St John's Parish Church, Lindow http://www.saint-johns.org.uk

Christianity Speaks Today

Week 3: Pluralism – can we claim to be right?

Religious tolerance is becoming the most popular attitude to have in Britain today. The Sociologist Peter Berger has described living in this country as living in a supermarket of worldviews. When we have a headache, he says, we can choose from a variety of painkillers in the supermarket and now, in the same way, we can choose from a host of understandings of the world in which we live. Modern Britain is a cocktail of all sorts of opinions, religions and philosophies. Daily we are exposed through the media, through television, through the Internet, through email and even through the people we meet in the high street to views and ideas that would have been completely alien to those of a previous generation. And so in this pluralistic society we cannot be exclusive about religion any more. Well that’s what the tolerant person says, isn’t it? Who are we to claim to be right? Many people today would share the views of Professor Rosemary Radford Ruether who says that "the idea that Christianity, or even the biblical faiths, have a monopoly on religious truth is an outrageous and absurd religious chauvinism."

In the spiritual market place of ideas monopolies are not popular. Tolerance is the name of the game. This is the view that says all religious opinion has to be treated as equally valuable or equally acceptable. The view that says all religions have independent validity. In some way they are all equally true and so no one can claim to be exclusively right, all views must be tolerated. Well almost all views, because there is a view that isn’t tolerated in a tolerant society and that’s the view that claims to be exclusively right. In other words you will be tolerated unless you are intolerant!

Our world is changing. Increasingly, television, the Internet, email and all sorts of other technology are making this world a smaller place. Information can be transferred a lot faster than before. Data can be moved at the speed of light. People can uproot and move to continents that their ancestors would only have dreamed about. Britain is no longer the preserve of Anglo-Saxon white men and women cycling through the morning mist to reach church for the 8am Communion service, to be conducted by a Vicar in very effeminate clothing. The world is changing and Britain is changing too. We live in a pluralistic society. We are exposed to a multitude of different ideas. We must respond. The question is how.

Some respond with unquestioning acceptability, the religious tolerance that says that all views are equally true. But what of Christians, how are we to respond to all this choice?

Throughout the ages Christians have always claimed to be keepers of the truth but can we still claim this title in the modern world? What are we to make of this medley of religious diversity? Do we embrace it with open arms or do we push it away with outstretched scepticism? Or do we do something else entirely? How are we to think as Christians in this pluralistic age? And we do need to think! The ostrich position is not a position that we can afford to adopt. We cannot stick our heads in the sand and hope the issue will go away. Christians need to respond to pluralism and we need to articulate as clearly as we can the reasons for our response. The world is waiting to hear what we have to say and so there is a need for Christians to think.

Over these last two weeks we have been trying to construct a Christian worldview and the way we chose to do that was by saturating ourselves in the full Biblical witness. We repented of proof-texting and instead allowed the complete Bible story to inform our view of the world. Now as we come to consider our reaction to pluralism we must again allow the Bible to shape our understanding. There can be no Christian response until God has been allowed to speak through the Bible. There is a need not just for Christians to think, but a need for Christians to listen to God speaking through his Word and so by listening, to think Biblically. It is God’s truth as revealed in the Scriptures that must mould our thinking. It is this truth we must listen to. When we lose sight of that we will be in danger of accepting any new idea under the sun.

So let’s turn to those Scriptures and with the help of our Christian worldview let’s try and discover how the Christian should respond to pluralism. I suggest we look at two main areas of Bible teaching: teaching on the Fall and teaching on the Redemption. Or as I’ve renamed them for this week: the universal problem and the unique solution.

• The universal problem (The Fall)

Read through Romans 3:9-20. In this passage Paul is coming to the end of the discussion he started back in chapter 2 (although you could trace his argument right back to 1:18). His intention in this passage is to prove his original thesis that all people, whether Jew and Gentile, face God’s wrath because of their rebellion. ‘No one is righteous’, Paul says, because ‘all have turned away and have together become worthless.’ This is true for Jew and for Gentile. There are no loopholes, all of us have our picture in the book of human sinfulness. By nature, as a consequence of the historical Fall, all of us are unrighteous and therefore deserve God’s wrath, his righteous anger at mankind’s wickedness. This is the doctrine of original sin. We are all born sinful but are still held accountable for our sinfulness.

