The Interpenetration of Christianity and the Non-Christian Religions

The Interpenetration of Christianity and the Non-Christian Religions

by L. Harold DeWolf

I

The Actual Interpenetration

I. In the First Century

Considering the manner in which the Christian faith was originated, we should expect to find much of Christian doctrine, ritual, ethical teaching, and mood to have been contributed by Judaism. It is sometimes forgotten by Christian people that Jesus not only was born and circumcised a Jew, but was a habitual attendant at services of the synagogue and worked almost exclusively—though the exceptions are extremely the Jewish community.”

Apparently all of the twelve apostles were Jews and St. Paul called himself Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law a Pharisee.” > The Church was founded in Jerusalem and there was a live question until the first council there whether anyone not a Jew could be a Christian. After that issue had been resolved it was still the almost invariable custom of St. Paul to begin his work in every city at the local synagogue. It would, indeed, be surprising if the 200Christian movement did not show from the beginning much evidence of Jewish influence within its own life.

To say that there is much of such evidence is a gross understatement. Within the brief compass of the Gospels alone there are literally hundreds of explicit or implied references to the Old Testament, including many quotations. Many such references are used as citations of authority. The sermons in the Book of Acts and the apostolic exhortations in the Epistles indicate that apostolic faith in Jesus was habitually represented as grounded in the Prophets, the Psalms, and the Pentateuch. Everywhere in the New Testament it is taken for granted that the God made known in Jesus is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

New Testament faith understands man to have been created in the image of God and to have fallen into sin so that the divine likeness has been corrupted. This doctrine of man is given on the authority of the Old Testament. So also is Jesus’ teaching in support of the Pharisees’ belief in the resurrection of the dead.*

Christian ethics was, from the beginning, a modified version of Hebrew ethics. Christians, like the Jews before them, understand the norms of human righteousness as grounded in the doctrine of God’s own righteousness and of His law. When Jesus is asked what is the greatest commandment he replies by quoting from the Shema, then adds a second commandment quoted from Leviticus.⁵ To be sure, he gives to the “neighbor” such a universal meaning as to transcend the national particularism of Leviticus, concerning both the neighbor to whom love is due and even more the person who is obliged to love.* Moreover, divine grace and forgiving love, which are prominent but secondary in the Old Testament, become central in New Testament ethics. The stress on purity of inner motive also characterizes the New Testament teaching to the point of repudiating various specific requirements of Hebrew law. Yet all these changes are in accord with some trends of teaching in the later Prophets and, together with the regrounding of ethics in the person of Jesus, constitute the fulfillment, not the abolition, of “the law and the prophets.” 7 Even when Paul is glorying in Christian freedom from the old bondage of the law, he reaffirms the moral require201ments of the spiritual life in terms clearly drawn from Hebrew teaching⁸ and exhorts Christian believers to that brotherly love by which they “fulfill the law of Christ.”⁹

Most Christian scholars would grant that their faith was a fulfillment rather than a radical displacement of Judaism. But what of

other religions? Did any others contribute to the New Testament faith?

The relations of pre-Christian and first-century Judaism to nonBiblical religions are still much under investigation. However, few Old Testament scholars would defend the doctrine that no other religions contributed to the religion of the ancient Hebrews. Some aspects of Old Testament doctrine and practice are clearly characteristic of much primitive religion in widely distributed areas. Among such aspects are the close association between the forbidden or taboo and the sacred, the identification of strange and especially of terrifying natural phenomena with deity, and the offering of sacrifices on specially consecrated altars. The Hebrews well recognized such common elements. Not only were these elements a frequent source of temptation to leave Yahweh and worship other gods, but they serve also to provide the common frame of reference for appeals to worship Yahweh instead of other gods—as when Elijah and the priests of Baal call upon their respective deities to burn their offerings on Mount Carmel.¹⁰ Often it is taken for granted that as Israel worships Yahweh, other peoples worship their own

More specifically, various scholars believe that they can find evidences in the ancient Old Testament religion of contributions from the Egyptians, Midianites, Canaanites, and Babylonians. In order to affirm the unrivaled originality of Israel’s tradition, it is not necessary to deny such contributions. -

It must be apparent to anyone whose mind is free to judge by the evidence that the Christian teachings in the New Testament include contributions from other religions in addition to the influences coming through and from Judaism. When it is considered that the New Testament books were written in Greek, in a period when there was much blending of Hellenic and Jewish thought, it 202is remarkable that there is little evidence of influence from Greek sources in the New Testament. Yet there is some and it is important. The Stoic poet Aratus is quoted with approval in Acts 17:28. Only dogmatic prejudging of the issue can fail to find Hellenistic thought in the prologue of The frequent occurrences of the symbols “light” and “darkness” in John and elsewhere tell us emphatically of Persian influence, whether direct or

—more probably—indirect. The acceptance of the Eucharist as a rite of purification, of

identification with the life of the Saviour, and of admission to life after death show similarities to some rites of the Mysteries too close for mere coincidence. The Mysteries certainly included such rites earlier, so may be presumed to have influenced Christian interpretation of the Lord’s Supper. Some of the references to Christian “mysteries” in the New Testament and in patristic literature confirm this view.

