I very much appreciated Brian McLaren’s recent column, Thanks Presiding Bishop Curry, and his thoughtful exploration of the bishop’s advice to find a voice that is non-partisan, and why this is easier said than done.
I was reading the ProgressiveChristianity.org website and (as a Christian myself) was wondering why the message on the 8 points of progressive Christianity has the view that "Jesus provides one of many ways to experience the sacredness and oneness of life?" Could you explain that from a Christian point of view?
Dear Sergiy,
Thank you for your question. I presume you are asking about the phrase, “one of many ways to experience the sacredness and oneness of life.” The implication is, of course, that there are other ways or other teachers some of whom might be the Buddha or Lao Tzu or Isaiah or Mohammad or Black Elk or Rumi or Sojourner Truth or Mahatma Gandhi. In other words, the question might be this: Does the Holy Spirit work through all the traditions of the world and not exclusively through the Christ tradition? Of course the Jewish tradition is integral to the Christian tradition since that is the source of the historical Jesus’ teachings and reality so it has a special role in the Way that Jesus proclaimed. Jesus was a Jew in the fullest sense of that lineage.
I think we are living in a time when all the traditions can put their wisdom on the table and we can all begin to look at what is there and compare it. When I do that (as I did in my book, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faith Traditions), I find a tremendous consensus around many if not most of the questions that religions address around the world. The primacy of compassion, for example, or the sacredness of creation or the gift of imagination and creativity, or multiple names for God, or the need for stillness and silence as well as a lion heart of the warrior or prophet, and so much more. (I treat 18 themes or myths in that book but also in other studies on Spirituality and Work for example or on Meister Eckhart and how his teachings relate to Hinduism, Buddhism, Sufism, Judaism, and so much more in my book, Meister Eckhart; A Mystic-Warrior For Our Times.)
I think as we listen deeper to one another as well as to the teachings of Jesus and Paul and other early Christian writers, we find a growing awareness of what the essence of world religions is about. That does not mean that there are not differences in cultures and religions and the times that dictated their questions and answers. For so long humanity has been emphasizing the differences and not the likenesses between religions and no doubt much of that emphasis has been to carry on cultural and imperial wars and conquests. Can we move beyond that now as a species? Must we in order to survive?
I use the term “deep ecumenism” to name this search for common ground, for deep listening to one another, for linking up to battle common foes instead of one another—foes like climate change for example; and sexism; and greed; and hatred; and lies. (I coined that term in m book, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, but many people have been living it. Walt Whitman, for example, spoke of this idea of a “religious democracy.”)
The Holy Spirit works through all cultures and all religions therefore.
This does not mean that Jesus and the Christ story do not have something special to offer. His marriage of history and mystery, of incarnation and Divinity, of living out an authentic life of compassion and paying the ultimate price for it, becomes an archetype for humanity everywhere, a story to tell about our capacity for generosity as well as the price one often pays for choosing love over hate or vengeance. His sending of the Spirit is a gift to us all to follow a way of justice, compassion and love.
This is why I identify as a Christ follower to this day.
~ Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox
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