 
Charting a Theological Confluence:

Theology and Interfaith Relations

George M. Clifford, III

Published by Ethical Musings at Smashwords

ISBN: 9781301254309

Copyright 2012 George M. Clifford, III

All rights reserved.

Cover photo © iStockphoto.com

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Many thanks to Marcia Talley for her advice and her generous assistance in preparing the cover.

# TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures

Introduction: Where Streams Mix

Chapter 1: The Christ Alone Model

Chapter 2: The Christ Essential Model

Chapter 3: The Christ Universal Model

Chapter 4: The Theocentric Model

Conclusion: Charting the Confluence

Notes

Bibliography

About the Author

# LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Theological Spectrum of Knitter's Models

Figure 2: The Christ Alone Model

Figure 3: The Christ Essential Model

Figure 4: The Christ Universal Model

Figure 5: Van Kaam's Dynamics of Prayer

Figure 6: The Theocentric Model

Figure 7: Theological Comparison of the Four Models

# INTRODUCTION: Where Streams Mix

Let me begin with the undeniable religious heterogeneity of the dawning postmodern world. Not only do we live on a spiritually multiplex globe, but nearly every continent, nation, and city is itself increasingly pluralistic. As a result of nineteenth-century Christian missionary activity, worldwide migration patterns, and the spread of Asian religious practices to the West, previous "spheres of influence" arrangements no longer work. Everyone is now everywhere. There are native-born Presbyterians in Cambodia; third generation Buddhists in the United States; and Hindu temples in the Caribbean. Ghetto religions-those that rely on an element of isolation to survive-are dying out. Hare Krishnas chant in Saint Peter's Square in Rome; Christianity is reappearing in China; and young Indian untouchables calling themselves "panthers" recently began converting to Buddhism to escape the Hindu caste system. Religions now coexist and interact whether or not theologians or mullahs or bishops approve. Religious pluralism is an irreducible fact.

Theologian Harvey Cox's description of the reality of religious pluralism in _Many Mansions: A Christian's Encounter with Other Faiths_ , cited above, is even truer today than when Cox wrote it in the late twentieth century. Religious pluralism is for most people in the developed world an inescapable fact. Prior to the middle of the twentieth century, interaction between the major religions of the world most often caused conflict. At times this conflict escalated into war, as in the Islamic jihads of the seventh, eighth, and fifteenth centuries that sought to spread Islam to Europe and the Spanish conquest of the Americas, which was partially motivated by a desire to bring Christianity to the otherwise hell-bound natives. In other places and times, the conflict was a contest for domination without resort to war, as in many of the Christian efforts to evangelize Africa, India, and China.

But most of the time, interaction between the major religions of the world was limited because the religions were each confined to their own geographic areas. A noteworthy exception to these generalizations is the spread of Buddhism to China and Japan where the people peacefully syncretized it into the pre-existent religions of Confucianism and Shinto. The most tragic exception to this general overview is the relentless persecution of Jews by Christians that culminated in the Holocaust.

The advent of rapid and easily accessible communications and transportation coupled with increased immigration is propelling the world towards true religious pluralism. The United States is a microcosm near the vanguard of this trend. Contrary to much popular opinion, the United States is no longer only a Judeo-Christian nation. Sizable numbers of Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims now comprise vital parts of the U.S. population. Indigenous religions such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Jehovah's Witnesses, Native American religions, and various new age groups are also important features of the religious geography of the United States. The divine service advertisements in metropolitan newspapers and the yellow pages of phone books clearly reflect this increasing pluralism.

Will Herberg in his seminal 1955 study, _Protestant-Catholic-Jew_ , prophesied that "Interfaith [activity] in this country is the device that American experience has elaborated for bringing some measure of harmony among the religious communities and in some degree mitigating their tensions and suspicions." The passage of time has disproved his optimistic prediction. Rather than greater harmony, religion in America seems better characterized as increasingly competitive and divisive. Conservative Catholics and Protestants who formed coalitions against more liberal Catholics and Protestants in the 1950's now seem to do so with more vigor and animosity, as evidenced, for example, in the abortion controversy. "Fundamental cleavages in American Protestantism that appeared dead or dying in the fifties were merely sleeping." The emergence of new age and Eastern religions as major forces in this country are trends which Herberg failed to foresee.

Many people within and without the church are increasingly troubled by the proximity of other faiths. They want to know: is only one religion the true faith? If so, why is God so exclusive? If not, which is the best religion? If all religions are the same, how does one choose a religion? If there is no one, true religion, why believe in any religion? These are not new questions. Individuals are simply asking the questions with fresh poignancy and greater frequency. Consequently, Christian clergy ministering in the United States in the twenty-first century will need a clear theological understanding of the relationship between Christianity and other religions.

People sometimes unhelpfully confuse interfaith relations with Christian ecumenism, i.e., the relationship between groups that mutually recognize one another as Christian. Theological pluralism, as used in this volume, denotes only interaction between Christianity and other, non-Christian religions. Ecumenical issues that divide various Christian groups are beyond the scope of this work. Additionally, even as Christianity has several models for understanding interfaith relationships, other religions have one or more models for understanding interfaith relationships. Examination of those non-Christian models is also beyond the scope of the present work.

Four theological models for describing the relationship of Christianity to other religions are possible. The model developed in Chapter 1, the Christ Alone Model, is completely exclusive: Christianity is the only path to salvation. A second model, the Theocentric Model (Chapter 4), is completely inclusive: all religions are, in some measure, good, true, and valuable. The other two models, the Christ Essential Model (Chapter 2) and the Christ Universal Model (Chapter 3) represent positions between those two poles. Varied understandings of the theological doctrines of Christology/revelation, soteriology, and missiology differentiate the models from one another.

Each model is presented by examining the theology of a leading proponent of that model. This approach has the advantages of sharply focusing each model's development and defining the scope of discussion in a fashion consistent with the purpose and scope of this volume. The disadvantage of this approach is that it necessarily glosses over the full breadth and variety of theologies represented by each model. However, strengths and weaknesses of each model are noted. The models are integrated into a single chart (Figure 7: Theological Comparison of the Four Models), comparing the models on the doctrines of soteriology, revelation and missiology. The conclusion argues for theological pluralism as Christianity's preferred framework for relating to other religions.

Religions specifically addressed are Christianity in its Anglican, Roman Catholic, and some of its Protestant manifestations, Judaism, and Buddhism. Judaism is the non-Christian religion most closely associated with Christianity. Buddhism represents a radical departure from the Judeo-Christian tradition and may therefore represent the most substantial theological challenges to Christianity. However, Christian theologian Hans Kung describes Buddhism as "certainly the strongest counterpart to Christianity."

The models depict a spectrum of theologies of religious pluralism and are adapted from those presented by Paul Knitter in _No Other Name? A Critical Survey of Christian Attitudes toward the World Religions_. The lines of demarcation between the four models are, in fact, often more blurred than the simplified summary found in Figure 7 might seem to suggest. The four theologians used to exegete the models were selected, in part, because their work illustrates that blurring. The theologians are "bridge figures," indicative of theology in transition and of the substantial theological difficulties posed by religious pluralism.

Knitter's names for the first three of his models are used only in the discussion of his development of each model. Those names - Conservative Evangelical, Mainline Protestant, and Catholic \- are the names of particular, confessional divisions within Christianity. Knitter acknowledges that there is an imperfect fit between the divisions within Christianity and adherents of his various models: "...when I speak of the 'Conservative Evangelical' or the 'Catholic' models for understanding religions I am not saying that all Evangelicals or Catholics will fit snugly into these niches; also, many Catholics, for instance, feel more at home in the mainline Protestant model than in the Catholic." His rationale for using confessional names for his models in spite of this lack of congruence is that each model is rooted in, and finds its main proponents from, a specific theological tradition.

Equally unsatisfactory are the names given to the three theological models of religious pluralism developed by Powers. Powers constructs three models: the exclusive, the inclusive, and the pluralistic. His exclusive model includes both Knitter's Conservative Evangelical and Mainline Protestant models. Powers' inclusive model is similar to Knitter's Catholic model, and his pluralistic model similar to Knitter's Theocentric model. "Inclusive" and "Exclusive," for many people, imply value judgments.

Thus, new names are assigned to the three models Knitter named for confessional traditions. The Conservative Evangelical model is renamed the Christ Alone model; the Mainline Protestant model is identified as the Christ Essential model; and the Catholic model is designated the Christ Universal model. These names, in capsule form, hint at the main thrust of each model, avoid value judgments, unintended or otherwise, about the worth or validity of each model, and are free from association with any particular Christian tradition. The name of Knitter's fourth model, the Theocentric model, has been retained because it meets the same criteria. The models range from the most exclusive (Christianity is the only way) to the most inclusive or pluralistic (Christianity is but one of many ways) and are discussed in that order (see Figure 1).

# CHAPTER 1 The Christ Alone Model

Knitter's first model is the Conservative Evangelical Model. This model's foundational premise is that there is only one true religion, Christianity, and only one valid path to salvation, Jesus Christ. From the fourth until the sixteenth century, Christians almost universally accepted that the Christ Universal Model was the only valid theological model for understanding the relationship of Christianity to other religions.

Today, many Christians, especially those who identify themselves as fundamentalists, conservatives, or evangelical Protestants, and most of those who belong to the Pentecostal/charismatic movement, continue to identify this model as their theology of religious pluralism. Although primarily Protestant, some of these Christians are Catholic. Estimates of their numbers in the United States range from twenty to forty-two percent of the population.

Knitter identifies Karl Barth as a leading theological spokesperson for the Conservative Evangelical model. Though much of Barth's neo-orthodoxy is unacceptable to many conservative and evangelical Christians, Barth's articulate argument for Christian exclusivity would probably resonate very well with a majority of them.

Basic precepts of Barth's theology include:

1) Sin and evil are real. All people are sinners, and therefore all suffer estrangement from God: "Man has betaken himself to the point at which a verdict of God is pronounced upon him and has inevitably to be carried out. Man stands before God as a sinner, as a being who has sundered himself from God, who has rebelled against being what he may be. He rebels against grace; it is too little for him, he turns away from gratitude. Such is human life, this constant turning away, this coarse and subtle sinning."

2) People cannot extricate themselves from the grasp of sin by their own effort. The effect of sin is so complete that on their own, people will never discover who God is, their estrangement from God, or be able to establish a relationship with God: "What began to forcibly to press itself upon us about forty years ago was not so much the humanity of God as His deity – a God absolutely unique in His relation to man and the world, overpoweringly lofty and distant, strange, yes even wholly other."

3) Consequently, left to their own devices (i.e., without the intervention of God in Jesus Christ), people are condemned to death: " This sinning leads man into inconceivable need: he makes himself impossible before God. He puts himself where God cannot see him... Let us be clear what is involved in the judgment of God, in what the human creature has to suffer from God's side as a sinful creature; he is involved in rejection, in the curse. 'Cursed is he that dies on the cross.' What befalls Christ is what ought to befall us."

4) God acted in the person of Jesus Christ to deliver people from the bondage of sin and restore them to fellowship with God: "In the death of Jesus Christ God has humiliated Himself and rendered Himself up, in order to accomplish His law upon sinful man by taking his place and thus once for all removing from him to Himself the curse that affects him, the punishment he deserves, the past he is hurrying to meet, the abandonment into which he has fallen."

5) Salvation is through Christ and Christ alone. Christ is unique because he alone is fully God and fully human. Christ is the only one able to pay the price for human sin, the only one necessary to pay that price for all humanity: "God's revelation in the man Christ Jesus is compelling and exclusive and God's work in Him is helpful and adequate, because this man is not a being different from God, but the only Son of the Father; that is, God Himself uniquely living through and of Himself; He is God's omnipotence, grace and truth in person and therefore the authentic Mediator between God and all other men."

6) People receive salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. God makes faith possible acting in a person's life: "Christian faith is the illumination of the reason in which men become free to live in the truth of Jesus Christ and thereby to become sure also of the meaning of their own existence and of the ground and goal of all that happens."

7) Salvation received through faith in Jesus Christ means that God removes the curse of death and bestows the gift of new and eternal life on the believer: "In the resurrection of Jesus Christ man is once for all exalted, and appointed to discover with God his right against all his foes and thus set free to live a new life, in which he no longer has sin and therefor the curse too, death, the grave and hell, in front of him but behind him."

8) Religion is unbelief. That is, religion is a vain human attempt to reach out to God. Christianity is no different from any other religion: all religions are unbelief. True faith results only in response to God's sovereign act in reaching out to us.

Barth's paradigm of an impassable chasm of sin separating God and people, a chasm that only God can bridge through a person's conscious faith in Jesus Christ, is the common denominator of the Christ Alone model. Those who do not believe in Jesus Christ, whether through choice, geography, year of birth or any other extenuating factor, are excluded from salvation.

