An exclusive inclusive Christ - is Jesus really the only way to God?

Is the christrian exclusive claim that Jesus is the only way to God an arrogant monopoly that is outdated in these inclusive and tolerant times?  Do not all religions lead to God?  Why then do we need to worry about Jesus then - is it just another sign of a power hungry, oppressive religion that can brook no competition enforced by arrogant believers who think their way is better than everyone else?   Christian who through out history has imposed on people for the 'greater good' this need to believe in Jesus, sadly  often by using the threat of violence, fear and intimidation whether in this life or in the after one, or both?

In chapter 8 of a New Kind of Christian, Brian McLaren discusses other religions,  the character Neo says:

"Dan, when it comes to other religions, the challenge of modernity was to prove that we're right [christians] and they're wrong.  But I think we have a different challenge in postmodernity.  The question isn't so much whether we're right but whether we're good.  And it strikes me that goodness not rightnes, is what Jesus said the real issue was - you know, good trees produce good fruit.  If we christians would take all our energy we put into proving we're right and others are wrong and invested that in pursuing and doing good, somehow I think more people would believe we are right...

...I believe that he [Jesus] is truly the way, that if we believe in him and follow him, he will bring us to the Father.  Too often when we quote the verse about him being the way, it sounds like we're saying he's in the way - as if people are trying to come to God and Jesus is blocking the path, saying 'oh no, you don't! You have to get by me first.' I really don't think that's what he meant when he said he was the way...

...I really believe he is the truth. He is reality; he is authentic; he is genuine and real and not fake or false in any way.  And I really believe he is the life, that fullness of life is in him.  And I really believe that not one person will be in real contact with God the Father apart from the work, wisdom and love of Jesus.  If I didn't believe that, I don't think i could call myself a christian..."  p61 & p65

In other words christians often seem to portray all these religions as wrong, they cast doubt on whether they are seeking God unless they get a stamp from Jesus – he is the divine bouncer and we christians have become his heavy handed enforcers who if Jesus doesn’t have our name on his checklist then neither you are and I are not coming in!

I think it would be the ultimate act of hypocrisy if this image of Jesus is true – after all his fiercest criticism was aimed at the religious authorities of the day who were doing precisely that – in their bid for a sin free society they were doing so by firmly labelling people as insiders or outsiders – they defined if you were in or out.  Jesus modus operandi didn’t seem to be about trying to sweep sinners out of sight under the carpet of society/social conformity but instead offering them the opportunity to rethink how they were doing their life and to swap it instead for the life he had to offer, a life lived in the radical revolutionary redemptive reconciling kingdom of God.

If Jesus is not acting as a roadblock to God is there another way then that we can understand his words?  Not as a barrier but as door of opportunity, not as a limiter but as an unparallelled open invitation? 

In the rest of this post i'd like to explore a way of trying to understand Jesus claim to be the way/truth/life in a way that views him as helping us as spirtual beings recover/express our full humanity rather than barring us from the divine.  I'd then like to do a follow up post on this tomorrow where by I expand in my own life of my own struggles in following Jesus and how his way/truth/life have been well life changing for me....

I am the way...

When Jesus said “I am the way” was he painting a picture of a life to God that is travelled on the road that he himself walked - that the life of Christ is the path way to God [the via Christus if you like] and Jesus showed this by making the way as well as walking the way [not just talking it].

If all roads at Jesus time ‘led to Rome’ and represented the power of Caesar, Jesus offers a different road to an infinitely more powerful and caring God and the journey to God is reflected in the way of Jesus, in being like him.  It is if Jesus has stood up and said if you want to reach God, really connect with the Father then you can only do so my way, the way of the harmonising dream of God. 

Jesus modelled that way – not a way of taking power, using violence, driven by greed, hungry for wealth/fame/popularity, grasping what’s in it for me living but instead a way of life that is about embracing the hurting, reaching out to the suffering, about spiritual rhythm and practice that encourages this dying to self and putting myself under the subjection of my Father.  It is the way of obedience, humility, honesty, integrity, liberation, forgiveness, commitment, action and suffering.

I am the truth...

To walk the way of Christ is to face truth as Jesus faced and embraced truth – our reaction to the claims of Jesus reveals a lot about ourselves – including whether we are really seeking the Father or just playing the religious game - are we really travellers on the way or people looking for an excuse why we haven't bothered to even set off yet on the journey? 

