An Alternative to John 14:6

This is an excellent discussion, but we're talking about a truer understanding of John 14:6, not an alternative to it. We are looking at an alternative to the conventional explanation of it.

Greetings everyone - this is my first post in the Homebrewed forum !I'd like to precede my comments by pointing-out that I have not yet read Bo's or anyone else's responses. I wanted to keep my response as free from influence as possible. :)

Where do we start thinking about the question of other religions? We should start by considering that the teachings and parables of Christ displace religious identity where that kind of identity is assumed. Christ never used language of religious identity when speaking about the kingdom, when confronting assumptions of who is "in" or who is "out", or when answering questions about entering the kingdom. The only distinctions Jesus made in these cases were between righteous and wicked, not between one religion or the other. This is significant because Christ must have been aware of other religious/spiritual beliefs outside of Judaism, so the fact that he never spoke in terms of religious identity is profound to me.

Below are some examples that I believe support my response. Instead of going in-depth with each one, I encourage you to examine them for yourself and develop your own response. Perhaps you can find other examples to add to the list.

The parable of the weeds, and the parable of the fishing nets - Matt 13:24-30;47-50

The parable of the 2 sons - Matt 21:28-32

The final judgement - Matt 25:31-46

The rich young man - Matt 19:17-22

The BeatitudesThe Good SamaritanThe Woman at the wellThe Teachings on the Kingdom

etc, etc, etc...

I agree that this model is an excellent alternative to John 14:6, but what's not exactly sitting well with me is some of Paul's actions (and the actions of the mobs) that occur when he is in Phillipi in chapter 16 (like the exorcism of the slave girl with the demon) or in Thessalonica (17) and Ephesus (19) (mass conversions leading to mobs threatened by their presence).

Paul must have known (I'd say perhaps even intentionally incited) that, by preaching Christianity anywhere, people would turn away from their old beliefs, even destroy their sacred texts  or stop honoring Gods once held sacred, such as with the witchcraft books and the temple of Artemis at Ephesus.  While he in no ways tells these folks to burn their books,  it seems implied to me that he looked favorably on it.  It seems more like the colonial mindset that you mention, rather than the Acts 17 mindset used at Athens.

This isn't a fully formulated thought, so bear with me here.  Am I making any sense?

Including everybody in the "we" seems like the central point, very near the whole point, to me. That's more or less what I was trying to get at in previous comments. I think Paul does a swell job here.

   ... If The Invitation is to everyone, as everybody here (even Mary!!) agrees, why is the instance of the invitation in John 14:6 addressed only to Christians, "en famille"?? Oh well, never mind.

   All controversies involving the Trinity seem entirely nonsensical to me. Isn't the Son eternally co-existent with the Father, and the Spirit likewise?? Sorry, I was raised Unitarian. *Trying* to get over it.

I'd also like to throw in an argument in favour of'deep pluralism' (I nearly sent this on hearing the Clayton-McLaren Wild Goose discussion) coming from what might appear unexpected quarters.

Please read the following with 'THOUGHT-EXPERIMENT' as a prefix, folks, especially if you're from a tradition which doesn't have modern-day prophecy or Marial devotion on its radar. As some of you may know, some 35 million people have turned up over the last 30 years at a place in the middle of nowhere in Bosnia where it is claimed that a certain Jewish girl born just over 2000 years ago started to communicate and is still communicating with some local children (now forty-somethings). My own background does not necessarily make me favourably pre-disposed to Marian apparitions in general, but I try to keep an open mind and to go with the evidence, as ruling anything out on the grounds of a philosophical a priori as to what can and cannot happen seems foolish to me. Well, in investigating Medjugorje for an academic book project in which I am currently involved, I was stunned not only by the phenomenology and the level of disinformation put about in the media by the skeptics, but also by a message that many people feel is among the most important to have come out of the place  In January 1985, the following locution from Jesus's mother was reported in response to a Catholic priest who queried the authenticity healing of an Orthodox child:

"Tell this priest, tell everyone, that it is you who are divided on earth. The Muslims and the Orthodox, for the same reason as Catholics, are equal before God, as St. Paul says. It does not suffice to belong to the Catholic Church to be saved, but it is necessary to respect the commandments of God in following one's conscience. Those who are not Catholics, are no less creatures made in the image of God, and destined to rejoin someday the House of the Father. Salvation is available to everyone, without exception. Only those who refuse God deliberately are condemned. To him who has been given little, little will be asked for. To whoever has been given much, very much will be required. It is God alone, in His infinite justice, who determines the degree of responsibility and pronounces judgment."

Medjugorje's fundamentalist critics see the religious pluralism of this message as proof of its inauthenticity ... just as they are irate that Mary is claimed to have pointed to a local Muslim woman as an example of holiness (the messages of the 80s urge a Catholic-Orthodox-Muslim reconciliation in Bosnia which tragically did not occur), or at the reported message that a person cannot be a true Christian WITHOUT respecting other religions. But when I hear all this, I have to say that my ears really start tingling. Naturally I can't either confirm or refute the authenticity of such locutions (on which the Vatican jury is still out), but what I can certainly do is to affirm the theological vision they articulate.

