Faith and the Future 2 (RJS)

Christianity has "a concept of God," as my nontheist friends say. Christianity has a central belief that God is love and that love is the force that holds the world together. Jesus enacts a radical vision of forgiveness and giving of self. You can't get around the cross. Buddha said, "if you meet me in the road, kill me." Jesus enacted this, dying that others might understand the message he was trying to convey and have life. He was the radical other of every earthly king, who demanded that their subjects pledge to die for their king. He died for his followers. Christianity is the only religion I know of whose core tenets include "forgive without seeking retribution and forgive and forgive and forgive," and "love your enemy as yourself" while resting, as the post points out, firmly in the hands of a God who is leading all to a good fulfillment. Christianity, rightly understood, is the only Way or Path by which a desperate, broken world can be turned upside down or right side up and reconnected with God. Other religions seem to me either more conformed to the world's ways or more focused on resignation, loss of ego and self-emptying.

As has been said, perhaps unfairly, Islam and Judaism have given up on changing the nature of man and thereby give him rules; Christianity writes itself on the hearts of people, changing us from within.

The frustration is that Christians, as George Bernard Shaw pointed out, "is a good idea. Too bad nobody ever tried it." I do get frustrated when, for example, the forgiveness of the Amish after the 2006 schoolhouse world is seen as awe-inspiring--by other Christians! Isn't that the way we should be living?

Bob, do you ever visit your parents, did you ever after forty.

It seems you have a flipant attitude here. As if "I've grown up and no longer need them". "I know better now".

Strange attitude really. I know you're talking about God and not parents, yet the moral to the story is the same. I hope never to leave doctrine and belief behind me. If they change somewhat, let it be in a mature justified direction. Not based on my brains inability to contain the truth, which is not an issue with me. My God, Jesus has increasingly shown his face to me over my adult life. Containing him is the last thing I want to do or shunning him for that matter.

The first question asked here is "Are all religions the same?" but I think a prior question needs to be asked. What do we mean by religion. In the context of Boyd I think that definition of religion would be a human system the regulates or controls access to God or the deity. From this perspective all religions are equal. Jesus came to eliminate human intermediary between a person and God/deity. This is a revolution, not reform, not religion. Yet over time this revolution once again became a system of control and access.

christianity is the only religion with a personal God still daily involved in his creation.

In my view, all of the great traditions and even indigenous religions are Spirit-animated human attempts to articulate truth in creed, celebrate beauty in cult or ritual, preserve goodness in code or law, and celebrate fellowship in community. They engage us, participatively, in myth, story-telling, song and symbol, addressing our most insistent longings and ultimate concerns. They all suffer tendencies for dogma to decay into dogmatism, ritual into ritualism, law into legalism and community into institutionalism, but all have also gifted humankind with authentically transformed individuals.

I buy into the notion that orthopraxy authenticates orthodoxy such that the efficacies of a religious approach would be reflected in how well it institutionalizes Lonergan's conversions (as expanded by Gelpi): intellectual, affective, moral, social-political and religious. At the same time, I don't suggest that we can very easily gather and interpret such sociologic data in order to adjudicate which path(s) work best. I also think we should avoid any facile syncretism, insidious indifferentism or false irenicism between traditions.

This is all to say that I do not think it is unreasonable or uncharitable or that one is necessarily "stuck" in mythic membership consciousness, so to speak, when suggesting such distinctions as
1) Christianity has a robustly self-critical, self-correcting prophetic tradition

2) Christianity has elements of a true myth

3) Even if other traditions or denominations enjoy a salvific efficacy via our own belief in a pneumatological inclusivity and even if one could live a life of abundance via an implicit faith, we might legitimately aspire, nonetheless, to a life of superabundance, to the most nearly perfect articulation, celebration, preservation & enjoyment of truth, beauty, goodness and unity available even if it is terribly problematic figuring out what that might be.

4) Being on one path vs another might result in our moving more swiftly and with less hindrance on our ongoing journeys of conversion and transformation and we want to get this right out of genuine compassion for all.

5) There may well be a dynamic in play of what is or is not developmentally-appropriate for one individual or another, even one culture or another, or even for humankind as a whole, different pages for different stages, so to speak.

6) Christianity reveals a God inviting us into an ever more intimate and personal relationship.

