Father Patrick J. Ryan, the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society, suggested that the collisions of various empires might have signaled, supported, and even inspired reformation in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

“Sometimes reformation has happened in reaction against colliding,” he said at the Nov. 14 lecture at the Lincoln Center campus. “At other times, the very collision of worlds has sparked reformation.”

Jerusha Tanner Lamptey, Ph.D., an assistant professor of Islam and interreligious engagement at the Union Theological Seminary, and Rabbi Daniel Polish, Ph.D., the spiritual leader of the Congregation Shir Chadash, acted as respondents to Father Ryan’s lecture.

A ‘tragic irony’

Father Ryan’s lecture, which coincided with the fifth centenary of the Lutheran reformation, took into account the reform movements that were incited by Kings Hezekiah and Josiah as well as the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah. He also explored 19^th century Reform Judaism.

“Reform Judaism enabled many hitherto purely nominal Jews or immigrant Jews to understand two basic elements of the faith, the oneness of God and the call of the chosen people to spread the light of monotheistic faith,” he said.

In the case of Christianity, Father Ryan stressed that the collisions of both empires and cultures have been significant in the Protestant reformations as well as the Anglican and Catholic reformations. He said that in the late 15^th century, Europeans first encountered new worlds in the Americas, Asia, and Africa. But the agents of the Catholic reformation were more likely to evangelize these populations than Protestants, he said.

Father Ryan emphasized that Martin Luther was, however, eager to convert Jews after becoming convinced by Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans that salvation would come to the Jews only after the evangelization of Gentiles was complete. The Lutheran reformation went down a dark path in 1543 when Luther published anti-Semitic writings that called for the violent destruction of the Jews.

“All of us who call ourselves Christian, heirs of one or another reformation—Protestant, Anglican or Catholic—need to examine our past in such a way as to liberate ourselves and our world from imprisonment in history,” he said.

Rabbi Polish likewise acknowledged Luther’s anti-Semitism, but said he was also struck by the commonalities of Reform Judaism and Lutheranism. Just as Luther rejected practices of the church that were not directly mandated in scripture, early reformers of German Judaism rejected the notion of an authoritative rabbinical interpretation of scriptures.

“Both Luther and early Jewish reformers shared commitment to the vernacular,” he said, adding that early Jewish reformers believed in a “perfect symbiosis of their German culture and their Jewish inheritance.”

Of course, this became a tragic irony in the context of the Hitler era, he said.

“The futile aspiration of early reformers to be accepted by their fellow Germans ended with the extermination of their community,” he said.

Authority in the past, present, and future

In his assessment of reform in Islam, Father Ryan affirmed that the first Muslims in seventh-century Arabia saw Islam as “a reform of what had come earlier in the Jewish and Christian tradition of faith.”

“Muhammad’s prophetic vocation made him, in the Islamic theology of history, the last of a series of great prophets and especially of those prophets who are characterized in Islamic tradition by the term rasul, messenger,” he said.

Father Ryan noted that between the 15^th and the 19^th centuries, Muslims like the Egyptian polymath Jalal al-din al-Suyuti and the northern Nigerian Usumanu dan Fodio considered themselves to be mujaddids or reformers of Islam.

Self-described Mahdis or messianic leaders also started uprisings in Sudan and Saudi Arabia in 1881 and 1979, which coincided with the start of the 14^th and 15^th Muslim centuries.

Like the leaders before them, these reformers believed that they were responding to perceived threats to the Islamic tradition by great empires or repressive regimes, Father Ryan said. There are some echoes of this as well in the ISIS insurgency that assailed Syria and Iraq after 2014.

“That the partisans of ISIS first chose to create their ideal state across the borders of Iraq and Syria demonstrates how much ISIS is a delayed response to and reaction against European colonial parceling out of the central Arab world in the aftermath of World War I,” he said.

Lamptey cited trends in recent Islamic feminist interpretations of Islam as concrete examples of contemporary Islamic reform. She said these distinct interpretations were focused on egalitarian or a recovery of “real Islamic tradition’.”

