Page 128 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 23

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