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    Union with God in Christ: Early Christian and Wesleyan Spirituality as an Approach to Islamic Mysticism
    Union with God in Christ: Early Christian and Wesleyan Spirituality as an Approach to Islamic Mysticism
    Union with God in Christ: Early Christian and Wesleyan Spirituality as an Approach to Islamic Mysticism
    Ebook754 pages5 hours

    Union with God in Christ: Early Christian and Wesleyan Spirituality as an Approach to Islamic Mysticism

    By Matthew Friedman and A. H. Mathias Zahniser

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    About this ebook

    A significant number of Muslim communities throughout the world reflect varying degrees of involvement in Islamic mysticism. What bridges are present in this context that will facilitate not only evangelism, but also discipleship and community formation? Matthew Friedman guides the reader on a journey examining the response of the early Christian community to the challenges of ancient Jewish and Hellenic mysticism, focusing on the central idea of "union with God in Christ." Far from finding this to be a leftover from the early Church, he discovers that this theme remained crucial into the Reformation, particularly in the writing and work of eighteenth-century figures John and Charles Wesley.Join Friedman as he explores resources for discipleship and community building that will be relevant to both scholars and practitioners alike, and will be effective for witness within modern contexts of Islamic mysticism worldwide.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPickwick Publications
    Release dateOct 26, 2017
    ISBN9781498278393
    Union with God in Christ: Early Christian and Wesleyan Spirituality as an Approach to Islamic Mysticism
    Author

    Matthew Friedman

    Dr. Matthew Friedman (PhD, Asbury Seminary) is Professor of Intercultural Studies and Global Ministry Director at Kingswood University, and Adjunct Professor at Asbury Seminary.

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      Union with God in Christ - Matthew Friedman

      9781498278386.kindle.jpg

      Union with God in Christ

      Early Christian and Wesleyan Spirituality as an Approach to Islamic Mysticism

      By Matthew Friedman

      Foreword by A. H. Mathias Zahniser

      American Society of Missiology Monograph Series vol.

      32

      53137.png

      UNION WITH GOD IN CHRIST

      Early Christian and Wesleyan Spirituality as an Approach to Islamic Mysticism

      American Society of Missiology Monograph Series

      32

      Copyright ©

      2017

      Matthew Friedman. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publsihers,

      199

      W.

      8

      th Ave., Suite

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      , Eugene, OR

      97401

      Pickwick Publications

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199

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      8

      th Ave., Suite

      3

      Eugene, OR

      97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      paperback isbn: 978

      -

      1

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      4982

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      7838

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      6

      hardcover isbn: 978

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      4982

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      9

      ebook isbn: 978

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      4982

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      Cataloging-in-Publication data:

      Names: Friedman, Matthew. | Zahniser, A. H. Mathias (foreword)

      Title: Union with God in Christ : early Christian and Wesleyan spirituality as an approach to Islamic mysticism / by Matthew Friedman, foreword by A. H. Mathias Zahniser.

      Description: Eugene, OR : Pickwick Publications,

      2017

      | Series: American Society of Missiology Monograph Series

      32

      | Includes bibliographical references and index.

      Identifiers: ISBN

      978

      -

      1

      -

      4982

      -

      7838

      -

      6

      (paperback) | ISBN

      978

      -

      1

      -

      4982

      -

      7838

      -

      6

      (hardcover) | ISBN

      978

      -

      1

      -

      4982

      -

      7839

      -

      3

      (ebook)

      Subjects: LCSH: Sufism. | Spirituality—Methodist Church—History—

      18

      th century. | Spiritual life—Christianity. | Mysticism—Judiasm. | Christianity and other religions—Islam.

      Classification: LCC BP

      172

      .

      5

      .O

      77

      F

      7

      2017

      (print) | LCC BP

      172

      .

      5

      .O

      77

      (ebook)

      Manufactured in the U.S.A.

      06/13/17

      Table of Contents

      Title Page

      Permissions

      Foreword

      Acknowledgments

      Introduction

      Chapter 1: Will You Not Discover The Lord In All This?

