God Has Many Names

 

Craig Anderson, craig@brooksidechurch.org

 

Genesis 2:2-8         October 26, 2003

 

                I’m going to guess that every field of study has a first lesson: something everybody learns in the opening week of class.  In chemistry and physics you always start by reviewing the metric system and math.  I was good at math.  Science was the problem.  But for one week I was at the top of the class!  What do they teach you in business school on day one?  Paretto’s principle?  20/80 and all that?  How about you English majors?  Are they still beginning with conjugations of the verb, “to be?”  Engineers... what did you learn?  Not to build bridges on sand bars?  Mechanics of course, first learn the difference between the positive and negative poles on a battery, sometimes the hard way.

 

                Well when you study scripture the first thing you learn is the documentary hypothesis: J, E, D, and P.  The Hebrew Bible, especially the first five books is a blend of four strands of tradition.  You know when you are in the territory of P, because the interests turn to priestly matters, to rules and regulations about worship. D is distinguished by a world view which neatly divides the good guys from the bad girls, and rigidly prescribes rewards and punishments.  J & E were recognized first, and the give away was dead-easy: they used different names for God.  J calls god Yahweh, which in German begins with J.  The Germans did the earliest and best scholarly work on scripture, so J stuck.  E calls God Elohim.  E, for Elohim, got it?  Good!  This going better than I expected!

 

                This morning I want to demonstrate that God has many names, so let’s start at the beginning.  Listen to several verses from the second chapter of Genesis.  Listen carefully, because there is one more layer of the onion to peel back.  I’ll be reading an English translation, not the original Hebrew.  (I was good at math, remember?)  In translation, Yahweh is rendered as God, while Elohim becomes LORD God.  There are two creation stories in Genesis: one from the J tradition, and the other from E.  At the conclusion of story number one, we read: 

 

 And on the seventh day Yahweh/God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.  So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.  These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

 

God: Yahweh.  The J strand.

 

                Next begins the second account of the creation:

 

In the day that Elohim, the LORD God, made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground;  but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground—then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.

 

Lord God: Elohim.  The E strand.

 

                Two chapters, two names: we could keep reading there are lots more. God has many names.

 

                When John Hick wrote a book in the 1980's with this title, he had a much broader frame of reference in mind.  He included not only our sacred scriptures, but also those of the Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and Muslims.  The number of names for God grew.  Hick wrote:

 

When I say in a summarizing slogan that God has many names, I mean that the Eternal One is perceived within different human cultures under different forms...  From these different perceptions arise the religious ways of life which we call the great world faiths.  The practical upshot of this is that people of the different religious traditions are free to see one another as friends rather than as enemies or rivals.  Each household of faith has some precious and distinctive contact with the Eternal One, which others can perhaps learn to share.”             God Has Many Names, p.  59

 

All very reasonable, don’t you think?  Yes, but controversy ensued.  When Hick, a British Presbyterian moved to California to teach, a four year debate ensued and his ordination was not recognized. 

 

                When others joined John Hick in articulating such a theology of pluralism, additional Christian bodies joined in the criticism.   If for example, (as John Allen illustrates the dilemma), “if all religions are equally valid, it’s hard to know why I should be especially committed to any one of them...”  “What does it mean to say that Christ died for all, if the vast majority of human beings don’t need him to be saved?  What’s the point of missionary efforts if being a Hindu, or a Druid, is just as valid as being Christian?”  Lately, Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has declared that such pluralistic theology is going too far.  Currently two Catholic theologians are on forced leave from teaching posts, while their writings are scrutinized for doctrinal error.

 

                All of this quickly becomes rather esoteric, and I can see your eyes beginning to glaze over.  Why should you care whether God has many names?  What’s the big whoop?  In the first place, as you readily understand from your place of work, if not necessarily from your place of residence, our nation is growing increasingly diverse, pluralistic, as it is said.  The person in the cubicle next to yours may have paused before leaving home at an altar to Shiva she has created in a closet.  Perhaps you notice that fellow employees disappear at appointed hours to find a room where they can bow their heads to the east, to Mecca, to offer their prayers.  Recently we were reminded that Yom Kippur has replaced Columbus Day as a school holiday.  Once the world’s religions were practiced on far away shores.  Now it is common place to see women in sari’s or head scarves, and devout men with foreheads bruised by contact with their prayer rugs.  Our world has changed.  Even on our shores God is called by many names.

