There is a scene in the novel The Book of Lights that goes to the heart of what we believe about faiths that are different from ours. It is the early 1950s during the Korean War. A young rabbi from Brooklyn who is a military chaplain is on leave from his post. He is in Japan for the first time. One afternoon he stands with a Jewish friend before a Shinto or Buddhist shrine. The altar is lit by the soft light of a tall lamp. Sunlight streams in the door. The two young men observe with fascination a man standing before the altar, his hands pressed together before him, his eyes closed. He is rocking slightly. He is clearly engaged in what these Jewish men would call prayer. The rabbi turns to his companion and says,

"Do you think our God is listening to him, John?"
"I don't know, chappy. I never thought of it."
"Neither did I until now. If He's not listening, why not? If He is listening, then – well, what are we all about, John?"

Is 'our God' listening to the prayers of people of other faiths? If not, why not? What kind of God would that be? Would the one Christians and Jews speak of as maker of heaven and earth not give ear to the prayer of a man so earnestly, so deeply in prayer? On the other hand, if God is listening, what are we all about? Who are we as a people who cherish our own special relationship with God? And if we ask the question, Is 'our' God listening? we have to ask another question. Are we listening and trying to understand the religious faith of others (Diana Eck, Encountering God, Beacon, 1993, pp. 166-7)?

People who are involved in interfaith dialogue – conversations between people of different faiths – divide religious people into three broad categories: exclusivists, inclusivists, and pluralists. People in these three categories would answer the question, "Is 'Our' God Listening" very differently.

The exclusivist is clear. 'Our God' is not listening to those of other faiths.

The inclusivist says 'our God' is indeed listening, but it is our God as we understand God who does the listening. Take a comment by C.S. Lewis. The creator of the Chronicles of Narnia and a host of books on theology said, "I think that every prayer which is sincerely made even to a false god . . . is accepted by the true God and that Christ saves many who do not think they know him" (Eck, p. 179). Lewis is a classic inclusivist. But he talks about people who are not Christians by using Christian language. He says, "Christ saves many people." Unlike the exclusivist, Lewis believes God's love is big enough to embrace them non-Christians. But Lewis doesn't bother to ask if "being saved" means anything to Muslims and Jews. Lewis doesn't bother asking whether Muslims or Jews want to be saved by Christ. I would guess they probably don't, since they do not view Jesus as Christianity does. So the inclusivist believes in a God who loves people of other faiths. But the inclusivist only talks about the God using the language of his particular faith. So C.S. Lewis speaks of "every prayer" being "accepted by the true God". For Lewis, that "true God" is the God who came to earth as Jesus Christ. The inclusivist doesn't finally believe that the God of other religions is as powerful, as strong, as true as his God.

The pluralist wouldn't even use the term "our God". Because that assumes that any one religion can possess God. Or that any one religion can contain all that God is. Religious pluralists would say "God is listening to the prayers of all people." And the pluralist would want to build friendships with people of other faiths. So she could learn more about God from them. So she could understand the experiences of people who are just as passionate as she is about the God they worship. But who call that God by a different name. And worship that God in very different ways. And have different stories about what God has said to those people. And what it means to follow that God. And love that God. The pluralist wants to grow in her faith. And she actually believes that listening to people of other faiths can help her own faith deepen and become more wise and more true.

Several times, Pat has shared stories with us about her interfaith family. Her husband Mike was a Muslim. Her daughter Julie married a Jewish man, Matt, and converted to Judaism. One of the reasons Pat is joining this church is because this has been the first church she's been part of in which the members have made her feel completely free talking about her family. She says, "Your acceptance of us is liberating. It's wonderful to think that the richness being a religiously mixed family has brought us might be a blessing to you as well. But you've made me believe it could be."

That is what it means to be pluralists. To be genuinely interested in getting to know people with other faith experiences and backgrounds. To know there is richness in hearing about how others know, hear, follow, love, and name the One who is larger than any single faith can contain. No one could say the Apostle Paul was a true pluralist. But if we look at the words Craig read from Paul's speech to the people from Athens, we hear hints of this. Paul says God is far beyond the houses we build for God. God is the source of all we are. God holds us all. Which means all of us, not only Christians. All people have their lives in this God. So none of us has the ability or the right to believe we know all there is to know about God. And others who know different truths about God than we do are somehow wrong or incomplete, and need Christians to make their knowledge of God complete.

I believe Christians need to build friendships with people of other faiths. And learn from them. And allow our faith to be deepened by their experiences of the Holy. Where I think a lot of us progressive Christians need help is working on our own faith. I think most of us don't know the stories of our faith. Most of us don't know the history of our faith. Many of us struggle with how to pray, and what prayer is, and how we build a relationship with the God who comes to us in Jesus Christ. How we build a relationship with the living Spirit of God and Christ who lives with us, walks with us, guides us, comforts us, heals and strengthens and loves us. I don't know why so many progressive Christians don't know the stories of the Bible. And don't feel confident talking about our faith. And don't know if we can count on our faith to hold us when the bottom falls out from under our lives. I've talked with some liberal Christians who think that being too passionate about Christianity means that we think our faith has all the answers and so we're offending people of other faiths.

But nothing could be further from the truth. A Christian woman asked the Dalai Lama whether she should become a Buddhist, his response was: "No, become more deeply Christian; live more deeply into your own tradition" (Eck, p. 223). Because the deeper we go into our tradition, filled with the God whom we know is so much bigger than any one religion, the more we will come to know this God. And the more we will imagine compassion, wholeness, justice, and joy. Every person I've ever met who's been involved in interfaith conversations says the same thing: I'd rather be in dialogue with someone who is passionate about their faith than someone who is afraid of offending me because their faith is so deep. When someone faith is deep, then at least we have something to talk about. And at least we both know that the Holy whom we worship and serve is the most important reality of our lives.

Going deeper is the invitation of all faiths. I believe is it is call of the God of Jesus Christ. The call of Adonai Elohim. The call of Allah. Go deep. Learn the language of the faith that is your home. Learn the stories of that faith. Talk to the Holy One of that faith. And listen to that Holy One. Let yourself be loved by that Holy One. And love that Holy One back.

Go deep into that one faith that is your home. While you build relationships with people who find their home in another faith.
But go deeper into the faith that is your home. Don't just skim the surface of lots of faiths. But go deeper into the faith that is your home. As one wise person of faith has said, "If what you're looking for is water, better to dig one well sixty feet deep than to dig six wells ten feet deep. By living more deeply into our own tradition as a sacrament of the sacred, we become more centered in the one to whom the tradition points and in whom we live and move and have our being" (Huston Smith, quoted in Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity, Harper San Francisco, 2003, p. 223).
"A Christian is one who does this in the framework of the Christian tradition, just as a Jew is one who does this within the framework of the Jewish tradition, a Muslim, within the framework of the Muslim tradition, and so forth. And I cannot believe God cares which of these we are" (Borg, p. 223). Amen.