Living Our Beliefs: Exploring Faith & Religion in Daily Life

New Land, New Religious Experiences? (part 2) – Judith Pajo, Zeyneb Sayilgan and Meli Solomon

• Meli Solomon, the Talking with God Project • Season 4 • Episode 101

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Episode 101. 

This is the second part of my discussion with Judith Pajo and Zeyneb Sayilgan about living our faiths in America and Germany. While we have all lived in both countries, we practice different faiths, representing the three Abrahamic religions––Judaism, Christianity, and Islam respectively. 

 

In the first part released on 12 June, we discussed our backgrounds, immigration patterns, religious identity and the dynamic of universalism and particularism. In this part, we continue the conversation about the universal and the particular, the problem with identity boxes, and the value or challenge of diversity, before shifting to the issues of the abuse of religion in national efforts to claim power. 


Bio for Judith:

Judith Pajo, PhD, grew up in both Germany and the United States. She studied Catholic theology and cultural anthropology on both sides of the Atlantic and has been teaching at Pace University in New York City. Her new research on interfaith dialogue among Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Europe and North America, conceived a little over a year ago, is transforming her Catholic faith. She is currently working on an article about cultural transgressions in interfaith work. Judith lives in Queens, NY. 


Links for Judith: 

 

Bio for Zeyneb:

Zeyneb Sayilgan, PhD, is the Muslim Scholar at ICJS, The Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies in Baltimore, where her research focuses on Islamic theology and spirituality as articulated in the writings of Muslim scholar Bediüzzaman Said Nursi (1876-1960). She is the host of the Podcast On Being Muslim. You can read her publications on her blog.


Links for Zeyneb: 


Transcript on Buzzsprout


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The Living Our Beliefs podcast is part of the Talking with God Project.

New Land, New Religious Experience? (part 2)

Judith Pajo, Zeyneb Sayilgan and Meli Solomon

 

 

Méli [00:00:05]:

Hello and welcome to Living Our Beliefs, a home for open conversations with fellow Christians, Jews and Muslims. Through personal stories and reflection, we explore how our religious traditions show up in daily life. I am your host, Maili Solomon. So glad you could join us. This podcast is part of my Talking with God Project. To learn more, check out the link in the show notes. This is the second part of my discussion with Judith Pajo and Zeyneb Sayilgan about living our faiths in America and Germany. While we have all lived in both countries, we practice different religions representing the three Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam respectively.

 

Méli [00:00:58]:

In the first part, released on 12th June, we discussed our backgrounds, immigration patterns, religious identity and the dynamic of universalism and particularism. In this part we continue the conversation about the universal and the particular, the problem with identity boxes and, and the value or challenge of diversity before shifting to the issue of the abuse of religion in national efforts to claim power. Now let's turn to our conversation. Perhaps what we're saying is that the commonality is that each person is complex and each person has these human experiences and strivings. The hope, the life phases, the grief, all of these different experiences. Maybe this is how we connect the universal and the particular.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:02:01]:

Yes, you put it very nicely. I think this is how I, I think for me it's never either or, it's always both end like universal and the commonality and the particularity. And sometimes in inter religious spaces we all just say, oh, we're all the same. Yeah, great, we all the same. I feel like that doesn't really contribute much. Instead of can we affirm elements of sameness, but also we have fundamental different conceptions about the divine. Yet I can come together with you and Judy and say we believe in the one divine creator, we have different conceptions about the divine. I might disagree with certain things and having done these kind of hard conversations, I think without diminishing the difference, I think is really something that I value in interreligious spaces.

 

Méli [00:02:50]:

Perhaps just on a language front, a better word is commonality rather than sameness.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:02:58]:

Commonality, right.

 

Méli [00:03:00]:

Okay, on to you, Judith.

 

Judith Pajo [00:03:02]:

The reason I have such a problem with boxes is that those are contemporary boxes that we have constructed. And I think if you go to the origin of the universe, God created one box, all of humanity was in it. I mean we're all descended from Adam and Eve as I understand it. And so for me, I feel like the universe started good with that universal idea and commonality and it got lost. We messed it up. I think we've created chaos. And so the existence of so many different religions, so many different sects, so many different interpretations of the word of God. I think that's a sign to our loss of understanding.

