Theological
Perspectives on PluralityA Significant
Ecumenical Consultation in Baar, Switzerland
S. Wesley Ariarajah
"Is God listening to my
Hindu neighbour's prayer?" The question is simple, but Christians
have enormous difficulty in responding to it. By and large,
Christians have ignored theological questions relating to God's life
with our neighbours of other religious traditions and their life
with God.
At the heart of this hesitation lies a number of profound
theological issues. Does God's self-revelation take place in nature,
in all human history, and in human experience? Or does God reveal
Godself only through the specific historical experience of a people
within one stream of history? Is it important to have an adequate
(if any) understanding of who God is, before God begins to listen to
our prayers?
Of a more fundamental nature are questions that lie at the heart
of the Christian faith itself. What is the relationship between
God's saving activity in the life, death and resurrection of Christ
to God's presence and activity in all history? How does one
reconcile the affirmation that "the earth is the Lord's and the
fullness thereof" with the Johannine verses "No one comes to the
Father except through me"?
Since the beginning of the modern ecumenical movement these
questions have engaged the attention of the missionary movement and
the Church. The practice of dialogue and reflection upon it have
brought a new sense of urgency to those questions. We need to base
our relationship with our neighbours of other faiths on a
theological foundation.
Much of the theology of religions operative in Christian thinking
was enumerated during the height of the missionary movement.
Reflections on other faiths served the missionary imperative, and
provided justification for the extension of the Church at the
expense of other religions. The theology of religions did not arise
out of the experience of a living encounter with others but from a
deductive thinking from the standpoint of one's own faith. A
selective reading of the Bible reinforced a mission-serving theology
of religions. Nevertheless, at all the early major missionary
conferences (e.g. Edinburgh 1910, Jerusalem 1928, Tambaram 1938)
there were voices that challenged the predominant attitude which saw
little faith-value in other traditions. But a mainly
mission-oriented theology of religions has survived.
At both the Nairobi (1975) and Vancouver (1983) assemblies of the
WCC, dialogue became a controversial point, primarily because of the
implicit assumptions made in dialogue about the theological
significance of other faiths. At Vancouver, for example, a major
stream within the Assembly rejected the possibility of God's
presence and activity in the religious life of our neighbours.
The Dialogue sub-unit of the WCC undertook a four-year study
programme on 'My Neighbour's Faith and Mine - Theological
Discoveries through Interfaith Dialogue'. As the apex of this study,
delegates from the Orthodox, Protestant and Roman Catholic
traditions were brought together to reflect on some of these issues.
A week of intense discussions centred on questions such as the
significance of religious plurality, christology, and the issues in
understanding the activity of the Spirit in the world. The document
which follows is a statement made by the members of this
consultation, which was held in Baar, near Zurich, Switzerland in
January 1990. It is hoped that the statement will help to animate
and facilitate the discussion of these important issues as we face
the Seventh Assembly in Canberra in February 1991.
Baar Statement
I. Introduction
Dialogue with people
of living faiths has been part of the Work of the WCC since 1971
when the Central Committee meeting in Addis Ababa affirmed that
dialogue "is to be understood as the common adventure of the
churches".
Since the Nairobi WCC Assembly in 1975 this common adventure has
been seen primarily as "dialogue in community". This has meant
entering into dialogue with our neighbours of other faiths in the
communities we as Christians share with them, exploring such issues
as peace, justice, and humanity's relation to nature. We have found
repeatedly that Christians may not behave as if we were the only
people of faith as we face common problems of an interdependent
world. It is evident the various religious traditions of the world
have much to contribute in wisdom and inspiration towards solving
these problems.
In this ecumenical consultation we have reaffirmed the importance
of Dialogue in Community as articulated in the Guidelines on
Dialogues (1979). We also recall the affirmation of the Central
Committee in adopting these guidelines: "To enter into dialogue
requires an opening of the mind and heart to others. It is an
undertaking which requires risk as well as a deep sense of vocation"
(Central Committee, Kingston, Jamaica, 1979).
We turned our attention with particular urgency to the
theological questions that have emerged from the practice of
dialogue. As the Guidelines suggested: "Christians engaged in
faithful 'dialogue in community' with people of other
faiths....cannot avoid asking themselves penetrating questions about
the place of these people in the activity of God in history. They
ask these questions not in theory, but in terms of what God may be
doing in the lives of hundreds of millions of men and women who live
in and seek community together with Christians, but along different
ways" (Guidelines, p.11).
