Jesus’s Way is Pluralist
Sunday, January 18, 2009 at 11:09PM By Scotty McLennan
In the same passage in the Bible, Jesus makes statements that have been used as proof texts for both conservative and liberal Christianity. He says, “In My Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you” (1). Three verses later he states, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (2). Liberal Christians have claimed that by speaking of “many mansions” in God’s house, Jesus is insisting that there are places for people of all faiths and all backgrounds in the divine home. Hindus and Buddhists and Muslims and Jews will all dwell alongside Christians in the hereafter (3). Christian conservatives have used the later lines to proclaim that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation: Bluntly put, everyone must accept Jesus as Lord, and only Jesus as Lord, or be damned to hell for all eternity (4). How can these two proclamations – apparently thoroughly pluralist on the one hand and thoroughly exclusivist on the other – be found back-to-back in the very same gospel lesson?
My view is that the two verses aren’t being read in context. As Jesus is very close to the end of his life here, he’s trying to say goodbye to his disciples. In the previous chapter of Luke, he’s predicted that one of his disciples will betray him (5). He’s also said to them, “Little children, I am with you only a little longer” (6). He’s explained that “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now; but you will follow afterward” (7). Then, Jesus tries to reassure his disciples and quiet their anxiety: “Do not let your hearts be troubled… In my Father’s house there are many mansions… I go to prepare a place a place for you… Where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going” (8).
But his disciple Thomas is not reassured. His anxiety is not stilled. If there are many dwelling places in the Father’s house, how’s he going to find Jesus someday among the many mansions? Jesus may have stated that Thomas knows the way to the place where Jesus is going, but Thomas isn’t at all clear about this himself. And so he says, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” (9). Now I believe Jesus becomes the pastor, the good shepherd, who isn’t going to let any of his sheep get lost. He responds again to try to reassure and to calm his disciple’s anxieties. And so Jesus exclaims, “I am the way, and truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” I hear Jesus as saying: “Thomas, Thomas, don’t be so worried. When the time comes for you to approach God in his Kingdom, I’ll be there at his right hand. You won’t be able to get to God without finding me right there too. Don’t worry. Don’t worry. I have a special relationship to God that can be described as God’s way, God’s truth, and God’s life. I’ll be there, very close to God. Don’t worry. You’ll find me.”
As a Christian pluralist or universalist viewing this imagery, I personally believe that others with a special relationship will be there at God’s right hand too. People like the Buddha, Lord Krishna, Mohammed, and Moses. With the exception of Moses, these are not prophets and saints and enlightened ones that Jesus knew anything about in first century Palestine. By the same token, it seems very unfair to be reading this passage as a claim by Jesus that God couldn’t be accessed through other religions. Jesus wasn’t giving us a treatise on comparative religion here. He was saying goodbye to his own disciples; he was being pastoral, and he was reassuring them that they’d meet him again as they approached God in the hereafter. Yes, there are many mansions or many dwelling places in God’s house, implying that Jesus was indeed a pluralist or universalist. Yet, his own disciples would not lose him in all this pluralism, among all these rooms, because there would be no way to come to the Father and not find Jesus there.
What did Jesus mean, then, by saying that he is “the way, and the truth, and the life?" Boston University theologian Robert Neville has written that to speak of Jesus as the truth is like speaking of being a fully realized member of a category that many of us may fall into merely by identification. For example, I may have played baseball in school (and still do from time to time). I can be identified as a part-time, amateur baseball player. Then there are college varsity baseball players, and there are professional baseball players. At the apex of all of them, though, are the true baseball players, like Babe Ruth and Stan Musial and Ted Williams. There have been many claiming to be prophets, but Jesus is a true prophet of God (10).
For us Christians who follow in his footsteps, Jesus is the way to a God-filled existence, and Jesus is the truth of what a fully spiritually realized human being looks like. What does it mean that Jesus is also the “life?” Jesus shows us what a life filled with the Spirit of God is like (11). In Genesis God literally breathes life into Adam. In Deuteronomy God sets before the Jewish people the choice between death and a life of obedience to God, the latter of which will lead to the survival and flourishing of the nation of Israel. After the Babylonian exile, according to the prophet Ezekiel, God breathes life again into the people of Israel as they return to Jerusalem (12). Jesus becomes the fullness of life for the early Christian community and ultimately for all of us who have followed him down through the centuries.
NOTES
(1) John 14: 2.
(2) John 14: 6.
(3) Ibid., p. 10.
(4) Harvey Cox, Many Mansions: A Christian’s Encounter With Other Faiths (Boston: Beacon Press, 1988), p 10.
(5) John 13: 21-30.
(6) John 13: 33.
(7) John 13: 36.
(8) John 13: 2-4.
(9) John 14: 5.
(10) Robert Cummings Neville, “I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” sermon delivered at the Memorial Church at Harvard University on April 24, 2005.
(11) Marcus J. Borg, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time (HarperSanFrancisco, 2001, p. 218).
(12) Neville, “I Am the Way.”
