What's So Special about Interfaith
Dialogue?
by the Rev. Dr. Aurelia T. Fule
[4-16-01]
The author served for many years in the Office of
Theology and Worship of the General Assembly. She is now retired
and lives in Santa Fe.
The planners of the Peacemaking Conference in California last summer
never imagined that the event will make headlines in so many
publications. If the Rev. Dirk Ficca had just talked about love and
unity, little could have been made of the reports. But to affirm, or
even to imply, that God has not been left without witnesses in other
religions -- that can be made into a shocking statement.. And that is
what happened.
Take a look at Dr. Ficca's
address -- the full text.
And click here for background
on the Peacemaking Conference and the debates that followed.
Does it say something about the state of our church
that wedge issues are so eagerly seized? We cannot forever debate and
legislate about sex and orientation, or the status of women, or we shall
be indistinguishable from the Southern Baptist Convention. So here was a
whole new issue to be used by those who wish to divide the church.
The protest was raised even before the speech was
available. People had neither heard nor read that speech, but they saw a
brief news summary. They appear to have been unaware of long-standing
Presbyterian commitments.
The Presbyterian Church (USA) and its predecessor
bodies have long been engaged in interfaith dialogues. Principles and
guidelines were established by General Assemblies; they are published
and widely available.
Churches, including Presbyterian ones, have engaged in
interfaith dialogues in Asia and Africa where Christian minorities live
in the midst of indigenous or other dominant religions, and on other
continents where Christianity predominates. It may be obvious why
churches participate in dialogues in Asia and Africa, but why do we do
so in North America? For three reasons:
First, the monotheism that trinitarian Christians
uphold mandates dialogue, even if we have been very slow to discover it.
If there is one and only one God, then whoever worships God -- by
whatever name they call God, whether they worship many, or one of the
many, or the one -- they worship God -- rightly or very wrongly -- since
there is no other.
Second, a similar point is made by creation. If this
expanding universe is the thought and creation of God, as Christians
affirm, then all of it, and all that is in it, including the earth with all
its features and creatures, are the work of the one and only God. And we
recall that all human beings are created in the Image of God.
Finally and emphatically we engage in dialogue because
Scripture instructs us so to do.
The witness of the Hebrew Scripture
God's covenant sets a people apart from others for the
service and worship of God. God makes his covenant with Abram/Abraham --
the sign is circumcision; then with the Israelites -- the sign is the
Law. But the circle includes more: earlier God made a covenant with Noah
(Gen 6:18, 9:9-17) "... and with every living creature ... the
birds, the cattle and every beast of the earth ..." This was an
unconditional, cosmic covenant, promising " ... never again shall
all flesh be cut off by the waters." The rainbow, set in the sky,
is the sign and reminder.
God blessed Noah and his sons saying "be fruitful
and multiply and fill the earth," (9:1) repeating the blessing on
Adam and Eve (1:28). This led many theologians, starting with Ireneus (2ndcentury),
to speak of four covenants: the Adamic, the Noahic, the Abrahamic, and
the Mosaic.
We rarely think of righteous persons who were not
included in the Abrahamic covenant, yet enjoyed God's favor. Abel, who
offered the right sacrifice; Enoch who "walked with God ... and God
took him" (Gen.5:24); Melchizedek (whose name says "my king is
righteous") a king of Salem and a priest of the Canaanite cult who
blessed Abram in the name of "God Most High, maker of heaven and
earth." (Gen.14:18-20; cf. Ps. 110:4, Heb.7:1-3) Or patient Job in
the land of Uz, perhaps Edom. They all point to God's boundless care and
love, as well as to knowledge of God on their part.
God is the creator of the whole world and of all human
beings. One community is chosen for service and witness, but God's care
extends to all:
there shall be one law for the native and for the
alien who resides among you. (Ex. 12:49)
The Scripture repeatedly points to God's activity in
history:
[God) brought you out of Egypt with his own
presence, by his great power, driving out before you nations. (Dt.
4:38)
There are no favorites:
Are you not like the Ethiopians to me
O people of Israel? Says the Lord.
Did I not bring Israel up from the land of Egypt
and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir? (Am. 9:7)
When Judah continues on her evil ways, God will bring
against her Assyria, "the rod of [God's] anger." (Isa.10:5)
The reluctant Jonah finally goes to Nineveh (Whether
the book is historical or not, the lesson is the same.) and proclaims
their coming destruction. We read:
When God saw what they did, how they turned from
their evil ways, God changed his mind. (3:l0a)
Jonah is angry.
I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love ... (4:2)
The scene of God's care and activities is the whole
world and all its people. The first Servant Song in Isaiah speaks of
God's "chosen [who] will bring forth justice to the nations."