Dialogue with people of other living faiths leads us to ask what
is the relation of the diversity of religious traditions to the
mystery of the one Triune God? It is clear to us that interfaith
dialogue has implications not only for our human relations in
community with people of other faiths, but for our Christian
theology as well.
From the beginning Christians have encountered people of other
faiths, and from time to time theologians have grappled with the
significance of religious plurality. The modern ecumenical movement
from its earliest beginnings (Edinburgh 1910) has made many attempts
to understand the relation of the Christian message to the world of
many faiths.
Today our greater awareness and appreciation of religious
plurality leads us to move in this "common adventure" toward a more
adequate theology of religions. There is a widely felt need for such
a theology, for without it Christians remain ill-equipped to
understand the profound religious experiences which they witness in
the lives of people of other faiths or to articulate their own
experience in a way that will be understood by people of other
faiths.
II. A Theological
Understanding of Religious Plurality
Our theological
understanding of religious plurality begins with our faith in the
one God who created all things, the living God, present and active
in all creation from the beginning. The Bible testifies to God as
God of all nations and peoples, whose love and compassion includes
all humankind. We see in the Covenant with Noah a covenant with all
creation. We see His wisdom and justice extending to the ends of the
earth as He guides the nations through their traditions of wisdom
and understanding. God's glory penetrates the whole of creation.
People have at all times and in all places responded to the
presence and activity of God among them, and have given their
witness to their encounters with the Living God. In this testimony
they speak both of seeking and of having found salvation, or
wholeness, or enlightenment, or divine guidance, or rest, or
liberation.
We therefore take this witness with the utmost seriousness and
acknowledge that among all the nations and peoples there has always
been the saving presence of God. Though as Christians our testimony
is always to the salvation we have experienced through Christ, we at
the same time "cannot set limits to the saving power of God" (CWME,
San Antonio 1989).
We see the plurality of religious traditions as both the result
of the manifold ways in which God has related to peoples and nations
as well as a manifestation of the richness and diversity of
humankind. We affirm that God has been present in their seeking and
finding, that where there is truth and wisdom in their teachings,
and love and holiness in their living, this like any wisdom,
insight, knowledge, understanding, love and holiness that is found
among us is the gift of the Holy Spirit. We also affirm that God is
with them as they struggle, along with us, for justice and
liberation.
This conviction that God as creator of all is present and active
in the plurality of religions makes it inconceivable to us that
God's saving activity could be confined to any one continent,
cultural type, or groups of peoples. A refusal to take seriously the
many and diverse religious testimonies to be found among the nations
and peoples of the whole world amounts to disowning the biblical
testimony to God as creator of all things and father of humankind.
"The Spirit of God is at work in ways that pass human understanding
and in places that to us are least expected. In entering into
dialogue with others, therefore, Christians seek to discern the
unsearchable riches of Christ and the way God deals with humanity"
(CWME Statement, Mission and Evangelism).
It is our Christian faith in God which challenges us to take
seriously the whole realm of religious plurality. We see this not so
much as an obstacle to be overcome, but rather as an opportunity for
deepening our encounter with God and with our neighbours as we await
the fulfilment when "God will be all in all" (1 Cor. 15-18). Seeking
to develop new and greater understandings of "the wisdom, love and
power which God has given to men (and women) of other faiths" (New
Delhi Report, 1961), we must affirm our "openness to the possibility
that the God we know in Jesus Christ may encounter us also in the
lives of our neighbours of other faiths" (CWME Report, San Antonio
1989, para. 29). The one God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ has
not left Himself without witness, anywhere (Acts 14.17).
Ambiguity in the
Religious Traditions
Any affirmation of the
positive qualities of wisdom, love, compassion, and spiritual
insight in the world's religious traditions must also speak with
honesty and with sadness of the human wickedness and folly that is
also present in all religious communities. We must recognize the
ways in which religion has functioned too often to support systems
of oppression and exclusion. Any adequate theology of religions must
deal with human wickedness and sin, with disobedience to spiritual
insight and failure to live in accordance with the highest ideals.
Therefore we are continually challenged by the Spirit to discern the
wisdom and purposes of God.
III. Christology
And Religious Plurality
Because we have seen and
experienced goodness, truth and holiness among followers of other
paths and ways than that of Jesus Christ, we are forced to confront
with total seriousness the question raised in the Guidelines on
Dialogue (1979) concerning the universal creative and redemptive
activity of God towards all humankind and the particular redemptive
activity of God in the history of Israel and in the person and work
of Jesus Christ (para. 23). We find ourselves recognizing a need to
move beyond a theology which confines salvation to the explicit
personal commitment to Jesus Christ.
