Sat 19 Jul, 2008
“We Honor All Faiths”
5:45 pm Comments (9) Filed under: New AgeTags: Complaint Bracelet, New Age, Unity Church
Christ Church Unity, Kansas City, MO, says, “We honor all faiths.” This affirming and inclusive statement stands near the heart of a minor social movement: the Complaint Bracelet (“21 days to a complaint-free life”), invented by the church’s pastor, Rev. Will Bowen. Bown has been featured on The Today Show and Oprah, and, more than 5.5 million people have reportedly worn one of these bracelets. I found out about it from a friend of the family who is wearing one this week. Every time she catches herself complaining, she shifts the bracelet to her other wrist. The goal is to keep it on the same wrist for 21 days.
I can see some value in that, but more on that another day. Just now I want to think about this statement, which I ran across while researching the bracelet’s background. “We honor all faiths.” Why do they say that, and what could it possibly mean?
I would be interested to hear from someone in the Unity Movement on this. Their own online literature provides information, but also raises more questions.
First. why would they say it? They have their own doctrine. The name Jesus Christ features prominently in it, but their understanding of Christ diverges markedly from historic Christianity and from the Biblical understanding of who he is. Why would they want to honor all faiths when they have their own, which they apparently consider to be true?
And what does it mean? Could it mean, perhaps, that they honor persons of all faiths? Are they saying they acknowledge the universal brotherhood of humanity, all created in the image of God, or something of the sort? That would be a fine statement, but it’s not what it says; it says “we honor all faiths,” not “persons of all faiths.” The Unity movement’s website includes a diversity statement, but it’s about diversity within the Unity movement.
Could it mean that they honor all beliefs? That interpretation closer to what the words actually say, and it would be in keeping with the tenor of a tolerant, pluralistic world that sees truth in all religions. But this is problematic, for religions disagree. To genuinely honor historic Christianity as a belief, as trust in an actual person who lived in history and who had an actual identity, one must honor not only the Christian’s life of trust, but also the things Christians believe about the actual person of Christ. Likewise to honor Islam as a belief, one must not just honor the Muslim’s way of life, but also what Muslims believe regarding Muhammad and his writings.
Beliefs have content, propositions some of which are regarded as right and others as wrong, some things to be believed and some things to be rejected. The content of a faith cannot be separated from the acts of a faith. If this church’s statement means they honor all beliefs, it must mean they honor the content of all beliefs. This is problematic, however. Is it possible to honor Jesus Christ the way historic Christianity has honored him, and at the same time to honor Muhammad as Muslims do? No; for Christians see Jesus as the Second Person of the Trinity, God in the flesh, born of a virgin, who died on the cross to redeem us of our sins, who rose again, and whose apostolic followers completed God’s authoritative revelation to us in the words of the Bible. Muslims say no to just about all of that, and they say that Muhammad said no. If you honor (support, give high regard to, or encourage) the Muslims’ belief about Jesus, you dishonor Christians’ beliefs. And vice versa.
More to the point, if you honor (support, give high regard to, or encourage) Unity’s beliefs about God, you dishonor Christians’ beliefs, for they too are not in agreement; Unity’s beliefs are much more in line with New Age pantheism than Biblical Christianity. To affirm the faith of Unity is to say that historic Christianity is really quite wrong about Jesus Christ, the central person of our faith. Is that the kind of thing they mean by honor for all faiths?
Maybe, though, they disagree that there actually is disagreement between faiths after all. Unity’s doctrinal statement says,
Unity honors the universal truths in all religions and respects each individual’s right to choose a spiritual path.
I think we’re coming closer to it here. Unity sees universal truth in all religions, and that is exactly what they honor. There’s our answer! But we must chase this down, too: Just what truths do all religious universally agree on? The nature of God (or the ultimate)? The nature of reality and its relation to God or the ultimate? Where the world came from, and where it is heading? The explanation of the human condition? The ideal spiritual state? The way to achieve that ideal spiritual state?
What looked like an answer leads to questions with no answers. I still don’t know what it means to honor all faiths….
They “respect each individual’s right to choose a spiritual path.” This, finally, does make sense. If there is one thing that virtually all religions agree on, it is that there is a spiritual path for individuals to walk. It seems Unity may be honoring something like the religious impulse. But hasn’t that religious impulse been directed into all kinds of violence? Timothy Keller has convincingly explained (mp3) how this religious impulse needs a proper grounding and channel of humility, found through the way of Jesus Christ, or else it turns deadly sour.
