This is a confusing time in which to live. It was not long ago that America was a place where we, for the most part, understood each other and where other people were coming from. We shared common standards of ethics, and whether or not we followed those ethics, we understood them and agreed with those standards of conduct. Very few people disagreed with what was considered obvious truth. It wasn’t that those things never happened, but when they did, people at least recognized that those things were wrong. Those days are no longer with us.
There was also a time when we basically considered ourselves a “Christian” nation in that we generally identified with the Christian faith. There was a feeling that the principles on which our country was founded (freedom, democracy, law and morality) were principles which came from the Christian Scriptures. We did not see a problem with the fact that the laws of the land came from the laws of the Bible. The Ten Commandments were seen as a good thing. Prayer, even at public events, was welcomed and deemed important. The Bible was seen as “the good Book” rather than a dangerous document. Things have radically changed.
Last week, NBA Jason Collins of the Washington Wizards, came out as gay and was immediately propelled to rock star status and called on the phone by the President. Chris Broushard, an ESPN reporter was interviewed and stated that he and Collins were friends, played ball together and met each other socially, but that he felt homosexual activity, like adultery and fornication, was a sin and rebellion against God. He stated that he and Collins knew they disagreed on this and were still friends and tolerated each others viewpoint. Broushard was excoriated by the media and it may affect his position with ESPN. As Christians we want to say, “Hate the sin, love the sinner.” But that is unacceptable to those who insist that if we really accept them we should also accept and approve of their behavior.
It should be clear that our culture has rejected Christianity as a part of what defines us as a nation. We no longer welcome it as the primary religious influence on the nation. And in its place there has come a confusing array of multi-culturalism, pluralism, and belief systems and religions from other parts of the world. Eastern mysticism, Islam, the Kabbala, even animism are all seen as equal to, and as relevant as, Christianity. You can hear people say things like, “All religions are different paths to the top of the same mountain.” Worshiping the unknown god would apply describe the culture of our day.
It is interesting that in the opening ceremony of the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece, we were given a complete lesson in the ancient Greek gods and everyone found that fascinating. But if the ceremony had instead been lessons in the New Testament and Greek Orthodox faith, which has had a more profound impact on Greek culture and guided it for much longer, there would have been international outrage.
All of this is troubling to those of us who profess faith in the one Lord Jesus Christ who is Lord of heaven and earth. We come into direct conflict with the world when we say that Jesus is not one way among many, he is THE WAY. He is the only way that we can come to God. The Bible says, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men” (1 Timothy 2:5-6). There are not many mediators, there is only one. Jesus himself said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him” (John 14:6-7). There is only one true path up the one true mountain, the rest are climbing a different mountain. Because of Jesus’ claims, we do not recognize other religions as equally valid. We believe that Jesus Christ is the exclusive and universal Savior of the world.
How do we exist in a pluralistic culture which often seems more open to any religion other than Christianity, at best, and appears hostile at worst? How do we arrive at a place where we can dialogue with those of other moral systems and other faiths while remaining true to the Christian faith? I think there are three primary ways, and the first is this: We recognize that there is some truth in all religions and there are good people who follow these religions. We do not see other religions as completely evil, nor do we see them as being completely in error. We share some common beliefs with other religions, such as the fact that we believe there was a divine origin of the world — it was created and not a result of accident. There are also some common moral laws we share — it is wrong to cheat, steal and kill, for example. In many of these religions there is not only a desire to believe in a god, but a desire to come into contact with this god — to know and be known. When we are talking with people from other faiths, we can at least begin by talking about the things on which we agree. We need to show respect for their beliefs, and be more anxious to build relationships with them than we are to point out where they are wrong.
It is also important to remember that there are many good and sincere people who follow these other religions. They may even be seeking a deeper truth. You don’t know how God may be working in their hearts. Find a point of common ground rather than major on your differences in the beginning. After you have gotten to know them, earned their trust and built a relationship there will be plenty of time to talk over the differences and lead them to a fuller understanding of the truth.
Consider the example of the apostle Paul. When he arrived in Athens, it was like the opening ceremony of the 2004 Greek Olympics. The book of Acts says, “he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols” (Acts 17:16). He was surrounded by statues of the Greek gods, some of which were grotesque or sensual, but instead of talking against all of these, he found a point of reference that could reach them and help him get his point across. The book of Acts tells that he began like this: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring’” (Acts 17:22-28). Paul not only used one of the shrines to help present his case, he quoted their poets and philosophers, and in that way won over some of those who were wanting to find the truth.
Only then did Paul press his case further. He said, “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone — an image made by man’s design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:29-31). Paul did not water down the truth at all. He proclaimed it fully, but he began at a place where he found an opening rather than angrily pointing out where they were wrong. The response of the Greeks would have been quite different if he had been blunt and condemning in his approach. People need to know that you take them seriously and that you care for them personally before they will listen. As someone has said, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
The second way we approach people of other religions is: We recognize that God has placed a longing for himself inside every human heart. Just as God has made moths to be attracted to the light, so God has made every human being with an attraction to himself. Missionary Don Richardson, in his outstanding book Eternity in Their Hearts, traces how God has worked in the cultures and customs of the world, purposely planting things there that would ultimately help people understand the truth of who he is. The book is full of intriguing stories as Richardson traces the history and legends of several tribes, which Missionaries have used to reveal the Gospel to people who were desperate to understand and know the true God. Like the people of ancient Greece who had a monument to “the unknown god,” Richardson calls them “Peoples of the vague God.” They don’t need to be condemned for following the wrong God, they need someone to fill in the blanks for them — someone who will bring their vague concept of God into sharp focus. As they look through that lens they will see the person of Jesus standing before them and beckoning them.
