By Rev. Brooks Berndt, Pastor, First Congregational United Church of Christ, Vancouver, WA

(While the following play is authored by Brooks Berndt, it is based upon the writings of Diana Eck, Robert Funk, James Gertmenian, and John Hicks. )

Professor Freed:  Friends, we gather here today at Applebee’s for the inaugural meeting of the Bohemian Supper Club of First Congregational United Church of Christ.  Does everyone have their fajitas and mozzarella sticks?

Janice, the Poet:  Ah, Professor Freed, you truly have an innovative, pioneer spirit.  If only the university could have seen your genius, you would never have been denied tenure.  Let’s have a toast to the creative spirit of God at work in the Bohemian renaissance of Vancouver.  May God bless our band of loving hearts and free minds.  May God be the spring water that delights our souls.

Professor Freed: Oh, Janice, you are ever the poet.

Harry, the Free Love Hippie: We are a groovy bunch!

Janice: Well, Professor Freed, what do you propose we talk about for our first meeting?

Freed: My dear bohemians, I was rather taken aback by our pastor’s sermon today.  Let’s discuss that sermon.

Janice: I’d rather discuss the scripture reading, since that was the real cause of controversy.  I don’t think we should bash our pastor.

Harry:  No, that wouldn’t be groovy.

Freed: Right, right, I think it would indeed be splendid if we were to discuss that sermon text of his.

Janice: Even though it’s a controversial text, I still think it is lovely in its own way…

Freed:  I am afraid I have not yet come to that opinion, but let’s discuss it.

Harry: I dig Jesus and everything, but what he was saying about how no one comes to God except through him wasn’t cool man.  Mohammad and Buddha were righteous dudes too.

Freed:  Right you are, Harry, but the point that I would make is this:  I don’t believe Jesus said those words in the first place.

Janice: Professor, you are ever the heretic.  Explain yourself…

Freed:  You see our text comes from John, the last of the Gospels written.  Only in John does Jesus say these things.  Such remarks are really not in keeping with the earlier gospels.  I don’t think the Jesus of history was given to making grand pronouncements about himself.  Only John has Jesus going around saying, “I am the light of the world. I am the way and the truth and the life.”  Jesus was really more into telling parables and clever sayings about the Kingdom of God than he was into talking about how great he was.

Harry: If only I had had a professor like you, I never would have dropped out!  I always knew the real Jesus couldn’t be so closed-minded.  How could someone who hung out with Samaritans, Jews, and Romans not be open to Buddhists and Muslims?

Freed:  You are right, Harry!  In the Gospels, often the best people of faith are people of other faiths.  There’s “the Roman centurion, the Syrophoenician woman, the Greek Cornelius, the good Samaritan.”   Jesus was a bit of a free spirit, much like yourself.

Harry: Ever since I backpacked across India, I’ve always liked what Krishnamurti had to say.  He said he wasn’t a Christian, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist.  He didn’t even claim that he was on the right path to truth and that everyone else should follow him.  He said, “Truth is a pathless land…You cannot approach it by any path [or] …religion.”  He believed people got imprisoned when they tried to follow a path.

Janice: I think you two have taken this too far.  I think whoever wrote the gospel of John was a great poet.  The entire gospel just sings of poetry.  You are taking it too literally. John was trying to capture the essence of Jesus.  He was trying to speak a poetic truth about him.  Let’s not get too caught up in debating what actually took place 2000 years ago.

Freed:  Leave it to our poet to make such a good point.  I’ve always felt that all that talk about the incarnation of Jesus was really just a metaphor for saying that Jesus embodies the best of our ideals, the highest potential of humanity.

Harry: You know Gandhi was a pretty hip dude.  Maybe he had that incarnation thing too.  He once said that his life was his message.   Maybe that’s kind of like what Jesus meant when he said, “I am the Way and the Truth.”  But what I don’t get is why Jesus had to put down other religions?

Freed: Well, there are other ways of understanding this scripture.  You know I once taught this text to a class of 150 students.  I said to them, “If ‘I am the Way’ is the answer, what exactly was the question?” No one could remember the question, but almost everyone knew the answer. The question wasn’t about whether Buddhists or Muslims or Hindus would make it to heaven.  Jesus wasn’t trying to condemn anyone.  He was answering a question asked by Thomas.  Thomas was worried about what the disciples would do after Jesus was gone.  Thomas asked him how the disciples could possibly know what path to follow if they didn’t know where Jesus was going.  So Jesus was actually being helpful and compassionate when he explained to Thomas that he was the Way.

Harry:  But what about that part about no one coming to God except through him?

Freed:  That’s a good question.  One could say that Jesus or whoever wrote the Gospel of John wasn’t dealing with a world where there were viable alternatives for what to believe.  The religions we all know about today simply weren’t an option back then.  With good reason, worshipping the Roman Emperor as the Son of God would have seemed pure idolatry.

Harry:  But then how did Jesus relate to Jewish people?

Freed:  Well, Jesus himself was Jewish.  Now, he was against the religion of the establishment.  This is actually important to understanding what John has Jesus saying. When Jesus said, “I am the way,” he was actually freeing people from having to follow doctrines and laws for no good reason.  His life would show them how to live.  So, today, when we try to figure out what to do in our lives, we don’t have to mindlessly follow some set of rules.  We ask ourselves, “What would Jesus do?”  We have to figure out for ourselves what it means to follow Jesus, what it is that’s right and true, but we are also not just left by ourselves with no examples at all to help us sort things out.  In the end, I don’t think Jesus was preaching a message that imprisoned people in their faith, he was preaching a message that liberated them.

Harry:  I like it. I like it.  I always knew Jesus came to set our minds free.  It’s kind of like Bob Marley said, “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery.  None but ourselves can free our minds.”  That’s rad, dude.

Freed: So my dear bohemians, we’ve discussed the meaning of what John wrote back then, but we haven’t faced the question of how we as Christians are supposed to relate to people of other faiths today?

Janice:  I like to think of it this way.  Imagine you are in a room with no windows or lights.  You fumble around in the dark unable to see.  Then, over in the far wall you notice what at first looks like tiny specks of gold.  As you get closer, you realize that each of those specks is a small hole in the wall and that on the other side is this bright, magnificent light.  You discover that if you get close enough and look through one of the holes you get a good view of the light. When you stand back, you again see that there are many holes through which you can peer, but you know that you can only look through one of them at a time. So if you want to get a good glimpse of the light, you have to choose just one of the holes to look through.  I think that’s how life is with God.  At first, we just fumble around in the dark, but then we see that there is a light somewhere and that there are these different holes that allow us to see it.  One hole is Christianity, one is Islam, another is Buddhism, another is Judaism, and so on and so forth.  All of them can give us a glimpse of what is ultimately meaningful in life.  It’s good to recognize that they are all there and provide a glimpse of God, but in the end, we see God best if we get up close to just one of them and use it as our window into God.  We can spend our whole life just trying to grasp what it is we see when we look through just that one hole.

Harry:  Wow, you must have been on one of those vision quests.  That’s rad dude.  I mean duddette.

Freed: Janice, that is indeed a good image.  But let me put a challenge to you.  We’re all Christians here, but we’re also bohemians, and you know as well I do that there are other Christians out there who don’t like us bohemian Christians.  In fact, they don’t think we’re Christians at all.  In turn, we may or may not think they are true Christians either.  My question for you is this: Do we really worship the same God as these other Christians?  What if they believe God hates gays and lesbians, while we believe God loves gays and lesbians just as much as everyone else?  Can we truly say that they are just looking through another hole in the wall that shows them who God is?