Yet within Barth's thought, there is a tension at this very point of exclusivity. He suggests that the Christ event may be efficacious for the entire human race, even though all do not presently recognize that truth: "The very One who speaks in these parables takes to His heart the weakness and the perversity, the helplessness and the misery, of the human race surrounding Him. He does not despise men, but in an inconceivable manner esteems them highly just as they are, takes them into His heart and sets Himself in their place. He perceives that the superior will of God, to which He wholly subordinates Himself, requires that He sacrifice Himself for the human race and seeks His honor in doing this."

When discussing universalism, a topic on which he carefully avoids taking a position either for or against, Barth focuses on Colossians 1:19, that in Christ all things are reconciled to God. He implies that somehow God redeems all. To the extent that this note of universalism is present in Barth's thought, Barth is atypical of many adherents of the Christ Alone model. In no way, however, does this note of universalism within Barth mitigate his emphasis on the essential need for evangelism.

Three points at which adherents of the Christ Alone model disagree among themselves are the way in which Christ's death and resurrection are efficacious for salvation, whether or not faith is at least in part a function of human will, and what constitutes faith in Christ. Those disagreements, however, are tangential to the model's significance for a theology of religious pluralism. All adherents of the model concur that salvation and revelation are through Christ and Christ alone.

A prima facie case from Scripture for the Christ Alone model can be made on the basis of John's gospel, as it has been most frequently interpreted: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." And, "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me." Advocates of other theological models for understanding religious pluralism must address the claims of exclusivity that these and similar verses appear to pose.

Figure 2 summarizes the Christ Alone model. Christ is the only bridge between God and people; Christ mediates both revelation and salvation.

Insights that Knitter finds helpful in the Conservative Evangelical model are: the emphasis that evil is a very present reality and that something is wrong with the human condition; the recognition of a qualitative distinction between God and humanity; and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, i.e., the "scandal of particularity."

Knitter identifies three inadequacies of the Conservative Evangelical model. First, an inherent methodological problem limits the model's ability to facilitate genuine dialogue between world religions. "Any method for a theological understanding of religions that insists on Christian tradition (the Bible for Protestants, the Church's teaching magisterium for Roman Catholics) as the only or the final criterion of religious truth seems to blind or at least blur the Christian's vision of what the other religions are saying. It prevents a real listening, without which authentic dialogue collapses."

An examination of Barth's treatment of Amida, or Pure Land, Buddhism illustrates this methodological problem. Amida Buddhism teaches that a monk, known in China and Tibet as Amitabha and in Japan as Amida, whose name means _infinite light_ or _infinite life_ , took a vow an incalculable number of ages ago to become a Bodhisattva. After becoming a Bodhisattva, and then a Buddha, Amida came to preside over the Western Paradise, a Buddha-field or domain he called into existence. This Paradise is also known as the Land of Bliss, or the Pure Land. Because as the kindly Lord of this land, Amida freely admits all who call upon him in faith, he has surpassed in adoration and popularity the Gautama Buddha. Amida is able to admit everyone to the Pure Land because Amida has sufficient power to overcome the karma of any deed, no matter how evil the deed.

Probably more than any other religion, Amida Buddhism is similar to Christianity. There are some apparent differences. The names of the savior differ: Christ and Amida. The understanding of why and how people are caught in the power of the world varies: sin and karma are substantially different concepts. Yet the existential plight depicted in both is strikingly similar. Likewise, the emphasis on salvation by faith, and faith alone, in the central figure is the same. In Amida Buddhism, it is possible for people to achieve enlightenment by becoming a Bodhisattva or even a Buddha. But to enter the Pure Land, the only way is through faith in Amida.

Barth acknowledges the similarities between Christianity and Amida Buddhism and then dismisses Amida Buddhism as without value: "Only one thing is really decisive for the distinction of truth and error... That one thing is the name of Jesus Christ... which alone constitutes the truth of our religion."

From the perspective of the Christ Alone model, the inherent difficulty in establishing dialogue with other religions, while perhaps regrettable, is unavoidable. The lack of genuine dialogue is not a problem for Christians because there is nothing that Christians or Christianity can learn from other religions, as Barth's dismissal of Amida Buddhism illustrates. Rather than seeking dialogue, Christians, according to the Christ Alone model, should aggressively promote the conversion of the entire world to Christianity because Christianity is the world's only hope.

Knitter's second difficulty with the Conservative Evangelical model is the model's claim to Christian exclusivity. Physicist Freeman Dyson describes science and religion as "two windows through which we can look out at the world around us." With science postulating the relativity of all creation, how can Christianity, a second window on the same world, continue to claim an absolute status for itself?

Knitter answers that Christianity should stop claiming absolute status. He quotes Tom Driver with hesitant (wondering if Driver perhaps exaggerates his argument) approval:

I am gradually becoming convinced that the gap between Christianity and modern theories of relativity is widening so much that the churches' teaching about Christ is in danger of losing both its intellectual and its moral credibility... We have reached a stage in history, characterized by awareness of relativity, in which the more we make absolute claims about Christ, the more we empty Christ of all meaning. Ideas that do not make sense within relational fields make no sense at all, deceptively attractive as they may be. We are in danger of losing Christ utterly through our attempts to make Him (sic) a fixed and eternal point for all time.

Knitter uses two lines of reasoning to support his conclusion that the time has come to replace the Christ Alone model with newer models for understanding Christianity's relationship to other religions. The faith, love, dedication, and peace seen in the lives of devotees of non-Christian religions appear identical to those same characteristics observed in Christians. The more Christians meet people of other faiths, the more poignant this problem becomes:

The possibility that Christ's truth may not be the only truth also confronts Evangelicals through the knowledge and experience that Christians today have of other religions. The Conservative Evangelical declaration that there can be authentic, reliable revelation only in Christ simply does not hold up in light of the faith, dedication, love, and peace that Christians find in the teachings and especially in the followers of other religions. If, as many evangelicals insist, the Bible tells us that such religious faith is only "groping" for God without any genuine "discovery," then many of our contemporaries will find themselves forced to abandon the Bible.

An advocate of the Christ Alone model will not find this argument persuasive. Salvation is through faith and by faith alone. Love, peace, and dedication are laudable virtues. But without faith in Christ, there is no salvation.

Hinting at his other three models, Knitter also argues that embracing the relativity of all truth-claims does not inevitably lead to universal relativism:

One can still announce and commit oneself to a particular statement of truth, even though one realizes that statement is not the whole truth. This means that the Evangelicals should face the further possibility that Christians can maintain and proclaim the particular importance of Christ – even, perhaps, scandalously, as a universal truth for all religions – without having to negate the importance of universal truth in other religions.

Again, advocates of the Christ Alone model would find Knitter's analysis unpersuasive. For them, Jesus Christ is the whole truth and only in Christ can people know the truth.

Knitter's third difficulty with the Conservative Evangelical model is the model's emphasis on justification by faith alone. The Epistle of James and the synoptic gospels seem to teach that "good works" are intrinsic to salvation. If good works are intrinsic to salvation, then religion is not without value. If religion has value, then religion may be a source of revelation, even as Jesus Christ is a source of revelation. And if one acknowledges the possibility of revelation apart from Jesus Christ, then it is possible that non-Christian religions may also be a source of revelation.

A conservative evangelical response to Knitter's criticism of the doctrine that people are saved only by faith, completely apart from good works, is that good works are the natural product of a transformed life, the reflection of faith. Those good works count for nothing; it is only the underlying presence of faith in Jesus Christ that produces salvation. That non-Christians may exhibit the same virtue and good works is but evidence of the futility of attempting salvation through good works.

For those who do not believe in the uniqueness and necessity of revelation in Jesus Christ, Knitter's difficulties with the Christ Alone model point towards the next three models. For those who accept the Christ Alone model, Knitter's arguments about the importance of dialogue with other religions, Christian relativity, and the value of other religions remain unpersuasive. This dichotomy defines the ultimate nature of the Christ Alone model: faith over and above reason.

# CHAPTER 2 The Christ Essential Model

Knitter's second model for understanding the theology of religious pluralism is the Mainline Protestant (herein renamed the Christ Essential) model. Knitter relies primarily upon the work of theologians Paul Althaus and Emil Brunner in developing his model. This exegesis of Knitter's model focuses on Paul Tillich's theology, exploring the issues of universal revelation, the possibility of salvation through universal revelation, the necessity of Christ for salvation, the impetus for missions, and the model's strengths and weaknesses.

The Christ Essential model presumes the reality of universal, or general, revelation. According to Tillich, "one must say that revelatory experiences are universally human." There are three rationales for affirming universal revelation: the witness of the New Testament, human experience, and the necessity of prior revelation in order to understand God's self-revelation in Jesus Christ.

Unlike the Christ Alone model, the Christ Essential model takes seriously those parts of Scripture that affirm that God's existence and will are revealed to all: "For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made."

To the extent that the Christ Alone model takes those texts seriously, the Christ Alone model contends that since all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, all, whether or not they are under the law, will perish without faith in Christ. Without God's self-revelation in Jesus Christ, it is even impossible for the lost to know that they are lost.

The second rationale for affirming universal revelation is the commonality of divine revelation within and without the Judeo-Christian tradition. Here Tillich's analysis is perceptive and germane. His argument for universal revelation "pivots on his contention that every human being seeks and can be 'grasped' by an ultimate Concern." For Tillich, this being grasped by an ultimate Concern cannot be equated with exclusive Christian claims or with the claims of any or all other religions. Rather, Tillich defines being grasped by an ultimate Concern, i.e., a revelatory event, as

the manifestation of what concerns us ultimately. The mystery which is revealed is of ultimate concern to us because it is the ground of our being. In the history of religion, revelatory events always have been described as shaking, transforming, demanding, significant in an ultimate way. They derive from a divine source, from the power of that which is holy and which therefore has an unconditional claim on us.

Universal revelation is not identical with nature but may occur through nature. Universal revelation may also occur through people, collectively or individually, words, or historical events. The particular "finite human situation" of the recipient shapes each revelation.

The third rationale for affirming universal revelation is that universal revelation is the prior revelation that prepares people to understand God's final revelation in Jesus Christ. Faith in Jesus Christ is possible only if a person already believes in God. Tillich makes a similar argument: "The event that is called "final revelation" was not an isolated event. It presupposed a revelatory history which was a preparation for it and in which it was received. It could not have occurred without having been expected, and it could not have been expected if it had been preceded by other revelations which had become distorted."

Universal revelation, for the Christ Essential model, must not be confused with any result of human striving. Advocates of this model trace that distinction back to the reformers. As with the Christ Alone model, revelation is always and entirely the result of God's grace, never the product of human effort.

Clearly, from the perspective of the Christ Essential model, universal revelation can communicate God's personal and benevolent nature and the human need for redemption to all people. However, two difficult and challenging questions for the Christ Essential model remain. The first question is whether universal revelation is sufficient for salvation. Advocates of the Christ Essential model give a variety of answers:

When the question of salvation through other religions is broached, the Protestant model swings in a direction quite different from the one it followed regarding revelation. The change is both clear and, for many, confusing. Not all the representatives of this model explicitly take up the question whether God is actually using other religions to offer salvation... Those who do (they are primarily the 'old-timers,' Althaus and Brunner) offer an unambiguously negative response. Tillich, Pannenberg, Braaten, and Ratschow handle the question of salvation obliquely. When they do admit to a salvific value in the religions, they seem to load this admission with qualifiers that make it difficult to grasp clearly what they mean; or, one might wonder whether they can mean what they say.

Knitter analyzes both the negative and the opaque answers to the question of salvation through universal revelation. He prefaces that discussion by defining salvation in terms of this life as "being in Christ," "the experience or awareness of God that brings both meaning and freedom, and thus promotes human welfare." This definition is important because it frames the debate in ethical versus narrowly spiritual terms. The norm for determining whether a person is saved is not whether they spend eternity with God, an outcome not readily susceptible to human analysis. Instead, the norm for measuring salvation is the power of a revelatory event to transform human life for the better in the here and now.

Knitter's definition of salvation advantageously establishes a basis for measuring the transformative or salvific power of revelation. The disadvantage of his definition is that many adherents of at least the Christ Alone, the Christ Essential, and the Universal Christ models, and perhaps some adherents of the Theocentric model, would refuse even to enter the discussion on those terms. Salvation, according to them, is foremost and indispensably the gift of new and eternal life at death.

Conversely, if one accepts Knitter's definition of salvation, the more people of other faiths one knows, the more reasons one may have to question the exclusive claims of Christianity. Non-Christian people and societies seem to experience the type of this-worldly, temporal salvation he describes. Thus, Knitter is able to conclude, "It seems that both human logic and Christian theology require that if one admits the fact of divine revelation apart from Christ, one must also admit at least the possibility of salvation apart from Christ."

The definition of salvation may therefore be the decisive factor in determining whether one believes that non-Christians experience genuine salvation. This issue receives further attention in this volume's conclusion.

Salvation is impossible, according to some advocates of the Christ Essential model, because any movement towards God apart from Christ is necessarily the result of human effort. Such efforts inevitably become attempts to "capture" God. Thus all religion, which is comprised of human striving to reach out and to grasp God, is doomed to failure. In the human grasping of God, God ceases to be God and becomes an idol. Conversely, in the divine grasping the human, God transform the human and gives the person new life.