But did you notice the real problem facing mankind? It’s not just that we are universally sinful, no, it is that God’s reaction to our sinfulness is one of wrath. God is angry and we need to be saved from his anger. Now this message is completely unpalatable to the modern world, which assumes that if anything we are on God’s side and He is on ours. However, that is not the Bible’s assessment of our natural standing before God. Perhaps there are two reasons why we find what Paul says here difficult to accept:

1. We have lost a vision of the majesty and holiness of God

We need to be reminded again of Isaiah’s vision of God in the temple. Do you remember that?

Isaiah 6:1-7 (NIV): In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.

And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;

the whole earth is full of his glory." At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty." Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."

Isaiah saw a vision of the Lord that made him terrified. He had a vision of God in all his holiness and majesty and it made him cry out "Woe to me! I am ruined." At the same time he recognised his own sinfulness and saw God’s glory. He says "my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty." We no longer have this picture of God in our modern church and so as a result we find God’s wrath a very difficult concept to accept.

And don’t think that’s just an Old Testament picture, the apostle John has a similar experience on the island of Patmos. Read about it in Revelation chapter 1.

Revelation 1:12-17 (NIV): I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone "like a son of man," dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.

 

John, while on the Greek Island of Patmos, is given a vision of Jesus in all his glory. Is it any wonder that he falls to his feet as though dead? Why not read the passage again and let some of those descriptive words sink in.

In our modern church we need to recover again a vision of God in all his glory and majesty. Without such a vision his reaction to our sinfulness will not make any sense at all. It is only when we catch a glimpse of how holy and awesome God is that a message about his wrath will not seem alien to us.

2. We have lost sight of the wickedness of the human heart

The other reason why we generally find concepts such as God’s wrath hard to stomach is because we have lost sight of the wickedness of the human heart. On the other hand Scripture has always been very clear about our true nature.

Genesis 6:5 (NIV): The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of his heart was only evil all the time.

Genesis 8:21 (NIV): The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: ‘Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood.

Isaiah 53:6 (NIV): We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way.

Mark 7:20 (NIV): What comes out of a man makes him ‘unclean’. For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from the inside and make a man ‘unclean’.

The Bible says that by nature we are all sinful. We are not good by nature but are sinful to the core. Stop and reflect for a moment. Suppose all your inner thoughts could be projected onto the outside wall of you house so that everyone passing by could see. Would you be inviting friends to the showing of your inner life? Imagine all your inner thoughts projected on a wall outside your house. Would you be happy for other people to see what goes on inside?

Here then is the Bible’s description of the universal problem facing mankind. By nature we have an evil heart and are unrighteousness in God’s sight. Because of this, humanity is facing the wrath of a holy and righteous God. Humanity needs more than a few ethical instructions to put us back on the straight and narrow. We need more than just a good teacher who will come and tell us how to live. We need a saviour who will come and rescue us from God’s wrath. We need a solution to our universal problem!

• The unique solution (The Redemption)

True Biblical Christianity is in essence a rescue religion with a unique saviour. The picture the Bible paints of our human condition is not of a bunch of people on a mountain trying to find the way to the top, needing a few instructions about how to reach the summit. No the Bible’s picture is of humanity on a sinking ship and so therefore needing a rescue. It is not enlightenment that we need but rescue.

Dr Visser’t Hooft, the first General Secretary of the World Council of Churches has said that "It is high time that Christians should rediscover that the very heart of their faith is that Jesus Christ did not come to make a contribution to the religious storehouses of mankind, but that in him God reconciled the world unto himself."

Mankind needed a rescue and Jesus came to be that rescuer. I’m sure many of you know these familiar words but let me remind you of them again. These are some of the words Jesus used to describe his mission on earth: "The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost"; "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep"; "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." And those familiar words from Isaiah 53 "He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed by our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed." Or as John Stott has said "God in Christ took our place, bore our sins, assumed our guilt, paid our penalty, died our death, in order that we might be forgiven and recreated."

