Straight answers to curly questions #1

‘Can Jesus really be as special as you say?’ Sooner or later, this question will come up when people learn that we are Christian. It may emerge in a number of forms, and be asked in a number of ways, but it is rarely far from the surface. In this three-part series, Kim Hawtrey helps us to understand this basic question in its different forms, and equips us with a variety of ways to answer it.

Our contemporaries find the singularity of Christ difficult to swallow. They no longer regard the Christian God as unique. This is based on three feelings people have:

_
• first, that ‘all religions are basically on about the same thing’;
_
• second, that a person's religion is largely the result of the country they live in, an ‘accident of birth’; and
_
• third, that ‘it is just your opinion’.
_

When we find ourselves confronted with one or more of these objections, it tends to put us on the back foot. Partly it is the difficulty of formulating a neat answer in one or two sentences. Yet it's more than that.

The fact is, there is a degree of force to the above sentiments. Each is clever in its own way and, on the surface at least, presents us with a non-trivial line of argument that cannot be lightly shrugged off. At the very least, each objection has proven persuasive for large numbers of postmodern people and, therefore, deserves more than a glib response.

In this series of articles, my aim is to help us stay on the front foot as Christian apologists by sketching a robust line of reply to each of the three objections in turn. As I do so, I aim to show how answering each of them requires a different sort of approach, a different apologetic strategy: in the first case a logical argument, in the second an empirical argument, in the third a political argument.

More of that in due course. Let's look at the first of our curly questions.

Question 1: are all religions basically the same?

The first feeling people have is that the various religions are basically cut from the same cloth. If not identical, then at the very least the alternative faiths are on about the same thing. This idea seems attractive to many people because to the casual observer the religions do in fact appear to have certain things in common.

For instance, consider Buddhism and Christianity. They share the same kind of beginning. Each is based on the teachings of a founder, a charismatic individual who claimed enlightenment about mankind's true state: Buddhism is based on the teachings of the Indian prince Siddharta who lived from 563 to 483 BC and later came to be called Gautama Buddha (buddha meaning ‘enlightened one’); Christianity is based around the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth who lived approximately 0-33 AD and was called ‘the light of the world’.

Both men had an unusual initiation experience that heralded the start of their public ministry: Siddharta wandered in the wilderness for six years before meditating under a bodhi tree for 49 days where he apparently achieved enlightenment; Jesus was baptized by John in the river Jordan and then spent 40 days and nights in the desert being tempted by Satan, after which he began to preach.

Both talked about ‘salvation’ and ‘heaven’: Buddha called heaven nirvana, while Jesus spoke about it in terms of the kingdom of heaven. Does it not seem reasonable to suggest, therefore, that since Siddharta and Jesus were both on about finding paradise, they are basically in agreement?

Islam and Christianity have a lot in common too. Both are monotheistic: that is, they believe in one God: Islam calls him Allah, the Bible calls him Yahweh. Both accept the inspiration of the Hebrew scriptures (our Old Testament), believe in the Archangel Gabriel, and revere the great figures of Abraham and Moses. Not only that, both religions agree Jesus was a great prophet who spoke the words of God.

Both Islam and Christianity believe in a code by which mankind is instructed to live, and that people will be rewarded or punished for how they have lived their lives on earth. And each religion has many followers: Islam is the world's second largest religion, Christianity the largest. Could it not be, the casual observer might conclude, that the two great faiths are in fact branches of one greater faith?

It is not difficult to see how a similar conclusion could be reached regarding just about any other religion when it is set alongside Christianity.

For example, Hinduism seeks for peace and harmony, and the Bible too talks about finding peace. Taoism preaches the moral virtues of patience and charity, as does the Christian religion. Judaism believes in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who is found in the same Old Testament that Christians believe in. Confucius taught that finding truth involved knowledge of one's own faults, and Christianity similarly teaches that we must face up to our sin.

In short, the world's religions seem to be saying very similar things a lot of the time. However the problem is that, on closer inspection, the religions are in fact very, very different from each other; in fact, they are mutually incompatible.

Let's consider Buddhism and Christianity again. For all their superficial similarity, the fact is they radically contradict each other. Most profound is their diametrically opposite views about the existence of God. Classical Buddhism makes no provision for God or any kind of deity. The most that can be said is that in one particular branch of Buddhism, notably the self-styled Mahayana school practiced in China and Japan, the Buddha himself is regarded as quasi-divine. But even this is a far cry from the all-powerful, personal, eternal Creator that Christians believe in.

By this measure, Buddhism is essentially a religion without a deity. Hence there is no such thing as a personal relationship with the divine being in Buddhism, because there isn't a personal divine being. There is consequently no element of divine judgement or of a God who is separate from his creation, who by his very word controls the wind and the waves. Christianity and Buddhism therefore part company as early as Genesis chapter one verse one: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”.

Now consider Islam and Christianity. Here too there is a profound contradiction. It is not only that Muslims hold to the Koran (Qur'an) as scripture, while Christians hold to the Bible (although that fact by itself puts the two religions fundamentally at odds). It has to do with the contrasting ways in which the respective founders of the two faiths are understood. Muhammad is the founder of Islam, and Jesus of Christianity. Yet Muhammad is on a very different footing to Jesus. While Muhammad is revered as a prophet by Muslims, and claimed to speak the truth about God, he did not claim to be God himself. Jesus clearly did, and this is deeply significant. Muhammad claimed to be the messenger of Allah (which in Arabic means God) and believed he had unique insight into the truth about Allah, and wished to pass that truth on. But Muslims do not worship him as God.

