In this short essay, I would like to fill out a few aspects of what it means to have an inclusivist vision of religions in relation to Jesus Christ, rather than an exclusivist or pluralist vision of religions. If these terms are new to you, or you wonder how I mean these terms, I have a helpful chart here. As our starting point to dive in, I want to begin with one of the unique and central images of Christian Faith: The idea that Christians make up "The Body of Christ".
One of the most famous images of the Church-- the Community in union with Christ-- is that we are the "body" of Christ. This image, first described by Saint Paul in places such as Romans 12 and 1Corinthians 12, has a profound impact on what it means to be "spiritual". We are in some mystical and organic way members of Christ himself, cells in his organism, limbs attached to his core. Thus our spirituality is not detached, abstract, or unconcerned with the world we live in. Our spiritual life is found in concrete action and relationships within community. When we are acting in accord with Christ's will, empowered by the lifeblood of his Spirit flowing through us, then it is Christ himself who reaches out through us, speaks through us, acts through us, to heal the world he came to redeem.
And this image of "The Body of God" is not unique to Christianity, although Christianity may present it in its fullest and most explicit form. For many Ancient Greek philosophers, the universe itself was the Body of God, and God is the "World Soul" that acts, experiences, and evolves through the Body of the Universe. Similar ideas to this find their way into Western Thought, notably in thinkers like Hegel. But the idea itself is even older than Greek thought or Christianity.
The Hindu Vedas and Upanishads, written nearly a millennia before Christ, and half a millennia before the flowering of Greek thought, taught something amazingly similar. They taught that the universe in general, and humankind in particular, are "Purusha": The Cosmic Person. In Rig Veda 10, the entire cosmos itself is birthed by the self-sacrifice of the one Divine Person-- Purusha-- who allows himself to be turn apart and made many, all for the joy of sharing himself in diverse ways within the many parts that come forth from him. Thus, every kind of human and animal and organism has a role to play in the Body of God, as each part makes up the fullness of the One who is All in All.
And so, from multiple perspectives, we are part of the embodiment of the Divine, the hands and feet and eyes and mouth of God, the continuing incarnation of Christ in the world. This in turn has profound implications for how we understand the function of "religion" and "spirituality" in our society. Because bodies do something else than act on the world. They consume, and digest, and incorporate matter into themselves. For our physical bodies, this matter is food and drink that are digested to become us. For our spiritual and corporate bodies-- the religious communities we belong to-- this matter consists of the great insights and ideas of those holy souls in whom God's Spirit dwelt, and through whom God's Spirit has spoken. And in both kinds of bodies-- the physical and spiritual-- there is no such thing as a "pure" body which has never grown or developed without coming into contact with matter that was not itself. That would be cannibalism. No, our physical bodies are constantly digesting and incorporating physical matter from outside itself, which is fundamentally different from our self. Likewise our spiritual bodies are constantly incorporating ideas and insights from outside of itself, which are different from itself.
This idea is a problem for religious "purists" of all types and traditions. There are many "exclusivists" who are on an unending quest for the true and pure and unchanging version of their religious tradition. But that doesn't exist. Any cursory study of the history of religions will demonstrate that religion evolves, it adapts, it incorporates new insights constantly (even if slowly). They evolve, like all organisms evolve, to be better adapted to their environments. In this case that means we evolve in order to more faithfully represent the Divine Source of Infinite Love that gives birth to all worlds, and also to more compassionately meet the needs of persons who are children of God and embodiments of God's life. And just as is the case in physical evolution, those religious traditions that are better adapted to their environments survive and thrive, and those that don't, cease to exist. No religion, except a dead religion, stays static. Even if the words of their hymns and rituals and scriptures stay the same, new meanings are constantly drawn out of them and new practices are constantly attached to them, even while some older meanings and practices fade away.
And like I said, the process of adaptation and change happens by the incorporation and digestion of material that comes from outside of the tradition. We have already illustrated one concept that is borrowed and adapted between traditions: The idea of spiritual communities being the Body of God. And that cursory glance ignored how similar concepts can be found in most of the other major and minor religious traditions across history. Another example is how religious traditions "digest" and "fulfill" the entire content of other religious traditions.
For instance, it is clear that ancient Hebrew creation and flood stories involve a re-telling, re-visioning, and re-interpretation of material from ancient Mesopotamian religions. It is also clear that Hebrew Law Codes borrow from other ancient Law Codes, while also presenting radically different visions of justice and morality through those Codes. What is less clear is that Hebrew ideas about life as a struggle between Light and Darkness, about the final Day of Judgment, and about the resurrection, don't come about until after ancient Judaism encountered and digested these ideas from Persian Zoroastrianism.
Likewise it is abundantly clear that early Christians claimed that Jesus and the early Jesus movement not only digested and incorporated all of previous Judaism, but claimed to be the fulfillment of all the deepest values and meanings found in Jewish Scripture. Jesus is presented as the fullness of the "Prophet, Priest, and King" taught by the Law and predicted by the prophets. But it wasn't only Judaism that was necessary to make sense out of who and what Jesus is.
