 I would first of all like to thank Marcia and Ruth and Pastor John and all of you for joining us today for this opportunity to share a bit about an Islamic perspective on the question what holy books or other texts are important to your religion. I had mentioned to Marcia not too long ago that I thought this question could be interpreted in a number of ways but I'm going to answer it the way that it appeared to me. I'd like to start off maybe by taking a step back and discussing the nature of revelation in the Islamic tradition. So revelation when we say that something constitutes scripture, we don't mean necessarily sacred history or history about something that was sacred but rather we mean direct communication from God from the divine through the intermediary of an angel. And so when you talk about revelation you have to understand what a prophet is. So the revelations or scriptures are revealed to prophets. Not all prophets bring scriptures, a divinely revealed book, but they all receive revelation of different types. They're inspired or they're told or they're taught through the intermediary of an angel. I'm going to be framing this conversation through the Qur'an. Now some of you may or may not know the Qur'an we believe is God's final revelation to humanity. We believe the Qur'an to be the literal word of God verbatim so not something that the prophet Muhammad was inspired with or some you know the meaning was brought to him and he selected the words but rather he relays or faithfully conveys the literal word of God. And so according to the Qur'an they're you know very clear verses that state that all peoples were given guidance by God. They were all sent a messenger and the messages had one unifying theme which is essentially what would be encapsulated in the Arabic statement that there's nothing worthy of worship besides God that you wouldn't put any partners next to God and then therefore you would live your life in accordance with that. But the edicts or the law changes with times and with peoples and so you could find in some scripture or some previous dispensations the rulings might have been different according to law and then a different prophet would come in and bring a different law. But the fundamental message or particularly as it pertains to belief would be the same it would be unifying which is that God has sent me worship no one besides God and you know you know there there will be judgment and sort of act accordingly in various ways. But I do think there is one statement of the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him and I think it really encapsulates how Islam sees other texts or other scriptures or other religions for that matter. And it's a statement from the prophet Muhammad in which he says and I'll just read the text to quote it he says verily the parable of myself and the prophets before me is that of a man who built a house he perfected it and he beautified it except for the place of one brick in the cornerstone. So you know the cornerstone is obviously a you know this this well known it's the cornerstone of the home it's missing one brick so the people to continue the quote the people walk around it and are amazed by it and they say why is this brick not placed thus I am the brick and I am the seal of the prophets and that's the end of the quote. The reason I think this is such an encapsulating summary is in the Islamic tradition the prophet Muhammad's mission is not to demolish this previously built house or to replace it but to complete and restore the succession of bricks. I mean that he is the final brick he's he's the he says that I am the seal of the prophets and tells us that none will come after him and so one of the things that that Islam is very clear about in the Quran is it affirms prophets before the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him one verse which is oft quoted states indeed we have sent revelation to you oh prophet as we sent revelation to Noah and the prophets after him and we also sent revelation to Abraham Ishmael Isaac Jacob in his descendants as well as Jesus Job Jonah Aaron and Solomon and to David we gave the Psalms so you can see here that one cannot accept the Quran without affirming the prophethood of all of these prophets and and obviously some of these manifest into different religious communities as well but we affirm them so the Quran uh frames in itself as the final revelation in this Judeo-Cristo Islamic tradition right and and it sees the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him as a restorer of the way of Abraham but it also so it definitely it definitely emphasizes the Abrahamic way but it also accepts the possibility of other unspecified religions because we're told that every people were sent to prophet in their own tongue so um yeah scholars of the Islamic tradition have said you know clearly that means that they were prophets sent to all of the continents and all of the peoples and all of the languages um and perhaps some of these religions that remain today were originally even if they have changed they were sourced um or they were based on an original source that that had a divine um uh had a divine uh source to it and so when it comes to other scriptures the Quran has a very honorable epithet called the people sometimes translated as the people of the book some of you might be familiar with that some of you may have heard that phrase um it might also be translated as the people of the bible because the book biblios um meaning the book and so the Quran specifies uh two main revelations the Torah which is the Torah and the ng which is the gospel or the evangelion you can see ng and evangelion sort of share they have some similar cognate uh but in the