To follow Christ is to begin on the way of humility where we decide that we no longer want to be solely in charge of our lives, to always be the number 1, our own priority.  We begin to recognisw hat our own petty selfish kingdoms are destructive at their worst and simply inconsistently good at its best – we set out with the aim of being happy in our life and we have achieved fleeting moments of that, often at the expense of others and even ourselves.  There are of course other options to deal with pain/promote happiness but Jesus asks us to face the truth about our lives/kingdoms and offers us instead his own kingdom –one of freedom, liberation, love, hope and purpose…   

In that sense Jesus urges us to be seekers, urges us to be like little children, to be humble and trusting, curious and questing.  Our reaction to Jesus then reveals something of the truth about us – the same as it did with those who encountered him in the flesh – some followed him because he had awoken a hunger in them to discover their full humanity even if they did not understand most of his words;  some followed after him to see what would happen next, to see the next miracle, to be part of the buzz; many just didn’t care and some chose not to follow him at all, began to feel fearful, than anger then to hate him for the threat Jesus began to pose to their own kingdoms. 

Some things never change it would seem as we experience the same reactions today:

• from people who are trying to follow the truth, to walk the way even if they don’t fully understand it,
• those who want a ‘buddy Jesus,' to validate and approve how they live and what they want to do;
• those who are two busy with the business of the dreams of their own lives [buying and selling, marrying, partying etc] to be concerned about joining God in his dreams; and finally
• those who hate/fear – who see Jesus followers as people who hold up the truth to the corrupt systems of this world and demand change; who see Jesus followers as giving their loyalty to God rather than them/their systems/structures…

If we see Jesus as a barrier maybe that reveals where we find it hard to follow Jesus – what our barrier is – intellectual pride, self pre-occupation etc…

I am the life...

Jesus said the truth will set us free, will liberate us – that liberation is often painful and seldom do I want to give it up easily – indeed the way of Jesus and the truth of Jesus is to model a life where we learn to seek God’s dreams over our own, a life where we fight withdrawal symptoms of the addictive me-centred life and face daily rebellions as our inner selves seek to regain control and take back the lives that we once offered to lay down. 

In the life of Jesus we have the model of those seeking the Father – the life of the kingdom of God is a continual choice – daily we are asked to take it up again and Jesus models for us that consistency of choice – in his compassion, his service, his rhythm of life, his focus and priorities. Within that life we see joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure, companionship and loneliness, suffering and service – we also see great liberation:

• people healed in mind and body, people forgiven and given a fresh start, healed in soul;

• God’s heart for the poor, the lost, the last and the least revealed and a reminder that the dream of God is  where these people are no longer ignored, marginalised or fogotten about but where they are equals and share the same rights, dignities and wealth as everyone else;

• the oppressed are given dignity and non-violent ways too resist and forgive their oppressors;

• evil is confronted and exposed, systems and structures are drawn out of the shadows and left in the spotlight that cannot be turned off allowing them to be transformed;

• an ongoing transforming inner life of justice and right living is brought into being which is not based on a system of rule keeping but of inward transformation, equality, honesty and humility – it is not everyone/everything else that needs to change but me…

• empowerment is given in that this life is a relationship with God and humanity – it is communal, it is not meant to be lived alone – God inhabits his people in the form of holy spirit living within each follower and each follower encouraging each other to practice the way of the kingdom with each other – believing becomes about not just intellectual assent but a life that is lived out.

Rediscovering and recovering our humanity?

Jesus reveals in the way he truthfully lived out his life how we can come to God, our father – if we want to come to God then we have to do so through living like Jesus.  We are spiritual beings created in God's image but it is in Jesus and his incarnation that God lived as a human and shows us how to live in full humanity, liberated from our selfish individual pursuit of happiness and able instead to bring the full shalom of God, the harmony of a world where everyone experiences happiness, peace, contentment, healing, purpose, justice, laughter, joy, celebration, in the world's greatest ever street party. 

If any of us have ever tried to live like Jesus we will know that we fail at doing so because none of us can live 100% humble other serving lives 100% of the time – we therefore can take up our cross and follow Jesus only because he took up his cross and lived and then died on one for us – in that event of reconciliation he made up for the difference between our best but limited efforts and the fullness of God’s recreation plan to transform and change us and through us the world. 

Paul touches on the profoundness of the way/truth/life of Jesus in his letter to the Galatians:

"Have some of you noticed that we are not yet perfect? (No great surprise, right?) And are you ready to make the accusation that since people like me, who go through Christ in order to get things right with God, aren't perfectly virtuous, Christ must therefore be an accessory to sin? The accusation is frivolous. If I was "trying to be good," I would be rebuilding the same old barn that I tore down. I would be acting as a charlatan.

What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God's man. Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that." [emphasis mine].

Liberated to be liberators...