      Chapter 2: With Unveiled Faces

      Chapter 3: That He Be Surrounded by God’s Glory

      Chapter 4: Union with God and Mission in the Theology of John Wesley

      Chapter 5: Sufism

      Chapter 6: ‘Alī Ibn ‘Uthmān Al-Hujwīrī and Sharaf Al-Dīn Manerī

      Chapter 7: Conclusion

      Bibliography

      American Society of Missiology Monograph Series

      Series Editor, James R. Krabill

      The ASM Monograph Series provides a forum for publishing quality dissertations and studies in the field of missiology. Collaborating with Pickwick Publications—a division of Wipf and Stock Publishers of Eugene, Oregon—the American Society of Missiology selects high quality dissertations and other monographic studies that offer research materials in mission studies for scholars, mission and church leaders, and the academic community at large. The ASM seeks scholarly work for publication in the series that throws light on issues confronting Christian world mission in its cultural, social, historical, biblical, and theological dimensions.

      Missiology is an academic field that brings together scholars whose professional training ranges from doctoral-level preparation in areas such as Scripture, history and sociology of religions, anthropology, theology, international relations, interreligious interchange, mission history, inculturation, and church law. The American Society of Missiology, which sponsors this series, is an ecumenical body drawing members from Independent and Ecumenical Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, and other traditions. Members of the ASM are united by their commitment to reflect on and do scholarly work relating to both mission history and the present-day mission of the church. The ASM Monograph Series aims to publish works of exceptional merit on specialized topics, with particular attention given to work by younger scholars, the dissemination and publication of which is difficult under the economic pressures of standard publishing models.

      Persons seeking information about the ASM or the guidelines for having their dissertations considered for publication in the ASM Monograph Series should consult the Society’s website—www.asmweb.org.

      Members of the ASM Monograph Committe who approved this book are:

      Paul V. Kollman, University of Notre Dame

      Roger Schroeder, Catholic Theological Union

      Bonnie Sue Lewis, University of Dubuque Theological Seminary

      Recently Published in the ASM Monograph Series

      Chin, Clive S. The Perception of Christianity as a Rational Religion in Singapore: A Missiological Analysis of Christian Conversion.

      Hubers, John. I Am a Pilgrim, a Traveler, a Stranger: Exploring the Life and Mind of the First American Missionary to the Middle East, the Rev. Pliny Fisk (1792–1825)

      McGill, Jenny. Religious Identity and Cultural Negotiation: Toward a Theology of Christian Identity in Migration.

      Permissions

      Excerpts from Sharafuddin Maneri: The Hundred Letters, translated and introduced by Paul Jackson, SJ. Copyright © 1980 by Paulist Press, Inc. Paulist Press, Inc., New York/Mahwah, NJ. Reprinted by permission of Paulist Press, Inc. www.paulistpress.com

      PHILO, VOL. IV, translated by F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker, Loeb Classical

      Library Volume 261, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, First published

      1932. Loeb Classical Library ® is a registered trademark of the President and

      Fellows of Harvard College.

      PHILO, VOL. V, translated by F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker, Loeb Classical

      Library Volume 275, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, First published

      1934. Loeb Classical Library ® is a registered trademark of the President and

      Fellows of Harvard College.

      All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

      Scripture quotations from The Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971, and the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

      Foreword

      The evangelist Matthew begins his gospel with mission: the centripetal mission of Gentile wise men from the East who, having exercised their cultural practice of star gazing, aided by those who know scripture, travel to Bethlehem to see the new child king of Israel (Matt 2:1–12). Matthew ends his gospel with mission: the now adult king Jesus, crucified and resurrected, commissions his disciples for centrifugal mission to "make disciples of all nations"—nations in the sense of ethnic communities (Matt 28:16–20).

      In this book, Union with God in Christ: Early Christian and Wesleyan Spirituality as an Approach to Islamic Mysticism, Matthew Friedman helps twentieth-century disciples engage in centrifugal mission in a way that taps into the deep worldview of an ethnic community today. The Magi were looking at the heavens where God met them. Friedman understands that one cannot go anywhere where God is not involved already, using what people are interested in to draw them in a centripetal quest whose destination can only be explained through the story of Jesus the Messiah. This Matthew has found Muslims from the East looking for union with God. They are already on a path like that of the Magi that can lead to Jesus. His book represents a profound cooperation with a long divine engagement, the culmination of which is union with God in Christ.