“They argue that the Quran is fundamentally egalitarian, that it depicts an undifferentiated, ungendered human creation, [and]a divine sovereignty….and that the Quran is silent on any accounts of women in a secondary status,” she said.

While the Islamic feminist pioneers recognized that there were limitations and discrepancies in these interpretations, she said they attributed them to context and human interpretation.

“They seek to address those concerns by returning to the supposedly pristine beginnings and uncorrupted sources of the Islamic tradition,” she said.

But this concept of authority and impartiality, according to Patrick J. Ryan, S.J., evolved a great deal over the years. In “Judging Justly: Judgment in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Traditions,” Father Ryan, Fordham’s Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society, explored how Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths contributed to that idea through their own unique traditions.

He framed his discussion of judgment with the tragic story of how three High Court judges in Ghana were murdered in 1982 precisely because they had given judicial redress to people convicted by a kangaroo court under a military regime.

In remarks delivered on March 28 and March 29 as part of the annual Spring McGinley Lecture,

Father Ryan delved into examples from scripture that illustrated how the faithful have struggled with concepts such as mercy and justice. In the Book of Genesis, he noted that God, whom Jews regard as the supreme judge, had a “crowded docket”: Weighing in on the fratricide of Cain, and condemning the corrupt and violent contemporaries of Noah yet sparing the ark-builder and his family.

In Christian scripture, he recalled an account in the Gospel of John, where Jesus is confronted by “the scribes and the Pharisees” asking him to judge a woman caught in the act of adultery. Jesus play-acted the role of judge, writing on the ground, and finally declaring, Jesus’ declaration “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” illustrates the importance of impartiality and fairness.

“When Jesus finally rises from his play-acting, he finds that all the guilty accusers of the woman have departed, ‘one by one, beginning with the elders,’” Father Ryan said.

“One possible reason that the placement of this Gospel passage in the New Testament has proven so problematic may be that the discipline of the early church, in cases of adultery, was much less merciful than that of Jesus.”    *       

In Islam, as in Christianity and Judaism, God is also the ultimate judge, he said. His command and judgment are closely associated with the commands and judgments issued by the Messenger, the Prophet Muhammad. That practice continued after Muhammad’s death via judges who were concretized as the caliphs’ appointees in the Sunni tradition from the seventh to at least the 13th century, and the appointees of the imams in the Shi‘i tradition.

A qadi, or judge in the Sunni Muslim tradition, was appointed by the caliphs in the seventh century, and gradually began to exercise judicial functions in the eighth century, said Father Ryan. When the Turkish government suppressed the caliphate in 1924, however, a central religious-political institution was lost. Since then, Muslim judges are often appointed by national or regional governments. This has led to some controversial rulings in Nigeria, in particular, he noted, involving the amputation of hands for sheep-stealing, as well as overly zealous accusations of adultery against women based on circumstantial evidence only.

“Better trained Muslim judges, with expertise in comparative law and a broader vision of Islamic jurisprudence, can be found in many of the Gulf States,” he said. “But there have been highly problematic judgments handed down by judges, not only in northern Nigeria but also in Saudi Arabia and Egypt in recent decades.”

Respondents to Father Ryan’s lecture included Sarit Kattan Gribetz, Ph.D., assistant professor of theology at Fordham, and Ebru Turan, Ph.D., assistant professor of history at Fordham. Gribetz highlighted two passages from Genesis Rabbah and the Babylonian Talmud and one from the Torah that illustrate the ongoing debate between mercy and justice in God’s mind. God is compared to a king who holds up two empty cups and notes that they will crack when filled with cold water and burst when filled with hot water. The temperatures are stand-ins for too much mercy and too much justice.

“[They] represent radical extremes-order and chaos, suffocating restriction and unbounded freedom. Each on their own is assumed to be too dangerous—so dangerous that it will shatter, crack or deform the world,” she said.