At any rate, it’s quite a long descent from “we honor all faiths” to acknowledging merely that humans everywhere have some kind of religious impulse. Examined closely, “we honor all faiths” seems not to mean much at all. So I return to my question, why would they say it?
I suggest two reasons. The first is that they haven’t examined it that closely, and/or they don’t expect anybody else to do so. Its meaninglessness matters little if it can give the right impression, produce the right effect.
That effect or impression is the second reason. In a world of relativism and pluralism, where tolerance is the one cardinal virtue, to be regarded as tolerant is better than to suggest that your beliefs are what you actually believe, and that you don’t believe what you don’t believe.
Click To Play:
“Honor” can also mean “respect,” Tom, and respecting all faiths doesn’t necessarily mean agreeing with them. It’s interesting to me that you are confused by this concept. Although, given your belief that Christianity is the one true religion, it makes sense that a belief system in which all beliefs are honored is confusing to you.
ordinary seeker,
First, they used the word “honor,” which carries a set of connotations distinct from “respect.” Dictionary.com says honor connotes “a combination of liking and respect.” The New Oxford American Dictionary defines honor (v.) primarily as “regard with great respect; esteem.”
I would certainly welcome an explanation from Unity for their choice of “honor” over “respect.”
Second, I would ask you to go back through the various angles I took on this term, in the above analysis, and substitute the word respect, and explain where the different term really changes the specific analysis. That would be a lot more helpful to us here than just suggesting they meant a different word than the one they chose.
Here’s another way you might view that second point: what exactly is it about every faith that they respect, and in what sense do they respect it?
Further, taking the first and second points together, in what sense does it affect the analysis when you take into account they did not merely say “respect,” but chose a word meaning “high respect” instead.
Third, you suggest that just because I believe Christianity is the one true religion, that is the reason I find it confusing that ” a belief system in which all beliefs are honored is confusing to [me].” I don’t think this is “confusing,” I think it’s incoherent, self-contradictory, nonsensical, in ways that do not depend on believing in Christianity at all. For example:
1. Unity: “We honor all belief systems.”
2. Islam: “All belief systems that contradict Islam, including Unity, are wrong and are to be dishonored.”
3a. Unity: “We honor Islam, including its belief that it is wrong to honor any belief other than Islam”
3b. Unity: “We honor the belief that our own belief is wrong and dishonored; we honor being dishonored.”
4. Unity: We honor Buddhism, being a member of the set of all belief systems that we honor.
5. Islam: We dishonor and abhor Buddhism.
6. Unity: We honor Buddhism being dishonored and abhorred.
7. From the dictionary sources, we can substitute: we greatly respect, with liking, the fact that Buddhism is dishonored and abhorred.
So your analysis of what you see as my error is incorrect: (a) the problem is not that Unity’s statement confuses me, it is that it leads to hopeless self-contradictions; and (b) the reason I see it that way is not because I hold to an exclusivist belief and “cannot” see the connection between honor and respect, but because the hopeless self-contradiction really exists.
Is it possible that your analysis of me could be turned back toward you? Maybe the reason you do not see the plain self-contradiction in their literature is that you hold to a self-contradictory position, the belief that multiple, mutually contradictory beliefs may all be true.
Having said that, of course I do believe that Jesus Christ is exclusively the one Son of God and the only way for humans to know God. This recent post would be a good place discussion on that.
Hi Tom,
Your opening post and detailed discussion of your concern is very good.
As is your patient comment on response.
Over my vacation I just reviewed much of the seminal work, A Course In Miracles which describes a position that seems closely akin to that of Unity.
Chief among them is a co-option of Christian terms to spread a very non-Christian message in which Jesus is not the unique Son of God, does not merit worship and did not die for our sins (as there is no such thing as sin).
This does not honour Biblical Christianity.
It feels good to read this article,God is one and religions are just different ways of different people to pay regards to God for his blessings.
OS,
If to respect a faith does not mean to accept its dogmas, what does it mean?
Franklin Mason, I can see where you don’t understand the concept of honoring all religions. You as well Tom, for it took me a very long time, both in prayer and in research, to come to understand this concept.
