By Pastor Jon
After yesterday’s piece seeking to deal honestly and irenically with the claims of the Christian faith in light of recent events, and how these claims impact on any others, I was reminded of this interaction out of Timothy Keller’s, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, which is on the must-read-list for every engaged person; Christian and otherwise.
The lines that are about to befall before your eyes are out of Chapter One, There Can’t Be Just One True Religion, which is a presumption viewed as not only inviolably axiomatic in general culture, but as the only reasonable and rationale option for the sane.
Keller begins this ascent with an event that expressed the exclusive truth claims of Christ, but does so, through a wider faith witness, which is very helpful at challenging our larger assumptions:
I was once invited to be the Christian representative in a panel discussion at a local college along with a Jewish rabbi and a Muslim imam. The panellists were asked to discuss the differences among religions. The conversation was courteous, intelligent and respectful in tone. Each speaker affirmed that there were significant, irreconcilable differences between the major faiths. A case in point was the person of Jesus. We all agreed on the statement: ‘If Christians are right about Jesus being God, then Muslims and Jews fail in a serious way to love God as God really is, but if Muslims and Jews are right that Jesus is not God but rather a teacher or prophet, then Christians fail in a serious way to love God as God really is.’ The bottom line was – we couldn’t all be equally right about the nature of God. [Pages 3-4]
This is befuddling for most inside the post-Christian West, except for those who are historically anchored in what their faith actually teaches and believes, which is the reigning authority.
Before Keller expresses how Christianity should empower any adherent to positively respect other faiths, he affirms his agreement that religion, and especially the larger behemoths with their exclusive claims, can lead to insider’s feeling superior about their big difference.
I would add that this is why Christianity must not only better grasp the Gospel, but become righteously centred throughout. Because when the Gospel is truly understood and integrated, it does the opposite of superiority, which is humility. This is our previous piece. This may explain why some Christians want to state that they are not religious. Yes, this can sound trite or cliche, but there can be a real important point of difference.
Religion is what we do. Religion is a list to keep as primary.
The Gospel is what God, in Christ, has done. When this is your working identity, the means and flourishing is never because of anything you have done, but really despite your own very best efforts to locate this in yourself.
In the following examples, Keller provides an even wider apologetic, potently extending the application of how Christianity provides resources for real respect:
Christianity provides a firm basis for respecting people of other faiths. Jesus assumes that non-believers in the culture around them will gladly recognise much Christian behaviour as ‘good’ (Matthew 5: 16; cf. 1 Peter 2: 12). That assumes some overlap between the Christian constellation of values and those of any particular culture and of any other religion. Why would this overlap exist? Christians believe that all human beings are made in the image of God, capable of goodness and wisdom. The biblical doctrine of the universal image of God, therefore, leads Christians to expect non-believers will be better than any of their mistaken beliefs could make them. The biblical doctrine of universal sinfulness also leads Christians to expect believers will be worse in practice than their orthodox beliefs should make them. So there will be plenty of ground for respectful co-operation.
Christianity not only leads its members to believe people of other faiths have goodness and wisdom to offer, it also leads them to expect that many will live lives morally superior to their own. Most people in our culture believe that, if there is a God, we can relate to him and go to heaven through leading a good life. Let’s call this the ‘moral improvement’ view. Christianity teaches the very opposite. In the Christian understanding, Jesus does not tell us how to live so we can merit salvation. Rather, he comes to forgive and save us through his life and death in our place. God’s grace does not come to people who morally outperform others, but to those who admit their failure to perform and who acknowledge their need for a Saviour.
Christians, then, should expect to find non-believers who are much nicer, kinder, wiser and better than they are. Why? Christian believers are not accepted by God because of their moral performance, wisdom or virtue, but because of Christ’s work on their behalf. Most religions and philosophies of life assume that one’s spiritual status depends on your religious attainments. This naturally leads adherents to feel superior to those who don’t believe and behave as they do. The Christian gospel, in any case, should not have that effect.
It is common to say that ‘fundamentalism’ leads to violence, yet as we have seen, all of us have fundamental, unprovable faith-commitments that we think are superior to those of others. The real question, then, is which fundamentals will lead their believers to be the most loving and receptive to those with whom they differ? Which set of unavoidably exclusive beliefs will lead us to humble, peace-loving behaviour? One of the paradoxes of history is the relationship between the beliefs and the practices of the early Christians as compared to those of the culture around them. The Graeco-Roman world’s religious views were open and seemingly tolerant – everyone had his or her own God. The practices of the culture were quite brutal, however.
The Graeco-Roman world was highly stratified economically, with a huge distance between the rich and poor. By contrast, Christians insisted that there was only one true God, the dying Saviour Jesus Christ. Their lives and practices were, however, remarkably welcoming to those that the culture marginalised. The early Christians mixed people from different races and classes in ways that seemed scandalous to those around them. The Graeco-Roman world tended to despise the poor, but Christians gave generously not only to their own poor but to those of other faiths. In broader society, women had very low status, being subjected to high levels of female infanticide, forced marriages and lack of economic equality. Christianity afforded women much greater security and equality than had previously existed in the ancient classical world. During the terrible urban plagues of the first two centuries, Christians cared for all the sick and dying in the city, often at the cost of their lives.
Why would such an exclusive belief system lead to behaviour that was so open to others? It was because Christians had within their belief system the strongest possible resource for practising sacrificial service, generosity and peace-making. At the very heart of their view of reality was a man who died for his enemies, praying for their forgiveness. Reflection on this could only lead to a radically different way of dealing with those who were different from them. It meant they could not act in violence and oppression toward their opponents.
We cannot skip lightly over the fact that there have been injustices done by the church in the name of Christ, yet who can deny that the force of Christians’ most fundamental beliefs can be a powerful impetus for peace-making in our troubled world? [Pages 18-21]
This is representative of our way forward, Church!
It is not about eliminating the real differences of genuine conviction, which have been the bedrock of the faith for millennia. But, it is to inform our internals of the resources of the Christian view of the world, which should breed real tolerance, increasing civility, and real-world impact.
While it would be proper good if real tolerance and increasing civility were more modelled in the marketplace of ideas, this appears a good deal from the case, which means a new generation has only a little realistic idea.
Therefore, this becomes another opportunity for the Body of Christ to pick-up this ball, and run with it.
This is a vehicle for the modern church to take her place, and prove her view of the world through the way this Body both honestly communicates, while also respectfully disagrees. Because the lights are out, and everyone has fled the burning building, this becomes a contingency for the Gospel to, not only turn the lights on, but put the fire out.
It is time our knees communicatively stood this tall!
For the Fame of His Name