First – a brief word about my personal M.O. I am an ENFP according to the Myers-Briggs type indicator. When I took this test – er, I mean “inventory” (they make a big deal about how it’s not a psychological “test”) – phrases like, “works in creative bursts of inspiration,” leaped out at me. I had for so many years despaired of my work habits, which often seemed so driven by creative flights of fancy, less by the kind of sheer willpower I so envied in those who did read the books and articles, organize the note cards, finish two days before the paper was due.
All to say – I’ve been lazy lately. No blogging (insert here ironic statement about lack of readers anyway).
But this week, was inspired just to write a couple thoughts, mostly in response to last Sunday’s sermon.
The title of the sermon was, “Four Ways to Have a Conversation.” A more didactic approach, it was an attempt to share what I learned in one of the courses I took this past spring for my DMin degree – a course called “Engaging the Narratives of Other Religions.”
I dealt with the question: in light of the fact that Christianity makes a very exclusive claim to truth (“I am the way, the truth, the life; no one comes to the Father but through me”), what do we make of the truth claims of other religious traditions? Just because we in the West have inherited this tradition – Christianity – what gives us the moxie to say that this Way (the way of Jesus) is the only way to “salvation”?
Here is the result of that effort.
Though I often feel so uncomfortable preaching a sermon like this – Jeff the wannabe seminary professor, trafficking in highfalutin abstract ideas – I received feedback that indicated it was very helpful to people. I also appreciated the approach that the learning itself provided. Presenting four “models” for interfaith dialogue, which were partly the subject of the course, provided some tools for people to think for themselves about how they approach that question I posed above. No preacher-guy telling folk what to believe. (Though several people readily guessed which model most closely fits my own thinking).
In any case – wanted to post it here, to see if there might be any wishing to comment further.
Blessings!
Jeff V.
PS – here’s another subject I may cover this week, if the inspiration strikes: “flash mobs”. Anybody out there familiar with this phenomenon? How cool would it be if we were to get together a PCOL “flash mob”? Gospel as performance art? Secret rendezvous in Palmer Square? Or would that just be plain scary?
The Electronic Meetinghouse 
Hi Jeff-
This is David Rowe, pastor down at Hope Presbyterian Church. You present things so clearly, artfully, and irenically – you have a great gift!
My comments here are on the text of the sermon, so I’ll quote liberally from it for the benefit of those who’d rather not bounce back and forth between the blog and the posted text.
I fear that I may prove the Archbishop of Canterbury correct on the use of scripture, but I hope we are close enough that it doesn’t appear that I’m lobbing them! The context of his remarks, if I recall correctly, was that they were heading into Lambeth to talk about homosexuality in the Anglican Church. So not a bad thing to use scripture in those discussions!
I had a couple of thoughts on different parts of the sermon.
First is the context. I agree that it is “an urgent question for our time, given that we live in a world of ever-deadlier and more accessible technologies with which to kill each other.” However, I think the scriptures themselves are up to providing the guidance we need to have not just a conversation – this is my presupposition – but to actually convince others, and keep us “ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence. (1 Peter 3:15-16).” The context of Peter’s statement was a church that was heavily persecuted with insults (1 Peter 4:4, 14) and slanderous accusations of wrongdoing (2:12; 3:16), beatings (2:20) social ostracism, sporadic mob violence and local police actions might have been involved as well. In fact one might suggest that two thousand years ago, the affirmation of the exclusive claims of Jesus often resulted in the death of those who held to it. Today, there is usually only intellectual and social persecution. My point is that under intense and stressful “fiery trial(s)” (4:12), Peter says we can still preach, witness and give a defense, and so I’m suggesting that the scriptures imply that we may not need new ways to have a conversation, but that the old or scriptural ways go further and make disciples, are sufficient.
Second, I think that 1st Peter also implies that perhaps a “conversation” is too low of a goal. Under intense persecution in the early church, they had a higher goal in the culture, and with the unbeliever, than a conversation. Of course maybe preaching, witnessing and giving a defense (apologetics) is what is meant by “conversation,” but when I read that word in the present-day context, it usually means a discussion about (shared) values, rather than witness, testimony, and apologetics. It usually implies a great hope for a Spirit-led unity among diversity. My sense (and critique) is that many “conversations” ultimately become Christ-less, because while Jesus did bring peace to the world (John 14:27), it could also be said that he brought not peace . . . but rather “I tell you…division,” involving even father against son (Luke 12:51-53) as one chose to follow Jesus and the other chose to reject him.
Third, maybe I’m not reading the same newspapers, but speaking only about Christians around the world, I am not seeing lots of evidence of followers of Jesus using their faith or truth claims for the “cause of extremism, nationalism and various other forms of self-assertion.” I actually think the church has learned a lot from church history and has not repeated many of the offenses of the past. If there are Christian nationalists, they are largely underground or unsuccessful and Christian extremists, except for a couple of pockets in Africa, the one church led by Fred Phelps, or the isolated militia, are statistically infinitesimal. My point here is, I don’t think that past Christian dogmatism is presently a hindrance to being bold. I know that many – even Frankie Schaeffer – says that we must eradicate all fundamentalism (which is a remarkably fundamentalist statement!), but there just isn’t that much extremism going on such that we need to apologize for it. I think we can still be bold.
