Don: Last week we discussed four instances of people born into different faiths and cultures. It raises the question: Did God orchestrate that we would have different religions in order to lead us to Him by making us confront their anomalies? Are the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) more valid than Hinduism, Shintoism, Buddhism, and other non-Abrahamic religions?
Scripture develops the idea that one man (Adam)’s sin led to the downfall of the entire human race, while another man (Jesus) redeemed us of that original sin:
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.
But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.
The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,… (Romans 5:12-14; 15; 20)
A recipient has no control over the offer of a gift. The offer is entirely the prerogative of the giver. The recipient may of course refuse the gift, but cannot control the offer or the gift or other recipients. Yet it is our inclination to control the gift and to whom the gift is given. But God gives the same gift of faith to everyone. So why do we not all believe in the same way? We affirm that faith is what connects us to God, but must acknowledge that the outcome seems to vary from individual to individual.
For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. (Romans 12:3)
We might liken the varying outcomes from God’s injection of a measure of faith in each of us to the varying outcomes we get from immunization to a disease. A person’s spiritual makeup is formed out of his or her exposure to language, culture, holy books, education, upbringing, parents’ religion, and a host of other stimuli. This is very similar to the immunological profile one develops through exposure to various bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens. In both cases, we respond to the stimuli present in our environment. The response is both predictable (in the average) and ordinary, but there is some variation. Some people are allergic, and respond badly to immunization; some are anergic, and have no response at all. Perhaps allergy and anergy are potential responses to the spiritual immunization conferred by our religious and other exposures.
In every age, there are men and women of faith who respond to spiritual stimuli in a more thoughtful, expansive, questioning, challenging way. They are the innovators of faith, responding in unconventional ways. They extend the boundaries of spiritual thinking and raise the level of the spiritual barometer. But there are others who respond equally unconventionally to spiritual stimuli by not, or hardly, responding at all. They fail to react to the call of God, like anergic people who fail to react to a protective immunization. This variation explains why people of similar backgrounds—with similar exposure—respond differently. An individual’s unique, personal, response may be right for that individual at that time. We cannot authenticate one another’s response. My immunity cannot help others, and theirs cannot help me.
There are two ways to acquire immunity: Actively, when the body produces its own antibodies. The spiritual analogy is the faith we are born with, which helps us react to what we are exposed to in the world around us. The second way is passively, when antibodies are infused into us from the outside. An example is the passing on of antibodies by mothers to their unborn babies through the placenta and later through breast milk. The spiritual analogy to passive immunity is grace. It protects us when our active immunity fails.
An African is not actively immune to Asian diseases, and must be passively immunized against them. A person born in North America will find grace in Indonesia. But the Bible seems to say that Jesus is the only way to acquire active immunity:
And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. (John 14:6)
This is Jesus’s job description. His responsibilities are firstly to present you to the Father—neither you nor anyone else should or indeed could present you to Him. Secondly, you must be presented without fault:
… to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy,… (Jude 24)
(The King James Version of the Bible says “To present you faultless before the presence of his glory.”)
The need for us to be faultless is why Jesus must do the presenting, and why no one can come to the Father except through him. In fact, …
… there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)
I see this as a statement of fact. Whether we know it or believe it or not, Jesus is the conduit for salvation. Some might say one must believe in order to be saved, perhaps based on:
For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers. (1 Timothy 4:10)
But whether we are saved is God’s prerogative. He knows our hearts and minds, and he has more than enough Grace to immunize us against our sinful selves. Knowing and believing that Jesus is “the Savior of all men”, which is a way of saying that God is the God of all Mankind, is good, said Timothy, but even if we do not—even if our exposure to other ideas and religions leads us to different conclusions—the statement still applies to us, and God’s grace is still given to us. This is an universal spiritual law which applies whether or not you have heard of it or understand it. Salvation through God’s grace is like immunization, you don’t need to understand it for it to work. God knows each of us, wherever we were born, no matter our cultural and religious backgrounds, down to the very core of our hearts.
This is why we are told not to judge. We cannot properly assess anyone’s spiritual response to his or her environment nor, especially, how God will apply his passive immunity, his grace, to any individual. What we may rightfully say (assuming it is true!) is that our own individual spiritual upbringing works for us and is good for us. But even that must be said with humility, since our own self-assessment is not to be relied upon, as we have discussed. We ourselves stand in need of grace. Humility must be the companion of truth, but we tend to weaponize the truth—observe the religion-based or -influenced conflicts taking place all around us today. Given that we each receive the same gifts of faith and grace from the same author, how can this conflict be. and how can it be overcome?
Donald: There can even be conflict between people who share the same background. Parental influence seems key: If parents are not religious, chances are their children will not be, either. Perhaps we each have in us some spiritual DNA that might lead us to religion anyway.
David: To me, that begs the question whether one is any the less spiritual for not being religious. Our response to our culture, our parents, our environment is generally an intellectual and emotional response, rather than a spiritual response. Our measure of spiritual faith cannot be dependent on religiously generated faith, otherwise that would be terribly unfair since our experiences can be so different and so beyond our control. The Good Samaritan’s religious background was different from his fellow travelers’ but it was not the reason he alone stopped to help the robbery victim. The reason he stopped had to be his measure of faith expressed through his love and compassion for a fellow human being. That, it seems to me from the teachings of Jesus, is all God wants of us. God doesn’t care about our religious backgrounds.
Reinhardt: Perhaps God does not give the same measure of faith to every human being. In the parable of the talents, the master (representing God) gave different amounts of money to his servants. There may be some pre-destination, according to God’s plan. Who can know? It is a mystery. But I am personally glad to have been exposed to my religion and to the Bible and the Gospel and to salvation.
