Lord of Bounty
Thanksgiving is upon us. It is a time to thank God for
his bounty. He is the Giver of
"every good and perfect gift" (James
1:17). And for that we thank him. Since Thanksgiving is specifically
a harvest festival, it is the earthly gifts for which we thank
him.
Yet for all that, it is not a bad time to reflect also
upon the spiritual riches of which God is
the dispenser. "O the depth of
the riches and the wisdom and
the knowledge of God!" (Romans
11:33).
"In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness
of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,
which he lavished upon us"
(Ephesians 1:8).
Hindu scripture has a title for God that perfectly sums
up this aspect of his beneficence:
"Bhagavat," which means "Lord of
Bounty." The great
scripture of Bhakti devotion, The
Bhagavad
Gita, is "The Song of the Bhagavat."
It is a treasure store of spiritual riches, as is our own
beloved Bible. Thanksgiving, then, is the feast par
excellence of the Bhagavat.
What are the spiritual riches of God and of Christ, the
Bhagavats
of our tradition? On the deepest
level, the treasure of God is
simply God himself, made
available to the rapture of the mystic
who encounters him. But I think
it is equally true to say that
the riches of Christ must
include our liturgical and theological
heritage, and the art and music
and architecture of the church
through the ages.
All these were the sacrifices of the faithful, joyfully
rendered to the treasury of God. These
things abide the centuries, making Christianity an ever richer faith the older it gets. But, like the dragon Smaug, I
am greedy for more treasure still. I want to cast the net still wider. As I have already
implied, I regard as my own treasures the
wonderful and profound traditions
of the other great religions,
too. Not infrequently I find occasion
to quote them in my sermons.
One Sunday morning not long ago I quoted a relevant
passage from the Bardo
Thodol, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, to help develop
the implications of a text from
Paul's letter to the Romans. One
visitor to the church was so
affronted that she rose to her feet
and stormed out, but not before
leaving an eloquent account of
her reactions, which I quote.
"The Evil One must be laughing in the aisles to see
false religions
and the ego exercises of incorrect theologians trying to
explain what is clearly
explained in the Bible - the only book Christians need consider in church. The others may be
studied but not
here - not during worship!" I take this comment seriously, as I do all comments made
about our church. That is why I want
to share a few thoughts on it with
you, to bring this visitor's
objection to a wider forum.
First, comments like this are nothing new to me. I have
heard them many, many times. I
understand the rationale on which non-Christian religions are rejected. Some Christians believe
that if Christ died for all, if his cross is efficacious for all,
then all must need it. Then no one
can circumvent it. Some Biblical
writers seem to have drawn the
same implication (see John 14:6; Acts 4:12),
though I believe we can discern an earlier layer of
Christian preaching according to which the death of Jesus
was viewed only as a path to
salvation for converted Gentile pagans,
for whom the Levitical
sacrifices made no provision for atonement.
(See Sam K. Williams, Jesus' Death as Saving Event)
For Jewish Christians, I suspect, Jesus was prophet and
Messiah, but
not atoning sacrifice. This would modify the total picture considerably, as it
would suggest the earliest Christians
believed that Christ was one of
two (or possibly more) ways to
God. The Jewish Christian Ebionite
sect maintained this belief, as
did some Gnostics, but it died
out elsewhere, to resurface only
among Hindus who freely grant
that Jesus is an avatar sent to
Christians.
Personally I believe that all the major religions are
basically true. All deliver what they
promise: an experience of salvation
and communion with the Holy.
Sure, particular doctrines contradict,
but that's true among Christian denominations, too. It
hardly discredits the religions
as a whole. Some of the contradictions have nothing to do with
the central vision of each faith, while others are posed by
doctrines which I take, like some of ours, to be mythological
symbolism.
I believe the total picture of divine things is so
unimaginably vast that no religion can have
glimpsed more than a tiny facet of
it. Thus their truths seem very
different, but are not necessarily
therefore mutually exclusive.
I believe I detect a note of alarm, not just dissent, in
the visitor's comment. The writer seems
to feel that Christian faith is threatened by the possibility
that the other faiths may be true. The others are stigmatized
as simply "false." Satan
rejoices in their mention,
though presumably he trembles at the
mention of the Christian faith.
Sorry, but I cannot regard this as anything but
irrational prejudice
stemming from fear. I believe the day is coming when we
will all abandon this sort of
bigotry, just as all people of good
will now reject racism. Racists,
too, quote the Bible in defense
of their views. So did
slave-owners, including some famous
theologians. But they were wrong.
Yet I will agree with the critic in one respect. I do
think the Christian worship service ought primarily to be devoted
to the Christian tradition and the Bible.
Just not exclusively.
One the one hand, I do not relish the idea of a
syncretistic synthesis of all the religions,
a "religionism" in general. Perhaps my objection is simply
aesthetic: I would hate to see the
particular riches of each
tradition lost in a stew that would
obscure all of them. For the
same reason, I think some kind of
super-ecumenical union of all
the Christian denominations would
be a tragic nightmare, robbing
us of a marvellous diversity with
little to replace it.
What we do on Sunday morning is Christian worship. I
rejoice to belong to and to propagate that
tradition! Equally I rejoice that
the Jewish, Muslim, Hindu,
Buddhist, and Baha'i traditions are
being practiced elsewhere!
On the other hand I do think it quite proper to introduce
cross-references to the
scriptures and ideas of other faiths
into the context of our worship
when appropriate. This is because, as Paul Tillich said,
the great religions not only have
different glimpses of the truth;
they also have glimpses of different
aspects of the truth. The Buddhists have really been
vouchsafed something we haven't.
And that is why we need to learn
from each other.
We have great riches in our Christian tradition, but let
us be
greedy! We cannot but profit by
sampling of the riches of the
other faiths as well. For
myself, I thank God for them on this
Thanksgiving Day.
Robert M. Price