Divine Freedom and Human Religions

Historical Investigation

In thinking about how Reformed Protestant Christians have interacted with religious diversity through the ages, we must begin with a few caveats. First, I am looking particularly at Presbyterian history and theology not because it is the best or the only way to be Christian in the world, but because we never begin our theological reflection from nowhere. We begin where we are, with our particular histories and convictions. It is better to be honest about these things. I self-identify, for better and for worse, as a Presbyterian and Reformed theologian, but this does not mean that I am always proud of my tradition. As I have learned ever more clearly over the years, from my colleagues and students, from the churches I visit when I teach or preach, and from reading history and headlines, we Presbyterians have a lot of sin of which we need to repent. In this country, Presbyterians have been deeply implicated in the sin of racism, even as some Presbyterians have fought mightily, and continue to fight mightily, to dismantle it. With regard to religions, Presbyterians have said some very ugly things about people of other cultures and faiths, and have thought of ourselves as more civilized, more educated, more sophisticated, and therefore closer to God than others. Our doctrine of election has not always served us well in this regard, sometimes playing into dangerous notions that we as “the chosen ones” are given privilege in this world because God has ordained it. As I tell this story, I will not seek to hide from the problems in our history, but to acknowledge and learn from them.

Of course, the problems are not the whole story. One piece of good news about Presbyterian and Reformed folks is that we are never surprised to hear that we are sinners. This is actually something we know pretty well—it’s why so many Presbyterian churches still have a prayer of confession as a vital part of worship every week. We need to tell the truth about our faults and failings—individually and collectively—in order that we can recognize God’s gracious forgiveness and be transformed by it. Sin is radical, and God’s grace in Jesus Christ is even more radical. Presbyterians at our best know this. It’s what keeps us going.

I have spent a good chunk of the past fourteen years in ecumenical dialogue between Reformed and Roman Catholic churches, in this country and internationally. In these ecumenical dialogues, we have practiced an approach that now shapes the way I interact with any dialogue partner: mutual affirmation and admonition. That is, partners in a dialogue each come bearing particular gifts. Each partner then works to identify and affirm gifts in each other, before moving on to offer words of “admonition,” that is, concerns about what might be missing, or problematic, in the partner tradition. This is the kind of thing I hope to offer here: a particular gift from a particular tradition, open to admonition as well as affirmation, from all the partners in the room.

With these caveats in mind, let us begin.

Overall, Presbyterian views of religious diversity through the centuries can be summarized as follows:

(Protestant) Christianity represents true religion; all other religions are false

The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: (Protestant) Christianity Represents True Religion; All Other Religions Are False

The term “religion” itself has changed significantly over the past 500 years. For the earliest Presbyterians, the term signified both right worship and right understanding of God, and they used it primarily to emphasize the pure form of Christianity that they sought to embody, contrasted with the “superstitious and false religion” of the Catholic Church. So, for instance, the Scots Confession (1560) says, “the preservation and purification of religion is particularly the duty of kings, princes, rulers, and magistrates. They are not only appointed for civil government but also to maintain true religion and to suppress all idolatry and superstition.” ¹ Such anti-Catholic polemic has subtly shaped Presbyterian reflection on religion and religious diversity for centuries, and we must beware its lingering effects in any discussion of religion today. ²

Overall, early Presbyterians tended to dismiss non-Christians as being outside the realm of God’s electing grace. Protestant emphasis on grace alone, faith alone, Scripture alone, and Christ alone contributed to a largely negative view of all other religious traditions, especially the “false religion” of the Catholic Church. Guided by the opening chapters of the book of Romans, Reformed Protestants emphasized that even though God had revealed truth plainly to all people, all had willfully turned away, worshiping idols and indulging in immoral behavior. Only by the grace of Christ had some been rescued from this state and enabled to participate in “true religion.”