singular and so the Quranic narrative um states that the original unaltered texts not not to be polemical but i'll get into that shortly but the original texts that serve as the foundations for for parts of some of the current bible did indeed come from god and and in them is truth and and and as a believer a muslim has to um affirm that uh one of the things that's very interesting is that the Quran doesn't detail um how they were preserved or passed down but simply states that uh it it was quite common um as a in human history for people to alter uh messages as time went on um so the Quran affirms their divine origin i think another thing that's very interesting is that in the Quranic narrative um the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him he's foretold in both the bible uh but in the old testament and the new testaments of the bible so like in isai and deuteronomy references to to shilo and the paraclete things like that there's there's uh passages that according to a muslim interpretation uh would foretold the coming of the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him from ish miles line now why is that important is i think it does uh make very clear to to um anyone who's either muslim or at least studying islam that these books are not to be um dishonored or to be you know disgraced or to be denigrated but simply that they that the Quran comes uh to confirm their divine origin i mean also it uses a term that's called the the muhammin so the Quran serves as the overseer of or the authority over other scriptures now why is this the case the Quran we're told by god has a unique quality amongst the revelations the revelatory scriptures and that is that the Quran was promised a divine preservation that it would be protected from alteration because it's the final scripture and there would be nothing else to to sort of set the record straight um and so the Quran is in conversation with the other scriptures now what do i mean by that if the Quran affirms the divine origin of other scriptures um but disagrees on proper conceptions of god definitions of the oneness of god who was the person of jesus christ who is the messiah um it allows for their divine origin but it definitely takes positions on these questions and so although you know muslims are told to leave people to their beliefs it does engage in sort of an interfaith dialogue that would say for example it affirms jesus as the messiah which i i hope many of you know right but would say that he was not god incarnate for example and so there there you have one disagreement with with the jewish tradition followed by a disagreement with some of the the trinitarian christian tradition so there's this respectful dialogue and engagement that that ensues one of the reasons i think this is important is i think it does give us a way of learning about um and interacting with and getting to know our neighbors and i think one one verse really highlights this um there's a verse um in the Quran in which god states and again we believe whenever we read the Quran that this is god's words that he's speaking these aren't the words of the prophet Muhammad he simply conveys them but god says we have revealed to you oh prophet this book with the truth as a confirmation of previous scriptures so i think that i want to sort of highlight that confirmation of previous scriptures and a supreme authority over them so the reason that that the authority aspect is to verify the veracity and where there is a difference the Quran will will sometimes uh correct an understanding that that that is uh deemed to be mistaken so then this is continuing the the the verse so judge between them by what god has revealed and do not follow their desires over the truth that has come to you now this is the important part i think to each of you we have ordained a law and a way of life if god have willed he would have made you one community but his will is to test you with what he has given each of you so god tells us that even you know even as a believer even as a muslim that nobody none of us will ever be all one religion that's just the the the human story for whatever divine wisdom is more complex than that um is is richer than that there's there's some divine wisdom here so he says for each of you we've ordained a code of law and a way of life if god have willed he would have made you one community but his will is to test you with what he has given each of you so compete with one another and doing good so what we're told those religious communities and the Quran is you're gonna differ you're gonna you're gonna debate you're you're you're gonna end up in different positions but compete with one another in doing good that's that's what we should really be competing in and then the rest of the verse reads to god you will all return and he will inform you of the truth regarding your differences meaning you're not going to be able to sort it all out here god sent a succession of prophets there's a confirmation of the divine origin which i think allows a common ground there's a verse in the Quran that i think is also important here particularly for the Abrahamic tradition which says if we differ with one another let's just go back to Abraham we can all agree that Abraham was on the right path so that's why even even the phrase the Abrahamic traditions takes us to the point of the most common ground which i think is a is a place in which we can develop some understanding um and wherever we respectfully agree to disagree that's that's at least a shared foundation so the Quran encourages this interfaith dialogue this respectful coexistence while also maintaining you know very clear positions on you know conceptions of god and and and prophets and divinity