@EsmeLKPartridge @TheTLS Here we go, Esmé, circling back to Khezr again! Meanwhile, the Church's conception of the Eliatic function remains strikingly threadbare relative to, say, other traditions - an oversight deriving, in part, from a hermeneutic more fully focused upon the First Coming than Second.
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Copy of tweet here: Perennialism, a vast field of scholarship and, crucially, orthopraxis, with Christians, frankly, a tad slow out of the gates. Few, say, are familiar with the emergent or supersessive principle of an inclusive eschatology actualized in the 'planetary prophetological' encounter.
@brianmclaren 18/ In ‘Abrahamic’ cultures, the manifestation most fully denoting the Revelatory Principle is Elias, described in the Quran in a plural form, ‘Illyāsīn’ (Q 37 130-131), comprising all figures, real or imaginal, fulfilling the function of universal initiator, authority and guide.
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Excerpt of tweet thread here: Walter Brueggemann’s latest. (2023) After a lifetime of total immersion in the Hebrew Scriptures, Walter Brueggemann has basically turned into a modern day Hebrew prophet—a contemporary irascible Amos who doesn’t suffer fools gladly. And I’m here for it! 😎 I note his preface explicitly calls for Rabbinic engagement. Previously, we've here celebrated the goodly fellowship between between WB and AJHeschel. Can you recommend any Brueggemann texts which specifically address Christian theo-political correlatives with Jewish messianism? 2/ Seems to me a key bridge involves embracing the imamite third side of the vital triangle. The tripartite prototype who fits the bill is Elijah (or Khezr as he’s known in Islam) who represents divine revelation of the mystery and promise of reconciliation. Divinity spreading.
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Copy of tweet thread here: 1/ And also, of course, the patron saint of Moscow. One of the more popular, trans-historical, trans-cultural prototypes in our midst, St. George or Khezr as he is known in Islam, has of late come to represent a transcendent, evolutionary turn within common, planetary experience. Quote tweet: 3/ Here's HRH Prince Charles: “We forget too easily that the veneration of the Virgin is shared in the Middle East to this day by Christians and Muslims alike; that the mysterious prophet of the Muslims, Al-Khidir, was identified with the Christian St George. To this day..." end/ In essence, he represents a revelatory mode, heralding our 'belated' recognition of something essential and ordinary about us, a natural aspect of being with life where the worldly and spiritual, 'earthly and celestial', mix and match. Life as fundamentally co-evolutionary.
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The Muslim tradition also has a spiritual function which corresponds to that of Elias, and affirms that it is exercised by two people in particular, each of whom has his own field of activity. We do not mean Elias himself, who is mentioned in the Koran along with Jesus and also in his battle against the worshippers of Baal; firstly, it is al-Khidr who, in the esoteric tradition of Islam, is invested with the same fundamental characteristics as Elias…He is, above all, Master of the spiritual solitaries, of those elect beings to whom he reveals himself as an ocean of initiating and universal wisdom, an inexhaustible source of enlightenment… As for the other person who reflects Elias in Islam, he is the one who will come…to establish what the Judeo-Christian tradition calls the “Glorious Reign of the Messiah,” he is Al-Mahdi, the one “Guided” by God. Shi’ite Islam identifies him with the Twelfth Imam, living hidden for centuries and due to re-appear to fulfill his eschatological work.