God is universal; Our understanding of faith is local
An interfaith project was attempted in the 1980s in ecumenical divinity schools. The attempt was to find prayer language and forms of worship in which every tradition could participate together. Language that caused division was eliminated so that liturgies could accommodate everyone. This project was found to be unsatisfying. It was felt that paring language down so it would fit everyone’s faith did an injustice to the distinctiveness of faith traditions.
Today’s interfaith projects respect the unique language of different faith traditions. Interfaith perspectives today recognize that one knows God largely by one’s own tradition, while affirming that God can be known in other ways by different faith traditions.
This doesn’t mean that one limits the God of one’s faith only to the people of one’s own tradition. One can generalize one’s own God in a universal context: one’s own God is for others, too. A good example of this move is in Isaiah 25. In this passage, Israel’s God, called Adonai, is God for the whole world. Consider the following words: “On this mountain Adonai Almighty will make for all peoples a feast of fat things, a feast of wine on the lees ...” (Isaiah 25:6).
This is clearly Israel’s God, Adonai, but Isaiah says that Adonai will prepare a feast for all peoples, making Israel’s God for everyone. The passage concludes with the following lines: “It will be said on that day, ‘Lo, this is our God; ... This is Adonai; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.’ ” (Isaiah 25:9).
In the Christian scriptures we find a similar local and universal thrust. In Luke 24, Jesus sends out his disciples to the whole world to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins.
At first glance, it looks like Jesus’ message is universal. But the wording contains both a local and universal thrust: “Repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations” (Luke 24:47).
So the message is universal in that it is intended for all nations, but it is local in that it is to be preached in Jesus’ name. (It needs to be said that this passage is not about conversion to Christianity.) The message is for the whole world, but it is the Christian deity in whose name it is proclaimed.
This Luke passage ends with another combination of universality and locality. It concludes with the disciples filled with joy and blessing God. This is a universal faith expression: joy and blessing God can happen within any religious context. But the disciples’ expressions of joy and worship are expressed within the context of their Jewish religion. They are doing all this in the Jerusalem Temple. “They returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God.” (Luke 24:52-53)
While the disciples’ joy and preaching may extend to the whole world, they are worshipping as good Jews would, in the Temple in Jerusalem.
The Isaiah and Luke passages show an interfaith view of pluralism: faith is universal in scope, but understood locally. One worships God according to the tenets of one’s own faith tradition. But the God of one’s faith is universal — for the whole world.
Interfaith projects don’t suggest that one’s own faith become subsumed in a wash of plural belief systems.
Recognizing that no one religion, and no one person understands God fully, followers of interfaith projects listen to the many voices of revealers across the globe. Our world is too large (or too small) for us to remain local only.
The consequences of an overly parochial view of God can be devastating. One can recognize that one’s own God is for the whole world while also recognizing that other conceptions of God are for the whole world, too.
And one affirms the reality of differences and commonalities as one honours brothers and sisters in faith traditions across the globe.