Fourth, the exclusivity of Christ is not a matter of pride, and therefore we shouldn’t be shy about it. Many will assert that if we say that “Jesus is the only way,” that we are bigots or haters. And I certainly concede that I have heard the affirmations of professing Christians (usually if not always by folks in one, single church – again the church led by Fred Phelps who loves the media while the media loves to hate him right back). So there are a few people that I think have been justifiably charged as arrogant – not the truth itself but the way that truth is conveyed. But in general, we need to understand that truth is not a matter of pride or humility. It’s a matter of fact. My sense is that most people who accuse Christians of being narrow and intolerant for proclaiming Jesus as the only way to salvation have redefined the term “tolerance.” We need to rescue ‘tolerance’ from the mistaken notion that tolerance means accepting every viewpoint as equally true and of value. That new “tolerance” cultivates a mind so broad that it can tolerate every opinion without ever detecting anything in it to reject. True tolerance involves treating with integrity and humility someone whose opinions I believe to be untrue and invalid. Therefore, to be a tolerant Christian doesn’t mean accepting contrary views as valid but treating with grace and kindness those with whom I disagree.
Let me put it this way: Christianity makes affirmations no other religion makes, such as God becoming flesh and Christ suffering and dying the death that everyone deserves. That uniqueness of Jesus is inescapable. So Christianity is either superior, or it is totally irrelevant. Though the world and culture say that all the “stories” of various religions are equally valid and that there is no overarching story, the Bible says otherwise. The entire story is the story of our alienation from God and the wonder of God’s reconciliation. So when I speak to people of other religions, or of no religious affiliation, and I speak about all of the “alienations” of our world today, I really don’t have to argue for them: a man alienated from his wife, parents from their children, governments from their people, man from himself. So is it unjust, is it unfair to say ‘Do you know there is someone who has come to deal with your alienation? Do you know that there is someone who has come and has himself taken all of your alienation in him? Do you know that the story that we have for you is not the story of a God on a deck chair somewhere but it is the story of a God on a cross?'”
It won’t do for us to offer our friends a God who does everything in general and nothing in particular. It sounds appealing but it’s irrelevant.
There are other comments in the sermon that I think would be interesting to engage with – questions you’ve asked like, “Why can’t divine truth be revealed via other religious paths?” and where exactly one might “find the cross of Christ” in other religions – but since you seem to put forth the fourth view as best, just a few comments on that one.
I love the *respect* that this view has of the various religious views! As one apologist has said, “the popular aphorism that ‘all religions are fundamentally the same and only superficially different’ simply is not true. It is more correct to say that all religions are, at best, superficially similar but fundamentally different.” I think this fourth view gets that right!
Where I am less than thrilled with it is in the hope that I can “learn from what a Buddhist, or a Hindu or a Muslim has attained through his or her religion, and to respect that real human transformation is taking place there, albeit in a very different way.” If you mean that I can learn from certain practices – yoga let’s say – then I can go with that. Any good doctrine of common grace makes that possible. But for real human transformation, I would say, “no.” The Christian believes that sin has made us subhuman, such that we are “dead in sin and transgression.” So for there to be real human transformation, that person needs the gospel, and we are not loving them unless we share that with them. They need life. They need the new birth to become fully human.
Finally, to those who feel that being able to get to God should mean that all nice people, all good people of any religion or no religion, can come to God… then that is radically exclusivistic. Because that will leave me out. If being good is a measure of whether I am a good person, then my problem is I will be left out of those religions or the higher plane or transcendence they offer. Because if coming to God means “being good,” I won’t get there because I don’t always have an open mind. I fail at being gracious. I struggle with being nice. If all nice people can come to God, then the morally incompetent are excluded: and I am morally incompetent because I don’t always love my neighbor like I should. I find myself picking the neighbors I want to love. So I need the gospel, too!
Thanks for letting me in on this conversation!
In Him-
David
Thanks for your thorough comments David. Apologies from this end for the delay in publishing them; on vacation this week. Look forward to. Thorough reading of them and responding when I return.
Blessings
Jv
Jeff, you are letting that intellect of yours get in the way agian! Didn’t Luther say words to the effect that logic is the enemy of faith? (insert pithy Hutchinsonian comment).
On the subject of exclusivity, our old testament desert god asserted his primacy rather forcefully – though I have always been curious as to what he meant by “no other” gods before me…? But this could be an interesting jump-off point for a challenge to the monotheistic claims commonly made for judaism..
Likewise, Jesus’ clear assertions of exclusivity cannot be avoided. No amount of well-meaning interfaith communication will get around that large stumbling block. Like the resurrection, you just have to swallow hard and except it, or the whole thing falls apart.
I usually avoid the exclusivity issue/problem by sticking to Jesus’ two sentence definition of how to conduct your life. “Loving your God” seems like a personal, internal matter that does not require conflict with other religions. “Loving your neighbor as yourself” is an external demonstration of faith that requires no assertion of religious superiority whatsoever.
Perhaps I am oversimplifying things – but I always think that elaborate reasoning is often a way to avoid the obvious.