2. In Subsequent Church History

Through its entire history the Church has held the Old Testament to be an integral part of its sacred Scriptures. This doctrine, with the consequent practice, has guaranteed that Old Testament religion would continue to exert a powerful influence on the Christian faith. At times it has even tended to submerge more distinctive aspects of the Gospel—as in the crusades, the various Calvinistic attempts to establish a legalistic theocracy, and some recent trends of African sectarianism.

It is the practice in some theological circles to deprecate the Christian apologetics of the second century as a betrayal, or at least a serious dilution, of the New Testament faith. But without such men as Justin, Clement of Alexandria, and then Origen there would have.been no such formulations of Christian doctrine as appear in the ecumenical creeds, now usually regarded as the very symbols and norms of orthodoxy.

Justin and Clement used the Stoic doctrine of the logos spermatikos as the instrument for interpreting the relation between Christ and the best of pagan thought and life. The Logos which was incarnate in Jesus, they said, had implanted the seed of divine 203truth in such men as Heraclitus and Socrates. All that was true and admirable, wherever found, the Apologists viewed as the work of Christ the eternal Word of God, and hence, they believed, should be welcomed with joy by the Church, but supplemented and fulfilled by the knowledge of Christ himself in all his fullness.

In the early Christian centuries, not only the works of Greek philosophers, but also such Greco-Roman religious literature as the Sibylline Oracles were sometimes recommended by the Fathers for edifying Christian

The early Christians found so much in paganism which was similar to elements of Christian doctrine and worship that they could not be content to regard the similarities as mere coincidence. When they did not explain them by reference to the wider activity of the Logos, they attributed them to devils who deliberately imitated the truth—sometimes even before it was revealed to men—in order to confuse and tempt men. This doctrine is highly significant, not because it commends itself as true—for certainly it does not—but because it testifies so emphatically to the presence of common elements in the paganism and the Christianity of those early centuries.

Much of the actual religious life of Europe remained a complex amalgam of Christian and pagan elements long after evangelization. Most of the European countries were “converted” as peoples, not individual by individual. Many old religious customs continued, with new names and interpretations. Often the names of saints—some of them probably not historical—took the place of the pagan deities and the familiar celebrations continued.

Of course the penetration has not been all from one side. Probably most Christian influence on orthodox Judaism has been negative. Modern orthodox Judaism is especially characterized by the rejection of Jesus Christ. This rejection encourages some interpretations of the Old Testament which are contrary to Christian doctrine, and it discourages other interpretations—especially of the later Prophets—which might lead some readers or hearers nearer to an acceptance of Christ. In the liberal Jewish community, on the other hand, there has been much infiltration of Christian thought and one may even hear, occasionally, favorable references to passages in the Gospels in Sabbath services. Liberal Judaism and 204Unitarian Christianity sometimes become nearly identical in religious doctrine.

There have always been considerable Christian elements in Islam. The Koran teaches high respect for Jesus, as a true prophet of God, even though Mohammed is regarded as having superseded him, and though neither Mohammed nor most Moslems know much about the actual content of the New Testament. Christian influence is said to be more apparent in Sufism than in the rest of Islam.

Since a Christian church existed in South India at least as early as the ninth century, and perhaps even in the second century, subsequent similarities to Christianity found in the Indian religions may be due to Christian influence. The modern Christian penetration of Hinduism and Buddhism will be discussed in our next section.

3. The Contemporary Situation

The earlier Protestant missionaries to the lands of South and East Asia generally gave unfavorable reports of the religions encountered there. Those religions did not appear to offer any serious competition in high moral and spiritual values. This situation has radically changed. The more favorable contemporary assessment of the Eastern religions is doubtless due in considerable measure to more generous understanding by the missionaries at work. However, it is also apparent that the religions of Asia have changed radically and now offer much more that is morally and spiritually attractive to a sensitive Christian.