of people you know or sort of the lack of divinity of any particular prophet so i think this sort of encapsulates how we view things as a religion and the Quran is very specific about these two the Torah and the gospel the that the original scriptures are from god and they're more there are more detailed verses that say in them is light and guidance and if people follow them then then then they will you know they will find success etc but i think that even how we view human history is really impacted by this so for example in the Islamic tradition we don't hold that before the advent of the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him that the world was simply in darkness and until he came then you know everybody just was was lost but we would say is it was that that parable of of the house being built brick by brick and there was an incompleteness and an imperfection until that last corner stone was placed and and that is what the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him completes and there are many many other traditions in which you know we affirm all of what might be called biblical prophets but even prophets that are outside of the biblical scriptures as well and then to accept or entertain the possibility of for example Native American prophets or what would be considered you know Asian prophets and African prophets and European you know from from all over with with a clear acknowledgement that the Abrahamic prophets have have a have a a special status and make a mark on the world unlike the others so i think i'll stop here and i hope that wasn't too much i tried to keep it sort of high you know high level more conceptual not get lost in obscure theological things and really trying to avoid anything polemical but just hoping to convey my understanding of the Islamic view of other scriptures so i think maybe marsha we want to open it up for questions now would be a good time yes perfect time okay so please either raise your physical hand or use the reactions with the raise hand icon and i will call on you questions remona i see your hand raised um so remona you're gonna unmute and could everybody else who's not currently speaking um please mute yourselves and remona go ahead please um dr tarsan thank you so much for all of this all of what you said i mean i was saying wow i didn't know so much of of all the information you gave us use of the way i understood it you said that every people was sent a prophet in their own time correct yes ma'am and this was based on a divine source does that include the eastern religions um the hindu the buddhist or only the agra hammock you know yeah no that's a great question so i think what we can say is the only ones we can specify with certainty and point to and say this had a divine source are the ones that god outlines in the quran which are primarily the abrahamic fates okay but we can entertain the possibility and say well we do know that there were other prophets sent to all peoples in their native tongue that doesn't have to be a scripture but people who are divinely inspired to go and call people to god um and tell people about god um and so we can we can probably what we can say is we can um have theories about the divine sources um but we would probably just put a small asterisk you know there's many scholars who said that buddhism and hinduism probably have a divine origin um islam is extremely very monotheistic radically monotheistic so the current understandings of these religions we would say we're not what you know you know to have any type of polytheism or multiple gods or even god heads and those things we would say are are human additions later but if we're talking about the origins of the teachings many scholars of islam would say yeah we can we can theorize that that that was likely the case thank you yeah okay uh anyone else for the question uh yeah i i have a question uh for yeah we see a lot of uh in the quran we see a lot of verses relates the interaction of christian specifically from Ethiopia uh with prophet Muhammad and verses revealed about them like they're kindhearted or can you like shed some light on those yeah um there are there are many verses and it doesn't simply apply to well let me maybe give a little bit of history so um the prophet Muhammad uh was sent to a polytheistic people um and when he started to call to the god of Abraham and to monotheism and and called for them to do away with the idols you might imagine that there was a lot of oppression and persecution and so much so that many of his followers began to you know suffer great torture at the hands of of the the tribal leaders who who uh profited greatly off of this this idolatry and so some of them the prophet Muhammad commanded them to migrate to Ethiopia with modern day Ethiopia was it was a Abyssinia at the time because he said there's a just christian king there and there you will see no harm and and you'll be able to sort of enjoy freedom of religion um and so that that that happened um and there was always a great affinity between um you know the prophet Muhammad and and some of the christian communities there but i think some of the verses that you're talking about is is that you know there are many verses praising not just christianity as a as a as a as a tradition or just religious dispensation that that truly came from god um but also that the christian community were was filled with people who truly loved god and were pious um and whose tears would overflow you know whose eyes would overflow with tears at the mention of god um and the great piety and support love that that they would experience from some of them so um yeah that that that was definitely there in the Quran and sort of historically um yeah