CHRISTIAN EVANGELISM AND PEOPLE OF OTHER FAITH

CHRISTIAN EVANGELISM AND PEOPLE OF OTHER FAITH

I have felt the need to think about this issue again and would like to share my reflections and, of course, welcome any response.

AN EVANGELICAL FAITH:

 I have always rejected the word ‘evangelical’ as a unique description of a certain energetic proportion of the Christian Church as I think that anyone whose experience of their own faith tradition is live, real, visionary and purposeful is likely to be happy to share that experience with someone else with the belief that the experience can be shared and can be life changing for another person as it has been for them. That is true. for me, of my membership of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). In the sense that I have described, I am evangelical about the value of this experience to me.

There is no doubt in mind, as I have explained, that it is possible for a Jew, a Muslim, A Seikh, a Hindu, an atheist to be as evangelical about their experience as any Christian. I am also convinced that Truth as an object of Faith is as real to any person of faith who is evangelical about their experience as any other.

LOVE

Is the experience of Love unique to one faith or stronger in one faith than another. Thinking positively for the moment, there is no doubt in my mind is that Love is as universal as friendship and that there is no culture or tradition that does not know the Love that binds family, that forms friendships , fuels loyalties and provokes admiration and emulation. Thinking negatively, there is no faith tradition that has not evoked hatred, competition, discrimination and dominion over another. To weigh the degree of these attributes in one faith over another would be so value laden as to be meaningless.

SALVATION

If salvation means the process of submitting to God or to put it another way allowing God to have the ultimate dominion over your life and if that means first acknowledging the many ways we fall short of the ideallsm of any relationship that a particular faith demands with God, then all faiths even Buddhism offer routes to salvation and reconcilation in our relationship with God or salvation resulting in peace/unity with all of the world around us. 

THE LAW

Judaism, Christianity and Islam like all traditions that arose historically in and around  the lands we now call Iran, Iraq,  Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Turkey and Egypt developed codes or laws that God required and requires of us. Some were and indeed are more stringenlty applied than others. The possibility of compassion in weighing up the circumstance, however, is universal and culpability and punishment can be overlooked or avoided. Occasions when the Law was broken are rarely forgotten but can be forgiven or discounted although forgiveness is only in the gift of God. The dynamism of the interaction between recognition of law breaking, culpability, judgement, punishment, forgiveness varies and consequences for particular actions may be different and more costly physically than mentally or vice versa depending on the faith tradition.

CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION

Lets be clear, however, the faith traditions are not the same and  do have variations in understandings of the status of God and the status of humanity and the inter relationship, where it exists at all, between the two. Christianity offers pathways to a personal relationship with God for no other reason than God loves us. This is terribly important to Christians but of less importance than a dominant relationship with community that may be stressed in other traditions. Does this mean that such an interpretation or belief is superior to another? Only God is the judge of that. Humility, it seems to me, is still available to someone who feels strongly that their understanding of God and the relationship of God to them is fundamental to who they are. It is important, it seems to me, to be open to learn from others and to respect the fact that others may come to different conclusions essential to their faith than you have come to in relation to your faith.

SEEKING THE CONVERSION OF OTHERS TO YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF GOD AND TO YOUR FAITH PRACTICE.
I feel quite strongly that I have no place in any conversion process. I think it is right for me to share my understanding of God and God's relationship to mankind with anyone who will listen. If a listener deepens their appreciation of God through listening to what I say then that is a motion which should be God driven and not me driven. I also need to appreciate that in any dialogue, it could be me and hopefully will be me that also deepens  or even uniquely deepens in any particular encounter their appreciation of God through encounter with another and that would equally be God driven. Such openness can be blocked by anything that is ego driven in that relationship...blocked by a feeling that you have achieved something by changing someone else...you do not...the achievement, if any, is God driven and should never be seen as you driven. The danger of pride or self aggrandisement in this process will only destroy the value of any encounter and will ultimately diminish your capacity to be God's agent in bringing the conversation to a point of mutual change. People in dialogue should welcome and encourage mutual growth and greater depth in their own spiritual experience as a consequence. The extent of any impact is in the hand of God. We should not be afraid to change no matter how firm our own convictions are at the outset. I suspect that this approach may be hard to live with and is perhaps a measure of maturity. Stubbornness and obdurancy may be signs of a protectionism that keeps the ego safe at all costs.

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