In Hinduism, the Brahma Samaj, Arya Samaj and Ramakrishna Society are all obviously syncretistic and include conspicuous Christian elements. To be sure, the Arya Samaj and many Ramakrishna devotees profess to find all their teachings in the Bhagavad Gita and the Vedas. However, these interpretations often seem highly strained, to say the least, and many were first brought forth in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, under Christian stimulus. The Christian influence has been widely diffused in Hinduism, especially through C. F. Andrews and Mohandas K. Gandhi.¹⁴

Buddhism, too, provides many examples of Christian influence 205among the devotees and institutions of a non-Christian religion. Much of the present Buddhist activity in social work, hospital service, and other benevolent projects is obviously imitative of prior Christian activity or responsive to it. Sometimes the imitation is even more explicit, as in the Young Men’s Buddhist Association in Japan and in the use of Christian hymns in worship, sometimes with the substitution of “Buddha” for “Christ.” Some visitors in Polynesian Buddhist centers have been surprised to find that the Buddhists were even using hymnals and Sunday-school leaflets originally prepared for Christian churches.

What evidence is there that contemporary Christianity, in the United States, for example, has been influenced by non-Christian religions? Where the Nicene Creed is used, it bears witness to the ancient Hellenistic penetration of the Church already mentioned. The Old Testament lesson is a contribution of the ancient Hebrew faith. The sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper remind us of ancient Jewish rites, while the Lord’s Supper is also reminiscent of the Mysteries.

The Church calendar bears emphatic witness to a syncretism of customary rites. Christmas is celebrated in the Church as the birthday of Jesus. However, the date of December 25. was originally the date of a celebration in honor of Mithras, Persian god of light widely popular in the Roman Empire in the early Christian centuries. The observance of Christmas obviously includes also elements of other pagan festivals, some of them Nordic, associated, like the Mithraic rites, with the winter solstice. Easter is historically related to the Jewish Passover and to pagan celebrations of spring, the time of nature’s rebirth. The name Easter is derived from the Anglo-Saxon Eastre, the Teutonic goddess of spring. Since the rest of the annual Church calendar is derived from the dates of Christmas and Easter, the whole Church calendar is continuing witness that the Church long ago took to itself various pagan religious rites, with appropriate changes in form and interpretation.

In American churches more recent non-Christian influences are evident. Preaching and Christian instruction show the effects of popular hedonism, individualism, nationalism, and other aspects of Americanism which in other times and places would be regarded as not only non-Christian, but even, in some instances, anti-Christian. These borrowings from our secular culture appear to be often ac206cepted most uncritically in the Fundamentalist churches. On the other hand, liberal laymen and some ministers often accept the easygoing relativism of the Hindu syncretists. Their good-natured notion that all religions are right in their own way and that all take people to the same goal at last is doubtless due in part to a perversion of political religious tolerance and in part to loss of religious earnestness. But it has been affected also by the various forms of syncretistic Hinduism active in America, especially the Ramakrishna Society, and also by such related movements as Bahai and Theosophy. Such influences have been effective chiefly since the World Parliament of Religions, at Chicago in 1893, gave to Swami Vivekananda a platform from which his urbane message of universal religious acceptance was widely heard.

In Eastern Europe there has been a considerable penetration of many churches by Marxian ideas. Partly by the persuasive power of propaganda, and partly by coercive pressures, Communist governments are at times able to use churchmen as spokesmen for some Communist policies which are, to say the least, not implied by Christian faith. At the same time, American Christians are in a poor position to criticize such compromising of the Gospel so long as the churches here, with complete political freedom and with ready access to every kind of literature, still appear so often to be used as instruments of narrow nationalistic policy and, all too often, of special class interests besides.

II

The Theological Issues Concerning Interpenetration

I. Possible Attitudes and Policies

When we ask what is the proper Christian view of other religions, relative to interpenetration, we find that there are four main attitudes which have been recommended by various persons.

The first of these may be spoken of as total rejection with the purpose of radical displacement. This proposal is exemplified by most of the earlier Protestant missionaries. They regarded non-Christian religions as simply false and wholly evil. They thought that Hindus, Buddhists, and Moslems alike were in bondage to Satan and could escape the wrath of God only by repenting of their heathen practices in toto and accepting Christ. Few missionaries 207today, excepting some from the extreme Fundamentalist sects, would subscribe to so simple and extreme a

Even fewer Christian missionaries of this or any age would subscribe to a relativistic syncretism. Its advocates would say that all religions were paths to the same Reality. No one path would be entitled to universal preference, since different paths may be better for different personal temperaments and social traditions. Such a view is represented by the Ramakrishna Society. It is deeply contrary to Christian tradition, to the New Testament, and to a thoroughly serious concern with truth. Some of those churches which have so far lost Christian identity as to debate the question whether they wish to be called Christian may find such views attractive, but relativistic syncretism can hardly be a live option to one who takes Christian discipleship or even truth seriously. Only an uninstructed or superficial sentimentality could regard the contrary teachings of Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam as all true and worthy of adherence. Good-natured assurances that good Buddhists will go to heaven by their own path just as Christians do by theirs will not please an intelligent Buddhist who is in earnest. He neither expects nor desires any such destiny as the Christian hope envisions.