thank you for that question okay thank you so much dr sad my pleasure talk very interesting um Ruth i'm gonna suggest we go ahead with pastor john and then if there's still time left before we're ready for our breakout groups if some people thought of some additional questions um we could take them at that time that sound okay that's great okay okay doctor uh no reverend what is it that i'm calling you today reverend or pastor you can call me whatever just don't call me late for dinner you're on i i appreciate dr tarson's phd i'm still paying off my master's students at this point in time so yeah yeah i'll believe it when i say um we um thank you thank you ruth and marsha and dr tarson to to be together with you and everyone else who has joined uh zoom today um i should say before i say anything i've always found myself as it relates to religion or faith spirituality to a certain extent one foot in and one foot out i don't know that i've ever been both feet in in either direction i've preferred to kind of straddle the fence in some respects because i feel like having one foot in allows me to make changes that need to be changed but having one foot out allows me to be critical and to see things from a different perspective that aren't always so easy to see when you are inside the bubble and it's easy for us especially in this day and age of social media where we are where it's easy to surround ourselves in our social bubbles and listen from people that only agree with everything that we agree with believe the way we believe behave the way we behave and to realize that it's not even human beings that are putting us in these bubbles any longer but actually algorithms and bots and what have you so what i what i want to share with you now uh is it was important to sort of frame it with that that i come at this as someone who was hyper critical um of the ways that we have used religion and faith to silo ourselves off in our certainty and um sometimes in our rigid dogma and doctrine and that there is there's more room that we often give credit uh for us to enter into these conversations where we realize that and i think Ruth you may have been speaking to this at the very beginning as folks are coming on that there is always more that unites us than divides us it's always much more sexy to talk about the things that divide us and those are the things that people dial into but at the end of the day it's the things that unite us that make us human so um i you know the question what holy books or other texts are important to your religion dr tarson and i were talking about how to sort of approach that and and one way of looking at that is looking at the texts that really are kind of formative um and uh inform our own particular uh religious tradition another really interesting way to look at that is to think of in in in terms of books and other texts outside of maybe your uh particular religious comfort zone that have informed and shaped your thinking about your own religious tradition so that may be a topic for another another uh chat uh for and and i don't presume to speak for christianity as a whole in fact i find that term to be so loaded and full of baggage that i oftentimes don't always use it uh because it does not have a universal singular meaning i'm not sure that it ever did i i certainly feel like in our in our day and age it is as loaded as it's ever been before and so um as as is our approach to the hebrew scriptures and the books of the new testament those are formative and authoritative sources for in my particular tradition lutheran christianity if you will and luther's translation of scripture either was the first or among the first that included not only the books of the hebrew scriptures and the new testament books but also the apocryphal books what luther called these intertesting intertestamental books that um were by many considered so esoteric and mysterious that they weren't quite canon material to show up in either the old testament hebrew scripture canon or the new testament scripture and so lutherans have even though luther seemed to be more open to these books with the exception of first and second as dras uh as they were called lutherans have have had a sort of interesting ambivalence towards these books of where they exactly fit into um into the hebrew scriptures or the new testament books but uh so i just throw that out there you know scripture as we see it and understand it as it's full of many different types of literature uh prose poetry songs laments apocalyptic narrative letters epistles um and written by imperfect people who were doing their best to capture what seemed most important to them um and worth passing along to their communities which is why it's so interesting to allow scripture to interpret itself um i think i think every faith tradition runs the risk of proof texting a finding text that either support a particular position or negate someone else's position and there's there's a lot of danger in doing that uh as across history we've all fallen um pray to doing that and we've seen the sort of disastrous results of what happens when we interpret these these holy these holy scriptures in isolation and divorced from a larger community of people of various faith traditions and so the more we have these types of conversations the more uh rich and whole i think we um are humans so in addition in addition to scripture and of which Lutherans have a particular lens and frame by which they view scripture in the united states along their various flavors of Lutheran Christianity uh and all of them see scripture in different ways interpret scripture in different ways have different filters of of interpreting scripture uh and i'm sure we all have some sense