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Inclusive Christianity?

Anja

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The other day I was talking to a man who declares himself to be a devoted Christian and he said something which shocked me. It was something to the effect that it doesn't matter what religion one professes "because it's all the same God anyway."

I remember when political correctness began to take hold in popular culture and at that time I was still a practicing Christian. Tangled in the mess of p.c. I made an attempt to convince myself that this was a truism.

The reason his statement shocked me was because I just realized for the first time that a Bible-believing Christian cannot make that statement without violating a tenet of their faith.

I do understand the concept of an Ultimate Spirit which drives the universe but, unless one picks and chooses what to subscribe to and what to reinterpret in the Bible, according to scripture that would have to be the Triune God and none other.

What are your thoughts on this?

I appreciate respectful discussion of all views.
 

SillySapienne

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Inclusive as in Christianity being intrusive, (you're a sinner/Jesus saves), invasive, (you're a sinner/Jesus saves) and corrosive, (you're a sinner/Jesus saves), to society and mankind, yes.
 

Ivy

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The other day I was talking to a man who declares himself to be a devoted Christian and he said something which shocked me. It was something to the effect that it doesn't matter what religion one professes "because it's all the same God anyway."

I remember when political correctness began to take hold in popular culture and at that time I was still a practicing Christian. Tangled in the mess of p.c. I made an attempt to convince myself that this was a truism.

The reason his statement shocked me was because I just realized for the first time that a Bible-believing Christian cannot make that statement without violating a tenet of their faith.

I do understand the concept of an Ultimate Spirit which drives the universe but, unless one picks and chooses what to subscribe to and what to reinterpret in the Bible, according to scripture that would have to be the Triune God and nonother.

What are your thoughts on this?

I appreciate respectful discussion of all views.

I sincerely hope this is the last time I quote a bible verse on this forum but since you specified "bible-believing," I think 1 John pretty much cuts to the chase on this matter.

1 John 4 said:
7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for[c] our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.


I don't think your friend is saying that there are other gods besides the Triune God of the bible. In his opinion, no other gods exist, and so it's impossible to worship another god. As a result, other religions can't help but worship the Triune God of the bible. He probably thinks they get the number/name/particulars wrong, but it doesn't matter much as long as they have love.
 

Anja

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Ach. I hadn't meant to entice evangelizers here at all, Ivy. I can understand your reluctance to quote the Bible on such a diverse forum where perhaps people may take my OP as an opportunity to convert others or to register complaints about Christianity.

Not intended. I was thinking in terms of the kinds of mental gymnastics one must perform in order to make this leap considering that there is a verse that states that none come to Him but through Jesus. Can't quote it offhand.

I'm glad that you understood what I was asking. Your reasoning makes sense to me.

Others here who practice the art of p.c. who have confronted this dillemma?
 

Ivy

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Ach. I hadn't meant to entice evangelizers here at all, Ivy. I can understand your reluctance to quote the Bible on such a diverse forum where perhaps people may take my OP as an opportunity to convert others or to register complaints about Christianity.

Not intended. I was thinking in terms of the kinds of mental gymnastics one must perform in order to make this leap considering that there is a verse that states that none come to Him but through Jesus. Can't quote it offhand.

I am the way, and so on? I think that verse viewed in light of 1 John could mean that none come to God except through Jesus, but that anyone who has love is going through Jesus whether they realize it or not.

I personally approach the bible mostly as literature (albeit literature with a special meaning to me), so justifying everything with a bible verse doesn't really concern me, but this is how I've heard it explained.
 

cafe

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Inclusive as in Christianity being intrusive, (you're a sinner/Jesus saves), invasive, (you're a sinner/Jesus saves) and corrosive, (you're a sinner/Jesus saves), to society and mankind, yes.
It's okay, CC, Jesus still wants to save you. :yes:
 
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I feel much the same way as your friend. When I (infrequently) attend church, I go to a Catholic church because that's how I was raised and I'm comfortable in it. But I don't necessarily think that the Catholic church is the "best" or "most accurate" church. It's just what I'm used to, so why not?

I think the key part of your post is the "Bible-believing" part. I think the slavish devotion to the Bible might be the worst thing that ever happened to Christianity.
 

The_Liquid_Laser

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The reason his statement shocked me was because I just realized for the first time that a Bible-believing Christian cannot make that statement without violating a tenet of their faith.

I'm a Bible-believing Christian, and while I don't think every other religion is true, I don't necessarily think every other religion is false either. Although my version of Bible-believing doesn't involve looking at one passage and then putting all of my faith into it. I try to look for recurring themes instead, and I try to put all of the statements into context as much as I am able.
 

substitute

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I say and think the same thing as your man there all the time.