I personally do not identify with any one religion. My relationship with God is a personal one and He has helped me to understand why we should honor all religions.
First Mr. Mason. It is very easy to honor a religion without accepting its Dogmas. Let me use an analogy to try and explain what I mean. Say there is a person in your life that you hold to a high level of respect, a parent/teacher/boss/etc. One day this person is talking to you about a subject which you have a differing opinion on. Because they do not share your views, does you entire image of that person change and you lose any and all respecvt for that person? Unless you are extremely close-minded, the answer is no. You may not be happy that the person disagrees with you, but more than likely you will still have just the same amount of respect for the person.
When I tell someone that I honor all religions, they often ask me how I am able to, just as you have, when every religion will in someway or another disagree with another. The various forms of Christianity are a perfect example of this disagreeing. When I say, “I honor all religions” what I am saying is, “I agree that other religions hold different beliefs than I do. And while we do not agree on everything, we all share a common goal of becoming closer with God.” That is why I honor all religions. Just as God has revealed himself to me in one way, He reveals himself to you another way, and to Muslims another way, and Buddhists, and Jews, and all of the other religions. The old saying “God works in mysterious ways.” comes to mind, because no matter what we as people think we know about God, we can never fully comprehend Him and all His wonder.
As for you Mr. Gilson. I would like to point out that your argument of using the word “honor” versus using the word “respect” is a moot point. “Honor” and “respect” are synonyms (verifiable through nearly any thesaurus) and are therefor interchangeable as a way to describe how one feels toward other religions. The rest of your argument is one of several that are often used to oppose the idea of honoring all religions. Since you seem to be interested in this subject there is an article I would like to recommend to you. The article was written by a man named Joel Morwood and is titled, “Can We Honor All Religions?”. If you type “Can We Honor All Religions” in a google search bar the article should come up as the very first result. The explanation I gave Mr. Mason is more or less the basic idea behind the article, though the article itself goes very much more in depth and I think you will find it an enlightening piece to read.
Ever open to the new idea,
Thinker
Thinker,
I agree that we can and must treat persons with respect even if we disagree with their opinions or beliefs. That is because of the who (in a sense what) persons are. We are all created in God’s image, and we all share a significant brotherhod/sisterhood.
The same does not apply automatically to a religion. If it did, then any belief any person came up with would be automatically deserving of respect, as long as the person considered it a religious belief. I don’t think I need to draw that out with examples for you to see how absurd that could become.
When you say,
You specifically contradict Christian belief, and you disrespect Jesus Christ, who is the one Son of God and the only way to God. It is quite clearly impossible for God to have revealed himself equally through Christ, Buddha, and Mohammed.
Morwood wrote,
I see the definite value of understanding others’ religions, and doing them the honor (in that sense) of taking the time to see them for what they are, what they believe, what they value. He goes on:
If other religions may be as valid as our own, that means that on a scale of validity (from 1 to 100, say) these two religions would come out as a tie. In the case of Christianity and some other (any other) religion, the only way this could be possible would be if both of them scored somewhere near zero.
The reason for this is contained in the link I gave a few paragraphs above. If the message of Jesus Christ is at all true, it must be exclusively true, or else God wasted the torture and killing of the Second Person of the Trinity, the one unique Son of the Father, for no particularly good reason. (The rest of that argument is drawn out in that linked page.) If Christianity is exclusively true, then no other religion can rank near it on a validity scale. If Christianity is not exclusively true, then it is not true at all; its validity ranks near zero and of course other beliefs could meet it there.
Now, Thinker, I ask you to approach this with the mentality of a Thinker rather than from a sentimental viewpoint. I think it’s very understandable to wish that all mankind could meet at some common point of agreement, to be able to say we’re all seeking the same thing after all, and we don’t differ so much. There is much truth in that, in fact, and much to be commended about that approach. In the case of religious beliefs, however, a thinking person must recognize that it is simply impossible for all to be equally valid, no matter how much one might want them to be.
I have read the rest of the Morwood article and find its treatment of Christianity to be highly distorted through its selective, out-of-context quotations. There is nothing in there that overcomes this one basic obstacle: if Christianity is true, it is exclusively true; if it is not exclusively true then it is false.
