I came across a new word this week. it's a Greek word so it isn't new but I hadn't come across it before. The word is parrhesia which means bold, fearless dialogue. It implies  freedom of speech but also the obligation to speak the truth for the common good, even at personal risk. Such speech is associated with prophets, with those who listen to the cries and anguish of the world, observe the human family in its frailty and insecurity and respond courageously, challenging the evil that they see and recalling people to the good, reminding them of their best selves. And prophethood is one of these concepts that cut across many religious traditions.

I came across the word in association with Pope Francis who seems to have the single-mindedness of a prophet. This week he visited the island of Lesbos giving hope to the thousands of refugees there. He challenged all of us to think of our response to the situation in the Middle East which has produced such misery. He told Europe that it would be judged on its response to this crisis. And being one who knows that actions speak louder than words he brought threee refugee families back to Rome with him to be looked after by the Community of San Egidio. The families are Muslim but the Pope's concern was only for their humnanity. Pope Francis seems to have an ability to ignore past tensions, the pomp and ceremony within which he lives, the wealth and artistic treasures with which he is surrounded to see only his fellow sisters and brothers.  This is an approach which can transform relationships.

This certainly was the case in his relations with Bartholomew, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. For the first time in centuries the Orthodox Patriarch attended the Pope's inauguration in Rome. What allowed him to do this was the simple fact that Francis declared hinself to be the Bishop of Rome when he was presented to the world after his election. This overcame disputes about universal sovereigncy and, though it's quite likely that theologians and administrators have to engage in dialogue before there would be any formal unity, the two men have become friends. Patriarch Bartholomew was by the Pope's side when he invited Mahmoud Abbas and Shimon Peres to the Vatican to pray for peace in Israel/Palestine and accompanied him to Lesbos last week. In a lot of what he does Francis appears to live by the ideal that it's better to do things together than alone so when he went to Israel/Palestine he was accompanied by his Rabbi and Imam friends from Buenos Aires.

There was a sense of parrhesia in a recent conference organised by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the international Catholic peace organization Pax Christi. It was on the the theme of just war theory and the outcome was a call to Pope Francis to write an encyclical on non-violent protest. All religions have grown up in societies that have been characterised by war and violence. Often they have been caught up in these and in colonial occupations of other lands. In spite of the fact that peace is at the heart of religions, chaplains have prayed for the success of 'their' side, blessed weapons  and religious scriptures have been used  to rationalise violent conflict. In  Hinduism, for example, the Bhagavad Gita encourages Arjuna to engage in battle because it's his duty as a warrior - though he has to do it detached from the outcome, Sikhs are described as warrior disciples and the khalsa was organised to defend Sikhs at a time of great persecution. But war was not be the first resort. As it says in the Guru Granth Sahib "When all efforts to restore peace proves useless and no words avail, Lawful is the flash of steel, it is right to draw the sword". Within Judaism revenge and unprovoked violence is condemned but self-defence is justified though Deuteronomy allows for attacking towns if the inhabitants don't accept the terms of peace first offered to them. The idea of jihad is well known in Islam but not understood. The greater jihad is the internal struggle to live a good life and the lesser jihad is aggression against those who oppress or persecute believers. Christianity has its own limits in its just war theory which evaluates when war can be morally justifiable.

The participants at the Vatican conference recognised that many of these teachings arose in another age and were now outdated. They  spoke out strongly that just wars are not possible today with the proliferation of sophisticated weapons of mass destruction. Rather than just wars there was a call for a just peace. As one participant said, 
 "We should not give now, at this moment, reasons for war. Let us block them and promote relationships of harmony, of brother and sisterhood, rather than going for war."  What better agenda could there be for interfaith relations? Perhaps if we engaged in this together religions would have the courage to be witnesses to peace rather than the conflict that so many people thinks characterises them today.

