God's inclusivity?

How do we relate to other faiths?

With the rise of modernity and the expansion of trade, we became more aware of other faiths and ideologies but now our globalism and the smallness of the global community has increased our consciousness of those who differ to us. In fact, might it be that we are to become more aware of our similarities?

Our neighbours are different and the same.

Christianity sits alongside other ways of interpreting the world and this is how it is today. Christian claims to truth - do they compete with other truth claims? Do we actually want competition? Surely not. Are questions about validity the right questions?

So Christianity and the premise that it is the only way to God? How does this work?

Christians affirming other faiths? What does this look like?

Is evangelism to become dialectic?

There are many ways of thinking this through: Exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism. D'Costa rejects these categories, or so it would seem from reading 'The Meeting of Religions and the Triune God.'

Exclusivists hold that there is no salvation outside the Christian church. It involves saving faith in Jesus and is intentional. (Catholics would argue, traditionally, that there is an intermediate state for unbaptised infants and for righteous pagans before Christ. This is extrapolation from Romans 2 and the character of God. For exclusivists evangelism is essential. The problems with this kind of thinking is that it might shrink God's mercy.

Pluralism reacts to this and this might also be at the heart of Unitarianism but you could ask Adrian about that.

John Hick is the archetype for this kind of thinking - ultimate reality is not bound up with special revelation, we can not actually access it but only through our man-made constructs and so all faiths share in the indirect access to something transcendent. Adrian would hold I think to the idea that Christian claims to Christ's sufficiency - (to salvation faith only conveyed by Christ) is a type of arrogance.

This idea does promote dialogue.

D'Costa would argue that pluralism is actually unattainable - there is something exclusivist about pluralism, if you can get your head around that one. Sometimes pluralism can seem rather naive. It fails to take seriously the sincerity with which people hold their faiths.

Inclusivism - salvation is also attainable beyond the church but might differ in quality which preserves the imperative to evangelise. God knows us and has made himself known in Jesus and inclusivism fails to recognise this.

The work of the Spirit goes beyond the church.

Karl Rahner and the Imago dei - so that every outward act has its root in God  - is drawn to its horizon in God through the power of the Spirit.

People are being drawn to God through their faith even if that faith from a Christian point of view is full of erroneous teaching.

There are theological issues for the church to navigate its way through like the sufficiency of Christ, the importance of the church as a body of believers, whether the Spirit is at work beyond the church etc

The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society is a good book to read on these issues by Newbigin. His horizon is the eschaton for making sense of these issues. God's is a commitment to us and our destiny and we are shown God at work by his grace in many places and people.

Read D'Costa on this front too.

Vatican II has its own particular contribution to make as well.

....to be continued.

Whatever it does for us, it has us assume a humble position. We have so much to learn. What we learn does not diminish the particularity of our faith. What we have to decide is that we must hold all of this stuff in tension.