We must understand that God cannot just forget about the punishment we deserve. He cannot just forgive us. He declares to us that he is a God of justice and so his justice must be demonstrated. God’s love compels him to forgive but his justice demands that he punish. How can he do both?

Well he sent his one and only Son to die on a cross, to take our punishment so that we could go free. Jesus was the one who came to save us from danger. His death was a rescuing death. On the cross Jesus was presented as a sacrifice of atonement, the one who would turn aside God’s wrath from us. God’s forgiveness is not cheap, it cost him the life of his Son. Only Jesus could take the punishment that we deserve. Only he was worthy enough for the task. Only he did not deserve judgement and so only he could take the judgement of others on himself. That’s what the Scriptures say. Jesus is the unique rescuer!

But there is something that we need to do in all of this. I wonder if you’ve noticed the relationship yet between what happened then at the cross and what we are asked to do ourselves. Yes it’s true that on the cross Jesus did rescue humanity from God’s wrath but the Bible says that we only claim the benefits of that rescue by having faith in Christ. To go back to the lifeboat illustration, on the cross Jesus provided the possibility of rescue. If you like, he is the lifeboat alongside the sinking ship. But that still leaves us with the responsibility of crossing over from the ship into the lifeboat. It’s obvious enough isn’t it, but if we never make the leap then we never leave the sinking ship. Or in spiritual terms without a leap of faith in Christ we are still facing God’s wrath. As Jesus himself said "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him."

We started by asking what the Christian response should be to the question of pluralism. So what does our Christian worldview have to say for itself? Can we claim to be right? Yes we can and yes we must claim to be right. In Acts chapter 4 Peter and John appear before the Jewish Sanhedrin and in front of all those rulers they summarise what our Christian response to pluralism must be:

Acts 4:12 (NIV): Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.

It is a statement that encapsulates all that we have said before. It recognises the need for salvation (The Fall), because humanity is facing a universal problem, the problem of God’s wrath. And it also recognises the way of rescue appointed by God himself (The Redemption). There is no other name, says God, than the name of Jesus, given to men by which you must be saved. He is the way of rescue that God has appointed.

Now seen like this there can be no suggestion of the validity of other faiths. Seen like this Jesus is on a platform of his own. There can be no doubt that Jesus is unique and this is what we must tell people (with boldness and sensitivity). Think about it: if you were on a sinking ship and you knew it was sinking, and you knew where the lifeboat was would you not tell this information to your fellow passengers? Of course you would, it would be evil to get into the lifeboat and not warn the remaining passengers of the impending danger. The most loving thing we can do for people is to claim uniqueness for Jesus. It is not loving to jump into the rescue boat whilst leaving the others to drown.

As Bishop Lesslie Newbigin said in 1988: "If, in fact, it is true that almighty God, creator and sustainer of all that exists in heaven and on earth, has – at a known time and place in human history – so humbled himself as to become part of our sinful humanity, and to suffer and die a shameful death to take away our sin, and to raise from the dead as the first-fruit of a new creation, if this is a fact, then to affirm it is not arrogance. To remain quiet about it is treason to our fellow human beings. If it is really true, as it is, that ‘the Son of God loved me and gave himself up for me’, how can I agree that this amazing act of matchless grace should merely become part of a syllabus for the ‘comparative study of religions’?"

As I finish let me clear up what I am not saying. I am not against people from different cultures, different backgrounds and different religions. In fact, I believe cultural diversity is a very good thing for this country. No the issue here is one of salvation and not one of culture. People from all walks of life need the salvation offered by God through his Son, Jesus Christ. There is no difference. All people need to be rescued from God’s wrath and God himself has offered a way for that to happen. God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but shall have everlasting life. The gospel is for everyone. It is not exclusive but is the offer of salvation to everyone who believes. Heaven will indeed be a place of great cultural diversity but it will be a place where people from all nations will sing the same song of love to Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who was slain for them.

Summary

• Christians need to think about pluralism
• Christians need to think Biblically about pluralism
• Humanity has a universal problem – by nature we are facing God’s wrath
• God has provided a unique solution – Jesus
• There is no other name under heaven by which men can we saved
• Christians must affirm the uniqueness of Jesus

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