      It will accordingly help practitioners, teachers, and students of contextualization grasp what union with God means to Muslims with a mystical bent and how contextualization can avoid the superficial and syncretistic errors born of poor analysis and uninformed enthusiasm. In order to unveil the bridges available among communities involved in varying degrees of Islamic mysticism and to guide followers of Jesus in disciple making and community building among them, Friedman gleans from the experience of early Christians in dealing with communities influenced by Jewish and Hellenic mysticism. He gives special attention to New Testament literature—particularly, but not exclusively, the fourth gospel and the other writings of the Apostle John.

      After a survey of Christian interaction with various mystical writings in late antiquity, including the Gospel of Thomas, Friedman zooms in on the Homilies of a fourth-century Syrian monk collected pseudonymously under the name Macarius of Egypt, whose critical interaction with the ascension and vision mysticism of his Jewish and Hellenic environment is particularly clear and relevant to the quest of Muslims for union with God. Furthermore, the monk’s Homilies selected for careful evaluation by Friedman eventually contributed to the theology of John Wesley. Indeed, Friedman finds Wesleyan missiology a rich source for contextualizing the Christian gospel to satisfy any quest for union with God.

      Of course, when followers of Jesus seek to recognize what the Creator-Redeemer is doing in this world and try to do it with him,¹ especially among adherents of another religious tradition or ideology, they must avoid compromising the Christian faith itself in the process. Friedman, aware of the possibility of debilitating syncretism, frames his analysis with the seminal work of the Scottish missiologist Andrew Walls, arguably the preeminent missiologist of our time. In a classic essay, The Gospel as Prisoner and Liberator of Culture, Walls identifies two principles that must always be kept in mind in contextualization: the indigenizing principle, that faithful Christians must always experience their faith as relevant and reliable within their own culture; and the pilgrim principle, that faith in Christ will always result in tension with their society and culture: there will be rubs and frictions—not from the adoption of a new culture, but from the transformation of the mind toward that of Christ.² These principles have been validated by much research and experience; Friedman applies them adroitly throughout the book, but especially to the exemplary Sufi writings of the Afghani ‘Alī ibn ‘Uthmān al-Jullābī al-Hujwīrī (d. AD 1073) and the Bihari Indian, Sharaf al-Dīn Manerī (d. AD 1381). He examines these thinkers who have influenced contemporary Muslims seeking union with God in the light of Christian parallels in scripture, early and subsequent Christian tradition, reason and experience.

      Two additional features of Friedman’s approach to contextualizing Christian faith and practice in a Muslim Sufi community make the book you have in your hands very valuable indeed: the thoroughness of his research—he leaves no stone unturned—and the fact of his own engagement with what God is already doing in one such community.

      Lord, you beat in our hearts and thrive in every cell of our bodies. All that we are leaps for delight. Wherever we go, we know we shall find you there. Amen.³

      A. H. Mathias Zahniser

      John Wesley Beeson Professor of Christian Mission emeritus

      Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky

      Currently, Scholar in Residence

      Greenville College, Greenville, Illinois

      1. Taylor, Go Between God,

      37, 39

      .

      2. Walls, Missionary Movement in History,

      8

      .

      3. Wyes, From Shore to Shore,

      92.

      Acknowledgments

      Reflecting back on the journey that has in some ways culminated, and in other ways commenced, with this project, I find that I have so much for which to be grateful to so many.

      I am grateful to my long-patient wife Chandra and our son Eli for their grace and endurance during the many, many hours that I spent researching and writing this manuscript, and for their support and love along the way. I can also be thankful for parents who gave me a love of learning and a continual curiousity.

      I am grateful for those who walked with me in through classes, research and careful mentoring. Special thanks goes especially to my dissertation supervisor, Lalsangkima Pachuau, for his theological wisdom, and for his attention to ensuring that the fine details of this project were all in their proper place. I likewise wish to thank A. H. Mathias Zahniser, for both affirming and challenging me as I worked through the complex and interconnected worlds of Jewish, Christian and Islamic mysticism. Though not officially on my committee, Dale F. Walker was also very helpful in providing numerous suggestions; as a walking bibliography, he often pointed me to sources that I might otherwise never have found. I am proud to be able to refer to each of you not only as mentors, but as friends. I am also so very thankful for the opportunity to have served as teaching assistant under not only Dr. Pachuau and Dr. Walker, but also under Steve Seamands and Ruth Anne Reese.

