Buddhist<\/a> lives beside the atheist.\u00a0 The variety of religious options are on constant display.<\/p>\nThe question addressed in this event, from the Christian side, is: How can we continue to affirm the teachings of the scripture and the orthodox proclamation of the church throughout the ages, that Jesus Christ is the Way and the Truth and the Life and no person comes to the Father but through he \u2014 and also live in peace with the Muslim across the globe and down the street, and also work together with the Jew to serve the needs of the community they hold in common?<\/p>\n
The way of \u201cinterfaith\u201d dialogue is no good option.\u00a0 I remember, as an undergraduate, attending an ecumenical worship service at the majestic Memorial Church at Stanford University.\u00a0 One of the associate deans of religious life came to the pulpit, wearing the uniform of female associate deans of religious life, which involves a long flowing dress, multiple colorful scarves and a necklace with a large power crystal.\u00a0 When she began her invocation with, \u201cO divine Spirit, you essence of Love that brings healing to our hearts and wholeness to the world, you divine Parent who is both Father and Mother to us all,\u201d I saw my fellow evangelicals stealing glances at one another and rolling their eyes.<\/p>\n
I shared their skepticism.\u00a0 It seemed like an exercise in extravagant self-indulgence.\u00a0 The service was stately and aesthetically pleasing in its own way, but also felt, to us, passionless and anodyne, so sincerely inoffensive that it was offensively insincere.\u00a0 It must have required, we imagined, an enormous amount of energy and will-power to pretend as though we all believed the same things, and to exclude from mind constantly the veritable herd of elephants in the room.\u00a0 It was intellectually unsatisfying and comically averse to religious particularity.\u00a0 One might have built a drinking game around all the ways in which the cultured speakers avoided saying words like \u201cFather\u201d and \u201cLord,\u201d even \u201cGod,\u201d not to mention \u201cJesus\u201d or \u201cChrist.\u201d\u00a0 But removing Christ from the service was removing Christianity from the service.\u00a0 Removing particularity was removing what made God personal, concrete, dynamic, and ultimately important, worth living and dying for.\u00a0 I could not wish to live and die for a divine essence of love.\u00a0 I could only wish to live and die for the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God who Created the world and also took on flesh in the person of Jesus Christ and gave himself upon the cross for me.<\/p>\n
It fit with the official religious ethos on campus.\u00a0 Too many of my religious studies classes seemed to devolve into races to play the victim.\u00a0 The first person to take offense won the argument.\u00a0 The strength or weakness of your argument did not matter at all.\u00a0 If another person took offense at your words, this was immediately your fault, and it showed that your point of view was oppressive and therefore to be discouraged.\u00a0 Was your view truthful?\u00a0 That question had been rejected a long time ago.\u00a0 And if there are no statements or metaphors of images for God that are more or less truthful than others, then you may as well shave off the differences between our gods and worship the least common denominator.<\/p>\n
The Global Faith Forum is about finding ways to relate respectfully and profitably across religious communities with an absolute commitment to speaking the truth, to affirming what you believe, and respecting the integrity of your respective religions with all their differences and disagreements.\u00a0 They are calling it \u201cmultifaith\u201d instead of \u201cinterfaith.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s a simple linguistic device, but the point it makes is very important.\u00a0 This is not about watering down our differences and joining one another in a tepid bathwater of precious thoughts, harmless truisms and lukewarm faith.<\/p>\n
Can it work?\u00a0 Evangelicals traditionally have stood for orthodoxy.\u00a0 We will not abandon our beliefs, we will not change them, in order to avoid offending another person.\u00a0 Perhaps offense is important.\u00a0 Perhaps it is necessary.\u00a0 Offense is better than ignorance, and I would much rather offend a friend than sit idly by while that friend endures a life and potentially an afterlife without God.\u00a0 If the truth is the truth, is must be spoken.\u00a0 It must be proclaimed.\u00a0 For we believe that the truth will set you free.\u00a0 But can we proclaim the truth, can we remain fully committed to our beliefs, and yet build relationships of respect, of friendship, even of love, and work together to serve the needy?\u00a0 Perhaps we can.\u00a0 Time will tell.<\/p>\n
Evangelicals have long been regarded as a part of the problem of religion dissension, partly because they refuse to compromise their beliefs in order to please others, and partly because they have rejected and reviled and refused to engage with people of other faiths.\u00a0 We still make no apologies for the former.\u00a0 We are not free to abandon or amend or abridge our beliefs in order to ease the consciences or satisfy the sensibilities of others.\u00a0 But we should apologize for the latter.\u00a0 And we should make amends.\u00a0 We should no longer be regarded as the bigoted masses who will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into peace between religions.\u00a0 We should lead the way.\u00a0 We should lead the way through forming communities of multiple faiths where each individual is free to be completely and utterly committed to his or her religion and where nonetheless each one loves each and every other one and all are willing to work together for the redemption of creation.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday I arrived at NorthWood Church in Keller, Texas, to attend the Global Faith Forum, which has gathered together leaders of conservative Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities that want to learn how to build relationships with one another and work together for the healing and redemption of the world.\u00a0 Here is an image (h\/t) from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-peace-between-religions"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n