This piece is part of an on-going blog series called Plurality 2.0 (watch video here). Full schedule of guest authors throughout April and May is available here.
Rev. Jim Burklo is Associate Dean of Religious Life at University of Southern California. He is also the author of Birdlike and Barnless: Meditations, Prayers and Songs for Progressive Christians. Rev. Burklo is on the board of The Center for Progressive Christianity and blogs at Musings.
The Bible and Religious Pluralism
It’s a common assumption that in order to be Christian, a person must believe that Jesus is the only way to salvation and that Christianity is superior to all other religions. Progressive Christianity spreads the good news that there is a way to be Christian without making this claim. There is a way to follow the Christ while honoring the possibility that followers of other religions are also led to the love that is God.
Certain Bible passages are often used to suggest that Christianity is the only way to God. The best-known is John 14:6, where Jesus is quoted as saying “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.” Another is John 11: 25-26: “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.”
Good news: there is a way to interpret such passages which liberates them from religious chauvinism. The “I am” passages in John may be Jesus’ poetic expressions of mystical experience in which his personality and ego fell away and the only reality he sensed was that of God. If this is how we understand the passages, then when Jesus said “I am the way … no one comes to the Father, but by me”, this may mean that the way to God was to become one with God, as Jesus did. It may mean that we do not get to God through dogma or doctrine, but rather through mystical union with God, an experience shared by mystics of many religions throughout history.
Other passages in the Bible provide helpful language to express religious pluralism. Philippians 2:5-7 is a beautiful expression of the humility of the Christ: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” We might well ask: how can the religion of an empty man get so full of itself that it would claim to be the only true faith?
Christians who immerse themselves in the spiritual practices of their tradition and follow Jesus with acts of selfless service to others discover that they have very much more in common with serious practitioners of other religions than they have differences. While these differences exist, and should be respected, they are trivial compared to the shared spiritual experiences of people across religious boundaries.
Related posts:
- Brian McLaren on Plurality 2.0
- Pluralism Sunday: Celebrating the Many Paths to God
- Tony Hoshaw on Plurality 2.0
- Philip Clayton on Plurality 2.0
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{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
A. Why is a claim to transcendent truth automatically written off as “religious chauvinism”? Isn’t it just intellectual integrity to claim that if one has given one’s life to something, one thinks that it is the truest thing out there and that it’s the best?
B. You write: “The “I am” passages in John may be Jesus’ poetic expressions of mystical experience in which his personality and ego fell away and the only reality he sensed was that of God.” This is quite a bit of stretching! Ever thought of going out for the balance beam? B.1: What is a personality and an ego? Are you imputing to Jesus a quasi-Freudian soul? B.2: Why should we believe that Freud had things correct and fourth-century theologians had it wrong when it comes to who Jesus was and is?
C. I was not aware that Christianity is “the religion of an empty man.” I always thought it was the religion of an empty tomb. You skipped right over the note in the verse that says Jesus was in God’s morphe, God’s form. He didn’t just experience the divine; Jesus is God. Perhaps you’ve been reading to much Marcus Borg?
D. You close with a note about how Christianity is so very similar to other religions, after having attempted to deconstruct one of the main things that makes Christianity so very different. At the center of the Christian faith is God become empty for the sake of the whole world. Without this doctrine, it makes little sense to pray to Jesus or do works of service in his name, and therefore little sense to call oneself a “Christian.”
I appreciate the friends and colleagues of Adam taking the time to describe the different parts of the religious elephant in America’s living room. It is such a genious thing to do, for a well-read blogger to get different people to write about something that just is part of our everyday lives in North America.
To give you all an example of what I’m talking about even in little old Twin Falls, Idaho (population 40,000) pluralism is alive and well, regardless of our doctrinal positions. Recently, my wife, son and I were eating lunch at Kelly’s, a longtime tradition in this small city when a gentleman walked in having a conversation with another gentleman who was interviewing the first man for a job. Man number two looked like a typical Southern Idaho resident, while man number one had dark skin and was wearing some sort of headdress that may have identified him as a Sikh. They carried on their conversation and blended right in with the rest of the crowd, except for the occasional long glance. Then a while later a couple walked in, a younger woman in her thirties and an older gentleman in his fifties wearing a yarmulke (a Jewish headcovering)!
