Jesus among other religions: Why are there so many religions? January 7, 2007 – Rev. David Tinney Text: Matthew 2:1-2; 10-11 Theme: We live in a world where we are constantly encountering people with other beliefs and religions and we often wonder if there is only one God how come there are so many different religions. There are things in life that I simply don’t understand. Take for instance I lie awake at night wondering why sun lightens our hair but darkens our skin. Or I wonder if black boxes on airplanes are indestructible, why don’t they make the whole plane out the same stuff? When I am really restless I wonder why it is that doctors call what they do “practice.” Or why is it that the man who is investing all my money called a “broker?” I wonder if flying is so safe then why do they call an airport the terminal? Or as our lawmakers in Washington DC kick off an new year I wonder if con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress? You can see I wonder about a lot of things. But let me get a little more serious and ask some questions that I truly wonder about and perhaps you have too. Have you ever wondered why there are so many religions in the world? Have you wondered if there is one God how can there be so many ways of worshiping him or her? Have you ever wondered with all the religions out there if yours was the right one? Have you ever wondered if religion was supposed to help us understand God and move us closer to God and humankind then why does religion seem to do just the opposite and create wars, divisions, and hatred? Is there a difference between being religious and being spiritual? What is religion and what is it supposed to do for us? Let me throw in one more that I just started wondering about with this sermon series, which came first God or religion? Was God always there and we invented religion to try to understand God or did we come up with this need for religion and then invent God? Hopefully this sermon series will answer some of these questions and if I am any kind of a preacher and teacher will add to your list of questions. For the next few weeks I would like to preach a series on comparative religions and would like to concentrate on the five major world faiths – Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. I realize there are many, many more religions in the world and that there are many variations of the ones I mentioned but I only have seven weeks and not seven months to preach this series. I will however throw in a sermon on Fundamentalism because it is a troubling variant of at least three of these five and represents a significant departure from the original intent of each religion and needs to be addressed on its own. In the series I will address the main tenets and beliefs, their history and leaders, their scripture or holy source, their understanding of sin and redemption, and their understanding of death and the afterlife. I will also try to relate how these religions deal with Jesus and how we view them. During this series I will be interviewing local spiritual leaders and using research that has been done by experts, but I want to make it clear I am not an expert. I have spent years gaining an education in Christianity and still consider myself a novice so I will be just scraping the surface of the other faiths we will study together. So let me go back to one of my earlier questions – what is religion and what is it supposed to do? Just as there are dozens of religions there are dozens of ways to define religion. Some simply define religion as a “belief in spiritual beings” while others have long comprehensive definitions that list terms, beliefs, and descriptions of practices. Some might define religion in anthropological terms and describe it as a set of practices and beliefs that unites people in a shared common experience and explains how we deal with the challenges of life. Sociologists might describe it as an agreed upon what of looking at life and finding meaning for our existence. Psychologists might describe it as an illusion because it is built upon a projection of our own selves and our needs and fears. Karl Marx defined religion in economic terms and Freud in sexual terms. The former described religion a tool concocted by the powerful to pacify and oppress the powerless. Twentieth century philosopher Bertrand Russell had a low regard for religion and wrote, “Religion in any shape or form is regarded as pernicious and deliberate falsehood, spread and encouraged by rulers and clerics in their own interests, since it is easier to control over the ignorant.” In this model, the development of religion is seen as analogous to the growth of a cancer: and the best religion would be no religion at all.1 That is the kind of glowing definition that makes you want to run out and join a church! Religious historian Douglas Davies was a little kinder when he wrote, “No one can understand humankind without understanding the faiths of humanity. Sometimes naïve, sometimes penetratingly noble, sometimes crude, sometimes subtle, sometimes cruel, sometimes suffused by an overpowering gentleness and love, sometimes world affirming, sometimes negating the world, sometimes inward looking, sometimes universalistic and missionary minded, sometimes shallow and often profound – religion has permeated human life since early and obscure times.”2 You can see that there is a great deal of disagreement on what religion is or what it is supposed to do, but there is little disagreement that it has been around as long as humankind. Crude altars, statues of fertility goddesses carved out of stone, and ancient drawings on cave walls provide evidence that humankind participated in some sort of religious activity even in the prehistoric era. As civilizations grew around the world from 2000 BCE on, religious expression matured from the worship of random spirits to organized and sophisticated systems with complicated doctrines. In the early tribal periods religion was more animistic – or the belief that spirits or ghosts existed in animals and the larger animals like lions or cheetahs, or birds and snakes were worshiped. As tribes settled into permanent locations and the people took to farming, the nature of worship changed again. It became attached to a particular place with an altar and possibly a place for sacrifice, and because agricultural success was important worship was directed to mysterious goddesses of fertility. When the community offered the proper sacrifice to the goddess she would control the winds and rain and bring sunshine and good crops. Study shows that in those early days humankind created gods to complete a task or to protect and bless a particular venture. When the god was no longer needed it was abandoned or when a new god was necessary it was created. This kind of god-creation activity begs the question I asked earlier – which came first religion or god? Those who are skeptical of religion might take this early god-creation activity and couple it with the fact that there were hundreds or even thousands of gods throughout this early period of religious development and claim that it proved there could be no One, True God. If there was only one God then that God would have made him or herself known and not allowed humankind to linger so long in pagan, polytheistic worship. I see just the opposite. I believe that humankind has always been aware of our connection to our Creator and that we have been in search of that mystical connection throughout history. When humankind was immature and didn’t have science to explain concepts like wind, weather, disease, and natural disasters people naturally assumed it was the activity of invisible and capricious gods. They