10/5/20 Louie (see video HERE)
Aren’t all religions of the world basically the same?
I recently had a conversation with a young man named Louie
which picked up several days after I reached out to him outside a grocery
store. He had wanted to talk more at the
time but had frozen groceries that would melt if he did. We kept in touch by text and met up at a
restaurant, where I recorded our conversation.
In the meantime, Louie had visited the Baha'i Temple in
Evanston, Illinois, and was very impressed with it, which helped explain why he
seemed so genuinely positive and optimistic about everything I told him about
the Gospel, even though it sharply contrasted with his own beliefs.
The Baha'i Temple and the Baha'i faith teach that “the religions
of the world come from the same Source and are in essence successive chapters
of one religion from God.” In order to
do that, the different religions must be reinterpreted and misrepresented, kind
of like trying to get a square peg through a round hole. I noticed Louie was using Christian
terminology in ways it was never meant to be used, and the concrete and
historical facts of Jesus’ life and ministry were downplayed in order to
spiritualize them and make them compatible with other religions.
I usually begin my outreach conversations by asking for
people’s beliefs about what comes after this life, and continuing to ask about
their experiences that brought them to their current beliefs or doubts about
eternity. I try to be a very good
listener and ask good questions, responding to their answers and sometimes
contrasting them with Christian beliefs as I hear their story. I feel I am a fairly patient listener, but I
don’t have much patience when I see the Christian faith being hijacked. It’s one thing when people have other beliefs
in contrast to Christian beliefs, but quite another to base their beliefs on a
misrepresentation of Christianity.
Some viewers might be dismayed that I often don’t challenge
people’s assumptions and beliefs often enough, at least early in the
conversation, but I do this in order to win the right to be heard and to get
the whole picture of their spiritual condition rather than going off on a
rabbit trail about a side issue. I don’t
know how much time we have to talk, and I’d rather speak to the heart of their
spiritual condition than just a symptom.
In Ephesians 6:19-20, Paul, who was locked up in jail for
proclaiming the Gospel, referred to himself as an “ambassador”. He knew the job of an ambassador is to
properly represent a ruler to another ruler.
It involves understanding both the person we represent, and the
perceptions of the person we are communicating with. It’s a delicate calling,
and Paul wrote “Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me
so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am
an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.”
In talking with Louie, I found myself doing more talking
than listening, because after I realized he believed in a spiritualized and
revisionist version of the historical truths of the Gospel, I felt the best
thing I could do was make known to him “the mystery of the Gospel” – the truths
of Christianity that are so often hiding in plain sight for those who are
trying to get the words of the Bible to say things it really doesn’t say.
The religions of the world are compatible only inasmuch as
we all share a common humanity made in the image of God, and we share a common
problem – sin. Each of us have a
God-given moral conscience which we have broken or rebelled against so that we
all need to find peace and reconciliation with God.
From there the commonalities disappear as each of the
world’s religions deal with the problem of sin in a different way. Most preach some sort of self-justifying
behavior, from ignoring the problem, to jumping through religious hoops through
various rituals, to self-righteous moral action. Only in the Christian Gospel do we find that
it is not what we do but it is God who makes us righteous through the sacrifice
of Jesus on the cross, and it is God who gives us the victory over sin and
death and the peace that passes all understanding as we walk in a right
relationship with our Creator and loving Father.
No, the religions of the world are not basically the same,
as they all deal with our sin problem in different ways. Much as we might want to find common ground
between them, the most honest and loving thing we can do is to point out the
common ground at the foot of the cross of Jesus, where there is room for us
all.
Thanks for allowing me to record our conversation,
Louie! It can be seen on my YouTube
channel at https://youtu.be/dEHzzSt5bDo
No comments:
Post a Comment