It’s time to stop drawing lines between “us and them” and start finding ways for people of different faiths to live together without compromising their beliefs or resorting to violence, said Brian McLaren in a talk in Sylvania on Jan. 28.
“One of the things I think we know more than ever since Sept. 11, 2001, is that we who are committed Christians live in a world with people who are committed Muslims, committed Buddhists, committed atheists and committed Hindus and we have to figure out how we live in a world with passionate convictions and commitments without blowing each other up,” he said.
During his speech, author Brian McLaren said Christians need to look at commonalities instead of differences among faiths.
McLaren, 56, was the founding pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church in Spencerville, Md., who left in 2006 to pursue writing full time. He has published a dozen books, notably “A New Kind of Christianity” and “A Generous Orthodoxy.”
Anthropologists believe hostility and an “us versus them” mentality served a purpose in the distant past, when human beings needed to band together as hunter-gatherers, McLaren said. Today “it’s a different game,” and a suicidal one because of weapons of mass destruction.
“We are at a point in human history where what might have had survival value 30,000 years ago now threatens our survival,” McLaren said at Sylvania First United Methodist Church.
McLaren’s focus on finding commonalities among different faiths is the topic of his latest book, “Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World.”
Committed Christians have typically taken one of two paths in dealing with those of other faiths, he said: an “us versus them” approach that fosters hostility toward the other, or a sense of benevolence hinging on a weakening of one’s own faith. “Their basic message is, ‘I know you’re a Muslim. I’m a Christian, but my religion’s not that important to me so let’s be friends,’” he said.
McLaren believes there’s another, more viable option that can build and sustain interfaith relationships without compromising religious beliefs.
“As I was doing the research for the book, one of the misconceptions that I had to confront is one that I held myself — that the problem is that our religions are so different and it’s our differences that keep us apart,” he said.
But while different faiths have much in common, the similarities get lost when people try to strengthen their own religious identity at the expense of others, he said.
“I’ve actually become convinced that our differences aren’t the problem,” McLaren said. “What is keeping us apart is one thing that I think all religions have in common, and that is a tendency to build a strong identity through hostility toward the other.” McLaren pointed to historical, doctrinal, liturgical and missional issues challenging Christians in a multifaith world.
The fact that the Bible contains four Gospels, not just one, also can be viewed as a divine example of how diverse groups can live in harmony, McLaren said.
“Maybe it’s an indication that we’re better off with multiple points of view rather than just one point of view,” he said. “The form of Scripture can tell us that otherness and multiple perspectives are a benefit, and not a disadvantage.”
David Yonke is the editor and community manager of Toledo Faith & Values(ToledoFAVS.com), a website that provides in-depth, nonsectarian news coverage of religion, faith and spirituality in the Toledo area.
