Exclusive and Inclusive
Intro
Originally I had intended to preach on the subject of Christian love, what it is, how we do it, and why we must do it. A nice simple topic. One that would not really upset the apple-cart or offend anybody. However during the later part of last week I have felt increasingly that I should actually be preaching about something that might not make me quite as popular. God seemed to be leading me through many different routes to approach this topic. Even when I had decided to change my planning for today, I still wanted to back out. Because the message for this morning is one that is totally opposed to the popular culture and thinking of society.
Popular morality values tolerance and inclusiveness more than any other virtue. Inclusivity has become a key word in most of our public services. Every effort is made to insure that everyone, no matter what their background, is able to take part and participate in society. This of course, is absolutely right. People from all cultures and religions are valued as human beings, again this is right.
However it often goes further than that. Cultural relativism has become a dominant belief in society. It takes the consumer society one step further. It teaches that there is not such thing as absolute truth, that all ways of life and religions are equally valid and that it is all a matter of personal choice as to what religion is followed or life-style and ethical code adopted. It is held that each religion – or none – is right for the people that do (or do not) believe it.
It is quite interesting that cultural relativism, by its very nature, cannot be consistent – the only value, philosophical, or religious belief that is acceptable boils down to cultural relativism itself. Anybody who challenges its core belief is derided and labelled with such terms as ‘intolerant’ or ‘bigot’. Anything that smacks of exclusive claims to being right is denounced and ridiculed. Ultimately it becomes a tyranny, as Mr Ratzinger pointed out, accepting differences in practices and behaviour, but not in world view from its own prevailing norm.
This is particularly true in the field of religion. The idea that all religions are equally valid and all equally lead to God is promulgated by many and is the accepted dogma of much of society. It is the unspoken idea behind multi-faith services and most popular and official approaches to matters of faith. We are all labelled together as ‘faith-organisations’ by local and national government, with no designation as to what we actually believe. The elephant story is hailed as the answer to all exclusive claims – briefly three blind-folded men were brought to an elephant and asked to describe it. One felt the middle of the elephant, one the trunk, one the tail, and they all described something different. Religion and spirituality are held to be like that, that each one is a blind man feeling a different part of the elephant.
With tolerance and inclusivity as the ultimate and most important virtues in the world around us, many Christians have tried to present the gospel in a way that does not offend such thinking. However, I believe that scripture shows that the gospel is both intolerant and tolerant, exclusive and inclusive.
Exclusive – Acts 4:12
Jesus Christ was, and is, a bigot. So says Joel Smith, an American preacher who I have recently come across on the internet. I quite agree with him. Throughout his life Jesus made exclusive claims about himself, claims that he was right and everybody else was wrong. That he alone had the solutions, and he alone was the way to God. Here are just two of the things that he said about himself:-
“I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6)
“I am the light of the world” (John 8:12)
Here was a man who certainly did not believe that it did not matter what you believed as long as you were sincere. As regards the idea that all roads lead to God, he said:-
“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matt 7:13-14 NKJV)
In short, Jesus would be as unacceptable to twenty-first century British society as he was to first century Judean society. If his earthly life was lived in Britain in the 21st century, he would probably have been vilified in the press as an intolerant religious fanatic. He taught that the only way to God was through him and his teachings and that any other way was the wrong way. He taught that there is only one right way, that if you tried a different way to him, your way was wrong and invalid.
No wonder he was put to death! If these statements were not true they were arrogant or deluded.
You might have thought that his followers would have tried to play down his exclusive teachings and his extravagant claims about himself. But we have heard how they stood before the rulers of the people, while they were on trial, and stated:-
“Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12 NKJV)
Truly the Christian gospel is exclusive. Jesus Christ claims to be the only way to God, he cannot be combined with any other religious system or belief. Modern culture would deride Christ for being intolerant, for being exclusive and for being a narrow-minded bigot. And in terms of the philosophy of the world, he is.
His teaching could be written off today as the rantings of a crazy first century fanatic if it were not for the well attested fact that, following his execution, he was miraculously restored to life. That scores of witnesses saw him alive after seeing him dead. His disciples seeing him to be the conquerer of death, and empowered by his Spirit fearlessly proclaimed his gospel, and that he was the only and exlusive way to God. Even when their lives were threatened as a result.
But I stated at the beginning that the gospel was also inclusive. How can that be?
Inclusive – Rom 3:23-24
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there were a scores of patent medicines (or nostrums), all of which were advertised by their makers as being efficacious for a huge range of different diseases and disorders. These panaceas, were a complete sham, claiming to cure totally diseases which were totally different and in reality required different treatments. Such is the variety of human ailments, with many different causes, that no one drug, operation or other treatment can cure them all. When I was a doctor working in on an emergency medical assessment unit patients would be brought in with a variety of different problems, and receive a variety of treatments. Even when the symptoms were similar, the underlying problem was often different. One person would be brought in because they were breathless, and I would give them a salbutamol nebuliser because the problem was asthma. The next breathless person might get an injection of frusemide because their breathlessness was caused by heart failure. It would have been no good giving the asthmatic frusemide, it would not do anything for his or her asthma.
In medicine therefore it there is no treatment that is always the right treatment for everybody everywhere no matter what their problem. Treatment has to be tailored to the individual person and the problem. Why, then, can there be only one solution in a spiritual way? How can there be only one way to be saved when we are all such different people with different needs, in different cultures and circumstances?
The answer to that shows why the gospel is all-inclusive as well as exclusive.
The simple answer can be found in the letter that the apostle Paul wrote to the Church in Rome.
Read Romans 3:23-24
The simple answer is that the basic, underlying, problem for all of us, of all cultures, races and backgrounds is the same. Sin. We all have the same problem. And here lies the great inclusivity of the gospel. All are offered the same solution. The way opened by Christ is not restricted by culture, by race, by time, by gender, by wealth, by background. It does not matter what we have done in the past.
It is sheer grace, the completely and totally undeserved favour and love of God that we do not deserve, that saves us, that brings us to God. That grace is available to all. The most inclusive thing in the universe. But it can be found exclusively through one person, and one person alone. The Lord Jesus Christ. Not a religious system, or set form of pray, or good deeds, but a person, Christ.
