I want to talk to you about a passage from the fourth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles,
which is actually one of our liturgical readings during the Easter season.
It's a sermon that St. Peter gave, so the very early days.
He's just healed a crippled man, and he's trying to explain - you know - how he did this, by what power. Here is what he says:
This,
referring to Jesus, is the stone rejected by you, the builders, which is proved to be the key stone.
For, of all the names in the world given to men, this is the only one by which we can be saved.
Now there's the line, which I submit to you is gonna be pretty problematic for a lot of people today
Jesus is the only name by which we're saved?
Does that mean that only Christians are saved? Only Christians get to Heaven? Nobody else? No Buddhist? No Hindu?
No Muslim? No Jew? No non-believer? No atheist can possibly be saved because
Jesus is the only name?
It seems to feed into what we hate most today
which is judgmentalism and then into what we fear the most today, which is probably religiously inspired
violence. So it's a kind of Christian triumphalism. We're in; you're out.
Let's force you to get in. All of that negativity
seems to be implied in this statement of St. Peter. So how in the world can we
make sense of it?
Well, here's my first move. My first move is to make no move.
That's to say I do want this sermon of St. Peter, this line,
to bother people a bit.
I want the radicality of that to sink in now. Now why do I say it?
Well something I've been saying now for years... anyone's been following my work,
Jesus is not one religious figure among many, right?
Jesus on the biblical reading is not just one more philosopher, one more prophet, one more mystic and teacher,
but rather the Incarnate Son of God
Jesus speaks and acts in the very
person of God.
And what he does, what he accomplishes, is he draws us through the power of his own
being into the very inner life of God.
On the biblical reading, it's not the case that there's just one great
holy mountain out there and we walk it by different paths,
it doesn't really matter which path you walk, we all get to the top etc. That's not true.
That doesn't honor what's really
distinctive, unique about Jesus. And let me just say it bluntly
St. Peter is right here. Salvation,
meaning the fullness of life that God wants for his people, is indeed on offer
only in Jesus.
Okay, if you're still with me,
is
this therefore just Christian triumphalism? Is this indeed just some kind of a sweeping judgmentalism?
We're in you're out?
Well, here's my second move.
My second move is to encourage you not to use the language so much of
right-wrong,
in-out, but rather of
fullness and
participation.
Fullness and participation. So, is the fullness of what God
wants his people to have on offer in Jesus alone? The answer is yes,
because of who he is.
Not one teacher among many, but the very Incarnate son of God.
It's only in Christ that we get access to the fullness of God's life. So, true.
However, that doesn't mean that
there aren't
participations in that fullness on offer in other religions and by other
routes.
This is precisely why Vatican II,
which clearly teaches what I just taught, that the fullness of salvation is on offer in Jesus alone,
but Vatican II also teaches that there are rays of light in
other religions. In Hinduism and Buddism and Judaism and Islam.
And then it enumerates them. It'll say here are many true things taught by these various religions.
Vatican II even goes so far as to say that a non-believer, someone who through no fault of his own is a non-believer,
but who is following his conscience sincerely,
can be saved. Now, again, don't write to me. I'm not saying will necessarily be saved.
Can be saved. Now how come? Well, John Henry Newman helps us to see why.
Newman says that the conscience is
the aboriginal Vicar of Christ in the soul. See, what he means, is that the the Fundamental
Representative of Christ, in the depth of everyone's soul, is indeed the conscience. And so, yes, even a non-believer,
but who is in good faith following his conscience, is
in fact following the voice of Christ, though he might not fully
realize it. And so,
I'll grant you: getting the accents right on this question is difficult, because there are two very easy options.
One is the "we're right you're wrong", "we're in, you're out" option. The Salvation in Jesus is
"nobody else is saved". It's easy, that's clear.
But there's the other easy option on the other extreme,
which is I think really much more prevalent today, is the sort of religious relativism or indifferentism.
"I mean, aren't we all deep down saying the same thing", "aren't all paths equally valid". Well, yeah, that's easy as well.
The point is neither one of those is really getting it right.
The right accentuation is affirming what St. Peter said.
Yeah, the fullness of salvation is indeed on offer in Jesus alone.
Nevertheless,
there are rays of life, there are
participations, there are
elements of truth, in other religious traditions and indeed even in the depth of a sincere conscience.
So I guess I'd say in conclusion:
let Peter's speech bother you. I mean one option is to just pass over a speech like that and say "well that's just, you know, First Century
Christian triumphalism" and then not pay attention to it. No, no, let that speech bother you.
At the same time never let that speech be an excuse
for anything like religious violence, for religious triumphalism.
Moving into that space in between those two extremes is where the Catholic Church invites us to go.