Don: It does not seem fair of God to make it harder for some people to be saved and easier for others. I might then say I’m happy to be a Seventh Day Adventist because Seventh Day Adventists all go to heaven. My heart goes out to those poor Hindus and Buddhists and so on, whom God has excluded, but what can I do? They must have bad karma!
Donald: The “Good Samaritan” in us is influenced by our parents. Suppose our parents avoid the Salvation Army collectors at the supermarket door at Christmas—what do children pick up from that? It’s true that children’s personalities will play a role, but influence is exerted on them nevertheless.
David: I accept that spirituality can be influenced by external forces (and that would lead us to a discussion of stumbling blocks) but the spirituality still exists, expressed perhaps as regret, anguish, guilt or all three at giving the Salvation Army collector—or the injured victim—a wide berth. I think it is much easier to be influenced religiously, because that is a matter of the human intellect and the human emotions.
Jay: The Good Samaritan was acting completely out of character as seen from the perspective of his contemporaries. They would have thought him least likely to help. So the message in the parable is partly that spirituality transcends religion and culture. Religious faith and spiritual faith are different, but we tend to blend them together. As a result, we struggle with the question of godliness in people who have never been exposed to our religion. We apply our blend of religious and spiritual faith to assess people as “believers” or “non-believers.” If we leave religion out of it, the question is much less complicated. But that then begs the question: Why religious faith? Is it an abomination—a stumbling block? Is its only influence malevolent, or does it have some real spiritual benefit?
Don: The problem is that all religious faiths claim exclusivity on the afterlife. The Moslem would claim that only Islam has the final message from God as given to the prophet Mohammed by the angel Gabriel. The Christian would argue that salvation is only through Jesus Christ and his sacrifice. It’s as though we seek a religious faith rather than spiritual faith.
Jay: It seems counter-intuitive that God would base the way to salvation on specific moments in time. It would appear that people born before those moments were not as lucky as those born after them. Jesus, Mohammed, Joseph Smith, Ellen White cleared the way to salvation for the Christians, Moslems, Mormons, and Seventh Day Adventists, respectively, who came after them. This can’t be right. There must be a timeless, universal link to the spiritual realm and thus to salvation. To me, that’s what we should be seeking.
David: If we interpret “Nobody gets to the Father but through me” as “Nobody gets to the Father but through the love, justice, mercy, compassion etc. which I represent” then the message is indeed timeless and universal, because those attributes are timeless and universal. They existed before Jesus came in person, and they exist now that he is no longer here.
Robin: Jesus is also the Creator.
Donald: We think of the Trinity as separate entities, but really they form a unity.
Weight Watchers offers to “right-size” us if we attend regularly to its program. But we could right-size ourselves. We know what to do. All we need is discipline. Maybe religion is like that—through community, it helps overcome our individual tendency not to exercise self-control. It strikes me as a benevolent role.
Michael: Sometimes the message of Jesus is clearer than we make it out to be. It’s a simple message of love. Why is it so hard to practice? Why do we see so many cases of religionists accusing people of other religions of heresy and hating them for it? If the message is love, isn’t the messenger—be he Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, or whoever—secondary to the message?
Reinhardt: All religions teach love, but have different ideas about the way to salvation. Before Christianity came to Indonesia in the 1800s, people still prayed to God, and sometimes their prayers were answered. They didn’t know the Bible back then, but still they had belief in and a relationship with God. Atheism is another story.
Mikiko: Shinto and Buddhist influence in Japan originated in humans, not in the Bible. The Bible accounts for history and science.
Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 28:19)
This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. (John 17:3)
Robin: With regard to the symbolism of the baptismal water as representing the Father and the Messiah and the spirit of God (as they called the holy spirit), Judaism basically just forgot about it. It wasn’t an inter-denominational difference, just a matter of disuse and decay.
David: Getting back to our diet: What difference has Weight Watchers made to the weight of humanity overall? Precious little, I suspect. People get the Weight Watchers religion and worship its god of Diet for a while, then usually fall off and go back to their old ways. But they never lose their inner conviction that they need to lose weight! In the same way, we never lose our inner certainty—bury it as we may—that we need to love our fellow Wo/Man at least a little bit better than we are doing.
Michael: Baptism is often taken to be the symbolic entry to Christianity. The real symbolic meaning of baptism, it seems to me, is forgiveness. That’s why John the Baptist baptized people, to wash them of their sins, to forgive them. So as Christians we are commissioned to forgive people, not to proselytize them. The Good News of the Gospel is that everyone is forgiven!
Mikiko: To be baptized means to accept God’s will.
Jay: I think there is a disconnect between spiritual faith and religious outcome. It is God who is the author and finisher of our faith, not our particular religion. It would seem important to determine whether or not the potential for religious faith to thwart God’s will and be a stumbling block (realized often enough) is mitigated by its potential to reinforce God’s will and be beneficial. And if it can be beneficial, we should be looking for ways to enhance that benefice.
Reinhardt: The outcome of faith depends upon the level of faith at the input. The level can be raised.
David: Any diet will make you lighter, but some are more enjoyable than others. Starvation diets work but are not nearly so much fun as the ketogenic diet, which also works yet lets you eat as much bacon and butter and other fatty (and therefore tasty) foods as you like.
Donald: It is not good to diet to the point of malnourishment. But to our main point: Is everything OK as long as we love one another?
Jay: Why not?
David: Yes.
Donald: Parents generally seem less concerned about the state of their children’s spirituality than about their attendance at church.
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