"Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect" 1 Peter 3:15
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6
Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:12
For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, 1Tim. 2:5
What do you think of when you see this bumpersticker? Technically, as Christians we, after thinking about it, would agree. In a multi-cultural world, we have to get along, we must coexist. We as Christians should love everyone like God does. We as Christians should be tolerant. What does that mean? The traditional tolerance as Webster defined it is to recognize and respect people's beliefs and practices without sharing them and put up with someone not especially liked. This type of tolerance differentiates between what a person thinks or does and the person himself. Our pastor, just this morning used a verse from 1Corinthians in a different context but it could be used here.
"I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world.... 12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church?"
We as Christians are taught that we can't force our behavior and morals on people that don't believe like us, nor should we expect them to want to behave like us. We are taught to love the sinner but hate the sin. To us, and in the past, that was tolerance. Not any more. That quote about loving the sinner and hating the sin, or the above verse about sexually immoral people are inflammatory to the new tolerance. According to Josh McDowell, the new tolerance is defined as every individual's beliefs, values, lifestyles, perception of truth claims are equal. There is no hierarchy of truth. All truth is relative. In order to be truly tolerant, you must agree that the person's position is just as valid as yours. You must approve and endorse that person's beliefs, values and lifestyle, and if you don't you are bigoted, insensitive, and intolerant. Any system that believes in absolute truth is intolerant which is the only crime/sin in a post-modern culture.
In other words coexist means all religions are equally true and valid and to say one religion is superior to others is intolerance even if we treat them like family. Thus, the cross (which is a very religious icon shape in coexist) is next to all the others because it is equal. Why has it come to this? Possibly because if you polled people and asked them 30 years ago what the biggest threat to society is, they would have said, political ideology, i.e. communism, etc. Today you ask that question and the answer is religion. In fact, as I write this, 100 people are wounded or dead in Orlando from what appears to be a religious motivated shooting spree. Thus, society has decided that rather than trust people to love despite differences, we must eliminate religious differences. We must say, you have your truth and I have my truth and we are both headed the same direction just by different paths so we really are the same. I saw a great video by Andy Steiger that touches on a lot of these factors and this would be a good time to watch this nine minute video.
This question of exclusivity is very complex. In fact, like an onion, the more layers you peel off, the more you come to. Let's address some of these layers.
1. No religion is superior to another.
Lets think about that one for a second. What about a religion that believes in child sacrifice? What about the Haley's comet, Branch Davidian, or James Jones cult? We have a white supremist church near us. Are you saying those are all equal to all religions? Of course not. It's foolish to say that. However if we say that those aforementioned religions are inferior is to judge them by an absolute standard that you say doesn't exist.(more on that later)
Why do Christians think Christianity is superior? Christianity is the only "religion" that claims to forgive sins.Britt Hume committed the unforgiveable sin when he encouraged Tiger Woods to convert to Christianity in this interview.
Also, Christianity's founder, Jesus, is not a prophet showing people the way to God. He claimed to be God and He Himself claimed to be the way to God. Any nut job can do that, except Jesus predicted His death and resurrection and pulled it off. All other religious founders are in the grave. Jesus defeated the grave. All other religions leave you wondering if you have been good enough to get to Heaven; Jesus says that trusting in Him gives certainty of your future. All other religions tell you that you are decent people who need to get better. Christianity tells us that we are dead people who need to come alive. All other religions heap tough burdens on you that you can't achieve. Christianity puts God inside you to accomplish righteousness.
Because Christianity is so different from all religions we don't like to be considered a religion. We don't like to be included in the coexist lineup. Religion, to us is seen as man's efforts to reach God. Christianity is God's effort to reach man. We aren't climbing up the same mountain by a different path to reach God, God is climbing down the mountain to get us. If you carry the analogy further, Christianity says we aren't even climbing up the mountain, we are running away from it.
2. There is no absolute truth .
Let's think about that one for a second. If truth is relative and there is no absolute truth then I reject statement number 2 because it claims to be true. Relativism relativises itself. As we saw in point #1, how can we say that a religion of oppression is worse than a religion that preaches humanitarianism. On what absolute standard can we say that if there is no absolute standard. C.S.Lewis gives this example in his book The Abolition of Man:
“The kind of explanation which explains things away may give us something, though at a heavy cost. But you cannot go on ‘explaining away’ for ever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on ‘seeing through’ things for ever.
The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to ‘see through’ first principles.
If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see.”
What he is saying is that if there is no absolute, then you keep seeing through everything and you can't see anything. This culture we live in claims there are no absolutes yet lives hypocritically like there are because it is impossible to live any other way. Even to say that Christians are intolerant is to judge them by a truth standard which they say doesn't exist.
