BIBLICAL REFLECTIONS ON FAITH IN PLURALISTIC, POSTMODERN, POST-CHRISTIAN AND PAGAN WORLD
MICHAEL BIRD
INTRODUCTION
We live in an age which is becoming increasingly hostile historical Christianity. This hostility emanates from a public mindset that is pluralistic, postmodern, post-Christian and even pagan. The Christian worldview does not comport with it and therefore falls within its cross hairs. I can think of no better example of this hostility than a recent article I found on the internet entitled, “Christian Book Store Faces Lawsuit for Religious Vilification in Victoria” by Tim Haywood. Let me read it to you:
“Anita Pearson on most days is a third year Law student at Gippsland University in Victoria. But lately she has been embroiled in a bitter controversy that is set to test the limits of Victoria’s religious vilification laws and not doubt also ruffle the feathers of fundamentalist Christians in Victoria. Anita is suing Gospel Book Store Australian for religious vilification on the grounds of selling anti-Islamic and anti-Jewish publications. In a recent interview Anita told her story, ‘It all started when a Muslim friend of mine, Jasmine, complained of Christians on campus trying to convert her to Christianity. They handed her some publications about how Islam is ‘evil’ and ‘of the devil’. One book stated very clearly that the only way to avoid going to hell was to become a Christian. I was out raged; I mean I was really angered by this. To think that someone in this day and age could be so arrogant as to believe that their religion is the only true religion and
everyone else is wrong. It was unbelievable. The first thing I did was to go to the university Senate and tried to get Christian groups band from Campus. Although the student representatives were mostly in favour of the decision the University itself was concerned with legal factors such as freedom of speech, discrimination and as you’d expect funding from various Churches. So in the end I went to the Christian shop where the books were from and had a look for myself. When I got there I was amazed. On one shelf alone I saw an assortment of books that basically denied or denounced every single religion in the world. Can you believe this, there were even book on how to convert people from other religions. It was so obscene. Here we are in Australia, a multi-cultural country, and yet we are permitting groups under the auspices of ‘religious freedom’ to promote this program of hatred and intolerance. It was then that I decided that something had to be done.’ What had to be done by Anita was to go to civil liberties lawyer Christopher Stevenson and to lodge a claim against Gospel Books Australia. On being told of the accusation Gospel Books Australia Chairman Alfred Winters made a press release stating, ‘There is nothing in the stock of books in Gospel stores through out Australia that could be considered offensive or vilifying. We simply offer books that are
helpful to Christians in their daily life and ministry.’ If Anita’s lawsuit against Gospel wins, it will have tremendous repercussions through out the state, particularly for fundamentalist Churches. The lawsuit has worried many Church figures including the outspoken Rev. Tom Costello who predicted that, ‘If the lawsuit wins then it effectively means that litigation against Christians and Churches will become widespread. Whoever professes faith public ally will be liable to prosecution. In essence what is at stake
here is the criminalization of evangelical Christianity.’ Yet not all religious leaders are opposed to the law suit. Some have even celebrated its arrival. Church leaders such as Rev. Tom Harris of St. Peter Uniting Church in Geelong have hailed the lawsuit as ‘ground breaking’. According to Harris, ‘Fundamentalism has eaten the heart and soul out of religion since the nineteenth century. This is a great opportunity to legally enforce religious tolerance and openness and to stifle out the arrogance and ignorance of fundamentalists in Victoria for good.’ The dispute is set to go to court on August 12th and whatever the result it would seem that religion in Victoria will never be the same again.”
Let me ask, how does it make you feel? Are you angered by this? Frightened? Unsurprised even? Well, before you draw arms and march on Victoria, I must make a confession. This story I have read is entirely fictitious: I made it up [including all names and identities]. Nevertheless, I hope you agree that despite being imaginative it is thoroughly believable. I don’t know about you, but I for one, can actually envisage this happening. This is because the prevailing attitude towards Christianity in our society is eminently hostile. It is hostile, most of all, towards our claim to an absolute truth, namely, that Christ alone saves. You find this in numerous anti-Christian slogans:
How can Christians say that their religion is the only one true religion? All Christians want to do is impose their beliefs on others! If you were born in India you’d be a Hindu too! Speaking at a conference in Atlanta about 9/11 former U.S President Bill Clinton said, "Don’t believe that you know the whole truth. That’s what the terrorists believed."