      I am grateful for other professors from whom I have learned both formally in classes, as well as informally in discussions, over coffee, and with as much laughter as furrowed brows deep in thought: In addition to the aforementioned, George Hunter, Eunice Irwin, Steve Ybarrola, W. Jay Moon, Kevin Kinghorn, Art McPhee, Terry Muck, Howard Snyder, and Lawrence Wood.

      I am grateful to those congregations and individual friends, too many to name, whose support over the years in South Asia and in North America made this research possible. I want to particularly express my gratitude for the encouragement and openheartedness of Dan and Cynthia Strull and Olive Tree Congregation, Raul and Mary Nassar, and Walter and Jeryl Buehler in North Jersey.

      I will always be grateful for those who shared my journey in South Asia and beyond, and who share in this story and in the working out of what it may mean to walk with Jesus in a context in which Islamic mysticism is frequently encountered. In addition to colleagues on the ground, I also appreciated the advocacy of Steve Cochrane and others toward an ethos of developing scholar-practitioners who pursue academic research, but also seek to connect this with their own field experience, following models from the past such as the great W. H. T. Gairdner of Cairo.

      I give special thanks to J. Dudley Woodberry, who first demonstrated to me that serious intellectual engagement and devout love for Jesus could be brought together with seamless intergrity, and for the introduction to Islamic mysticism from which I benefited in his classroom.

      I also am grateful for the friendship and occasional nudging of Phil Parshall, from whose writings I first learned of engagement with the context of Islamic mysticismin print. I later discovered a graceful man of God behind the pen.

      Greg Livingstone has given my family and I much encouragement over the years, as he has to many as a kind of father figure for all who share our particular focus.

      I am grateful for colleagues and students at Kingswood University and Asbury Theological Seminary; at Oak Hills Christian College, where I taught for four years, and in training programs around the world.

      Above all, I am thankful for the grace of God which I have discovered in Yeshua the Messiah, the Word within God’s Essence, and the Spirit of God in whose grace I am carried along and transformed into his image, being brought into deepening union with the Beloved.

      Introduction

      Background of the Problem

      Henry Martyn (1781–1812) was an early Anglican missionary with a focus on the Muslims, first in India, and then in the final stage of his short life in Persia. It was in Persia that he wrote of interacting with Sūfīs, the mystics of Islam, and he made a curiously hopeful comment regarding this special kind of Muslims, recording in his journal:

      These Soofies are quite the methodists of the East.¹ They delight in everything Christian, except in being exclusive. From these. . . you will perceive the first Persian church will be formed, judging after the manner of men. [sic]²

      Martyn saw a hunger for God in the Sūfīs which is what we can understand him to be referring to here. In reflecting on Martyn’s observations here, it would be worthwhile to investigate an approach to these Methodists of the East in light of some of the spiritual and missiological principles of early Methodism and some of the Patristic sources which parallel and in some ways contributed to the development of the classic Wesleyan understanding of sanctification as union with God in Christ. These seem as well to have parallels with some of the same themes in early Sūfī thought. It is in view of these parallels that we will explore the possibility of applying in the Sūfī context the insights of the early Church’s interaction with particularly the context of Jewish mysticism.

      We have had an interest in Sufism for a number of years. As we have lived in the midst of communities of spiritually curious, mystically-inclined Muslim people, we have sought to engage in dialogue as well as mission among a population with a particularly strong inclination towards mysticism, and among whom even those not formally initiated into a Sūfī tarīqa³ (order) are influenced by the philosophy and practices of Islamic mysticism. We have had the privilege of interacting with and learning from both those among the common people, as well as educated Sūfī teachers. We have found there to often be a great deal of openness to discussion about matters of faith, especially of themes which have some level of parallel in Sufism and Christian faith. Moreover, we have found that it has been fruitful and rewarding to integrate Sūfī terminology and concepts into our witness among Sūfīs, both in terms of our own interaction with those who have not yet entered into covenant faith in Jesus, as well as in the context of teaching and discipleship of those who have entered into faith in him.

