its problems. The first monotheist we know of, pharaoh Akhnaton of
Egypt (1375 BCE-1358 BCE) massacred all the priests of all other gods Monotheism
and Crusades seem to be cousins if not siblings. (We Christians have solved the unity
problem in our own way by the Trinity but it did seem to cut lock on the violence.)
The point I want to make is that we now understand culturally, politically, religiously,
that we need a model of the world ass a community of communities. The issue is not the
relation between individuals. People say: Some of my best friends are Jews but that
does not really help. The question is: how do communities of faith, culture, ethnicity
relate to one another.
There is a new inner freedom in an unabashed acceptance of pluralism, a new inner
freedom of resisting the universal claims, a new inner freedom to cultivate ones own

tradition without embarrassment, without trying (sometimes with an intellectual

shoehorn) to make it as universal as possible. Rather recognize its limitations, the
limitations that are part of our human condition. To be at home and there to cultivate
ones texts.
And here is another insight that the Jewish tradition can give to us all. Im struck by the
fact when I go to the Shalom Hartman Institute people say: lets study together. It is
often said with the same tone and zeal as when an evangelical Christian says: lets pray
together. It is not a coincidence that Paideia is centered on texts. That is a gift, a Jewish
gift, an insight, a wisdom which is enormously to be welcomed into the European
community in a time, when as Diana Pinto has pointed out, texts are a species in our
cultural landscape.
And what about the other texts, the other cultures? Our schoolbooks left us with the
impression that it all began in Mesopotamia where Abraham came from and Egypt
where Moses got his name. No China, no Africa where it perhaps really began. The
Universe finally opens up for us into a multicultural reality in an age that historians no
doubt will count as a new era of mass migrations and global networks of cultural and
not so cultural transmissions. We shrink. Our home becomes precious. We are at home
where we are. Arthur Darby Nock, one of the Harvard greats and a historian of religion,
used to say: IN order to compare two religions you have to know one very well. There
is much truth in that and it reminds me of a saying that I learned in Latin long ago: Non
multa sed multum not masses of things but substance. And the Hebrew word kavod
means both weight and splendor. Never before has the human psyche been
bombarded to the extent we suffer. My texts can be the oasis for my sanity. I shall return
to them often and without embarrassment, yea, with joy.

Question
How can we have this multicultural exchange, beyond the polarization, by hosting the
Muslims amongst us? How can we be engaged in this understanding of the texts as
opposed to what hear all to often about the conquering face of the Islam?

Bishop Stendahl:

Two things: First perhaps, that in a multicultural world (I speak my theological language)
I am not so certain that God is interested in coalitions. One sometimes speaks of Judaism,
Christianity and Islam as the three Abrahamic faiths. There is much truth in that, but with
that comes also their tensions. I think it is liberating as I said, to constantly remind
ourselves that each of these three are special, with special problems that have great
similarities. In the specific case of Islam today we so easily identify Islam with types of
fundamentalism which do plague also Judaism and Christianity. I dont think that there
are intrinsic problems with Islam that are not common to revelatory religion in general.
The question is rather how to strengthen those elements in our traditions which work for
co-existence. And that is so difficult in a situation when all liberal elements are under
suspicion of being agents of the West. So, the situation is so infected that I think the only
way to do this is to keep in touch with your friends and hope urgently and patiently.
The classical 3 rules for interreligious relationships do remain valid:
1) let the other define herself, each Muslim, not Islam in general, (even Judaism, a small
part of Gods menagerie, has a couple of different brands.) Let each define herself .
What one tradition says about the other is often a breach of the commandment Thou
shalt not bear false witness
2) Compare equal to equal. We all have our skeletons in our closets.
3) Not only tolerance. That can be condescending. Im so great so I can stand the ones
like you It doesnt work for good relationships. I recommend holy envy: finding
something in the other that is beautiful. That even tells you something about God.