Spoken Meditation Diana Eck

Uniqueness, to me, does not mean that the "Jesus story" is the only story of God's dealings with humanity, nor the only true and complete story. The language of only is the language of faith, not of statistics. Faith in Christ rests on two remarkable affirmations- Jesus Christ reveals to us the face of God, which is love. And Jesus Christ reveals to us the meaning of the human, which is love. This double revelation is enough. I do not need to know that it is the only true story on earth to affirm that it is worth giving my heart to. I do not need to convince myself or anyone else that [other religions] are wrong. Indeed, the God whom Jesus reveals ... has surely sought and loved the sheep of every fold. And the humanity which Jesus reveals is not narrow, arrogant, or dogmatic, but boldly open to claiming the stranger as neighbor. Both sides of this double revelation--the Godward and the human--must push Christians beyond the narrow obsession with uniqueness as singularity.

Sermon

The world of Christianity is changing. The frozen images of it from childhood experiences diverge from the way many practice Christianity today. We are still experiencing the aftershocks of the earthshaking changes of Vatican II. There is an amazing amount of ecumenical and interfaith dialogue between Christian sects and the world's religions. The Christianity being practiced in the world colonized by Asian, African and Latin American missionaries in the last several hundred years is now defining itself in unorthodox ways which are now coming back to shake up the parent institutions.

One of these unorthodox views of Christianity caught me by surprise this year at our General Assembly in Phoenix this past June. I was excited by the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship Lecturer Professor Chung Hyun Kyung's presentation titled, "Saying No to Coca-Cola Christianity." Anyone heard of her? She is evidently a well known Korean feminist liberation theologian and professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York. She gained her international notoriety in 1991 at the Seventh Assembly of The World Council of Churches in Canberra. The theme was, "Come Holy Spirit, Renew the Whole Creation." Two theologians were invited to speak on the theme of the Holy Spirit, an aged Greek Orthodox Patriarch and the young Korean Presbyterian theologian Chung. The Patriarch spoke first and drew on the pre-Christian interpretation of the Holy Spirit being "A wind, a breath that `bloweth where it listeth,' a roaring sound, fire, a tongue of fire." When it was Professor Chung's turn on stage, she moved beyond his words and enacted them in ritual. Diana Eck in her book Encountering God describes what happened:

She led a troupe of dancers onto the stage--Korean dancers joined by an Australian Aboriginal. They moved to a rumbling drum. When she began to speak, Professor Chung spoke of the cries of the Spirit of God within the human spirit, invoking the remembrance of the spirit of Hagar, the Egyptian slave woman abandoned by Abraham and Sarah, the spirits of the babies killed by the soldiers of Herod, the spirit of Joan of Arc, of Mahatma Gandhi, of Steve Biko, the spirits of those who died in the Crusades, in the gas chambers, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Having read the litany of groanings of the Spirit of God in and through the human spirit, she lit the parchment on which their names were written and held the flames in her hand while it burned.[1]

Professor Chung, as you can tell by this description, is no white bread theologian. She grew up in the Korean student movement and is no patsy for establishment Christianity. She is an ideal iconoclastic Christian to speak to suspicious Humanists and disgruntled Unitarian Universalist Christians presenting a progressive understanding and practice of Interfaith Christianity.

Early in her presentation to us at General Assembly, she captured my interest by describing her heart as Buddhist, her left brain as Christian, her right brain as Taoist and her bowels as Korean Shamanistic. She told us she had talked to a great spiritual master in Asia and introduced herself this way. The master thought for a moment and said, a better way to introduce yourself would be to say you are 100% Buddhist and 100% Christian and 100% Taoist and 100% Shamanistic!

In her internalization of all these influences in her life, she is a microcosm of what is happening all around the world. Whether via international trading or living in an urban area, or working with people of different nationalities or attending school together, or wandering the Internet, there is an unprecedented mixing and interaction of people with different religious backgrounds, cultures and beliefs. The goal of world community we speak about in our Purposes and Principles is rapidly being realized at every level.

