The Gülen Movement as “Network of Faith-based Service Communities” in the Dialogue between Muslim and Christian Religious Traditions

By Dr. Wilhelmus G.B.M.

My paper tries to clarify the significance of the Gülen Movement as a bridge in the dialogue between the Muslim world (“East”) and civil societies with a Christian background (“West”). In the first part of the paper I will explain how Fethullah Gülen succeeds in bridging these worlds by pairing a more specific (or ‘esoteric’) discourse, using references to the basic sources of the Islamic tradition for those who are familiar with this tradition, with a more general (or ‘exoteric’) discourse that appeals to a broader public by referring to notions such as tolerance, dialogue, love and responsibility. The gradual shift from an ‘esoteric’ discourse to an ‘exoteric’ discourse in the 1990s coincides with the building of Gülen’s public personality in Turkey and his later migration to the United States. In the second part of my paper, I propose to talk about the Gülen Movement as a “faith-based service movement” as the best way to express how it embodies these two strands in Gülen’s discourse by concentrating on the idea of faith-based service or hizmet. I want to show how these two dimensions run parallel to developments in religious life in the Catholic tradition. There is a tradition in Islam that follows the Qur’an in speaking negatively about ascetic and monastic traditions in Christianity (57:27), but Gülen clearly has more affinity with the Sufi tradition that takes its cue from more positive texts in the Qur’an about Christians who adore God at night, are humble and upright (3:113 and 5:82). The common reading of texts (in the tradition of Said Nursi) in the “lighthouses” of the Gülen Movement, and the Sufi practices of constant prayer and asceticism have parallels in the contemplative tradition of monasticism, but the idea of service as the best way to spread the faith has a clear parallel in the active tradition of religious in education such as the Jesuits. These parallels may help to explain how the faith-based service movement that is inspired by Gülen is able to give a lasting impression on the dialogue between East and West.

Dr. Wilhelmus G.B.M. (Pim) Valkenberg was born in the Netherlands where he worked as a Christian theologian at the Catholic University of Nijmegen between 1987 and 2007. From 2000 onwards, he has organized a number of interfaith dialogue meetings together with foundations inspired by Fethullah Gülen, such as Islam and Dialogue and Cosmicus. He wrote about these experiences, and about the theological works of Said Nursi and Fethullah Gülen, among others, in his book Sharing Lights on the Way to God (Amsterdam – New York 2006). He is about to publish books about Gülen and his faith-based service movement in Turkish and English, and he has contributed to the Gülen conferences in Houston (2005), Rotterdam (2007), Washington D.C. (2008) and Berlin/Potsdam (2009). Since 2006 he teaches at Loyola University in Maryland, mainly in the field of Christian-Muslim relations. He is also engaged in Muslim-Christian dialogues at the local and the national level.