Page 128 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 23
P. 128

And the other religions?                               And so it is important to expect, discover (help) and
        A�er decades of discipleship, not only can one be-     give impulses for deeper repentance in the life of
        gin a “worldview or interfaith” dialogue journey       every person.
        with every person, certainly that too, but above all   The �me in which others are reduced to material
        I am discovering the adventure of the human being,     for conversions is over. We want to build rela�ons-
        because everyone is first and foremost a creature      hips with interest and respect for one another. In
        of God, beloved and a poten�ally redeemed.             vibrant everyday life, we have learned to show our-
        It is now interes�ng to see which of the three possi-  selves with our strengths and weaknesses, with our
        bili�es that I have come to know as basic a�tudes      victories and defeats. And we can say yes and no in
        of interreligious dialogue which we adopt in our en-   rela�onships, which builds trust.
        counters with people:
                                                               A provoca�ve example
        •   Everyone is right: all people, including us Chris-  A rela�ve married a Taiwanese woman a few years
            �ans, have limited knowledge. So no-one pos-       ago, he a Chris�an, she a Buddhist. We also got to
            sesses the whole truth.                            know and appreciate her family. We visited her in
        •   The exclusionary posi�on: Individual non-Chris-    her home country for the wedding celebra�on and
            �an worldviews are all wrong because they are      experienced the following:
            based on rebellion against God, demonic ac�vi-     The bride and her family had made a life change a
            ty, reliance on works righteousness or personal    few years ago by turning seriously and deeply to
            existen�al experiences from which people tai-      their Buddhist faith. The parents tes�fied that this
            lor their own worldviews.                          had saved their marriage. They have learned to give
        •   The so-called inclusive posi�on: We find refe-     up their possessions and are devo�ng their �me to
            rences to the triune God, the Father, the Son      be�er understanding their faith.
            and the Holy Spirit in all personal worldviews     The unity I could see in them and with their friends
            due to the general blessing of God and his pre-    from the same Buddhist faith community reminded
            venient grace.                                     me a lot of the unity in our churches: They were
                                                               happy to see each other, hugged each other and
        Choosing one of these three posi�ons will also sha-    were joyful. And when some of them took out their
        pe our everyday rela�onships with non-Chris�ans.       instruments and sang songs, I could hear the same
        Personally, the third posi�on seems to me to come      joy and enthusiasm in the songs as in our worship
        closest to the truth. Why? Because God's goodness      teams. If I had met them on the street, I might have
        drives us to repentance and because I can therefore    greeted them as presumed fellow brothers and sis-
        assume that this goodness has le� tangible traces      ters, since I didn't understand the words.
        for every person, regardless of whether they grew      In principle, they experienced and told me what I
        up in a Chris�an culture or not. Long before I beca-   had also told them when I had found faith, only
        me a Chris�an, I prayed in �mes of need. Even as a     they had converted to the Buddhist faith. If you
        non-Chris�an, I cared for disabled people, for ex-     look more closely, they talked about doing many
        ample. I experienced God's interven�on without         things to achieve be�er karma, whereas I had told
        recognizing it as such. I was also convinced that my   them about grace because of Jesus. The good
        life had a purpose. More than we think, everyone       works are not done so that I can be saved, but be-
        has had some kind of experience with God.              cause I am saved. That is a serious difference. But in
                                                               principle they were talking about a conversion, the
        We can detect traces of God in every person.           effects of which I no�ced in them.
        We can simultaneously perceive three things in         Was this the work of the Holy Spirit outside his
        every person:                                          church? Like the inclusive posi�on in interfaith dia-
        •   each person's longing for God,                     log? Was it an imita�on origina�ng in the Evil One,
        •   the damage that sin has caused in and through      as the exclusionary posi�on might suggest? Or is
            their lives, and                                   there another explana�on?
        •   the infinite grace that is available for everyone  I believe the explana�on has to do with our image
            in Jesus Christ and that is already making itself  of man, which, understood biblically, is important
            felt.                                              to me in this context:


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