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.
Katie Harris recently relocated to Portland, Oregon after receiving her B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies from UC Berkeley. When she is not reading with her son, destroying her fiancé in a game of Connect 4, or drinking copious amounts of coffee, she works for a non-profit called IRCO: the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization.
God is Not a Chair
I’m sort of a dumb ass. I didn’t know religious pluralism existed. Or rather, I knew that it existed, but didn’t know the name for it. Which is stupid because I know what plural means. I studied linguistics for crying out loud. I am a failure.
Truth is, I slowly began toying with the idea of plurality about 5 years ago. Which was terrifying for me, coming from a traditional Christian upbringing. And these thoughts I was having, these ideas that contradicted everything I was taught, didn’t have a name. (Except maybe heresy. Hi mom, sorry). I’m so going to hell, I thought. Stone me now and get it over with.
I love words. I think it’s safe to say that we all love words. Words are how we label things, make sense of the world, give things meaning. I call that thing over there a chair, and you agree with me because we were both taught that that thing over there with its shapes and its wood or metal or plastic is called ‘chair’. I can even say it in different languages: silla or chaise, so that even MORE people know what I’m talking about. That’s awesome.
And we’ve all been here before: You’re having a conversation and you can’t come up with a word. The perfect word. The word that would make it ALL make sense. Without this word your point is null. DAMMIT, what is that word???
For me, that word is plurality. I’m glad I found that word. Or rather, I’m glad Adam asked me to post about it because it allowed me to finally give a name to a large transition in my life.
Somewhere along the way, between the time I was baptized at age 16 and the time I took a World’s Religions class in college, I asked myself this question: What if God revealed himself differently at different times to different cultures using different people?
And then I almost threw up. Did that thought mean that I was DENYING Jesus? I had no idea (I still don’t). But it made sense to me. It was logical. After some wrestling, I still believe the Jesus story. But why does that have to be the only story? It doesn’t seem fair. I hear my mom’s voice in my head right now: “Katie, LIFE is not fair.” Well, I get that, MOM. But honestly, I’ve been told my whole life that God is amazing, all knowing, all seeing. Well my thinking was/is that if God is so smart wouldn’t he have taken into account different cultures, eras, and LANGUAGES? What I experience as God, someone else might have a different name for. And who I am to say that we aren’t talking about the same thing? That’s the “fun” of translation. God is not a chair. He is intangible and complicated. But if you experience a higher power, a supreme being, a force outside yourself that governs you and your world – call it whatever you want.
I think Gandhi said it best:
“I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world. I believe that they are all God-given, and I believe that they were necessary for the people to whom these religions were revealed. And I believe that, if only we could all of us read the scriptures of the different faiths from the standpoint of the followers of those faiths, we should find that they were at the bottom all one and were all helpful to one another.”
Related posts:
- Jim Burklo on Plurality 2.0
- Brian McLaren on Plurality 2.0
- Blog Series: Plurality 2.0
- Br. Jason Welle OFM on Plurality 2.0
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I’m with you, Katie. Beautiful post.
Because I continue to wrestle with and put my faith in the Gospel of Jesus, I thought for a while my choosing Jesus ruled out all other avenues of spiritual pursuit. It’s overly-simplistic, but I’ve found a balance that works for me now: while as an orthodox Christian I do not believe there are many paths to God, I DO BELIEVE there are many paths to Jesus… in other words, if Jesus is the Way, the Gatekeeper, the propitiation, what-have-you, it doesn’t make God a narrow-minded bigot. Instead, it makes Jesus as scandalously inclusive and dangerously grace-filled as I believe him to be.
Hey there, Katie! Great post! I agree, the idea that truth can only exist in one place, in one culture, in one story, is preposterous: there is abundant wisdom and beauty and truth in all sorts of non-Christian spiritual traditions!
Here’s the catch I see, though: if you claim that ALL the world’s great religions are equally true, you deny their own claims: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism–they all make claims that rule out important truths that are inherent to the others. For example, if you affirm, with traditional Christianity, that Jesus is God Incarnate, then you deny important Jewish and Islamic claims about the Oneness (and *only* the Oneness) of God. If you affirm, with traditional Buddhism, that the object of the spiritual path is human enlightenment and that questions about God are peripheral, then you rule out claims about the Ultimacy of God in Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and Hinduism. While we can absolutely recognize the beauty and truth in multiple theologies and systems of religious thought, I think we also have to recognize that pluralism itself is a very new, Western, post-modern religious/cultural claim. If we are to affirm pluralism (defined as the belief that all world religions are equally true) with any sort of integrity, we have to be honest that we are essentially claiming a new world religion.
love your honesty – beautiful. And I’m with you and John on this one (oh, and I totally get the “holy shit I think I just committed a grievous act of heresy by thinking that” feeling)
@John,
I don’t say this to be dismissive only to point out that I think saying “my choosing Jesus” has things all backwards. God chose you in Christ so that you might bear witness to the good news of the new life that you have in him. This message is for everyone, not just for those who “choose” to make the way of Jesus their “own” path.
You can believe that with integrity and avoid being a know-it-all-jerk.
Dear Brian,
You’ve got me pegged! I really am a know-it-all-jerk.
That, and God really *has* chosen me in Christ.
I’m grateful for that bittersweet reality; and in response, I’ve chosen to follow him.
Peace,
John
Katie,
i really enjoyed your gut-wrenching honesty and how you expressed yourself. i echo Makeesha, ‘oh, and I totally get the “holy shit I think I just committed a grievous act of heresy by thinking that” feeling’. i am called a heretic, reprobate and not a Christian often from people who disagree with me and think they have all the answers. It’s so nice to come across others who ask the same kinds of questions swimming around in my head as i don’t feel so alone!
Warmest Regards!
EP
As a (militant) platonist, I would contend that God is a chair! Although, intangibly and transcendently so. Complexity? No, simplicity! Simplicity beyond simplicity. Not being, but not because without being, but because above it.
An interesting account of yourself and your questions. Growing up in the South I find it a somewhat familiar story shared to some degree by several close friends.
Great style in your post. What an opener! Thanks for sharing.
I’ve enjoyed the thoughts on this site for just about as long as the site by Dan Clendenin, who recently wrote a pretty articulate essay on pluralsim, if anyone is interested: http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20090427JJ.shtml
His site is not nearly as svelte as yours, Adam. Maybe you should make him an offer?