Janice: Oh, professor, there you go taking things too seriously again.  A metaphor only works to help figure out a part of the puzzle but not all of it.  There is a time for appreciation and tolerance just as there is a time for speaking what is true and denouncing what is not.  Not all paths lead to God.  Some paths would have us marching into war for the most unholy of causes.

Harry: Yowzers!  How’s one to make sense of it all?  First, we have all this stuff about what Jesus did and did not say, then we have to decide whether or not we still like it, then we have to think about all these other religions which might be good or might not be.  What are we supposed to do?  Shouldn’t religion be easy?  Shouldn’t we be able to just love another?

Freed:  I think there are some basic truths to our religion that are easy to grasp, even if they aren’t always easy to apply.  Still, I think we also can’t be lazy about our faith.  We need to investigate things and figure certain things out for ourselves.  Otherwise, we’ll all just end up in some cult following whoever’s got the most appealing personality.

Harry: But how are we supposed to know who to follow and who not to follow?  Why not just join some other religion?

Janice:  The way I look at it is like this.  In life, we are all in a dance.  We are all in a giant ballroom.  You look around, and you see that there are many different partners you can dance with.  Some may catch your eye for a moment, but after dancing with them, you see that they are not for you. Some may turn out to be your worst nightmare. Still, others might be nice and attractive, but you simply don’t click with them.  Then, finally you dance with someone for whom you develop more than a superficial attraction. You get to know them.  The relationship develops and deepens over time until one day you are able to say, “You’re the only one in the world for me.”   This doesn’t mean that you have danced with everyone in the whole ballroom and know that this partner is indeed superior to all others.  It simply means that you have developed a deep and meaningful relationship that works for you and that is all you need.  In the relationship, there may be rough times when you don’t always understand each other or see eye to eye, but in the end you know that this is the one to whom you have given your heart.  This is how I feel when I think of Jesus and say, “You are indeed my way, my truth, my life.”

All three: Amen.

MINORITIES

by Krister Stendahl – died 2008

Lutheran Bishop Emeritus of Stockholm, Professor Emeritus, Harvard Divinity School

(Note: Text based on a lecture delivered on February 27, 1992, at the Center for the Study of World

Religions, Harvard University, as edited by Arvind Sharma and Jennifer Baichwal.)

I have found from experience that there is something special about multilateral dialogue, one in which we are all minorities, for the simple reason that in so much of religious history the relation among religions has usually been defined in terms of differences ‑ one’s identity being defined by that which is different from the other. This is so natural to our whole habit of thinking that it is hard for us to conceive a way of defining our identity instead by that which makes us glad. Multilateral dialogue nurtures that vision: that in the eyes of God we are all minorities. In this plural and diverse situation and the increased consciousness of that being so, the attempt at a common denominator approach has proved increasingly hard to work. When it has succeeded, it has just created one new religion ‑ as if we needed another one. Nor is tolerance quite the solution. It usually has an elitist lining; either an elitist lining in the sense that you can be tolerant because for you it is not that important, or an elitist lining of noblesse oblige ‑ I know, but I cannot expect the other to know as much as I do.

These approaches do not work very well, once one wakes up to radical pluralism. Nor does the model in which one anticipates the victory of one over the many, work either. Many of you have heard me use as symbolic of this attitude the fact that ninety years ago in the United States, we got a journal called The Christian Century. It’s a very enlightened journal. It even switched from Gothic print to Latin letters in its masthead some twenty years ago. But it is sort of cute to think that at the beginning of this century Americans really believed that with American know‑how and a little help from God we would end up by the year 2000 in a christianized world. What actually happened was an enormous renewal of the major religions of the world: great meetings, in Rangoon I think, in the 30s and 40s revivifying the Buddhist canon; the end of the classical form of Jewish assimilation after the Shoah and the establishment of the state of Israel; Hinduism in its various shapes and forms becoming a reality in practically all parts of the Western world. And the number of Muslims outnumbering the Jews in many parts of the West. That’s what happened ‑ what happened was that Gandhi became the rejuvenator of the social consciousness of Martin Luther King. What happened was quite different from what was expected. So the only alternative is a plural alternative, and so I ask myself ‑- how to sing my song to Jesus with abandon without telling negative stories about others? Or, if you want to sound more academic: ‘Towards a Christian theology of religions.’

And I want to deal with that subject very seriously tonight, and I want to do it as a biblical scholar or at least as a reader of the Bible that I love. I want to deal with questions of how one, as a Bible‑tutored Christian, can come to think about God’s whole menagerie and the place of the Christian Church and the Christian religion in the midst of it. How, in the wider missio dei, are we to define the missio christi and the missio ecclesia, to use terms which Catholic theologians have used to cope with this problem. How to define the wider mission of God, the specific mission of Christ and the way in which the mission of the Church fits into God’s total plan? That’s a risky subject and I have decided to forget that some of you must have heard me say similar things for some time. But I think I have some new thoughts towards the end, so bear with me.

It seems that there are clear words against any such enterprise of radical pluralism. I will start by lifting up three famous scriptural passages which seem to close the matter before we have opened it:

(1) Acts 4:12: … . for there is no other name under heaven given among human beings,

whereby we must be saved.

(2) John 14:6: … . I am the way, the truth, and the life: no one comes to the Father except

through me.

(3) Matthew 28:19: …. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

1. I have an old exegetical rule which says that when you apply the right answer to the wrong question, it will always be wrong, even if ‑- or especially if ‑- the answer is God’s word. Now what was the question to which Peter gave that answer in Acts?

The question was the accusation, the accusation that Peter had performed the miracle of a magician in his own name and he answers by the exclamation: ‘Heavens no, in no other name is there salvation but Jesus.’ This does not relate to the problem of Christianity and Buddhism ‑ at least not on the conscious level. But words like that grow legs and walk out of their context. And even when that is legitimate we must also remind ourselves of the very nature of confessional language. As Eastern Christianity has always known better than the West, confessional language is doxo1ogical. It is a way of praising God. It is the primary language of faith. The home language of the Church is the language of prayer, worship, and doxology, giving praise out of the fullness of one’s heart. Actually, confessional and liturgical and doxological language is a kind of caressing language by which we express our devotion with abandon and joy. Raymond Brown, the outstanding Roman Catholic exegete, in writing about the development of Biblical studies in the Roman Catholic Church, hails Pius the XIIth’s encyclical of 1943, long before Vatican II, as the milestone in setting Biblical scholarship free in Catholic studies. This the encyclical did when it admitted or even hailed the fact that in studying scriptures you have to study the genre, the style, the nature of the language it has, so that you don’t read it in the wrong key. I think this is apropos to Acts 4:12. I can preach wonderful sermons on this but I have to restrict myself.

2. The Johannine passage is found in the beginning of what is called the farewell speech of Jesus. The setting is this: ‘Do not be upset in your hearts, believe in God, believe also in me. I’m going to leave you, but in this world there are many ways ‑- many ways ‑- for you to stay. If there were not I would take you with me right now, but you can stay here. Don’t worry … And you know the way to where I am going.’ Then Thomas asks: ‘But we don’t know where you are going. How can we then know the way? Thomas is always pretty smart, good questions, good logic. Jesus said to him: ‘I am the way, the truth and the life. Nobody comes to the Father except through me.’

