by Dr. Robert D. Cornwall, pastor and author, from his blog, Ponderings on a Faith Journey. Author of Faith in the Public Square, Ultimate Allegiance: The Subversive Nature of the Lord’s Prayer, Unfettered Spirit: Spiritual Gifts for the New Great Awakening, Marriage in Interesting Times: A Pariticipatory Study Guide,and more!
On the evening of March 21st, I had the privilege of being one of three speakers at a Niagara Foundation sponsored Abrahamic Dinner. This event was held at Rochester College, and brought together members of the Islamic, Jewish, and Christian communities — to promote dialog and understanding. Each of us, a Rabbi, an Imam, a Christian pastor, was asked to speak to the ways in which our faith traditions understand human rights, and whether this overlaps with or differs from secular understandings. We were asked to speak from the perspective of our own faith tradition, which is difficult when Christianity’s 2 billion adherents are divided into thousands of denominations and sects. Nonetheless, I did my best! As for my partners, the Rabbi went first, and I didn’t find much if anything to disagree with. In fact, he set me up nicely! As for the Imam, I learned a lot about the flexibility of Islamic law, which allows for support of human rights (more so perhaps than secular American law).
Since this is an important conversation, I decided to share some of what I said. Below you will find my answer to the first question, which dealt with my traditions codes of human rights and relationship to secular codes. Before I share below, I want to add that I agree completely with the Rabbi’s statement that the Jewish tradition, and the Christian tradition following it, speaks not of rights but obligations. That said, I invite you to consider my response:
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Category: Interfaith
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Can the great religions be vehicles of salvation for their followers? —YES
[EDITOR’S NOTE: This post is part of our series on controversial questions. A NO post will normally follow a YES post. Join in by posting your comments.]
by Herold Weiss
Whether one takes as normative the significance given to the Incarnation in the gospel According to John or the significance of the New Creation by the Spirit of the Risen Christ in the letters of Paul, in both cases what is emphasized is that God is involved in the salvation of humanity as a whole. Moreover, both sources are concerned with establishing that God’s saving activity is a dynamic force with an open future rather than a condition determined by a past event. This means that God is free to choose continuously what the future holds for the people of the earth. Barriers set up to separate people are not set in stone. No people may claim a privileged place at the divine table.
Claims to exclusive divine election were already identified by the prophets, particularly Amos and Jeremiah, as traps that need to be avoided. Jeremiah vehemently denounced the priests and the prophets who told the people that they were assured of divine protection from the threat of a Babylonian attack. He specifically spoke against the false security that the people had on the sanctity of the temple. Their confidence that God would never allow the Jerusalem temple to be profaned by foreigners was based on a false understanding of God. Even at the risk of his own life, Jeremiah proclaimed the coming destruction of the temple, and that the people would be taken away as captives of the Babylonians.
Amos, the first of the classical prophets of Israel, redefined election to mean responsibilities rather than privileges. The final chapter of the book that collects his oracles must have been a shocking surprise to its first readers:The Lord, God of hosts, he who touches the earth and it melts, and all that dwell in it mourn, and all of it rises like the Nile of Egypt; who builds his upper chambers in the heavens, and founds his vault upon the earth; who calls the waters of the sea, and pours them out upon the surface of the earth – the Lord is his name, “Are you not like the Ethiopians to me, O people of Israel?” says the Lord. “Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir? Behold, the eyes of the Lord are upon the sinful kingdom and I will destroy it from the surface of the ground; except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob” says the Lord. (Amos 9:5-8)
To argue that the exodus of the Philistines from Caphtor (Greece and Eastern Asia Minor) to the western coast of Canaan, and of the Syrians from Kir (the land between the Caspian and the Black Sea, modern Georgia) to the lands in upper Mesopotamia, is no different from the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan, because the Creator God who controls nature is equally involved with the history of peoples who worship other gods was, without a doubt, a radical understanding of how the Creator God cares for all creatures.
Paul, the preacher of the gospel of the New Creation by the power that brought forth the Risen Christ, was adamant in his insistence that the barriers that have separated human beings and have consigned them to different categories do not exist in the world of the Spirit in which the Risen Christ is the Last Adam. Besides, Paul did not give attention to the ultimate destruction of sinners, even though the imminent Parousia was very much in his mind. He was concerned with the salvation of all those who have faith in God. His Gospel is based on the promise of God to Abraham, which, as he explicitly pointed out, includes a blessing to all the nations.
Paul shocked his fellow Jewish Christians by saying that the pagans who did not have the physical Scriptures (the Law = the Torah) as their religious heritage had the Scriptures written in their hearts and without knowledge of the Law did what the Law required. In this way he took away exclusive privileges from the Jews who prided themselves of their status as the elect of God. He explicitly classified their boasting as the worst of their sins. His perspective of humanity did not include any barrier that separate human beings from each other. He denied the value of economic (slave/free), cultural (Jew/Greek), and natural (male/female) barriers. From what he wrote, and given his universalistic understanding of the New Creation in which barriers have been eliminated, it is not at all a stretch to extend the list of obsolete barriers to include those that separate human beings from each other on account of their religion.