that we're right and others are wrong um i find at the end of the day those conversations don't tend to be particularly fruitful um we probably each possess something of the truth and the way we approach these texts these ancient texts some which feel very very divorced from our current time and others that seem as relevant today as they ever were and so but in addition to uh the bible the Hebrew scriptures the New Testament forming the real substance of our faith and approach to life for Lutherans anyway probably the tour de force was what was a document called the Augsburg Confession it's interesting that Martin Luther is often the name and the poster child for the Protestant Reformation but much in the way that the civil rights movement uh in the united states was only possible because of people working behind the scenes much is true of the way Lutheran Christianity came to be as well um really passionate committed people who had questions and weren't afraid to ask them to challenge the conventional wisdom of the day which oftentimes was the Roman Catholic Church um who for many of the early Lutheran reformers got a lot right and for other in other points uh didn't so uh the Augsburg Confession and then what eventually became the defense or the apology of the Augsburg Confession was a 1530 document where uh Martin Luther alongside his counterpart Philip Melanchthon uh was asked to give an account to some of the questions that had been posed and what became known as the 95 theses that were nailed to the Wittenberg church door by the way we don't have any record specifically of that happening it's just one of those things that has taken on a life of its own um it was it was probably more in keeping that it was nailed to like a a university professors door which was much the way that theses were put forward uh during Martin Luther's time but it sure does spend a wonderful story to think of somebody nailing something to a big red church door and and thus Lutheran churches have oftentimes have red church doors to sort of pay homage to what's to something that probably never specifically happened the way that we prefer to think it happened um so this was this this this this Augsburg Confession is probably the most well-known confessional document for Lutheran Christians um eventually all of the important confessional documents of the Lutheran church regardless of what flavor of Lutheran you sort of adhere to around the world came to be compiled into what was called the Book of Concord um where I grew up in North Carolina there was a city called Concord we called it Concord when I moved to California I now have to say Concord to fit in so the Book of Concord if you prefer or if you're from the south the Book of Concord um in in the Book of Concord were other documents in addition to the Augsburg Confession and what subsequently came to be known as the the defense of the Augsburg Confession and there were two documents that probably outside of the Augsburg Confession are the two most well-known documents in Lutheran thought and they grew out of Martin Luther having a profound recognition that the laity really were rather biblically illiterate and did not understand some of the most primary concepts of church teaching and so he decided to put together two documents one called the Small Catechism which he wrote for the aid of pastors to lead and teach in their congregations and for families he wrote a document called the Large Catechism these two documents became very popular even outside of Lutheranism and in other confessional movements as well a little bit later 1537 Luther was asked to write a document in preparation for a church council that was to be called and this document would be presented if it was called and this this aren't this document came to be known as the Small Catechism articles named after this tiny little town in Germany of where this council was to take place and it was presented there and it took on pretty pretty firmly the subject of the Roman Pope and um Luther was not always so good about learning his lesson about taking on the Roman Pope but he's kept doing it after Luther died in 1546 a document was created in response to all the bickering that was happening in the wake of Luther's death about what was really what were the primary teachings of the Lutheran church and that came to be known as the formula of conquered which was written by a couple of Germans who were trying to bring a sense of unity to this fledgling movement at the time by the way Lutheran was was a term that was coined as a negative sort of slight it was never meant to be taken positively like other like other groups throughout history Lutherans claimed this term uh sort of reappropriated it and it became part of who they were in addition to the formula of concord there were more than 50 volumes that were compiled that came to be known as Luther's works and in those in Luther's works of which I saw a set a complete set being sold somewhere I was looking online today there's something like 69 volumes that contain all of his disputations all of his sermons all of his commentaries and it was going for about 1700 dollars so if you want to loan me some money I would love to read these um so all of these all of these books all of these works were put together in the book of conquered with the exception of Luther's works an item here there became part of the book of conquered but all of these other pieces the Augsburg Confession the small called articles all the writings in response to the power and primacy of the pope were in there Martin Luther's small catechism his large catechism they all show up in this compilation of books that came to be known as the book of conquered um I have to confess