Turan further developed Father Ryan’s history of how the role of judge developed historically in the Muslim tradition. The Ottoman Empire, from the 13th to the early 20th century, developed a system of training legal scholars for such posts. With the break-up of the Ottoman Empire after 1918, modern Turkey appoints judges with a much more secular orientation.

Father Ryan said offered three conclusions from the faith traditions’ experiences with justice:

-Judges need protection from manipulative politicians, established ruling classes, and populist demagogues. He cited as examples the Roman-dominated Hebrew sanhedrins, Pope Urban II commanding Christian knights to go on Crusade, and modern “Muslim muftis” who “declare every military adventure of a Middle Eastern dictator a jihad.”

-Judges should have excellent legal credentials, a deep understanding of the law in their own tradition, and a sense of comparative law. There is no room in the courtroom for mediocre judges.

-Judges benefit from differences in legal opinion, or “ikhtilaf,” an Islamic concept being promoted by movements concerned with the status of Muslim women. This contrasts with the generally approved idea of Islamic  legal consensus, or “ijma,” relied on by Orthodox Jews, Catholic Christians, and the various Eastern Christian Churches.

To be a true Jew, Christian, or Muslim, it helps to have the soul of a traveler, Patrick J. Ryan, S.J., said on Nov. 13 in a lecture at the Lincoln Center campus.

“Pilgrimage is not the same in each tradition, but in many ways all three faith traditions map their world in what I characterize as a geography of faith, largely as a result of their pilgrimage traditions,” he said.

Father Ryan, the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society, delivered “To Be a Pilgrim: A Geography of Faith for Jews, Christians, and Muslims,” the annual fall McGinley lecture, at both the Lincoln Center and Rose Hill campuses. His talk traced the historical origins of the most familiar pilgrimages associated with the three religions, and the theological underpinnings for the destinations. 

Jews, for instance, have been acculturated in many different backgrounds over the centuries, but have continued to turn to God in the direction of the hill of Zion in Jerusalem where the Holy Temple once stood, Father Ryan noted.

Judah Halevi, a poet/scholar who lived in Spain in the 11^th and 12^th centuries, epitomized this devotion in his assertion of superiority of the Jewish homeland.

“In this geographical and theological centeredness, Halevi continues the tradition of many other ancient and medieval writers—Hellenistic, Christian and Muslim—who constructed geographies of various climes proving that one or another homeland provided the world with its true center,” Father Ryan said.

“One thinks, in this connection, of the famous 1976 cover drawing by Saul Steinberg for The New Yorker portraying a true New Yorker’s map of the world as seen from Ninth Avenue.”

Christian pilgrimages focus on the nearby Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, which commemorates both the death and the resurrection of Jesus. The Bible recounts many instances in which Jesus made pilgrimages himself.

Father Ryan also noted that the Crusades, notwithstanding the brutality that tarnished them, were at the time considered a pilgrimage.

The lure of Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives also greatly affected Society of Jesus founder Ignatius of Loyola, said Father Ryan. During a visit in 1523, he slipped away to visit markings on a stone in the floor that were said to be the footprints Jesus left behind. Ignatius was arrested and forced into a “perp” walk for his disobedience, but said it was worth it.

“Ignatius remained, to the close of his days, ‘the pilgrim,’ the term he used for himself,” Father Ryan said.

In Islam, pilgrimage is one of the five pillars of the faith; all Muslims are required to make the hajj to Mecca in Saudi Arabia at least once.

They also face Mecca in worship five times a day; within Mecca they face the Masjid al-Haram, the Sacred Mosque; and within the Sacred Mosque they surround the empty and windowless cubic building at its heart, the Ka‘ba, which is said in some sense to be “the House of God.”

“For many Muslims the hajj also serves as an education in Islam—either a deepening of what is already known, or an introduction to those elements of the Islamic tradition that have never been emphasized or understood in the previous life of the pilgrim,” he said.

Unlike imaginary lines of latitude and longitude, pilgrim routes map the real world, he said. And when we meet each other at the intersections of those routes, we should “walk in peace.”