I realize my little anecdote doesn’t address the doctrinal issues raised by Jim Burklo, but I think it does point out the reality of where we are as a nation and a church. If three different religions (I am a Christian and a Presbyterian Clergy) could be represented in three connecting booths at Kelly’s in downtown Twin Falls, Idaho during just one lunch hour, how much more so are all of God’s Children spread out across this land?
So how do we reach out to those of other faiths? Do we tell them that they are wrong and we are right? Do we run to our best case as to why Jesus is the ONLY WAY? Or do we follow the example of Jesus (Matthew 5:44-45, 8:11, 12:50; Mark 11:17; Luke 3:6; John 3:17, 10:16, 12:47, 15:16) and the prophets (Isaiah 49:6, Joel 2:28, Zechariah 2:10-11)before him and assume that all of God’s Children are to be treated as such, which means we reach out to them as we would want to be treated ourselves. Saying that, I realize that some people want to be yelled at or told they are wrong in order to be set on the correct path. But for most of us, I think we respond best when someone comes alongside of us as a friend and engages us in friendly conversation and not debate or lecture.
Call me crazy but I think the latter is the way, the truth and the life Jesus intended for us all to share with whomever God places in our path.
I’ve appreciated this series for allowing me the opportunity to learn how other people grapple with and respond to the reality described in Phil’s comment.
Jason,
I would like to hear how you feel called to follow your faith while living in the midst of people of other faiths.
I also feel that Rev. Burklo’s suggested reframing of the “I am” statements is heavily nuanced. However, I sense that his proposed interpretation arises from holding these passages in tension with his assertion that “there is a way to follow the Christ while honoring the possibility that followers of other religions are also led to the love that is God.” Personally, I agree with his assertion even though I’m not sold on his take on the “I am” statements.
I sense that you reject his premise as well as his interpretation. What do you propose should be our attitudinal orientation to others?
Blessings,
Bentley
What do you propose should be our attitudinal orientation to others?
The same as our attitudinal orientation to everyone ought to be: to love them by speaking the truth, namely, that Jesus is risen and will come again, and that what Jesus did for us constitutes the goodness of our lives. Our attitudinal orientation to ourselves is just the same: we ought to pray daily for faith in this truth, and we ought to pray that it conforms our ways of being progressively to the person of God in the flesh, Jesus Christ.
Jason,
Allow me to attempt to speak my truth in love: your attitude lacks any humility. I believe that humility, not only a key component in being human, is a necessary ingredient in respecting the humanity of others made in the image of the Other.
Of course we think we are right; otherwise, we would change our opinion. I don’t experience any room in your language for the possibility that God could be doing something in the lives of others that is greater than you can imagine.
Blessings,
Bentley
A. I’m sorry, but I don’t understand how or why confessing my beliefs requires me to abandon humility. Unless you assume that in person I am an arrogant person, you have no reason to believe that I would be anything but humble in my interaction with other people. That I think things are true and have convictions and commitments reflects the truth of the situation.
B. Far be it from me to tell you what God is up to in the lives of others. You asked me how we, as Christians, are to dispose ourselves to those who are not. If we are Christians and confess the Christian way of life as true, then the only intellectually honest thing to do is to say that it is so. Don’t that doesn’t foreclose God’s ability to act in the lives of others, nor does doing that make any claims about what God is up to. In fact, it opens the door for the Spirit to take our claims and do with them what he will. If you had asked me (and you didn’t), I would have (and do) answer that I believe God is probably up to much more than I can imagine.
This is the heart of the question: WHY are we confessing our faith to others? Are we sharing it because we can’t help but tell others about the good things God is doing in the world through Christ? Or are we sharing it in order to tell someone that they and their system of beliefs are wrong or incomplete, with the intent of converting them? I think this is where Christians differ in their understanding of what it means to share the good news. It is also where Christians differ in their understanding of the phrase “in Christian love.”
If the end result of faith in Christ is seen as salvation from hell, then we are compelled to proclaim the exclusivity of Christianity, and “Christian love” means convincing others of the gospel message in order to save them from hell. Here, sharing the good news means sharing the universal truth of the Christian God, with a distinct (and crucially important) agenda.