Tom, while I would like to end with a “we can agree to disagree”, I feel I should provide some clarity to you on this matter. With God, two conflicting ideas can both be true. The idea of religions being exclusively true or wholly false can be looked at from a mathematical perspective. The idea A does not equal B. Therefore, if A equals C then B cannot equal C is true, conflicting ideas cannot both be true. However, when you add God to the equation B can equal C, because God transcends all of the laws of man. Try as we might we simply cannot ever fully come to understand God
I read the piece you linked and frankly I find your idea of a “spiritual menu” a gross dumbing down of what people who see the truth in all religions believe. When a person preaches that their religion is exclusively true, and every other religion therefor must be wrong, they miss a part of what God has taught us, and that is to love your neighbor. Let us look at some of the things Christianity tells us. Specifically the Two Great Commandments: Love God, and love your neighbor.
First, love God. what does this mean? To love God means to strive to be like Him. In Chrisianity, this means following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ and living as He did. Living a life of selflessness and compassion are key here.
However, I find it is the idea of loving your neighbor where many people miss the mark. Let us take a close look at what it means to love one’s neighbor. Specifically the word neighbor. A neighbor is someone that different, someone who looks at reality differently than you or I do. This neighbor is the loving caring individual, and it is also narcissitic prick. This is someone you know very well, and is a good friend, and also someone you have never even met. This neighbor is a Christian, a Muslim, and a Jew. This neighbor is a person who lives down the street, and it is also the tribesman from a village in Africa.
All of these people are our neighbors and we must love all of them just the same. That is why Jesus died on the cross. to tell us that even when the world curses and spits at you, you must go on loving them just the same. That is why we honor all religions. Honoring all religions is not simply saying, “every religion is right, just pick one and you’ve got your ticket to happiness” it is saying “even though we are different we must still love each other, and know that in doing so we come closer to God.”
I cannot say that I know everything there is to know about God, because no one can. I can say with a great level of assurance that God will not punish those who have lived a life of loving and compassion. I would like to think that when I die I will be judged based on my conduct, and that God will see that I have done my best at trying to live a life of “loving my neighbor” and will be thusly rewarded.
Thinker, you wrote,
I take it that by “conflicting” you mean contradictory. So perhaps you are saying the law of non-contradiction does not apply to ultimate reality; ultimate reality can be what ultimate reality is not.
To that I respond, “Nonsense is nonsense, even in theology.” I first heard that said in answer to the old question, “Can God create a rock so heavy he cannot lift it?” It applies here as well.
Or perhaps you are saying that our ability to apprehend ultimate reality is so weak that we should not assume the law of noncontradiction applies to our weak apprehensions of what it is. In that case you have made a colossal error by putting forth the dogmatic assertion, “With God, two conflicting ideas can both be true.” How would you ever know that?
Consider these two conflicting ideas, can they both be true?
A) With God, two contradictory ideas can both be true.
B) With God, two contradictory ideas can never both be true.
Or these two conflicting ideas, can they both be true?
C) God sent his Son Jesus Christ to suffer and die for our sins because only through his sacrifice could we be reconciled to God.
D) God sent his Son Jesus Christ to suffer and die for our sins even though we could be reconciled to God by other means than Jesus’ sacrifice.
Either Christ is the only way to God or he is not the only way to God. That was the point of my previous comment to you, and you can’t wave it away by weakly asserting “with God two conflicting ideas can both be true.” You have to explain how it could conceivably be that C) and D) could both be true at the same time.
Who taught us to love our neighbor? Jesus Christ. Did Jesus ever claim that someone else’s religion was wrong? Did he claim that he was the only way to God? Did his closest followers teach the same? Yes, to all of that. And what is it about telling the truth about ultimate reality that is unloving?
That is certainly one thing Jesus did on the cross, and I agree as far as it goes. But the cross was also about reconciling us to God, and as I read the message of Colossians 1:18-22, Romans 5:6-10, 2 Corinthians 5:17-21, or Hebrews 8-10, this is only possible through the work Christ did on the cross. Even the reconciling of one person to another is through the cross (Ephesians 2:16).
If God judges you based on your conduct, my friend, you will have the same outcome that I would have if he judged me on my conduct. Our best does not measure up to God’s best, or to his standard. God will forgive our failures if we accept that forgiveness according to the basis on which it is offered, which is that Christ died for us and rose again.