God’s Rivals?

Gerald R. McDermott’s second book on world religions from an Evangelical perspective was published this year, entitled God’s Rivals. Both books seem to be part of a larger project, and there are many respects in which this volume is logically prior to his first, Can Evangelicals Learn From World Religions? That first book focused more on what Evangelicals can learn from other religions, while this book seeks to provide more in the way of justification and explanation of the Biblical and historical reasons for believing that they in fact can.

I personally found the first book more helpful, perhaps because I read it at a stage when I was already becoming persuaded that Christians in general can learn from other religious traditions, and that historically they had always done so, irrespective of whether they were always willing to admit it. McDermott admirably acknowledges both that the divine is truly present in the religions, and that the shadow of the demonic is not entirely absent from Christianity. He also makes known to an audience that might not otherwise encounter them key scholarly conclusions regarding the Bible, such as the assumption of most Biblical authors that the ‘gods’ exist in some sense. McDermott utilizes this theme as a way of approaching the plurality of religions, highlighting those Biblical affirmations that other peoples have been “assigned” to these other deities, and thus their existence and their religions are in a sense divinely ordained. Nevertheless, McDermott allows room for these other religions having some perception of the true God, of the God that Jews and Christians worship, noting such important instances as the story of Abraham and Melchizedek, where Abraham recognizes that this Canaanite priest’s “God Most High” is the same God that he himself worships.

My main point of criticism is that McDermott seems unable to do full justice to Paul’s argument in Romans 2. Although he mentions the relevant passage more than once, he avoids any reference to Paul’s explicit statements that some righteous Gentiles will be excused and not merely accused by their conscience and the general revelation to which they have responded. The whole point of Paul’s argument, in light of the “new perspective”, is that revelation adds additional knowledge and opportunity but also responsibility, and it does not privilege those who receive the revelation and disobey over against those who do not have and yet seem to obey it instinctively nonetheless. The traditional readings of this chapter, which have viewed Paul as speaking hypothetically about a situation that is in reality impossible, have caused us to fail to identify this passage as one of the most important Biblical texts relating to how Christians view other religious traditions. Paul, rather than dismissing all other religions but Christianity as legalism, seems instead to have been arguing that it is what you do and how you relate to God that matter, rather than belonging to a particular ethnic or religious community and having all the markers thereof.

Such points aside, I would strongly recommend both of McDermott’s books to Evangelicals who are wrestling with (or realize they should be wrestling with) the question of how to view other religions in relation to matters of truth and revelation. These books will help readers approach such encounters in a spirit of openness to learning in a way that is neither arrogant nor uncommitted. Down this middle way there is much to be learned that will enrich one’s faith and one’s understanding of the Bible in the process.