I wrote this originally to my friends from back home with whom I am a part of a peer support group. However, since this has been coming up so often in conversations with people from all over the place, I decided to post it here as well.
As some of my previous blogs have alluded to, I’ve been going through some rocky, albeit interesting times in regards to religion. But now I have come to a place of utter uncertainty and despair. Let me explain…
As my United 93 blog talks about, I am getting rather sick of religion. I then talked about how we should be able to coexist, that life shouldn’t so difficult to enjoy simply because we worship the same God in different ways. However, I am now in the midst of a crushing of that ideal.
In the book of John, chapter 14, Christ says that he is the way, the truth and the life and that no one gets to the Father except through Him. There is no way to salvation except through Jesus Christ because no other path is able to actually approach God. Essentially, and most importantly, Christianity is the only true religion.
In the sura (which means chapter) 4: 171 we find the Qu’ran saying this:
“O People of the Scripture! Do not transgress the limits of your religion, and do not say about God except the truth. The Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary, was only a messenger of God, and His word that He had sent to Mary, and a revelation from Him. Therefore, you shall believe in GOD and His messengers. You shall not say, “Trinity”. You shall refrain from this for your own good. God is only one God. Be He glorified; He is much too glorious to have a son. To Him belongs everything in the heavens and everything on earth. God suffices as Lord and Master.”
And then later, in sura 112 we have:
“He is God, the one and only. God, the Eternal, Absolute the Self-Sufficient master. He begetteth not, nor is he begotten. And there is none like unto Him.”
God does not have, never had and will never have a Son or anything to do with the concept of begetting. There is no Son of God that walked the Earth. Essentially, and most importantly, Christianity is fundamentally wrong.
The Jews do not have scriptural refutation for the Christian faith because Christianity came from Judaism (which many seem to forget, unfortunately). However, they fundamentally reject Christ’s divinity as well.
And so we find an inherent conflict to these three Abrahamic religions. Basically, I have come to a point where I see no way out of this. I earlier spoke of co-exisiting with one another, but I now can see no way for that to happen due to the perpetual and constant conflict built into each system of beliefs. The moment either a Muslim or a Jew accept Jesus as the Son of God they cease to be Muslim or Jew and become Christian. Conversely, the moment a Christian denies Jesus to be the Son of God, they cease to be a Christian. There is no grey line, no middle ground, it’s either in or out.
I recall that we talked about this business once at a youth group meeting. This question of Christ being the sole path to salvation was one that no one in the youth group seemed to believe, but I played devil’s advocate to provide at least the semblance of an argument. However, I do wish we could return to that place and topic to discuss this now. I would have much to say while being on that side of the debate.
For instance, looking at the passage in John where Jesus speaks of being the only way to the Father, how can I ignore that? I have done so to this point due to literary criticism; by simply understanding that John was written by a human, for humans in John’s community, and so what he wrote was not historically true (i.e. Jesus didn’t actually say what John says He did), but it is theologically true for John and the John community. But! Even with this critical viewpoint, where is the line drawn. The earliest Christian writing we have for NT scriptures is arguably from 49 CE. 16 years or so after Christ’s death. And both the 49 and the death of Christ are not solid… to be more safe it’s more like: Christ died in 26CE and the first letter of Paul being written in 51. More than 25 years between the words being spoken and them being written into static, immutable form. Then the gospels came even later. Thus, how can I accept some of the gospels and reject others, or even parts of one and reject others. I understand that is necessary in order to historically reconstruct the Jesus of History, but the Jesus of my faith is based upon those 27 books of the New Testament as they are written… not as they should have been written. If I am to base my faith on non-existent texts (i.e. the way the gospels “should have been”) then what do I base anything off of?