The way to God is only walkable by our faith in Jesus, our trust in him to help us rather than our own variable natures.  Jesus, who is the Christ or liberating king, ultimately reveals and empowers the love, commitment, compassion that is needed to bring about through us the life giving revolutionary dreams of God in the world and in doing so provokes confrontation with the evil behind all our self made selfish system of control and limited power structures.

The cross becomes the ultimate symbolic act of loving liberation from the ultimate loving liberator as well as the only way to God by dying to self first before we can experience liberation and become liberators with Christ in our time.

Comments

[Jamie]

Paul--
Great post. I think more and more of us are thinking in these terms. I love your analogy about Jesus being the divine bouncer. My husband has to do a funeral this weekend for a man...we are not sure where he stood, spiritually. His wife, and children are followers of Jesus. My husband is going to talk about Mark 2...where the guys lower the paralyzed guy down to Jesus and Jesus says "because of your faith..." I love this. Did you read my recap of the session with Rob Bell on salvation? When someone really lays down all the references to salvation, and you put them next to each other, you realize that salvation is much more merciful than understand!

[Rick Meigs]

"The question isn't so much whether we're right but whether we're good." This my friend is one of the most powerful statement I've heard! The world will never see Jesus through us because we are right, but because we demonstrate Gods goodness and justice in our own lives.

Thanks for the post Paul.

[Paul]

Thanks Jamie, i would love to read your recap, have you got a link for it please?

I find that intellectually i am often baffled by my faith in Jesus, my mind often knows why i beleive but if i just isolate it on the intellectual plane it just chuckles to itself - faith is so hard to explain and yet somehow just seems to bubble up - which may be why i find myself having to recommit to following the way of Jesus so often - my ways are usally easier but never as deep or as fulfilling.

I'd be interested to hear more on your view on the mercy in salvation?

[Paul]

Thanks Rick - i know from my side of things that i often want people to think i am right and more than that i often think modern christianity is wrong - getting beyond that i'm right/you're wrong thang has been a journey and a half, now i think i have as many moments of being a hinderance to the gospel as any other follower of whatever stripe...

[Rupert]

Good post Paul and the follow on.

Much could be said here: but one simple thought. I have often substituted the word "truth" with "reality", which i have found hugely helpful. So Jesus brings reality to me... That takes me away a bit from an objective body of belief, to something that Jesus can me lead into: a greater reality about myself. Which is what think you are saying in yoru post!

[Paul]

Thanks Rupert - yes i like your use of reality as a way of expressing the truth that Jesus brings - i find that helpful in terms of thinking how my reality has changed over time and has deepened - it makes it a lot less confrontational - this is truth and a lot more relational - inviting me in, looking to be led into.

What ways do you think Jesus has invited you into new realities?

[Rupert]

Good questions paul and great comment about truth being relational, rather than say propositional.

I have found both counselling and spiritual direction both incredibly valuable ways in a fresh reality of myself. Take for example counselling, when i was very messed up, God was doing a lot of speaking, healing and realigning me, but i couldn't quite fit all the pieces together.

I went for some counselling, which was probably the most helpful thing i have done in terms on bringing my life into a greater reality.

Subsequently, i have been training in counselling, and part of that is to continue working on your inner journey in groups and individuals, and that has been incredibly meaningful.

I am now wondering how to bring some of that reality in to the wider church community? Any thoughts?

[Paul]

I've had prayer counselling which was great and i know people who have been for counselling of all descriptions - mostly from what I have seen it has been incredibly helpful in short bursts and less so when people are in long haul and find themselves able to diagnose their problems more clinically but not move beyond them [then again i know some people in long term counselling who need that time and find it so helpful]...

In terms of bringing in that wider reality - it's a great Q. I think that we need a mutality - that we ask people how they feel and really listen and then ask what we can do and be open to doing the same.

Sometimes we need to be couragious and share our stuff first to help people be inspired to have courage.

I think as well that confession, compassion, connection, community are all vital in terms of being able to share in a loving space where people want the best for us and stay with each other in doing this...

What are you or anyone else doing in your own communities to make this a reality?

[Rupert Ward]

Just a quickie - i too would be interested in others responses...

I have found story telling groups really helpful. Could be telling your own story: current, inner and deeper. Or could be telling your current life as a metaphor or parable. Both good ways of getting people talking. BUt keen for more ideas and to go deeper.

[Paul]

Thanks Rupert, life in metaphor, like it... what would yours be?

[Rupert Ward]

Journey would be a key one.
What about you?

[Paul]

yes journey, although i need to find a better one, everything is a journey these days, lol.

people liberation front, maybe :)

[Rupert Ward]

yes it is ... but it is still a good one. Seasons could be another. something that doesn't convey that life is static.

I like the PLF!?!