Catalyst #5: The public schools message of multi-culturalism and pluralism conflicted with their church's teachings that those outside of Christ were doomed. "Possessing both a faith that is particular and an intimate knowledge of religious pluralism prodcued a tension that was nearly intolerable." This leads them to a religious pluralism or a much broader interpretation of what it means to be "a Christian."
Huzzah!
The need for Christians to engage with a genuinely pluralistic world with compassion and dialogue and winsomeness is well past.
The Dangers
Oi. This could take a couple of posts. Let me see if I can pitch my case against capitulating to a "all religions (or maybe just most religions) lead to God," even if that feels better.
#1. Most 21st century westerners smugly assume that we're living in the first pluralistic culture, or at least that the first century AD was a fairly and charmingly sweet and simple time. This is patently false. A quick glance through the book of Acts shows a veritable plethora of engagement with all kinds of religious practices: centuries-old religions alongside magic and sorcery alongside sophisticated philosophies.
In every case, in every cross-cultural and cross-religious engagement, the new Christians were adamant: what had happened in the death and resurrection of Christ was a new and final and decisive God-event that had ramifications for all peoples, everywhere.
The early disciples absolutely did not celebrate the religious diversity that they encountered. They were sickened and saddened by it. And they countered it at every turn with the news of the God who had come to live and die and conquer the grave for them.
It was this essential, urgent message that compelled the early Christians through the first centuries to death at the hands of lions and paranoid emperors and dungeons and swords and famines.
#2. If all roads lead to God, then the Christian story makes no sense. If Jesus comes and hijacks a perfectly fine Jewish religious system that leads people to God anyway, why bother? Why not just leave the Jewish people alone if Judaism will lead them to God anyway?
If any and every (or at least most) religions lead to God without all the blood and sweat of Gethsemane and the horror of the cross, what's the point? Is all that just a charade, a giant show, a sham? It would seem that it's not only a nice thing that God comes and dies for our sins. It would seem that if there's any other way, that cup might have passed...in fact, the entire incarnation might have passed.
Here's where the weak understanding of the cross that we discussed in an earlier post really hurts the Emergent movement.
#3. In fact, Jesus is perpetually correcting both Jews and Gentiles. He tells the woman at the well in John 4 that the Samaritans don't know who or what they worship. They're wrong. And a time is coming when they will finally get a chance to get it right. And it's come because of him. That's the point.
#4. Who decides which religions lead to God? The KKK thought of themselves as a religion, do they get to God? What about people flying planes into towers? Clearly most of us think that some religions or at least some religious people don't get there.
So given that almost everyone believes that not everyone seems to know a God who is good and loving, even if they're religious in some sense, we're back to what Christians throughout the centuries have argued throughout the centuries. Not every religion leads to God. In the final analysis, most of us are just discussing which religions lead to God. Christians just argue that what God did in Christ is unique.
Throughout the centuries most of the major religions have held that there are significant, eternal consequences to the decisions we make regarding God. Of course, this has led us to do many stupid things on all sides. We do not have to kill each other to believe deeply that there are eternal consequences to our decisions.
The Verdict
This is more or less all bad. And if this continues to be a central plank of the Emergent church, it'll probably go the way of the mainline churches, which are dying by the boatloads as baby-boomers start to die. Nothing is at stake, so there's no fresh re-engagement with culture as it shifts.
This issue is a huge stumbling block for many, many people. I'm not saying it's easy. I'm just saying that it takes a good bit of mental and theological gymnastics to adhere to historically orthodox Christianity and say that it doesn't really matter what you believe.
For a fantastic, thoughtful, not-angry but very thorough discussion of this stuff, check out The Gospel in a Pluralist Society by Lesslie Newbiggin. When I'm swimming in the fog of this question and asking the hard, heart questions of how this can possibly be good news, I re-read some Newbiggin and he helps me to re-find my bearings
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