c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) The members of a Bible study group in Elkhart, Ind., were meditating on the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John, the biblical passage where Jesus Christ meets a Samaritan woman at a well and offers her eternal life _ “Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst,” according to verse 14.

The question was asked, What are you thirsting for? “For me, it’s security,” one participant replied. “My greatest fear is the rug will be pulled out from under me. There won’t be enough money (and) I’ll have to live out of my car.”

When her answer was sent to a group in Cuba that was also studying John 4, the Cubans responded: “The insecurity you show about losing the car sounds strange to us. Our insecurities are related to survival: What to eat? How to support our children? We don’t even think of having a car here.”

Historical, political, cultural and socio-economic contexts have long created chasms, even friction among Christians around the world, affecting how they understand the Bible and each other. So two Dutch researchers proposed an unprecedented study, linking small groups in different contexts to study the same passage and exchange findings.

That was the birth of the three-year project “Through the Eyes of Another,” which led to the release late last year of a book of that same name with case studies and analyses. Daniel Schipani, one of the book’s editors and coordinator of the North American participants, called the project “a huge step” that uncovered “our biases, our blind spots.”

“If faith is, among other things, a way of seeing the world, then here is a clue to (spiritual) growth,” said Schipani, an Argentina native who is professor of pastoral care and counseling at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart. AMBS’s research arm, the Institute for Mennonite Studies, published the book.

More than 120 groups in 22 countries-from Quakers in Bolivia to Roman Catholics in Scotland, from Seventh-day Adventists in Kenya to Presbyterians in South Korea-read the fourth chapter of John, then each shared several rounds of perspectives and observations with a partner group elsewhere in the world. The process brought new understandings of Jesus and the woman at the well but also of the global body of believers.

Bob Ekblad, who coordinated two groups in Washington state, said the interaction “subverts the human tendency to think that their viewpoint is enough.”

That is particularly important now, he said.

“At a time when fundamentalism is on the rise, this showed the complexity and richness of how different groups can offer each other perspectives that they can’t get themselves,” said Ekblad, executive director of Tierra Nueva, a Burlington, Wash.-based ecumenical ministry to inmates and Hispanic migrant workers.

Those learnings were experienced by the Indiana group, from Belmont Mennonite Church in Elkhart, in its relationship with an ecumenical group in Cuba. One element of the biblical passage is Jesus, a Jewish male, meeting with someone who, because of her ethnicity and gender, would have been considered beneath Jesus’ standing. That prompted much reflection by participants on crossing barriers today. Members of the Cuban group admitted difficulties in dealing with tourists to their island.

“They walk through the streets looking at us, laughing as if we were an oddity,” the group wrote in its report to the Mennonites. “They think we are primitive people.”

That was astounding and disconcerting to the Indiana group, since many visitors to Cuba are white people of relative affluence. “We could be the people they are prejudiced against,” said Shelley Cataldo.

For Cataldo and her husband, Tim, the ramifications of the process were even more dramatic. “I became very ashamed of my lack of overcoming social barriers,” she said. “I had always gone to church with people of the same socio-economic level as myself. I felt comfortable with that.”

Spurred in part by their participation in Through the Eyes of Another, the Cataldos left Belmont, a white congregation, and have since joined Church Without Walls, a primarily African-American Mennonite congregation in Elkhart.

The Belmont group and Ekblad’s groups were the only North American participants. “There is this idea that a lot happens here and dominates,” Schipani said.

One of Tierra Nueva’s Bible studies, comprised of staff members, was linked with an ecumenical group from South Africa. Ekblad reported that, in the wake of years of apartheid, they saw John 4 as a story on racism. While the white South Africans took a broader, more analytical view, the Tierra Nueva staff saw a more immediate, interpersonal component. “God comes to human beings right where they are and respects them … and doesn’t let any barriers remain intact,” Ekblad said.

The key to Through the Eyes of Another, he said, was the building of relationships internationally, which diminishes criticism of others. “It’s easy to be judgmental from a distance,” Ekblad said.

A Nicaraguan Baptist group was astonished to learn that their Reformed partner group in the Netherlands was being led by a pastor who is homosexual. Homosexuality was incompatible with the Bible’s teachings, the Nicaraguans asserted, but came to the realization that Jesus had contact with prostitutes and maybe homosexuals as well.

While such differences may not be resolved, Ekblad said they can be mitigated by focusing on the Bible as a unifying aspect that links all Christians.

“When you’re dealing with an issue, things get polarized very quickly,” Ekblad said. “The word of God, that’s common ground that creates community.”

The Hoosiers noted their similarities with the Cubans, in the ways they conducted their studies and their prayer and fellowship times.

“It felt there was a connection there because those are the same things we have done or do,” said Derek Klopfenstein.

While a landmark project, Through the Eyes of Another had its shortfalls, Schipani admitted, calling it “a little logistical nightmare.” The reports from every group had to be submitted to the project’s office in Amsterdam, where they were translated and sent to the partners for their study and reflection. As many as six months could pass before the first group would hear back from its partner.

Nevertheless, Through the Eyes of Another has deepened global fellowship. Some groups have exchanged gifts and letters and even planned visits to their partner groups. But for the groups that aren’t, Schipani said, “That doesn’t mean it wasn’t significant while it lasted.”

MO END RNS