By Neil Earle
These last few weeks our Wednesday night Discipleship Class has been covering Lesson Ten of Book Four of the Discovery Series. This lesson asks, “Is Jesus the only way?”
The lesson highlights passages such as John 3:16-18, “Whoever does not believe in him is condemned already,” along with “there is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
Faced with these striking statements which seem to make a sweeping and even arrogant claim for Christian exclusivity, a former Chicago journalist named Lee Strobel wrote a book called The Case for Faith. In it he interviewed the noted Christian advocate and apologist Ravi Zacharias. (An apologist is some one whose job description comes from the Greek “apologia,” to defend.)
Along the way our study group took the opportunity to brush up on our knowledge of some of the major World Religions, most notably, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism and – to be up to date – Scientology. The last two are among the fastest-growing and most noted here in California – Buddhism represented by actor Richard Gere and Tom Cruise for Scientology.
This is where Strobel’s book was helpful in giving us a framework of analysis, a paradigm, to analyze the other faiths. Zacharias told Strobel that in his view there were four fundamental questions which religion sough to answer. He listed them as:
Origins – Where did we come from?
Meaning – Why are we here?
Morality – How should we live?
Destiny – Where are we going?
For Zacharias, a native of India, converted by a Christian evangelist at age 17 but who later fell into a despair that led to a suicide attempt, it was restudying Christianity’s claims that pulled him through and best answered these four fundamental questions.
What did he mean?
The answer will lead to a better understanding of our fundamental question – what makes Christianity different?
We’ve often heard it said today that “All religions teach the same thing at the base level,” but this is a charge that Zacharias vehemently rejects. “Only someone who doesn’t understand the world religions would claim they basically teach the same thing,” he asserts. “What do they mean by the universal fatherhood of God when Buddhism doesn’t even claim that there is a god? When one of the most respected Hindu philosophers [claims that] God is not distinct from you?”
These are fundamental differences already, he says.
For Zacharias the only way the brotherhood of man works as a concept is when you factor in the wholesome Biblical truth that we are all made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26). “Once you take that foundation away,” he chuckles, “brotherhood ends up with more hoods than brothers!”
This touches on the first two parts of the paradigm – the question of Origins and Meaning. In contrast to the Christian assurance (borrowed of course from Judaism) that we and this whole natural world are the loving creation of an all-wise beneficent God with our best intentions at heart (only kings were made in God’s image in ancient times) then the divergences really escalate. Hinduism, for example, speculates an eternally existing universe (caused by “necessity” some Greek philosophers thought), a cosmos which passes through various world ages led by the supreme World Spirit or Brahma. Braham shares existence with Vishnu who enters the world to give help and aid (his incarnations are called, interestingly, avatars). In Hindu teaching, every million years or so this cycle is destroyed by Shiva, the death god, the Destroyer of Worlds. The purpose of life in Hinduism is to be reincarnated enough times until you “get it right” when you finally achieve Nirvana.
Buddhism has little need to discuss origins because it was founded in 563 BC by a young Nepalese nobleman named Siddhartha, a man wearied with Hinduism’s sense of never-ending struggle on the Great Wheel of Life. The word Buddha means “an enlightened one,” a careful devotee who has learned how to overcome life’s eternal suffering through the Four Noble Truth and the Eight-fold Path. The Buddhist stance is to so control unhealthy Desire that you finally conquer the fear of death and along the way face all the sufferings of life with perfect peace of mind.
These ideas naturally led Strobel and Zacharias to a discussion of Morality or how does one live life. This is where people who notice that there are many moral and clean-living Hindus and Buddhists and Islamists point to such ethics as the Buddhist eightfold faith (never lie, never steal, never kill, never slander, etc.). Some see this value system as a primary competitor of Christianity with its insistence on adherence to the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount – much of which Christians notoriously fail to live up to.
Ravi Zacharias admits the problem of the Christians failure to live out their faith and he concedes that there are many beautiful and wise principles in many of the world’s religions. Then he makes a surprising statement.
“How a person lives and how he treats his neighbor is very important,” he asserts, “But this question makes the assumption that morality is what life is all about.”
Strobel was shocked: “If life isn’t about being moral, then what is it about?”
Back came the surprising answer: “Jesus Christ didn’t come into this world to make bad people good. He came into the world to make dead people live. He came so that those who are dead to God can come alive to God. If this life were only about morality, then how you live would be the most important thing…But that misunderstands the Christian concept, which is no matter how well we live, we cannot live up to the standard and character of God.”
This seems shocking but Zaharias follows up:
“The pattern in Exodus is threefold: God brought the people out of Egypt, he gave them the moral law, and then he gave them the tabernacle. In other words, redemption, righteousness, worship…Unless you are redeemed, you cannot be righteous…The word “sin” means missing the mark. And if that is a correct definition, then the grace of God becomes the most important truth. Apart from him we cannot even believe what is right, let alone live the right way.”