7) Jesus did not answer the philosophical and metaphysical questions of old or provide a well-worked out theodicy in response to Job and the psalmists or fully address our propositional concerns but responded to our deepest needs with Presence, both modeling and warranting a trust relationship with the Father and encouraging, even now, the same thru a Helper, the Spirit.

8) the Resurrection Event may be hard to describe in historical detail or a metaphysical account of HOW but has an overwhelming impetus and significance for us insofar as we can be confidently assured THAT something happened and it is responsible for our being here together, now, in love.

RJS-

"The purpose involves revolution and restoration - not salvation."

I was attempting to not limit it to just salvation (although I do think that is included); it sounds I did not communicate that well enough. So let me clarify:

I did mention restoration in my 1st sentence as part of the meta-narrative. My mentioning of creation later on was short-hand for Kingdom, beyond just a salvation concept.

In regards to God reaching us, I did not mean to indicate that it is the main point, but rather to show how that runs counter to other religions.

Good point about mission. It is key and I should have included that.

If all religions are a result of us being created "in the image of God" and us having a "God shaped vacuum inside us", then I would say yes, all religions spring from the same desire to know or relate to a Higher Being - whatever it ends up being called in the various religions.

I see the big difference between Christianity and other religions being that the Christian God does not require physical ritual, regular practices, forms of worship etc to please him. Grace has been extended to us in a way that I can't recall in any other religion.

I once organized a public forum in which representatives from four well represented religions answered a series of six questions from their perspective. We had an Imam, an Anglican Priest, a Buddhist monk (Theravada), and a Ba'hai representative. It was a neat experience and at each forum the answers improved (we did it in six locations: schools, town hall, etc.). The only one not willing to claim that all religions were the same was the Anglican - of course they all believed theirs to be the most true expression, but admitted that every religion was a valid yet lesser form of their own.

I think what stands out about the early church to me is that their focus was not a religious one but a communal one. We've well institutionalized Christianity but I consider that to our chagrin. Christianity isn't a question of which is the "best way" it is the answer of "the Way". Follower of Jesus stopped being religious and started living in a new way - a Kingdom way. As soon as we start getting religious (and I love liturgy and work in a religious institution) as our primary expression of faith we've lost our "way" for something easier and less ambiguous.

I don't think Christianity is a way of dealing with the mysteries of life, purpose, and mortality. This makes Christianity little more than a coping strategy. I too was thinking of the Boyd posts as I read this one. Christianity is what God has done in Christ. I also doubt (though I don't know) if other religions would be satisfied with this description. Would an animist describe animism as a way of dealing with the mysteries of life, purpose, and mortality? An animist may have little interest in such things.

Show me another religion where all that is required for salvation is a prayer and getting wet. I'm being a little sarcastic here, but not much. I am not too much of a scholar, but from what I have learned, Christianity is about the easiest path to God there could possibly be.

Rodney and Huol,

Grace yes - cannot be omitted from the equation - but isn't there more to the story we find ourselves in than "just" grace? Grace isn't purpose or hope - it is an essential part of getting us to fulfilled purpose and hope.

RJS, is grace the only thing that is unique? No. I'd want to go towards the unparalleled triune nature of God from which all Christian theology flows. Father. Christology, Jesus fully man, fully God. The Spirit as the empowering presence of the one triune God.

RJS,

Well God and Grace w/out Kingdom leads to a narrow individualistic, almost selfish, concept of the gospel, something plaguing modern Evangelicalism. Didn't Dr. McKnight run a whole series on how there's a dearth of "Kingdom" preaching within American Evangelicalism?

At the same time, I think many Christians have a poor understanding of Grace. Real Grace, the actual stuff, ought to shock everybody! Every believer should say, "it just sounds to d@*# good to be true!" I think Huol and Rodney make a good point, God's Grace cannot be overemphasized. After all...Jesus, the focus and center of Christianity, mainly came to reveal this very thing.

John 1:17
For the law was given through Moses; GRACE and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Kidden ---

I think Dr. McKnight has been beating this drum for quite awhile now, but I'm just starting to get it. Not the kingdom part - but the Grace part and what it really means. But I don't think that we actually understand Grace if community and kingdom are not front and center in the picture.

i think the resurrection is real and the significance is complex. Christ is present among us, in the community, in us... doing the work he did while on earth as a physical person. God is still present, with us and at work to free and liberate and give life. Without the resurrection, all we have is an ideology or life philosophy. Without the resurrection we have no power to face the evil, the oppression. That Christ is present by the Spirit, is what keeps me going... believing in the impossible.