Dr. David Tracey of La Trobe University in Victoria recently stated that, “Fundamentalists believe they have the absolute truth and therefore they have the absolute right to cause havoc and mayhem in the name of their God.” According to the wisdom of the age, evangelicals (pejoratively known as fundamentalists) who make absolute claims are really on an ideological par with terrorists.
RELIGIOUS PLURALISM
It is important to understand what we are actually dealing with; it is a phenomenon known as religious pluralism. Defined, religious pluralism is: “The belief that every religion is true. Each provides a genuine encounter with God. No one religion is any better or any truer than any others.”
Let me say that there is nothing new to this. Christians have been attacked across the face of history for failing to embrace other religions. Indeed, during the first and second centuries, Christians were denounced as Atheists because they refused to worship any of the gods of the Greco-Roman pantheon and especially in their refusal to worship the Emperor. The pagan writer Celsus wrote a vicious attack on the exclusive claims of Christians in the second century AD when he wrote: “It makes no difference if one invokes the highest God or Zeus or Adonai or Sabaoth or Amoun, as the Egyptians do, or Papaios as the Scythians do.” That of course is not too different from modern times when the poet Alexander Pope said:
Father of all, in every age
In every clime, adored
By saint, by savage, or by sage,
Jehovah, Jove or Lord.
The point is that all religions each provide access to God and an adequate knowledge of him. To quote the recent movie ‘Dogma’, “It doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you believe.” Now this is not all abstract and limited to an anti-Christian intellectual elite, but such a view has filtered down into mainstream society. This is increasingly relevant, afterall, because we now live in a country where there are more Buddhists than Baptists according to the most recent Australian census. Furthermore, religious pluralism is also becoming increasingly prominent in the media and even in legislation.
Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, urged Christians to share their faith with those in the work place. In response to this was an article in the Sydney Morning Herald reacting strongly to the Archbishops words:
“It is appropriate, indeed, vital in a free society that individuals should be able to cherish their religious beliefs. It is arrogant and dangerous, however, for anyone to assume a right or duty to convert others. In the multicultural, multi-god nation that modern Australia is, proselytizing can only needlessly provoke community tensions. In Australia, one’s religion is largely a private matter. It should remain that way.”
In keeping with its “commitment to multiculturalism,” Southern Cross University in Northern NSW has issued a draft protocol on spiritual practice. While admitting that, for some, “sharing the expression of spiritual belief is part of their spiritual practice” nonetheless in the words of the proposed protocol, “at the University it must not include proselytising (seeking to convert) others about a particular faith or denomination”. So much for the days when Universities were places of free speech.
Another point of interest is that the Victorian State Government’s Racial and Religious Tolerance Bill passed in 2001, could potentially criminalize evangelism if it is deemed to be offensive or vilifying.
Now I’m not a prophet, I’m not the son of a prophet, but I do work for a non-profit organization. This is where I think it is all going; first, it will be illegal to criticize another religion (publicly or privately). Second, it will be illegal to evangelize as evangelism implies a critique of a persons pre-existing beliefs.
What I would like to do now is to offer some Biblical reflections on why we cannot capitulate to the present ethos of society. Why we cannot go along with the view that all religions lead to salvation or all religions are equally true.
1. IN GOD’S DEALINGS WITH ISRAEL, THE UNIQUENESS OF GOD PRECLUDED THE WORSHIP OF OTHER GODS.
Exod 20:1-6
Prior to the entrance of the Promised Land the Israelites are exhorted to have no other gods other than Yahweh. But why? Does God get lonely if he’s not worshipped.