“On my journey as a Christian—and on your journey as a Jew or as a Muslim—let us look across at each other, from my path and from your path, and see a fellow pilgrim,” he said.

Father Ryan’s talk also featured responses from Alan Mintz, Ph.D., the Chana Kekst Professor of Hebrew Literature at Jewish Theological Seminary, and Jerusha Tanner Lamptey, Ph.D., assistant professor of Islam and ministry at Union Theological Seminary.

Beginning Nov. 13 and continuing through Wednesday, Nov. 20, the Office of University Mission and Ministry and its partners will sponsor a series of discussions, meals, and prayer centered on the legacy of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, and the unique spirituality that characterizes the Jesuit Order.

“The Jesuits are renowned the world over for excellence in education, focusing on liberal arts, value-centered education of the whole person, and a commitment to lifelong learning, social justice, and service,” said Carol Gibney, associate director for campus ministry at Lincoln Center and director of Ignatian Programs.

“As a Jesuit institution, the University’s principles are based on the 450-year old teaching traditions of St. Ignatius… The Ignatian Week events highlight our rich Ignatian heritage and what it means to be part of a Jesuit university.”

The festivities commence on the Rose Hill campus with “Law and Order: The Jesuit Factor,” presented by Msgr. Thomas J. Shelley, professor emeritus of theology. Msgr. Shelley will discuss the case of New York-based Jesuit Anthony Kohlmann—after whom Fordham’s Kohlmann Hall is named—who was integral to the landmark legal case about the Seal of the Confessional, which prohibits priests from disclosing information learned during the sacrament of penance.

Ignatian Week continues later that evening at the Lincoln Center campus with the fall McGinley Lecture, “To Be a Pilgrim: A Geography of Faith for Jews, Christians, and Muslims,” presented by Patrick J. Ryan, S.J., the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society.

Other upcoming events include:

• A discussion and guided meditation with Zen roshi (“master”) and Jesuit priest Robert Kennedy, S.J.;
• An outing at Pugsley’s with America Magazine editor-in-chief Matt Malone, S.J., who will discuss the recent interview with Pope Francis;
• A trip to Washington, D.C., to participate in the Ignatian Family Teach-In, lobbying for issues of humane comprehensive immigration reform and raising minimum wage;
• An interactive video conference with Catholic feminist theologians in Asia;

…and more!

To see a full list of Ignatian Week events, visit Campus Ministry’s website.

While “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,” is a fundamental commandment, scholars said on April 9 that care should be taken in the use of the name of the Divine regardless of the intention.

Fordham’s spring McGinley Lecture, delivered by Patrick J. Ryan, S.J., the Laurence J. McGinley professor of religion and society, examined the role of the Divine name as a living part of three faith traditions.

In “Naming God: a Quandary for Jews, Christians and Muslims,” Father Ryan took an etymological approach to the Divine name, parsing ancient uses and meanings culled from the Hebrew bible, the New Testament and the Qur’ an. Rabbi Daniel Polish, Ph.D., spiritual leader of Congregation Shir Chadash, and Amir Hussain, Ph.D, professor of theological studies at Loyola Marymount University, offered responses to the lecture.

Regardless of the language or the text from which the name was taken, Father Ryan presented multifaceted viewpoints of the name that included considerations of tense, historical context, plural or singular meaning, and gender.

Patrick J. Ryan, S.J., the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham, will deliver the annual Spring McGinley Lecture, “Naming God: A Quandary for Jews, Christians and Muslims.”

The lecture will be followed by responses from Rabbi Daniel Polish, Ph.D., of Congregation Shir Chadash in Poughkeepsie and Professor Amir Hussain, Ph.D., of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

The lecture is free and open to the public. It will be repeated the following day at Rose Hill.

For more information, contact Sister Anne-Marie Kirmse, O.P., Ph.D., GSAS ’89, at 718-817-4746 or[email protected].

For additional information, please visit htto://www.fordham.edu/mcginley_chair.