Thus, it is a great burden to sift through our scriptures to determine which things are acceptable and which are not, and then to justify said choosing and interpretation. It’s a huge, uphill battle. And it’s made all the more difficult by those brothers and sisters who have it so easy by simply accepting the Bible’s infallibility and inerrancy and divine inspiration by God because then all the answers are right there. While I look at that ease of living with envy, I also look at it with a sense of distaste because, to me, it, of course, is easy to have all the answers for the world when you’ve created your entire world in the shape of a box. With my being outside of that box looking in, I see a place I do not want to be.
But, one time while walking home from school I decided to let myself enter the box and see how it felt. I, as best as I could, accepted that Christ is the only way to the Father, that all others who believe differently or don’t believe are in jeopardy. Once I was in that place, again, as best as I could be, my friend Jamal came to mind. Jamal is a dear friend and a wonderful person, but he is a devout Muslim. And I began crying as I walked home because of the despair I felt at the thought of Jamal being eternally damned due to his not believing Christ to be who I think He was. Being in that box, and the consequences therein, shattered my heart.
It took me a couple of days to rebuild.
When I had, I found myself walking to school and I thought about taking myself in the other extreme. I did all I could to completely reject Christ and to, for the length of an entire street in Isla Vista (Abrego, if you should care), live as a non-Christian. I broke down again as my heart was torn to tatters. I didn’t make it a single block.
Thus, through those experiences I have found that the obvious answers to my dilemma will not serve. I cannot accept that which is held out to me by secular society, nor that which is proffered by some Christian brothers and sisters. Thus I must continue struggling and seeking that which I feel God is pushing me to find.
It’s interesting because I had a training exercise for being an RC a couple of weeks back where I practice a listening model with someone. The woman I was doing it with was doing the listening this time around, and they had asked that we use real issues in our lives so as to create a real atmosphere to practice this model in. At the time, I was dealing with what must have been the initial tremors of this issue and so I told her about some things I was dealing with in my faith life. After talking with her about it she said something like this (this is a paraphrase of course): “David, this is so interesting. You are so grounded in your faith, that is obvious to see. But, I don’t know how to explain it exactly, but I feel like someday you’re going to start your own church or something.” She explained that she didn’t mean necessarily a new church of a new religion, but that I would be able to begin my own establishment.
It’s interesting because that’s not the first time I’ve been told this. But, this entire situation I’m going through has, for sure, thrown the whole ministry career stuff into doubt. I need to get this taken care of before I will feel at all capable of leading people in that capacity. Many of the people I have mentioned this crisis to have asked me if my being a youth leader has been compromised or effected at all… and I say not yet, because the group is more focused on a place to hang out and have fun. It isn’t as religion or faith oriented (as it could be or as I would like it to be), so it hasn’t been an issue yet. And also, I find it interesting that as I go through this now, there is nothing with PYF going on, so I’m in this lull that allows me a chance to come to grips with everything. God has interesting timing to be sure.
Now, I’ve thought about attending my school’s Interfaith group to talk to them about this (I’ve been invited and asked to join many times). I feel like they will have some sort of simple and sage answer to my problem. But at the same time, I’ve tried to come up with those sorts of answers but they still don’t work.
For example: I imagine one answer would be that since Christ’s main message was to love God, love your neighbor, love your enemy and do good that it is not difficult to co-exist with people of other faiths because they, too, strive for such a lifestyle. Thus, working side-by-side with a Muslim and a Jew would not be an issue since we are all doing the same. However, I would counter that by pointing out that while we could work together and co-exist in that fashion, I would never be able to fully accept either one of them for who they are. We could become friends, incredibly close friends even, but there would still be a fundamental rejection of each other because I cannot accept the Muslim for who he or she is nor the Jew because the most crucial aspects to our respective faiths are incompatible. So, certainly, could we work together to provide for the poor and needy, but we would be doing it from different places, which would never be in harmony. And that saddens me. God’s inclusive love and all-encompassing compassion for His children seems to make the idea of not fully accepting someone antithetical to His will.