This spirit of internationalism is affecting the world's religious institutions because more and more of the people who make up these institutions have had experiences, particularly in their young adult years, with religions and cultures other than their own. Because of individual experiences of the depth and power of Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, tribal and other religions, many Christians are no longer willing to see them as deluded by Satan or lost without Christ.

This liberalizing tendency is by no means universal as is self evident here in conservative Charlotte County. How churches historically dealt with other religions was by exclusion. They basically said, "We have the ONLY begotten Son of God who died for OUR sins and will save US because we believe in him. Your religion was either superceded by our religion (as in the case of Judaism) or mistaken (in the case of Islam) or of the devil (the rest)." And the proof text, if there be any doubt, is the Christian Scripture, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father but through me." The Bible says it and that settles it.

What the Bible quoting Fundamentalists forget is the Bible says many things. They conveniently forget that John also reports Jesus saying, "I have many sheep that are not of this fold." (10:16) and Acts says, "I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him[2]." (10:34)

When one really begins to examine closely what the Christian and Jewish Scriptures actually say and don't say, it becomes very dubious whether Jesus ever made exclusive claims for himself as the one and only Son of God. We do not find these claims in the Gospels Mark, Matthew and Luke. Only in John, the last Gospel written and most distant from Jesus' Jewish theological roots loaded with Hellenistic thinking, do we get these strong exclusive claims.

From the very beginning, Christianity has been contact with cultures other than Jesus' Palestinian Jewish roots that has shaped the Christian message, particularly Greek and Roman beliefs and practices. Christianity didn't get to be the religion of the Roman Empire without a little accommodation to Roman religion, particularly the Nicean Creed. Paradoxically enough, it is the very missionary work of Christians to convert people that has opened them to dialogue and influence by other religions, as visitors to a Mexican Catholic Church will realize as they see the local pre-Christian Gods and Goddesses canonized as saints.

When two believers with two different views of God or no-God come together, one of three things usually happens[3]. The first reaction is the one with which we are most familiar: rejection. One will say: "You are deluded and I have the one true God. You'd better convert to my way of thinking or suffer." The more liberal version is "You're wrong--but I'll tolerant you even though you're wrong." We shall call this the exclusivist stance.

The inclusivist stance recognizes that another person's view of God or no-God may actually have some reality to it, but it is inferior to my most excellent view informed by my most wonderful religion. If I were an inclusivist, I might say: "You are right but not as right as I am!" This is actually a very positive step because at least we are agreeing that what we see as God or no-God has some compatibility so I don't have to kill you or destroy your evil religion. This is the way we Unitarian Universalists often get treated in the interfaith community, as poor relations.

The stance of which we hear a great deal more today is the pluralistic stance. It recognizes that another person's God and religion is sufficient and complete. It's the "You're Okay and I'm Okay" approach to theology. Not only is your religion as good as mine, but by being in contact with your religion, I might derive some benefit for my own religious life without needing to adopt your religion. The root of this kind of acceptance is the honest awareness that the nature of God or no-God is far beyond the ability of one teacher, teaching or text to capture in its completeness. He can be 100% Buddhist, I can be 100% Christian, and you can be 100% Taoist and we still do not have all the answers.

Which leads us back to Professor Chung. She was a stunning syncretistic mixture as she stood before us in her beautiful traditional Korean dress as she spoke about the religious creative interchange happening within her thinking and heart. Professor Chung is a bold advocate of stepping beyond pluralism and testing the waters of syncretism. She feels that each of the great religious traditions has unique strengths and important gifts to offer. As we allow different religious traditions to influence each other and even borrow from each other, each may be strengthened.

Professor Chung told us about her experience of being the interpreter for Thich Nhat Hanh, the revered Zen Buddhist monk, and having an individual interview with him. She talked with him about her struggles being an Asian Christian and he encouraged her, has he has the Catholic nuns and monks who have come to see him at his community in France called Plum Village, to see herself as a tree with roots in different teachings and traditions. The greater the number of roots in all directions, the stronger and more stable the tree.

Combining religious traditions is not without danger and risk. Professor Chung illustrated the point with the example of a Presbyterian minister of a very large Korean Church who used Confucian obedience to authority to seduce a string of women in his congregation. We also have examples here at home. Native Americans here are often offended by Euro Americans imitating their rituals. There are tensions between Christians and Jews over celebrating the Jewish Passover Seder.