that I don't I don't interact with these additional books on a day-to-day basis they're behind me on my bookshelf here somewhere probably behind two or three levels of books these were similar these were seminary level things that I spent a lot of time learning as much as I could but like Spanish from high school I've forgotten a lot of it because I just don't interact a lot with it I find that I spent a lot more of my time engaging with the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament books and even after 21 years of being a pastor still find myself surprised when I see something or notice something for the first time that in a text that I've read a hundred times over it feels like that just stops me in my tracks and reminds me why I continue to to engage with these ancient these ancient literatures and it it gets it's still it still excites me when I do that just when I think I have I have preached on a text from every possible angle there is even to the point of the prodigal son if you know the story of the prodigal son returning home you know there's there's the perspective of the father there's the perspective of the son who leaves there's the perspective of the son who stays I've preached on those many times so I think there was one sermon I even preached on the perspective from the fatted calf who was killed to throw a party so I running out of ideas people is what I'm saying no sometimes in our in our attempts to be novel what people really want to hear just the basics this is why I believe that when people show up to church if they are not typical you know regular church goers they come on Christmas and Easter and they're not looking for me to be novel they just want to hear the story of the incarnation and the story of the resurrection thank you very much so that's what I've got today to share with you there are plenty of books along the way in my own life that have shaped my understanding of faith and religion and spirituality and I think that the the combination of all those things have contributed to the way I see the world and the way I see others and it would take a lifetime to try to elaborate on each of those books that have really impacted me over the years so um yeah so questions thoughts ideas snide remarks let's hear them okay so open to questions and it looks like Ruth Gaston has a question yeah I um I'm not sure it's a question but you you talked about how um you read something in one of the ancient books and you notice it or see it for the first time and it excites you could you give us an example of something that you like that yeah I mean so I'm always amazed at the way I would say a couple years ago it's it struck me that at least at least at the end of the Gospel of Mark there are a couple of endings there's a shorter there's a shorter ending and then there's an amended ending which was probably a later edition at some point in time because our tendency when we when we're interpreting text or we're even even scribes who are scribing these texts there's a tendency to try to make text easier than they actually are but the shorter ending of mark ends with in terms of in terms of the women's response to the resurrection that they are absolutely terrified uh this is this is this follows after and some of the other gospel versions where women run to the tomb and they come back and it's their male counterparts that literally use the Greek word for shit to say you're full of shit when they come back to announce that the Lord has been resurrected or raised from the dead and so sometimes it takes getting into the original languages as much as I can remember some of that from seminary that just stops me on my track that reminds me how incendiary this information is because there's a tendency in the 21st century to assume that folks in the first century didn't have some of the same struggles and same you know sense of incredible you know this this idea that this was an incredulous story which it still is and it was then and you know when I read these texts I'm reminded that you know every you know people knew that they could count on people staying dead that's true in the first century and true in the 21st century so those stories kind of hit me and upside the head and remind me of you know what's at risk of things that you thought you had nailed down and you were certain about turning out not to be as nailed down and as certain as you thought they were which is which is always a cautionary tale for me that just when I think I've boxed something in so that I can control it to some extent that much like the spirit of God the Ruach that Dr. Tarson was speaking about does not allow itself to be domesticated and it does not allow itself to be controlled and that like the wind blows where it wishes and doesn't ask our permission and to blow in that direction so when I when I feel like the church is stuck and it's entrenched it's always helpful for me to revisit these texts that kind of blow my world open again and oftentimes lead me with more questions than answers but they also give me hope that the story is still being written and it's still unfolding my my challenge this is kind of to underscore your question Ruth with scripture and our approach to ancient text is trying to figure out how much of what was written regardless whatever your faith tradition is that is that was culturally conditioned and and how to take that and and see if there's some way to extract some sort of core principle from that that is divorced from the social context in which it was written in for christ for christians over the centuries this has been women dress a certain way women act a certain way women don't dance women dress us so how much of that is a cultural conditioning