      These discoveries have driven us to deepen our understanding of the roots and background of Sufism. Some of the reading and research we have done up until now on Sūfī thought and practice has introduced the suggestion that the development of early Sufism was impacted Muslim interaction with Christian monastic communities.⁴ Early Islam was influenced by interaction with both Jewish and Christian faith, and even the Qur’an itself includes evidence of having emerged in a milieu in which these were embedded. Thus it is written in Q 5:82b, thou wilt surely find that, of all people, they who say, ‘Behold, we are Christians,’ come closest to feeling affection for those who believe [in this divine writ]: this is so because there are priests and monks among them, and because these are not given to arrogance.⁵ Muslim scholar Mahmoud Ayoub expresses his own yearning for a rediscovery of this earlier Christian tradition by Christians themselves, when he writes,

      It is my conviction that Christianity began to lose its power of sanctification as it lost its Eastern home and character. It was in this Eastern piety and spiritual dynamism of the holy desert fathers that Islam was born and nourished. It was not dogma but holiness, victory against demonic spirits of uncleanness, which spoke to the needs of men and women. We dismiss as a bit of Eastern superstition that Jesus cast out unclean spirits. Yet it was this piety of healing and sanctification, whose ultimate source Jesus was, that played an important role in the life of the society of the ancient Near East, and that can once again rejuvenate the materialistic society of our world today.⁶

      This familiarity with and admiration of monastic life is illustrated even more strikingly in the heart of the Muslim faith, in the Qur’ān itself. Q 24:35–37 reads:

      God is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The parable of His light is, as it were, that of a niche containing a lamp; the lamp is [enclosed] in glass, the glass [shining] like a radiant star: [a lamp] lit from a blessed tree—an olive-tree that is neither of the east nor of the west the oil whereof [is so bright that it] would well-nigh give light [of itself] even though fire had not touched it: light upon light! God guides unto His light him that wills [to be guided]; and [to this end] God propounds parables unto men, since God [alone] has full knowledge of all things. In the houses [of worship] which God has allowed to be raised so that His name be remembered in them, there [are such as] extol His limitless glory at morn and evening, people whom neither [worldly] commerce nor striving after gain can divert from the remembrance of God, and from constancy in prayer, and from charity: [people] who are filled with fear [at the thought] of the Day On which all hearts and eyes will be convulsed.

      In an earlier generation, Richard Bell recognized that this passage, with its description of a lamp in a wall-niche as a metaphor for God’s presence, may very well be a description of monks in a monastery or desert cell.⁷ Not surprisingly, even as many of the monks in places thus described sought to walk in union with God, this passage has been a point of departure for Sūfī speculation on the nature of God and of ascending union with him.⁸ This is a crucial passage of the Qur’ān for many Sūfīs , and has been the subject of both devotion and much philosophical speculation.

      Part of the question for us relates, for example, to how one can respond to what is referred to as the light verse of the Qur’ān above, and what follows immediately afterwards. While we believe that we share with the Sūfīs a common metaphysical understanding of God in the most general sense, nonetheless, the Judeo-Christian Scriptures make it clear that in common with all humankind, we also share a need to be united with Him in Christ. How can this gap be bridged? One avenue which we will explore begins with a passage in the Pauline epistles which almost seems to be a Christological answer to the sentiment expressed above from the Qur’ān.

      [W]hen one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. . . . And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. (

      2

      Cor

      3

      :

      16

      –

      18

      ;

      4

      :

      3

      –

      7

      NRSV)

      This passage seems potentially powerful in the context of Sufism, even without much further elaboration: It takes the yearning for the light of God and focuses it on Messiah Jesus.