Aditi Bagchi,

associate professor of law, LAW,

“ESPN Accused in Dish Case of Giving Comcast Better Terms,” Bloomberg, February 11

Tom Beaudoin, Ph.D.,

associate professor of practical theology, GRE,

“Woodford and the Quest for Meaning,” ABC Radio, February 16

Mary Bly, Ph.D.,

professor of English, A&S,

“How do Bestselling Novelists Court Cupid on Valentine’s Day?,” Washington Post, February 14

James Brudney,

professor of law, LAW,

“Nutter Seeks High Court’s OK to Impose His Terms on City Workers,” Philly.com, March 1

Charles C. Camosy, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of theology, A&S,

“Drone Warfare Faces Barrage of Moral Questions,” Catholic San Francisco, February 20

Colin M. Cathcart, M.F.A.,

associate professor of architecture, A&S,

“New York City Traffic Ranked the Worst Among the Nation: Study,” AM New York, February 6

Saul Cornell, Ph.D.,

The Paul and Diane Guenther Chair in American History, A&S,

“After Newtown: Guns in America,” WNET-TV, February 19

Carole Cox, Ph.D.,

professor of social service, GSS,

“Boomer Stress,” Norwich Bulletin, February 19

George Demacopoulos, Ph.D.,

associate professor of theology, A&S,

“Pope Resignation,” ABC, World News Now, February 28

Christopher Dietrich, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of history, A&S,

“Bad Precedent: Obama’s Drone Doctrine is Nixon’s Cambodia Doctrine (Dietrich),” Informed Comment, February 11

John Entelis, Ph.D.,

professor of political science, A&S,

“John Brennan,” BBC Radio, February 9

Howard Erichson,

professor of law, LAW,

“High-Stakes Trial Begins for 2010 Gulf Oil Spill,” Amarillo Globe-News, February 25

Laura Gonzalez, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of finance, BUS,

“Recortes al Presupuesto Podrían Afectar el Seguro Social y Medicare,” Mundo Fox, February 8

Albert Greco, Ph.D.,

professor of marketing, BUS,

“Why Would Anyone Want to Buy a Bookstore?,” Marketplace, February 25

Karen J. Greenberg, Ph.D.,

director of the Center on National Security, LAW,

“Alleged Sept. 11 Plotters in Court, but Lawyers Do the Talking,” National Public Radio, February 11

Stephen R. Grimm, Ph.D.,

associate professor of philosophy, A&S,

“Grants from Foundations and Corporations of More Than $100,000 in 2013,” Chronicle of Philanthropy, February 28

Tanya Hernandez, Ph.D.,
professor of law, LAW,

“Brazil’s Affirmative Action Law Offers a Huge Hand Up,” Christian Science Monitor, February 12

J. Patrick Hornbeck, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of theology, A&S,

“Vatican Conclave,” Huffington Post, March 4

Robert Hume, Ph.D.,

associate professor of political science, A&S,

“USA: Supreme Court Case Update – DOMA/Prop 8 Briefs Streaming In,” Gay Marriage Watch, February 28

Clare Huntington,

associate professor of law, LAW,

“Sunday Dialogue: How to Give Families a Path Out of Poverty,” The New York Times, February 9

Nicholas Johnson,

professor of law, LAW,

“Neil Heslin, Father of Newtown Victim, Testifies at Senate Assault Weapons Ban Hearing,”Huffington Post, February 27

Michael E. Lee, Ph.D.,

associate professor of theology, A&S,

“Tiempo: Watch this Week’s Show,” WABC 7, February 17

Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J.,

professor of theology, A&S,

“Remembering Benedict — the Teacher, the Traditionalist,” The Saratogian, March 1

Dawn B. Lerman, Ph.D.,

director of the Center for Positive Marketing, marketing area chair, and professor of marketing, BUS,

“Study: Google, Facebook, Walmart Fill Consumer Needs,” Tech Investor News, February 12