Another answer would be that, yes, John is a little off, and since we’re all worshipping the same God, we’re all good and can live peaceably. This, to me, sounds enticing, but I have come to realize it is a clever way to simply side-step the issue. I agree we’re worshipping the same God, but for me, as a Christian, worshipping Christ is a cornerstone to my faith. Muslims and Jews are not able to do that, for that would again be contrary to their faiths’ tenets. Thus, again we are in conflict because they would never worship He who I deem worthy of worship (in fact it would be heretical and blasphemous) and I would not want them to for those very reasons. But, at the same time, for me to neglect worshipping He who died for my sins would be… well, to me just wrong. So, while we’re worshipping the same God, even our worship is in conflict. I can recall times when my friends and I would go out to dinner… there would be myself, a practicing Protestant, my friends Figge and Hugo who were not-practicing Catholics, Aaron who is a practicing Catholic, Jamal who is a Muslim and Josh who is a Jew. And I managed to get us all to pray together before our meals when we went out to dinner. However, the prayer would have to be ecumenical to incorporate all of these faiths. Usually I would be the one to pray, since people seemed to defer to me to do so. But I can remember one time when my friend Figge did, but he prayed a Catholic prayer that all Catholics are taught (one heavy with Christian wordage). I have often wondered what happened there. Did Jamal pray to Allah an apology for having been a part of that? Did Josh do something similar? Even if they did not actively do anything about, they must have rejected it on some level because of the “in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, Amen.” Even in that microcosm, there either is a rejection on the part of the ones hearing the prayer, or the one praying must omit that which is the core of his or her belief in order to not offend or insult others.
Just to throw another wrench in there, this has been dealing with interfaith issues in the Abrahamic religions (the religions deriving from the children of Abraham: Isaac=Judaism and Christianity; Ishmael=Islam). But what of those who are Buddhist or Hindu or something else? Or what of those who simply don’t have God as a part of their lives?
This sort of thing, from people who dislike the close-mindedness Christianity is stereotyped with, but still believe Jesus is Christ, often seems to elicit the idea that after everyone dies, they will discover that Christ was indeed God’s Son and then they will have the chance to accept or reject Him. While this seems a wonderful way to deal with the issue we are grappling with here on Earth, I do not see it as a solution. First of all, who would ever reject Him at that point? While that seems like, duh, that’s the point, it then puts me in this situation of superiority. Essentially, for example, if Jamal told me that I am wrong and he is right… I would sit there, fat and happy, thinking “Oh just you wait.” This doesn’t solve the temporal issue of living together and co-existing, it’s simply deferring my superiority until after death. I am still right, Jamal is still wrong, he’ll just have to learn when the time comes. Also, this still doesn’t address the issue that a Jew and I cannot come to terms with our faiths since they mutually exclude. All I’m doing is waiting for the hereafter to prove my point.
Now, still, some may argue that that mindset prevents issues arising here on Earth. That I could live my life without trouble because everything is left up to the life hereafter and I am free to live how I choose (and I mean that in the sense of living morally… not descending into debauchery and what not) and not worry about these theological debates that mar my life. But, I personally feel that is a simple cop out. That is simply a way to avoid having to ask these questions. To be honest, what if I am the one that is wrong? Does that not matter? Some would say it doesn’t to them, and that’s their prerogative. For me, I cannot simply live life without some semblance of understanding. I got this from my mom and I’m glad I did, even if it torments me at times like these. To simply do what I feel is right and that it will all come out in the wash in the end, to me, completely devalues and effectively destroys what Abraham did, what Christ did, what Muhammad did. These figures, upon whom the world’s superpowers are founded, have been reduced to pointless historical figures. Their messages don’t matter. Their lives were fruitless. Their entire existence was for naught. And that to me seems more troubling than my entire crisis I find myself in. So let us not go there. Let us not erase the history books and only look to the future. Let us attempt to understand what God did so that we can understand what God wants in an effort to do what God wills.
Help me out guys. I’m having a lot of trouble with this.