If the end result of faith in Christ is seen as salvation for the sake of service toward others, then we are compelled to proclaim an inclusive gospel, where “Christian love” means tolerance, and justice. Here, sharing the good news means sharing our experiences of God, without agenda.
If you’re anything like me, you’re stuck somewhere in-between these things. Pluralism is both a reality and a challenge – both a source of edification and a source of tension. How do I balance my beliefs with my humility? How do I keep a healthy distance from my convictions such that I don’t turn the gospel message into law (yes, I’m Lutheran, we tend to talk in law/gospel terms)? How do I balance the competing exclusive and inclusive texts in the Bible? How do I reconcile the knowledge that Christ died FOR ME and the knowledge that Christ died FOR THE SAKE OF THE WHOLE WORLD?
Around this blog, it seems that the greatest arguments arise in conversations between those who firmly hold to an exclusive, convicted brand of Christianity and those who hold more loosely to a more inclusive, questioning brand of Christianity. And both sides are quick to stick labels on the other. The subject of plurality/pluralism has thus far been no exception.
Jason,
I apologize. I was judging you on very limited information. I do not know you, nor do I know how you interact with others.
You raise a great question: does confessing beliefs require one to abandon humility?
I certainly hope not. I do think it comes down to attitude. One can confess with certitude or one can profess with confidence (confidence ~ with faith). If I am certain that I’m right, then I’m not open to any other possibilities. However, I can be confident, or have faith, in my current understanding and open to the Spirit to revise that understanding. We live by faith, not by sight.
Yes, confidence is indeed the key.
Melissa, as much as I understand the schema you’re trying to construct, the main problem with it is that it leaves “social justice” Christians without the tools to bring non-Christians over to their cause. It leaves churches in the main line without members, because members of such churches are not actively seeking out non-Christians to convert. And it’s always been about conversion, no matter how scared we are of the nasty things fundie Christians have done with “conversion” (bull horns, tracts, etc.). Let’s not let the abuses of our forebears stop us from expanding God’s kingdom by converting another generation of folks to the Gospel. Otherwise, the Spirit will move on with his life. . . .
“It leaves churches in the main line without members, because members of such churches are not actively seeking out non-Christians to convert.”
This statement is problematic to me, and maybe it’s mere semantics, but talking about “seeking non-Christians to convert” doesn’t convey any sentiment of appreciation (if not acceptance) of the lives/faiths/beliefs of those outside Christianity. For me, when I share my faith, it is because I see the way that God is working in me and in the world, and it’s important to me that I tell people about it. It is not a matter of seeking out non-Christians in order to convert them. There is yet a difference between inviting others to “Come and see” and telling others “You need to convert.” One is sharing the gospel, the other is holding the gospel over someone’s head as a threat. I know that I am overgeneralizing the extremes of the spectrum, and for this I apologize.
But if you were to go back to Adam’s “Kingdom of God” series, you’d see that many of us are concerned with doing the work of the kingdom on earth, through sharing the good news with others, through orienting our lives around the resurrection, through caring for the earth and working for justice in the world…
I would find my Christian life to be a rather thin one if it was only concerned with converting others. There are many faithful ways to express and live the gospel; evangelism is one important piece, but it is not the only one.
Saying that you ought to convert to Christianity does not mean “holding the gospel over someone’s head as a threat.” It means that you are honest about the fact that, when asked, you really do believe that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, and that the only way to God the Father is through the cross. That’s not threatening; it’s promising. It’s good news. The project of evangelism is to explain this news in such a way that its mysterious beauty becomes available to the world.
I don’t trust religious practitioners who do not try to convert me, and I expect the same is true of people in the world, despite what liberal reactions to fundamentalism may imply.
It’s an odd thing to be a religious practitioner who is not so convinced of the value of her religion that she is not totally concerned with converting others to it. That’s not only a thin life, but a thin kind of religion.
How far we have come that there are “Social Justice Christians”. Perhaps its just my brand of Christianity (Presbyterian/Reformed) that compels me to be moved by God through Christ to both Salvation and Service, but I can’t believe that “Social Justice Christians” has become a label and by implication of context a bad thing.