The key thing is that you said "no Bible believing Christian". That's a heavily loaded phrase. Not every Christian gives the same value to the Bible as you do or interprets it the same way. For instance, consider the following quote:

"Nobody comes to the father, except through me" (John 18:12)

You're probably used to that being interpreted as "only Christians go to heaven and all other religions are wrong" or something along that line. But you might not have heard an alternative interpretation: "whichever route you take to God, you will come across Jesus in some guise or another along the way".

Your dude is probably a liberal. And no, that doesn't mean a person enslaved to PC nonsense that stands there wringing his hands and not really believing anything. Far from it. FAR from it. Christian Liberalism FAR predates what we know in the present day as "political correctness". The latter is a corruption of the former, not the other way round.

I'm for a purer meaning of the word "Christian", personally: follower of Christ's teachings. That is, CHRIST'S teachings. Not Paul's teachings about Christ's teachings, but from the horse's mouth, in as far as we're able to know them. I might not agree with Paul on everything or many of the other Biblical authors. But that's because I don't feel the need to; I don't believe that the sole author of the Bible is God.

I've talked at length to many Hindus and Muslims and seen in them (the more dedicated ones at least) a person making an enormous effort to live their life according to principles taught in their religion which are exactly the same as those taught by Christ. I personally believe that their teachings come from the same divine inspiration as those of Christianity and also just like Christianity, they've been corrupted and abused over the centuries. But careful thought, prayer, reflection and study can pretty quickly reward the seeker of truth because after all, the Truth wants to be known. It hasn't hidden itself, we've hidden it. Uncover the layers of shit that humankind has covered it with and there it is, shiny and new as always.

In the sense that my Hindu friend follows the teachings of Christ, believing him to have been an avatar (flesh incarnation) of the One God (Brahman to him, Yahweh to you), he is as much a Christian as I am...

All of which argument comes to nothing if you still insist on not seeing me as a Christian because I'm not "Bible-believing" in the sense you mean it. :)
 

Totenkindly

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The other day I was talking to a man who declares himself to be a devoted Christian and he said something which shocked me. It was something to the effect that it doesn't matter what religion one professes "because it's all the same God anyway."

...

The reason his statement shocked me was because I just realized for the first time that a Bible-believing Christian cannot make that statement without violating a tenet of their faith.

I do understand the concept of an Ultimate Spirit which drives the universe but, unless one picks and chooses what to subscribe to and what to reinterpret in the Bible, according to scripture that would have to be the Triune God and none other.

The Bible does promote a particular view of God. Whether or not someone accepts it as a consistent view or sees it as a cobbled-together view over centuries (starting with the Israelite's monotheistic version and then moving into a more Trinitarian view later along with a dualistic developing Satan figure) is up to independent interpretation. Also, how "specific and exclusive" those details are considered can vary from person to person.

So if you just approach things in terms of Te-style thought, a personal God cannot be an impersonal god. If people are human beings, then they are not God, and vice versa. And so on. So you can't say "all religions are the same," technically. Because sometimes they do have competing views on purity and sin, truth and lies, light and dark, personal and impersonal, etc.

My personal view is very much summed up by what Ivy said, even after I grew up in the more conservative church. John has always resonated with me. Especially when Ivy says, "... none come to God except through Jesus, but that anyone who has love is going through Jesus whether they realize it or not," well, that is my intuition as well; and a similar idea was espoused by CS Lewis in Narnia's "The Last Battle" and probably by other Christian-style thinkers as well.

Even if one debates the details of Jesus, we know a tree by its fruit. I've seen good fruit on people from various proclaimed religious faiths. They have the same things in common (humility, acceptance of their humanity, lack of pretense, passion, sacrifice, love, kindness, gentleness, hope). I've also seen lots of religious people who produce god-awful fruit, regardless of the faith they proclaim so loudly. I've seen lives destroyed and spirits crushed in the name of "god" and I denounce that as darkness, not light.

At this point in my life, I do have to call a spade a spade... and a rose a rose (although by any name the rose still smells as sweet).
 

substitute

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Looks like we're on the same page Jennifer (see above), by very different routes... though the catalysts that shunted us onto them were the same :)
 

Anja

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Okay, I'm believe I'm tracking what you're saying.

Interesting that you should mention my wording "Bible-believing," Substitute. That was added after the fact for clarity's sake and it does, simultaneously, complicate the matter. It also reinforces my initial question of the sort of cognitive disonance which must be dealt with.

There is that exhortation that the Bible must be accepted as the word of God. Can a Christian, truly be one then, if they cannot take on all the contradictions in good faith? If they reinterpret them, even in preference of altruistic motives, are they not also violating them?