 

Judith Pajo [00:03:56]:

We're struggling and trying to understand. And for me, the end goal of all is that we have that universality back that the universe started with. And so that's why the boxes of, like, what label, what identity, which religion? I push back against it, just like I pushed back against the nationalities. Like, oh, why? Why is it so important what country you're from? Because that those two are boxes. Look at the mess we're making. Look at all the wars being fought between people that have these different ethnic, racial, national labels. Also gender, I don't know. I think with religion, I strive to break down all of these labels and look for the core.

 

Judith Pajo [00:04:40]:

There's that human soul. I don't read anything about the soul being divided. There's that, you know, that pure soul that God placed in us. He created us. He gave us that one soul. And that oneness, I think, is something that I really desire to, you know, that that's the end goal. I've, you know, in terms of nationality, I feel like we're part of the nation of God and it's the nations that humans created that that's where the error lies. I don't know how to organize the world.

 

Judith Pajo [00:05:12]:

Let's not get into that. But on religious grounds, that is exactly what, what I'm striving for, that universality, in the end, that I think that's where we started out with. And, and I think the universal and the particular, that's also something I deal with a lot, being a cultural anthropologist. Right? We have all humans. We share so much in common. But then why do we have so many different cultures? We can extend that question and say, why do we have so many different religions? And one of the ways in which I've given myself a preliminary answer is that just like we have many different cultures in the world, it would probably be very difficult for all people in the world to follow exactly all the same instructions and how to connect to God. And so just like we have different, different cultures, the different religions might be different expressions to help people of different religions connect to God. So beneath all the cultural variation and beneath all the religious variation, I'm looking for that one fundamental question.

 

Judith Pajo [00:06:13]:

Are you religious or not? I mean, do you. Do you acknowledge that there's a creator of the world who also created you and that. Do you acknowledge it or not? I mean, that's that's why I think we share that. And that's why the boxes to me become less important. And that's why my research that started out, you know, with my training in Catholic theology and then brought me to cultural anthropology. And eventually now I'm. I'm studying interfaith relations because I'm trying to deconstruct those boxes. And the way I'm doing that is through trying to apply a historical method to it, in part evolutionary from.

 

Judith Pajo [00:06:52]:

From anthropology. I'm always interested, you know, how did religions originate and evolve, develop over time? So there's definitely that evolutionary interest that I have from my anthropology training, but then also from my Catholic theology training in Germany, I want to say, not in the US but in Germany. It was a very historical critical method in which we acknowledged that the Church as it is now, you know, we just elected another pope put into office. You know, that that's just a contemporary iteration of it. But really there's a whole evolution of the Catholic Church. There's a whole evolution to this religion. It doesn't look now the way it looked 2,000 years ago. And so in my theological training, it was always about deconstructing and taking away all the layers that God added to it.

 

Judith Pajo [00:07:46]:

I mean, you can't imagine how many doctrines God added later on that we don't necessarily have to agree with how they were put in place. So if we peel back and go back to early Christianity, that's one way to look for more commonality. For example, I don't understand why Judaism and Christianity had to split apart. Call it a heretic view that I'm proposing here, but. And then I could go back even further.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:08:17]:

You sound so Muslim to me. I so much what you said just deeply resonates. So I love everything you said. And I, you know, I. It speaks to me. I think that if I affirm the oneness of God, for me, that means I cannot surrender to division and hatred and extreme any kind of nationalism or racism. I think the oneness, and I look at the creation, at nature. There is such a complex web of life that is interrelated, interwoven.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:08:54]:

And as a Muslim, for me, the universe is a book. It points to this divine creativity of oneness that all of our lives are aligned. And for me, the creation nature is an example of how to affirm and honor difference and uniqueness of every being, but at the same time, find ways to connect and collaborate and communicate and lift each other up. And I feel the closest to God in nature. That's my Sacred spiritual source and where I took a lot of inspiration for my own life. And you know, my personal conduct is, look, look all around me, you see this complex web of life. And those are all sacred beings. They all support one another.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:09:38]:

They do not reject one another, they uplift each other. So why can't we live into that reality? And it's an invitation for me. It's a, it's a very important element. And commonality, Yes, I see a lot of commonality. And my inter religious work is always guided. I want to connect with this person. I don't need to widen the gap. The gap is there.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:10:02]:

