Recognizing Wisdom Beyond Our Own Tradition(s)

Derek Suderman teaches in both the undergraduate Religious Studies and graduate Master of Theological Studies programs. A Hebrew Bible/Old Testament specialist, his current research focuses on individual lament psalms.

There is little doubt that my European forebears had a sense of superiority when they ‘discovered’ the Americas and its peoples; they saw themselves as a ‘civilizing’ force in an unfolding, divine drama. Was this perspective inevitable? While some claim that the Christian gospel is inherently imperial and colonial, I don’t believe this to be the case. In fact, in my view the most compelling critique of this domineering perspective may well emerge from an attentive reinterpretation of the Christian tradition from within, drawing on its original orientation as a minority reform movement opposed to imperial aspirations.

While Europeans saw their role to “Christianize” as mandated by the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20), they merged this instruction to “make disciples” (followers) of Jesus with the idea of a ‘Christian nation.’ Thus, a call to follow Jesus as a counter-cultural way of life became a mandate to ‘convert’ the nations (sometimes at the point of a sword), tending to conflate being Christian with their nationality or loyalty to a particular ruler in the process.

Looking back, perhaps the problem lay not so much in seeking to follow the Great Commission, but not following it enough. What would have happened if Christians had taken Jesus’ call to “teach them to obey everything that I have commanded you” seriously, and then modelled Jesus’ instruction to “turn the other cheek,” “love your enemies,” and serve God rather than wealth (Matthew 5-7)? What would have happened with a focus on attracting voluntary adherents instead of coercing ‘conversion’ through residential schools?

I hope the irony isn’t lost on us: where Matthew addresses a minority group without social, military, or political clout and calls them to follow a Messiah who consistently rejected the trappings of such power, European explorers tied the gospel to the military might and economic interests of kings. A gospel that sought to lift the downtrodden and redistribute wealth (cf. Jesus’ description of evangelism in Luke 4:18-19) morphed into a divine duty and royal mandate to claim land and subordinate peoples. My students are right to critique the Church’s history as an arm of this imperial project, used to pacify Indigenous populations and aid colonial exploitation. 

Rediscovering Biblical Wisdom

If the European explorers’ overarching mental framework for encountering Indigenous peoples was one of superiority, how might we re-envision this relationship? Are we forced either to adopt this perspective or leave the Christian tradition behind?

The biblical wisdom tradition provides a helpful alternative framework for reconsidering this encounter and its ongoing potential. Recall the biblical story of the Queen of Sheba, in which she arrives to “test” Solomon (I Kings 10). The Queen is so impressed by his wisdom, described with a laundry list of categories—architecture, cuisine, administration, fashion, and more—that she is left speechless, marveling as she returns home.

Given our topic, three things stand out as particularly relevant here. First, the Queen recognizes Solomon’s wisdom as an outsider. She comes from a far away place and a different cultural context, but is open to seeing wisdom in the strange new world she encounters. Second, there is no indication that she converts to worshipping the LORD, since she exclaims, “Blessed be the LORD your God” (not “our” or “my” God; I Kings. 10:9); i.e., wisdom can be recognized beyond kinship, ethnic, cultural, and national boundaries. Third, the list of types of wisdom here ends with “and his burnt offerings that he offered at the house of the LORD.” In effect, even religious ritual can be recognized as a type of wisdom, without needing conversion to that religious perspective.

A second biblical example of recognizing wisdom proves even more intriguing. The book of Proverbs contains a collection of sayings meant to provide guidance for life. Though not commonly known, scholars are virtually unanimous that one section of this book  actually draws upon an older Egyptian document, the “Instruction of Amenemope” (Proverbs 22:17-24:22). This passage is not a simple cut-and-paste job (multiple Egyptian gods are omitted in Proverbs, etc.), but reflects a process of selecting, shaping, and reorienting this material to fit within the Israelite tradition. Just imagine, this example reflects the incorporation of wisdom from a profoundly different culture (and polytheistic religious tradition!) into the Bible itself. 

In sum, the biblical wisdom tradition reflects an international, intercultural, and interreligious exchange over what it means to live well in the world. This was not, and is not, a one-way street, where everyone recognizes the wisdom of my tradition but no revelation lies outside of it. I don’t think we should be surprised by this. If I truly believe that all people are created in the image of God, then I should expect to see reflections of the divine in the different people(s) I encounter, as well as within their social, cultural, and even religious understandings. 

Digging Deeper into Faith

If you think of wisdom as an aura around particular beliefs, stories, and convictions, then various religious traditions and their wisdom reflect something like the intersecting circles of a Venn diagram, with some elements that are very different but others that overlap. In other words, it is possible to recognize wisdom in a different tradition, and even agree with and cooperate on areas of mutual interest and concern, without ‘converting’ to that tradition.

For instance, learning from Indigenous perspectives:
•  I recognize the wisdom of making decisions today based on how these would affect people seven generations down the line. 
•  I resonate strongly with an emphasis on care for the land and the conviction that humans and our activities are part of the natural world, not hovering over it. 
•  I am inspired by the wisdom of making decisions or dealing with problems in a circle process, where everyone has a voice.

Rather than either defending or rejecting my Christian faith, encountering these convictions has helped me to recognize, reconsider, and recover aspects of my own tradition; they have deepened my faith, not threatened it. Like the ancient Israelites, contemporary Christians are also part of an international, intercultural, and interreligious exchange about what it means to live well in the world. It is not the case that God’s wisdom flows through only one particular group to everyone else, but a mutually challenging and reinforcing dynamic. Christians certainly have much to contribute, but also a great deal to learn.

The irony may be that freeing Christians from the expectation that everyone will adopt our tradition (or that ensuring this happens represents our primary calling) allows us to dig deeper into our faith and ponder what could (even should) make us strange or stand out as Christians. How does my life and our life together embody a unique wisdom that can be recognized and even attractive to someone beyond my tradition?

At the end of the day, am I willing to: 
•  give up a sense of control and the assumption that everyone should think or believe as I do? 
•  recognize wisdom that emerges from and lies beyond my own tradition? 
•  look for the ‘image of God’ in others, instead of seeking a mirror reflection of myself?

While engineering, architecture, and science reflect some of the wisdom categories associated with Solomon, these disciplines can’t really address the basic ideological struggle reflected in the colonial project. As Romans 12:2 puts it: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed (metamorphicized) by the renewing of your minds…”; the most difficult task lies in decolonizing our minds. The urgent task of decolonization goes beyond reconciliation or even reparations. And I believe engaging the Arts, in which we explore and question the history, foundational assumptions, and biblical/theological justification for colonization, provides a crucial way to engage this profound struggle—and if we don’t, who will?

After all, being part of a living religious tradition does not prompt me to defend the past, but rather pushes me to consider where it has gone wrong and to search for new understandings that refuse to justify violence and coercion in the present.

Imagining three ships floating in that bay, I felt a sense of sorrow and shame for the trajectory that Columbus’s voyage, emboldened by my faith tradition, set into motion. Yet I also wondered: What might be possible if, for the next 500 years, interaction between Indigenous and Settler peoples was characterized by mutual respect and a desire to encounter divine wisdom through each other’s traditions?

This article is a modified version of “Conversion to Wisdom” in Quest for Respect: The Church and Indigenous Spirituality, Intotemak 46 (2017): 109-113.