I've only recently come across the problem of cultural appropriation. I read about it on the BBC website and then saw on a trailer that it was going to be discussed on the BBC news programme Newsnight. In this instance it was focussing on a pop star, Justin Bieber (whom I have to admit I had never heard of) sporting dreadlocks. This was seen as misappropriation, I suppose, of Rastafarian culture. I didn't see the programme but read a commentary that thought it was beneath Newsnight, especially as there were some really serious issues in the news. 

It seems protests against cultural appropriation are rife especially in North America. Students have been punished for wearing Mexican sombreros at a Mexican theme party; a practice of trying on a kimono for a selfie in front of a Monet painting of a lady wearing a kimono has been discontinued ;  a production of Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado has been shut down as have yoga classes.  All this happened because someone or some people saw this kind of appropriation as wrong and saw it as theft - a continuation of the sense of a colonial right to other people's cultures. It struck me as a bit extreme and a political correctness gone mad. Why could this not be seen as respect for and love of other cultures?  It reminded me a little of a group trip I once made to the Philippines where we were welcomed to the Catholic University of Marawi with a rendering of a well known American song called Auld Lang Syne. Of course we took great delight in telling the students about our Scottish Bard, Robert Burns and how the song was Scottish - just appropriated by America!

I'm not sure if it can be called appropriation exactly but I've had my hands mehndi painted, taken part in Indian dancing and on occasions worn a shalwar kameeze often at the invitation of friends from the sub-continent who were proud to share their culture and delighted when others took part.  I'd like to think that that's because they felt secure and welcome in Scotland.  My house has Japanese prints and scrolls, all of which I truly appreciate, statues of the Buddha and Kuan Yin, texts from different religions and so on. I don't think I have  appropriated them but I respect them and am grateful that we now live in a global village where the wisdom of the ages is now available to us.

I wonder if appropriation could be applied to the modern trend in mindfulness and meditation. I've heard some people say that these shouldn't be separated from Buddhist teaching and practice which is basically about inculcating the dharma. I've heard it said that to practice Buddhist meditation is like poaching,  with no understanding the context from which it comes. Buddhists don't seem to worry about this. Some Buddhist centres are now teaching meditation and mindfulness in terms of stress management and support degrees in mindfulness, seeing its usefulness in dealing with health and well-being. Mahayana Buddhism has a wonderful doctrine called the doctrine of skilful means. This recognises that we are all at different stages in our human journey and that we can only believe and practice in accordance with that stage. It's almost as if our present stage of development is a lens through which we see and understand life. This means that religious  teaching and practice should be geared to that level of development - begin slowly and gradually deepen what has been learned. Skilfully use the appropriate means to take the individual forward in their journey of faith. As someone once said, no point in teaching calculus if the pupil hasn't mastered addition. I can't speak for Buddhists but meditating and practising mindfulness is good for people and the knock on effects means that it is good for society. Buddhism's focus on meditation is a gift to the world and ot other religions who have rediscovered their own meditation practices as Christianity has done. Wouldn't it be terrible if this was disallowed because of religious appropriation?

Religions, I don't think, would ever have the right to accuse others of appropriation in that all religions believe they have a universal message which they want to be available to all. But we religious people have appropriated certain beliefs and understandings to ourselves, not in the sense of stealing them from others (though religions often  develop from other religions and are influenced by them) but in the sense of jealously guarding our identity or beliefs.  We do this by seeing others as heretics and not allowing them to define themselves according to their own beliefs. I've known some Protestants refuse to call Catholics Christian because Catholics didn't fit into their understanding of Christianity. Sunni and Shia Muslims don't recognise Amadi Muslims as Muslim, some Orthodox Jews don't recognise Liberal Jews as truly Jews. The list could go on. Religious history is peppered with instances when religious communities have declared themselves to be the only true representative of the faith. What right do I have to say someone is not a Christian, or Muslim or Buddhist if the person is seriously trying to follow in the path of that faith just because they believe something different from me or from the accepted orthodox position? One of the graces of interreligious dialogue is to come to the realisation that we all believe and belong in our own way and that there are as many Christianitys as there are believers. The same goes for other religions too. This is not something to regret but to value and to rejoice in - a true sign of the diversity which can so enrich our world, to say nothing of our religions.