and a cultural contextualizing and should be left in the first century versus how many how many of those cultural conditions should travel with whatever the core principle of that text might be and who gets to determine what the core principle of that text is to begin with who's around the table who's been invited who's been disinvited or not included how does that shape where we've arrived today I I I feel like at this point in time in my life one of the worst things that has happened at least to christianity is that cannons were closed there was this sense that god continues to speak to us but that it was locked in place in a particular time and that we put the back cover on the book and that was it so in one hand we say god still moves and god still speaks and on the other hand we say but it was it was locked in place the moment we closed these cannons to say these are the most authoritative books and nothing authoritative can say be said beyond this and even if that's what's happening we've taken these books and we've locked them in in place and and and because of that they take on an air of untouchability and the moment you begin to question or you ask questions about these things and these stories and which one should travel and which one shouldn't that opens up pandora's box for a lot of folks that are that have seen you know these these these stories be the sort of building blocks of their faith and so the moment you begin chipping away at these foundations then all of a sudden it fills us though you're chipping away at someone's faith because if you take away enough of these foundational bricks and building blocks there's a real fear that my entire faith construct architecture is going to collapse and what will I be left with so I that's that's a place that interests me those types of questions interest me as someone who realizes I know I know much less than I you know care to admit sometimes but I'm also comforted by the fact that there's so much I don't know and that especially in those moments when I I don't know something I always air towards the side of grace and I firmly believe that every time I draw a line in the sand that somehow God whoever however God is imagined and figured across art religious traditions is always on the other side of that line so that's just essentially been my approach and I'm actually the older I get the more content I am with realizing I'm wrong about more things than I ever realized that actually is comforting to me at this point in time you know the Jewish religion has the ultra orthodox who believe that everything that's in the old testament should be followed exactly and then there's other groups like I'm a reformed Jew and there's conservative Jews and there's reconstructions do and none of them have that belief and in Israel the ultra orthodox is so strong that it's hard for the newer religions to be recognized or respected yeah yeah for an interesting dilemma yeah I agree looks like we could take one more question if someone else has a question or pass to John I guess if no one else has a question I do so I'll go ahead and ask oh well Ramona you asked me you asked a question real quickly with all of these different faith traditions and you know there was just explaining about the different parts of the Jewish faith tradition and you have the muslims and the Lutheran and the Roman Catholic I don't know yeah I think that it's an interesting question Ramona I had a chance of living in India for a little while and having some really honest conversations with my Hindu siblings and all the things that we thought we would be offended by we weren't actually offended by it to be able to ask some really honest questions even you know Christianity's thumping kind of thing has been this passage from the gospel of John that you know I am the way the truth in the life no one comes to me except through the father and there are other passages like that that have this very exclusive kind of feel to them I think I think they're they're much better interpretations than often are given with that but at face value these texts seem to just communicate something very clear that there's you know there's there's one way and it's the only way and it's my way and I think that I think that we're just wrong I think that I can find just as many passages in scripture that negate that concept and I think that's why as I said earlier scripture this is particularly true of the New Testament has to be allowed to interpret itself there's a canon within the canon and so I don't know that that always leaves us with easy answers I don't know what the the right question might be but I think sometimes it feels like the question who was right maybe just isn't the right question I can't say that I know what the question is I just feel like by the moment we frame it that way then we we have we have committed ourselves down a path that we can't recover from and it might in fact be the right question Ramona I don't know I just know that it always that question always presents itself in a kind of binary perspective that there is a right way and there's a wrong way in my experience the third way whatever the third way is is what is most interesting to me and that just may be where I'm out of my life as a 40 year old you know white cisgender affluent Livrimorian I don't know but it's that third way that just draws me in that I think is the one that's full of such potential and is so expansive but I think we so rarely get there because we're not asking the questions that get us there but there's there's got to be a third way and I think there's a lot more than three ways but there's a third way at least I think okay thank you so much thank you to both our speakers Asad and John