Conversion, like so many other aspects of our faith (admittedly from a Presbyterian/Reformed perspective) has many different moods and forms. Is not conversion possible through social justice?
I had an experience early in life, about twenty years ago as a Freshman in college on a Habitat for Humanity trip that showed me the power of works done through love to show the power of God’s love and ultimately let the Spirit convert a soul to Christ. A group of us had traveled from Northern Pennsylvania to rural South Carolina to clean-up after Hurricane Hugo and at the end of the week of working on the property of one family the husband shared with our group that he had never been one for church and stuff, but after seeing what we had done for he and his family and why we were doing it; he said that he was ready (with tears streaming down his face) to recommit himself to the Lord.
I guess the whole conversion thing, from my theological perspective, comes down to Who is at work; the Holy Spirit or me? And from my theological education, biblical studies, and experience conversion happens through the work of the Spirit with my role being a conduit of both word and deed and not either, or. Or to paraphrase Saint Francis of Assisi “Spread the Gospel always, use words if necessary.”
Or to paraphrase Saint Francis of Assisi “Spread the Gospel always, use words if necessary.”
Absolutely. And what makes this true for Saint Francis is the idea that we are called to always actually spread the Gospel!
Serving my neighbor, seeking justice, living out my faith in the ways that I choose to interact with others, seeking peace, striving to live out Christ’s examples of love and compassion: are these any less means of sharing the gospel than “actively” trying to covert others through convincing words?
I am convinced that the world needs to know of God’s love and hope. Jason, if you knew me, you’d know just how passionately I believe this. But I resent your implication that I am somehow a lesser Christian because I do not have the same understanding of what constitutes evangelism as you do.
Jason & Melissa,
I think you are both strong, deep people of faith, from what I’ve read of your comments. Perhaps you both would do well to read “God Views: The Convictions that Drive Us and Divide Us” by Jack Haberer. He makes a pretty compelling case; scripturally, theologically, and experientially that the church–that God’s plan so to speak–is for the church to express five different voices of “GodViews.”
A summary of these is found on page 40 of his book, here they are:
The Confessionalist GodView: they are committed to discerning, proclaiming, and preserving the truth.
The Devotionalist GodView: they are hungry for God; they love to pray; they worship, meditate, and study. They want to know God, and they want others to know God, too.
The Ecclesiast GoveView: they serve on committees, teach church school classes, sing in the choir, attend community-wide ecumenical events, and give generously.
The Altruist GodView: they see human tragedies that others overlook, and they do something about them. They give to the neeedy, serve in local soup kitchens, build community-wide homeless shelters, and serve on the boards of charitable organizations.
The Activist GodView: they address far-reaching realms: systemic evils, racial prejudices, gender exclusion, power-mongerning, and injustice in every form.
In effect, it seems, in light of the conversation regarding pluralism, Jack Haberer (certainly no liberal within the PC(U.S.A.)) is arguing for a pluralism of the way God’s church expresses itself. And perhaps both of you, Jason and Melissa, can find yourself within Haberer’s schema (however imperfect) and agree that you are both fulfilling the command of Christ to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”
I could sign on to that. I just object to activism to the exclusion of confession.
My understanding of the way that the Body of Christ works and I think that Paul works at addressing it as well, along with the concepts laid out in Jack Haberer’s book point out that it is o.k. for you, Jason to object to activism because the Holy Spirit compels others to take up the work that must be done through activism in the name of Christ throughout His Church.
Just as Melissa may object to confession at the exclusion of activism the beauty of the Body of Christ explained by Paul in 1 Corinthians 12, Colossians 1, and Ephesians 4; what God has laid out for us in Scripture is something far more complete and dynamic than choosing sides. “Now [we] are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostle, second prophets, third teachers; then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? But strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.” (1 Cor. 12:27-31, NRSV)
Perhaps the “still more excellent way” of which Paul is talking about is for us to appreciate the gifts and talents of others, even at opposite ends of the spectrum that are offered in the name of and for the sake of Jesus Christ and his ministry through word and deed.
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