The answer lies in the preamble to the Ten Commandments, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery”. The reason is simple: the uniqueness of his salvation and uniqueness of his being means that God does not share worship with anyone. No other God creates, no other God redeems, so no other God is to be worshipped. History has shown it was Israel’s constant undoing – worshipping other gods. Now, the metaphor used most frequently to denounce worship of others gods in the OT is adultery. Adultery is the ultimate betrayal of trust and the definitive rejection of love. How would you be if you’re wife or husband said, ‘I want you to know that I think it is alright for you to sleep around, monogamy must be so monotonous for you, so go out and sleep around a little.’ You couldn’t help but wonder exactly how dear you were to your spouse. Similarly, what kind of God would God be if he didn’t give a flying donuts roll who Israel worshipped: sacrifice your children to Molech, consult Belzeebul about the future, serve the Asherah poles, give your money, and make your sacrifices how you want. A god who cares not who we worship, is a god who cares not who we are. But the God of the Bible is a God who cares intimately and loves unceasingly and is therefore deeply interested in the faithfulness of his people. By implication then the fidelity of heart and the purity of worship of God’s people is not to be compromised. Faithfulness to the creator and redeemer is not to be laid aside because of social trend. However, politically correct or sociable it is to worship the modern day Baals, Asherahs or Molechs – we must abstain. We are not to flirt with the flood of religious fads – even if someone like Oprah endorses it.
2. JESUS’ OWN PERSONAL CLAIM MAKES HIM THE SOLE MEDIATOR OF GOD’S TRUTH AND SALVATION
Jn 14:1-6
For the bidding Johannine scholars among you, you would know that a major theme in John’s Gospel is that Jesus is God’s uniquely commissioned emissary to Israel who makes the Father known. In 1:18 it says that Jesus literally ‘exegetes’ God. Jesus reveals, manifests and represents all that God is: but he does so uniquely. This uniqueness is emphasized by the exclusive statements in John’s Gospel.
1:18 - No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only. 3:2 - For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him. 3:13 - No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven--the Son of Man. 6:44 - No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.
You get the point, if Jesus, then no-one else.
Hank Hanegraff makes this point very well in a story he tells about the world parliament of religions. He says:
The year was 1893. The place was Chicago. Buddhists, Bahà’ís, and Bhakti Yogis had arrived from the East to attend the inaugural World’s Parliament of Religions. While their contingent was sizable, they were vastly outnumbered by Bible believers from the West. Despite the disparity in numbers, however, the impact of the Eastern contingent was monumental. Swami Vivekananda, a disciple of the self-proclaimed “god-man” Sri Ramakrishna, used the Parliament to skillfully sow the seeds for a new global spirituality. Personifying tolerance and tact, he persuasively proclaimed the fundamental unity of all the world’s religions. One hundred years later — at the centennial celebration of the original Parliament (August 1993) — the impact of Vivekananda’s message could be seen in living color.
Buddhists outnumbered Baptists, and saffron robes were much more common than Christian clerical clothing.
The swami’s message of unification and universalism had undergone a metamorphosis as well. Almost imperceptibly, it had evolved into a sinister creed: The fundamental unity of all religions except one — historic Christianity. With alarming fanaticism orthodox Christianity was denounced as the obstacle to harmonizing the world’s religions.
In a session titled “Voices of Spirit and Tradition,” the director dogmatically declared that people must be weaned from the divisive doctrine that only their own religion is true. During a plenary performance titled “The Truth Spin Dance,” the very idea of objective [or absolute] truth was mercilessly mocked. Loud laughter erupted at the mere mention of “the Gospel truth.”
As the Parliament progressed, I was asked to defend the tenets of historic Christianity on a nationally syndicated radio broadcast. Within minutes the phone lines were jammed with callers dogmatically denouncing the notion of objective truth as intolerant and bigoted.
In reply I demonstrated that tolerance in personal relationships is a virtue but tolerance in truth is a travesty. Two plus two doesn’t equal 17. It equals four. If this truth is circumvented in calculus, the inevitable result is chaos. Likewise, to compromise the claims of Christ can only lead to calamity.
Despite my response, the host of the show joined in the fray. “I can accept most of what you say,” he enjoined. “But what I can’t accept is your assertion that there is only one way to God.”
“That’s not my assertion,” I responded. “That’s what Christ said. His opinion is infinitely more noteworthy than yours or mine because He is the Creator and we are but creatures.”
APPLICATION
So what should be our response to a pluralistic, postmodern, post-Christian, and pagan world which demands that we do not make exclusive claims about truth or salvation? I think that the answer is twofold.
