Is Jesus Christ the Only Way?
Is Jesus Christ the only way to God? This is a question the sharply divides Christians today. I can think of at least four answers that Christians of various stripes honestly hold. I would term the four positions as: Exclusive, Pluralistic, Inclusive, and Normative. Each of them has a goal in relationships with folks who aren’t Christian. I invite you to reflect on where you stand.
Exclusive:
Jesus Christ is the Only Way, the Only Truth, the Only Light, the only path to God, to Salvation. The Exclusive answer has a hard and a softer version. The Hard Version: Without a Faith Relationship with Jesus you will not enter the Kingdom of God, be Saved, or avoid Hell and Damnation. The Softer Version: Christianity is the only True Religion but God’s Love as revealed through Jesus may well include everyone and anyone as God chooses. The Goal here with other people is Conversion
We all know the historical short comings of particularly the hard version of this position. Think intolerance, persecution and being a real downer at a party. On the other hand, historically people holding to the softer version of this position have historically often been the most committed resisters to injustice in the Christian community. The strongest Christian voices of opposition in Nazi Germany were mostly from this stance. Open minded, culture affirming liberals usually caved.
Pluralistic:
There are many ways to God and Christian faith is only one of them. All the Religions lead to God. Jesus embodies the Way to God by dying to self and rising to Love, but that same way can be found in other religious traditions and even secular ways of life.
Polls tell us that this is now the view of majority of Americans. This view seeks to reject the damage done by Christians who have wielded power to advance the Exclusive position. It affirms that truth and beauty are found universally in the human experience. The goal here is Acceptance of diversity. But to hold this position you probably have to gloss over real differences among the various religions and spirituality traditions which risks not taking any of them seriously enough.
Inclusive:
Jesus Christ is the Way and the Truth and the Light. He is God’s Love incarnate. Christians are those who follow him consciously and explicitly. But anyone who leads a life dedicated to self-giving love, to truth and justice and compassion is following Jesus’ way. Such folks are, as one theologian put it, “Anonymous Christians”. This position was quite popular among progressive Christians a generation or two ago. The Goal here is helping people Recognize God in their own experience.
This position is on one hand sincerely affirming of non-Christians and at the same time it can be a little patronizing. Maybe by the same token good Christians could be seen as “Anonymous Buddhists” or “Anonymous Moslems”
Normative:
Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Light for us. Christ is the way in which we Christians have experienced the direct loving presence of God in our lives. Jesus is the Criteria by which we judge the rest of life, including all Christian and non-Christian religious claims. But we don’t possess a “God’s eye view of reality” so we have no way of knowing if all the Religions are in deep agreement; are just different roads up to the same mountain top or not.
It takes years of living inside a Faith Tradition to understand it. Each of us can only begin to comprehend the particular path we are on. The Goal here is Conversation. Our religious differences may be more interesting than our agreements. We can tell you about our Christian experience, but about Buddhism you’ll have to talk to a Buddhist, about Islam, talk to a Moslem, etc.
Okay, I guess you can kind of tell which one I like.
Peace,
Bryan
The exclusive view seems to be dominate among Christians, even liberal Christians. Thank for the different views, but I really wonder if there aren’t only two, the exclusive and the others.
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My guess is that most people attracted to “The Episcopal Church” these days would comfortably accept any of these viewpoints excepting, of course, the evil “exclusive”. While I genuinely commend you for your nod to the adherents of the “softer version” of exclusivity, I have to laugh at the way you praise them as, “…historically often [having] been the most committed resisters to injustice…” Truly, you have learned the Episcopal “newspeak” very well! This emphasis on “justice” as the all-important goal rather than preaching submission to Christ (out of which flows, among other good and true things, a desire for justice) is perhaps the central problem in the contemporary Episcopal church. People are being lead into the spiritual wilderness and are at grave risk of becoming forever lost there by this kind of progressive political philosophy masquerading as the Gospel.
I wonder how many of your current congregants are aware that three years ago, 90+% of the members of your parish voted to disaffiliate from The Episcopal Church. They did so knowing full well that they were risking the loss of the ability to worship in a place where many had been doing so all their lives and, for some, where their families had been doing so for generations. The Vestry members (I being one of them) knew that they were at risk of being personally sued by an Episcopal hierarchy that was not very tolerant of dissent from its “anything-but-exclusive” viewpoint. But the parish members and the Vestry could clearly see that they were facing a much greater risk; that of being forced to violate their conscience by being forced to walk down the progressive road to ruin. So, being the “softer version exclusives” that they were (and are), they became “the most committed resisters to injustice” by disaffiliating anyway. The rest, of course, is history. They were sued (as a body, and individually as Vestry members) and then forced out of their treasured property. Of course, God, being God, did not desert and they are now thriving as the local Anglican alternative, St. Luke’s Anglican Church, La Crescenta (anyone interested can “google” it).