      It was this very passage which was the focal point of the writings of fourth-century Syrian writer Macarius-Symeon in his own understanding of a Christ-focused, Holy Spirit-empowered union with God. One Orthodox writer, Alexander Golitzin,⁹ goes so far as to suggest that the whole Macarian corpus is like an extended meditation on this scriptural passage (that is, 2 Cor 3:7—4:7), bringing together all the essentials of what he wants to say to his monks, and from there demonstrates how this passage contains so many of the classic contrasts relating to themes of "change, alteration, or transfiguration . . . which occurs in the Christian soul through the indwelling Spirit, and of the glory (doxa) of God in which the soul and ultimately the body are called to share."¹⁰

      By way of example, some scholars have noticed that in the first of his spiritual homilies, Macarius-Symeon seems to be interacting with the early Jewish mystical tradition of the Merkavah, meditations on the throne-chariot of God based primarily on the opening vision of Ezekiel in the first chapter. Following the overview of Ezekiel’s vision, Macarius-Symeon begins seeking to explain it in the language of theosis¹¹ which one finds again and again throughout the Homilies. Here he says, that Ezekiel saw that mystery which

      was that of the soul, that was to receive her Lord, and to become a throne of glory for Him. For the soul that is privileged to be in communion with the Spirit of His light, and is irradiated by the beauty of the unspeakable glory of Him who has prepared her to be a seat and a dwelling for Himself, becomes all light, all face, all eye; and there is no part of her that is not full of the spiritual eyes of light. That is to say, there is no part of her darkened, but she is all throughout wrought into light and spirit, and is full of eyes all over, and has no such thing as a back part, but in every direction is face forward, with the unspeakable beauty of the glory of the light of Christ mounted and riding upon her. As the sun is of one likeness all over, without any part behind or inferior, but is all glorified with light throughout, and is, indeed, all light, with no difference between the parts, or as fire, the very light of the fire, is alike all over, having in it no first or last, or greater or less, so also the soul that is perfectly irradiated by the unspeakable beauty of the glory of the light of the face of Christ, and is perfectly in communion with the Holy Spirit, and is privileged to be the dwelling-place and throne of God, becomes all eye, all light, all face, all glory, all spirit, being made so by Christ, who drives, and guides, and carries, and bears her about, and graces and adorns her thus with spiritual beauty.¹²

      Macarius-Symeon seems here to be connecting the Merkavah tradition with an explanatory principle of sorts in the form of the aforementioned passage in 2 Corinthians, in this case particularly 4:6.

      Another, similar theme which we will examine concerns suggestions made by scholars such as April D. DeConick¹³ and the aforementioned Alexander Golitzin in regard to this interaction with vision or ascension mysticism. They have asserted that this provides the context for many of the statements in John’s Gospel regarding Jesus as being the representation of the vision of God. In John 14:3–7, for example, Jesus is making clear that the way of ascent, that is, to the Father and into the throne room of God himself, is not, and indeed, cannot, be through self-effort or self-knowledge: It is only through entering into a relationship of faith in Jesus. Having in effect earlier attacked the ascension enterprise in John 3:13 (No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man), here he comforts his disciples by informing them that, while they cannot follow him in their own strength (13:36), they shall later join him; indeed, rooms will be prepared for them in Jesus’ Father’s house (14:2–3). Thus, the hope of the hekhalōt, or heavenly palaces, and of the Merkavah tradition, of not merely visiting, but abiding with God, seems to be understood as finding its fulfillment in Jesus.¹⁴

      Thus a key element in the following research relates to the manner in which both the author of John’s Gospel and other relevant passages in the New Testament and Macarius-Symeon interact with this theme of Jewish Merkavah mysticism. Particular attention is paid to whether writings such as these may provide material for developing an approach for the Sūfī context, which contains some elements in common with that of early Jewish mysticism.

      Having examined examples of the biblical and Syrian Christian interaction with these traditions, we will now move on to consider the writings of John Wesley and others in the early Wesleyan Methodist tradition, noting in particular the parallel themes of union with God in Wesley’s writings and those of the Syrian mystics, especially the writings of Macarius-Symeon.¹⁵ As will be discussed in greater detail in the fourth chapter, Wesley’s interacted critically and programmatically with the Macarian Homilies, other early Christian writings, as well as Anglican and Continental thinkers whose writings also contained a focus on the theme of union with God. As we will observe, Wesley’s contribution to this understanding of union with God was to emphasize both the communal element of how God’s grace meets us, and, importantly for us, the manner in which our union with God is meant to transform us individually and corporately in such a way that we seek bless others missionally, both in terms of loving service and proclamation of the Gospel.

