One more Blog about Jesus not being the only way to God. After this, if any of what I am saying intrigues you, a more detailed explanation of this theme will be forthcoming in a series of E-books I am writing under the general topic, “A Christianity Big Enough for the World.” You will be hearing more about each book in this series after the first of the year.
One reason for raising this issue is to give voice to more people than you might think who agree with me. In fact, it may surprise you to know most mainline ministers don’t believe Jesus is the only way. Most don’t believe Jews, Muslims, and members of other faith traditions are destined to be rejected by God because they are not Christian. Some of them will say they believe everyone will ultimately acknowledge Jesus as Savior in the mystery of God’s eternity, but they cannot tell you how this will happen or when. They want to believe this because they are trying to have it both ways, that is, they don’t want to say Jesus is the only way, but they cannot bring themselves to give up on it entirely. But in their own way they are saying what the majority of clergy believe, which is, Jesus is not the only way to God.
The reason this may come as a surprise to you is because clergy seldom tell their churches what they honestly believe about Jesus, God, heaven, hell, the resurrection, or where they stand on controversial issues. They know if they do conservative members will get upset, some even to the point of starting a movement to have them removed. Nonetheless, for years surveys have shown that clergy are more liberal than their church members. It is a secret everybody knows, but few talk about it.
To be honest, the potential risks of teaching lay people what you learn in seminary are real. The most rabid church member who is sure he or she knows the will of God, who “believes in the Bible,” and gets very upset at anyone who disagrees with them, especially ministers, speaks more out of ignorance than knowledge. But they don’t know it because they don’t know what they don’t know. And you can’t blame them. They have not had the benefit of theological study in the way ministers have. So they believe what they were taught to believe and don’t know the difference.
Every minister has been there. Most of us go to seminary with a Sunday School knowledge of faith, only to encounter a new world of study we never knew existed. It can be a rough go for a while, but gradually what is called “deconstruction” is replaced with “reconstruction” and our faith is set on a much firmer foundation. What happens in this process is that our minds are opened to a wider truth than anything the church taught us. That truth is that God really is love, and loves unconditionally., which means quite simply that no one can believe enough, do enough, be enough to merit God’s forgiveness and acceptance. And no one has to. God’s forgiveness and acceptance are given unconditionally…to Christians, Jews, Muslims, everyone.
Sadly this is a message the church believes sounds too easy. There has to be some accountability before God for our actions, it has taught. So it has put conditions on this message of hope, perhaps at times with good intentions, but also in order to preserve its own power to dispense salvation. Let it be given to everyone by a generous God and the church’s power necessarily becomes persuasive rather than coercive. But persuasion takes too long, and seems too weak. The church has never really trusted in the power of love, choosing instead to add to Jesus’ teachings certain conditions that make God’s love limited to those who believe what the church says. In this way the church has essentially turned faith itself into “work’s righteousness.” If you have it you are in, if you don’t you are out.
Frankly, it’s a sorry theological mess the church has made of the message of Jesus. But the message, the good news, still breaks free of all the trappings the church puts on it again and again. The ministers I know try to speak in ways that make this clear. They want people to learn what they have learned, to experience the freedom they have found truth does in fact give. But they still have to be aware of the mine field in which they are walking each time they speak honest to God in front of church members.
I can only hope that what I have been writing, and will write in the future, will encourage them to keep at it, “always ready to give an account of the hope that is within them, and to do it with gentleness and reverence” (1 Peter 3:15).
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This all makes good sense, and as usual is very well-written, Jan. As a follow-up: I have a friend who lives in an ashram where she teaches music and Sanscrit and where she follows the teachings of a female guru. When I asked her the difference between what she believes and the teachings of Christianity, she said, “I believe Jesus was a great person and example, but he is dead, and I just choose to follow the example and teachings of a live guru.” It, too made good sense and works for her. She is the most content, is at peace and does more good deeds now than she has ever done in her life, and isn’t that one of the goals here on earth?
To love is to live in God. Loving is activity in God, so that every thought and action is in God, not in the world.
I read in the Urantia Book that Jesus was offered the opportunity to start a church in Alexandria with religious scholars of his day. He supposedly gave it brief consideration then turned them down, in spite of often using synagogs for many of His teachings. Apparently churches were not the first or best choice to serve the purpose of His mission. After all, He had so many disagreements with His own church. Freedom from the human “structure” of church allowed His messages of unconditional love and service to be free of condiitional bureaucracy and dogma churches were ladden with. I see this as being consistent with seeing the world as a “corpse”; attachment to the material, the temporary. His yoke is easy because it speaks to values embodied in the light of God’s love; the transcendent, the eternal. It was a wise choice then, and, as current problems are testimony to, might be wise today. Church as an institution and ministry as a job hamper the mission of being God’s messenger to those who are ready to hear God’s word. This is the hand we’ve dealt ourselves. Churches, ministries, needs to evolve. Keep writing and encouraging ministers to tell the truth they know with the courage required to step outside the institution and the job, as best they can, toward the freedom Jesus had.