(Interestingly enough, I only know this man through another forum and from several years of observation have thought that he is oppressively conservative. Maybe I should also add the fact that he is dying and could possibly be doing a quick job of "getting it right" without much prior background.)

I've never thought about this with the depth that struck me recently and see a paradox far beyond the ones that led me on my own spiritual quest.
 

Totenkindly

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There is that exhortation that the Bible must be accepted as the word of God. Can a Christian, truly be one then, if they cannot take on all the contradictions in good faith? If they reinterpret them, even in preference of altruistic motives, are they not also violating them?

Again, it depends on what you consider "the Word of God" to be.

If someone believes that the 66 Protestant books were hand-selected by God or steered to purposefully be in the canon, and that there are no more and no less, and the same with every verse, yada yada yada, then yes, they need to accept all the inconsistencies therein and try to find some way to embrace the paradox and make their lives conform to everything they see there in the most overt ways.

If someone has a more organic view of scripture and doesn't see it as self-contained but merely as a collection of various people's experiences with God and life journeys, that have to be filtered through those people's cultures and environments and situations, and that while the concepts might be pretty consistent, the specifics are not exclusive nor exhaustive, then they can also claim to be "Bible-believing" but it will look a LOT different from the first.

(Interestingly enough, I only know this man through another forum and from several years of observation have thought that he is oppressively conservative. Maybe I should also add the fact that he is dying and could possibly be doing a quick job of "getting it right" without much prior background.)

I'm sorry. :(

You're right, though, it is hard to tell what happens when mortality is experienced. Some people have sudden insight into their lives they did not have before. Others might just want to drop judgment and focus on inclusion, before death. And so on. it's hard to tell.
 

substitute

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Jesus is the Word of God. The Bible is, at most, the words of God. At least, a collection of superstitious myths and legends sprinkled with Jewish propaganda. On balance, a diverse bunch of writings by various people with varying motives, containing some divinely inspired wisdom that has to be dug out of all the extraneous crap :)

And I believe the same of all religious texts.

edit - by 'that exhortation' do you mean when Paul says "all scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for.... etc etc"? Cos I take that to mean only that some guy was INSPIRED by God to write, but what he did with that inspiration's as fallible as the guy that did it, though taking the rough with the smooth, it's still useful, at the very least as a chronicle of man's search for God and the occasional moments when we've reached out and touched him, and lived to tell the tale, so to speak, recorded there. I don't take it to mean "it's all literally dictated by God who controlled the pens of the prophets so that his entire plan for humankind was infallibly passed down [but let's just gloss over the zillion scribal errors en route]" Even so, it's still Paul's opinion to me. Perhaps divinely inspired, perhaps not... *shrug* but still ultimately, the words are Paul's, not necessarily God's.

I think my dot on the forum behaviour graph is shifting... :ohmy:
 

Totenkindly

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Jesus is the Word of God.

Literally. His claim is to be the Spoken Word of God, active and vital, just like the word of creation spoken at the beginning of time.

John called him the logos, correct?

I always found the difference between written and spoken word fascinating. Written words exist outside time and are detached from their vital force -- the events they're describing. The spoken word fades into silence after being spoken, but while it exists, it's alive and present. (Maybe that would be a discussion worth considering elsewhere?)

I see people as words spoken into the silence, while the written word is less powerful -- it just tries to keep alive and in memory what was already spoken, so although it provides good reference, it cannot replace the active, vital word. We are each words spoken against silence, flames dancing in the dark.

So I guess that sort of reveals my impression of the written versus living word... sigh.
 

substitute

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I think I wrote in another thread in this forum something about how the written word came to be hugely overblown in significance and accorded a place of reverence by primitive mankind... probably quicker to rewrite a summary of it than try and find it again to quote... lol

Basically imagine you're living in a society that's largely illiterate. The only people who can read and write are priests and very important people who are seen as either descending from the gods or somehow connected to them either by being elected/chosen by them or something else. A guy gives you a piece of rock with some weird squiggles on it and says 'take that to my brother in Jerusalem'. You travel 500 miles to his brother who manages to somehow unlock the secrets of these squiggles and know exactly what his brother is thinking, what his brother wants and what he needs to do.

Wow! It's like magic! You might even start to think that the meanings are actually in the symbols themselves. That those symbols have some inherent, living quality that transmits their meaning magically into your master's mind. It's probably because of him being so important and holy and amazingly clever, right? How could anything written possibly be wrong?

etc...

Hence such phrases evolve as "it is written", being an explanation in and of itself, sufficient to validate the authority and correctitude of something.
 

Anja

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In-ter-est-ing.