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Reader Comments (12)
"In My Father’s house are many mansions." AND "I am the way, and truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." are ~BOTH~ inclusive statements, and liberal Christians should not allow conservatives to co-opt the latter.
Jesus' way, for us to follow, his truth, for us to live by, and the life he has taught us to lead, ALL point towards the example set by Jesus.
ANY person who approaches the divine by following Jesus' model, whether intentionally, accidentally, or coincidentally - whether they call themself a Christian or not - "comes to the Father through [Jesus]". A conservative concept? No. Liberal? More likely. As inclusive as a "house [with] many mansions"? Absolutely!
Interesting argument.
I am a "conservative" Christian, and do not deny that liberals can be Christians (I don't think many conservatives really do deny it, though), but I think this argument ignores one major issue: Everything else Jesus says about salvation, and also what Paul and Jesus' disciples says about the necessity of conscious submission to Christ as opposed to paganism.
From my time in liberally Christian undergraduate religion courses, I assume that you're argument to this would probably rely on the same warping of words and ignoring of Paul that most of my self-proclaimed Christian professors did.
From my perspective, Jesus was about feeding the poor, bringing true peace, overcoming justice, etc. But above all, Jesus died on the Cross. Without understanding the shedding of his blood and the outpouring of salvation these are just works and are dead. Without surrendering to this supernatural act of love and by turning Jesus into only a "spiritualized" man, Jesus becomes undeservedly humanized and is comparatively irrelevant in that are plenty of similar humanistic "peace makers" (i.e., Ghandi, MLK, etc. — men whom many liberals do indeed WORSHIP as well).
The only way Jesus becomes life-transforming and relevant at all is when He is seen as the Son of God, the Saviour of all mankind, and the Word of God (as spoken of in John). Jesus talks about being THE way throughout the New Testament, and far beyond that. Being a Christian is meaningless without grasping the uniqueness and necessity of the Christ you follow. If "liberal" Christian means ignoring the power in the blood of Christ and the necessary submission to it, than I am opposed to your argument and see that perspective as non-Christian, and proudly so.
Fortunately, I know many politically liberal Christians who are not pluralistic in their understanding of salvation. I'm new to reading your stuff, but I'm getting the sense you use the word "liberal" as something more all-encompassing than just confined the realm of politics proper.
Keep up the discourse!
For many years I have struggled with the John 14:6 passage. Your writing gives an explanation that makes sense to me and seems in keeping with the gracious, expansive love of Jesus. As a hospital chaplain I am in daily contact with persons of traditions other than Christianity and many of the "spiritual, but not religious." I value each of these persons and learn much from them. I struggle with Christians who would use the words of Jesus to exclude and condemn those outside our faith. As you so eloquently say, such actions and attitudes are so antithetical to the actions and attitudes of Jesus. Thank you.
I think these two statements are very different. First, regarding many mansions, to make the leap that Jesus was talking about places for people of all religions is just that... a leap. If God wasn't concerned about the following of and worship of false gods then the Old Testament should be abandoned. Jesus was speaking to his disciples and not to a large crowd when he gave them this comforting word. He then went on to tell Philip, "If you've seen me you've seen the Father." He was revealing his divinity. So Jesus alone is Lord... not the "Lord Krishna". Secondly, the comment that no one comes to the Father except through Jesus doesn't take a leap to understand but would take a blind eye to walk away from. I think that it would be helpful to look at all of this from the overall clear teaching of Scripture regarding the judgement and the separation of the saved from the unsaved. The sheep from the goats, the wheat and the tares, the 5 virgins without oil in their lamps, the man who was at the wedding banquet without wedding clothes on, those who's names weren't written in the Lamb's book of life. I could go on and on. Jesus said, in his own words, "but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son,". Not very ambiguous. The Apostles gave their lives telling people about salvation thought the only name by which men might be saved.. If all were going to be saved, it seems silly that Paul lost his head, Peter was crucified, and Stephen was stoned lifting up the name of Jesus above all names.. It might have been better then if they just traveled the lands telling everyone to just get along and worship their gods in harmony... this wasn't the message or the mission of Jesus or those who were martyred for the Gospel.
Peace.
To say that Jesus and only Jesus is the only way to salvation smacks of the worst kind of arrogance. To argue that is to say that God must agree with a limited human point of view and a limited human understanding. But isn't God omnipotent? To argue that Jesus is the only way salvation is to say that God can only manifest himself to this one 1st Century carpenter in this one part of the world. But isn't God omnipresent? Who are we to place our human prejudices and limitations on omnipotent and omnipresent God? Who are we to place such a great importance on this one man or this one region of the world or even this one tribe of people? Who are we to say that God didn't manifest "Himself" to Buddha, Mohamed, Krishna, and Guru Nanak?
Mostly people think that that the two verses aren’t being read in context. As Jesus is very close to the end of his life.
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It is incontrovertible that the discussion on the message of Jesus and Paul is a highly debated area in biblical scholarship.
Pluralist? Is that synonymous to bullshitist?
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