Virgin Monk Boy on Talarico

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Apparently, James Talarico committed an unforgivable theological offense. He stood in front of a cross draped in a Pride flag and quoted poetry attributed to Hafiz, a 14th-century Persian Muslim mystic. Judging by some of the reactions, you would think he’d sacrificed a goat on the communion table and replaced the Eucharist with hummus.

What did this dangerous Islamic poetry actually say? It described a God who invites humanity into relationship with four simple words: “Come dance with me.”

That’s it. No calls for Sharia law. No demands that everyone face Mecca. Just an image of God inviting humanity into a dance.

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Talarico was talking about the Christian understanding of God as relationship, drawing on the ancient theological imagery of the divine dance. He wasn’t preaching Islam. He was doing something Christian preachers have done for centuries: borrowing language from outside their tradition to illuminate something within it.

But apparently, quoting a Muslim mystic in front of a Christian audience is now a threat to Western civilization. Somebody alert the Knights Templar. We’ve got a poetry emergency.

Somebody Should Have Warned Paul

In Acts 17:28, Paul stands before the Greeks in Athens and quotes their own poets. One of those poets was Aratus, who originally wrote about Zeus. Yes, that Zeus. The Greek god with the thunderbolts, the spectacularly dysfunctional family, and the kind of romantic history that would keep an entire counseling practice in business.

Paul quotes poetry about Zeus to explain the God of Israel.

And somehow Christianity survived.

One fellow defending the outrage explained that Paul was speaking to Greeks, so naturally he quoted poets his audience would recognize. He even asked whether Talarico was speaking in Mecca, apparently operating under the impression that Muslim poetry is only appropriate when delivered within walking distance of the Kaaba.

I asked him which Christian poet Talarico should have quoted instead. His answer was G. K. Chesterton.

Fair enough. I rather like Chesterton. But I suspect the average American churchgoer is about as familiar with Chesterton’s poetry as they are with medieval Persian mysticism. Which is to say, not very.

And besides, since when did a preacher’s job become restricting the congregation to things they already know?

Paul didn’t confine his literary borrowing to pagan audiences, either. In 1 Corinthians 15:33, he quotes the Greek playwright Menander while writing to Christians. Evidently, Paul didn’t believe the Holy Spirit needed to check the author’s religious affiliation before allowing a useful sentence into a sermon.

But perhaps the apostle simply lacked the benefit of modern Facebook theology.

Jesus Had an Even Bigger Problem with Religious Gatekeeping

Here’s where this gets particularly entertaining. Talarico’s sermon was based on Luke 10:25–37, the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Of all the passages he could have chosen, he was preaching about the time Jesus deliberately made a religious outsider the hero of his story.

A man is beaten, robbed, and left for dead. A priest sees him and keeps walking. A Levite comes along and does the same. Finally, a Samaritan stops, treats the man’s wounds, takes him somewhere safe, and pays for his care.

Now, Samaritans weren’t simply foreigners with different customs. They belonged to a religious community whose relationship with the Jewish community was marked by centuries of theological disagreement and mutual hostility. They worshipped the God of Israel, but they disagreed about sacred scripture, the proper place of worship, and religious authority.

In other words, Jesus could hardly have chosen someone more likely to make his audience uncomfortable.

And that was the point.

The priest knew the religious system. The Levite knew the religious system. The Samaritan was the one who actually loved his neighbor.

Now imagine someone interrupting Jesus halfway through the parable.

“Excuse me, Rabbi, but why did you choose a Samaritan? Couldn’t you have used a respectable Jewish man? What kind of message are you sending?”

Jesus would probably tell another parable, and I suspect the fellow wouldn’t come out looking particularly good in that one either.

Yet here we are, two thousand years later, watching Christians object to Talarico using the words of a Muslim mystic in a sermon about the Good Samaritan.

At some point, satire becomes unnecessary. The material writes itself.

And the Poem Isn’t Even Quite What People Think

There’s another wrinkle in this story. The poem attributed to Hafiz isn’t actually a verified translation of medieval Persian poetry. It comes from Daniel Ladinsky, an American writer whose work is inspired by Hafiz rather than translated from identifiable Persian originals.