But now, your comment about shifting on the graph has me perusing your thread on forum behavior and. . .

Too. Much. Input.

Later.
 

Eric B

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Most people who allow "inclusiveness", do so by somehow diminishing or downplaying the Bible's teaching on exclusivity (or "the scandal of particularity"), or by denying the Bible's inerrancy or truthfulness altogether.
But I've found another view, that not only maintains the Bible's truthfulness, but in the process also explains a lot we see in the world, in light of the Bible's claims, that leads most to reject it altogether.

It starts from eschatology. Most mainstream Christians holding the exclusive view, hold to some form of futurism. God's work is not finished; he still has to return and end death, and then all sin and judgment will be abolished. In the meantime, we are all "running the race" as Paul says, and thus have to excercise "faith" in Christ alone, and improved behavior (as they were, duties) in order to go from "lost" to "saved".

However, whatever this coming "fulfillment" they were "running" to, was said to be something in their lifetimes, NOT thousands of years later. Christ had even said "some of you standing here shall not taste death until the Son of Man comes".

The eschatology known as Preterism holds that this was the the destruction of the Temple, in AD70, when some of those people were in fact still living. That ended the system of Law that condemned man and required a "response" from him to be saved in the first place. Hence, the Kingdom, of salvation, spreads to all unconditionally, just like the mustard seed growing into a big plant.

The problem arose, because many Christians did not recognize this in AD70, and continued to look for a return of Christ, which they then called "delayed".
The Church is at the same time becoming corrupted with pagan doctrines, philosophies and practices from the Greek world around them. (antisemitism, ritualism, flesh is bad, only "spirit" is good, etc). They begin organizing the visible church into a powerful institution to the point that Constantine recognized them as the state religion, ending persecution, and yet making them powerful enough to become persecutors. And hence, the whole dark ages of the church. When not using the sword, fear of Hell was also good to keep people in line and maintain the power. Eventually cracks begin to form, and people rebel against the corruption, and form an increasing number of schisms or denominations. All of them denouncing each other, and yet nearly all claiming to represent "the truth". Almost all agreed on the necessity of "duty faith" to be saved, despite all of the people they see in the world and church that has turned them against faith.

Hence, the Christianity we all grew up with, and many of whom rejected. Even most preterists today, while still holding the AD70 concept, hold on to hell for all unbelievers. So the branch of preterism that teaches grace has spread to all unconditionally, is known generically as "Pantelism". Here is a site that articulates on this (and links to other articles).

Comprehensive Grace - Tim King

I like the way he speaks of "the covenantal framework of biblical eschatology" that sets pantelism apart from regular universalism, which is just unbiblically pluralistic. So hence, "salvation is found in no other"?"No one comes to the Father but by [Christ]" is still true. Salvation is in or because of Christ, not other gods, and not worship of other gods being accepted as "other paths" to the true God, and all that stuff. However, salvation being by Christ alone does not necessarily require any "response" on those saved. The widespread belief that it did was based on pairing "Salvation in no other"/"No one comes to the Father but by me" with verses like the familiar Acts 16:31 "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved", and several statements by Jesus in the Gospels, especially John. But that was all spoken to those in that age, and the age ended about 40 years later. It does not necessarily carry over to everyone after that, especially when that age of spiritual death was said to end soon.
 
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The_Liquid_Laser

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Interesting that you should mention my wording "Bible-believing," Substitute. That was added after the fact for clarity's sake and it does, simultaneously, complicate the matter. It also reinforces my initial question of the sort of cognitive disonance which must be dealt with.

There is that exhortation that the Bible must be accepted as the word of God. Can a Christian, truly be one then, if they cannot take on all the contradictions in good faith? If they reinterpret them, even in preference of altruistic motives, are they not also violating them?

Two persons can treat the Bible as the authority and still come to considerably different conclusions. There are a lot of different varieties of "Bible believing". Additionally, what may seem like a contradiction to one person, may not seem that way to another.

At the same time I see your point though. There is a danger in ingnoring or explaining away enough passages that the initial message either loses its meaning or gets watered down. My personal goal is to make all of the passages make sense in their context and make sense when taken as a whole. I think that is possible for the most part, but two different people doing this are going to come to two different conclusions about a lot of things.
 

substitute

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Liquid, Jesus' message was pretty darn clear if you ask me... I worry that giving too much significance to the Bible very often leads to people spending far too much time trying to decode what it's on about and reconciling the inconsistencies, at the expense of actually living the Gospel ... when you think that people like St Francis, who wasn't educated and didn't study theology or even read the Bible that much, became completely at one with God, I just can't imagine why someone would prefer to take such a circuitous route, one which so often leads people right up the garden path :/
 
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