Despite this generally negative judgment of religions other than Protestant Christianity, there are two insights worth preserving from the sixteenth century: first, Reformed and Presbyterian writers affirmed that God’s Spirit worked in the minds and hearts of people outside the church, especially among scientists and philosophers, “that they might enlighten the world in knowledge of the truth.” ³ The Holy Spirit is not restricted to the church. And second, John Calvin declared that those who are chosen by God are part of the “invisible church,” whose boundaries we cannot completely know. God alone knows the limits of divine mercy. God alone saves. The respect for the work of the Spirit, and the reticence to claim more than we can know about the limits of God’s electing grace, are insights I will revisit later.

The seventeenth century saw the development of the “Westminster Standards” in England, which exercised great influence in the development of Presbyterianism. These Standards, including the Westminster Confession of Faith and Larger and Shorter Catechisms, were (briefly) approved by the English Parliament, then adopted by the Scottish Kirk, and then traveled to New England and the mid-Atlantic colonies. In 1729, in slightly amended form, they were adopted as founding documents of the American Presbyterian church.

Westminster’s approach to religions other than Protestant Christianity systematized and hardened sixteenth-century views. ⁴ In general, Westminster insists that true knowledge of God, or salvation, cannot exist apart from explicit faith in Jesus Christ.

The Eighteenth Century: (Protestant) Christianity Represents True Religion, but No Religion Should Be Established

In the 1700s, most Presbyterians lived in Great Britain and in the American colonies. During this period, some Presbyterians continued to emphasize the purity of “true Reformed Presbyterian religion,” distinct from all other Christian denominations, not to mention non-Christian traditions. During this time, American Presbyterians also began missions to Native Americans, which prompted the first Presbyterian reflections on the relationship of Christianity to indigenous religious traditions. ⁵ In general, their view of Native American traditions was not positive; their judgment of native religious practices as idolatry revealed their assumptions that “true religion” was not just Christian, but European and white.

Other eighteenth-century Presbyterians took a different line. Some strongly defended religious liberty against the establishment of any particular religion. ⁶ People should be free to worship as they saw fit, which—at least in theory—made all religions equal under the law. This democratic spirit of American Presbyterianism sometimes led to recognition of shared convictions among different religions, usually connected to the idea of “natural religion.” For instance, pastor Samuel Davies argued in a 1758 sermon that the doctrine of divine providence is “essential both in natural and revealed religion; an article in the creed of heathens and Mahometans (as well as Jews and Christians).” ⁷ “Mahometans” here is an old term for Muslims, revealing misunderstanding of Muslims as people who follow Muhammed—but at the same time valuing the fact that Muslims as well as Jews have something in common: a belief in divine providence. Here is another clue that God might be at work in some way among people of diverse religious communities, even though in practice eighteenth-century Presbyterians were likely to encounter Jews only rarely, and Muslims only in books.

The Nineteenth Century: Christianity is the Fulfillment of Human Religions

Evangelical fervor exploded in the United States and Europe in the early nineteenth century, inspiring missionary movements to bring the gospel to parts of the world where (it was assumed) it had not been preached. Many Presbyterians embraced these efforts in both “home” and “foreign” missions, increasing their awareness of the religious diversity of the world. Early missionaries usually assumed that (Protestant) Christianity was the only true and saving religion and that they must proclaim the gospel so that people could recognize and receive the grace of Christ through faith. They had little interest in non-Christian religious beliefs and practices. The missionary goal was to convert people to true religion, not to discuss the preexisting religious commitments of those whom missionaries served.

Early nineteenth-century American Presbyterianism was dominated by this view that Christianity is the one true religion, and that all other religions are simply false and need to be replaced. As the century progressed, however, even as some Presbyterians continued to hold this view, a second, more positive understanding of other religions also emerged. This was influenced theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, who defined religion as the “feeling of absolute dependence” (rather than religion based on Enlightenment reason). Christian religion focused on our absolute dependence on God made known in Jesus Christ. Such “feeling” is universal, not unique to Christianity. Thus, even though Schleiermacher regarded Christianity as superior to other religions, he recognized that all religions had some valid religious experience.