It strikes me very odd to take a passage from the most intimate and tender conversation with the most intimate and closest circle of disciples, from a context in which their hearts are full of foreboding with the imminent fear of relations about to be severed, to lift a word from that conversation, and use it in answering the question of Christianity’s relation to other religions. It is just not apropos. It is odd that one of the few passages that are used by those who have closed the doors on a theology of religions in Christianity, should be a passage which is dealing not with the question of the periphery or the margins or exclusion, but which, on the contrary, lies at the very heart of the mystery of what came to be the Trinity: the relation between the Father and the Son.

3. Anyone who reads Matthew’s gospel finds this a rather stunning statement towards the end, because Matthew’s gospel is totally built on the theory that during the ministry of Jesus, neither Jesus nor the disciples were to move outside Israel. Matthew has rather striking statements: ‘Do not go to any Gentiles … You will not lack cities in Israel before the Son of Man appears’ (10:5 and 23). This concentration on the mission to Israel has its contrast in the announcement of the Gentile mission in the last verses of the Gospel ‑ ‘all the nations’ refers to ‘all the Gentiles’. But what kind of a mission is this? How did Matthew ‑ if we start on that level ‑ think of this mission? Did he think of it as a saturation mission, did he think of it as the christianization of the world, the cosmos?

I think we can be very clear that Matthew thinks of the mission of the Church on a minority model, as did Paul. You will remember that in Romans 15 Paul says, ‘I have a principle: never run a mission where anybody else has preached the gospel before. And now I have run out of space, there is no place for me to go in the East. So I have to go to Spain, I have to go West.’ That’s an odd way of looking at things. What matters to Paul seems to be establishing a presence, a small minority in these centers of the East. It is a minority image, it is the establishment, as I like to say, of Laboratory II. Israel was Laboratory I, and when God felt that some good things had been achieved in Laboratory I, God said ‘Let’s now try it out on a somewhat broader basis … on a Gentile basis’; but still a laboratory with Christians as the guinea pigs, Christians as another “peculiar people. “

The images in the gospel of Matthew are minority images. “You are the salt of the earth. ” Nobody wants the world to be a salt mine. “You are the light of the world and let your light so shine before the people that they see your good deeds and become Christians.” That’s not what it says. It says: that they see your good deeds and praise your Father who is in Heaven, have some reason for joy. That’s what it says. And think of the magi ‑ the Ayatullahs from Iran. They did not start the church when they got home. We might in retrospect think that was sad; anyway they didn’t, and it doesn’t seem to bother Matthew. Because for Matthew they got the experience of their life and they had touched the holiness of God’s kingdom. Matthew’s perspective is centered in what we refer to as the Kingdom. I’ll come back to that.

So these three pivotal passages from Acts, John and Matthew are not as simple as one might think. They are opening up perspectives. Let us take the special case of Matthew. Matthew operates with what I call the Biblical model, the Jewish model (of Isaiah 49 and many other texts), the understanding that Israel is to be a light to the Gentiles, a theme Luke picks up in the Song of Simeon and that is recited in large parts of Christendom every evening, “a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel” (Luke 2:32). This is a peculiar view. Judaism is a revelatory religion, a religion of the book, a religion of salvation ‑ a revelatory religion, however, that at the same time doesn’t think that everybody has to be a Jew in order to be acceptable to God. Now once that structure of religion came into the hands Christianity and Islam, it was coupled with universalism in such a manner that no one could be acceptable to God who did not think and believe as Christians and Muslims think and believe.

That is why, in the world of pluralism, it is not so strange that Christians who wake up to the fact that they are not any more a self‑evident majority should find their way to the Jews and ask them: ‘You have lived for a pretty long time as a minority, do you have a secret to share with us? And the secret is quite simply this, that universalism is the ultimate arrogance in the realm of religion. It is by definition and unavoidably spiritual colonialism, spiritual imperialism. The Crusades can be more civilized but they will still be Crusades, by definition. And the insight of a revelatory non‑universalism is this: to be a particular, even a peculiar people, somehow needed by God as a witness, faithful, doing what God has told them to do, but not claiming to be the whole.

But particularism has been so ridiculed, especially after the Enlightenment. Have you ever read Voltaire’s anti‑Jewish statements? They are all based on the alleged tribal primitiveness and particularity of Judaism. But I would suggest revelatory religion without such a particularism instead of a universalism is lethal. That’s my lesson and I am very intrigued as a student of the gospel of Matthew that Matthean thinking constructed that same model: the church being another peculiar people, willed by God to have a function (what I earlier called Laboratory II), now built on a Gentile base, panta ta ethne, disciples of all the Gentile nations, yet still a minority. This is beautifully expressed in the sublime eschatological vision of Micah 4:5: Thus God will judge among the many peoples and arbitrate for the multitude of nations, however distant, and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, spears into pruning hooks, nation shall not take up sword against nation, they shall never again know war or learn war. But every man shall sit under his grapevine and/or fig tree with no one to disturb him. For it was the Lord of Hosts who spoke: for all people will walk, each in the names of their Gods, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever. It’s quite a stunning vision. I have used Rabbinic scholar E.E. Urbach’s translation with an and rather than a but in the last sentence: ‘and we will walk…’ Urbach, in his discussion about similar matters in one of the famous volumes on Jewish and Christian self-­definition—E.P. Sanders et al. (eds.), Jewish and Christian Self ­Definition, Vol 11 (1981), p. 298—says: “In their relations with other nations, most of the sages (i.e. Rabbis) would have satisfied themselves with the declaration of Micah 4:5. “

Matthew suggests to me that he thought of the church as a church of such a peculiar people in a new key. Universalism comes with power, Constantinian or otherwise. I think there are two alternatives to thinking what it is all about from a Christian perspective; and if I want to use drastic images I would say: What is the first thing that God asks when God comes to the oval office in the morning? Is it for a printout of the latest salvation statistics of the Christian churches? Or is it a question like: ‘Has there been any progress towards the Kingdom and, by the way, what has the role of the Christians been in that?’ Or is it totally an accident that in the very last vision on the very last pages of the Christian Bible there is, for us theologians, priests and ministers, that shocking statement: ‘And I saw no temple in that city.’ There is something rather striking about a religious tradition which envisions the consummation not as the cathedral of cathedrals, but as a city in which there was no temple.

Now I have to speed up. I want to lift up two other texts, ‘model texts’ as I call them. These are intimations, models of attitude, which I find important towards building theology, which I cannot do. I am not a systematic theologian. I am just a Bible scholar ‑- providing a little Biblical encouragement to the theologians’ models. One would of course expect that the first person, the first theologian ‑ the first Christian theologian ‑- who saw the spectre of Christian anti‑semitism and anti‑Judaism coming, was the apostle Paul. He detected, in his Gentile followers, an attitude of superiority towards Israel, not only towards Judaism but towards Israel, the people, the Jews. And his missionary strategy is contained in Romans, Chapters 9‑11. The Calvinists thought it was a tractate on predestinationbecause they were interested in that, but it’s actually Paul’s ruminations on how his mission to the Gentiles fits into God’s plans and how it relates to the people of Israel. Paul ends with a scathing critique of Gentile Christians and their attitude of superiority towards Israel (11:l ff). He uses a lot of images of olive trees and things and grafting and he gets so upset he mixes up what grafting actually does to a tree and so forth. But we have to ascribe that to his intensity of feeling ‑- or to his lack of knowledge about horticulture. He was a city boy. I feel for him. He is trying to come to grips with this fact that there is this feeling of superiority and he doesn’t like it. And he ultimately says: ‘I’ll tell you a mystery, lest you be conceited. And that is that the whole of Israel will in due time be saved, and that’s none of your business because God won’t go back on His promises.’ And he doesn’t actually say this is going to happen because they are going to accept Jesus as the Messiah. And the doxology he ends with is the only one he wrote in straight God-language without any Christological twist.

