You believe in a religion based upon a Jewish man who was born to a virgin, performed healings and miracles for a period of three years, spoke of judgment and a kingdom coming to earth on the power of a cosmic god, was killed by the Romans, rose from the dead, and ascended to heaven. All of this 2,000 years ago and 6,000 miles away from where you live. The book from which you learn of this man was written by a hand full of followers in the form of letters and histories between 20 and 120 years after his death. At least some, if not most of these books were written by persons who had never met the man about whom they wrote.
And sometimes you question your faith?
Seeing things like this always makes me wonder and question what is so different about my religion vs any other one? What makes mine right? I am sure that it sounds just as unbelievable as others do to me at times. I think the older I get (and maybe the more I learn?) the more I think that maybe Christianity is not the only way.
ReplyDeleteNick, I've been having those same thoughts lately. The similarities among belief systems do make you wonder if we aren't worshiping the same God with different names. That is so foreign to everything I know about Christianity though. I'm grateful not to be a parent in this season because I don't know what I'd teach my children about Christianity. (And my name is going to come up Mrs. Barnard b/c this used to be my school gmail.)
ReplyDeleteI think as a parent it's good for our kids to see us wrestle with things and not just accept them at face value, hoping teaching them more critical thinking. And hopefully it will show them and we are not just blindly following things, and hopefully making our faith more of our own with every question that we have.
ReplyDeleteInteresting to think through this. Interesting comments. I may be misinterpreting what you guys are saying, but I feel pretty strongly that pluralism and relativism are incompatible with Christianity. To say we are Christian, but that we accept other religions as "true" or "the way," to me, means we've invented our own religion. This is not Christianity. Christianity, as I understand it, does not allow for such a split. Not only because of Jn 14:6, but because nothing else in the NT could lead me to the conclusion that Jesus, Paul, or anyone in the early church saw another option for salvation but by Jesus.
ReplyDeleteThis may depend upon what you understand "truth" or "the way" to mean. If you mean we should be respectful of other religions, good. But Christianity calls us to be more than respectful. It calls us believe in something. Specifically, our "truth" is that the God we read about in the Bible made the world, rules the world, sent Jesus to atone for the world, will someday judge the world, and someday restore the world. Our "way" is to live with Jesus as our model and his teachings as our guide.
It's not enough for me to say that other religions are centered around an omnipotent god, believe in peace, have a creation story, and/or talk about heaven or the afterlife. We believe in the God who is the father of Jesus.
This is also not to say that I make a judgment on people who practice another religion. I can't say whether a Buddhist will be reincarnated. And I think it's ok to say that you don't know whether your religion is the true religion. But at some point, to be a believer, which is what Christ requires of us, we have to commit our lives to him, rather than practice some humanist-do-good-on-earth-everyone-get-along-type religion with a Christian flavor.
The question is: what do you believe? If the answer is "in Christ," how can you disagree with His own words that there's no way to the father but by him?
There's much more to be said on this topic. As I'm typing this I'm thinking of how you guys could respond. Feel free.
Really good exegesis for Jn 14:6 in this essay. Kind of long, but mostly disagrees with the way I've just used the verse - says Jesus isn't talking at all about who's in/who's out in the verse.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.brianmclaren.net/emc/archives/McLaren%20-%20John%2014.6.pdf
I don't think that pluralism and Christianity are compatible. But, at this point, when I'm questioning, pluralism seems like an option. The heart of that struggle for me is, if I believe that the OT is myth (in the not true sense), without Biblical indication of such, how can I believe in the NT? I remember Clint writing about the OT being written for the Israelites during captivity. That sounds good. That sounds like a way to mediate the absurdities of the OT with NT and modern Christianity. But(and I really don't know here), is that theological conjecture? Is that historically corroborated? I'm also curious about the virgin birthed deities that predate Christ. The commonalities among the myths make it difficult for me to even believe the NT verbatim. I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water, but there is so much more I need to know to feel settled.
ReplyDeleteI feel the need to say that this is a weird place for me. I don't feel so unsettled that I'm not praying or not enjoying church. I just feel hyper-analytical.
Also, I hope this is coherent - there is a 7 year old in my office, talking to me.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B2Ap3jcGq6QfZjYyOGU0Y2ItNmM2Mi00NDUwLTg0OTktNmU3YjNlM2RkZjJh&hl=en
ReplyDeleteThis is a little dense, but I scanned part of the introduction to a book on the OT. I think something like this could be good for a discussion among the group.
Also, if you're looking for more history that goes along with the OT, when it was written, by whom, etc., wikipedia has some decent stuff and you can surf around google to find materials.
So last night Jen and I were talking about what our religion looks like for us. It made me have some more thoughts about this. I agree that pluralism and Christianity are not compatible. This then got me thinking about our own Christian denominations (after group last night). It struck me for the first time that other Christians might not call me a Christian at all and might firmly believe that I am bound for hell because of some of my behaviors (cussing, drinking, etc) or because of some of my beliefs (I don't think somebody has to be baptized to be a Christian). In some ways it seems like some of these differences could be as big between denominations and even just from Christian to Christian as they are between different religions.
ReplyDeleteWhatever the case, I am glad that this is not up to me to decide who or what qualifies.