Thursday, January 6, 2011

No One True Way

Last time I talked about the reasons why I still consider myself Christian, and the hope and guidance that my faith provides. Today I want to emphasize the fact that I don't believe in “one true way.” One of the biggest difficulties I've had with Christianity is the question of other religions. It's perfectly clear from my experience that people of all religious backgrounds and none can be kind or unkind, charitable or selfish, hopeful or despairing. And of course just about every major religion and ethical system teaches some version of the golden rule – on some level, we all get that people are basically alike in their essential needs and desires and that we ought to care for each other. I'm aware of three major ways that Christians deal with this fact.

The first is what I think of as the “too bad” approach: the idea that only Christians can be saved and everyone else will be condemned to hell, or at best, nonexistence. This is a great way to motivate people to evangelize very aggressively – you might lose your friend for now, but you could save them for eternity! But I just can't buy it. A God that accepts people who assent to a certain set of beliefs, even if they've done horrible things (though repented for them) but rejects people who have tried to be good all their lives but don't share those particular beliefs is a God who has His priorities backwards. I know or know of plenty of good people of all belief systems – including atheism – and if God doesn't want them than I don't want God.

Then there's the C.S. Lewis approach - “we know that no one is saved except through Christ, but we don't know that only those who know Him are saved through Him.” This is a much nicer idea, in that it doesn't require me to think of half the people I care about as hell-bound. In this version, God is bright enough to notice that lots of people are basically decent even if they never heard of Jesus, or heard of Him but were raised in and accepted another religion, or had a bad experience with the church, or just couldn't get their minds around the idea of a deity in general. And also, God is compassionate enough to still want everyone who is at all willing to have Him.

So basically in the C.S. Lewis approach, there's something of an idea that maybe it isn't someone's fault if they're not Christian. And that's where the problem is for me. It seems sort of like saying that it's not someone's fault if they're black or if they're gay – it may be true, but it's insulting to even consider the situation as having fault attached – as if it's obvious that it would be better to be white, or straight – or Christian – but we're nice people so we won't condemn people for something that's no fault of their own. It seems to me that true acceptance of diversity means much more than just tolerating the fact that people are different – and that goes for religion as well as ethnicity and orientation.

So I want to be able to work under the assumption that other people's belief systems are just as good a choice for them as Christianity is for me. To do that, I have to give up a couple ideas about religion that I once accepted without even being aware of them. The first is that religion is primarily about what happens after death, and how to make sure that good things instead of bad things happen to you. In this system, Christianity is about gaining heaven and avoiding hell, and the way to do that is to connect yourself to Jesus in the appropriate way. And other religions have their own ideas about salvation, but they're wrong, but luckily they might be able to get on the Jesus train anyway. I reject that whole idea. Whatever happens after death is too mysterious and lacking in data for me to get any sort of hold on, and it's not what my faith is about for me.

The second idea I'm throwing out is that religion is primarily (or maybe secondarily) a set of beliefs about the nature of reality. In the Christian view, some of those ideas about the nature of reality would be that there is one creator deity, that said deity exists in three interrelated modes, and so forth. Assuming that there's only one ultimate real reality, I then have to assert that my non-evidence-based ideas about reality are true and those of other people are false – but of course I can and should still love those people anyway. To me, it doesn't seem very loving to hold in my heart the belief that I have the truth about reality and other people are deluded, even though none of us can demonstrate any evidence for our beliefs.

So if religion isn't about salvation and it isn't about knowledge of reality, that what is it? For me, it's about having a community and a path, a set of stories and ideals that I use to inform my life and help me find or create meaning. Because of my background and personality, Christianity is the path that works the best for me, and I choose to walk that path and not others, even though I see that others have beauty and value as well, and I may borrow from them at times. Other people choose other paths, and I find those to be equally valid because they have their own backgrounds and personalities, and I can respect and admire their faithfulness to their own paths – and I don't have to think that it would be even better if they were Christian – it's not for me to say. Some people choose not to have religious lives at all – but the people I know who make that choice are still trying to live good and meaningful lives, so who am I to say that that's not right for them? Even though I find truth and beauty in all the religions I've learned about, Christianity is the one that resonates for me. I can borrow images and stories from other faiths, but ultimately for me the church is home. But again, there are those who feel able to walk more than one path, who feel committed to two (or more) different religions – and again, if that's what works for an individual, then great. Reality is whatever it is, and none of us really know what happens after this life, but if we can find meaning while we're here, that's probably enough to keep us busy.

No comments:

Post a Comment