We affirm that in Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word, the entire
human family has been united to God in an irrevocable bond and
covenant. The saving presence of God's activity in all creation and
human history comes to its focal point in the event of Christ.
In Jesus's words and action, in His proclamation, in His ministry
of healing and service, God was establishing His reign on earth, a
sovereign rule whose presence and power cannot be limited to any one
community or culture. The attitudes of Jesus as He reached out to
those beyond the house of Israel testify to this universal reign. He
spoke with the woman of Samaria, affirming all who would worship God
in Spirit and truth (Jn. 4.7-24). He marvelled at the faith of a
centurion, acknowledging that He had not found such faith in all
Israel (Matt. 8.5-11). For the sake of a Syro-Phoenician woman, and
in response to her faith, He performed a miracle of healing (Matt.
15.21-28).
But while it appears that the saving power of the reign of God
made present in Jesus during His earthly ministry was in some sense
limited (cf. Matt. 10.23), through the event of His death and
resurrection, the paschal mystery itself, these limits were
transcended. The cross and the resurrection disclose for us the
universal dimension of the saving mystery of God.
This saving mystery is mediated and expressed in many and various
ways as God's plan unfolds toward its fulfillment. It may be
available to those outside the fold of Christ (Jn. 10.16) in ways we
cannot understand, as they live faithful and truthful lives in their
concrete circumstances and in the framework of the religious
traditions which guide and inspire them. The Christ event is for us
the clearest expression of the salvific will of God in all human
history. (I Tim. 2.4)
IV. The Holy
Spirit And Religious Plurality
We have been especially
concerned in this Consultation with the person and work of the Holy
Spirit, who moved and still moves over the face of the earth to
create, nurture, challenge, renew and sustain. We have learned again
to see the activity of the Spirit as beyond our definitions,
descriptions and limitations, as "the wind blows where it wills"
(Jn. 3.8). We have marvelled at the "economy" of the Spirit in all
the world, and are full of hope and expectancy. We see the freedom
of the Spirit moving in ways which we cannot predict, we see the
nurturing power of the Spirit bringing order out of chaos and
renewing the face of the earth, and the 'energies' of the Spirit
working within and inspiring human beings in their universal longing
for and seeking after truth, peace and justice. Everything which
belongs to 'love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, self-control' is properly to be recognized
and acknowledged as the fruit of the activity of the Holy Spirit.
(Gal. 5.22-23, cf. Rom. 14.17).
We are clear, therefore, that a positive answer must be given to
the question raised in the Guidelines on Dialogue (1979) "is it
right and helpful to understand the work of God outside the Church
in terms of the Holy Spirit" (para. 23). We affirm unequivocally
that God the Holy Spirit has been at work in the life and traditions
of peoples of living faiths.
Further we affirm that it is within the realm of the Spirit that
we may be able to interpret the truth and goodness of other
religions and distinguish the "things that differ", so that our
"love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment"
(Phil. 1.9-10).
We also affirm that the Holy Spirit, the Interpreter of Christ
and of our own Scriptures (Jn. 14.26) will lead us to understand
afresh the deposit of the faith already given to us, and into fresh
and unexpected discovery of new wisdom and insight, as we learn more
from our neighbours of other faiths.
V. Interreligious
Dialogue: A Theological Perspective
Our recognition of the
mystery of salvation in men and women of other religious traditions
shapes the concrete attitudes with which we Christians must approach
them in interreligious dialogue.
We need to respect their religious convictions, different as
these may be from our own, and to admire the things which God has
accomplished and continues to accomplish in them through the Spirit.
Interreligious dialogue is therefore a "two-way street". Christians
must enter into it in a spirit of openness, prepared to receive from
others, while on their part, they give witness of their own faith.
Authentic dialogue opens both partners to a deeper conversion to the
God who speaks to each through the other. Through the witness of
others, we Christians can truly discover facets of the divine
mystery which we have not yet seen or responded to. The practice of
dialogue will then result in the deepening of our own life of faith.
We believe that walking together with people of other living faiths
will bring us to a fuller understanding and experience of truth.
We feel called to allow the practice of interreligious dialogue
to transform the way in which we do theology. We need to move toward
a dialogical theology in which the praxis of dialogue together with
that of human liberation, will constitute a true locus
theologicus, i.e. both a source of and basis for theological
work. The challenge of religious plurality and the praxis of
dialogue are part of the context in which we must search for fresh
understandings, new questions, and better expressions of our
Christian faith and commitment.
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