In addition to affirming universal human religious sensibility, many Christians in the second half of the nineteenth century were strongly influenced by the emergence of a historical and evolutionary interpretation of religions, influenced by the thought of Charles Darwin and Ernst Troeltsch. Building on this insight, many nineteenth-century religion scholars described a natural evolutionary process of religion as a cultural institution that develops from more primitive to more sophisticated forms. This contributed both to interest in other religions and to a tendency to rank Christianity as the most advanced religion. ⁸

In the 1890s, some scholars and church leaders began to move beyond the evolutionary view of religion, looking instead for more equal common ground among various religious traditions. The 1893 Parliament of World Religions in Chicago revealed this emerging attitude toward “world religions,” particularly in the United States. In conjunction with the Chicago World’s Fair held that year, John Henry Barrows, Pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Chicago, helped plan a gathering of leaders of major world religions to share their views. Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Sikh, and other major religious leaders spoke to large crowds, marking the first time that many American Christians, including Presbyterians, had heard from representatives of these traditions. Barrows hoped that this meeting would inspire people to see all religion as a source of greater mutual love and peace. ⁹ In his introduction to the published proceedings of this conference, Barrows described religion as a universal positive tendency in all humanity; he compared religion to light that had “been broken into many-colored fragments by the prisms of men. One of the objects of the Parliament of Religions has been to change this many-colored radiance back into the … light of heavenly truth.” ¹⁰ Not all Presbyterians celebrated this event, but it does mark a significant development in relation to religious diversity.

We can see in the nineteenth century both gifts and dangers regarding religious diversity. The evolutionary view of history affirmed common ground and connection among human religions, inspiring greater mutual respect. On the other hand, it presented Christianity as the highest form of religion, which tended to go hand in hand with Western imperialism.

The Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries: Divided Opinions on Religion

The nineteenth century saw significant growth in Presbyterianism beyond Europe and North America through the missionary movement, greatly increasing awareness of religious diversity among those in the Global North. The twentieth century also witnessed ever-increasing mutual engagement of Presbyterians around the world, who interpreted religious diversity in a variety of ways. ¹¹

(Protestant) Christianity represents true religion; all other religions are false

The first two interpretations continue today, but because I have described them already, I will discuss only the final three positions here.

All Religions Have Equally Valid Insights

In 1893, the World’s Parliament of Religions represented a public celebration of religious diversity, with the bold claim that all religions were refractions of the single divine light, in a “many-colored radiance.” This appreciation for equal truth in other religious traditions continued to grow over the twentieth century. We see its fullest expression beginning in the 1970s, in the work of British Presbyterian John Hick, who advocated a new “theocentric” interpretation of religious diversity. Calling for a “Copernican revolution of religions,” Hick proposed that all religions are culturally particular responses to the one God/Ultimate Reality, whom they all seek. As he wrote in God and the Universe of Faiths (1973), “we have to postulate an ultimate transcendent reality, the source and ground of everything, that is in itself beyond the scope of human conceptuality but is variously conceived, therefore variously experienced, and therefore variously responded to in life, from within these different religious totalities.” ¹² This approach has come to be known as “pluralism,” the affirmation that behind all the diversity of human religions, we are really all one.

In 1982, Alan Race published Christians and Religious Pluralism, summarizing the three basic Christian approaches to religious diversity as “exclusivism” (Christianity alone was the true religion), “inclusivism” (the wisdom of all other religious traditions is fulfilled in Christianity), and “pluralism” (the theocentric view advocated by Hick). This threefold typology has become the common starting point for labeling approaches to religious diversity. Notice how it lines up with the first three approaches on my list. And notice that we still have two more to go.