Tillich is illustrative of an opaque response to the question of salvation apart from Christ. Tillich describes human striving and grasping for God as the tension, and subsequent contradiction, between that part of God that is ultimate Concern and that part which is concrete. As the holy cannot appear except through the secular (i.e., the concrete), every individual who is grasped by an ultimate concern apart from the final revelation (the Christ) is grasped by both the holy and the secular. Therefore, the experience is both revelatory and idolatrous, with the idolatrous element eventually seeming to prevail. Tillich's "Protestant principle," the continuous need for reformation within religion, points towards the idolatrous element consistently prevailing over the revelatory element. If so, then on this point the Christ Essential model is one with the Christ Alone model: salvation is through Christ and Christ alone.

Unfortunately, salvation is a category with which Tillich deals only in passing: "where there is revelation there is salvation." Salvation, for Tillich, entails being healed from estrangement from the ground of being. As there is revelation apart from Christianity, so must there be salvation apart from Christianity: "One never can separate revelation and salvation. There are revealing and saving powers in all religions." He leaves questions about the completeness and finality of salvation apart from Christ unanswered. Is salvation apart from Christ complete? Is it final? If not, what does partial and/or temporary salvation look like?

Tillich never definitively reconciles the apparent contradiction between his affirmation, on the one hand, of the eventual prevailing of the idolatrous element in revelation apart from Christ, and his affirmation, on the other hand, that all revelatory events have salvific elements. Nevertheless, he seems to affirm the salvific power of all living religions: "In the depth of every living religion there is a point at which the religion itself loses its importance, and that to which it points breaks through its particularity, elevating the adherent to spiritual freedom and with it to a vision of the spiritual presence in other expressions of the ultimate meaning of man's existence."

Scripture, likewise, seems vague about whether universal revelation offers hope of salvation for non-Christians. Paul seems to offer hope of salvation to non-Christians in his discussion of the fate of those who do not have the benefit of hearing the gospel in the second chapter of Romans: "They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them on that day, when according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus."Error: Reference source not found That window of hope, however, can be firmly closed by keeping the focus squarely on Paul's words in the first chapter of Romans where he concludes his discussion of universal revelation with the words, "so they are without excuse."

The second question for the Christ Essential model is how to define the necessity of Christ. For both Conservative Evangelicals and mainline Protestants, "to jeopardize belief in the salvific centrality of Christ is to tear the heart out of Christianity." Defending the necessity of Christ has been along two different lines of reasoning, the ontological and the epistemological.

The ontological defense of the salvific necessity of Christ is most common among those who deny the possibility of any salvation apart from Christ. Except for admitting the existence of universal revelation, this argument for the necessity of Christ parallels the analysis of Barth's theology presented in the previous chapter's discussion of the Christ Alone model. The human condition is one of sin. Adherents of the model may not always interpret the fall literally, but do interpret the fall as an ontological statement of the human condition. Divine justice must be satisfied. The only way in which divine justice can be satisfied is through the unique event of the sacrificial death of the only begotten Son of God and his subsequent resurrection, heralding victory over the powers of sin and evil. In order for the Christ event to be efficacious, an individual must enter into contact with Christ physically or historically. Thus, faith in Christ is necessary for salvation. Many proponents of this model believe that those who live and die without having had opportunity to hear the Christian gospel will have that opportunity before judgment: "the model suggests the possibility of salvation for all who believe, without yielding on the insistence that salvation is possible only through God's self-revelation in Christ."

A religion of grace, such as Amida Buddhism, is different from Christianity, according to the Christ Essential model, because although Amida Buddhism speaks eloquently of God's love, it does not speak of God's wrath. Without God's wrath, there is only "cheap grace," not the grace of Jesus Christ, God identifying with those who suffer and offering vicarious atonement for their sin. Thus, the salvation offered by Amida Buddhism is an imitation, not genuine salvation.

The epistemological necessity for Christ is the second argument used to justify the essential and central position of Christ in the plan of salvation. This argument is most commonly utilized by those who take an ambiguous approach to the question of salvation apart from Christianity. Tillich's theology is again illustrative, typical of how many contemporary theologians defend the Christ Essential model. Christ is necessary, according to the epistemological argument, because Christ is the definitive lens for interpreting all experience and knowledge.

After brief discussions of Judaism and Islam, Tillich addresses Buddhism. Buddhism is measured against Christianity and found wanting because Buddhists do not make the same claims about Buddha as Christians do about Christ: "Buddha is not for the Buddhist a dividing line between before and after. He is the decisive example of an embodiment of the Spirit of Illumination which has happened and can happen at any time, but he is not seen in a historical movement which leads to him and is derived from him."

Tillich then summarizes his discussion of the relative merits of world religions:

This survey shows that the only historical event in which the universal center of the history of revelation and salvation can be seen – not only for daring faith but also for a rational interpretation of this faith – is the event on which Christianity is based. This event is not only the center of the history of the manifestation of the Kingdom of God; it is also the only event in which the historical dimension is fully and universally affirmed. The appearance of Jesus as the Christ is the historical event in which history becomes aware of itself and its meaning. There is – even for an empirical and relativistic approach – no other event of which this could [original italicized] be asserted. But the actual [original italicized] assertion is and remains a matter of daring faith.

Ironically, Tillich, in spite of his concern with history, is clearly biased in his analysis of other religions, unaware of the historically conditioned nature of his own categories. He comments on only three religions besides Christianity, ignoring Hinduism, Shinto, and numerous other faiths. He writes from an unapologetically Christian perspective, assuming that there must be a definitive turning point in creation. Though he recognizes his methodological bias, describing his theology as written within the theological circle, Tillich fails to place himself in historical context.Error: Reference source not found Thus, it is not surprising that although he acknowledges that there is salvation apart from Christ, any such salvation seems inferior, incomplete, when compared to salvation through Christ.

Only Jesus Christ perfectly embodies "New Being" or "Spiritual Presence" for Tillich. In Jesus, the gap between God and people is overcome. To the extent that the contradiction between the object of ultimate concern and the concrete element in the idea of God is overcome, the individual progresses towards the ground of being. Only in the Christ is this completely attained.Error: Reference source not found Thus, Christ is the only way in which God can be perfectly and finally known.

In _The Future of Religion_ , Tillich expands this line of reasoning, delineating how Christ is the source of a theology of all religions. Tillich labels this theology the "Religion of the Concrete Spirit." Using a dynamic-typological approach, he enumerates three essential elements of such a theology. First, the universal religious basis must be "the experience of the Holy within the finite." Second, there must be a critical element to prevent the "demonization of the sacramental, making it into an object which can be handled." Third, there must be an ethical or prophetic element. These elements coalesce definitively only in Jesus: "as Christians we see in the appearance of Jesus as the Christ the decisive victory in this struggle... The criterion for us as Christians is the event of the cross. That which has happened there in a symbolic way, which gives the criterion, also happens fragmentarily in other places, in other moments, has happened and will happen even though they are not historically or empirically connected with the cross."

Thus, the Christ event is essential for all theology:

Christian theology ... implies the claim that it is the theology. The basis of this claim is the Christian doctrine that the Logos became flesh, that the principle of the divine self -revelation has become manifest in the event 'Jesus as the Christ.' If this message is true, Christian theology has received a foundation which transcends the foundation of any other theology and which itself cannot be transcended.

The "Christocentric relativization of all religions" inherent in the Christ Essential model preserves the missionary impetus observed in the Christ Alone model. Other religions are at best stepping-stones to Christ, even as the law was a necessary preparation for the gospel: "Although there are many heart-warming calls for openness, respect, dialogue, although it is even said that Christians can learn from other faiths and through them find 'new expression' for 'the true identity of Jesus,' still the basic category for the relationship between Christianity and the religions is that of the "law and the gospel," as understood by the reformers."

Even for Tillich, with his concept of the latent church and his recognizing at least some type of salvation apart from Christ, the missionary impulse remains strong. The latent church consists of

groups outside the organized churches who show the power of the New Being in an impressive way. There are youth alliances, friendship groups, educational, artistic, and political movements, and even more obviously, individuals without any visible relation to each other in whom the Spiritual Presence's impact is felt, although they are indifferent or hostile to all overt expressions of religion... The term "latent" comprises a negative and a positive element. Latency is the state of being partly actual, partly potential; one cannot attribute latency to that which is merely potential, for example, the reception of Jesus as the Christ by those who have not yet encountered him. In the state of latency there must be actualized elements and elements not actualized.

Yet, the demand for missions still remains:

The universality of the Spiritual Community demands the function of expansion of the churches... The first function of expansion, historically and systematically, is missions... Whenever active members of the church encounter those outside the church, they are missionaries of the church, voluntarily or involuntarily. Their very being is missionary.

However, the purpose of this missionary activity is somewhat different than it is for the Christ Alone model. "The purpose of missions as an institutionalized function of the church is not to save individuals from eternal condemnation – as it was in some pietistic missions; nor is the purpose cross-fertilization of religions and cultures. The purpose of missions is the actualization of the "Spiritual Community" within concrete churches all over the world."

Tillich fails to explain how "actualization of the Spiritual Community" differs from saving "individuals from eternal condemnation." Part of the difference is a new emphasis on dialogue between religions. In any case, if salvation is fully possible only through Christ, then actualization of the Spiritual Community must include an evangelistic element even though the idea of eternal condemnation has been completely abandoned. Regardless of that problem, the Christ Essential model maintains a strong impetus for missions.

Figure 3 summarizes the Christ Essential Model. Universal revelation is accessible to all. Those who build on the foundation laid through universal revelation can receive the fullness of salvation and revelation in Christ. The question marks indicate that without Christ the completeness and finality of any revelation or salvation is in doubt. Christ is the definitive revelation and source of salvation.

The Christ Essential model, like the Christ Alone model, emphasizes that salvation is by faith alone and by Christ alone. Thus, this contribution of the model is not discussed further. Knitter identifies two additional contributions of his Mainline Protestant model: the recognition of universal revelation and the qualified approval that the model gives to religions.

Without recognition of the validity of universal revelation, there can never be a dialogue between Christianity and other religions because the other religions are completely without value. It is difficult to conceive of a God who would create and then completely abandon more than three-fourths of the world's population. Concomitantly, the Christian God is a God of love who "wants all people to be saved and come to know the truth." At a minimum, universal revelation enables people to know God exists and that they are in need of God's redemptive activity.

Religions are important because they can be mediums of universal revelation. Nevertheless, Tillich's "Protestant principle" must continually be applied to the plurality of religions as a constant reminder that all religions contain within them not only the Spiritual Presence but also the demonic. No religion, not even Christianity in its particular expressions, can be absolutized. The Protestant principle "protests against the tragic-demonic self-elevation of religion and liberates religion from itself for the other functions of the human spirit, at the same time liberating these functions from their self-seclusion against the manifestations of the ultimate."

Knitter identifies four inadequacies of the Mainline Protestant model. The model's first weakness is an inherent inability to objectively draw data from other religions. Tillich's failure to address other religions in an unbiased fashion, because of the theological circle from which he worked, illustrates this weakness. If one posits the exclusivity of Christ, then unbiased listening to people of other faiths is as impossible for adherents of the Christ Essential model as for those of the Christ Alone model.

The second inadequacy Knitter identifies is the qualitative distinction between universal revelation and Christian revelation the model employs to support the exclusive claims of salvation through Christ. As Knitter acknowledges, some type of distinction between universal and Christian revelation may be appropriate. But is Christian revelation in a class by itself? Is the revelation in the Buddha (if there is one) of the same class as the revelation in Christ? Or is the revelation in the Buddha simply another example of universal revelation? If one admits that the revelations in Buddha and Christ are sufficiently similar to belong to the same genre, then how does one maintain the distinctiveness of each faith? These questions are addressed in the discussion of the next two models.

The third inadequacy Knitter identifies in the Mainline Protestant model is its ontological requirement of Christ for salvation, its holding that the Christ event is constitutive of whatever salvation is available to people. Knitter poignantly poses the dilemma adherents of the mainline Protestant model face: "It does not seem possible to maintain this traditional insistence on the ontological necessity of Christ for salvation and at the same time coherently profess belief in the universal salvific will of the Christian God. This is especially so when the necessity of Christ is further tied to some kind of direct contact with Christ through the preached word."

Any eschatological form of salvation (e.g., Christ descending to hell to preach to those who died before his death and resurrection), is ignored by Knitter because it is excluded by his definition of salvation. Instead, Knitter focuses on the last judgment scene in Matthew 25:31-46. He argues that this pericope supports the idea that love for neighbor, not contact with Jesus, determines who will be numbered among the elect. Knitter is continuing to lay the groundwork for his defense of the Theocentric model.

