In a few minutes, I’m leaving to give an address to physicians and other medical professionals at Children’s Hospital as part of their Many Faiths, One People forum. Representatives of a number of different faiths will be speaking for ten minutes each on what is distinctive about their particular faith, and what their faith shares in common with others. Later, we’ll speak for another five minutes on the implications for providing appropriate and respectful health care for children of our faith tradition. While my comments for this latter five-minute section are not written out, I thought some readers of this blog might be interested in what I’m saying about Christianity’s distinctiveness and commonalities. Below is the address. Bear in mind, I had to follow a STRICT ten-minute rule!
Address to the Staff of Children’s Hospital on the Occasion of their Many Faiths, One People forum, November 5, 2009
It is my pleasure to be here this morning. Having had my eldest daughter’s life literally saved by a medical professional in Omaha this past year, I am deeply grateful to those of you who have dedicated your lives to healing children.
As a representative of the Protestant arm of the Christian faith, I am aware that two of us will be speaking of the distinctive attributes of Christianity – from a Protestant and Catholic perspective. There was a time when Protestants and Catholics were quite far apart on many issues of faith. In fact, you may have heard about what transpired when a group of young school girls visited a Catholic convent of nuns. When the Mother Superior came out to the front gate to meet them, she bent down and asked the first girl she saw what she wanted to be when she grows up. The little girl responded, “I want to be a prostitute!” At this, Mother Superior fainted dead away. Upon being revived by her aids, one of them commented, “It’s unbelievable, the kids these days. Imagine wanting to grow up to be a prostitute!” “A prostitute?” responded Mother Superior? Ohhhhh. I thought she said she wanted to be a Protestant!”
I think the differences between Protestants and Catholics are a lot less severe than Mother Superior must have considered them, and I’ll get to them in a moment. But first some general remarks that apply equally to Protestants and Catholics are in order.
You cannot speak of the unique characteristics of Christianity without speaking of its commonality with another of the major religions of the world: Judaism. As an outgrowth of Judaism, Christianity’s birthplace is ancient Israel. Its parents are all Jewish, and its central figure – Jesus – was a Jewish rabbi, or “teacher,” whose intention was not to start a new religion but to fulfill the ancient one of his birth.
For many years after Jesus’ death, his followers were not known by the name “Christian” at all. Rather, they were simply Jews who happened to believe that Jesus was the fulfillment of God’s promise of a Savior, or Messiah (which means “anointed” one). In fact, Christianity was so distinctly Jewish in the First Century that the largest debate within Christian circles of that era was over whether or not to let people like me (and many of you) who are Gentile (or non-Jewish) by birth, into the faith at all.
Thus, while those who supported inclusion eventually won the debate, Christianity’s basic DNA continues to bear a strong Jewish mark. Like our elder Jewish sisters and brothers, Christianity is a monotheistic religion – one of the three great monotheistic “religions of Abraham.” Christians read and revere all three parts of the Hebrew Bible – Torah, Prophets and Writings (as do Muslims by the way), though we arrange the books in a slightly different order. And while Christians have appended the Hebrew Scriptures with 27 “new testament” books – books which are also revered within Islam – only one “new testament” writer is non-Jewish. That is, Luke, who wrote the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. Incidentally, you may be interested to know that Luke is commonly believed to have been a physician!
So Christianity shares with Judaism (and Islam) many of the same stories of faith, many of the same heroes (and heroines), and largely on account of this shared heritage, Christianity in its ideal form shares very much the same passion for justice, compassion for the outcast and marginalized, and concern for the poor that is so prominent in Judaism and Islam. Like Judaism and Islam, Christianity is very much focused on working out the spiritual life through strong and vigorous engagement with the world, and in community with others.
Where we differ most significantly from other world religions is with respect to the nature and identity of Jesus. Jesus is believed by many to be the Son of God, born of a virgin, who lived without sin or blemish, who was crucified, died and was buried, and on the third day rose again to sit at the right hand of God the Father. Some believe that at a point in the future Jesus will return to judge “the quick and the dead.” Those who have put their faith in Jesus will be saved through his atoning death on the Cross. Those who do not place their faith in Jesus are thought to be damned for eternity in hell.
Now, it is extremely important to add one caveat here. While the beliefs I have just mentioned about Jesus and salvation are common to many Christians, a great many other Christians would disagree with much of what I have just said (Including myself!). In a very real sense, it is just as inappropriate to speak of Christianity as a homogenous system of belief as it is to speak about Hinduism that way. It is more accurate to speak of Christianities than of Christianity.
Many Christians do not believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, for instance. Nor do they believe that calling Jesus the Son of God means that he was in fact God, but believe instead that Jesus shows us what it means to be most fully human, created (according to Genesis) in the image and likeness of God. Many of these Christians also do not believe that they uniquely are, or will be, saved by God or that others will be damned. To these Christians, Jesus did not open a door to God that had been shut until his coming. Rather, he revealed a door that has always been open. Therefore, while they claim Jesus to be their particular path to God, they have no trouble affirming that God has created other legitimate paths as well. As is stated in John’s Gospel, “I have other sheep that are not of this fold.”