In contrast, Christians do worship Jesus as authentically God. Muslims think of Muhammad as Teacher, but never as Creator or Lord. This is why Muslims do not like to be referred to as ‘Mohammedans’, because while believing Muhammad was the last and great apostle of God, they stop short of assigning him deity. This distinction is maintained in the famous Islamic confession of faith: “there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet.” Accordingly, the name of their faith Islam which in Arabic means ‘act of resignation’ puts the focus on one's response to Allah, not Muhammad the prophet. The name of the Islamic religion does not revolve around the founder.

How different Christianity is! It is crucial to realize that Jesus alone, among the founders of the great religions of the world, spoke about himself in a way that others did not, not even Muhammad. It is a mark of the Lord Jesus' humility that he hardly came straight out and baldly stated, ‘I am God’. At the same time, his self-consciousness as the Son of God, his application of the Old Testament to himself and his acceptance of equality with God when it was claimed about him by others, leaves no doubt he identified himself this way. This is apparent in his frequent references to his special relationship with the Father, beginning as early as the age of twelve, when in Luke 2:49 his parents find him in the temple with the religious teachers and he asks them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?”

Later, during his public ministry, Jesus went on to speak about this unique relationship often, and especially in John's Gospel. In fact, this was the very thing that provoked the most determined opposition to him. For example, in John 5:17, having been accused of breaking the Sabbath, Jesus makes one of his many typical statements along these lines, saying, “My Father is working until now, and I am working”. Then in the very next paragraph John tells us that

_

This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God (John 5:18).

_

Yet their opposition did not deter Jesus, for later on in chapter 10 he is still at it, saying, “I and the Father are one” (10:30).

Not only were Jesus' opponents in no doubt about the extraordinary thing that Jesus was claiming, his followers also came to understand it that way too. The early church recognized Jesus as the Son of God, frequently giving him that title, for example in Acts 9:20, where it is recorded that immediately after his conversion, Paul proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, ‘He is the Son of God’ (Acts 9:20).

Could it be that what Jesus had in mind was no more than a general type of ‘sonship’ such as all people in some sense enjoy? This is not possible, for Jesus distinguished clearly his own sense of unique, divine Sonship. In Matthew 11:27 he says: “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no-one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him”. Further reinforcing this, Jesus pointed to his pre-existence with the Father before his incarnation, such as in John 8:58 in the famous statement, “Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was, I am”.

In short, there is no parallel amongst the characters of the entire Old Testament to such a bold claim as Jesus made, nor is there amongst the key figures of other major world religions. Bruce Milne, in his book Know the Truth, notes that “at this point Jesus stands quite alone”. A very useful verse here is John 14:6, where Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

This is a surprisingly valuable point to make in conversations with folk today. They are often genuinely surprised when it is pointed out to them that Jesus not only taught ethical guidelines for living but also made singular claims about himself. It can be a real eye-opener when they start to realize the implications of this for God's claim on their lives.

In conversation it is useful to point out that, unlike Islam, the very name of our religion contains the name of its founder, and this says something vitally significant. The emphasis is placed squarely on the person and work of Jesus Christ, rather than his teachings per se or our response to those teachings. You can take the founder out of other world religions without gutting them of their essential core, but the same cannot be said of Christianity. If you take Jesus out of the equation, all you have left of Christianity is an empty shell.

In fact, if you take the claims of Christ out of Christianity you would revert to Judaism, demonstrating that far from being ‘basically the same’ as Christianity, Judaism is quite clearly another religion altogether. In Judaism, the great figures are viewed the same way as in Islam: Abraham, Moses, Elijah and so on are seen as prophets, messengers of God's truth, and even as key players in God's plan. But they are never regarded as God himself.

The more we compare and contrast Christianity with other world religions, be it Hare Krishna, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses or the Dalai Lama, the more we begin to realize that it is a logical fallacy to say that all religions are the same. For instance, Hinduism holds to reincarnation, a far cry from Christianity's teaching of resurrection. And on goes the list of conflicting features. To suggest that all religions are basically the same is quite simply illogical.

It is like saying that all keys are basically the same. Granted, they all open doors, they are all made of metal, and they are all easy to lose! Yet that does not justify keeping just any old key in your pocket, for that would overlook the one unique attribute that matters about a key: only one key opens your front door. To claim all religions are the same is to overlook the one issue that Christianity hinges on: the unique claim Jesus made about himself.

This is the first method for dealing with friends and family who want to deny the uniqueness of Christ: the logical answer. We simply point out that it is illogical to say that apples are oranges. This involves us being familiar with the biblical material where Jesus makes his claim to be the Son of God, and knowing accurately why this is at odds with Buddhism, Islam, Judaism or Hinduism. Then when people try to lump all the religions together, we must be willing to use the data to prove that logically, Christianity cannot be seen as interchangeable or even mutually compatible with other religions.

There is biblical precedent for the use of logical argument in apologetics. Jesus himself used logical argument to answer unbelief: for example, in Luke 11:17 when some claimed it was by Beelzebub that he cast out demons, he responded that this would be illogical because then it would mean that Satan's house was divided against itself, and a divided kingdom cannot stand. He employed the laws of logic to meet their objection to him. We can do the same.