A further difficulty with ontological claims for the necessity of Christ, common to both the Christ Essential and Christ Alone models, is portraying God as a masochist. Surely, an omniscient God would foresee the likelihood of sin. Yet the only provision God made for the forgiveness of that sin, according to both models, was the death of Christ upon the cross. God wrote the rulebook that established the requirement for Christ's reconciling death. And if God did not write the rulebook, then God is only of penultimate concern and the author of the paradigm is of ultimate concern. In either case, God appears to be a masochist (or sadist, depending upon whether one's Christology posits that Christ was fully God).

Knitter's fourth and final difficulty with the Mainline Protestant model is that its proponents have overlooked the teachings in other religions that parallel Christianity's teachings. Knitter illustrates this criticism with examples drawn from Buddhism and Hinduism:

If an explicit recognition of "sin" and divine "justice and wrath" are defined as prerequisites for admission into the circle of the elect, then admittedly few Hindus and Buddhists would qualify... It appears that the reality behind the symbol of sin is caught by the Hindu symbol of avidya ('ignorance') or the Buddhist experience of tanha ('selfish craving'). Even though the Buddha did not speak about an infinite offense against divine justice, he perhaps has another angle on what is wrong with the human condition when he announced that dukkha ("suffering") is universal and is caused by craving....

Similar questions can be asked of the way Pannenberg, Tillich ... [and others] exclude an authentic understanding of salvation in other religions. They hold that the religions 'finitize' God by not being truly open to the 'power of the future,' by missing the eschatological character of salvation, by never being able to lay hold of a 'concrete symbol of grace,' by refusing to accept total dependence on God. But what about the evident 'negative theology' that pervades so much of Eastern religious thought – the Hindu neti, neti (Brahma is 'not this, not this'), Buddha's 'noble silence,' the Zen insistence that there is an ineffable mystery behind all concepts and symbols? Might not the fascination of Western Christianity for doctrine and dogma profit from such warnings against 'finitization'?

Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu vocabularies are different. But abstract ideas signified by words from different languages may be very similar if not identical. The parallels between Buddhism and Hinduism noted above are ignored, Knitter suggests, because advocates of the Christ Essential model focus on an eschatological rather than this-worldly definition of salvation. Christians need to remember that the kingdom preached by Jesus was a future kingdom, to be realized in the present: "With respect to the lack of eschatology in other religions, perhaps with Thomas Merton we can find in the Eastern insistence on "the eternal now" a necessary reminder that the kingdom preached by Jesus was, paradoxically, a future fullness to be realized in the present."

Once again, the definition of salvation is the crucible that determines the outcome of the debate. The idea that other religions can contribute to Christianity, hinted at above, is another piece of the groundwork being laid for the Theocentric model. Before turning to the Theocentric model, however, one more Christocentric model requires consideration.

# CHAPTER 3 The Christ Universal Model

The Catholic model (renamed the Christ Universal model) is Knitter's third model for understanding the theology of religious pluralism. The foundations of this model are traced through the history of Roman Catholicism to the pronouncements of Vatican II. The model is then developed through an examination of Hans Kung's theology. Kung was selected because he has been a leading spokesperson for the Christ Universal model. Since Vatican II, the Christ Universal model has attracted a large number of supporters not only from Roman Catholicism, but also from Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Third World Protestantism, and Process Theology.

In 473, the Council of Arles affirmed that though Christ did not wish anyone to perish, "Christ, our Lord and Savior, did not undergo death for the salvation of all peoples." The tension between God's universal love and the apparent exclusivity of the Christian gospel had to be balanced then, as today, against God's saving activity in Christ. The Roman Catholic Church in the centuries from the fifth through the sixteenth century tended to give more weight to God's salvific activity in Christ than to God's universal love.

This contrasts, however, with the general tenor of the church's teachings in the first three centuries of its existence. Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Theophilus of Antioch, and Athenagoras all spoke of the "seminal word," "the word of whom all humankind partakes." For Justin, all who live by this word, regardless of whether they have heard of Jesus, are already Christians. Tertullian's notion of "the naturally Christian soul" makes the same point.

The shift from emphasizing the universal grace of God to the particularity of salvation in Jesus began with Constantine. When Christianity became Christendom, it no longer had to justify the reasonableness of the Christian faith to non-believers. As the church's position in society became more secure, there arose a need to protect that privileged position. And for a time it even seemed that the Roman Catholic Church "extended more or less throughout the known world ... that the whole world was Christian." Thus Fulgentius of Ruspe in 533, without realizing that he was condemning large numbers of people to eternal damnation, wrote: "There is no doubt that not only all heathens, but also all Jews and all heretics and schismatics who die outside the church will go into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels."

Christianity's contact with Islam from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries reinforced the emphasis on the exclusivity of Christianity. Islam's highly successful geographical expansion and missionary emphasis threatened both Christendom and Christianity. In response to this threat, the Roman Church placed an even greater emphasis on the exclusivity of Christianity so that the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 declared, "outside the church, no salvation at all."

This position was easier to maintain as long as it was possible to believe that Christians had preached Christ throughout the world. With the "age of discovery" in the sixteenth century, however, people began asking difficult questions. What is the fate of the millions of people living in the Americas and Asia? Were they automatically condemned to hell because through no fault of their own they had never heard of Christ?

The Council of Trent attempted to re-balance God's universal love with the necessity of the church: "If pagans could not be baptized with water (in re), they could 'through desire' (in voto). If they followed their conscience and lived morally, they were implicitly expressing a desire to join the church and could thus get through the doorway of salvation."

The theology of the Roman Catholic Church had shifted from "outside the church, no salvation" to "without the church, no salvation." This more inclusive view reflects only a more positive view of individuals and not of religions. An individual, not a religion, is baptized "through desire." An individual, not a religion, enters through the doorway of salvation through following their conscience and living morally.

Vatican II was a watershed precisely because it recognized the value of other religions:

The Catholic Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions. She has a high regard for the manner of life and conduct, the precepts and doctrines which, although differing in many ways from her own teaching, nevertheless often reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all men. Yet she proclaims and is in duty bound to proclaim without fail, Christ who is the way, the truth and the life (Jn. 1:6). In him, in whom God reconciled all things to himself (2 Cor. 5:18-19), men find the fullness of their religious life.

The Church, therefore, urges her sons to enter with prudence and charity into discussion and collaboration with members of other religions. Let Christians, while witnessing to their own faith and way of life, acknowledge, preserve, and encourage the spiritual and moral truths found among non-Christians, also their social life and culture.

Does this pronouncement mean that there is salvation apart from Christ? Some Protestant theologians have said no, but most contemporary Catholic theologians have said yes, there is salvation apart from Christianity. Karl Rahner, as early as 1961, contended that if God willed all to be saved, then God would act to make that salvation possible. If there is salvation apart from the Roman Catholic Church, how is the salvific work of Christ to be understood? Hans Kung's theology is explored in detail to better understand the Christ Universal model and to answer those questions.

Kung names three factors that create the modern context of religious pluralism and require questions about the validity of other religions to be addressed. First, as already noted, "it is impossible today for any one religion to exist in splendid isolation and ignore the others."

Second, Christian missionary efforts have frequently resulted in disappointingly few converts. "Is it not a fact that the more significant the religion of a country was, the less significant was the missionary success? The greater from the start the political weight of a country, the more difficult the Christian mission?"

Third, the value of other religions needs to be re-evaluated. No longer can those religions be dismissed as worthless. Kung writes:

Not only Christianity, but also the world religions are aware of man's alienation, enslavement, need of redemption: inasmuch, that is, as they know of man's loneliness, addiction, abandonment, lack of freedom, abysmal fear, anxiety, his selfish ways and his masks; inasmuch as they are troubled about the unutterable suffering, the misery of this unredeemed world and the sense and nonsense of death; inasmuch as they therefore await something new and long for the transfiguration, rebirth, redemption and liberation of man and his world.

Not only Christianity, but also the world religions perceive the goodness, mercy and graciousness of the Divinity: inasmuch, that is, as they know that the Divinity, despite its closeness, is distant and hidden, that the Divinity itself must bestow closeness, presence and revealedness; inasmuch as they tell man that he may not approach the Divinity as a matter of course, confident in his own innocence, that he is in need of purification and reconciliation, that he needs sacrifice for the remission of sin, that he gains life only by passing through death; in fact, that in the last resort man cannot redeem and liberate himself, but is thrown back on God's all embracing love.

Not only Christianity, but also the world religions rightly heed the call of their prophets: inasmuch that is as they receive from their great prophetical figures – models of knowledge and behavior – inspiration, courage, and strength for a new start toward greater truth and deeper understanding, for a breakthrough toward revival and renewal of the traditional religion.

This extended quotation is important for not only what it says about the contemporary situation, but also for what it reveals about Kung's approach to other religions. Other religions are revelatory, to the extent that what they teach about the human situation and God are echoed in the teachings of Christianity. Other religions are salvific to the extent that their teachings echo Christian soteriology. Christ is the norm against which all else is to be measured.

The Christ Universal model is differentiated from the Christ Essential and Christ Alone models on the questions of revelation and salvation. As previous quotations from Kung illustrate, there is clearly both full revelation and salvation apart from overt knowledge of the historical Jesus. Therefore, the crucial questions become: What differentiates Christianity from the other world religions? What makes Jesus unique?

Karl Rahner responded to those questions with his concept of "anonymous Christians." Anonymous Christians are those who through universal revelation have come to a clear understanding of the human situation and the path to salvation though they are unable to express that knowledge in Christian terms because they have never heard of Jesus. The work of Christ in redeeming the world is constitutive of salvation, even if an individual does not name Christ as their redeemer. In the words of Pope John Paul II: "The human person – every person without exception – has been redeemed by Christ; because Christ is in a way united to the human person – every person without exception – even if the individual may not realize this fact." Thus Jesus is the cosmic Christ, the Christ Universal, the only source of salvation but accessible by many paths. Rahner's concept of anonymous Christians is similar to Tillich's concept of the latent church, pointing once again to the blurring of lines between the various models.

Kung dismisses Karl Rahner's concept of "anonymous Christians" (which he accurately rephrases as "anonymous Roman Catholics") as presumptuous: "it would be impossible to find anywhere in the world a sincere Jew, Muslim or atheist who would not regard the assertion that he is an 'anonymous Christian' as presumptuous." Kung is also wary of the concept of "anonymous Christians" because it tends to lose touch with the historical Jesus and gives the church a vaporous, ethereal character.

Instead, Kung develops five points of contact between Christianity and other religions that direct attention towards the uniqueness of Christ and emerge out of "critical self-reflection." First, the dialogue between religions must occur on a historical plane. In Islam, for example, the Koran is authoritative even as Christ is authoritative for Christianity. Muslims widely believe the Koran, inspired in every word, to be inerrant and infallible, the word of God. For how long, Kung asks, will Islam be able to avoid the critical study of the Koran? Likewise, scholars are subjecting the sacred scriptures of other religions to the scrutiny of the historical critical method. This scrutiny provides a context for interpreting and evaluating the text.

Second, is history cyclical, as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism teach, or does it follow another path (spiral, linear, etc.) such as Christianity advocates? Kung attributes the fatalism and social determinism that constitute one of the major barriers to positive social transformation to believing in the cyclical nature of life.

Third, Kung contends that the caste system, a decisive element of Hinduism, denies the fundamental notion of human equality, a notion accepted around the world. Both Buddhism and Sikhism decisively rejected the caste system.

Fourth, Kung argues that the belief that the world is unreal (the Hindu teaching of maya) and the cosmic pessimism of Buddhism create an ethical passivity towards human need. Finally, Kung contends that the traditionalism of Confucianism supports the status-quo rather than preparing the way for a creative and open future.

The concrete, critical questions to be put to world religions, questions which emerge out of Kung's discussion of the five points of contact between Christianity and other religions may be summarized as "unhistoricity, circular thinking, fatalism, unworldliness, pessimism, passivity, caste spirit, [and] social disinterestedness." Kung proceeds to critique Christianity, using those same questions. Not surprisingly, he concludes that Christianity, unlike any of the other world religions, at least offers a way out of the problems raised by each question.

This result is unsurprising because he has framed all of the questions so that they presume that the Christian answer is the correct answer. Just as Kung's analysis of the value of world religions reflected his Christian bias, so also does his critique of those religions reflect the same bias. While Kung carefully acknowledges his lack of expertise as a historian of religion, and presumably seeks to be objective in his analysis, his clear prejudice highlights the difficulty of a Christian attempting to define the value of another religion.

While no other religion can answer Kung's five criticisms as decisively or as definitively as Christianity, it must be emphasized that this does not mean that there is no salvation apart from Christianity. Knitter writes, "As is all too evident in the history of Christianity, that a religion gives growth to weeds does not mean it cannot produce wheat (Matt. 13:29-30)."

Christianity is unique, according to Kung, because "God himself encounters us in a unique and definitive way in the activity and the person of Jesus." God decisively and uniquely acts through Jesus to define our relations with God and with one another: "the most fundamental characteristic of Christianity is that it considers this Jesus as ultimately decisive, definitive archetypal, for man's relations with God, with his fellow man, with society: in the curtailed biblical formula as 'Jesus Christ.'"