When I speak about this, theologians get very upset and they say ‘You teach two ways to salvation: one for Israel and one for the rest of humankind.’ And I say ‘No, I say with Paul that it is a mystery ‑- if I taught two ways it would be a traffic plan.’ But Paul is trying to set in various ways a kind of limit to missionary zeal. And why? I know why: He had been burnt once. It was out of religious zeal that he committed the only thing that he ever confesses as a sin: having persecuted the Church of Jesus Christ. So he was aware of the risk of such zeal.

The other text is of another nature. It is Paul’s reflection on pluralism when he is up against it in Corinth, in First Corinthians. Paul was not a great ecumenist through most of his ministry. And in Galatians it seems that he really thought that if he stamped his foot enough they would really go with him. And he says: ‘Even if an angel from heaven comes and teaches otherwise than I taught you, let that angel be accursed!’ That’s chutzpah! But in Corinth he is low on the totem pole and he is almost going to be read out of the Church so he has to settle for ecumenism. He is in minority status and that’s perhaps why it is in that Epistle that his basic thinking about love, as the elasticity which makes it possible to have diversity, is born. The ode to love in First Corinthians is not speaking about love in general but is Paul’s solution to the problem of how diversity can be an asset instead of a liability. Now, what is so interesting to me in this context is how Paul presents the problem, and the ensuing insight. To deal with different theologies as if they were competing philosophies ‑- on the model of Stoicism and Epicureanism etc. ‑- is wrong and shows no understanding of the nature of the Church. Paul gropes, for other metaphors. He speaks about the garden, he speaks about the house, he speaks about the temple. The diversity of theologies are not like philosophical schools arguing with one another; that’s a fleshly way of thinking ‑- or, as we would say, it is a secularized way of thinking about religious diversity (I Cor. 3).

Matters of religion do not represent a zero‑sum problem. That’s Paul’s message. It is not a zero‑sum proposition where adding to the other means deducting from the one. That’s his vision, and I think, it is valid and important for us as another way of thinking about religious coexistence. Of course, people who speak like me are accused: ‘So anything goes, eh?’ No. Paul certainly knows he was right. ‘I know that I am right but I am not thereby justified, it is God who judges’ (I Cor. 4:4). So he is not backing down from his conviction. But since religion has to do with God, any doctrinal insight expressed by the human mind and grasped by a human will cannot claim ultimacy. Anything goes? No. Let’s argue. I’ve just read a brilliant book review by Jon D. Levenson in Journal of Religion 71 (1991), 558‑67. He is writing about a book by David Novak on Jewish‑Christian dialogue. He is saying that if anyone in dialogue has to presuppose that you are not allowed to witness to your conviction, then it is better just to go with Soleveitchik‘s position that we should discuss only matters of common interest and not theology. Now Levenson doesn’t quite say that it has to be so, but he is sort of teasing Novak for making it too easy to say that somehow you bracket your convictions when you enter into dialogue. That’s a caricature of dialogue. For dialogue slowly creates a climate in which you can both speak and listen and find out what the real issue is. And ultimately perhaps you reach what I love to speak about, but will not speak about tonight ‑- the Holy Envy: when we recognize something in another tradition that is beautiful but is not in ours, nor should we grab it or claim it. We Americans in our imperialism think that if we like something we just incorporate it and we think that we honour others by doing so. But that is not the way. Holy envy rejoices in the beauty of the others.

To me “the Corinthian model” is the solution. Another point I have borrowed from Levenson is that if one wants to move toward dialogue, one has to give reasons for breaking with the tradition. For it is obvious that the Christian tradition, in general, in relation to other religions has not been dialogical. Sometimes it has been more dialogical on the mission station than we have been given to believe, as Kenneth Cracknell of Wesley House in Cambridge has always pointed out. If you read the diaries of the missionaries, you see how much there is of “presence” and “dialogue,” but when they wrote home often the jargon of the home office won out. Levenson says that Novak has not demonstrated that dialogue is so essential that it justifies changes of that magnitude; namely, bracketing both the witness and the critique of one another.

I happen to think that dialogue is essential in a world where religion is often part of the problem rather than part of the solution in the relations between people. It is of much importance that we make our hermeneutical moves honestly and openly. I have lifted up Paul’s warning in Romans 11 and Paul’s idea in First Corinthians of a coexistence that is not a zero‑sum order of the sort that to him is totally secular. Actually, in both cases he is referring to something which is different because it has to do with God and not with philosophy, not with defined thinking systems, for any thinking system which claims ultimacy is a form of idolatry. ‘I think I am right but I am not thereby justified’ is Paul’s wonderful safeguard.

The first model deals with Jewish‑Christian relations and the second model deals with intra‑Christian relations, based on the fact that Christ is the foundation on which the house is being built. I would like to suggest a modem typology in which one says that these spiritual models of attitudes, these awarenesses of the fact that under God we are not locked in a zero‑sum society, can be extended, and that we have valid reasons to extend both the Jewish‑Christian and the intra‑Christian models in Paul’s thought toward interreligious attitudes in general. We are thereby making

Participant Congregations:

AUSTRALIA

The Church of St James, Canberra, Australia
Rev. Rex Hunt, pastor, Email, Website

Sandringham Uniting Church, Sandringham, Victoria, Australia
Rev. Eileen Ray, pastor, Email Participating 2011

CANADA

Cowichan Station Church, Cowichan Valley, BC
Rev. Dawn Braithwaite, pastor, Email, Website Participating 2009

HONG KONG

Unitarian Universalists
Alexander Szeto, president, Email, Website Participating 2009

NEW ZEALAND

Kapiti Uniting Parish, Waikanae Beach, NZ
Rev. Norman Wilkins, pastor, Email, Website

St. Matthews-In-The-City, Auckland, NZ
Rev. Clay Nelson, pastor, Email, Website

UNITED STATES

ALABAMA

Prince of Peace Progressive Christian Alliance, Anniston, AL
Roger McClellan Email, Website

ARIZONA

Federated Community Church, Flagstaff, AZ
Rev. Jed Schenk, Pastor, Email, Website Participating 2009

First Congregational UCC, Phoenix, AZ
Rev. Dr. Steve Wayles, pastorEmail, Website

CALIFORNIA

Congregational Church (UCC) of Belmont, Belmont, CA
Rev. Kristi Denham, Pastor, Email, Website Participating 2011

Brea Congregational Church (UCC), Brea, CA
Rev. Jeanyne Slettom, Pastor, Email, Website

Fairview Community Church (UCC), Costa Mesa, CA
Rev. Sarah Halverson, Pastor, Email, WebsiteParticipating 2011

Niles Congregational UCC and First Christian Church DOC, celebrating together at Niles Congregational , Fremont, CA
Rev. Jeff Spencer, Pastor, Niles UCCEmail, WebsiteParticipating 2011

Congregational Church of Fullerton (UCC), Fullerton, CA
Rev. Gary Chomiak, Pastor, Email, Website Participating 2010