From the earliest Christian writings we see an explicit dependence on Greek philosophical concepts to explain Jesus. From John's use of the Divine Word in John 1, to ideas of Reality and shadow in Hebrews and Colossians, to patterns of Greek rhetoric and philosophical vocabulary used throughout Luke's and Paul's writings, the earliest Christians depended on Greek philosophy to digest and incorporate Jesus and his Jewish inheritance. The second century Church Father Justin Martyr summed up this approach by saying that God has planted "seeds of the Word" in all cultures to prepare them to encounter God's Word made flesh, Jesus Christ. And thus, for Justin, just as God prepared the Jews for Christ through the Hebrew Torah and Prophets, so also God prepared the Greeks for Christ through Greek philosophy. This approach becomes even more pronounced in the centuries after the New Testament, as Christian thinkers relied on philosophical concepts to clarify ideas ranging from the Trinity to the Incarnation to how Icons and Sacraments function in the life of the Church.
So, at a minimum we see that it has taken the digestion and incorporation of at least five distinct religious traditions to develop Christianity as it existed in the first century: Mesopotamian religion, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Greek philosophy, and the early Jesus movement. We could add to this by looking at how other religious traditions claim to digest and fulfill other traditions. Islam claims to digest and fulfill Judaism and Christianity. Buddhism claims to digest and fulfill Hinduism. Confucianism and Taoism claim to digest and fulfill each other, along with the content of various Asian folk religions. And Hinduism claims to digest and fulfill all other religious traditions. This is NOT to say all these religions agree with each other because they digest each other. A cursory look at them reveals they disagree at important points. But, like one might eat barbecue ribs and discard the bone, or eat the fruit and discard the peel, so also religions tend to digest what fits with and expands the essential "DNA" of the religion, and discard the rest.
Now, up to this point, I have sounded fairly non-partisan, treating all religious traditions as equally valuable. And in some senses I am. I have deep respect for, and find value in, all of the Great Religious traditions which have lasted for centuries, shaped cultures, and nourished the lives of countless millions or billions of people. One can find spiritual nourishment and life in all of these Great Religions, because in implicit and explicit ways the Divine Source is working through them to share Godself with humans. If that wasn't the case, they would have died out long ago like so many other poorly adapted religious traditions.
And not only do I find the Great Religions valuable, but I also think, because of our location in history, it is necessary for members of every particular Religion to be fluent in the basic concepts and values and stories of all of the Great Religions. Most of us on this Planet live in cultures that are increasingly diverse, multi-cultural, and poly-religious. Very few of us grow up in places where everyone is a single religion. As a result, it is no longer tenable to live as if MY religion is the only religious voice that speaks with any truth or importance. Just like ancient Jews and Christians had to listen for the voice of God in surrounding religious traditions to make sense out of how God was speaking in their community, so also have to listen to the voice of God both in our tradition and outside of our tradition.
Furthermore, if we are to "love our neighbors as ourselves" or "see God in others", we need to understand those others and know who our neighbors are. And we cannot do that without understanding the Religious traditions that give their lives meaning and value. So learning the content of other religions is necessary to know our own tradition better, and to love our neighbor more effectively. As Max Müller once said "He who knows one [religion] knows none", and as Jesus said "If you love those who love you, what reward do you have?"
Yet, despite the fact that I deeply value the Great Religions and find it absolutely necessary to study them, I am obviously partisan. Being inclusive does not preclude commitment to a specific tradition. On the contrary, genuine inclusion requires definite commitment. Without commitment to a community there is nothing to "include" others into.
And so I approach the study and integration of world religions from a specific standpoint: As a passionately committed follower of Jesus Christ as God Incarnate. I think that Christ is the goal of human evolution who appeared at the optimal time in the middle of history to show us what we are meant to evolve into. He is the Incarnation of God's Self in a particular historic life, and as such is the fullest possible human embodiment of Divine Love. Because of this, as the theological and spiritual development of the Church shows, Christ is the "DNA" into which we digest and fulfill what is good, true, and beautiful in the cultures and religions of the world.
By viewing other religions through the lens of Christ, we are able to draw out new insights implicit within them and see how these insights are fulfilled in Christ. And by viewing Christ through the lens of other religions, we are able to see new depths, new insights, and even new colors that were implicit within the Christ Event, but which we did not have names or concepts for within earlier versions of Christianity. Thus, by putting the Scriptures and Doctrines of Christianity in conversation with those of Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Asian Religions, and others, we can greatly deepen our own walk with Christ.
This does not, of course, mean that we can accept everything into one gigantic syncretist vat of undifferentiated "religion". That cannot happen anymore than trying to paint a picture by mixing all the colors into one unified "color". Some things are clearly incompatible with what we know in Christ: Traditional accounts of reincarnation in Indian traditions, a Divine Source that contains both good and evil in some forms of Asian religion, and the denial of the Trinity and Incarnation in Islam. These ideas, as they are usually represented, cannot be integrated into the Way of Christ.
But, even where we disagree, we have to know what we disagree with and why, to know what it is we actually believe. And where insights from religions are complimentary rather than contradictory, we are able to integrate them into the DNA of the Church by digesting the fruit and discarding the skin. This is what all religious bodies do, and so long as it is done with loving devotion for God, and loving respect for our neighbor, it is a good thing.
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