Jesus is the only completely reliable source of revelation: "What man can turn to as absolutely reliable for time and eternity are not the texts of the Bible, nor the Fathers of the Church, nor indeed an ecclesiastical magisterium, but it is God himself as he spoke for believers through Jesus Christ." The clarity and fullness of God's self-revelation in Jesus Christ is what makes Christianity unique among the religions of the world.

The focus of Christian missionary activity for the Christ Universal model shifts from winning converts to what Kung describes as dialogue with the other religions:

Seen in this way, Christian missionary activity would make sense. It would clearly be concerned not only with religions but with believers. But this would not mean that it was directed primarily to winning the greatest possible number of converts. The real aim would be to enter into genuine dialogue with the religions as a whole, giving and taking, in which the most profound intentions of the latter could be fulfilled.

The purpose of the dialogue is for Christianity to be the prism, the critical catalyst, through which to understand other religions properly: "Christianity therefore should perform its service among the world religions in a dialectical unity of recognition and rejection, as critical catalyst and crystallization point of their religious, moral meditative, ascetic, aesthetic values."

Kung is hopeful that such a dialogue could avoid the "pointless, fruitless collision" which has characterized most interaction between world religions. This approach to dialogue, at first glance, seems to have great potential because it proceeds by appreciating and valuing the truth in each religion, while maintaining the uniqueness but not exclusivity of Christianity.

Yet if conversation between Christianity and another religion is truly to be dialogue, then the dialogue partner must be accorded full equality and respect. The Christian cannot have prejudged the value of the other religion:

A dialogue in which one of the partners reserved the right (but not the mutual right, apparently) to judge the other solely according to his own criteria would be a strange one indeed! ... by positing the absoluteness of Jesus Christ and of God's Revelation in him ... we are still envisaging the other religions from within the absoluteness of Christianity; fundamentally, the other religion is nonetheless disqualified. And, in every fiber of its being, it refuses to be disqualified.

If Christianity (because of Christ) is the definitive truth, the absoluteness of God's revelation to mankind, it only remains for the other religions to convert to Christianity... What we have, in fact, is dialogue between the elephant and the mouse.

Thus, the Christ Universal model cannot engender true dialogue. Rather, the Christ Universal model is at best an appreciation of other religions from a Christian perspective. While other religions are the source of revelation, that revelation is distinct from universal revelation only when congruent with Christianity. And while there is salvation outside of Christianity, that people find that salvation only when other religions are congruent with Christianity. The apparent dialogue is in fact a monologue:

Because of their Christological foundations, followers of the Catholic model will enter the dialogue with other religions with the expectation of finding an abundance of grace and truth – but also with the presupposition (anonymous or explicit) that other religions are inferior to Christianity. Those who hold to Christ as constitutive of salvation and endorse some form of the anonymous Christianity theory will see the other religions as 'advent forms,' 'previews' ...

Figure 4 summarizes the Christ Universal model. Many different paths and religions lead to God. Yet all paths that lead to God necessarily go through Christ. Christ is twice placed in parentheses, indicating that those who have taken that path may not be aware that they are reaching God through Christ. Christ is the essential mediator of revelation and salvation.

Knitter identifies three insights and only one inadequacy of his Catholic model. Foremost among those insights is the emphasis that other religions are possible ways of salvation. Both the Christ Alone and Christ Essential models would deny that this is an insight. However, at the very least, it needs to be acknowledged that the Christ Universal model, more seriously than either the Christ Alone or Christ Essential models, struggles to reconcile God's love for all humanity with the particularity of the Christian faith.

A second point at which Knitter praises the Catholic model is the model's insistence that Christianity must dialogue with other religions. The shortcomings inherent in attempts to dialogue when one partner predicates the dialogue on the correctness of his/her position have been fully considered above. This difficulty in entering into constructive dialogue with other religions is the primary inadequacy Knitter identifies for the Catholic model.

The final insight of the Catholic model discussed by Knitter is the shift from requiring contact with Christ in order to be saved (as in the Christ Alone and Christ Essential models) to understanding Christ as the final cause of salvation: "Christ ... is the final cause of salvation, which cause clearly expresses and incarnates a divine presence given and operative in all religions."

While Christ is the final cause of salvation for Rahner, Kung has moved even further from the Christ Alone and Christ Essential models, simply maintaining that Christ is the definitive statement of God's salvific activity. This movement also reflects a shift in Kung's own thinking, again illustrating the blurring of the lines between the models. Kung comments, in _On Becoming a Christian_ , that the juridical understanding of the death and resurrection of Jesus is one way to understand those events.Error: Reference source not found Writing his later book _, Does God Exist_?, Kung focuses exclusively on Jesus as revelatory of God. Yet Kung's position, like Rahner's, has remained consistent with the Christ Universal model. Although tangential to this work, these theological differences and shifts reflect the variety and breadth of theologies subsumed under each of the four models.

In any case, the Universal Christ model understands the salvific activity of Christ as definitive, normative, for all people. It is this issue and creating the potential for genuine dialogue among the world religions that become central in the presentation of the Theocentric model.

# CHAPTER 4 The Theocentric Model

Knitter's fourth model, the Theocentric model, moves beyond the Christ Universal model by accepting Christ as but one among many ways to the Ultimate. Knitter examines in some detail how Anglican theologians John Hick, Raimundo Panikkar, and Stanley Samartha have dealt with this problem. Hick's theology is used to develop the Theocentric model in this volume because of the important role he has played in the evolution of the Theocentric model, his reliance on Whitehead's process philosophy to undergird his theology and his focus on common experience as the basis for developing a theology of world religions.

Hick boldly compares his proposals for a Theocentric model of world religions to the Copernican revolution:

[It] involves an equally radical transformation in our conception of the universe of faiths and the place of our own religion within it ... [It demands] a paradigm shift from a Christianity-centered or Jesus-centered to a God-centered model of the universe of faiths. One then sees the great world religions as different human responses to the one divine Reality, embodying different perceptions which have been formed in different historical and cultural circumstances.

This "Copernican revolution" is presented by exploring the problems of language ("different human responses") and Christology. A discussion of the model's strengths and weaknesses follows.

Choosing a vocabulary often establishes not only the rules of the debate but frequently predestines the outcome, as was seen in Tillich's discussion of other religions. Thus using the language of one particular religion to develop the Theocentric model may immediately place that religion in a position of implicit superiority. Even the term, "Theocentric," which means, "God centered," poses some potential semantic difficulties. One tenet of Theravadan Buddhism, for example, is that God, understood in the Christian sense of creator, is illusory. Ultimate reality is Nirvana, which may be described as "permanent, stable, imperishable, immovable, ageless, deathless, unborn, and unbecome, that it is power, bliss and happiness, the secure refuge, the shelter, and the place unassailable safety; that it is the real Truth and the supreme Reality; that it is the Good, the supreme goal and the one and only consummation of our life, the eternal, hidden and incomprehensible Peace." There is no term for the Ultimate reality that is completely tradition neutral.

One solution to this linguistic problem is to develop a "meta-language" which transcends all religions. Adrian van Kaam in conjunction with the Institute for Formative Spirituality, which he founded, claims to have succeeded in this task. However, the result is a Christocentric, Christian language understanding of world religions.

For example, van Kaam understands prayer as having the two foci shown in Figure 5. Both foci reflect a Christian understanding of prayer. Theravadan Buddhists attain Nirvana through meditation, the goals of which are equanimity and knowledge. Those goals are substantially different from the goals that van Kaam has delineated for prayer. Theravadan Buddhism has nothing equivalent to either the Christian concept of prayer or van Kaam's concept of prayer. Not until the emergence of Mahayana Buddhism did prayer analogous to the Christian concept of prayer become part of the Buddhist tradition. The failure of van Kaam's efforts to develop a meta-language that transcends the limitations of particular religions suggests the difficulty of identifying a common ground among human responses to the divine through the development of a common language.

A better solution to this linguistic problem begins with the recognition that language is metaphorical. Thus, different words can describe the same reality. In theology, the center is that ultimate reality which transcends all language:

that the ultimate divine reality is infinite and as such transcends the grasp of the human mind. God, to use our Christian term, is infinite. He is not a thing, a part of the universe, existing alongside other things; nor is he a being falling under a certain kind. And therefor he cannot be defined or encompassed by human thought. We cannot draw boundaries round his nature and say that he is this and no more. If we could fully define God, describing his inner being and his outer limits, this would not be God. The God whom our minds can penetrate and whom our thoughts can circumnavigate is merely a finite and partial image of God.

For example, Knitter's criticism of the Christ Essential model for failing to recognize parallel teachings within Christianity and Buddhism presupposes a metaphorical understanding of language.

Hick explicitly affirms that a single ultimate reality constitutes the essence of the world religions: "there is but one God, who is maker and lord of all; that in his infinite fullness and richness of being he exceeds all our human attempts to grasp him in thought; and that devout in the various great world religions are in fact worshipping that one God, but through different, overlapping concepts or mental icons of him."

Even apparently contradictory words and paradoxical concepts used to describe the divine may in fact describe different facets of the same ultimate reality: "different encounters with the transcendent within the different religious traditions may all be encounters with the one infinite reality, though with partially different overlapping aspects of that same reality."

Hick illustrates this conclusion with the familiar parable, attributed to the Buddha, about blind men attempting to describe an elephant upon encountering one for the first time:

One felt a leg and reported that an elephant is a great living pillar. Another felt the trunk and reported that the elephant is a great snake. Another felt a tusk and reported that an elephant is like a sharp ploughshare. And so on. And then they all quarreled together, each claiming that his own account was the truth and therefor all the others false. In fact, of course, they were all true, but each referring only to one aspect of the total reality and all expressed in very imperfect analogies.

While some religions mediate ultimate reality better than other religions, none does so with total accuracy. Ultimate reality lies beyond human comprehension. The issue thus becomes determining which religion(s) mediate ultimate reality better than others do.

Hick, from his study of world religions, believes that all of the major world religions share a "common ethical ideal" or "soteriological structure:"

All the major religions seek to transform the human situation that they judge to be in need of salvation/liberation – that is, full of suffering (dukkha). They urge this transformation by calling their followers to transcend self-interest and to become alive to broader dimensions of reality. Through a 'voluntary renunciation of ego-centeredness and a self-giving to, or self-losing in, the Real,' religious persons will live lives of 'acceptance, compassion, love for all humankind, or even for all life.'

How well a religion enables people to achieve the transformation that comes from the transition from self-centeredness to Reality-centeredness is therefore the criterion by which one measures the worth of that religion. The limiting factor in such judgments is that all of the major religions are so diverse and complex that one cannot make comprehensive judgments about the totality of a faith but rather is limited to an assessment of particular aspects of a faith or practice. Dialogue with other faiths provides both an opportunity to gain insights from those faiths and an opportunity to measure the transformative value of one's own faith.

The "scandal of particularity" presented in the Christ Alone model poses a more difficult problem for proponents of the Theocentric model. Can they remain faithful to the Christian witness of the finality and uniqueness of Christ while affirming the independent validity of other religions? Hick seeks to resolve this Christological problem by considering the incarnation a mythic event that requires reinterpretation. He builds his analysis around the "all but certain" scholarly consensus that Jesus did not claim to be the Messiah or Son of God and would not accept those designations from others. Instead, Hick argues that the poetic Hebrew title, "son of Man," which could be used in reference to any extraordinary religious person gradually was hardened into a doctrine of deification through the conciliar debates of the first Christian centuries. While this myth conveyed transformative power to previous generations, it has lost its power today.

The myth of the incarnation must therefore be reinterpreted, taken seriously, but not literally. Hick's re-interpretation of the incarnation replaces Greek metaphysics with a form of process metaphysics. He speaks of incarnation in terms of "volitional attitudes" and "operations." As a metaphor, the myth of the incarnation announces that "the divine agape has been inhistorised in the person of Jesus:"

For everything that Christianity knows concerning the divine attitude and activity towards humans can be summarized in the assertion that God is Agape; and this assertion is a direct transcript of the faith that the agape that we see in Jesus in some sense is the eternal Agape of God. If then we say, with Gregory of Nyssa, that the name 'God' refers not to a nature but to an operation, we mean that operation of Agape revealed in the life and death of Jesus. Or if we say with Paul, 'God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself,' we mean that in Christ the divine Agape was at work dealing with sinful humanity. And if we say, as twentieth-century theologians, that in the life of Jesus Christian faith finds, not divine substance injected into a human frame, but divine action taking place in and through a human life, we mean that in that life is uniquely to be seen the divine Agape directly at work within our human sphere.

Jesus acts to save those who believe in him by revealing to them the divine Agape. Jesus is God's self-revelation initiated to redeem people out of all their predicaments and depths. The focus of Hick's interpretation of the incarnation is revelation and response: "[Jesus] has saved them, that he is the means by which they have known God, the revelation to which they are totally committed and that has transformed their lives. The emphasis is on attitudes, emotional response."

