From
The April 2002 St John's Eagle
Many Names, No Fixed Address
The advances
of science in the last five hundred years have generated a number of crises for
the spirit of western peoples. That our planet revolves around the sun and not
even in a proper circular orbit, that our universe is vastly older and immeasurably
larger than anyone had ever dreamed, that we ourselves have emerged by a slow
process of evolution from the primordial slime — these discoveries have sent
shock waves through the ranks of the faithful. Even now, the fundamentalists among
us resolutely refuse to accept the new models of reality.
The
expanded universe of the astronomers has posed serious questions. Are there habitable
planets rotating around distant suns? If so, has conscious life appeared on them?
Has that life, however strange it might appear to us, faced moral crises, discovered
the fact of sin? And what then of their fate? Does the salvation wrought by Christ
extend to outer space? We have difficulties enough trying to imagine how “pagans”
in yet unexplored regions of our planet can be saved.
The
inhabitants of distant planets, if any, can of course be left to the operations
of divine mercy. A nineteenth century poet expressed this possibility:
God
may have other Words for other worlds,
But for this world His Word is Christ.
That
Christianity is universally, at least on this planet, the one true faith lies
behind the powerful evangelical thrust the church has known since its earliest
days. Whatever Jesus may have believed about the imminent end of the world, we
know that within a surprisingly few years his followers had spread the good news
throughout the Roman empire. This strenuous missionary activity has been characteristic
of almost all forms of Christianity down thorough the centuries. Only in the last
hundred years or so have we begun to ask questions about our emissaries to other
cultures. Have they been unthinking agents of European and American imperialism?
Have they disrupted immemorial social structures and relationships? Have they,
quite unintentionally, spread the white man's diseases to all the inhabitants
of the earth? Missionaries no longer seem to many of us to be the very models
of Christian behavior. Once I asked a study group at Saint John's when we had
last sent someone from our parish to spread the gospel in Asia or Africa. There
was a stunning silence; no one could produce a single name.
The decline
in missionary enthusiasm has been accompanied by some searching questions about
the need for such activity in the first place. To what extent is it the churches’
obligation to see that everyone, everywhere, is urged to make a decision for Christ?
These discussions have largely been contained within the cloistered walls of liberal
seminaries. They have certainly not provided subject matter for very many sermons.
Most of us have settled for “tolerance”: “good pagans,” the
“invincibly ignorant,” have at least a fighting chance for salvation.
We are content to take passing notice of “Christians incognito,” of
“anonymous Christians.” But a “tolerance like this concedes only
minimal value to other religious traditions.”
These
words of Doctor Joseph C. Hough, Jr., President of Union Theological Seminary
are taken from an interview printed in the New York Times (January, 2002). Doctor
Hough insists that we must go beyond tolerance, that a pluralistic world population
requires a new “theology of religion.” It will no longer suffice to
say that God's infinite freedom is “limited to one tradition born in one
time in one place in the world.” God's redemptive power works everywhere
for justice and peace, whatever the culture bound images by which we articulate
our sense of “her” presence.
Hough
distinguishes between “an attempt to convert” and “an attempt to
bear witness.” The latter involves careful listening, intense study, so that
we may truly empathize with other religious traditions. To the question, Are you
saying that all religions are equal?, he responds, No, all religions are not equal
for me. That is to say, his (and our) convictions are the ones most nearly adequate
for us, in our time and place, in our tradition. “I am a Christian who strongly
believes that God has always been and now is working in every human culture to
redeem the world.” For Hough, God’s Word is Christ; for the many millions
in other religious traditions, God may work in other ways
Hough
does not presume to sit in judgment upon God’s modes of self revelation.
He calls upon us to share really to share — our insights with others rather
than trying to compel them to see things our way through the rhetoric of “our
one true religion,” “our one true God.” Such rhetoric, he argues,
is concealed contempt based on ignorance, and much that we have heard of the Moslem
world since September 11 will bear him out.
“God
has many names and no fixed address.” (Eric Griffiths)