The question of combining religious traditions is really a red herring because each religion is already thoroughly syncretistic. To see this reality, we need only look at the number of pagan rites and holidays Christians celebrate with the insertion of Christ. The same holds for a number of Jewish traditions. The question isn't whether or not we should participate in syncretism but rather how can we do it in a helpful, non-harming way which will build our faith and affirm those from whom we borrow.

Professor Chung presented three norms she thinks should be used in the borrowing process. The first question to ask is, does it sustain life? Does the borrowing affirm the goodness and value of all beings? The second criteria is, is it life giving? Does the borrowing support growth in the direction of health, wholeness and liberation from suffering? Lastly, does the borrowing affirm both religions and the growth of each community. All acceptable syncretism needs to affirm the value of life, the process of growth, and the value of the community.

I think the experience of institutional borrowing parallels the experience of personal exploration. Diana Eck, a religious scholar and director of the Pluralism Project at Harvard is an example of such an explorer who has been the focus of a lot of Unitarian Universalist interest of late. Her spiritual journey took her from her traditional Bozeman, Montanan Methodism to Banaras, Indian Hinduism. The exploration of other faiths did not weaken her Christianity but rather helped her find new ways into her faith tradition and deepened her appreciation of it. This has also been my experience. It has been my study and practice of Buddhism, Sufism, and Hinduism thorough which I have been able to overcome my childish rejection of Christianity and find its heart.

The reason I feel it is important for Unitarian Universalists to reconcile with our Christian heritage is to recover our appreciation of the unique message of Jesus which supports what many of us already believe. That unique message is one Professor Chung feels the world needs to hear - not necessarily convert to - but to hear. To a Korean feminist woman and former student activist, what speaks forcefully out of Jesus' life is his uncompromising "no" to the powers and principalities of evil. For her, there isn't the naming of evil, for example, in Buddhism that speaks to our time as there is in Christianity. That uncompromising no fills her spirit to resist injustice. Jesus gives an uncompromising "yes" to life and love in his 100% commitment to the "Kindom" of God. The Kindom of God which Jesus proclaimed was the reign of justice, the sharing of power in egalitarian communities and the call to right relationship. Jesus advocated shalom or peace, not just for Jews but for everyone.

Professor Chung feels Christianity makes a unique gift to the world through such a powerful call to right relationship between people and their institutions. That unique gift to the world is the source of her commitment to Christianity.

And so also, she feels, does Asian spirituality have a message the world needs to hear. Asian spirituality has needed teachings for the materialistic West about the value of voluntary poverty and the "soul cleansing power" of mindfulness. And so also does Taoism have much to teach us about the dance of the erotic and non-attachment; about the dance of renunciation and the claiming of power; about how emptiness permits the celebration of the fullness of life.

What I found so striking about Professor Chung's lecture was how affirming it was to the sometimes crazy-quilt way we practice Unitarian Universalism. While our heart and mind may respond best to one path be it Christian devotion, Jewish tradition, Buddhist insight or Humanist reason, we are able to derive sustenance, support and encouragement from the other faiths. What holds us together is a shared belief in one reality (Unitarianism) which can be experienced and understood in vastly different ways (Universalism). Rather than narrowing ourselves to cling to only one way of believing, we believe we are best served by an openness to the diversity of people, beliefs and practices found around this world and yet waiting to be discovered in the future.

We wait not, in this openness, for the final answer to all our questions or doubts. Rather, we continue to build confidence in the truth which already resides within us, while at the same time discovering and seeing more clearly what is not true. The living truth is to be found in who we have been, who we are today and who we are becoming tomorrow.

What is important is not whose name we use when we pray or which set of beliefs we confess. What is all important is our 100% commitment to our best understanding of truth, living it fully and being open to being changed by the results of our actions.

Copyright (c) 1997 by Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore. All Rights Reserved.

[1] Eck, Diana, Encountering God: A Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to Banaras, 1993, Beacon Press, Boston, p. 132.
[2] Derived from Eck's writing on page 94.
[3] Derived from Eck's illustration on page 50.