Jesus is uniquely the embodiment of the divine Agape. Yet the incarnation is not the totality of God's actions in the world but a "cross-section" of God's actions: "We want to say of Jesus that he was totus Deus, 'wholly God,' in the sense that his agape was genuinely the agape of God at work on earth, but not that he was totum Dei, 'the whole of God,' in the sense that the divine agape was expressed without remainder in each or even in some of his actions."

Consequently, it is possible for the Christian, Hick maintains, to "declare that God is truly to be encountered in Jesus, but not only in Jesus. Furthermore, they can announce that Jesus is the center and norm for their lives, without having to insist that he be so for all other human beings." This is possible because God is also experienced in other "cross-sections" such as Buddha, each of which depicts a facet of the divine reality.

Likewise, some biblical scholars contend that the Bible portrays an inclusive God, active in the lives of Jews, Christians and people of other faiths. For example, God sends the prophet Jonah to call the Assyrian city of Nineveh to repentance. God teaches Peter, through a vision of animals let down from heaven, not to call any person, regardless of nationality or ethnicity, "common or unclean."

The Bible's use of exclusive language reference to Jesus is best understood as the language of faith, not the language of objective fact:

All this is to say that the exclusive statements about Christ can never be understood unless we recognize the different levels in which language is used, and the different standpoints from which claims are made. Let me illustrate.

When my daughter tells me that I am the best daddy in the world, and there can be no other father like me, she is speaking the truth. For this comes out of her experience. She is honest about it; she knows no other person in the role of her father. The affirmation is part and parcel of her being....

But of course it is not true in another sense. For one thing, I myself know friends who, I think, are better fathers than I am. Even more importantly, one should be aware that in the next house there is another little girl who also thinks that her daddy is the best father in the whole world. And she too is right... It is impossible to compare the truth content of the statements of the two girls. For here we are dealing not with absolute truths, but with the language of faith and love....

The language of the Bible is also the language of faith. Whether we are speaking about the chosen people, or about Jesus as the only way, we are expressing a relationship that has profound meaning and significance for us. We do not say it lightly, for such belief is at the heart of our whole experience. But we should never claim that such beliefs are formulated or held to discredit other beliefs. They express our own convictions, even as other beliefs express the convictions others have.

Thus, the advocate of the Theocentric model can affirm the witness of Scripture the inclusiveness of God's revealing and saving activity.

For the Theocentric model, revelation and salvation are fully available apart from Christianity. The purpose of missions implied within Theocentric model is the transformation of human life and the world in ways consonant with the divine Agape revealed in Jesus. While this transformation may be through conversion, it is at least equally likely to take the form of dialogue with people of other religions, in which all participants can be enriched by insights from others.

Neely has suggested that an appropriate form for Christian missions in a context of religious pluralism would be kenosis: an emptying in love, even as Christ emptied himself. A kenosis paradigm for missions would be a radical departure from the kingdom paradigm intrinsic to the other three models. He contends that not only would a mission praxis shaped by kenosis facilitate inter-religious dialogue, it would also prepare us to be "evangelized by the poor."

Figure 6 summarizes the Theocentric model. "The Center" emphasizes the importance of avoiding Christian language in constructing the Theocentric model. The spokes illustrate the different paths of revelation and salvation found in the world in a non-hierarchical arrangement. All paths, through metaphor and mysticism, lead directly to the center.

One advantage of the Theocentric model, according to Knitter, is that it avoids the prejudice that traditional Christologies have supported. For example, by accepting Judaism as a valuable religion in and of itself, the Theocentric model eliminates the theological rationale for treating Judaism as a second-class or incomplete faith.

A second advantage of the Theocentric model is that the model is consistent with the idea of a just God who loves all of creation equally. To suppose that Christians are superior to all others is hubris. Nobody chooses his or her parents. Nobody selects the culture or year in which she or he will be born. Those three factors – family of origin, culture, time – seem by far and away the most definitive factors in determining a person's religion. Hick echoes this, observing, "whether one is a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Sikh, a Hindu – or for that matter a Marxist or a Maoist – depends nearly always on the part of the world in which one happens to have been born."

If Christianity is the only way to God, then God appears to have arbitrarily chosen a few, a very few, people to be saved. This narrow understanding of God's love is inconsistent with belief in the creator God portrayed in Scripture who is a loving God:

does not the divine love for all mankind, and the divine lordship over all life, exclude the idea that salvation occurs only in one strand of human history, which is limited in time to the last nineteen centuries and in space virtually to the western hemisphere? If God's love is universal in scope, he cannot thus have restricted his saving encounter with humanity. If God is the God of the whole world, we must presume that the whole religious life of mankind is part of a continuous and universal human relationship to him.

As worldviews broaden, and people begin to think globally rather than locally, the logic of Christians as God's people of choice has become decidedly weak. The "Copernican shift" in the Christian understanding of other religions is largely a fait accompli outside of theological circles. The average Christian, without being able to explain why, instinctively knows that a good God would not arbitrarily reject most of the world. Conversely, many theologians within mainline Protestantism continue to reject a Theocentric model for understanding religious pluralism: "The solutions which pluralism offers are all at the expense of the integrity of Christian faith. From the pluralist perspective, the claim that the Word became flesh is always foolishness or a scandal... If we begin with pluralism, there is no possibility of maintaining the historical Christian faith."

A third advantage of the Theocentric model is that by taking seriously the religious experiences of all, faith is enriched. For example, Pieris notes one way in which Buddhism and Christianity might enrich each other:

This double ascesis [focus on interior liberation and a ruthless demand for structural change in human relationships in view of the new order of love or the kingdom of God] is the nucleus around which an Asian theology of liberation evolves into a Christology that does not compete with Buddhology but complements it by acknowledging the one path of liberation on which Christians join Buddhists in their gnostic detachment (or the practice of voluntary poverty) and Buddhists join Christians in their agapeic involvement in the struggle against forced poverty.

Faith is also enriched because pluralism constitutes a constructive prod away from irrelevance and idolatry. McFague writes:

Consciousness of the relativity and plurality of interpretations forces us to recognize that religious language is not just the halting attempts by 'Christians' to say something appropriate about God, but is the halting attempts by specific individuals... If we lose sight of the relativity and plurality of the interpretive context, our religious language will ... become idolatrous or irrelevant. It will become idolatrous, for we will absolutize one tradition of images for God; it will become irrelevant, for the experiences of many people will not be included within the canonized tradition.

Not only does the Theocentric model embrace a variety of faiths, welcoming people with many different types of religious experiences, and even those who claim they have not had any religious experiences, the Theocentric model because of its pluralism provides a healthy check against the idolatrous tendencies inherent in exclusivist theologies.

One weakness of the Theocentric model is the difficulty in articulating the distinctiveness and finality of Christ in a non-exclusivist fashion. Hick's Christology outlined above defines the distinctiveness and uniqueness but not the finality or universal normativeness of Christ. Does fidelity to Christianity require Christ to be the final and normative revelation for all?

No longer can an affirmative answer to that question be assumed: "Through the incarnation in Jesus Christ, God has relativized God's self in history. Christian theologians should therefore ask themselves whether they are justified in absolutizing in doctrine him whom God has relativized in history."

The exclusivist claims attributed to Jesus in the New Testament are quite likely not be his words. Rather, statements such as "no one comes to the Father, but by me," probably reflect the passionate love and enthusiasm that Jesus' early followers had for him. The sentiments appear to be expressions of love and not doctrinal exhortations. Obviously, adherents of the first three models would sharply dispute these conclusions and emphasize that Christ is the final and definitive revelation.

A second weakness of the Theocentric model is a tendency to naively homogenize all religions, a charge frequently leveled against Hick. Van Kaam certainly attempts a homogenization through the development of a meta-language. Hick, however, attempts to preserve the distinctiveness of each religion by recognizing the limitations of language and the infinite character and richness of ultimate reality.

# CONCLUSION: Charting the Confluence

So far, the issue of truth has been largely ignored. Which theological model for understanding religious pluralism is true? That is, which model accurately – or most accurately – depicts reality? This section answers that question from the perspective of a theology shaped by the influences of process theology, liberation theology, and mysticism.

Hick and Knitter in _The Myth of Christian Uniqueness_ identify three bridges for building a pluralistic theology of religions. These three bridges are the historico-cultural bridge of relativity, the ethico-practical bridge of justice, and the theologico-mystical bridge of mystery. Each bridge, as understood from a contemporary vantage point within the socio-temporal matrix, argues in support of Christians adopting the Theocentric model.

The bridge of relativity insists that Christ cannot be the norm against which all faiths are measured. As discussed above, a steadily diminishing number of people today continue to deny the relativity inherent in living in the spatio-temporal matrix of creation. Increasing numbers of people have learned to expect life to look different when viewed from different vantage points. Those who still seek to argue against the bridge of relativity generally do so based on either juridical or epistemological soteriologies.

A juridical soteriology makes God a masochist, excludes a majority of humanity, and is anthropocentric. The first two of those assessments have already been discussed at length. All creation needs to be valued for its own sake and not simply for its ability to support human life:

We are not separate, static, substantial individuals relating in external ways – and in ways of our choice – to other individuals, mainly human ones, and in minor ways to other forms of life. On the contrary, the evolutionary, ecological perspective insists that we are, in the most profound ways, 'not our own': we belong, from the cells of our bodies to the finest creations of our minds, to the intricate constantly, changing cosmos.

Nor is an epistemological soteriology in which Christ is God's self-revelation for the redemption of all humanity a satisfactory basis for absolute Christian claims. It too is anthropocentric. Why should divine revelation or concern extend only to humans? Equally problematic for this type of epistemological soteriology is delineating how God could act uniquely in Christ in a manner decisive for the entire world. Neither Kung nor Tillich, for example, seems to offer a satisfactory explanation of the efficacy for the entire world of God's self-revelation in Christ without resorting to a version of juridical soteriology.

Process theology, as articulated by Marjorie Suchocki in _God-Christ-Church_ , takes seriously the connectedness, the worth, and the flux (i.e., the relativity) of the entire cosmos. The initial aim of God is the direction in which God is trying to lure every single actual entity within creation. She identifies the incarnation with the initial aim of God when four historical conditions are met:

First, the past must be such that there is a readiness for this revelation... Second, the content of the initial aim toward incarnation must be a full communication of the nature of God... Third, the initial aim would have to be adopted fully by the recipient... Fourth, if all of this is to be achieved by a human person incarnation cannot be a once for all happening but must be a continuous process. In process thought a person is not one actual occasion but a series of many, many occasions. For incarnation to occur, there would have to be an assent to incarnation in every moment of existence.

Identifying Christ with the initial aim of God does not preclude other religious figures or other actual entities of any kind from being similarly identified. Hick described these as "cross-sections." Differences in the interpretation of these "cross-sections" result from people living in widely divergent cultures and historical situations: "it is not only our time and place in history that influences our religious language, but also our class, race and sex; our nationality, education and family background; our interests, prejudices, and concerns."

God's self-revelation, whether in Christ or in another "cross-section," is redemptive because it mediates God's love for the world. Hick's term for this process was "agapeing the world." The premise that the future is, at least in part, open is axiomatic for the transformative process: "That the future is undetermined is our hope, for we know that the principle of this indeterminacy is the creative transformation we trust as Christ."

Suchocki is more specific about how the transformative process occurs: "The harmony of God is adapted to the conditions of the world. Continuity and novelty mark the aim: the preparation of the past makes a particular aim possible so there is continuity; transcendence of the past in the direction of increasing reflection of the harmony of God makes the aim novel. The past and the future unite in the initial aim, leading to the creation of the present." She also depicts the transformative process in terms of love, echoing Hick's depiction of the incarnation: "Jesus reveals the character of God as love. In Jesus, openness to the other is the mode of love; in God, openness to the other which feels the other regardless of place, position, or power an openness of love. Jesus is open to the other with a will toward the well-being of the other: the openness of God through the consequent nature must therefore be an openness which wants the well-being of the other."

Of the four theological models for understanding religious pluralism, only the Theocentric model builds a bridge of relativity that concurrently affirms the continued salvific power of Christ's incarnation and does not insist on Christian absolutism.

The ethico-practical bridge once again poses the question of the definition of salvation. An eschatological soteriology in which salvation is experienced primarily, or only, after death is unacceptable in the fragile context of twentieth century life. Sallie McFague approvingly quotes Jonathan Schell: "The question now before the human species ... is whether life or death will prevail on the earth. This is not metaphorical language but a literal description of the present state of affairs."

There is a tendency to focus with tunnel vision on the "nuclear nightmare," exaggerating the destructive power of nuclear weapons while ignoring chemical and biological weapons that are even more potent. Theologically, the bottom line is constant: people living in the second half of the twentieth century were the first generation with the power to destroy life as humans know it. Pious platitudes about the power of almighty God will no longer suffice. Human destiny, along with that of much of the earth, lies largely in human hands.