That’s worth correcting. Authentic Sufi poetry deserves to be represented accurately, and attaching Hafiz’s name to modern English compositions has been a legitimate point of criticism among scholars of Persian literature.

But this makes the outrage even more ridiculous. We’re talking about a contemporary English-language poem inspired by Islamic mysticism, used by a Christian preacher to explain a Christian theological idea.

If someone wants to argue that the poem’s treatment of religious rules is inconsistent with Christian teaching, fine. Make that argument. There are real theological questions here, particularly around the line about a God beyond names and prohibitions.

But nobody seems terribly interested in having that conversation. They’re too busy being alarmed that a Muslim name appeared in the vicinity of a rainbow-colored cross.

I suspect the Pride flag had already raised their blood pressure, and Hafiz just pushed them over the edge.

The Mystics Have Been Having This Conversation for Centuries

One of the more frustrating things about these controversies is how little awareness there seems to be of Christianity’s own contemplative tradition.

Christianity has produced some extraordinary mystics. Meister Eckhart, Julian of Norwich, Isaac the Syrian, Gregory of Nyssa, and generations of Desert Fathers and Mothers all explored what happens when religious belief moves beyond intellectual agreement and becomes an actual transformation of consciousness and life.

Islam has its own vast contemplative tradition. Rumi, Hafiz, Ibn Arabi, and generations of Sufis have explored divine love, remembrance, surrender, and the strange experience of discovering that the ego is often the greatest obstacle between ourselves and God.

I’ve spent enough time in Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Islamic contemplative practice to recognize that these traditions are not saying precisely the same thing. Their theological differences are substantial, and I have no interest in pretending otherwise.

But I have also encountered something the professional boundary guards seem desperate to avoid admitting: spiritual wisdom doesn’t always arrive wearing the correct religious uniform.

When an Orthodox elder speaks about surrendering the ego, and a Sufi teacher speaks about the purification of the nafs, I don’t have to pretend their theological systems are identical to recognize that both are addressing something real about the human condition.

Apparently, that’s dangerous thinking now.

God forbid someone learn something from a person whose theology differs from their own. We might accidentally develop humility, and then where would the culture wars be?

Come Dance With Me

What fascinates me most is the contrast between the poem’s invitation and the reaction to it.

“Come dance with me.”

It’s an image of divine intimacy, an invitation into relationship. And it isn’t particularly foreign to Christianity. Eastern Christian theology speaks of theosis, participation in divine life by grace. Christian theologians have used the image of a divine dance to describe the mutual indwelling of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, although that particular metaphor shouldn’t be confused with the literal meaning of perichoresis.

Talarico was drawing on that Christian imagery, using an unexpected poetic voice to make his listeners consider something familiar in a different way.

Which is precisely what poetry is supposed to do.

I wonder what would have happened if he’d attributed the same words to Meister Eckhart or an anonymous Desert Father. Would anyone have objected? Or would the congregation have nodded appreciatively at the profound Christian mysticism on display?

That question gets to the heart of the matter. Are we evaluating the spiritual insight being offered, or are we checking the religious identity of the person supposedly offering it?

Paul quoted Greek poetry about Zeus. Jesus made a Samaritan the moral example of his parable. Neither seemed particularly concerned that truth might become contaminated by passing through the wrong religious community.

And yet here we are, with Christians treating a poem associated with a Muslim mystic as though someone smuggled a theological explosive into Sunday worship.

Perhaps the problem isn’t that Talarico wandered too far outside Christianity. Perhaps some Christians have spent so much time guarding the boundaries that they’ve forgotten what the boundaries were supposed to protect.

There’s something almost tragic about people standing beneath the symbol of a man who taught them to love their enemies, getting worked up because another man quoted poetry associated with a Muslim.

The poem offers an invitation to dance with God.

The gatekeepers want to see identification first.

open.substack.com - Jesus paul and the muslim mystic who apparently terrified american christians who apparently terrified mystic

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