All Religions, Including Christianity, Are Problematic

Even as some Reformed and Presbyterian Christians were moving toward greater affirmation of truth in all religions, others were moving toward sharp critique of religions. Much of this critical work was initiated and inspired by Swiss theologian Karl Barth’s sharp critique of human religion. Barth began with God’s work of reconciliation in Jesus Christ and banned all appeals to natural or general revelation. God can be known only through God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ, not through any other means. And what Christ reveals is that God seeks reconciliation with all humanity. Indeed, according to Barth, all humanity is elect in Christ—but we cannot believe in “universalism,” because that would limit God’s freedom. The most we can do is hope that God’s reconciling love embraces even those who have rejected or never known it. Barth argued that looking for points of contact between Christianity and other religious traditions is the wrong starting point. Human religion is Unglaube, “unbelief,” starting with human effort, rather than turning to God’s revelation.

As Barth critiqued all religion, including Christianity, as “unbelief,” other Presbyterians began to critique Christianity specifically for its alliance with Western imperialism. The view of Christianity as the superior religion that included and fulfilled all that was good in other religions, was especially problematic. As Christianity began to disentangle itself from Western power in the mid-twentieth century, Presbyterians, like other Christians, came to realize that too often the proclamation of the gospel had gone hand in hand with Western colonial power, imposing Western cultural values.

As many new nation-states emerged from colonial rule in the mid-twentieth century, Christianity was sometimes rejected as the religion of the colonizer in favor of religions more closely identified with national identities. In India during the Gandhian movement of the 1920s, for instance, some Indian citizens worked to convert village Christians back to Hinduism, since Christianity was aligned with British colonial power (a perception that continues today). In other places, people adopted Christianity as a religious identity that opposed other imperial powers. In Japanese-ruled Korea in 1930s, for instance, some Presbyterians refused to follow the Japanese order to worship at Shinto shrines, because it violated the first and second commandments. ¹³ This resistance to Japanese rulers aligned Christianity more closely with independent Korean identity. ¹⁴

All of these critiques offer an important perspective that I wish to carry forward: all human religions, including Christianity, stand under God’s judgment and need to confess their tendencies to get caught up in schemes of power and privilege. No human religion saves itself or saves by itself; what we hope for is that sometimes God works in and through human religions to redeem and save.

Religious Traditions, Including Christianity, Are Particular

In the 1960s and 1970s, following the impulse of the nineteenth-century work of Ernst Troeltsch, Christian theology (including Presbyterian theologies) began to take more seriously the particularity of cultural and historical contexts, emphasizing that there is no “pure religion” and arguing instead that all religion is interwoven with political, social, and economic factors. This rise of so-called “contextual theologies” challenged many traditional Western theological assumptions, including the superiority and uniqueness of Christianity as a religion. Presbyterian leaders around the world called for “inculturation” of the gospel, which involved a more positive view of cultural elements in contexts formerly seen as religiously primitive or “heathen.” Such efforts have included, for instance, insights from African traditional religions, such as the relationship between natural and supernatural worlds; God as the unifying power who owns all humans; a lack of either/or thinking; emphasis on kinship bonds; and a practical religious orientation. ¹⁵

This attention to the way religions are embodied in particular contexts is an important theme, one that I will return to when we talk about comparative theology.

Two Basic Attitudes to “Religions” in This Survey

From this survey of Reformed and Presbyterian responses to religion and religious diversity, I notice two general attitudes toward the phenomenon of human religion: one basically positive, and the other basically critical. This is not unique to Presbyterian Christians, but this survey has helped me see the ways that Presbyterians express both attitudes.

The positive approach appears, for instance, in nineteenth-century views of religion as a universal human impulse that takes form differently in different cultures, but that basically draws people together in community with others and in dependence on the divine. John Henry Barrows at the 1893 World Parliament of Religions and John Hick in his late twentieth-century theocentric interpretation of religious pluralism both illustrate this basic view: that religions, in all their diversity, are good, orienting human beings to love of God and neighbor.

The critical approach appears clearly in the twentieth-century theology of Karl Barth, but such critique of human religious activity is also clear from the very beginning of the Protestant Christian movement. Though sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Reformed Protestants lauded “true religion,” they contrasted such religion with “superstition and idolatry,” most especially in Roman Catholicism. In the sixteenth century and the twentieth, Reformed folks have shunned all human efforts to reach God in favor of God’s gracious approach to us in Jesus Christ.