It will be of great interest to me to see if you leave this response up on your blog. I hope you do (even though Bishop Bruno probably won’t like it
Hi Bob,
I don’t think you can really follow Jesus and not be committed to justice. I had in mind folks like 19th Century evangelicals in the U.S. and Great Britain who led the abolitionist movements, as well as Christians who opposed Nazism like the theologians Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Although I wouldn’t put him in the “exclusives” camp, there is also the great example of Martin Luther King and the leadership of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in the Civil Rights movement. You can’t submit yourself to Christ and not be committed to justice any more than you can not be committed to compassion and forgiveness. You know “Loving your neighbor”, “the least of this” “Blessed are those who seek Justice.” The Western World’s progressive political beliefs are the children of Judaism and Christianity.
Yes, the current members know the history of St. Luke’s. You all choose to leave the Episcopal Church because a majority of us have come to see that the justice that following Jesus commands includes full acceptance of gay and lesbian people in the life of the Church and decided, through our democratic decision making structures, that that includes all of its ministries, lay and ordained. ( Yes, you can site a handful of lines of Scripture in opposition, in the same way that earlier defenders of slavery and the opponents to the ordination of women had their proof texts to quote.)
You were in no way forced out of St. Luke’s or the Episcopal Church. You are all still welcome here at St. Luke’s. You were and are totally free to hold your own positions on this issue and to openly disagree with decisions the Church as a whole has made, while still being members. No one in any way tried or will try to hamper your dissent. I fail to see the injustice you were resisting. You of course were free to leave. You were simply not entitled to take Church property and assets with you. In the Episcopal Church, a local congregation holds property in trust for the purpose of being an Episcopal Church and property returns to the larger Episcopal Church if that purpose in no longer being served. The Courts in California, and every other state where this issue has been tried, have ruled that legally this is the case.
Bob, why don’t you drop by my office sometime for a cup a coffee and we can discuss this further.
Peace,
Bryan
P.S. Bishop Bruno sends his best regards as well.
Dear Bryan,
Peace to you. I was born and raised Catholic . . . then I realized I needed a more inclusive religion especially of gay/lesbian and female leadership and through many twists and turns found the Episcopal church –and without knowing it, I was researching what the church stood for in the middle of the controversy over the confirmation of the gay bishop. Well, to make a long story short, I joined a church that supported the more inclusive view of God’s love and it was not the old “St. Luke’s” . . . Inclusivity is important to me, diversity is important to me. I left the Episcopal church a few years back to go on a journey and seek God on my own, for various reasons. I have a personal relationship with “God” and it has become deeper because I went outside the constraints of Christianity and have learned about him from other traditions. I have become a more loving and giving person in so doing and slowly becoming more courageous to stand up for injustices that I see going on in our world. I had to grow passed my comfort zone of Christianity –I am still growing — to become more in tune with “God”… there are so many faith traditions from which to learn. I hold that pluralistic view which you describe above. But I disagree with the last sentence. And from this last sentence: “But to hold this position you probably have to gloss over real differences among the various religions and spirituality traditions which risks not taking any of them seriously enough” and the fact that you use the word “probably” I see that you do not understand what pluralistic Christians think. Of course, you cannot given that you are a leader of the church. In the end of your letter, you say that you can speak from the Christian experience only . . well, please refrain from making blanket statements of Christians who follow other faith traditions . . . Why should anyone take any religion seriously? The minute one does, one risks attachment to a set of ideas that immediately makes a person feel that they are “right” and the others wrong . . . judgement of others follows. . . and from there seeds of arrogance are planted, and in the extreme case hatred . . . I know you are a loving person and havent gone down this path _I am not talking about you-, but it is so easy for many to do so. I am trying to understand the other religions, find the common ground and go from there. In understanding other faith traditions, I open my eyes to the differences -a learning experience does not gloss over differences . . . I do not know where this journey will end … all I know is that I take my spirituality seriously, and maybe you are right, maybe in the end I will not take any religion seriously because in the end it is a personal relationship we have with “God” and I really think he,she, it does not care whether a person takes any one of the man-made traditions seriously. Just that we live a life based in love and compassion and understanding . . .
I had the best Easter Service this year 2012 at Saint Luke’s in La Crescenta. I enjoyed everyone there and felt welcomed. Your sermon had depth I seek
and we will be back.Thank you.
Thanks. Great to have you with us! Looking forward to seeing you again.