Unity Spiritual Life Center, Laguna Hills, CA
Rev. Margaret Melanie, Pastor, Email, Website Participating 2009

First Congregational UCC, Long Beach, CA
Rev. Jerry Stinson, pastor, Email, Website Participating Feb 13, 2011

Mt Hollywood Congregational UCC, Los Angeles, CA
The Rev. Rachel Ciupek-Reed, Pastor, Email, Website Participating 2009

Trinity Episcopal Church, Menlo Park, CA
Rev. Frannie Hall Kieschnick, associate priest, Email, Website

Unity of Monterey Bay, Monterey, CA
Rev. Vicky Elder, Pastor, Email, Website

Skyline Community UCC,, Oakland, CA
Rev. Laurie Manning, Pastor, Email, Website

Sausalito Presbyterian, Sausalito, CA
Website

Pioneer Congregational UCC, Sacramento, CA
Rev. James Truesdell, pastor Email

First United Lutheran Church, San Francisco, CA
Rev. Susan Strouse, Pastor, Email, Website Participating May 22, 2011

Bethany United Methodist Church, San Francisco, CA
Rev. Lauren Chaffee, Pastor, Email, Website

Congregational Church, UCC, San Mateo, CA
Rev. Penny Nixon, Pastor, Email, Website Participating 2009 (Rev. Steve Naylor, preaching) Participating 2011

Episcopal Church of Saint Anne, Stockton, CA
Rev. Mark Hall, rector, Email, Website

CONNECTICUT

Somers Congregational UCC, Somers, CT
Rev. Dr. Barry Cass, pastorEmail, Website

COLORADO

Aspen Community United Methodist Church, Aspen, CO
Rev. Jane Keener-Quiat, pastorEmail, Website

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Westminster Presbyterian, Washington, DC
Rev.s Ruth and Brian Hamilton, pastors, Email, Website

FLORIDA

Sunshine Cathedral, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Rev. Durrell Watkins, canon pastor, Email
Website

GEORGIA

St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, McDonough, GA
Rev. Robb Harrell, pastor, Email
Website

ILLINOIS

New Covenant Community Church, Normal, IL
Rev’s Susan and Bob Ryder, pastors, Email, Website Participating 2010

INDIANA

Holy Redeemer Reformed Catholic Church, Ft. Wayne, IN
Rev. Michel Holland, pastor, Email

KANSAS

Faith Community Church, Topeka, KS
Rev. Jerry Quiring, pastor, Email, Website Participating 2009

MAINE

St. Columba’s Episcopal Church, Boothbay Harbor, ME
Rev. Susan Colburn, pastor, Email, Website

MARYLAND

Chesapeake Creation Spirituality Community, Annapolis, MD
Rev. Wayne Schwandt, pastor, Email, Website Participating 2011

MASSACHUSETTS

Unitarian Universalist Church, Weymouth, MA
Rev. Richard Trudeau, pastor, Email, Website Participating 2011

MICHIGAN

Ephiphany Unitarian Universalist Church, Fenton, MI
Rev. David Abbott, pastor, Email, Website

Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Rev. Ian Lawton, pastor, Email, Website Participating 2009

MINNESOTA

Open Circle Church Burnsville, MN
Rev. Jay Steele, pastor, Email, Website Participating 2009

Mizpah UCC Minneapolis (Hopkins – West Metro), MN
Rev. Steve Thom, pastor, Email, Website Participating 2009

Peace United Methodist Church Shoreview, MN
Rev. Hugh Stephenson, pastor, Email, Website

MONTANA

Heritage of Faith Christian Church, Disciples of Christ Polson, MT
Rev. John Payne, pastor, Email, Website Participating 2010

Plymouth United Church of Christ Helena, MT
Rev. Cathy Barker, pastor, Email, Website Participating May 22, 2011

NEBRASKA

First United Methodist Church, Omaha, Nebraska
Rev. Jane Florence, Pastor, Email, Website

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Deering Community Church, Deering, New Hampshire
Rev. Barbara Currie, Pastor, Email, Website

Pilgrim United Church of Christ, Nashua, New Hampshire
Rev. Ed Koonz, Pastor, Email, Website

Plymouth United Church of Christ, Plymouth, New Hampshire
Rev. Judith Gooch, Pastor, Email, Website Participating 2009

NEW YORK

St. John’s Grace Episcopal Church, Buffalo, NY
The Rev. Philip W. Dougharty, Rector, Email, Website Participating 2011

Reformed Church of Cortlandtown, Cortland, NY
Rev. Doug Leonard, Pastor, Email, Website Participating 2009

The Stone Church of Cragsmoor, Cragsmoor, NY
Rev. Jeffrey C. Slade, Pastor, Email, Website Participating 2010

Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, Schenectady, NY
Bishop Paul Peter Jesep, pastor, Email, Website

OHIO

Christ Episcopal Church, Dayton, OH
The Rev. John Paddock, Pastor, Email, Website

St. John’s Church, UCC, Troy, OH
The Rev. Stuart Wells, Pastor, Email Participating 2009

OKLAHOMA

University Place Christian Church, Enid, OK
Rev. Jerry Ray Galbreath Email

OREGON

First Congregational UCC, Eugene, OR
Rev. Greg Flint Email Website Participating 2009

TENNESSEE

First Presbyterian Church, Elizabethton, TN
Rev. John Shuck, pastor, Email, WebsiteParticipating 2011

TEXAS

Covenant Church, American Baptist / Alliance of Baptists, Houston, TX
Rev. Jeremy Rutledge, pastor, Email, Website

VIRGINIA

First Congregational Christian United Church of Christ, Chesterfield, VA
Rev Harvey Joyner, pastor, Email, WebsiteParticipating 2011

Lynnhaven Colony Congregational UCC, Virginia Beach, VA
Rev Mark Munson, pastor, Email, WebsiteParticipating 2011

WASHINGTON (STATE)

United Church of Christ, Chewelah , WA
Rev. Matthew E. Melchor-Gordon, Pastor Email, Website

Magnolia United Church of Christ, Seattle, WA (celebrating on June 1)
Rev Cathy Barker, pastor, Email, Website

WYOMING

St Paul’s United Church of Christ, Laramie, WY
Rev. Todd Smiedendorf, Pastor <a href="mailto:”>Email, Website Participating 2009 (May 31)

(William C. Buffie’s message to the Oaklandon Unitarian Universalist Church in NE Indianapolis on August 26, 2007. Bill Buffie and John Charles are the co-authors of The Christian Pluralist: An Invitation From The Pew.)

Thank you for inviting me to share with you today. I am sorry that my co-author, John Charles, could not be with us today. Unfortunately, his job with the government has taken him to Baltimore for four months and he could not make it back for this weekend. So, I’ll go it alone today, but I must confess that this is not a comfortable proposition for me at all. By nature I am an introvert, a very private person, with an aversion to public speaking that dates back to the seventh grade. And this isn’t easy trying to condense years of work into a short message today. I’ve lost a lot of sleep struggling with the right words to approach this.