Both of these approaches to religion have important insights, and both have potential problems if considered alone. Critique of human religions is necessary, particularly as we see the destructive results in our world today of any form of religious fundamentalism. Reformed Protestants have been particularly good at pointing out the sin of idolatry, and we need to continue to do so. As George Stroup has said, “the issue … is not whether humans will worship, but only who or what they will worship.” ¹⁶ And left to our own devices, we seem to have a pernicious tendency to worship something other than God.

The problem arises when we recognize this tendency to idolatry in others without recognizing it in ourselves. This kind of critique can tend toward self-righteousness, an insistence that we alone are chosen, we alone have true religion, while all others are misguided. It is easy to see the faults of others in this regard, while we overlook our own.

As a counter to such critique of religion, some Reformed Protestants have affirmed religious impulses as natural, human, good, and universal. We need not to criticize, but to celebrate the religious diversity of the world—as Barrows compared religious diversity to a “many-colored radiance.” There is genuine insight here, as such an appreciative view can encourage genuine engagement with religious others, and real mutual cooperation.

The problem arises when celebration of religious diversity naively overlooks the oppressive aspects of religious engagement, upholding an idealistic (and, sometimes, equally disembodied and abstract) view of how religious persons and communities actually behave. (Can we really celebrate all religions as “true,” when we read about Christians who have tortured Jews into conversion, or militant Hindus who slaughter Muslims, or religious fundamentalists of any kind who turn to violence to defend their way of life as the only one?)

Ironically, these two approaches share one dangerous tendency: the tendency to treat religions as abstract, disembodied concepts rather than messy, embodied, particular realities. This is where I think comparative theology can help us.

A Way Forward: Comparative Theology

Since the 1990s, some theologians have been engaging explicitly in “comparative theology,” reflecting theologically not only about religious diversity, but with theological resources of other religious traditions. ¹⁷ Comparative theology seeks to foster focused encounter between different traditions, in specific contexts. The new comparative theology is interested in questions of truth, but it no longer seeks to unify all truth claims into a single coherent theory. As Jesuit theologian Francis Clooney describes it, “comparative theology is a manner of learning that takes seriously diversity and tradition, openness and truth, allowing neither to decide the meaning of our religious situation without recourse to the other.” ¹⁸ Comparative theologians such as Clooney and John Thatamanil ¹⁹ typically maintain strong commitments to a “home” tradition, but also take seriously the normative claims of at least one other religious tradition—learning “across religious borders”—and in the process, challenging the very notion that these borders are impermeable, or the traditions incommensurable.

We read one example of comparative theology recently in our theology class. Heidi Hillgardner, who teaches religious studies at Bethany College in West Virginia, contributed an essay to a recent volume of comparative theology entitled Comparing Faithfully: Insights for Systematic Theological Reflection. ²⁰ In the essay, Hillgardner reflects on the basic question of theological anthropology—what does it mean to be human? To answer, she picks up on the theme of desire in the medieval Christian mystical writer Hadewijch of Brabant and the sixteenth-century North Indian bhakti poet Mirabai. She reads the writings of these two women with close attention, and the juxtaposition of the two enables her to see more than she could see reading either one alone. Out of the comparative reading, she draws insights on human beings as creatures of desire, who long for communion with the divine, but who can also be stretched by the interplay of “longing and letting go” in a way that honors embodiment and opens up to the goodness of diverse human communities.

This is just one example of comparative theology, but it illustrates some significant features of most comparative work today. Comparative theology generally comprises careful reading and comparison of a specific set of texts or rituals from different traditions (in the case of Hillgardner, the texts of Hadewijch and Mirabai). Usually a theorist will engage the texts and categories of another tradition, seeking to be immersed in the literature to understand how a different tradition understands and conceptualizes the world, God or the gods, and the human community. Then—with these texts, questions, and categories in mind—the theologian returns to reread and reengage her home texts and practices to discover new insights in light of what she has learned from another tradition. The outcome of such a procedure cannot be predicted. In general, however, deep learning across religious boundaries is the goal, with the broader purpose of promoting inter-religious understanding, cooperation, and peace.

