{"id":2198,"date":"2012-06-19T11:48:58","date_gmt":"2012-06-19T11:48:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/?p=2198"},"modified":"2018-07-20T19:38:34","modified_gmt":"2018-07-20T19:38:34","slug":"can-a-high-christology-accommodate-genuine-interfaith-dialogue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2012\/06\/can-a-high-christology-accommodate-genuine-interfaith-dialogue.html","title":{"rendered":"Can a High Christology Accommodate Genuine Interfaith Dialogue?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is it possible to take seriously the unique, “once and for all” saving work and person of Jesus Christ, while also respecting the views of friends from other faith traditions and engaging in genuine interfaith dialogue? \u00a0Is it feasible to have a high Christology and a robust soteriology, without treating every interaction with a Jew, Buddhist or agnostic as another “come-to-Jesus-or-else-eternally-burn-in-hell” moment? \u00a0These are my questions lately.<\/p>\n

And, if a big part of real dialogue with people of other faiths is withholding judgment about their eternal destination, then it would seem by extension from a reading of Paul Dafydd Jones, who teaches in the religious studies department at the University of Virginia, that it is\u00a0indeed possible to answer “yes” here. \u00a0Dafydd Jones’ “hopeful universalism” is an answer to intonations of, on the one hand, what Dafydd Jones calls “populist neo-Arminianism” in Francis Chan’s recent work, “Erasing Hell”- namely, the notion that a decision of faith on our parts is “needed to complete the salvific process that God initiates;” and, on the other, the Augustinian-Calvinist understanding of “limited salvation,” by which God in God’s sovereignty chooses and predestines some for salvation and some for eternal punishment.<\/p>\n

In their place, Dafydd Jones proposes a biblically rooted account of God’s love and sovereignty that succeeds in simultaneously taking sin seriously and emphasizing the cosmic significance of the life and death of Jesus Christ. \u00a0He does this by first appealing to a term familiar to those of us steeped in more Calvinist, Reformed traditions- that of “election”:<\/p>\n

\n

Following the later Barth, I favor an account of God\u2019s love for humankind that identifies Jesus Christ as the \u201celecting God\u201d and \u201celected human.\u201d These terms, I hasten to add, aren\u2019t a tip of the hat to ardent Calvinists. Talk of election helps to connect the doctrines of God, Christ and salvation. It\u2019s a way of saying, specifically, that God\u2019s loving advance toward us, realized in Christ, has ramifications for human being as such. The incarnation makes a difference to who we are. It renders us people who bear the image of \u201cthe image of the invisible God, the firstborn of creation\u201d (Col. 1:15); it marks us as those whom God \u201ccan choose . . . in Christ before the foundation of the world [and] destined for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ\u201d (Eph. 1:4\u20135).<\/em><\/p>\n

This allows Dafydd Jones to enlist a very high view of Christ’s work and person that also takes the problem of sin and evil seriously:<\/p>\n

Christ, on this reckoning, isn\u2019t merely a focus for Christian thought and action (although he is certainly that). Christ is the basis for a soteriology that delights in the fact that none of us are the sum total of our awkward, sinful and frequently disappointing lives. Through Christ, God has bound Godself to us, and us to God, in the most radical way imaginable. And this binding is not occasional or temporary. It cuts to the heart of who we are, while speaking volumes about the person that God is and the actions that God undertakes. Precisely because the scope of the Son\u2019s intercession is as broad as the humanity that he assumes, precisely because Jesus is \u201cexalted at the right hand of the Father\u201d (Acts 2:33, cf. Acts 7:55\u20136 and Mark 16:19), there is good reason to suppose that God\u2019s saving work has no limits. It\u2019s not theological overreach to hope that salvation will come to all. Such hope follows directly from an awareness of God\u2019s love and power, articulated by Christ and distributed, mysteriously, by Christ\u2019s Spirit.<\/em><\/p>\n

The next step is to say plainly that Christ\u2019s engagement with sin\u2014an engagement that encompasses Christ\u2019s life, death and resurrection\u2014is such that sin has no future. I don\u2019t want to suggest here that sin is no longer part of human life. It clearly is, and the world in which we live often shows signs of getting worse, not better. My point is this: in light of Christ\u2019s person and work, sin no longer sets the terms for our relationship with God and God\u2019s relationship with us. On the cross, specifically, Christ draws the full weight of human sinfulness\u2014past, present and future\u2014upon himself, rendering himself the one in whom all sin is overcome.<\/em><\/p>\n

There really\u00a0is\u00a0a \u201cconsuming fire,\u201d then, as Edward Fudge supposes. But this fire doesn\u2019t await sinners in the future. This fire\u2014the fire of God\u2019s holy love\u2014concentrates itself in Jesus\u2019 own suffering and death. And because Christ takes to heart the entire shocking history of our sin, sin is wholly burned up, whollyfinished, when Christ breathes his last. Is this not the meaning of Jesus\u2019 cry of dereliction? Doesn\u2019t this cry show that God has accepted Christ\u2019s thoroughgoing identification with sinners and that God\u2019s contestation of sin has run its course? And with the fire of God\u2019s holy love burned out, doesn\u2019t the resurrection show God relating to God\u2019s children in a new way?<\/em><\/p>\n

Hopeful universalism, on this reckoning, does not require the Christian to downplay the past, present and future fact of wrongdoing. It requires only that the Christian acknowledge the nearly unimaginable price that Christ paid for our salvation:\u00a0being\u00a0the sin that God condemns and rejects, so that those who live \u201cin him\u201d (that is, all of us) might receive the blessings of God\u2019s favor.<\/em><\/p>\n

[Correction: Dafydd Jones’ article, “A Hopeful Universalism,” appears as the cover story in the current issue of “The Christian Century.” \u00a0I originally posted the article in full, but because it is behind a subscription wall, have decided to take it down and excerpt it in a few key places instead.]<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is it possible to take seriously the unique, “once and for all” saving work and person of Jesus Christ, while also respecting the views of friends from other faith traditions and engaging in genuine interfaith dialogue? \u00a0Is it feasible to have a high Christology and a robust soteriology, without treating every interaction with a Jew,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":461,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,43,123,25,65,122],"tags":[516,797,746,796,429,795],"class_list":["post-2198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-god","category-humor","category-incarnation","category-jesus","category-the-bible","category-theology","tag-evangelism","tag-how-do-i-talk-about-my-faith","tag-interfaith-dialogue","tag-mission-of-god","tag-universalism","tag-will-everyone-be-saved"],"yoast_head":"\nCan a High Christology Accommodate Genuine Interfaith Dialogue? 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