Liberation theologians also object to "pie in the sky" eschatological soteriologies. Cox summarizes Jesus' liberating message in this way:

God does not support the rich and the powerful, but neither does he intercede with magic arrows or well-aimed thunderbolts to remove an oppressor from the palace. God liberates the oppressed by enabling them to liberate themselves. This I believe is the only credible 'liberation theology.' Anything else feeds the kind of millennial fantasies which have kept the poor in bondage for centuries.

Furthermore, eschatological soteriology offers little promise of continued life for humans or other life forms on this planet. Secular alternatives to religion, such as communism, cannot be relied upon to fill the moral vacuum that often accompanies, on the one hand the eschatological soteriology of fundamentalism and conservative evangelicalism, and, on the other hand, the absence of religion. A _Washington Post_ article titled, "Gorbachev Gets Religion: To Solve a Moral Crisis, the Soviets Turn to the Church," reported that, "Soviet leadership has not only dropped its hostility toward the Russian church, it clearly sees religion as a means of halting Soviet society's accelerating demoralization." That the Soviet Union was then immersed in a moral crisis was acknowledged by all. Even by Soviet standards, less than a third of the country's employees were considered good workers. The rate of violent crime more than doubled in the year before Gorbachev spoke. Pilfering from businesses has long been a national sport in the Soviet Union. Lying to one's superiors, subordinates, colleagues, spouses and children is considered a normal feature of everyday life. Citing statistics and providing countless examples, the Soviet mass media portrayed the people as hostile and often cruel to one another. Several Soviet institutions, such as vocational schools and the army, had become training grounds for the most refined brutality and sadism. In some regions and cities, up to one third of the adult male population had a criminal record.

Working from both the Christ Universal and the Theocentric models one can construct an ethico-practical bridge between religions. The ethico-practical bridge functions as a helpful hermeneutic of suspicion, warning against theologies that support racism, sexism, and imperialism. The ethico-practical bridge also provides a moral context in which hope for a positive conclusion to the "nuclear nightmare" and the developing "ecological nightmare" can flourish. One of the pressing and largely undone tasks facing process theologians is the development of process ethics.

The third bridge, the theologico-mystical bridge of mystery is in many respects the most intriguing and the most important. Religious claims, to be truly religious, must be more than ethical demands. Religion is:

an understanding of the universe, together with an appropriate way of living within it, which involves reference beyond the natural world to God or gods or to the Absolute or to a transcendent order or process. Such a definition includes such theistic faiths as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism; the theistic Hinduism of the Bhagavad Gita; the semi-theistic faith of Mahayana Buddhism and the non-theistic faiths of Theravada Buddhism and non-theistic Hinduism. It does not, however, include purely naturalistic systems of belief, such as communism and humanism...

Although a majority consensus may be built around the liberative/salvific thrust common to major world religions, that consensus to be truly religious must reach beyond the ethico-practical. While theology necessarily includes an ethical element, the converse is not true. The third bridge, the theologico-mystical bridge of mystery, is the bridge that must be built in order to develop a truly pluralistic theology of world religions.

William James in _The Varieties of Religious Experience_ identifies four marks of mystical experience: (1) ineffability – the experience defies description; (2) noetic – a state of insight into ultimate reality; (3) transient – the experience is of finite duration; (4) passivity – although the mystic may facilitate the oncoming of the experience through meditation or other practices, the mystic's will is held in abeyance during the experience. James' study of mysticism included Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic (Sufi), and Christian mystics. He identified the four marks of mystical experience as common denominators for all of the experiences. The definitive common denominator was that all of the mystics experienced a sense of union with what James termed the "Absolute."

In _Mysticism and Philosophy_ , W. T. Stace identifies seven characteristics which he believes are common to all mystical experiences: (1) unity – that which is experienced in the mystic moment is one, not plural; (2) the sense that the mystical experience encompasses objective reality; (3) the experience is non-spatial and non-temporal, i.e., the experience is noetic; (4) the experience feels to be of the holy, the sacred or the divine; (5) the experience leads to a feeling of blessedness or peace; (6) the experience seems paradoxical when juxtaposed with ordinary experience; (7) the experience is ineffable. James also suggested two of these seven common denominators: that the experience is noetic and ineffable. The other two marks of mystical experience identified by James, that the experience is transient and beyond the mystic's control, complement the seven identified by Stace.

The commonality of mystical experience, portrayed by James and Stace, points to the reality of a common essence which lies behind all of the world's major religions. Revelation is truly universal in all of its forms. Rudolf Otto, in his seminal study, _The Idea of the Holy_ , and D. T. Suzuki, in _Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist_ , reached the same conclusion. Those who have argued that not all mystical experience reflects an encounter with the same ultimate reality have tended to base their argument on an analysis of the mystic's theology rather than the mystical experience, per se.

How is one to speak of this common ground, this common experience of the holy in our midst? Is process theology the illusive meta-language sought by van Kaam and others, the Holy Grail of a theology of world religions? Can Buddhist theology, Hindu theology, and the theology of the other major religions, be faithfully articulated from a process perspective? If not, then is the quest for a common language futile? Where is common ground for a dialogue to be found if there is no common language?

The difficulty of answering those questions should not be underestimated. Fortunately, attempting to interpret other religions in the language of process philosophy lies beyond the scope of this current project. A reasonable starting point for that endeavor might be identifying mystical experience with one form of the lure of God, i.e., mystical experience is one way in which actual entities prehend the initial aim and are prehended by God. A common ethico-practical thrust among the world's religions, such as Cox and Cobb claim exist between Buddhism and Christianity is consistent with a common experience of the initial aim of God interpreted as living toward a common good. The bridge of relativity explains why in spite of this common mystico-theological core, there are substantial differences between religions. For example, Christianity has tended to emphasize social ethics and Buddhism has generally failed to nourish them.

Only the Theocentric model allows for a theological center other than Christ. The defense of the Theocentric model as the most accurate of the four models is in the last analysis based on personal mystical experience rather than Scripture. My theology has a Christian flavor by virtue of where, when and to whom I was born rather than because I am convinced of the veracity of the Christian Scriptures. Similarly, Knitter suggests that personal experience, rather than religious truth claims, is an essential starting point for inter-religious dialogue. Likewise, the religious identity of other individuals is primarily determined by their experiences (thoughts, feelings, and encounters) as processed by their matrix of brain patterns produced by the totality of their genetic makeup and life experiences.

At least four presuppositions are required for genuine inter-religious dialogue. First, both partners must acknowledge the value of the other's religion. Second, each religion is represented with conviction. Third, there is a common ground that makes both dialogue and conflict possible. Fourth, both partners must be open to criticism and change. Only the Theocentric model embodies all four presuppositions, thus creating the possibility of genuine dialogue with other religions.

Many people who adopt a structural approach to seeking the confluence of world religions often feel closer to non-Christians who share their mystical experiences and ethical convictions than to other Christians. Truth, to the extent it is discernible, lies in crossing the three bridges of relativity, ethico-practical justice, and mystico-theological mystery to discover common ground among the religions. This common ground is not the result of homogenization, but reflects and respects unity in the midst of genuine diversity. Some manifestation of truth is to be found in the particular claims of each religion. Yet this truth is neither exclusivist nor comprehensive. Dialogue will hopefully become a crucible in which experience and truth claims are refined, separating the wheat from the chaff.

The great religions of the world, heretofore separate streams flowing towards their own destiny, which they identified as ultimate concern or God, are increasingly flowing together into a single oceanic confluence. This volume has attempted to chart that confluence, building a theological model based on the insights of process theology, liberation theology, and mysticism. Other approaches to inter-religious dialogue are possible, and perhaps equally or even more valuable than the approach advocated here.

Christian theology evolves in an iterative process, dialoguing with its historical context: " After initial resistance, Christian theology was open to Greek philosophy, and, without ceasing to be Christian, it was inwardly transformed by its interiorization of the Greek mind. Similarly, after an initial struggle, Christian theology was open to modern science, and, without ceasing to be Christian, it was inwardly transformed by its interiorization of the scientific method and results."

Concomitantly, this new paradigm for a theology of religious pluralism, the Theocentric model, will develop in an iterative fashion, as dialogue among religions yields new insights and new revelations about God and life.

While the theology of religious pluralism charted in this volume and summarized in Figure 7 is by no stretch of the imagination a complete systematic theology, the Theocentric model does have sufficient structure to begin sketching some theological guidelines for the practice of ministry. Most local clergy will occasionally (but with growing frequency), and institutional chaplains (military, hospital, prison, and industrial) will routinely, find themselves in situations similar to these:

\- An interfaith couple (one Christian and one non-Christian) ask to be united in marriage – the model opens the door to an interfaith service, respecting both faiths;

\- A person of another faith requests counseling – the model opens the way to creatively using insights from both faiths to facilitate the person's liberative transformation, without the need to press for a conversion;

\- Someone requests a prayer for a public ceremony – the model opens the possibility of praying in inclusive versus exclusive, Christ centered language.

# NOTES

1. Harvey Cox, _Many Mansions: A Christian's Encounter with Other Faiths_ (Boston: Beacon, 1988), 163.

2. John B. Noss, _Man's Religions_ , 4th ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1969), 535-538.

3. For example, "In Mexico in 1523 a royal letter to Cortes, the leader in the conquest, declared that the conversion of the Indians was the king's chief interest in the enterprise." Kenneth Scott Latourette, A _History of Christianity_ , vol. II, "Reformation to the Present," rev. ed. (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), 944. Also, Raimundo Panikkar, "The Jordan, the Tiber, and the Ganges," _The Myth of Christian Uniqueness_ , ed. John Hick and Paul F. Knitter (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1987).

4. Latourette, _History of Christianity_ , vol. II, 694; John Hick, "The Non-Absoluteness of Christianity," _The Myth of Christian Uniqueness_ , ed. Hick and Knitter, 18-20.

5. Noss, _Man's Religions_ , 156-161.

6. Ibid, 413-422; Raul Hilberg, "Canonical and Nazi Anti-Jewish Measures," _The Holocaust and Genocide: A Search for Conscience_ , ed. Harry Furman (New York: Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, 1983), 85-86.

7. For example, in 1984 there were 3.7 million Latter Day Saints in the United States. Frank S. Mead, _Handbook of Denominations_ , rev. by Samuel S. Hill (Nashville: Abingdon, 1985), 139.

8. Will Herberg, _Protestant-Catholic-Jew_ (Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday, 1955), 261.

9. One of the first to notice this phenomenon was H. Richard Niebuhr, _The Purpose of the Church and Its Ministry_ (New York: Harper and Row, 1956), 40.

10. Chaplain (MAJ) Paul Otterstein, USAF, "Theological Pluralism in the Air Force Chaplaincy," _Military Chaplains' Review_ 16 (Fall 1987): 94.

11. Hans Kung, _On Becoming a Christian_ , trans. by Edward Quinn (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1968), 93; also, for a similar opinion, John Cobb, Jr., _Christ in a Pluralistic Age_ (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975), 189.

12. Paul Knitter, _No Other Name? A Critical Survey of Christian Attitudes toward the World Religions_ (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1989), 75-167.

13. Ibid, xiv.

14. Ibid, xiv.

15. Stephen R Powers., LT, CHC, USN. "Many Paths to One God? An Examination of the Copernican Revolution of John Hick?" _Military Chaplains' Review_ (Fall 1989): 73-92.

16. John Hick, _God and the Universe of Faiths_ , rev. ed. (Glasgow: Collins, 1977), 120.

17. Knitter, _No Other Name_? 77

18. Ibid, 75-96.

19. Karl Barth, _Dogmatics in Outline_ , trans. G. T. Thomson (New York: Harper and Row, 1959), 116-117. Also, Paul Tillich, _A History of Christian Thought: From Its Judaic and Hellenistic Origins to Existentialism_ , ed. Carl E. Braaten (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968), 537.

20. Karl Barth, _The Humanity of God_ , trans. John Thomas and Thomas Wieser (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1960), 37.

21. Barth, _Dogmatics in Outline_ , 117.

22. Ibid, 114.

23. Ibid, 82.

24. Ibid, 22.

25. Ibid, 121.

26. Karl Barth, _Church Dogmatics_ , Engl. trans. by G. T. Thomson and Harold Knight (Edinburgh: Clark, 1956) vol. 1/2, 327-348, cited by _Knitter, No Other Name?_ 84-86.

27. Barth, _The Humanity of God_ , 51.

28. Ibid, 61-62.

29. Ibid, 57.

30. John 3:16.

31. John 14:6.

32. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 87-90.

33. Ibid, 91.

34. A Mahayana Buddhist able to reach nirvana, but who chooses to delay doing so in order to assist others.

35. Noss, _Man's Religions_ , 164-165. Keith Crim, Roger A. Bullard, and Larry D. Shinn, eds. _Abingdon Dictionary of Living Religions_ (Nashville: Abingdon, 1981), s. v. "Amidah," by M. Levering.

36. Barth, _Church Dogmatics_ , vol. 1/2, 343, quoted by Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 86.

37. Freeman Dyson, _Infinite in All Directions_ (New York: Harper and Row, 1988), 4.

38. Tom Driver, _Christ in a Changing World: Toward an Ethical Christology_ (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 66, 73, quoted by Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 93. The "sic" is Driver's.

39. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 93.

40. Ibid, 93.

41. For example, James 2:14-26; Matthew 7:15-21; Luke 6:43-49.

42. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 94.

43. Barth, _Dogmatics in Outline_ , 132.

44. Galatians 3:10-14.

45. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 97-119.

46. Paul Tillich, _The Future of Religion_ , ed. Jerald C. Brauer (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), 81. Also, Paul Tillich, _Systematic Theology_ , vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), 118-138.

47. Romans 1:19-20. Also cf. Romans 2:12-16; Acts 14:15-17; Acts 17:27-28; John 1:1-5.

48. Romans 5:12.

49. Romans 2:12.

50. Barth, _Dogmatics in Outline_ , 26.

51. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 99, citing Paul Tillich, _Christianity and the Encounter of World Religions_ (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963), 4.

52. Tillich, _Systematic Theology_ , vol. I, 138.

53. Ibid, vol. I, 110.

54. Ibid, vol. I, 118-126.

55. Tillich, _The Future of Religion_ , 83, 93.

56. Wolfhart Pannenberg, _Basic Questions in Theology_ , vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971), 88, 95-96, 112, referenced by Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 99.

57. Tillich, _Systematic Theology_ , vol. I, 137.

58. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 98. For example, John Calvin, _The Institutes of the Christian Religion_ , vol. I, trans. Henry Beveridge, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, n.d.), 171-173.

59. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 101.

60. Ibid, 101.

61. Ibid, 116.

62. Paul Tillich, _Systematic Theology_ , vol. I, 218. Tillich develops this concept based on Rudolf Otto's seminal work, _The Idea of the Holy_ , trans. John W. Harvey (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971).

63. Tillich, _Systematic Theology_ , vol. III, 224.

64. Ibid, vol. III, 362.

65. Ibid, vol. III, 277-282.

66. Tillich, _The Future of Religion_ , 83.

67. Tillich, _Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions_ , 97.

68. Romans 2:15-16.

69. Romans 1:18-32.

70. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 104.

71. Ibid, 104-106.

72. Paul Althaus, Christliche Wahrheit, 7th ed., (Gutersloh: Gutersloher Verlagshaus, 1966) 145-146 and Emil Brunner, Christusbotschaft im Kampf mit den Religionen (Stuttgart, 1931), 15 cited by Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 106.

73. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 106.

74. Tillich, _Systematic Theology_ , vol. III, 368.

75. Ibid, vol. III, 368-369.

76. Ibid, vol. I, 8-11.

77. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 103.

78. Tillich, _A History of Christian Thought_ , 476.

79. Tillich, _Systematic Theology_ , vol. I, 219.

80. Ibid, vol. II, 120-125.

81. Tillich, _The Future of Religion_ , 86-89.

82. Ibid, 88-89.

83. Tillich, _Systematic Theology_ , vol. I, 16.

84. M. M. Thomas, "Modern Man and the New Humanity in Christ," in _The Human and the Holy: Asian Perspectives in Christian Theology_ , ed. by Emerito P. Nacpil and Douglas J. Elwood (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1980), 327-333 cited by Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 111.

85. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 108.

86. Tillich, _Systematic Theology_ , vol. III, 153.

87. Ibid, vol. III, 193.

88. Ibid, vol. III, 193.

89. Tillich, _Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions_ , 94-95.

90. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 114.

91. I Timothy 2:4.

92. Tillich, _Systematic Theology_ , vol. III, 245.

93. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 115.

94. Ibid, 115-116.

95. Ibid, 116-118.

96. Ibid, 116.

97. Ibid, 117.

98. Ibid, 118-119.

99. Ibid, 119, citing Thomas Merton, _Zen and the Birds of Appetite_ (New York: New Directions, 1968), 137-138.

100. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 120-144.

101. Other prominent, twentieth century Roman Catholic theologians who have developed positions similar to Kung's include Karl Rahner, Walbert Buhlmann, and Piet Schoonenberg. Anglican supporters include Kenneth Cragg and John V. Taylor; Eastern Orthodox adherents include Georges Khodr; Choan-Seng Song, Kosuke Koyama, and D. P. Niles are among Third World Protestant supporters; process theologians espousing similar views include John Cobb, Schubert Ogden, and Norman Pittenger. Ibid, 135-139.

102. Denzinger-Schonmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum Definitionum et Declarationum, 331-33, 340 cited by Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 121.

103. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 121.

104. Justin, _I Apologia_ , 46, cited by Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 121.

105. Tertullian, _Apologia_ , 17, 4-6, cited by Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 121.

106. Hans Kung, _The Church_ , trans. Ray and Rosaleen Ockenden (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1967), 313.

107. Fulgentius, _De Fide ad Petrum_ , 38, 79, quoted by Kung, _The Church_ , 314.

108. Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christianity, vol. I, Beginnings to 1500 (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), 275.

109. Denzinger-Schonmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum Definitionum et Declarationum, 802, quoted by Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 122.

110. Kung, _The Church_ , 315; Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 122-123.

111. Denzinger-Schonmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum Definitionum et Declarationum, 1524, 1542, quoted by Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 123.

112. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 123.

113. "Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions," trans. Fr. Killian, in Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, ed. Austin Flannery, 1988 Revised ed., Vatican Collection, Vol. I (Northport, NY: Costello Publishing, 1987), 739.

114. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 124.

115. Karl Rahner, _Theological Investigations_ , vol. 5, 115-134, cited by Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 125.

116. Kung, _On Becoming a Christian_ , 89.

117. Ibid, 90.

118. Ibid, 92.

119. Karl Rahner, "Anonymous Christians" in _Theological Investigations_ , Vol. VI, London/Baltimore, 1969, 390-398, cited by Kung, _On Becoming a Christian_ , 104.

120. Pope John Paul II, _Redemptor Hominis_ , 14, quoted in Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 130.

121. Kung, _On Becoming a Christian_ , 98.

122. Ibid, 98.

123. Ibid, 106-107.

124. Ibid, 107-108.

125. Ibid, 108.

126. Keith Crim, Roger A. Bullard, and Larry D. Shinn, eds. _Abingdon Dictionary of Living Religions_ (Nashville: Abingdon, 1981), s. v. "Maya" by G. E. Yocum.

127. The inevitability and unavoidability of suffering is the first of the Four Noble Truths in Buddhism. Huston Smith, _The Religions of Man_ (New York: Harper and Row, 1958), 98-100.

128. Kung, _On Becoming a Christian_ , 108-109.

129. Ibid, 109.

130. Ibid, 110.

131. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 127.

132. Hans Kung, _Does God Exist? An Answer for Today_ , trans. Edward Quinn (New York: Random House, 1980), 686.

133. Kung, _On Becoming a Christian_ , 123.

134. Ibid, 163.

135. Ibid, 112.

136. Ibid, 113.

137. Ibid, 112.

138. Henri Maurier, "The Christian Theology of the Non-Christian Religions," _Lumen Vitae_ , 21 (1976), 59, 66, 69, 70, quoted by Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 142.

139. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 134.

140. Ibid, 140.

141. Ibid, 141.

142. Ibid, 141.

143. Kung, _On Becoming A Christian_ , 425.

144. Kung, _Does God Exist?_ 677-695.

145. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 145-167

146. John Hick, _God Has Many Names_ (London: Macmillan, 1980), 5-6.

147. Edward L. Conze, _Buddhism: Its Essence and Development_ (New York: Philosophical Library, 1951), 40, quoted in Smith, _The Religions of Man_ , 112.

148. Hick, _God Has Many Names_ , 91.

149. Adrian van Kaam, "Spiritual Development and Pastoral Care," Lecture presented at the FY89 Professional Development Training Course of the U. S. Navy Chaplain Corps, Norfolk, VA, on 10 March 1989.

150. Donald K. Swearer, _Buddhism_ (Niles, Ill.: Argus, 1977), 69.

151. Noss, _Man's Religions_ , 155.

152. Sallie McFague, _Metaphorical Theology_ , (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982) 31.

153. Hick, _God and the Universe of Faiths_ , 139.

154. Hick, _God Has Many Names_ , 66-7.

155. Hick, _God and the Universe of Faiths_ , 139.

156. Ibid, 140.

157. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 148.

158. Ibid, 148-149.

159. Ibid, 149.

160. Hick, _God and the Universe of Faiths_ , xvi.

161. Ibid, 113-119.

162. Ibid, 153.

163. Ibid, 152.

164. Ibid, 154.

165. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 151

166. Hick, _God and the Universe of Faiths_ , 159.

167. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 152.

168. For example, Wesley Ariarajah, _The Bible and People of Other Faiths_ (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1985).

169. Acts 10:28.

170. Ariarajah, _The Bible and People of Other Faiths_ , 25-26.

171. Alan Neely, "Mission as Kenosis," _The Princeton Seminary Bulletin_ , n.s., 10, no. 3(1989): 202-223.

172. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 159-165.

173. Hick, _God Has Many Names_ , 6.

174. Malachi 2:10; Psalm 117; Psalm 50:23.

175. Hick, _God and the Universe of Faiths_ , 100.

176. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 166.

177. John H. Leith, "Reformed Preaching Today," _The Princeton Seminary Bulletin_ , n.s., 10, no. 3 (1989): 247-249.

178. Aloysius Pieris, "The Buddha and the Christ," _The Myth of Christian Uniqueness_ , ed. John Hick and Paul F. Knitter (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1987), 175.

179. McFague, _Metaphorical Theology_ , 3.

180. Stanley J. Samartha, "The Cross and the Rainbow: Christ in a Multireligious Culture," in _The Myth of Christian Uniqueness_ , ed. Hick and Knitter, 69.

181. John 14:6.

182. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 184-185.

183. Ibid, 147-148.

184. Hick and Knitter, ed. The Myth of Christian Uniqueness, v.

185. Sallie McFague, _Models of God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age_ (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 7-8.

186. Marjorie Suchocki, _God-Christ-Church_ (New York: Crossroad, 1986), 95-96.

187. McFague, _Metaphorical Theology_ , 3.

188. Cobb, _Christ in a Pluralistic Age_ , 183.

189. Suchocki, _God-Christ-Church_ , 95.

190. Ibid, 104.

191. Jonathan Schell, _The Fate of the Earth_ (New York: Avon Books, 1982), 113, quoted in McFague, _Models of God_ , 14.

192. Cox, _Many Mansions_ , 94.

193. Vladimir Shlapentokh, "Gorbachev Gets Religion: To Solve a Moral Crisis, the Soviets Turn to the Church," _Washington Post_ 4 March 1990, sec. C, p. 2.

194. For example, see Marjorie Suchocki, "In Search of Justice: Religious Pluralism from a Feminist Perspective," _The Myth of Christian Uniqueness_ , ed. Hick and Knitter, 149-161.

195. Hick, _God and the Universe of Faiths_ , 131.

196. Tillich, _Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions_ , 88-89.

197. Gustavo Gutierrez, _A Theology of Liberation_ (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1973), 1-19; Tillich, _Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions_ , 32.

198. William James, _The Varieties of Religious Experience_ (New York: Macmillan, 1961), 299-336.

199. W. T. Stace, _Mysticism and Philosophy_ (New York: Macmillan, 1960), 131-132.

200. For example, see R. C. Zaehner, _Mysticism Sacred and Profane_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969).

201. Cobb, _Christ in a Pluralistic Age_ , 48.

202. Cox, _Many Mansions_ , 74-95; Cobb, Christ in a Pluralistic Age, 203-220.

203. Cobb, _Christ in a Pluralistic Age_ , 208; Tillich, _Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions_ , 23-24.

204. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 207.

205. Tillich, _Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions_ , 62; Hick, _God Has Many Names_ , 122.

206. Ibid, 207.

207. Cox, _Many Mansions_ , 60-61.

208. Knitter, _No Other Name?_ 208-212.

209. For example, John P. Keenan, _The Meaning of Christ: A Mahayana Theology_ (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1989).

210. Cobb, _Christ in a Pluralistic Age_ , 204.

211. For more on the implications of increasing interfaith interactions and dynamics for ministry, cf. George Clifford, "Ministry in a Pluralistic Environment," _Military Chaplains' Review_ , Summer 1992, pp. 67-80, available at <http://archive.org/details/militarychaplain65unse>. This volume and that article represent, with minor revisions, two parts of his doctoral dissertation, _Charting the Confluence: theology for ministry in a pluralistic environment_ , (Washington, DC: Wesley Theological Seminary, 1991).

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

George Clifford is an Episcopal priest who retired from the U.S. Navy Chaplain Corps as a Captain. His twenty-four years of active Naval service included service at sea, overseas, with Marines, and teaching philosophy at the Naval Academy and ethics and the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS). Since retiring, he has been a writer, parish priest, Visiting Professor of Ethics and Public Policy at NPS, and public speaker. In addition to numerous scholarly and popular articles, to find his other writings, go to www.EthicalMusings.com.
