FAITH

Let’s enjoy our journey up the mountain to God

Rabbi Marc Gellman

Q: My Presbyterian wife and I (a Unitarian Universalist Christian) love your column and have a question for you. Like you, we’ve long held the metaphorical view that the world’s religions can be viewed as many paths up the same mountain. A few years ago, we read “God is Not One” by Stephen Prothero of Boston University, which is a very helpful introduction to many of the world’s religions. We have been struck, however, by Dr. Prothero’s fairly sharp critique of the “many paths/one mountain” metaphor, and his assertion that in fact the various world religions are fundamentally based on different mountains and that it is a mistake to think otherwise. Of course I don’t know if you’ve read the book at this point, but we’d be very interested in your take on Dr. Prothero’s point of view. I, for one, am uninclined to let go of the metaphor notwithstanding the fact that his argument is at least somewhat persuasive. What do you think?

Warm regards – E from Racine, Wis.

A: I am sticking by my tent in the theological base camp at OMMP (One Mountain, Many Paths)I am sticking by my tent in the theological base camp at OMMP (One Mountain, Many Paths)I am sticking by my tent in the theological base camp at OMMP (One Mountain, Many Paths) rather than Prothero’s MMMP (Many Mountains, Many Paths). In the world of the academic study of religions there is a lively debate about whether the religions of the world are basically similar or basically different, and Huston Smith(”The World’s Religions”) and Prothero are roughly at opposite ends of that debate.

The way I see it from my perch in the real world, the debate is silly in an important way. Of course in some ways the religions of the world are different. Buddhism doesn’t believe in a creator God, Hinduism believes in many gods, Judaism and Islam believe in one God and Christianity believes in one God who is also three. These differences are real and lead to different understandings of salvation and prayer and sin. However, even these striking and foundational theological differences do not prevent each and every one of these religions (and more I have not included) from generating virtually identical ethical codes of conduct for their adherents.

For example, it is absolutely striking to me that religions who had absolutely no contact in their formative periods (like Buddhism/Hinduism on one side of the world and Judaism/Christianity/Islam on the other) all have generated virtually the same version of the Golden Rule of doing unto others what you would have them do unto you. Somehow the different paths all led to the same ethical summit and that is the key to understanding world religions in a way that will help produce unity and harmony in the world.

It is our shared ethical beliefs that mark our various journeys as a journey up the same mountain. Atheists who can also endorse the Golden Rule are also with us on the trek up the same mountain. They do not see it as a climbing to God, but that is fine by me. At the top of the mountain the view will be so breathtaking, that nobody will care about the different ways we have chosen to name the truth of what we will see there.

Tommy (Fr. Tom Hartman, my pal) created the God Squad mission statement that guided our shared ministry for almost three decades. He said, “We know enough about how we are all different, but not enough about how we are all the same.” This statement of our mission is not as simple as it seems. We are different and our differences matter. We are not fans of what we called “vanilla religion” in which we elide all our differences and pretend that we all practice just one amalgamated faith. Our differences provide the different textures of our lives and our religious calendars and cultures. They give us our home in faith.

However, the ways we are the same are so much more important and so much more in need of lifting up. We all teach compassion and forgiveness and generosity and gratitude because the religious impulse is at its root an impulse for the good. The rise of religious extremism and violence is tragic because it perverts this universal ethical core of faith. The impulse to tarnish all the good teachings of a religion with the violent zealotry of its few extremists is ultimately just a modern form of bigotry.

So, in some ways we are the same and in other ways we are different. As Prothero himself notes, “the world’s religions do converge at points. Because these religions are a family of sorts, some of the questions they ask overlap, as do some of the answers.” (p. 333). So let us lift up the overlapped answers that almost always are ethical teachings and let us enjoy the journey up the same mountain to God – apart but in the same direction.

Send questios only to The God Squad at godsquadquestion@aol.com.