diversity within the church

A very interesting topic tonight with Tex. Sadly, he returns home to Arizona tomorrow. What an interesting character he has proven to be. The man looks like he is in his mid-40s or so, and he is actually 68. He has Southern charm combined with an amazing grasp of philosophy and theology - quoting Augustine and Barth and Spencer and Wittgenstein over the course of three sittings, and in the mean time keeping the conversation relevant and accessible to all in attendance. It is a rare bird who can keep Kierkegaard accessible.

Anyway, what he said about dealing with other religions is what I found the most fascinating. The bottom line for me is that I don't need any convincing about being inclusive and diverse. Churches should be rainbows, ethnically, socio-economically, age-wise and gender-wise, too. The question is not whether to include but how to include. Of course, that is a gigantic topic.

His overriding tendency was to be wary of totalists. Be wary of those who want to abstract to higher levels so that everything is included. Who want to take a little piece of Judaism and a little piece of Buddhism and a little piece of ..... and make a new inclusive religion. The problem with the tourist-style religion is that it is so superficial. How can I, a Catholic and a Methodist, converse with a monk who has contemplated Buddhism in a way that is meaningful to him? Put simply, I can't. What I can do is use my own tradition. I can treat a Buddhist monk in the way the scripture demands, as a neighbor, as an angel, as Christ himself.

Borg has a wonderful analogy in his book, The Heart of Christianity. He says, if you are trying to drill a well for water, you don't dig six feet in ten different spots. Rather, dig sixty feet in one spot. I must explore my own heritage, dig as deeply into the Christian tradition as I can get. I do not have to deny that your well leads to water as well to get water myself. But I am not going to get where I need to go by being a religious tourist.

I do think the exception may be Judaism. I think Christians over the centuries have given too little attention to Judaism. It is, after all, Jesus's own religion. And if we do not understand the religious climate of the historical Jesus, I think we are missing quite a bit. So I do not think that Christians can study Judaism enough; we are, ultimately, a Jewish sect, whether either side wants to think that way or not.

I am sad to see Tex go. It has been an interesting, thought-provoking couple of days. It has made this blog more religious than I intended the last couple of days. Oh well.