Here Zacharias offers a radical way to look at Christianity even if has been part of Jesus’ teaching all along (Luke 22:31-32). These scriptures change the way we look at all religion really. We cannot be good apart from God. “If I try to work myself toward goodness, I am essentially saying I don’t need to be redeemed by God,” Zacharias reminded Strobel. ”I am my own redeemer.”
This is a pertinent reminder of the central Christian truth that “by grace you are saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).
Zacharias is right of course. The radical Christian call to die to Self rather than to push the Self along the Wheel of Life or to achieve perfect peace through strenuous meditation or to follow the Five Pillars of Islam (which includes a pilgrimage to Mecca if possible) – this is a sharp departure from Religion as “what I do to align myself with the Universe.” And let’s not forget that religious is usually ultimately for our own benefit.
“When I did a study of options by which people can live good lives, I came down to six or seven,” Zacharias continues. ”But they contradicted one another pretty heavily, and the reason is that there is no transcendent, compelling moral reason. It was all reduced to mere survival.”
Though Zacharias didn’t address it, it is interesting that Survival is almost the first principle of the fairly new religion of Scientology. Scientology was founded by a controversial science fiction writer and thinker, L. Ron Hubbard (1911-1986). Hubbard too studied the major religions and philosophies and compiled a vision based on the concept Survival. A first principle is: “If one does not survive, no joy and happiness are obtainable.” Scientologists know that trying to survive in a “chaotic, dishonest and generally immoral universe is difficult,” especially because “Your own survival can be threatened by the bad actions of other people” (from “The Way To Happiness”).
Once again the stress on right behavior becomes paramount. Scientologists define the first three keys to happiness as Take Care of Yourself, Be Temperate, Don’t be Promiscuous.
Of course this is good advice but it is here once again that Zacharias’ reiteration that there are worse things than suffering and death (not surviving) comes into play. Strobel was really stunned by this response but Zacharias had an answer based on Jesus’ precepts: “He who finds his life shall lose it and he who loses his life for my sake shall find it…and he who lives and believes in me shall never die” (Matthew 10:39; John 11:26). What is the worst that can happen, asked Ravi Zacharias. “The worse thing is to say to God that you don’t need him. Why? Because a dead person can be restored to life by God; a bereaved person can find peace from God; a person who has been violated can find God’s sustenance and strength and see God through the dark mystery of evil.”
For Zacharias the question becomes: “Have I come to the realization that I’ve fallen short of God’s perfect standards and therefore, apart from the grace of God, I have no possibility of being with him in heaven.”
Ah, heaven. The Great Beyond. Zacharias here touches on the last of our four elements outlined above – Destiny. Hinduism and Scientology have only speculations to offer about Origins. Buddhism and Scientology speak of control of self above the “reactive mind” (Scientology) or achieved through the meditative state in Buddhism. In Scientology a “Clear” is a person who suffers none of the ill affects the reactive mind can cause. Even more developed is an “Operating Thetan,” one able to control matter, energy, space and time, to be “at cause over life.” Since Scientology claims to be a religion of religions and offers to help any faith practitioners achieve their goals, the question of Destiny is left more or less to the individual seeker. The primary goal, says Hubbard, is to build “a civilization without insanity…where men can rise to greater heights.”
Once again we see a “This World” teaching at work, a learning to function effectively in the here and now which Scientology holds in common with Buddhism. Of course, Christianity doesn’t deny the spiritual struggle, not at all. Its Founder was crucified after all, but the call and intent in Christ’s teaching is to go beyond our achieving control over this world. This is achieved by radical surrender to the Way of Christ. Says Zacharias: “Christ violates our power and autonomy… [His way] involves a total commitment in which you bring yourself to complete humility, to the surrender of the will…That’s where Christ comes in. He says if you’ll bring all of yourself to him, he will not only give you eternal life, but he will change what you will want to do in this life.”
It is not for nothing that Christianity was early called The Way (Acts 24:14). It still is. For Ravi Zacharias, a deeper understanding of Jesus Christ offered the best way out of the confusion and chaos of a failed suicide attempt, of being often victimized by a world that began as a perfect creation but ended up full of snares and pitfalls. These points make Christianity different, Ravi came to see. On matters of Origins, Christianity claims to be a historical religion – a Redeemer born in a specific place in Palestine. On matters of Meaning it pivots around the exhilarating prospect of becoming a New Creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). On the Morality question it offers the grace of God to help us in our private struggles. On matters of Destiny it points to a real, personal existence in eternity where we shall know as we have been known.
And what about all these who don’t see it the way Christians does?
Ah, Zacharias has some thoughtful answers here too but that will have to wait till next time.