      In the eleventh century CE, several important Islamic thinkers developed works which were designed to present a vision of Sufism which brought the adherent into a deep connection with God, yet remaining rooted in the Islamic tradition. A significant number of studies have already been done concerning particularly two of these who wrote in Arabic, Abū Hāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 1111) and Abū’l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī (d.1072). Two relatively lesser-known Sūfī figures whose writings we will examine as part of this research are the eleventh-century Persian Sūfī writer and historian ‘Alī bin ‘Uthmān al Jullābī al Hujwīrī and the thirteenth-century Indian Sūfī figure Sharaf al-Dīn Manerī.¹⁶ Both left writings which reflect a more sober idea of Sūfī union with God, and which have been and continue to be influential in the lives of Indian Sūfīs. Hujwīrī’s Kashful Mahjūb (Unveiling the Veiled)¹⁷ is the oldest Sūfī writing in the Persian language, and Manerī’s Maktubat-i Sadī (The Hundred Letters),¹⁸ also originally written in Persian, has circulated widely in South Asia. The former is more of a history and encyclopedia of classic Sufism; the latter more of a manual for Sūfī practice. Both, we believe, will prove to be of value in this study.

      Potential areas of commonality which we’ve found especially intriguing are expressions of mysticism focused on the theme of union with God, including the restoration of the image of God in which humankind was created, but which has become corrupted through sin. This theme of union with God is central to the broader subject of mysticism, and will be key in our own examination to follow. An important element of this study involves differentiating between different understandings of union with God. The late German scholar Annemarie Schimmel, in her own study of Sūfī thought, referred to two broad categories of mysticism: the Mysticism of Personality focused on the relationship of the Lover and the Beloved, and in which the distinction is maintained between creature and Creator, as well as the Mysticism of Infinity, more characteristic of the mystical speculations of Plotinus and Ibn ‘Arabi’s idea of wahdat al wujūd, and in which the devotee sees her goal as being one of the effacement of her personality as she dissolves into the Absolute like a drop into the ocean. Though these can often be entwined with one another in situ, in this study we will nonetheless focus more on the former type of mysticism, recognizing even as Schimmel does that it is more compatible with the idea of creation ex nihilo found in both the Bible as well as the Qur’ān.¹⁹ Of course, it would be too broad to examine every area in which the writers of Scripture, the early Church and the early Methodists interacted in this manner with their religio-cultural context. We will therefore be especially looking at the classical elements of ascension, vision, and transformation which have been examined especially by Alan F. Segal, and found in various mystical traditions.²⁰

      Expressions of longing for union with God in Sufism has some significant parallels with similar aspirations expressed by early Christian writers, including Macarius-Symeon.²¹ The late scholar of Islam, Tor Andrae²² considered the closeness with which Sufism can come towards a yearning for a genuinely Christian understanding of the idea of union with God found in the teaching of theosis:

      One who corresponds to the ideal thus described has attained union with God. This is the real meaning of the disappearance, fanā‘, a concept that has been compared, somewhat rashly, to the Buddhist concept of nirvāna. . . . To the Sūfī, the disappearance of the self has a meaning no different, in principle, than it has to the Apostle Paul, when he says: . . . it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me (Gal

      2

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      ). Sūfī mysticism uses the term baqā’, abiding. Disappearance is to disappear in God through God. Abiding is to live with God.²³

      Henry Martyn may very well have referred to the Persian Sūfīs with whom he was interacting as Methodists of the East because of what he perceived to be their enthusiasm. In view of a Sūfī understanding of union with God and possible parallels with early Christian and Wesleyan understandings of this central theme, Martyn may have been closer to the truth than he realized at the time. Consider that John Wesley himself wrote in the question and answer section of A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, True humility is one kind of self-annihilation; and this is the center of all virtues.²⁴ As we will describe in our fourth chapter, John Wesley’s understanding of union with God was influenced by both his reading of early Christian writers, as well as parallel thinking on this subject in Continental and Anglican theology in and in the century prior to Wesley. Wesley doesn’t merely reflect earlier ideas of union with God, however; we will observe that he seeks both to express it in a manner which dovetails with his Reformational understanding of salvation by grace through faith, as well as expands and clarifies this idea of union from one of personal mysticism to a communal and missional ideal.

