THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 1, 1996 TAG: 9605310049
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E5 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Issues of Faith
SOURCE: Betsy Wright
LENGTH: 87 lines
Columnist's Note: Over the next several weeks, this column will explore varied Issues of Faith, all through the prism of the concept of salvation. This is not an attempt to turn this column into a purely Christian column. This is instead an attempt to get at the heart of that thing which influences Christians to treat non-Christians with either love and understanding or with hate and vengeance.
THIS WEEK'S Issue of Faith is syncretism, a big, fancy word for the blending of all religions into one.
Lots of folks would like to see this happen. They believe humanity desperately needs such a thing in order to rid the world of the hatred and violence caused by the we-have-the-only-truth doctrines of the different world faiths.
There is even a current faith that is making inroads to this goal: Baha'ism. The Baha'i Faith was founded in 1863 by a Persian called Bahaullah, or Glory of God. The faith teaches that God has sent a series of prophets - including Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ and Muhammed - to teach God's eternal moral truths. Believing that all the world religions honor the same God, the Bahaullah taught that God wants there to be just one faith based on service to humanity and on mutual acceptance on one another, with no discrimination for age, race or sex.
Give the Baha'i Faith credit: It is striving for a worthy goal.
But is it a reasonable goal? I'm not so sure it is. For all the many common features of the different faiths - each has its own version of the Golden Rule; each sees humanity's love of self as the root of all problems; each upholds the importance of truth, virtue and service to humanity - there are also many uncommon features that won't easily be resolved.
Should these differences be resolved?
I don't think so. While it is true that we need to listen more and understand more about the world's different faiths - our time in history demands it - I don't believe we need a blended religion where the things that make each religion unique are watered-down or gotten rid of altogether.
Maybe I'm a dreamer, but I don't understand why people can't just accept diversity as a gift from God. In the last chapter of his book, ``The Religions of Man,'' the world's foremost expert on comparative religion, Houston Smith, writes that if God is truly a God of love, it is most likely that God would have revealed himself to all his children and not just to any one particular group of his children.
It also seems probable, concludes Smith, that such revelation would ``have taken different facets and different forms according to the differences in nature of individual souls and the differences in character of local traditions and civilizations.''
This goes beyond just making sense to me. This seems Godly - dare I say, Christ-like - to me.
I know, I know. The New Testament is full of stuff that says Jesus is the only way to God, believe it or go to hell. That kind of belief, however, isn't unique. Many of the world's religions claim to have ``the only way'' and believe in punishment after death for the wicked and for non-believers.
The uniqueness of Christianity lies in the tenant of faith that God would love humanity so much that he would become a flesh-and-bones person (Jesus) and come to earth to personally teach us how to live and love. The uniqueness of Christianity is the belief in a God that would willingly share our pain and even die a torturous, earthly death for us, just to show us through the Resurrection that our souls are eternal and cherished by God.
So what are Christians, taught from the cradle that we have the one true faith, to do with all this? First, I believe we must find a balance between those Christians who want to superficially accept everything about all other religions and those who want to dogmatically reject anything non-Christian.
I believe, like theologian Hans Kung, that the church must find a new vision of itself and its mission.
``What we must strive for,'' Kung writes in ``On Being a Christian,'' ``is an independent, unselfish Christian ministry to human beings in the (other) religions. We must do this in a spirit of open-mindedness which is more than patronizing accommodation; which does not lead us to deny our own faith, but also does not impose any particular response; which turns criticism from outside into self-criticism and at the same time accepts everything positive; which destroys nothing of value in the religions, but also does not incorporate uncritically anything worthless . . . The truth of the other religions would be acknowledged, honored and appreciated; but the Christian profession of faith would not be relativized or reduced to general truths . . MEMO: Every other week, Betsy Mathews Wright publishes responses to her
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