So why am I here? For three reasons – fear, concern, and passion. Extremism, as it relates to religious matters, is everywhere. You only have to open the newspaper or any history book to see the ugliness associated with the practice of religion. And it is not just in the Middle East or Northern Ireland or any number of other hot spots of sectarian violence — it is in our midst everyday. When religious zealots murder a doctor at an abortion clinic or intimidate the women who have made the difficult choice to use such a clinic; when small children are turned away from Christian schools because their parents are lesbian; when a U.S. general in Iraq proclaims that “we will prevail because our god is bigger than their god;” when our own youth group leader declines to share with our youth that John and I are hosting an interfaith panel because she has read our book and after all she believes in Jesus (we don’t?); when our senior pastor, seemingly in response to the pluralist message we share in our book, announces at the end of a sermon that “if you are not with me, you are against me;” when a fundamentalist pastor, who took exception to my editorial to the Indianapolis Star in April regarding the proposed gay marriage amendment, meets with me for several hours to “educate” me about the Bible and at the end tells me that the difference between him and a fundamentalist Muslim is that the Bible was given to him by God, whereas the Quran was given to Mohammed by the devil; these are the type of experiences that make me fear the direction we find ourselves heading and the world that awaits our children and grandchildren.

Granted, these are extreme examples that bring horror to the minds of most mainstream Christians, but what I find disturbing is the realization that these actions or opinions are actually the logical end products if one defines the world in black and white, with absolutes one feels are dictated by God and not the human experience. It is all too easy for dogma and doctrine and definitions to lead fundamentalists to opinions that make us shudder, but my concern is that they are just at one end of a continuum that promotes divisiveness in too many subtle ways. I am concerned because I think we live in a gray and messy world, but the traditional Christian message so often is presented in absolute terms that unwittingly contribute to the extremist mentality. The current religious landscape is so much about “us” and “them” competition, but it doesn’t have to be this way.
I has become our passion to find new ways to communicate our religious experiences; how to share in a way that promotes healthy dialogue, though not necessarily agreement. Globalization leaves us all interconnected. We live in a pluralist society. We must become passionate about being moderate – perhaps a contradiction in terms, but a necessary one I believe.
You might be thinking about now, “Why don’t you just join our Unitarian Universalist Church? Why bother writing a book?” Believe me, it is tempting and I have thought about it. I love the accepting and compassionate message I hear shared in your service today. However, if we were to leave our mainstream church that would say much about what we believe, but the more important issue that we wish to explore is why we believe as we do. We believe that in so doing we can reconcile the term “Christian Pluralist.” Some suggest this is a contradiction in terms; that it is offensive to orthodox Christianity. We propose a line of reasoning that invites an attitude of “we” rather than “us” and “them.” We think we can justify a perspective that promotes true acceptance – not just tolerance. And there is a big difference if you are on the receiving end of being tolerated rather than being truly accepted as an equal. Furthermore, we hope to restore the relevance of organized religion at a time that the church is in steady decline.

Brian McClaren, at a lecture we attended a couple of years ago, shared some disconcerting statistics about the secularization of Europe and the trend in the U.S. following the same path. Though 90% of Americans claim to believe in God, only 40-45% are members of organized religion; in any given week only 18% actually attend services at a church, synagogue, mosque, or temple. In Western Europe, the number is only 1%. Does it have to continue this way? Is this a good and inevitable trend? We think not, but more importantly, we believe change will have to come from within. That is why we remain as United Methodists and have written our book.
So how did we get here?

John and I both grew up in traditional Christian churches, strayed from the church during our college years and for a few years thereafter, only to return when we started our families and our wives dragged us to church — and we are glad they did. I suspect our path was similar to many of yours. But over the ensuing years many questions and doubts began to creep into our experience. We wondered, how could God be so angry as to order the annihilation of entire villages of people? How could an omniscient and omnipotent God regret having created humankind and send a flood to wipe out all living creatures except two of each kind? What sense did it make to hear the survivor of an accident thank their personal God for their safety, as nearby we watch a mother tearfully holding her dead child and asking “why?”

We found ourselves having to “translate” sermons into words that were compatible with our developing worldview. We began to feel hypocritical sitting in the pews having our “heresy” thoughts. But through a series of conversations, books, Sunday school classes, lectures, and friendships we came to realize that we weren’t alone. Still, should we stay in our Methodist Church? Or become Unitarian-Universalists? Then, in the late summer of 2003 it all came to a head. Rick Warren’s book, The Purpose Driven Life, took the country, and our church, by storm.

Though we can glean many useful messages from this book, we were particularly uncomfortable with the simple manner in which Christianity was presented – as we had come to believe it to be a very complex subject. One line especially I will never forget. “Obedience unlocks understanding – understanding can wait.” As a parent, I understand the intent. But we, the laity, are not children. We deserve to explore questions and doubts. We need to understand, or at least try. So what was the natural thing to do at this point? We wrote a book in response.

Eight drafts and two and one half years later, after many conversations, confrontations, affirmations and introspection, we published The Christian Pluralist: An Invitation From The Pew.
The book

Our title tells a great deal about our subject matter and us. First and foremost, this is a view from the pew. We are not experts, seminarians, or academicians, but we do represent a common and important, but underrepresented, worldview. We are not here to debate others who gravitate to a different perspective, but we wish to share – a journey, a thought process, questions, and opinions.

We are Christian in that this is our cultural heritage. The Bible is our guidepost. We believe that Jesus Christ was, in human form, the will of God manifest on earth. We believe in trying to lead a Christ-centered life and wish to be followers of Jesus – recognizing that our definition of being a ‘follower’ may differ from others. At the same time, we are pluralists, meaning that we don’t believe that there is any one “right” path to be in relationship with God.

Our invitation is to lay people, who share our sentiments, to speak out and be more vocal in a world crying out to acknowledge that absolutism is dangerous in a world of globalization wherein diverse cultures find themselves in the midst of one another’s theologies, emotions, and insecurities. In so doing, we think we then offer an invitation to our clergy as well – to engage in open and healthy discussion about the questions and doubts that are a part of our spiritual journeys. We suggest that this can be done in a manner that increases the relevance of our religious experience – it need not diminish or demean that experience. A pastor on the south side of Indianapolis thanked us after reading our book, stating that he now felt empowered to address our questions from the pulpit, whereas previously he was afraid of offending those in the pews or making them uncomfortable by giving something other than absolute answers.

Our book is full of questions, questions, and more questions. In an educated and diverse society, we affirm the need and inevitability of this process.

In an early chapter, titled Framing The Discussion, we emphasize the crucial and fundamental fact that each of us, in approaching any type of debate or discussion, must acknowledge the lens through which we see the world and how this affects the tenor of the discussion. It is essential that we recognize that consciously or unconsciously we all have certain defining criteria that we use to judge the validity of any particular line of reasoning. These criteria, in fact, often predetermine the eventual outcome of the discussion. For example, the abortion debate. If one gravitates to the pro-life camp as a result of countless life experiences and reasoning, then this person will define life as beginning at the time of conception; it then logically follows that abortion is murder and therefore intolerable. On the other hand, if one is pro-choice, then life will be defined as beginning later in pregnancy or at the time when the fetus can leave the womb and remain viable; and abortion then can be justified on a number of other grounds with the “murder” label not applying.

Similarly, in the longstanding debate between science and religion, must religious “truths” be born out by scientific method in order to be valid, or can matters of faith and individual religious traditions be “true” in a different sense or realm?

The next chapter, Understanding Bias: Giving Up Control, explores the process of maturation of the individual and the impact on relationships as described in a book by James Hollis, a Jungian psychologist, The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Midlife. Hollis asks of each of us, “Who are we aside from the roles that we have played?” What baggage do we bring to the here and now? Why are we who we are? What factors, conscious and subconscious, contribute to our being and how are our relationships affected? More importantly, once in possession of such knowledge through painstaking introspection, what are our responsibilities going forward? What choices will we make?

