Sacred,Revolutionary Teaching: Encountering Sacred Difference and Honest Hope

Abstract

Sacred teaching takes many forms across religious traditions, focusing on creation and sacramentality in Christianity, God’s nature and creation of human beings in Judaism, and spiritual and social practices in both. At the heart of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian traditions are accents on the sacredness of life, creation in the image of God, and human dignity. This essay analyzes the three traditions to discover textures of sacrality and practices of sacred teaching and learning. Can such teaching be revolutionary in divided contexts? The paper proposes an approach to sacred, revolutionary teaching to foster compassion, openness, humility, and hope.