First, affirm the Reformation Battle Cry: Sola Christo – or Christ Alone. I once had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. James Haire, the moderator of the Uniting Church of Australia. It was interesting how he talked about the relationship between Christianity and Islam since he is well known for facilitating dialogue between the two groups in Indonesia. He confessed to me that Islam is ultimately a different system of salvation and does not yield a redemptive relationship with God. He called himself a ‘Christofascist’. I like that term, a Christofascists is someone who steadfastly maintains the uniqueness of Christ, his exclusive claims to be Saviour, despite the fact that we may be labeled as bigoted and intolerant before the world. So my advice to you is, be a Christofascist. At university, at work, at home with our family we must reaffirm that Christ is the only saviour. At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, every Muslim, every Jew, every Hindu and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Second, we must engage the world with the message of Christ. On the one hand, what I’ve been telling you could make you very pessimistic. This world doesn’t want to hear this message, so let’s all just go out into the outback, set up a little Christian commune, kick off our shoes, write a commentary on Daniel, and wait for the end of the world. Well we can’t. We cannot fulfill the great commission hiding in a tin shed at the back of Burke. We cannot be the light of the world hidden in the darkness of a cave. For, if there is one God, then he is the God of the whole world. God is the God of Asia, of Europe, of Africa, of Australia. The logical implication of Monotheism is Mission. The world needs to hear the good news of the resurrection, death is not God, but Jesus is. But how do we tell that to a pluralistic, postmodern, post-Christian, pagan world. I think we do it by telling them a new story. Let me give you an example.
Two travelers were walking to on the road to Emmaus lamenting over the world. A stranger approached them and he asked them what was wrong, why were they so sad? They replied, “Do you not know? Have you not heard?” We have just come out of the bloodiest century in the history of the world, Auschwitz, Hiroshima, the killing fields of Cambodia, Genocide in Rwanda and Yugoslavia, two World Wars, Terrorism. We thought that Technology and Science would save us, but they did not. Instead, we have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world ten times over and we’ve polluted our planet to the point that it is no longer inhabitable in some parts. When communism fell we thought the globe would experience a new world order of unprecedented peace, but now the world is divided once more, polarized into those countries who are Islamic and those who are secular Democracy’s. We sit on our lounge chairs and cower every time we see a 747 fly over a city. The Church is known for pedophiles not for preaching. Doesn’t matter anyway, because most people don’t really believe in God. The hopes of the world in this last century sank with the Titanic, deep down in the icy waters, irretrievably lost forever.
And the stranger said to the two travelers, "Oh, you foolish ones and slow of heart. Have you not read the Old and New Testaments." And the stranger began to expound the Scriptures to the two of them, starting with Creation, the fall of Adam, the call of Abraham, the nation of Israel, the prophets, the Messiah and the Apostles. He didn’t offer them proof texts, he didn’t offer them a story, but rather, he told THE story - about God and his creation, and how the two were to be reconciled through the Son.
And the three of them came along the shores of a beach where a crowd of people were waiting. They had cast their bread upon the sea of Postmodernism to see what it might bring, and yet all that washed up upon the shore was rockfish and rotten seaweed. And the Stranger fed them, with bread from heaven and new wine that quenched their thirst. It was then that the two travelers recognized the Stranger as Jesus. Then like mist he vanished. And the two travelers said, "Did our hearts not burn within us as he told the story about God, humanity and the victory over evil. He told us of our reconciliation to God, the redemption of our bodies, and how God would at last be all-in-all."
That is, I submit, the story the world needs to hear. Yes, Jesus is the only saviour, but he is simultaneously the saviour of the whole world. For many will come from the East and the West, from the Orient and the Occident, from the four corners of the earth, and sit down at the wedding supper of the lamb.
Sources:
D.A. Carson, The Gagging of God
Paul Copan, True for You but not for Me
Robert Forsyth, “Dangerous Protections: How Some Ways of Protecting Religious Freedom May Actually Diminish the Freedom of Religion” website: http://www.cis.org.au/Events/acton/acton01.htm .
Spiritual Practice at Southern Cross University Draft For Comment 15 October 2001 Statement of Policy
N.T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said.
N.T. Wright, “The Resurrection of the Messiah” Sewanee Theological Review 41 (1998).
“Loosing our Religion” The Sunday Mail (Sunday 29 December 2002), pp. 48f.
Michael Bird, mfbird@telstra.com
Soli Deo Gloria
Grace Bible Church, Brisbane