I believe that God has placed in the heart of every person a desire to know him. And these are not just vague longings that can be satisfied with “spirituality” or just any religion. These longings can only be satisfied when they are touched by truth and reality — the God who made the world and sent his Son to take away their sins. There is something that happens in the hearts of people when they are presented with this truth.
In Steven Spielberg’s film about a slave ship called Amistad, the Africans revolt and are subsequently imprisoned. The African prisoners are given a Bible with pictures in it by the abolitionists. The Africans had no idea what the book was, and they could not read in their own language, let alone English. Yamba, one of the Africans, is intently looking over the Bible in the prison when Cinque says to him, “You don’t have to pretend to be interested in that.” “Nobody’s watching me,” Yamba says. “I’m not pretending. I’m beginning to understand.” He sees a picture of the Hebrew slaves in Egypt and says, “Their people have suffered more than ours. . . Their lives were full of suffering.” Turning to a picture of Jesus he exclaims, “Then he was born and everything changed.” “Who is he?” Cinque asks. “I don’t know, but everywhere he goes, he is followed by the sun,” Yamba says while pointing to the halo around his head. “Here he is healing people with his hands. Protecting them. . . Being given children. . .” “What’s this?” asks Cinque pointing to a picture. “He could also walk across the sea,” Yamba explains. “But then something happened. He was captured. Accused of some crime. Here he is with his hands tied.” “He must have done something,” reasons Cinque. “Why?” Yamba asks, “What did we do?” Yamba continues, “Whatever it was, it was serious enough to kill him for it. Do you want to see how they killed him?” “This is just a story, Yamba,” Cinque replies. “But look, Yamba says. “That’s not the end of it. His people took his body down from this. . . thing. . . this. . . [Yamba makes the sign of the cross.] “They took him into a cave. They wrapped him in a cloth, like we do. They thought he died, but he appeared before his people again. . . and spoke to them. Then, finally, he rose into the sky. This is where the soul goes when you die here. This where we’re going when they kill us. It doesn’t look so bad.”
How did Yamba figure all that out? The Holy Spirit was guiding and directing him to the truth — just as he will anyone who genuinely wants to find God and searches for him. He was being drawn like a moth to the flame. Jesus said, “I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd” (John 10:16).
The third way we approach people of other religions is: We recognize that Jesus is the universal Savior. Christianity is not the religion of white Americans. It did not arise out of the cultures of eastern Europe, even though it has transformed them. The first Christians were all Jews, as Jesus himself was a Jew. It was from Israel that the Good News spread throughout the Roman Empire and around the world. Jesus was not just for Jews, even though that was very difficult for the earliest Christians to understand. Jesus Christ is the living Savior of the whole world. He died for every person in every country in the world. He is as relevant today as he was two thousand years ago. Both young and old have had their lives dramatically altered by a relationship with him. Rich and poor, slave and free, intellectuals and uneducated, the punk rockers and socially elite, athletes and Geeks alike have encountered Jesus Christ and have found in him a transforming life experience. He is the God of the Bushman in southern Africa, the Asian in a remote village of China, the Hispanic in Central and South America, the executive in Washington D.C. and the teenager walking the streets of a mid-American town. Everyone needs Jesus, and everyone has access to him. He is the Savior of all and for all.
The Bible says, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). This is not something about which we need to be embarrassed, even if we are pressured by a culture that holds tolerance and inclusiveness as its primary doctrines. In our society’s attempt to create a politically correct world, there are those who want everything to be the same, and nothing to stand out or make claims of superiority. We use the phrase “Cutting the tall poppy” to describe this trend. The idea is that in a field of poppies, you cut the tall ones so that none of them stands out over the others. I heard that there is a trend in some educational circles to mark a student’s grade in light pencil if they get an “A” or a “100” on the test so that those who did not get a good grade will not feel badly. That is cutting the tall poppy.
This is why people are uncomfortable with the claims of Christianity. I was having trouble with understanding the adverse reaction to the Ten Commandments being placed in court rooms. After all, doesn’t everyone agree that it is wrong to kill and steal? But then someone reminded me that the first commandment is: “You shall have no other gods before me.” That’s the problem! You can’t have just one God, or one which stands above the others. Cutting the tall poppy in spiritual matters means that you try to make all religions the same.
But we are not parading around feeling superior to others, we are offering the bread of life to anyone who will take it. We are not keeping it to ourselves and saying, “We have it and you do not.” We are saying, “This is not exclusively ours, it is for everyone.” Someone has said that telling other people about Christ is like one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. We repeat the words of Isaiah the prophet: “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare” (Isaiah 55:1-2).
The Tampa, Florida City Council always had ministers say a prayer at their meetings. They insisted that it was not an unconstitutional religious act since they even let people of other faiths say the invocation from time to time. But a group known as “Atheists of Florida” decided they should have equal treatment. Ed Golly, the chairman of the atheist group, offered to have someone from his organization say the invocation. Councilman John Dingfelder agreed to let an atheist take a turn, but some of the other council members walked out when Michael Harvey arrived to say the invocation as scheduled.
I think it would have been interesting to have them come and hear their invocation. Whom would they invoke? To whom would they address the invocation, and what petition would they make to the void? It would have been a perfect time to help people see how vacuous life is without a living God with whom you can converse and have a relationship. Jesus Christ is for everyone. There is no cost and no barrier except the ones we build ourselves.
Let us be people of open hearts and minds, but let us also present the truth with courage and passion, because it is the gift of life. The prophet Joel said, “And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Joel 2:32).
Rodney J. Buchanan
Amity United Methodist Church
March 5, 2013
rodbuchanan2000@yahoo.com