 

                This subject also matters because virtually every newscast for two years has reported on  the results of religions clashing.  This week it is General Boykin insensitive to the fact that what once passed for an acceptable expression of orthodox Christian theology, is now perceived as inflammatory and profoundly disrespectful.  Religious sensitivity in our new world matters.

                At a still more personal level, we are increasingly members of blended families.  Just about the time that your Italian grandparents got used to the idea of their darling grandchildren showing up for Sunday dinner with Protestants, good Catholic boys began to search for Rabbis and Priests who would stand together under a wedding huppah.  Religious hierarchies may not like it.  They may still be stuck over sharing communion and recognizing whose ordination is valid, but many of their people have long since decided and moved on.  Indeed, at a September meeting on the theology of pluralism in Birmingham England, it was observed that in “the present century the traditional assertions of an exclusive possession of absolute truth repel rather than attract many people who seek the wisdom that religions have to offer.”  One spouse in a blended marriage is hardly going to teach his or her children to dismiss the sincere faith of the other parent.  We are interested in this arcane topic because it has practical consequences, beginning with decisions about war and ending with a desire for peace in our families.

 

                Unless of course, you are Mel Gibson.  Given Gibson’s controversial movie about the crucifixion, he’s much in the news.  Member of a Catholic sect which has rejected the reforms of Vatican II, and returned among other things to the Mass in Latin, Gibson was asked by a journalist recently, whether as a Protestant, the journalist had a chance at salvation.  Gibson paused.  “There is no salvation for those outside the Church,” he said.  “I believe it.”  He explained, “Put it this way.  My wife is a saint.  She’s a much better person than I am.  Honestly.  She’s like, Episcopalian, Church of England.  She prays, she believes in God, she knows Jesus, she believes in this stuff.  And it’s just not fair if she doesn’t make it, she’s better than I am.  But that is a pronouncement from the chair.  I go with it.”  (New Yorker, 9/15/03)

 

                Although his wife is going to hell, Gibson is more fortunate than Nasr Abu Zagd, an Islamic theologian.  Are you surprised to learn that not sticking to pronouncements from the chair is as big a problem in Islam as it is in Christianity?  In an article about the pluralism conference in Birmingham, John Allen reports that Zagd “taught until recently at a prestigious institute in Cairo.  A shariah court found him guilty of apostasy for suggesting that the Koran was fallible, one legal consequence of which is that he is regarded as a non-Muslim.  His wife was ordered to separate from him, since under Islamic law a Muslim woman cannot marry a non-believer.  The couple has gone into exile in the Netherlands.”  (National Catholic Reporter, 9/12/03)  Perhaps Gibson’s wife could join them.  Yeah, but in character, wouldn’t Mel most likely warn, “you can run, but you can’t hide!”?

 

                The reporter, John Allen goes on to say, “that tensions over pluralism are not exclusive to Christianity and Islam.  Britain’s Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, was threatened with a heresy trial for offering a positive view of other religions in a book, The Dignity of Difference.”  In the end, Sacks revised the book and avoided a trial.

 

                While you and I may agree with the principles articulated in Birmingham that “the religions of the world affirm ultimate reality and truth in different ways;” and that “the great world religions with their diverse teachings and practices constitute authentic paths to the supreme good,” it is nevertheless important for us to consider what the critics of pluralism have to say.  Their chief worry is that pluralism leads to relativism: that Buddhism is as legitimate as Druid practices, and Shiva is as valid a representation of the divine as Christ.  As Martin Marty puts it, for centuries Christians have believed that ours is not only a distinctive, but an exclusive way to God.”  As articulated by the Vatican, followers of other religions “are in a gravely deficient situation.”  Neither are Christians alone in making such exclusive claims.  Jews assert that they are God’s chosen people.  Muslims claim that Mohammed “is the seal of the prophets, bringing God’s latest and final revelation.” 

