Table of Contents | 12. Is the church's message unique?
At its best, the church is a colony of hope for community and understanding. In this post-9/11 world Islam, Judaism and Christianity are seeking for enough commonality to undercut terrorism and to live together short of violence. The church must lay aside its claim of uniqueness. Other faith traditions have significance and value. The church must find an avenue to understanding and goodwill rooted in listening and learning, rooted in mutual respect and rooted in a rejection of an elitist world view. The value of any faith tradition can best be expressed by accepting the value of other faith traditions. The unadorned truth is that when we are clear about our identity and have chosen characteristics that are rooted in that identity then it is far easier to give other faith traditions their legitimate due. That is a major contribution to peace and understanding. In his book called The Heart of Christianity Marcus J. Borg reports an insightful conversation between a Christian seeker and the Dalai Lama. He was asked whether the seeker should become a Buddhist. His response, paraphrased, was, "No, become more deeply Christian; live more deeply into your own tradition." That's an avenue to understanding and goodwill to undercut terrorism. Huston Smith, in Why Religion Matters, uses a metaphor of digging a well to make the same point. "If you are looking for water, it is better to dig one well sixty feet deep than to dig six wells ten feet deep. By living more deeply into our own tradition as a sacrament of the sacred, we become more centered in the one to whom the tradition points...." For me, I am not sure anymore that God cares all that much whether I stand in the framework of the Christian tradition, the Jewish tradition or the Muslim tradition. If all three of these Abrahamic faiths are paths of relationship and understanding then they are "colonies of hope," avenues to community! A recent book by Zachary Karabell, Peace Be Upon You, supports this very perspective. It is a contribution to correcting the notion that Jews, Christians and Muslims are enemies rather than heirs of a shared tradition. His contention is suggested by Fareed Zakaria, namely, "There is more to the relationship among these three faiths than violence." I have my roots in a faith tradition that is both a vision for the future and a way of life for the present. It is a radical gospel of grace! After all these years, it has finally dawned on me that gospel isn't believing something or accepting something. No, that's an anemic gospel even if its what I had been taught all of my life. This gospel of grace isn't about something you do. It's gift, sheer, undeserved gift. No one earns grace. No one of us is good enough. No one of us is religious enough. No one of us reads the Bible enough. No one of us obeys enough commandments, even when they are posted in the rotunda of a courthouse. No one of us says enough prayers. No one of us does enough good deeds. No one of us believes enough. No one of us preaches enough. No one of us even loves Jesus enough. No! No! You don't receive grace that way. God gives grace to anyone who is open to receive. The "Holy One" invites everyone to a sumptuous feast. That's grace. I am committed to embracing and accepting God's gracious invitation. I am on a sacred journey. I am on a pilgrimage to claim the inheritance God offers. I am eager for others to join me on the way to the Empire of God where an overflowing pantry of extravagant grace awaits. I am on a trek to the future where God is beckoning us to sing a new song of faith. And I am not alone! God's banquet hall is filled with all kind of folk. To quote Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, "We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low." So maybe I'll make it! One of the more troubling aspects of the way I now understand the traditions of my own faith is how it tends to scandalize those persons of my faith community I have come to love as sojourners on the same "perpetual journey to an unreachable destination." So, with sadness but recognizing that I can't turn aside from the shimmering light of my pathway, my search for a relevant and nourishing faith embraces the vision that Marcus Borg calls "an emerging paradigm." Because of my struggle to be open to light from any source I have glimpsed what Walter Brueggemann callead "the real stuff." That's what I see. I yearn for others to, at least, look in the direction to which Jesus continues to point us. Ross Werland, columnist for the Chicago Tribune, offers helpful insight, "Most major religions are taking one heck of a beating in public relations at the moment, yet spiritual giants inhabit all of them. These people are the ones who daily defer their own wants and needs to help others find their own spiritual bounty. The real power in churches and synagogues and mosques and temples is the honest-to-God believer whose religion is this simple: love, not hate. Potentially, that makes many atheists and agnostics the spiritual brothers and sisters of the 'believers' whether the nonbelievers like it ot not." Werland goes on to assert, "...All of our religious worlds have collided. Whereas just a generation ago Midwestern kids could quietly wonder whether Lutherans from the Missouri Synod would really go to heaven, now we're wishing some of our American brethren a blessed Ramadan. That is religious and social maturity, and as Americans we should be proud of it, because there are few places on this planet where a person can so openly espouse a religion different from that of the majority. In a period in which crimes perpetuated under religious banners have taken on such dreadful proportions, let us also realize that we have fiends in our own religions and spiritual brothers and sisters in others. It is up to us simply to see the difference." Marty is right, I think, when in Context for April 1, 2003, he suggests, "...It is the lived encounter with persons of other faiths that can reveal why the West so often alienates others." Maybe interaction with people of the other Abrahamic faiths will convince us that the "unique"dimension of the church's message doesn't diminish the unique dimension of the other living faiths! If you have other interest in this issue then read Joseph Campbell's book entitled The Hero With A Thousand Faces where he talks about religion as a human construct. From my perspective, faith traditions suffer more from some claim of superiority than from any form of disbelief. When there is a confident spirit of trust in one's own tradition, coupled with humble acceptance of and respect for the value of other traditions, the avenue to dialogue and understanding can be enhanced, even traveled. As Gary Dorrien suggested in his book The Making of American Liberal Theology: Imagining Progresssive Religion, 1805-1900, using the words of Newman Smyth from Old Faiths in New Light, religious conversations are at their best when they are seen as "invitation, not manifesto." I am not a historian of religion and I don't claim to understand all the teachings or even the central core of other traditions. I view other traditions as paths to relationship and transformation. Therefore, I am not interested in issuing some "manifesto" correcting the alleged doctrinal aberrations of other traditions or setting down "final answers" about how one can or can't be embraced by the Holy One. I understand the notion of revelation as a human construct to mean that no tradition has a final claim on God. With Marcus J. Borg in The Heart of Christianity I believe that "when Christianity is seen as one of the great religions of the world, as one of the classic forms of the primordial tradition, as a remarkable sacrament of the sacred, it has great credibility. But when Christianity claims to be the only true religion, it loses much of its credibility." Even the words John placed on the lips of Jesus, "I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to God except through me," the language of devotion and love for some, must be recognized for their historical limitation and re-evaluated because of their religious exclusivity. Surely such acknowledgement won't destroy their value. So I offer an "invitation" to dialogue as the way to peace and understanding among the faith traditions of the world. That may seem to be unacceptable capitulation to many. But, for me, it is simply "being Christian!" |