\u201cInterreligious Dialogue, Effective and Ineffective,\u201d<\/a> I mentioned the goal of the Foundation for Religious Diplomacy as rather cheekily expressed by its leader, my friend Randy Paul:\u00a0 It is, he says, to get religious adversaries to say to each other, and to really mean it, \u201cYou\u2019re going to Hell, of course, but I feel really bad about that.\u201d<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The cheek of Randy\u2019s comment is, I suppose, primarily connected with the fact that Latter-day Saints don\u2019t actually believe<\/em> in Hell.\u00a0 Not really.\u00a0 Not in the traditional manner of \u201chellfire and damnation\u201d preachers.\u00a0 In the geography of the afterworld as we conceive it, most of the territory is occupied by \u201ckingdoms of glory.\u201d\u00a0 By three \u201cheavens.\u201d\u00a0 And, while I can\u2019t speak for Randy, I can say for myself (as I\u2019ve said on more than a few other occasions) that my views on this subject could reasonably be described as quasi-universalist.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I certainly don\u2019t believe that sincere Buddhists, Muslims, Sikhs, Jews, Catholics, or atheists who genuinely sought the truth and who seriously tried to do good will be tortured in Hell merely because they got their theology wrong.\u00a0 I don\u2019t believe in a God like that.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I have always loved this quotation, from The Last Battle<\/em>, by C. S. Lewis, the final book in his seven-volume \u201cChronicles of Narnia.\u201d\u00a0 In it, Emeth ( whose name is Hebrew for \u201ctruth\u201d), a Calormene soldier who had worshipped and served the evil Calormene god Tash all of his life, finds himself before\u00a0the divine Lion, Aslan, the lord of the Narnians and Lewis\u2019s symbol of \u201cChrist,\u201d:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then I fell at his feet and thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him. Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be Tisroc of the world and live and not to have seen him. But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome. But I said, Alas Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me. Then by reasons of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath\u2019s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan<\/em>, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child? I said, Lord, thou knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.<\/strong><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
This, though, is an extreme case.\u00a0 I simply do not regard the God of Judaism, Catholicism, Zoroastrianism, or Islam to be the polar opposite of the God I worship, as Tash is the polar opposite of Aslan.\u00a0 Nor do I regard either Buddhism<\/a> or Hindusim or Sikhism or Confucianism or their adherents as evil, in the way that the religion of the Calormenes is depraved, cruel, and evil.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Another trio of new items has gone up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: \u00a0 \u201c\u201cWe Will Still Weep for Zion\u201d:\u00a0War and Wealth\u201d This is the seventh of eight weekly blog posts published in honor of the life and work of Hugh Nibley (1910\u20132005). The series is in honor of the new, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1543,23170,6971,23167,6102,21875,19412,5703,1947,2019,6969,1540,3856],"class_list":["post-91205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-c-s-lewis","tag-chronicles-of-narnia","tag-dialogue","tag-discussion","tag-hugh-nibley","tag-hugh-nibley-observed","tag-hugh-w-nibley","tag-interfaith","tag-interfaith-dialogue","tag-interfaith-relations","tag-interreligious","tag-narnia","tag-nibley"],"yoast_head":"\n
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