 

                Is truth relative?  Can we sincerely embrace our faith and yet avoid claims to superiority?  At the conference Paul Knitter reframed this issue in a helpful way: suggesting that “pluralists accept universal but not absolute truth – a doctrine can be true for all, but it cannot be the only truth.”  Again, Knitter suggests “you can and should continue to go forth unto all nations to proclaim what you know to be true and good; but you should not, because you cannot, proclaim that this is the only word, or the last word, on what is true and good.”

 

                It is also possible to affirm as the gathered scholars in England did, that “the world’s religions share many essential values, such as love, compassion, equality, honesty, and the ideal of treating others as one wishes to be treated oneself.”  These truths have stood the tests of time and universal human experience.  They are not relative, but they are not the only truths. 

 

                To counter exclusive claims a Rabbi at the meeting offered, “I believe God chose the Jewish people.  But who said God can only make one choice?”  Might we paraphrase him, and affirm that we believe “God was in Christ, reconciling the world...” just as God was in Moses, Buddha, and Mohammed?

 

                So there are grounds for critical questions about pluralism which we need to explore.   However, should not the critics of pluralism also have to defend the short-comings of their position?  It can hardly be denied that many menacing and deadly conflicts in our world have large and enduring religious components and causes.  The ever-lasting sin of anti-Semitism practiced for nearly 20 centuries in Christianity, is an obscene blot in our history.  If we have unquestionably proved our superiority in anything, it is the shameful hatred and persecution of the Jews.  This obscene legacy alone, is reason enough to abandon our claims to exclusive truth.   Isn’t inter-religious conflict much more common and of greater danger than dialogue about pluralism, or even the practice of pluralism?

 

                Maintaining claims to superiority, asserting that our God is bigger than our enemies’ deities, is hardly a path to peace and understanding.  Meanwhile isn’t it now imperative that nations, peoples and religions learn how to work together for the common good of all, tackling problems of “war, violence, poverty, environmental devastation, gender injustice, and violation of human rights?”  Those claiming and defending exclusive truth, fiddle, while the world burns. 

 

                What possible danger comes from recognizing, as pluralists do, that “all persons have freedom of conscience and the right to choose their own faith?”  Who said that God offers humanity only one choice?  In matters of liberty, the words of Learned Hand continue to resonate: 

 

“What then is the spirit of liberty?  I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith.  The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the mind of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded...”

 

Therefore, let us not be too sure that we are right, let us seek to understand the minds of others and weigh their interests along with our own.  God has many names, and has created humanity and human culture in a stunning variety of forms.  It is now time to embrace our diversity rather than battling over our differences.

 

* * * * * *

 

The September 6‑9, 2003 conference on Religious Pluralism was held in Birmingham England, the home of English philosopher John Hick, 81, the father of the movement.  All told, some 40 scholars from 16 countries participated, including Protestants, Roman Catholics, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists and Sikhs.

 

A Statement of Principles

as adopted by the participants in Birmingham

 

1.      Interreligious dialogue and engagement should be the way for religions to relate to one another. A paramount need is for religions to heal antagonisms among themselves.

 

2.      The dialogue should engage the pressing problems of the world today, including war, violence, poverty, environmental devastation, gender injustice, and violation of human rights.

 

3.      Absolute truth claims can easily be exploited to incite religious hatred and violence.

 

4.      The religions of the world affirm ultimate reality/truth which is conceptualized in different ways.

 

5.      While ultimate reality/truth is beyond the scope of complete human understanding, it has found expression in diverse ways in the world’s religions.

 

6.      The great world religions with their diverse teachings and practices constitute authentic paths to the supreme good.

 

7.      The world’s religions share many essential values, such as love, compassion, equality, honesty, and the ideal of treating others as one wishes to be treated oneself.

 

8.      All persons have freedom of conscience and the right to choose their own faith.

 

9.      While mutual witnessing promotes mutual respect, proselytizing devalues the faith of the other.

 

As reported by John Allen, “The National Catholic Reporter” 9/12/03