c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Four years after the religiously inspired attacks of Sept. 11, Americans are increasingly asking a spiritual question with vast political implications: Do all monotheists worship the same God, or not?

The question gets an unambiguous “yes” in a high-profile documentary to debut on Connecticut Public Television at 9 p.m. EDT on Sept. 11 and on more than 100 public television stations nationwide in October. It’s titled “Three Faiths, One God: Judaism, Christianity, Islam.”

Once the esoteric domain of theologians, the subject now strikes cultural observers as a pivotal one for shaping attitudes of ordinary people in an era of international religious tension, fear and war.

“What has changed since Sept. 11, 2001, is how much the question matters,” says Joseph Bottum, editor of First Things, an ecumenical journal of religion and public life. Within the question today, he says, Christians, Jews and Muslims voice a festering concern: “Are they like us only different? Or are they not like us at all?”

Since the day Islamic hijackers brought down four planes and snuffed out nearly 3,000 lives, the vague precepts of a “same God” idea have received attention as never before. Interfaith worship services with universalized prayer language have become anniversary markers in hundreds of communities. Despite protests from fellow evangelicals, President Bush affirmed the “same God” idea in a November 2003 press conference. Conversely, churches that publicly tout their own God over Islam’s now grab unwanted headlines for doing so.

Whatever answer is given to the “same God” question, it comes in 2005 with sharp political implications for a nation waging war in two Muslim nations, Afghanistan and Iraq. As such, today’s answers stand to shape tomorrow’s policies and behaviors in ways that haven’t yet unfolded from a relatively young discussion, according to religious leaders.

For instance, a predominantly Christian and Jewish nation thoroughly committed to the “same God” idea might have a hard time sustaining support for a war against Muslim enemies, according to Rabbi Perry Raphael Rank, a Syosset, N.Y., synagogue leader who also heads an association of 1,600 Conservative rabbis.

“This idea that they’re worshipping another God is stigmatizing. … They’re not `us’, they’re `them’,” Rank says. “To say they are worshipping some other God allows for acts of hostility that we would be conservative to engage in if we were all on the same page.”

Building further on that same idea, however, might have ripple effects beyond war and peace. It could in effect sanction greater Christian and Jewish involvement in efforts to address the roots of Muslim extremism _ projects regarded largely to date as internal Muslim affairs, according to Salma Kazmi, assistant director of the Islamic Society of Boston.

“A familiarity in a sense of `we’re together’ does affect the way that these conflicts are being addressed because then it’s not just some evil outsider coming in, attacking you,” Kazmi says. “It’s like, `What is it amongst our own people that is causing this to happen?’ … I think it changes the dynamics of the solution.”

To illustrate what could evolve from the “same God” idea, Kazmi notes how the Columbine High School shootings in Colorado in April 1999 prompted Americans to ask, “What is happening to our kids? What is happening to our schools?”

By contrast, she says, Americans now seem to approach Islamist terror with a feeling that “It’s not our solution (to propose). Show us how you’re going to go fix yourselves. You guys go take care of it.” But that would likely change somewhat, she says, if the idea of a “Judeo-Christian tradition” were replaced with one of “Abrahamic faiths” that have a particular God in common.

Not everyone, however, sees the “same God” emphasis as a groundbreaking move toward cooperation. Recent efforts to “make nice” across religious boundaries have generally been “theologically corrupt,” Bottum says, and have dubious value for believers since “it is usually raised by people who don’t have a particularly strong faith in their own God.” For his part, the First Things editor sees “Islam as a Christian heresy,” that is, a practice of “worshipping the same God in the wrong way.”

(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)

Others see the “same God” movement as undercutting what they believe to be the best foundation for authentic peace. Evangelism professor Robert Coleman, for instance, fears the “same God” idea in popular practice doesn’t sufficiently esteem the value of particular religious beliefs.

“I want to show respect to (a Muslim’s) convictions because I want to win him. I want to win him to Christ,” says Coleman, who teaches at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Mass. “God loves the Muslim as much as he loves any Christian, (but) I’m afraid that 9/11 in the popular mind has made many people see that commonality in a lesser way. … In the conflict today, it’s increasingly difficult to show we love them. They think that we hate them.”

Viewers of “Three Faiths, One God” will see a lineup of religious leaders reflecting on the many customs that point to a common religious heritage and, they suggest, a common deity. From examining the legal documents signed at Muslim and Jewish weddings to the etymology of theological terms, the two-hour film makes its case without allocating time for rebuttal.

“I wasn’t looking to make that point (about a common deity). It evolved” over 150 hours of filming, says filmmaker Gerald Krell. Of the possibility that all monotheists might not worship the same God, he says, “These are the best and the brightest, and they’re just not making that case.”

By airing “Three Faiths, One God” locally and distributing it nationally, Connecticut Public Television pursues a social cause of its own since “commonality breeds understanding, and that serves our mission,” says spokesperson Lee Newton. And makers of the film hope it might help prevent another Sept. 11.

“We all have the same hopes, dreams, fears,” says Krell’s co-filmmaker, Meyer Odze. “And if we try to make people different in their beliefs and demonize them, that’s where the trouble begins.”

MO/PH END RNS

Editors: Search the RNS photo Web site at https://religionnews.com for photos from the documentary “Three Faiths, One God,” to accompany this story. Suitable as a 9/11 anniversary advance. Can also run after Sept. 11 if the Connecticut broadcast is put in past tense.