My fundamental motivation is to how do we become together closer to the oneness, while at the same time never, ever diminishing the uniqueness and particularity of the person who is in front of me and accepting their choices, honoring their choices. Yeah. I think that is what fundamentally guides me in my interreligious work, in my work in community building. I see the world, this rhetoric of division and difference and otherizing and exclusion. You know, for me, as a Muslim, if you're deeply rooted in affirming the oneness of God, how can you then promote hatred and division? I'm not saying that we are Muslims doing a perfect job in that we are also still living into that reality. So for me, it starts in my neighborhood, you know, trying to come together with my neighbors who come from all different religious national backgrounds, coming together and listening to who they are. What's your story? Please, let's have a cup of tea. We Turkish people are good about tea chai.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:11:09]:

So we just sit. It's a hot cup of chai. Tell me your story. I want to hear who you are. Because God created you. You must be special to us. His will, his desire. And, and I think we can, we can make that happen. It's not that complicated. And sadly, media news and you know, politics, wherever you turn to, it's. It's a very hateful, can be very hateful. So I try to feed myself with positive thoughts. And connecting, I think is an act of resistance.

 

Méli [00:11:43]:

2 thoughts in response to your latest comments. One is that diversity is vital. And the model that I think of immediately is biodiversity. Right? You look at the world of plants and animals when we're not causing chaos and devastation, when we let it actually be, there's tremendous variety. And that diversity of animals and plants and the cycles and the changes is healthy, right? It's vibrant and healthy and critical. You look at agribusiness, when it's a monoculture, it's terrible. They have to use tremendous amount of pesticides and awful things in order to have only one crop grow. Growing.

 

Méli [00:12:32]:

That's not how nature was built. Right. That may be a way for us to kind of square the circle on this universal in particular.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:12:43]:

Absolutely. Yep.

 

Méli [00:12:44]:

The other thing I wanted to note is, Zainab, you just mentioned about honoring choices, and I absolutely salute that idea. The three of us are of a mind on this. And all of the points, most of the points we've talked about today were of a mind, which is great. I think it's, it's a wonderful, solid foundation we're building here. But I do have to acknowledge that many people in the world find that difference really threatening. Why is a question I haven't yet answered. You know, why is my Judaism a threat to a Christian nationalist? Why am I as a woman a threat to you as a man? I don't have answers to these yet. Judith.

 

Judith Pajo [00:13:35]:

I think you just gave a partial answer because you said a Christian nationalist. I think the conflict is between religion and nationality. If we, I feel like on religious grounds, we don't have to disagree once we bring in the ugly national politics of those, you know, human creations, the nations that we create and the hostilities that create between nations, you know, over territory and laws and land and customs. And I think that nationalism gets imported into the religion. I feel like if we separated it and really just looked at the religious question, I don't think that's where the hostility lies. I don't know all of history, right. But I'm saying this thinking back of not only the present day conflicts, but also going back to the Crusades and beyond in this historical awareness, I think it has been the nationalist and the territorial conflicts and politics that were then carried out. Another way to say it, and this is all preliminary, I wonder to what extent the national and political actors are trying to blame it on religion.

 

Judith Pajo [00:14:54]:

Because if you get nations going to war against each other, they don't want to say it's US nations going to war against each other. They're blaming it on the tribal, tribalisms of the religions. Why do the religions get blamed for it if that might not actually be where the problem lies? Could we push it back into the court of the nations? That's why I'm in the interfaith sector, because I want, I want to build these alliances, you know, not only within the Abrahamic religions, but beyond too, the Eastern religions. And to say, like, who are all the religious people in the world? Who are all the ones that acknowledge some of those truths about our relation between creator and creation and what that means for how we should live and treat each other. And if we do that, maybe we could push back all that political stuff out and make the politicians stand up for what they're doing and dissociate that from the religious. I don't want the religions to be blamed for that.

 

Méli [00:16:03]:

Thank you, Judith. You're really talking about taking ownership over the action. And I would certainly say that within the contemporary American context, the Christian nationalists, and it's Christian right, I would even add white Christian nationalists, are using religion as an excuse. It's a cudgel. They're hijacking religion in order to accomplish this, this other goal. I'm not a Christian, but even I can see that they are completely abusing the message of Jesus Christ. But you've really piqued my interest to think backwards. And this is not a history discussion, so, you know, I'll put it to the side.