Having acknowledged this great diversity within Christianity, there is a very key point of agreement. While not all will agree that “Jesus is God,” nearly all will agree that “God is like Jesus.” That is, Jesus reflects accurately God’s character, God’s will, God’s heart. The love, compassion, and grace demonstrated by Jesus is a reflection of God’s love, compassion and grace.
Even Jesus’ agony and despair on the Cross tells us something important about God. At bare minimum, it demonstrates that God understands our deepest pain, our deepest lostness, and our deepest loneliness. And while Christians will disagree about the nature of Christ’s resurrection – whether he was literally raised in bodily form or whether he was raised in spirit only, most will agree that his resurrection tells us something more about God: that God is able to turn our deepest despair into our highest joy, and that God is able to make space for life even when death is all we see. On this note, while not all Christians believe in life after death, most find in the story of Jesus a sign and hope that the soul does live on long after the body fades, and that life in God is not only our origin but our destiny.
Now, a few remarks about what makes Protestant Christianity distinctive. Of the world’s 2.2 billion Christians, approximately one in three are Protestants. Often those who have no background in Christianity have no idea what distinguishes a Protestant Christian from a Catholic Christian, or that there even is a difference. For the most part, and especially for the purposes of what a medical professional might need to know when treating Protestants and Catholics, our differences have more to do with specific practices of the faith rather than differences in fundamental belief.
To oversimplify a bit, the origins of Protestantism can be traced back to Martin Luther, who lived in Germany in the 16th Century. Luther waged a protest against the Catholic Church, based on 95 specific complaints, most all of which have been resolved over the centuries. Nevertheless, those complaints created a split that has lasted to this day. Over the years, Protestantism has split against itself many times. So much so that today there are estimated to be some 30,000 different denominations world-wide. Many of these differ over very fine points of doctrine, or arose within specific ethnic or cultural contexts.
In terms of practices distinctive to Protestantism, Protestants do not recognize papal authority, though they may value the pope as an important spiritual leader. They also do not tend to go to “Confession” – which is the practice of confessing one’s sins privately to a priest to obtain absolution. And while most participate in the ritual of Communion, they tend to do it less often and do not believe in transubstantiation, or the idea the bread and wine are turned into the literal body and blood of Christ. Protestant clergy – who are called ministers or pastors rather than priests, may be male or female in all but the most conservative denominations. This is one reason why Protestant clergy are not referred to as “Father,” but “Reverend.” In all Protestant denominations, to my knowledge, clergy may be married. In some denominations, such as my own United Church of Christ, clergy may also be gay.
Protestants also do not recognize as many “sacraments” (or holy rituals) as Catholics. Therefore, while it may be very important for a Protestant to have a minister present at the time of death, and that minister may lead the family in certain prayers and Bible readings, there is no official sacrament of extreme unction or “Last Rites,” as in the Catholic Church. Finally, not all Protestant ministers who show up to the hospital will be dressed in a self-evident fashion. While some may be identifiable by their use of a clerical collar, many (including myself) may show up looking no different from any other “civilian” visitor. If you catch me visiting on a Saturday morning, I’m much more likely to be wearing blue jeans and a baseball cap than slacks and jacket.
[What follows is what I was hoping to add with respect to Christianity’s relation to other faiths, but it exceeded the strict 10 min. rule.]
Finally when considering what common ground is shared between Christianity and the other religions represented in this forum, most of the world religions hold some notion of the Golden Rule. That is, some form of “do unto others as one would have done unto oneself.” Beyond this basic affirmation, I usually find the quest to find commonalities to be a race to get to the lowest common denominator. Many like to claim that, “all religions say basically the same thing” or “all have the same purpose.” The truth is that they do not all say the same thing, and they have very different understandings regarding our existence and purpose.
However, I do not mention this in order to claim that there are no deep commonalities. On the contrary, I wish only to point our attention to Oneness at the HIGHEST common denominator rather than the lowest. That is to say, I believe that all the major world religions are very much the same AT THE POINT OF ULTIMATE REALIZATION OR FULFILMENT. Yet their routes to reaching that point are quite different. So different, in fact, that most commonalities tend to be only superficial ones. In characterizing the common ground shared between religions, I am very much influenced by Fr. John Martin, a Dominican monk who directs Shantivanam Ashram in India – a monastic community dedicated to exploring the commonalities between Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Martin characterizes the world religions as paths up a great mountain. At lower levels, the paths are quite far apart from one another. Some of them are so far apart that they’re on different sides of the mountain. Yet as one climbs higher, the paths come closer together. It is only at the very peak of the mountain – that point of ultimate realization or fulfillment – that the paths converge. Here, the climber on one path meets the other climbers in surprise and delight exclaiming, “Brother, sister, I had no idea you were even on this mountain!”