Time to get Jesus's Mama on Homebrewed?:)))))

this is interesting: <i>Unfortunately what has been the predominant modus operandi is a Colonial version of missions that does none of the three.  It disparaged previous religious traditions as paganism, witchcraft, sorcery and superstition.</i>

If we look at early christian art one can see how accepted it was to incorporate cultural and even religious symbolism from the pagans. The Mausoleum of Galla Placidia is a great example of this, blending the roman pagan colour pallete and styles with christian symbols. There are plenty of archaeological indications that the integration was more than stylistic too. Graves show mixtures of christian and pagan burial rights occurring in many places (Saxon Britain, Viking Denmark) during the periods when Christianity first began to take hold in geographic locations. The idea hat the christinas turned up and forced cultures and religions to switch over <i>en masse</i> and <i>en tout</i> is not supported by the archaeology, and might just be a "modern" phenomena associated more with the political imperialism of the post medi-eval period than anything else.

Clearly John 14:6 is an in house essentially protestant claim - that Jesus is decisive for Christian existence.  Some might say that what is decisive for Christian existence is the creeds or the bible but those are both wrong.  It is the existential existence revealed in the life of Christ that is decisive for my own authentically Christian human existence - a life of faith played out in love.  Of course John 14:6 says nothing about an authentically Muslim existence.

Great stuff! @leadfromfringe @homebrewedxnty

I would start (for Christians) by demolishing any sense of religious in-grouping.

From Amos ("Are not you Israelites the same to me as the Cushites?” declares the Lord. “Did I not bring Israel up from Egypt, the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?"), to Jonah, to Isaiah and Ezekiel's visions of the peaceable Kingdom where all the nations stream into Israel - the prophets consistently turn their harshest judgments against those who think they are safest in God's esteem. There is no US and THEM.

This is only heightened in the NT. Jesus tells us we will not worship on either the mountain of the Samaritans or the Israelites. He welcomes and praises Roman Centurions, Canaanite women, prostitutes, lepers, tax collectors and so on - while consistently and overwhelmingly assaulting the religious insiders of his day: the scribes, the pharisees the temple priests, the moneychangers, the temple institution itself. His followers continue this trend - eating with gentiles, baptizing ethiopian eunuchs, rejecting circumcision and kosher food laws and other marks of religious "belonging". The believe and behave as though all boundaries have been abolished (Gentile/Jew, Free/Slave, Male/Female etc...), and trust visions and revelations that say all people will be at last made one and there will be no more suffering or tears.

Since the God that Christians follow and worship utterly rejects distinctions between people, but we still live in a world of tribes and identities the path of the Christian believer lies toward the other as a supplicant, not a conqueror/teacher. Jesus is always found first among the disenfranchised (from our perspective) and second in the unity of people who were formerly strangers - and NEVER in the temple sanctuary.

Off-the-reservation-guy says: (though the post isn't addressed to me, I formulated my response before I read yours as you asked) Start thinking about other religions by talking to people who practice other religions. Try as hard as we can to understand them from their own point of view. Learn about their history, the questions they ask, and the answers they offer. Know something about their practices. From our understanding of our own religion, find points of contrast and points of connection. Build cross-religious relationships, and utterly abandon the implicit assumption in most "apologetics" that we are smarter, wiser and have better access to revelation from God. Take other people as seriously as we want to be taken, and respect in them the dignity that we want for ourselves.

I think your proposals are very solid, though, and I'm probably just going to steal them for conversations with people who are only willing/able to look at the world through a Christianity-centric lens. It's definitely swimming against the stream, though - which I of course respect :)

Hello Bo,

Great point about the Filioque - which can be backed up by an examination of the murky history of the whole misunderstanding, which very much justifies the Eastern rather than the Western tradition on this. There was some groundbreaking ecumenical discussion about this in the late 1970s (involving some stellar theologians such as Moltmann, Congar, Zizioulas and Staniloae), but it's definitely time we started working through the implications ... just as you are doing here.

Shalom

Peter B.

Alright.  Here's where I'd start:  not John 14 but John 10.  There are sheep that are not of "this fold," but they hear the voice of the Shepherd.  Following that Shepherd might eventually result in radical changes, but hearing the spoken <i>euangelion</i> does not require a prior renunciation.  Thus the logic of the Gospel is always that of rhetorical invitation, an invitation for the one hearing the sent in turn to hear the sender, not the assumption that the shepherd can only speak to me, not to thee.

Now that I'm allowed to read your response, Bo, I tend to read Paul's use of <i>deisidaimonesteros</i> as having a sharper edge than you're giving it: perhaps I'm reading the traditional picture of Paul as a fiery brawler back into the Acts narrative, but given that the word sometimes has connotations closer to "superstitious" than "pious," I tend to read it the former way more than the latter.  At the very least I'd want to leave the rhetorical connotations open and ambiguous.