 

Méli [00:16:49]:

But just to put a pin in it is the historical view. You know, you mentioned the Crusades, and that is one of the examples that I had at the beginning of my long journey when I was in university and starting to think about religion. I thought, you know, religion is clearly a huge issue in cultures around the world. Across history, it's done fabulous things and it's done horrible things. And the Crusades is one of those examples. People went to war and killed each other over religion. But maybe that's not true. Maybe that's an inaccurate statement.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:17:25]:

I would agree with Judith that religious discourse is a powerful tool and it's often used to mobilize people. But is it really something that is justified by the religious tradition? That's a whole other question. I, I would agree with Judith that religion gets a bad rep. All of religion is bad, and religion is always the source of problem. I mean, we had these secular ideologies who killed more people, more humans. If you think of Stalin, if you think of Mao, you just Google it. You know, the numbers are evident enough that secular ideologies, if you take God out, it's also not the promise that we will have less human death on this planet. Religion, as I see it, for me, is a source of empowerment, a source of liberation, a source of good.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:18:14]:

And it's for the majority of believers of goodwill on this planet. And we need to be more articulate of this. The people I've met in my life, wonderful people, people of faith who see their religious resources, their traditions, their sacred texts as a source of advancing humanity to thrive together to flourish together. It's a choice. We come back to choice. A human being has the choice to interpret their sacred texts in a destructive way or in a constructive way. Every time I approach one passage, I have a choice. And that's the problem we have in all scriptural communities.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:18:54]:

The eisegesis, the exegesis dynamic. I will teach a class and let me do a little plug. We will. So we need to use our scriptures more to create and articulate theologies of resistance, theologies of empowerment, theologies of uplifting difference. And they are there. But maybe we need to do more work. So I see Jesus is the act of reading your selfish, egocentric, worldly desires and agenda, political interests into the text, right? And then deriving saying, oh, see here it says, go and kill all infidels, go and kill all non Muslims, go and kill all women. This is not how the majority of scholars have read it.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:19:40]:

This was also not the majority of scholars who have applied it in the geographical context. And these are facts. Muslims in Spain or in the Holy Land did not walk around, despite their unique theological positions, to go and kill Jews or kill Christians. In fact, they extended it to other communities like Hinduism, Buddhists. How do I know that? I visited Indonesia, I visited Burma, I visited Malaysia, I've seen the communities. Indonesia is the largest Muslim country on this planet. And as far as historical data shows us, there was no mass killing, annihilation of Buddhists and Hindus. In fact, it was Sufi traders, business men who went into the far lands and built relationships, talked, embraced the other.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:20:30]:

I go back to the education piece. We need to lift up how to allow for free choices, for honor, God given human consciousness, to make their own choices. And that choice sadly also includes bad choices, like people interpreting scripture in a way that can become dangerous. All scriptural communities need to challenge that. I personally, I do not know how Prophet Jesus, peace be upon him, is used for a prosperity gospel or a gospel of power and privilege. I see him as I read him, somebody who loves him deeply, somebody who lift up the voices of the marginalized, embrace the stranger, welcome the vulnerable. How do you use that holy passage to then say love has hierarchies. We need to exclude ref[ugees]. They are a threat, they are criminals. This and that. This is something that we all need to challenge as religious believers. It's very dangerous, something that we all grapple with in our communities.

 

Judith Pajo [00:21:30]:

If I may jump in, because Zeyneb mentioned the secular ideologies and I think that's very helpful to my mind. Nationalism is one of those secular Ideologies that has led to a lot of killing and that goes back to the Crusades. It stretches all the way into present day conflict. The way I think about nationalism is that it has colonized religions. All kinds of secular ideologies have colonized religions. And so I like your ideas, A of developing a theology of resistance. Let's resist, let's get the secular ideologies back out. Let's think clearly about what is secular and what is religious and get the secular ideologies about race and sex and, and you know, all these boxes again that we put humans in and create conflict. We do create order. I mean, I understand that we're not like one all one undistinguished mass of humans all around the world. I understand that. But there's plenty to be said against the particular boxes that we have created.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:22:37]:

And it's a certain type of secularism. I mean, if I look at France, for example, where Muslim women, Olympics, sportswomen were excluded from the French Olympics, that's for me an aggressive type of secularism. The laicity, there's no fraternity or you know, equality. How do you align that with ideas of democracy and freedom of expression and freedom of religion? It's a hypocrisy. And so for me, a secular person or non affiliated person or non religious is not a threat. I am very confident in my faith. Like I said, I respect and honor their choices. I would love to be in conversation.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:23:18]:

It's a certain, like I said, a certain ideology, a certain oppression that takes in the name of secularism that then ironically oppresses other groups. And I think that's where I'm fundamentally against.

