In my recent blogging discussions on various other blogs people asked for what I mean by congenial exclusivism. Ultimately, I argue that Jesus offers things that no other religious system offers, and that you can only get those things through a trust relationship with Jesus. Some of those benefits are eternal in scope (the age to come) and some of them are temporal (relating to this age).
NIV Acts 4:12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.
That of course leaves open to discussion what Salvation entails. I will do my best to detail some of what that rich theological term implies. Here are some of the benefits that I can enumerate off of the top of my head, in no particular order:
1) Jesus allows us to remain individual persons and yet have a communal relationship with God and others who have that relatinship with him.
2) Jesus takes the real concepts of evil, injustice, sin, etc. seriously yet offers an opportunity for us to receive true, absolute, and unlimited forgiveness. That by the way, makes a relationship with the holy God possible. He accomplished this by paying the penalty for our sin himself on the cross.
3) Jesus understands the fallness of human nature (much worse than elves chasing Fenor's jewels for those of you who are geeks) yet offers the opportunity to actually change human nature through the power of his Holy Spirit.
4) Jesus grounds his ethical expectations of us soundly on the biblical concept of love, yet perfectly demonstrates what God's love is truly about through his own actions on our behalf .
C.S. Lewis and other Christian thinkers have long argued that these are some of the truly unique aspects of mere Christianity. To receive these things means to experience eternal life (starting in this age and going into the next), and to not receive these things means to experience eternal judgement (starting in this age and going into the next). These are offered to everyone because of God's grace and his sincere love, even though we certainly do not deserve them. No one, however, is forced to receive these things, that is their choice to be made in this age of this temporal world.
Each of these indeed deserve a blog article of their own, and probably will receive them in the months to come. Also I am sure I will think of others and continue to add them as they come to mind.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
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3 comments:
Hey Jon, I'd like to purely play Devil's Advocate here, and not approach this from a Buddhist perspective, but simply a logical one.
Regarding your enumerated uniquenesses:
2. Who is to say that one needs forgiveness? Maybe evil and injustice are just as naturally occurring as good and justice. Maybe all have always been around. And maybe it's solely our intellect that allows us to identify these dualities. That last comment of course opens me up to the response that that is what makes us unique and special. But the converse argument holds as well - maybe the dualities are really just our invention. Maybe good and bad are simply relatives.
3. Maybe we're not fallen. Evil and injustice exists (per our interpretation; see #2 above), but maybe that is just how it is. Who's to say that Eden existed (even conceptually) before our supposed fall? So who's to say that our human nature needs changing?
#1 and #4 are required from the basic philosophies of the faith.
My point, as Devil's Advocate, is simply that maybe it's us looking outside ourselves for meaning and thereby creating powerful, consistent, myths to help us out. There's nothing wrong with that, and if one believes that one needs salvation, then something like the Christian system is needed to fill that "gap," to complete that person. But if one doesn't think that is necessary, then that myth is meaningless to that person in the greater scheme of things.
Obviously, as a Buddhist, some of my feelings may contradict my arguments above. But these are still important arguments that jumped into my head as I read your post, so I imagine other readers may think of them too.
Mike, or should I say Lucifer's Attorney :),
Thanks for for raising these questions, in fact, in our next interfaith dialogue I plan to ask the question of intrinsic morality. Are there certain things that are simply right and wrong or is EVERYTHING relative?
I personally have a hard time watching the evening news and not coming to the conclusion that there is evil in the world, and that there clearly is something wrong with us as a species. Indeed I could come to that conclusion simply looking in the mirror. I think Donald Miller's "Searching for God Knows What" does a far more eloquent job describing this than I do, but a person would be very hard pressed to say that we are OK. No matter what social systems we fix, new problems always emerge. Perhaps our problems are primarily internal.
As far as looking outside ourselves for things we need... well... I need water from outside myself to drink, I need food from outside myself to eat... I need friends outside myself or folks would say I am crazy... why is it a leap to assume I need things outside myself for spiritual fulfillment?
Ultimately, as a follower of Jesus I affirm that our problems as human beings are primarily internal (though clearly internal sin has external implications) and the solutions to those problems are primarily external (though God does that work internally on our hearts through his Holy Spirit if we allow him to).
Now folks can argue that they believe the inverse (we have external problems and internal solutions), indeed I think that is what you would say Buddhism would argue. That will certainly be part of our conversation in our next interfaith dialogue... but as a primer... I find that very difficult even to imagine. One over used example: I don't think Hitler was merely an effect of a problematic system... he made choices... and those choices had consequences, deep disturbing consequences for himself and for millions of others.
Perhaps there is something to the human being that goes beyond mere genetics and environment. Perhaps that could explain why dolphins are so much more peaceful than we are.
Thanks again for a thoughtful reply. I am looking forward to continuing the dialogue.
well from personal experience before and after...Anger and unforgiveness was in my life before and I had no power to let it go. God took it away and it has improved my life.
Also, as for it being relative I know that some of the things I do are not right and I still do them anyway...I am can feel the shortcomings. If it was all relative, why could I not quit what is clearly in the long run worse for me.
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