In the past few years, I have begun to put my very Reformed Presbyterian toe into this comparative theological water, and I find it invigorating. This month I am completing work with my coeditor Christian Collins Winn on an edited volume entitled Karl Barth and Comparative Theologies, ²¹ which includes essays that set the Swiss Reformed theologian into comparative theological conversation with thinkers, practices, and themes from Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and African traditional religions. None of us imagines that Barth himself would have entered into such an enterprise, but his own sharpness of thought and liveliness of spirit make him a terrific conversation partner. And there are elements of his own Reformed theological approach that actually warrant such an adventure, unlikely though it may seem.

Twenty years ago, Canadian Reformed theologian Douglas John Hall wrote an essay in honor of Shirley Guthrie, in which he asked how to confess Christ in a religiously plural context. He considers and dismisses the options of exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism, and argues instead that we should return to a “confessional mode,” simply telling the Christian story without coercion or threat, in the presence of those who are part of other faith communities. “It disturbs me not at all that these others have their own stories to tell, and that my story—‘the story of God’s little son, and his humbling’ (Luther)—is one whose veracity and import I can neither prove nor force anyone else to accept, indeed, is one whose depth of meaning I must myself continue to ponder and wrestle with; it is, in short, a matter of faith, not sight.” ²² We should just confess our faith, urges Hall. Tell the story, and let the word do what it will.

Comparative theology does just this, but it also does more. Like Hall’s exhortation to confess the faith, a comparative theologian will honestly and unapologetically encounter religious others with her own faith commitments, not nervously checking them at the door. She will tell the story as she knows it—and then: she will lean in to listen to the other. Comparative theology makes the risky assumption that we may learn more about God, the world, and ourselves from deep attention to religious others, in all their interesting, messy, embodied particularity.

Why would a Reformed theologian engage in such peculiar work? Why would someone who identifies with a tradition known for its confession of faith in “God alone,” a tradition that has defended “true religion” against all superstition and idolatry—why would such a theologian approach comparative theology? Not in spite of, but precisely because of, my confession of faith in God alone. I’m still giving Christianity a try, and the more I abide in this particular Christian family, the more I am drawn to, rather than away from, other religious families.

Here then, in conclusion, is the reason that this self-identified Reformed theologian is venturing into comparative theological waters: not in spite of, but because of faith in the triune God:

First, the God made known to the people of Israel and in Jesus Christ is free. God gives laws, but God is not restricted by them. In freedom, God chooses not just to mold us out of dust, but to enter into dust itself and become human with us. Such an affirmation reminds us always that God does not conform to our expectations, does not abide by our boxes—not even our religious ones. We cannot comprehend God, but instead we worship this God in “wonder, love, and praise.” Because God is free, we should never expect God to show up only where we last saw her.

The resurrected Christ refuses to be held—not in a tomb, not in the arms of his beloved disciples… not even in our religious systems. He grants Mary a new life of hope and joy; he gives Cleopas and his friend new vision. Yet he grants this transformation precisely through coming to them as a stranger who eludes their grasp. This strangeness at the heart of the gospel calls us to attention to all strangers we encounter, because they too might turn out to speak the words of Jesus—perhaps even in the one who gives us leaf boats in Varanasi (or the one who sits across the room from us in Greek school). In a world of religious diversity, our proclamation “Christ is risen” does not turn us away from those who do not share our witness. Precisely the opposite: resurrection turns us toward others, including religious others. Just at the point of our most peculiar, our most particular confession, we find an opening to the incomprehensible mystery of our God.

He goes before us, the stranger, and because he carries our life in his, we are drawn with him to encounter the freedom, the mystery, the otherness of God in the faces of all the strangers we meet.