Paul Levinson, Ph.D.,

professor of communication and media studies, A&S,

“Will Oscar Host Seth MacFarlane Be Asked Back? Probably Not,” Yahoo! News via Christian Science Monitor, February 26

Hector Lindo-Fuentes, Ph.D.,

professor of history and director of Latin American and Latino Studies, A&S,

“Escaping Gang Violence, Growing Number of Teens Cross Border,” WNYC, December 28

Timothy Malefyt, Ph.D.,

visiting associate professor of marketing, BUS,

“On TV, an Everyday Muslim as Everyday American,” The New York Times, February 8

Elizabeth Maresca,

clinical associate professor of law, LAW,

“Poll: 87 Percent Say Never OK to Cheat on Taxes,” KWQC, February 26

Carlos McCray, Ed.D.,

associate professor of education leadership, GRE,

“Cops Nab 5-Year-Old for Wearing Wrong Color Shoes to School,” Take Part, January 18

Micki McGee, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of sociology, A&S,

“Do Self-Help Books Work?,” Chicago Sun Times, February 21

Mark Naison, Ph.D.,

professor of African and African American Studies and history, and principal investigator of the Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP), A&S,

“Professor: Why Teach For America Can’t Recruit in my Classroom,” Washington Post, February 18

Costas Panagopoulos, Ph.D.,

associate professor of political science, A&S,

“Analysis: Obama to Republicans – Can We Just Move On?,” WHTC 1450, February 13

Kimani Paul-Emile,

associate professor of law, LAW,

“Some Patients Won’t See Nurses of Different Race,” Cleveland Plain Dealer via AP, February 22

Michael Peppard, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of theology, A&S,

“Big Man on Campus isn’t on Campus,” Commonweal, February 20

Francis Petit, Ed.D.,

associate dean and director of Executive Programs, BUS,

“Marissa Mayer Takes Flak for Gathering Her Troops,” E-Commerce Times, March 1

Rose Perez, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of social work, GSS,

“Education Segment,” Mundo Fox, January 21

Wullianallur “R.P.” Raghupathi, Ph.D.,

professor of information systems, BUS,

“¿Qué Tiene Silicon Valley para Producir ‘Frutos’ Como Steve Jobs?,” CNN, February 24

Joel Reidenberg, Ph.D.,

Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and professor of law and founding academic director of the Center on Law and Information Policy, LAW,

“Google App Store Policy Raises Privacy Concerns,” Reuters, February 14

Erick Rengifo-Minaya, Ph.D.,

associate professor of economics, BUS,

“Noticias MundoFOX 10PM Parte II,” Mundo Fox Noticias, February 8

Patrick J. Ryan, S.J.,

The Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society, A&S,

“Pope Resignation,” WNBC, Sunday “Today in NY,” March 13

Susan Scafidi,

professor of law, LAW,

“Diamonds: How $60B Industry Thrives on Symbolism,” CBS This Morning, February 21

Christine Janssen-Selvadurai, Ph.D.,director of the entrepreneurship program at the Gabelli School of Business and co-director of both Fordham’s Center for Entrepreneurship and the Fordham Foundry, BUS,

“NYC Embraces Silicon Valley’s Appetite for Risk,” Crain’s New York Business, February 6

Ellen Silber, Ph.D.,

director of Mentoring Latinas, GSS,

“Mentoring Program Serves Young Latinas Aiming Higher in New York City,” Fox News Latino, February 25

Janet Sternberg, Ph.D.,assistant professor of communication and media studies, A&S,

“What are You Supposed to Do When You Have, Like, 106,926 Unread Emails?,” Huffington Post, February 25

Maureen A. Tilley, Ph.D.,professor of theology, A&S,

“Pope Resignation: Interview with Maureen Tilley of Fordham University,” WPIX, February 17

Terrence W. Tilley, Ph.D.,

Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., Professor of Catholic Theology and chair of the department, A&S,

“As Conclave to Select New Pope Begins, English-Speaking Cardinals Lead Charge to Reform Vatican,” Daily News, March 4

Peter Vaughan, Ph.D.,dean of the Graduate School of Social Service, GSS,

“Ceremony Held for NASW Foundation Award Recipients,” Social Work Blog, February 28

More features in this issue:

People

In Focus: Faculty and Research

Back to Inside Fordham home page

Copyright © 2013, Fordham University.