created stories and myths to explain their activities. But religion took a significant turn 3,800 years ago when God called Abraham from out of a polytheistic world and declared, “I am El Elyon, God Most High maker of heaven and earth.”3 Humankind had become more civilized and was ready for this monotheistic revelation. God is made known through revelations that would come when people were ready to understand them and not before. It is like raising your children. At nine months you don’t start teaching them the laws of physics, you start working on a few words or helping them to walk. So as humankind learned to walk and think God started to reveal Godself. The first revelation came to Abraham and the next came 600 years later to Moses when God presented the Law. Society had matured again and needed a moral code of conduct that was just, merciful, and compassionate. The Ten Commandments represented a quantum leap in moral and ethical behavior and was a revelation of God’s will for humankind. Later revelations came through the prophets and through ultimately through Jesus Christ. You may be asking did God only make revelations to the Jews or do you think that God was doing the same in other places with other groups of people? Could it be that of all the people in the entire world God only chose one small group to reveal God’s truth? Is that part of God’s nature? I know that many will disagree with me on this and I will tell you once again I am not the absolute expert, but I believe that God was finding ways to be revealed in other faiths as well. I believe that the reason we have so many religions is that people see and understand things differently. Even when we share the same experience we describe it and interpret it differently. When we experience something as mysterious and incomprehensible as God there is no way that humankind is going to agree on one system of beliefs or one set of worshipping practices. I appreciate a quote from Adam Hamilton who writes, “Again the greatness of God and the smallness of our human minds might lead us to expect that different people will understand their experiences with God in different ways and that we will all be a bit surprised when we actually see God face-to-face!”4 The question that naturally arises then is – will people from other faiths go to heaven? After all Jesus even said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one will come to the Father except through me.”5 That is pretty clear and doesn’t leave much wiggle room. Well actually it does when you put it in the context of the rest of Christ’s message and the history of God’s interaction with humankind. There are at least four recognized and theologically supported positions on salvation. One is called “pluralism” and would contend that all religions are equally valid and true because all point to God. This is a foundational concept of postmodernism and a favorite in our politically correct culture where we worry so much about offending anyone. Whereas this position sounds good, it just doesn’t make sense. If resurrection is true then reincarnation is not. If salvation comes by faith then it does not come by works. We have seen too many twisted cults rise and fall in destructive ways to believe that all religions are true. The second position is exclusive and it is built upon the premise of there being one absolute truth with the group making that declaration also declaring they are the sole owners of that truth. Even though there are many texts that say things like “many are called but few are chosen”6 the logic of this position does not fit with God’s history of graceful behavior and Jesus’ ministry and outreach. Christians only represent 1/3 of the world’s population and rigid exclusivists would even narrow that number down to born-again Christians. Does it make sense in God’s economy of grace that more than 2/3 of the world will be cast in eternal judgment? God was forever reaching out. Jesus came for the “least and the lost” and was always breaking religious and cultural boundaries to share his love and message. Jesus put a greater emphasis on feeding the hungry, visiting the imprisoned, and clothing the naked and on surrendering to God than on professing the right doctrine. For me the exclusivist position is not consistent with what I read and know about God. The next two positions are very close. One is inclusivist and the universalist. The latter would contend that God is a God of amazing grace and that all people no matter what they believe or do in life are welcome into the Kingdom. I should spend more time with this position because it is my second favorite but I resonate more with the inclusivist perspective. This contends that God is a God of grace and that Jesus came for all people and that his sacrifice was good for all no matter what religion they come from. This position differs from universalism in that in the final confrontation with Jesus (who is the greatest and truest incarnation of God – all that we humans can understand) the person still needs to make a choice about surrendering or not surrendering. I believe that God’s grace always had boundaries otherwise it was cheap grace. In the inclusivist position the person has to accept that gift of grace by recognizing and surrendering to Jesus/God. So if a person were to be a very faithful Muslim, his or her faith would be recognized and they would recognize God through Jesus and the gates of the Kingdom would be thrown wide open. This perspective still upholds the truth of Jesus’ words, “no one will come to the Father except through me.” Let me take a different approach to explain how God works with people of other faiths. Today is Epiphany Sunday when we traditionally celebrate the coming of wise men. Too many times we compress the story of the three kings into the nativity and we forget that it happened later. I would like you to think about what the story says. These magi or wise men journeyed from the Far East and followed a star in order to locate Jesus. Judaism had not spread to the East so these men were probably Zoroastrian priests, which was a monotheistic faith that held very different beliefs and practices than Judaism. Yet God called them. A part of their religion dealt with the alignment of stars, so God used a star to guide them. I find this to be a powerful example about how God works with other religions even today. God reaches out to people who are not Christian or Jews and continues to use the parts of their religion to reveal truth. I believe with all my heart and being that Jesus Christ is the ultimate revelation of God, and provided salvation for ALL people through his death and resurrection. I also believe God calls to those of other faiths, just like the magi of the past, to come to witness the truth of our Lord. But here is the rub. You and I are the ones who are to reveal the truth, grace, mercy, justice, and love our Jesus in the ways we live our lives. I do not believe we are called to convert others. I believe we are called to live transparently so others can see God’s divinity shining through us. Then they, like the magi long ago, can be filled with awe, wonder, and joy. You and I have been called to the hard task of revealing the truth of Christ – not to the easy task of judgment. 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_religion 2 Douglas Davies, “The Study of Religion” in Eerdman’s Handbook to the World’s Religions,” Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, MI 1994, p11. 3 Genesis 14.19 4 Adam Hamilton, “Christianity and World Religions,” Abingdon Press, Nashville, TN, 2005. p.16. 5 John 14.6 6 Matthew 22.14 --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------