We then offer the analogy that perhaps as a collective religious community we also have passed through adolescence and now is the time to take stock of who we are and what might we choose for the future to bring. Why are we “traditional” Christians or “progressive” Christians, Muslims or Jews, atheists or agnostics? How shall we be in relationship with the “other?” Do we choose to maintain the status quo or do we embrace a new future?

Sacred Scriptures: Literal Word of God or Chronicle of the Spiritual Journey? This is the most contentious chapter for the traditionalist. Here we outline the many contradictions and inconsistencies in the Bible that give us cause for concern. We explore the implications of the human and changing nature of God through the course of the Bible. We tackle those passages that traditionally result in the exclusive claims of Christianity, and offer a different interpretation consistent with our pluralist viewpoint. We offer that all of these considerations taken together seem, to us, to point to scripture being a product of human experience, not divine authority. Clearly, this is where we part ways with the traditionalist, but we would offer that we still believe in the authority of scripture. This authority, however, we believe is warranted as scripture, and the current interpretation thereof, reflects the collective enduring wisdom and values of our elders and our contemporaries who earnestly seek relationship with the divine.

The following chapter, Truth: Relative or Absolute? emphasizes the importance of differentiating what it means to believe something versus truly knowing it. It is important to recognize that if we start out a conversation with, “The truth is …” then we close the door to open discussion. But if we start out, “What I believe is…” or “The truth that resonates with me is …” then we invite dialogue.

The American Heritage dictionary has fourteen different definitions of the word ‘truth’ itself. Perhaps this isn’t the best word to use in matters of religious or theological debate. Mark Twain makes the point quite succinctly, “America has the one true religion – dozens of ‘em.”

We affirm the infinite and mysterious and unknowable nature of God as an entity in the next chapter, Evolution of God: Insult or Progress? We acknowledge that humans, with finite existence limited by time and in perspective, are incapable of knowing God in absolute terms, though God may be “revealed” in effect through the spiritual journey that gives rise to sacred scripture. Furthermore, we contend that this is an evolving process and that the beauty of the Bible is that it, as “the living word” of God, indeed evolves, and must do so in order to survive, just as is true of all living organisms.

In the next chapter, The Bonds That Unite Us, we share discussion of the common needs, values, and themes of the world’s enduring religions. We reference Huston Smith who offers the analogy that the religions of the world are similar to the human body in that at the their core they are almost indiscernible though externally they may appear quite different. Our spines are remarkably the same, though our body types, color, facial features, speech etc. all are unique and individual. We celebrate that religion is the same for all of us and different for each of us.

The final chapter, Embracing Uncertainty, finds us admitting that we are lost in a sea of self-proclaimed experts. Acknowledging that we simply cannot truly know what is right, for a long time it seemed to us that the only logical and defensible position to hold was that of being an optimistic agnostic. If forced to choose between traditional monotheism with its emphasis on a personal relationship with a God of human character or secular humanism, the fact was that neither choice resonated with us. But through the process of writing this book and the resultant “humanizing” of scripture, we found another possibility that did indeed resonate with us. We discovered that once we peeled away all of the human doctrine, dogma, and theology so much a part of our traditional journey, then at the core we found God. God, for us, is a presence that we feel inside of us; a presence that calls for us to be more than what we might be without that presence; a presence that, once experienced, takes on a reality of its own and is capable of transforming daily lives. Though we don’t experience God as a person, we find our relationship with God is personal.

We have been criticized as being “cafeteria” Christians. We accept this label however not as a criticism, but rather as simple acknowledgement of what is now, has been, and always will be the case as it pertains to matters of religion. We wouldn’t have thousands of Christian denominations, fundamentalists and progressives, orthodox and reformed, Muslim and Jew, Hindu and Sikh, … if this were not the case. It seems self evident that one size doesn’t fit all, but if we pick and choose those aspects of our particular tradition that help us adhere to the core universal values common to all the enduring religions of the world – love, compassion, justice, humility, sharing, caring for the least and the lost – are we to be criticized?
So, what does keep the traditionalist from embracing the pluralist perspective?

I think there are many fears – some legitimate and easy to understand given the security we all receive from cherished and familiar traditions, but it should be acknowledged that there is some component of just fearing change itself. Uncertainty and change can be disconcerting – especially if one believes that eternal salvation is on the line. But still, I think even the traditionalist has a choice as to whether or not to allow fears and traditions to paint oneself into a corner of isolation. As a pluralist, the last thing I want is to be isolated from others in search for the divine or effective paths to promote the universal values alluded to previously. Simply stated, we want validation from traditionalists; recognition that our journey is not unreasonable for us; empathy as to our struggles; affirmation that we share common goals; and leave the judging to God, if there is judgment to be carried out.

Can we not embrace labels and definitions that are all-inclusive, that don’t isolate, that reflect Jesus’ ministry to reach out to those who are different or disenfranchised? We are not oriented to be exclusive in our claims – this is a matter of choice. Mainstream Christianity can choose to change and that change must come from within.

Some may consider it offensive and presumptuous to suggest redefining Christianity, but we would ask who made the definitions in the first place? Hasn’t this always been a human process? Who, at the Council of Nicea, decided what books to include or exclude from the canon? Who decides the definitions of the “orthodox” Christian? The “reformed” Jew? The “moderate” Muslim? The “fundamentalist?” Acknowledging the human role is crucial if we are to go forward. If we absolutely knew God’s definition of Christian etc. – not just passionately believed one definition or another – then it would be a valid criticism to say that we are presumptuous in arguing with God. Accepting the human role, however, invites choice.

I recently started reading a translation of the Quran given to me by a Muslim friend. It is interesting to note that the author or editor of this particular translation offers that Muslims believe Moses, David, and Jesus all to have been Muslims, because the definition of a Muslim is “one who submits to the will of God.”

In the same vein, I would offer that a Christian is one who is a follower of Jesus. By my definition of a ‘follower of Jesus’ – meaning one who seeks to honor the principles of living and relationships embodied by Jesus – it follows that Mohammed, Gandhi, “good” atheists, … were, or are, also Christian.

This type of circuitous reasoning speaks to the power of words and definitions: defined by core values we are all one and the same and in this sense all are “created in God’s image”; but defined by external details fashioned from human tradition and cultural experience, we are all unique and this is manifest by how we “create God in our own image.”

Is such a perspective naïve and unrealistic? Does it insult the divine? It is an important matter to consider. We don’t think God dictates the answers to these questions.
Reconciling with Traditionalists

Does redefining Christianity undermine and invalidate the orthodox experience? In our book, we argue no — certainly that is not our intent, though we understand from many discussions that it comes across that way to some. For that, we apologize. Remember however that we, as pluralists, frame this discussion not as a debate between us and the traditionalist or between us and God, but rather this is intended to be a sharing of well-reasoned passions. We wish to emphasize again that the pluralist perspective validates all journeys that serve to promote the core universal values common to the enduring religions. We respect, and envy in many ways, the orthodox experience shared by our forbearers and contemporaries, but caution that we all must protect from absolute proclamations that, if carried to their extreme “logical” conclusions, result in some of the horrors committed in the name of religion that we see all too often.