Jews, Christians and Muslims answer that question in distinct ways, but on Nov. 14, Patrick J Ryan, S.J., the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society, said that one thing they all share is an unwavering hope that whatever lies beyond, God will prove stronger than all of it.

Father Ryan delivered the annual fall McGinley lecture “Life After Death, Hopes and Fears for Jews, Christians and Muslims,” to a standing-room-only audience at the Flom Auditorium on Fordham’s Rose Hill campus, a day after delivering it at the Lincoln Center campus to another full room.

In keeping with his goal of facilitating a trialogue between the three Abrahamic traditions of faith, Father Ryan was joined by respondents Claudia Setzer, Ph.D., professor of religious studies at Manhattan College, and Hussein Rashid, Ph.D., adjunct assistant professor of religion at Hofstra University.

Professor Setzer, an expert not only on the Jewish scriptures but also on the New Testament, contrasted the various attitudes toward life after death found among contemporary Jews. Professor Rashid highlighted Isma‘ili Muslim desire to live a resurrected life here and now.

Father Ryan used his talk to give a rapid tour of the ways in which leaders from the three traditions approached the issue of bodily resurrection, weaving into it a personal story about a murdered student whose funeral he conducted  in 1979 while he was teaching in Ghana.

From the Jewish tradition, for instance, he cited passages from the Books of Maccabees.

“These works reflect a strong hope for life after death, precisely in the form of resurrection of the body, nowhere more dramatically than in the account of the martyrdom of seven Jewish brothers and their mother who refuse to eat pork at the command of Antiochus,” he said.

When the second son defies Antiochus, before he dies he speaks of an afterlife: “‘You dismiss us from this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life, because we have died for his laws’.”

C

Patrick J Ryan, S.J., Hussein Rashid, Ph.D. and Claudia Setzer, Ph.D. Photo by Michael Dames

hristian attitudes toward life after death can likewise be seen in the retelling in the Gospels of a conundrum presented to Jesus by the Sadducees. If seven brothers married, one by one, the same childless bride,  to whom would she be married to in the afterlife?

“The reply of Jesus to the Sadducees’ conundrum argues that even in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible (the only ones Sadducees regarded as authoritative), the resurrection of the dead is implicit in God’s words spoken to Moses in the burning bush: “I AM the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob,’” Father Ryan said.

“Following principles not untypical of Jewish exegetes in the early centuries of the Common Era, as we can see in the passage from the Tractate Sanhedrin cited earlier, Jesus interpreted the divine proclamation to Moses of God’s present relationship (“I AM”) to the dead patriarchs as an assertion of continuing relationship, even beyond the physical death of the patriarchs so cited.”

Whereas the Gospels of the New Testament can point to the resurrection of Jesus as a foretaste of what lies in store for all who keep the Christian faith, Father Ryan noted that the Qur’an proffers no clear example of a past resurrection to Muslims.

“But [it]does adduce arguments in favor of the hope for resurrection, noting the parallelism between God’s creating everything in the beginning and God’s revivifying the dead at the end,” he said.

“They also say, ‘When we are reduced to bones and dust, will we really be raised up as a new creation?’ Say: ‘Even if you are stone or iron or some created thing even greater in your minds.’ Then they will say, ‘Who will bring us back?’ Say: ‘The One who made you the first time.’”

Harkening back to the grief that he felt in the presence of the corpse of his student in Ghana, Father Ryan praised the perspectives of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

“There is something much more satisfying, intellectually and spiritually, about life after death conceived as the resurrection of the body than of life after death as the pale survival of a soul in the manner of the shades in the Greek underworld. Jews, Christians and Muslims have all looked forward to resurrection as a bodily event, albeit a transformed bodily event, the fruition or flowering of the spiritual-corporeal whole that is you or me,” he said.

