He was screaming at me. Clearly, he was furious with me. His face was beet red. He kept jabbing the air in front of my face with his finger. The veins in his neck were raised and throbbing. He kept going on and on and on about how wrong I was. I tried to calm him down, but he could no longer hear anything I was saying. He was so inflamed by my original statement that nothing I could say or do short of falling to my knees and begging his forgiveness for having been so wicked would suffice.

So, I just stood there, hoping that eventually he would wear himself out and quiet down long enough for us to agree to disagree. But his enthusiasm for his cause was stronger than I’d anticipated. He knew that Jesus is the way, the truth, and that NO ONE, NO ONE, NO matter who they are, or how good they may be, NO ONE COMES TO THE FATHER EXCEPT THORUGH JESUS CHIRST, WHO IS THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE! The sooner I confessed Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour and quit trying to figure out ways to get people into heaven through the back door the better off I would be. Furthermore, unless I was willing to confess the error of my ways, then I had no business calling myself a Christian, because I was clearly damned to hell.

I can still see the anger and the hatred in my old friend’s face. Anger which seemed so out of place. We were on retreat in the mountains of British Columbia. We had just listened to a beautiful sermon about the Many Mansions which God has prepared for all of us. Not surprisingly my friend took exception to the preacher’s emphasis on God’s different ways of including the different people of the world into God’s LOVE. Over lunch we argued about just what Jesus meant when he said, “I am the way, and the truth and the life.  NO one comes to the Father except through me.”  My friend, it seems, had all the answers. Those who do not accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior will never be acceptable in the sight of God. They will never be included in the Kingdom of God, for indeed they are all damned to hell! I could not accept that a loving and gracious God could be so cruel. So, I walked away from my friend and his theology.

I did my best to find another way to explain Jesus’ words. Maybe it was the hatred in my old friend’s eyes, but there was something about Jesus’ words which were getting in the way of the WORD. I ignored Jesus’ exclusive words and I focused on Jesus’ words about ABBA’s many mansions. This method worked for me for quite a while. Then one day, while I was studying for an under-graduate degree in Religious Studies at the University of British Columbia, I was confronted once again by Jesus’ words which continued to get in the way of the WORD. Words I believed to be incompatible with the Jesus’ WAY of being LOVE in the world.  We were studying the history of inter-faith dialogue. Our class was made up of Hindu’s, Muslims, Jews, Taoists, Sikhs, and one lonely Buddhist. Together, we discussed the problems which have happened down through the centuries when people of different faiths encounter one another.

One day, we were given a very engaging assignment. We were teamed up with a member of another faith tradition and asked to bring to the table a piece of sacred scripture from our partner’s faith tradition that we found intriguing. Of course, this meant that we had to read the sacred scriptures of another tradition.

My partner was a young Hindu named of all things Nigel.  Nigel had been born in India to parents who dreamed of having their son educated in England. So, they gave him an English name and they were so delighted when their son decided to seek an education in Canada. Nigel was a devout Hindu. He was familiar with the New Testament, and he was intrigued with, as Nigel would say, “this fellow Jesus.”  During my studies, I had read the Bhagavad Gita, and was familiar with its representations of the spiritual struggle of the human soul. I hadn’t yet read the Upanishads, so under Nigel’s tutoring I worked my way through, what he lovingly called, the Himalayas of the Soul, while Nigel renewed his acquaintance with the Gospel of John.

After several weeks of study Nigel and I selected the texts that we would study together. I chose a text from the Bhagavad Gita which roughly translates as “All paths lead to the same goal.”  (4:11) I chose this text because the notes in the commentary indicated that many Hindu’s believe that because God is all-pervading, where else can any path lead. With this text, Nigel and I explored the Hindu understanding that all gods are but pale representations of the One True God and that all pathways will eventually lead to this God. Continue reading →