Acknowledging the biases and processes common to all of our paths invites humility. Humility, introspection, and healthy doubts can soften the rhetoric and extremism that plague society. Humility invites dialogue. Dialogue breeds familiarity and respect. Only from this starting point can we hold in healthy tension our divergent worldviews.

At a lecture at Butler University a year or two ago, Reverend Ann Case-Winters of the Chicago Theological Seminary, when asked by John how to speak to others about matters conflicting with their worldview, gave some profound advice, “Speak to them very carefully.” It wasn’t the answer we were hoping for. We wanted to hear the magic words to open ears and minds. When it comes down to it, perhaps all we can really offer is that we believe that God and religion are the same for all of us and different for each of us. Recognizing this, it is our responsibility to engage others in a civil and respectful manner.

Perhaps we just live in a religious continuum understandably spanning literal truth to metaphorical truth. In orthodox Christian fashion, the traditionalist might be able to relate to and find some comfort with the pluralist’s perspective by considering Jesus to be 100% divine/literal and 100% human/metaphorical, depending on the seeker – and that individual’s culture, experience, and reason. Is it rational to accept this paradox? We think so. This is our book, providing the rationale for being pluralists – Christian Pluralist, Jewish Pluralist, Muslim Pluralist, Hindu Pluralist … we’re all the same in so many ways.

Message of Hope

Ultimately, I want you to realize that we come to you with a message of hope. Change is occurring, but it will be gradual; it will be multigenerational. Not unlike the course of women’s rights, the civil rights movement, or the current gay rights issues, change will be slow. For it to occur, we need to be intentional, deliberate, and steady in our efforts.

I am encouraged to see that it is indeed happening. When we started this process I had never heard of the word ‘pluralist.’ Eighteen months into writing the book I came across an article that made reference to ‘post-modernist pluralists’ and I had my ah-ha moment: “I’m a pluralist!” What a great feeling to realize that I belonged to a defined group. Most of us find comfort in being part of something bigger than ourselves. From this point on we came to realize that this movement has been going on for centuries. In the late 1700’s the previously accepted tenets of scriptural and papal infallibility came into question and were the subject of much debate. The questions with which we, as lay people, find ourselves now struggling have been heatedly debated for the past 100 years in seminaries and academic circles. We have been validated and energized by the realization that there are countless organizations globally that find a home with the pluralist perspective.

Particularly exciting in my mind is to see organizations such as the Interfaith Youth Corp, founded by a young Muslim man, bringing together kids from a variety of faith backgrounds to share about their individual traditions and passions. These encounters are not about converting, but simply sharing, getting to know the “other.” Once one really knows the other, it is much more difficult to demonize them or their beliefs. This is the type of deliberate effort that we call for at the end of our book. We feel that these types of discussions should be mandated by our public schools and that our children need to appreciate diversity and learn the art of acceptance from the earliest of ages. Such discussions should include not just the experiences of people of faith, but atheists, agnostics, humanists, etc. also must be able to share and be understood for their journeys as well.

The Network of Spiritual Progressives is a global organization comprised of passionate people of multiple faiths, and those who characterize themselves as spiritual but not religious, trying to become a political force promoting a platform endorsing love and generosity rather than dominance. They have proposed a global Marshall Plan requiring the U.S. and other industrialized nations to commit 1-2% of GDP over the next twenty years to fund efforts to eliminate global poverty. They seek to overcome the cynical realism that binds us to the status quo. The pluralist mentality is at the core of their very being. These efforts give us hope.

But we also have experienced change locally. The fundamentalist pastor, who made the comments about the origin of the Quran, and I were at least able to sit in the same room together for 3 1/2 hours without becoming angry. We had a civil and respectful discussion, though not one that brought agreement or resolution. I believe these difficult conversations will bear fruit in the future; maybe not with this generation, but with the next or the next.

Our youth director, though declining to invite the youth to our interfaith panel, did come to the panel herself, and we have subsequently been involved in a Bible study together through our church wherein we are able to share differing views. Our senior pastor, in giving a sermon explaining the exclusive claims of Christianity (and seeming to go chapter by chapter through our book and refuting our rationale), at the end did acknowledge that it is the responsibility of the orthodox Christian to “propose” theology, not “impose” it, and that in dealing with those who have conflicting theologies it is important to show love and respect and realize that, after all, we are not God and there just may be some things that we just cannot understand. We also now have a presidential candidate who has offered the novel idea of actually talking with the leaders of “the axis of evil” rather than bombing them into submission!

We read a book not long ago for our book club titled The Shadow of the Wind. I’ll always remember one line that really resonated with me as a pluralist. A character in the novel speaking about the importance and role of books in our society makes the statement, “Books are mirrors; you only see in them what you already have inside of you.” I would suggest that God/religion/scripture/definitions also are mirrors and that we only see in them what we already have inside of us. It is time to expand what is inside of us, and our children.

Thank you.

Resources for interfaith understanding: The United Religions Initiative, or URI, is a network of nearly 200 Cooperation Circles in 36 countries, all dedicated to promoting daily, enduring interfaith cooperation, an end to religiously motivated violence, and cultures of peace, justice, and healing for the Earth and all living beings. They also have one of the best interfaith portals anywhere, including a remarkable section for kids and pages of well-organized links. www.uri.org

For selections form the scriptures of the great world religions: Topics include respect, peace, the Golden Rule, forgiveness, and charity. The Tanenbaum Center

Dr. Eboo Patel speaks on Islam and religious pluralism.

For chants from the world religions: Chant: Spirit in Sound (book and CD) by Robert Gass, and On Wings of Song. www.amazon.com

For an interfaith calendar of holy days: See The United Religions Initiative. Interfaith Calendar

For an interfaith center near you: Interfaith Centers are a good source of speakers adn preachers from other faiths. Visit the North American Interfaith Network.

For a video interview with the authors’ of The Christian Pluralist, visit The Christian Pluralist. To order this book visit the authors’ website at www.thechristianpluralist.com

For a set of interactive displays that educate kids and adults about world religions and their commonalities, consider ordering a “World Peace Village” for your church.

For a series of conversations about religion and pluralism in America by Eric Elnes, co-president of CrossWalkAmerica, and Nacho Cordova, professor of Rhetoric at Willamette University and blogger at the Woodmoor Village: www.crosswalkamerica.org

Books

Karen Armstrong. A History of God: The 4,000-year Quest fo Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Bllantine Boks: New York, 1993)

Karen Armstrong. The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions (Alred A. Knopf: New York, 2006)

Thich Nhat Hanh. Living Buddha, Living Christ (Riverside Books: New York, 1995)

Andrew Harvey. The Way of Passion: A Celebration of Rumi (Frog Ltd.: Bekreley, 1994)

William James. The Varieties of Religious Experience (Adamant Medica: 2000)

Houston Smith. The World’s Religions (HarperSan Francisco: San Francisco, 1991)

Hafiz. The Gift: Poems by Hafiz the Great Sufi Master Daniel Ladinsky trans. (Penguin Compass: New York, 1999)

William C. Buffie and John R. Charles. The Christian Pluralist: An Invitation From the Pew (Authorhouse: 2006)

Marcus Borg and Jack Kornfield. Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings (Ulysses Press: 2004)

Diana L. Eck. A New Relgious America: How A “Christian Country” Has Become the World’s Most Religiously Diverse Nation (HarperSan Francisco: San Francisco: 2002)

Kate McCarthy. Interfaith Encounters in America

John Cobb, editor. Christian Faith and Religious Diversity (Mobilization for the Human Family)

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