“None of us is hoping for the resuscitation of our aging carcasses, so that we can grow older and older, more and more feeble, in some preternatural Florida. Resurrection of the body promises much more and much better than bodily prolongation. In that resurrected future I hope to meet not only the risen Jesus, but my family and friends as well, including my student whom I buried more than three decades ago.”

Tuesday, April 24
6 p.m.
Pope Auditorium, Lowenstein, Lincoln Center campus

Wednesday, April 25
6 p.m.
Flom Auditorium, William D. Walsh Family Library, Rose Hill campus

Patrick J. Ryan, S.J., the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society, will deliver “The Atheistic Imagination: A Challenge for Jews, Christians, and Muslims” as part of an ongoing interfaith “trialogue” among the three Abrahamic religions. Father Ryan will discuss the works of three prominent fiction authors and what people of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths might draw from the authors’ critiques of their faiths.

Responding to Father Ryan’s talk will be Rabbi Daniel Polish, Ph.D., spiritual leader of Congregation Shir Chadash in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and Amir Hussain, Ph.D., professor of theological studies at Loyola Marymount University.

The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, email [email protected].

Several members of the University community were on hand for the Cardinal’s elevation, including trustees, faculty and administrators.

(L to R) John N. Tognino (FCLS ’75), chairman, Fordham University Board of Trustees; Cardinal Designate Timothy M. Dolan; Norma Tognino; Barbara Costantino; and John R. Costantino (FCRH ’67, LAW ’70), Fordham trustee emeritus.

Monsignor Joseph G. Quinn, vice president for University mission and ministry, and Patrick J. Ryan, S.J., the Laurence J. McGinley, S.J. Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham, both in Rome for Cardinal Dolan’s elevation, and were an on-air expert for WABC and other news outlets.

(L to R) Henry Schwalbenbeg, Ph. D., director of Fordham’s graduate program in International Political Economy and Development; the newly-elevated Timothy Cardinal Dolan; and Alma Schwalbenberg (GSAS ’93)

In New York, Terrence Tilley, Ph.D., the Avery Cardinal Dulles Professor of Theology and chair of the Department of Theology at Fordham, said “[Cardinal Dolan] smiles, he laughs, he has a good time. He will present being a Catholic as being simply joyous. As someone who is a sinner who is a redeemed sinner, like a recovering alcoholic who is enjoying the new status.”

Maureen A. Tilley, Ph.D., professor of theology at Fordham, said the Cardinal’s impact could be considerable. “Between his personality and his record, he has the potential…and I say the potential, to be the most influential Cardinal from New York since Cardinal Spellman.”

‘Rock Star’ Dolan Embraces Bully Pulpit

Photos Courtesy of Henry Schwalbenberg

Father Ryan and Rabbi Daniel Polish, Ph.D., adjunct professor in the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education, will team-teach a new course this spring that aims to create a literal as well as scholarly conversation between Judaism and Christianity.

The course, “Jewish-Christian Dialogue,” will examine the historical contexts of the two faiths to uncover areas of overlap and sources of difference.

“This course is good for Fordham students because it will help them reflect on the links that bind Jews and Christians in one of the major urban centers in the United States, where so many Jews and Christians live and work together,” Father Ryan said.

The course stands as part of Father Ryan’s larger mission to develop what he calls a “trialogue” among the three major monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Father Ryan was appointed the McGinley Professor in 2009 after serving as Fordham’s vice president for University Mission and Ministry since 2005. For nearly half of his life as a priest, he held academic and administrative positions in Nigeria and Ghana.

Rabbi Polish is the spiritual leader of Congregation Shir Chadash of the Hudson Valley in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. An eminent scholar in interreligious affairs, Rabbi Polish has published widely in the field and served as director of education for Inter-Met, an interfaith seminary in Washington D.C.

— Joanna Klimaski