3. All religions are alike at the core. They are all seeking God and Heaven just by different means.
I thought the above video handled this one well. Andy Steiger said that Buddhism isn't seeking God or Heaven but rather seeking non-existence. Hinduism doesn't believe in God or Heaven and Islaam believes in a Heaven that God doesn't inhabit. Just taking those three major "paths" we see that there are tremendous differences at the core and aren't alike.
4. Christians are narrow minded and bigoted to say their way is the right way.
Ravi Zacharias addresses this well when he says that Christianity is not the only religion to claim to be the right one. Buddhism, Hinduism, Islaam, Judaism all claim to be correct and the only way. But let's say we are the only ones to say this and we say that Jesus is the only way. Is that narrow minded? Is it narrow minded to say that water freezes at 0 degrees C? Is it narrow minded to say 2+2=4, not 5? Is it narrow minded to say that since I live on a dead end, there is only one road that leads to my house? Is it narrow minded to say that you must see a surgeon if you have appendicitis? There are a number of narrow assertions that we accept as a matter of fact in daily life. Why do we think that the most important question in life, our eternal destiny, wouldn't have a narrow answer? Jesus, when facing death on the cross prayed to the Father," if there is another way, please let that happen. Nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done." As we see from the outcome, this is the only way.
R.C. Sproul comes at this from a different angle. Assuming you accept the Biblical account of history of mankind, which of course is a big assumption, he traces the rejection of God from Adam and Eve to the golden calf, to the choosing of a king, to the killing of prophets, and ultimately to the killing of His own Son. R.C. then states, how dare we stand before God and say "You haven't done enough." The real question that we should be asking is not "Why is Jesus the only way?", but rather, "Why is there a way at all?"
Witnessing
In light of the fact that people have this relativistic view of truth along with the basic goodness of man, how do you witness to this culture? Here are some suggestions.
1. Love
Get involved in people's lives that are philosophically different from yours. Let them see that you still love them despite your differences. Show them that tolerance and coexisting doesn't mean that you have to give up your faith. Christians should demonstrate love not hate. Peter gives us some advice that 2000 years later speaks to our generation.
" Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, 14 or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. 15 For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. 16 Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. 17 Show proper respect to everyone... " 1Peter 2:12-17
The illustration goes, let's say your car broke down one night in the inner city and as you are working on it, you say the shadow of three hulking figures approaching you. Would you be more relieved or more fearful to know that these are three men coming home from a Bible study? Obviously, the answer is relief. We should live such lives of love that even though the world views us as intolerant, those around us see that nothing could be further from the truth.
2. Tracts
Jeff, in my Sunday School class, recently was in Thailand where they used a tract entitled "Can You Swim?" It shows someone drowning and two rescue attempts. One is someone on the shore reading instructions on how to swim and the second is someone jumping in the water to save that person. The illustration points out the difference between Christianity and all other religions. The person is then asked, which is better? I like this because it is not condemning what they believe yet pointing out the fallacy of the current world view that no religion is superior to the others.
I have used the following clip from the movie The Poseiden Adventure to illustrate this point. In it Gene Hackman is trying to convince the people that there is only one way out - one way to life, and only those who believe are saved.
The problem arises that in a culture that believes that we are all basically good people, convincing people that they are drowning or facing a perilous future may make these illustrations tough to accept. Christianity, as opposed to all other religions, gives mankind a bad diagnosis. I have written several blogs about this if you are interested.
http://thoughtsfromtherightbrain.blogspot.com/2016/05/parable-of-bag-of-dirty-clothes.html
http://thoughtsfromtherightbrain.blogspot.com/2013/06/jesus-is-remedy.html
Therefore, I wonder if when witnessing to people in our culture, we need to not only point to the solution to their problem but also convince them that they have a problem. Certainly, prison ministry or substance abuse ministries are more conducive to accepting the need for a savior, but how do you convince your co-workers?
3. The Way of the Master
Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort promote a ministry called "The Way of the Master" . Their method is, by using the 10 Commandments, help people understand that they aren't good people but sinners separated from God and justly deserving the penalty of their sin. Here is an example.
4. Get in discussions with people about evils they see in the world. Tim Keller says that every act of evil done by people is also in our heart. It's just that the seeds haven't been watered in our life. Many times a perpetrator's neighbors are interviewed and they describe the person as a normal person. Use current events to discuss do you think this world is getting better or worse? Is there hope for this world, etc.?
5. Or the easy way - when asked, "How can you say that Jesus is the only way to Heaven?", just say, "I didn't say it, He said it- and anyone that can predict their death and then that they will rise from the dead - I believe what they say!"
We will cover more of these tough questions soon and see how many are tied together in both their reasoning and unraveling or peeling off the layers.
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