Rev. Brent L. White

I’m pulling out this excerpt from my response to a comment. Does this make sense to you?

“As I said in my sermon, we are not surprised or threatened that there are many common points of agreement between the world’s religions. By all means! We should understand and celebrate what we have in common. We have much to learn from one another, I’m sure. Thomas Merton, Trappist monk and renowned 20th-century Christian thinker, went east to study with Buddhist monks and found it valuable. There is only one truth, and inasmuch as other religions reveal it, I say a hearty, “Amen!” We believe that there is one Spirit, after all, revealing truth.

What I argued in my sermon (and in my “Questions” Sunday school classes) is that Jesus is the definitive revelation of God: everything we need to know about God and God’s relationship with us is revealed in Jesus. Notice that I don’t say that God is not revealed to some degree elsewhere, but where there are competing truth claims between our faith and others, we side with Christ and the Church he instituted.

What’s the alternative? To pretend that these differences don’t matter? They certainly do matter to the people who hold their faith’s truth claims dear. In a well-intentioned effort to respect someone else’s path to God (or ultimate reality), we end up disrespecting it by saying that their path and our path are really just the same. That insults practitioners of other religions, many of whom would say that if they wanted to be Christian, they would be, thank you very much. Does that make sense?

I might say more about different strands of universalism later, but I reject the kind of broad-minded universalism that rejects the uniqueness and, yes, exclusiveness of the revelation of God in Christ. I affirm that Jesus is “the way,” not one of many ways, to the Father. As I said in my sermon, however, the question of Jesus’ being “the way” is separate from the question of hell (and who goes there). I think I’ll say more about that later in this sermon series.

See all the stuff you have to look forward to?”

Someone suggested I post this link in follow-up to Sunday’s sermon on religious pluralism and John 14:6. This very funny video, even with a dated Cold War reference, is still on the mark. It features a very young Rowan Atkinson. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUQcCvX2MKk

I used this graphic in yesterday’s sermon to illustrate the point of view represented by the video clip from Saving Grace: “Jesus is only one of many ways to God; there are many paths to God.” One of you texted this question: “I thought Buddhism did not believe in God.” I’m not terribly familiar with Buddhism (can someone out there help?), but I believe different traditions within Buddhism differ over the extent to which they are theistic. Certainly, many Buddhists are non-theistic.

But my point is the same: Just substitute “Ultimate Reality” for “God.” All these religions, including Buddhism, point toward some ultimate or transcendent reality beyond this empirical world of time, space, and matter, which we can access only through faith. Make sense?

Don Martin told me that if he were in Vinebranch last week, he would have asked what Paul would say to someone like Muhammed Ali, who in the ’60s refused to serve in Vietnam for religious reasons. Leaving aside difficult questions associated with Vietnam and Ali’s Muslim faith, Don’s question is to the point: Paul would say that our ultimate allegiance is to God.

As Don says every Patriotic Sunday, “We salute the flag but kneel at the cross.” Likewise, St. Paul would want us to appreciate the difference between a conditional and an absolute loyalty. When they are in competition, our choice is clear—even when it means accepting difficult consequences. Regardless of the merits of Ali’s action, no one can say he failed to accept the consequences: he believed in his cause so much that he was tried and convicted to five years in prison (although the conviction was overturned on appeal to the Supreme Court) and had his boxing license suspended.

One of you asked about a couple of tough texts: 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and Romans 1:25-27. These are two proof-texts often used to condemn homosexual conduct. I thought about preaching on one of these texts for this sermon series, but doing so probably wouldn’t be “family-friendly” enough for a Sunday morning sermon. But that’s exactly what this blog is for! What follows is my response to the question. For the record, the United Methodist Church’s position on homosexuality probably makes people on both sides of the issue unhappy. Gays and lesbians are people of “sacred worth,” fully welcome and eligible to participate in every aspect of church life as laypeople. Homosexual practice, however, is “incompatible with Christian teaching.” Nevertheless, homosexuals who are celibate may be eligible for ordination. We Methodist clergy may not preside over a homosexual wedding or union ceremony.

Read the rest of this entry »