Karl Rahner, one of the most respected theologians of the twentieth century, aiming at inclusivity, famously claimed that people from other religious traditions who were sincere worshipers of God are also to be saved by Christ. He described them as “anonymous Christians.” His proposal was thoroughly criticized as an unacceptable form of colonial “patronizing,” and I agree. Are Christians to be broken up into the explicit and the anonymous kinds? Rahner’s inclusiveness left barriers dividing humanity. The relationship of God to creatures under God’s care is to be left to the power and the grace of the Creator God whose ways are beyond human understanding. As Paul says more than once, “God shows no partiality.”
It is no longer believable today to hold that only those who affirm certain doctrines and perform certain rituals enjoy the favor of the God who Amos identified correctly as the Creator, even if he did it in terms of an obsolete cosmology. To do so is to consign God’s election to a past event and to negate God’s freedom. It is to distort the character of God while pompously demonstrating spiritual false security and pride. The human need to embrace the horizon and control what happens within it, thereby ignorantly limiting the freedom of the Creator God, finds innumerable outlets, but these are just the evidence of human insecurities. They are not in any way evidence of the possession of God’s mind. The salvation of humanity has been God’s consistent concern, and God’s freedom to achieve it is without limit. There are no barriers to God’s ways to achieve God’s purpose. Human attempts to transcend insecurities by devising descriptions of God’s plans are just that. It is not a surprise to find out that these plans promote exclusive claims to be counted among the elect who will receive God’s salvation.
Dr.Weiss’ profile and books can be viewed and ordered here: https://energiondirect.info/authors/authors-t-z/herold-weiss
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"If It's Broke—Fix It!"
by Steve Kindle
I always enjoy hearing from our foreign missionaries. They all hold in common a belief that God always precedes their arrival at the mission field, and prepares the way. This notion is fraught with theological insights. Not the least of these is that God is with people whom we may consider “lost,” yet, there God is. With charity, we can call this a relationship.
A human characteristic we all share is the tendency to regard our culture superior to all others. This would include our religions. In America, we regard democracy as the best form of government and actively seek to democratize the rest of the (backward) world. This is certainly true for most adherents of Christianity—we want the whole world to adopt our faith.
This is, of course, an extension into the modern world of ancient tribalism. Not only do we find the presupposition of “We are the best,” but also the accompanying fear of those who aren’t like us. Couple this with the capitalistic notion of “win or lose” and you have the recipe for constant and continuing strife among the religions and peoples of the world.
What’s to be done about this? If you are a hardcore tribalist, you will insist on winning over all. “We have the truth and you must come to us for salvation,” is the rallying cry. Nothing will change if this predisposition dominates, and it dominates throughout the world. I find it ironic, if not humorous, that those who most exemplify this attitude are the very ones most upset when they find it in others. “Radical fundamentalist Muslims” deplore evangelistic Christianity. Fundamentalist Christians deplore “radical Muslims.” They are two sides of the same coin.
It has been said often that the only hope for world peace is that people give up exclusive claims about their own religion and accept that they are not the only ones with the truth. This is surely at least partially true. Religious strife is as ancient as Cain and Abel (the proper way to sacrifice), and as recent as ISIL. Yet it is an impractical solution; it will never happen, at least for the foreseeable future. But this doesn’t mean that the adherents of these religions can’t take this step.
Gandhi is reputed to have said, “Be the change you want to see.” If you feel that the answer to world peace is acknowledging the value of other’s truths, at least for themselves if not for you, then by living this out, there is one less person in the world agitating for division. Who knows? It might catch on.
When I read in the Bhagavad Gita, for instance, “They alone see truly who see the Lord the same in every creature, who see the deathless in the hearts of all that die. Seeing the same Lord everywhere, they do not harm themselves or others. Thus they attain the supreme goal,” I marvel at the truth therein, and my soul is enlarged. I love meeting people of other Books, and often find my own self failing in comparison to their lives and loves.
Now I know the objections to this approach are many. “The Bible says…” and “We have been given the Great Commission,” just to name two. Fundamentalists will never abandon these “truths.” It’s true that the Great Faiths are not teaching the same thing, but I believe that they are capable of producing the same kind of person—loving, considerate of the earth, peaceful—and that is the point, after all, isn’t it? In fact, if Christianity produces hateful people, willing to kill others for its “truth”, who condemn all who disagree, and hold them in contempt, why bother with it?
If I must go into all the world and preach the gospel, I will affirm that God loves all people, that God wants all people to love each other, and that God supports all who obey the Great Commandments regardless of where it is found or who said it. And you know what? God will already be there ahead of me, teaching the world in its own way the Truth.
Order I’m Right and You’re Wrong! here: https://energiondirect.info/biblical-studies/im-right-and-youre-wrong