 

Judith Pajo [00:23:33]:

I couldn't agree more.

 

Méli [00:23:35]:

Yeah, well, we clearly have a lot to talk about. I think we definitely need to have more conversations. But I think this is a good time to draw this particular conversation to a close. And in closing, I want to give each of you an opportunity for a final word, any kind of highlight you want to make and also a little advertising. Zainab, you mentioned you're teaching a course. So Zainab, let's start with you and then we'll go to Judith.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:24:09]:

Yes. So I will be teaching a course in the fall. It's a class on our scriptures and in my case it's Muslim scripture, the Quran and how we use our scriptures or the Quran in particular to promote multi religious democracy or multi religious democracy. And I would love to invite everyone to embrace relational diversity. This is going to be an online class where we will have Jewish, Muslim, Christian, non affiliated, non religious people in the class. It's a wonderful way to connect and be in conversation.

 

Méli [00:24:47]:

Thank you. And I will include a link to that in the show notes so people can sign up and participate.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:24:54]:

Perfect.

 

Méli [00:24:55]:

Thank, Judith.

 

Judith Pajo [00:24:56]:

What I'm looking forward now in the next couple of weeks is just wrapping up my research and writing on the field work that I've done over the last 12 months with Christians, Muslims and Jews in Germany and the United States who were involved in interfaith work, interfaith dialogue. Some of those dialogues had been interrupted through the events of October 7th. And so I'm, I'm very concerned about the rise of antisemitism. And I want to step back and put that in a broader perspective of antisemitism and Islamophobia that are always somehow on the rise when we have such crisis events that affect, really, communities all over the world. And so I look forward to wrapping up the writing. And then after that, I have my next research trip planned for Germany in a couple of weeks. And I want to start interviewing people in the Abrahamic religions. So we're still dealing with Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

 

Judith Pajo [00:25:55]:

This time I'm interested in them telling me about what is Abrahamic about their religion, because we have all these history books that tell us about origins and evolutions of these religions and how they're related. But as a cultural anthropologist, I'm really interested in the contemporary life, like, what do people know about Abraham and who are the figures that are prominent for them in their faith? Because I think understanding better how Abrahamic faith is understood by the various traditions within the Abrahamic faiths would also allow us to understand better how to how to connect these people and get more dialogue going. Because I think I'm a big fan of interfaith dialogue. I think we need to dialogue. And even if sometimes we might stumble upon disagreements, it doesn't benefit us to leave them unexamined. I think we have to talk about them. I mean, so some sort of diplomacy, I think that would be my contribution to trying to combat both Islamophobia and antisemitism.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:26:58]:

I can't wait to read your research, Judith.

 

Judith Pajo [00:27:01]:

Thank you, Zainab.

 

Méli [00:27:02]:

Will that be in a format that I can include in the show notes?

 

Judith Pajo [00:27:07]:

Oh, I'm not that far yet. I'm just going to be collecting the data this summer for the new project, and then it'll take its time again to write the article. But yeah, both the one I'm writing now and the next one, all of them would be in article form.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:27:22]:

I'll pray that we will, all our communities hopefully collectively thrive to be better, to build more bridges. And this is a great start. So thank you so much Mellie. You've Bringing us together. I really enjoyed listening to your podcast and shared it with my circle.

 

Méli [00:27:39]:

Yes. Thank you Judith and Zeyneb for joining me on my Living Our Beliefs podcast. I've so appreciated and enjoyed this conversation. A unique experience and I really hope we do more things together, the three of us.

 

Judith Pajo [00:27:54]:

Thank you Meli and Zeyneb. It was - it was just terrific to have this opportunity. I hope we do this again.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:28:00]:

Yes, please stay in touch. I would love to stay connected.

 

Méli [00:28:07]:

Thanks for listening to my Living Our Beliefs podcast. If you'd like to hear a similar story about how religious expression and practice changes when we live in different countries, check out my conversation with Daniel Stein Kokin entitled Reinterpreting Jewish Liturgy. In that episode, Daniel talks about his experiences practicing Judaism in Germany, Italy, Israel and the us this podcast is an outgrowth of my Talking with God Project. To keep up to date about new episodes, blog posts and other events, sign up for my twice monthly newsletter. A link is in the show notes. Thanks so much for tuning in. Till next time. Bye Bye.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:28:56]:

Sam.