Relocating To Elfland

I am a religious exclusivist. By which I mean, I think Jesus was serious when He said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.” My faith in Jesus of Nazareth compels me to believe there isn’t more than one path “up the mountain” to God, and there aren’t multiple maps showing the way. There is a single holy book of revelation from God: it’s called the Bible. If Christianity is right, every other religion is wrong. It’s a zero sum game. 

Now this is the sort of conviction that, if voiced in public, can drop one’s popularity ratings in a hurry. A few years back, in a speech at the University of Regensburg, the current pope drew tons of rotten tomatoes when he quoted Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus as saying, “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” Silly pope! What was he thinking? This is no way to promote friendly dialogue among the faiths! But hold on . . . 

Fast-forward a bit to the furor over the Mohammed cartoons. I remember a flicker of amusement watching “progressives” try to tackle this one: “What are the Moslems so upset about? It’s just a cartoon.” “No, you dummy, it’s hate crime. You can’t do things like that with Mohammed.” “But what ever happened to free speech? Don’t we pillory religious stuff all the time?” “You really are a dummy. This is Mohammed we’re talking about.” I don’t know if Allah ever got his satisfaction on this one; but it was interesting watching post-9/11 liberals try to process religious intolerance from a favored quarter. Did the Moslems need to join Benedict in niceness education class. . . . 

Fast-forward again to Robert Wright’s 2009 work, The Evolution of God. The idea here seems to be that if God would just grow up, we could at last put the star, the cross, and the crescent on one ensign, and all live happily together as one Abrahamic family. You can read about it right here. 

And this is where I draw a line. The “progressive” elites think we religious zealots should all just get along. No, it’s stronger than that. They think we should actually join with each other, putting aside our divisive differences. Mecca, Jerusalem, Rome . . . whatever. It’s the 21st century. It’s high time for a joint website. 

What annoys me about this (which would also annoy any self-respecting Jew or Moslem) is that the hybrid religion our friends in the media have so patronizingly suggested would no longer be Judaism, Islam, or Christianity. Let me say it again: a blended religion would be the death of all the religions in the blender. But what in heaven’s name gives our progressive friends the right to tout their new religion as superior to ours, and to tell us (from their religious high ground) what we may and may not tolerate? They won’t tolerate exclusivity, that’s for sure: it’s juvenile. (We’re not talking here about killing infidels; we’re talking about even believing someone is an infidel.) Am I missing something? 

Brit Hume (who is almost as silly as Benedict) says Christianity offers something Buddhism does not. What?! He needs to get a copy of The Evolution of God. (In fairness, Ross Douthat at the New York Times did try to cut him some slack.) 

And then I read this in Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics (p. 1.247): 

“Only a religious person is able to study and evaluate religious phenomena in their actual significance. It is not enough after all for the student of the science of religion simply to observe; he or she must introduce order into the chaos of phenomena, determine the place and value of the different religions, trace the life and growth and hence also the degeneration and adulteration of religion, and indicate where religion displays itself in its purest form and richest development. None of this is possible unless the practitioners of the science of religion bring along a standard that they apply to the various religious phenomena.”

The last sentence says it all. By whose authority did the “progressive” standard get its authority?