“Samir Selmanovic is asking the right questions at the right time, and refusing the consolations of certainty at a time when strident orthodoxies--atheist as well as religious--are perilously dividing us.”
—KAREN ARMSTRONG, author, A History of God and The Case for God
—KAREN ARMSTRONG, author, A History of God and The Case for God
"On Learning to Love Well"
(a book review by Claudia Rozas Gomez, "It's Really All About God: Reflections of a Muslim Atheist Jewish Christian," by Samir Selmanovic, Jossey-Bass/Wiley 2009)
His central premise is simple: “That which separates us from each other separates us from God.” Selmanovic’s call to mutuality is not new in Judaeo-Christian thought, what is distinct about his position however, is that he does not invoke this call because others need ‘us’ but because we need ‘them’. A blurring of boundaries for where ‘we’ begin and ‘they’ end, such is Selmanovic’s yearning for the Other it’s almost as though the scriptural imperative to love others as we love ourselves becomes a conviction that to love others is the only way to love ourselves. Nevertheless, the invitation is clear: seek God in others and you will find Him, “because where people dwell, God dwells.”
The personal stories range from the achingly sad: a young man is rejected by his father, a city grieves in the aftermath of 9/11; to the humorous: a Christian pastor makes futile attempts to avoid the onslaught of evangelical missionaries in a street market and a longing groom waits for a wedding night that takes two weddings to arrive. Yet despite the sad and farcical nature of some of the stories there is no hopelessness here. Instead these stories reek of affirmation, constantly reminding us that we are all just people, nothing more, but nothing less also. And, if God dwells resolutely in and around us then perhaps our preoccupation with our reward in heaven needs to be steadied by a desire for God here “in the landscape”, in our own stories and in each other.
For anyone alarmed at the increasingly frayed edges of contemporary Christianity this book provides reassurance that despite Christianity’s inevitable evolution over time, God is still here. For those who recognise the urgent need to address religious diversity this book provides a picture of what it might look like through one person’s journey. And for those of us who have had the audacity to question sanctioned truths about God and traveled the lonely path of dissent, this book is for us because Selmanovic aptly demonstrates that pain and doubt can be allies of growth and hope.
But perhaps the biggest strength of this book is that the collection of stories is held together by the author’s most compelling argument: that our religious diversity is not a problem to be overcome. Instead, diversity is the solution (read: blessing) we are offered. As he clearly states at the outset of his book, It’s Really All About God is not a discussion about religious pluralism, it is a discussion about interdependence. About recognizing that only an intentional dream which acknowledges the cumulative histories and aspirations of all of us has the hope of bringing us closer to God. In this manner, Selmanovic transforms difference from a stubborn complication to an abundant set of possibilities for coming together in community; an emphatic declaration that we must offer no more than ourselves to each other but nothing less either. (THIS REVIEW CAN BE RE-POSTED AND RE-PUBLISHED WITHOUT PERMISSION)
Claudia teaches courses in Teacher Education at the Faculty of Education, University of Auckland, Aotearoa-New Zealand. Her interests are in social justice issues in education as well as sociological and philosophical approaches to education. She has a six year old son with whom she travels the universe and back several times a week and two lovely parents of whom she is immensely proud. They are members of the Seventh-day Adventist Papatoetoe Community Church, where in spite of her outrageous ideas, they love her anyway.
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