      In this research, we focus on the more devotional, wise mysticism,²⁵ since it is not only more faithful from a biblical perspective, but also more congruent with the kind of vision for union with God shared by those who shaped the early Wesleyan tradition. Moreover, this distinction between acceptable and unacceptable varieties of mysticism will be part of helping to understand how John Wesley and his colleagues interacted with and critically applied the heritage of early Christian faith.

      Statement of the Problem and Theoretical Framework

      Central to Sūfī thought and practice is the desire and search to be united with God in a manner which often involves ascension and vision mysticism. There appear to be potential parallels with Sūfī thought in ancient Jewish and Christian mysticism which had some influence on the development of Sūfī tradition, beliefs, and practices. What, then, can be learned from the manner in which early Christian thought interacted with ancient ascension and vision mysticism which may prove to be of value for the Sūfī context? What might be gleaned in particular from the New Testament writings, especially those of John’s Gospel, and the writings of Macarius-Symeon for this purpose? How might the theology of Wesley on these parallel themes of union with God strengthen the missional and communal elements of this theology? What elements within the writings of more orthodox Sūfīs themselves may provide wisdom for developing an approach which will interact with this desire and search for union with God which remains rooted in the Scriptural tradition?

      Scottish missiologist Andrew F. Walls, in an essay, The Gospel as Prisoner and Liberator of Culture,²⁶ described two crucial elements in the entry and integration of the gospel message and the life of Jesus into a given cultural setting. In the first of these, the indigenizing principle, the gospel is understood to be integrated with the life and thought forms of a given society, where the church which becomes a place to feel at home. He notes that the spiritual reality for those who have become a new creation by joining themselves to Christ by faith does not mean that they start or continue life in a vacuum, or that their minds are a blank tablet. It has been formed by their culture and history, and since God has accepted them as they are, their Christian mind will continue to be influenced by what it was before. This is as true for groups as for individuals.²⁷

      Walls does not stop with the crucial importance of indigenizing, but rather holds this principle in tension with another, equally central idea, the pilgrim principle. Here the Christ-following ‘pilgrim’ finds that this principle

      whispers to him that he has no abiding city and that to be faithful to Christ will put him out of step with his society; for that society never existed . . . which could absorb the word of Christ painlessly into its system . . . there will be rubs and frictions—not from the adoption of a new culture, but from the transformation of the mind towards that of Christ.²⁸

      Without both of these two principles, the indigenizing principle which "associates Christians with the particulars of their culture and group"²⁹ and the pilgrim principle, which brings a universalizing element into the life of a community of believers as they enter into a common salvation history with the faithful throughout the ages, the gospel ultimately risks losing its power and/or its relevance. The gospel must become local to such an extent that its message and life are no longer regarded wholly foreign. Yet because it is the Gospel, not merely the good news in terms of kerygma but the impartation of the very life of God into individual believers and communities, it must also be able to speak prophetically into these same contexts, that nothing hinders the full integration of this Life with every element in a given society—including its philosophy regarding its connection with God’s own self.

      In this dissertation, I explore Jewish, Christian, and Muslim primary and secondary sources that engage with a mysticism of union with God, interpreting them in accordance with Walls’ two principles. I tested the hypothesis that these principles would both be at work in these three religious traditions. The positive outcome of this research makes it reasonable that biblical Christian faith can flourish among Sūfī Muslims without compromising its essential faith and practice.

      Here we will uncover the parallels between the mysticism of union with God and abiding in God in Sufism and in the writings of the early Christian community, including both the New Testament scriptural witness and the Syrian tradition as expressed in Macarius-Symeon. We will also examine how John Wesley and his colleagues critically appropriated this heritage, developing a wise mysticism, an expression of union with God in the mysticism of personality stream, remained the focus. The manner in which Wesley developed this often inwardly-focused mystical tradition in such a manner that the

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