(42:lb). He is "a covenant to the people, a light to the
nations." (v. 6b) In the Second Song, God sends the servant
"that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth." (49:6b)
God's activity in history is always salvation history; in blessing or in
judgement on Israel and the nations, the purpose is turning, changing,
saving.
A message of the New Testament
Some of the evangelists saw Jesus' mission as to
Israel alone, or to Israel first: "I was sent only to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel." Even so, they record that Jesus
healed the daughter of the Canaanite woman. (Mt.15:21-28; Mk. 7:24-30)
According to Luke (4:16-30) Jesus began his public ministry in Nazareth
by reading from the prophet Isaiah (61:1-2, 58:6) words of great promise
and comfort, to his hearers' approval. His comments turn satisfaction
into indignation: there were many widows in Israel, yet Elijah was sent
to a widow in Sidon, Jezebel's homeland! And many lepers in Israel in
Elisha's day, but only one was reported cleansed, Naaman, the Syrian.
God's love, like God's Spirit, does not stop at the borders.
In Jesus' parable, who has proved to be a neighbor?
Not the priest nor the Levite, but the Samaritan.
John 3:16 may be the most frequently quoted verse in
Scripture: "God so loved the world ..." yet it is overlooked
that the "world" means the whole world. Kosmos
is the word used here, and used three more times in the next verse.
"God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but
in order that the world might be saved through him." (v.17)
In this same gospel Jesus Christ is "The true
light, which enlightens everyone." (1:9) He is "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." (1:19)
Jesus speaks of himself also as "the way, the
truth and the life." (Jn.14:6) Having read the Scriptures
attentively one begins to see that
Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life of
the triune God who is not only present and at work among and for the
sake of Christians but present and at work among and for the sake of
all people everywhere -- including people of other faiths, people of
no religious faiths ... (Shirley C. Guthrie, Always Being Reformed,
p.70. Westminster John Knox Press, 1996)
Likewise Paul affirms "... in Christ God was
reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against
them." (II Cor. 5:19)
What Scripture condemns is not other religions but
idolatry in the surrounding nations, in Israel and in the early church.
That should be a warning also to us in our society and in our church.
Reflections
The Presbyterian Church does not speak of universal
salvation, because Scripture does not teach that. The destiny of others
is not revealed to us. We may remember Jesus' words at his last
resurrection appearance, recorded in the Fourth Gospel. When Peter
"saw the disciple whom Jesus loved" he asked "Lord, what
about him?" Jesus said "what is that to you? Follow me!"
(Jn.21:20-22) That is still Jesus' word to us.
We read carefully the call of Abram (Gen. 12:1-3).
These verses stand at the very beginning of the story of God's
covenanted people, Israel. Abram is told "Go" leave your land
and people, "I will make you a great nation ... and in you all the
families of the earth shall be blessed" or "shall bless
themselves." Is it possible that this is what God is working toward
-- that this is why Christians sit at table, hear from and speak with
Jews and Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and others? Could this be God's work
in our time?
Faithful Christians rooted in their tradition who have
participated in interfaith dialogues -- Western, Asian and African
theologians and church people, countless missionaries, Presbyterians
among them -- tell us about righteousness, holiness, glimpses of truth
that they have found in the thoughts and devotion of others. How can
that be? God in Christ and through the Holy Spirit draws others in ways
unknown to us. For us God's Spirit lights up the Word of God: Christ,
and the word of God in Scripture. Clearly God has other ways to draw
people.
Calvin, speaking of the knowledge of God the Creator
wherever it is found, wrote:
... no drop will be found either of wisdom and light
or of righteousness or power or rectitude, or of genuine truth, which
does not flow from God and of which God is not the cause. (Inst.
I. ii.1. See also II. ii.15-16)
All truth is God's truth.
Those who deny this, asserting that the only way to
salvation is the confession of the name of Christ, may want to consider
their picture of God. Do they really trust and worship God who saves
only those who have heard of and responded to Christ, and who condemns
the overwhelming majority of human beings throughout the ages? Is that
the work of our Righteous Judge? Are all Turks, Japanese, Tibetans, with
few exceptions, going to hell? Will they be sent there by God who cares
for the sparrows? (Mt.10:29; Lk 12:6)
After reading, thinking, praying, we face God revealed
and God hidden; God "whose property is always to have mercy,"
whose Spirit moved over the face of the water and continues to move in
the universe.
We in the church are instructed by Scripture
to live and to proclaim God's salvation in
Christ, to be and to speak the good
news. Beyond that, we leave all in God's hands, rejoicing that
The limits to salvation, whatever they may be, are
known only to God. Three truths above all are certain. God is a holy
God who is not to be trifled with. No one will be saved except by
grace alone. And no judge could possibly be more gracious than our
Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. (The Study Catechism, Full Version, Q.
49)
Thanks be to God.