A subtler and more sophisticated view than the two previously discussed is that represented with greatest distinction and impressive learning by Hendrik Kraemer. With E. C. Dewick, we may call this the doctrine of discontinuity.1” Kraemer contends for Christian humility before adherents of other religions, and for appreciation of the high values to be found in them. He condemns efforts to mold the doctrines and practices of new churches in other lands after the image of our Western churches. However, while our Christian religion must be viewed in its finiteness and weakness, and stands under judgment as do the non-Christian religions, it is quite otherwise with the Christian revelation. All non-Christian religions are based solely on human effort and wisdom—often admirable—never on revelation. The Christian revelation is absolute, incomparable and sui generis. Moreover, even “Empirical Christianity has stood and stands under continuous and direct influence and judg208ment of the revelation of Christ and is in virtue thereof in a different position from the other religions.” '* Therefore, Kraemer maintains, for the Church to cooperate with the non-Christian religions, or to engage in exchanges of views in search for further truth, would be simply a betrayal of the Word of God. In practical terms, then, Kraemer’s view, too, implies a radical displacement, though with a somewhat more generous spirit and a different rationale than the view which we have designated by that name.

Kraemer shows no lack of confidence in his view, and his knowledge is formidable. But how do we know that he is right? We have only his word for it and the word of others holding similar views. To be sure, he insists that faithfulness to the revelation requires it; but he offers no proof. All the religions, including Christianity, he says, are relative; only the Christian revelation is absolute. Yet he assumes that he knows this revelation. But does not his interpretation of the revelation and its requirement of us constitute a part of religion, if not the religion of the Church, then at least the religion of Hendrik Kraemer? On what ground does Kraemer’s understanding of the Word escape the relativism of all religion? If his understanding of the Word is, even in some respects, human and relative, then why should we accept this part of it, namely the doctrine of discontinuity, without the proofs required of any other human idea which claims identity with divine truth?

The principal contemporary competitor, within the Christian Church, to the doctrine of discontinuity is the doctrine of fulfillment, represented in especially discriminating and convincing fashion by such a man as A. C. Bouquet.'® If Bouquet is right, then much as Jesus came long ago, not “to abolish the law and the prophets… but to fulfill them,” *° so his Gospel comes today to the laws and prophets of other religions. It is freely granted that the revelation to the Hebrews is forever uniquely related to Jesus and the Gospel, for that revelation prepared historically for the historical event of the Incarnation. No other revelation or religion 209stood in this relationship, and, of course, no other ever can. It is also recognized that in some religions there is very much more that is contrary to the Gospel and much less in accordance with it than is to be found in the Old Testament. Nevertheless, it is insisted that as the Gospel is now brought to the people of non-Christian religions it does come to hearts more or less—however little in some instances—prepared for it by their former religions. This preparation should be viewed discriminatingly but gratefully by the missionary as a preparatory work of God. The Christian should, with alert, critical care, but also with outgoing, sympathetic understanding, cooperate with non-Christians wherever and however feasible without compromise of Christian principles. He should also be sensitively open to truth or grace which God may offer to him through the adherents of other religions. Always, looking to Christ as Lord, he welcomes or discards by reference to the norm of Christ.

2. Arguments for a Carefully Discriminating

Doctrine of Fulfillment

It is impossible here to do more than outline in the briefest form some of the main considerations which the author believes should commend to the Church, and especially to Christian missionaries, the last of the four views which have been summarized. I hope to develop some of these considerations much more fully elsewhere.

A. THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY We are assured in Acts 14:17 that God “did not leave himself without witness” even among peoples who knew none of the Biblical revelation. Moreover, the nature of this universal witness is suggested in the further words, “for he did good and gave you from heaven rains and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.” The non-Christian religions give compelling evidence that many peoples of the world have responded gratefully to these very disclosures of God’s mercy. That many of the doctrines and practices which accompany their responses to God’s material and spiritual gifts (for not all the “gladness” He has given has been induced by material blessings) are mistaken should not lead us to despise the truth and grace which have been vouchsafed to those peoples. We can be grateful that God does not reject all our worship as idolatry until all our doctrines are in proper order—else who could hope to stand before Him? If, as Kraemer would have us believe, God’s revelation is 210given only through Jesus Christ, then how can the Gospel speak of “the true light that enlightens every man”??! There is much other Biblical testimony of similar import.

B. THE LOGOS DOCTRINE IN CHURCH In the early Church it was believed that the Logos made flesh in Christ did, indeed, enlighten every man, whether or not that man had ever heard of Jesus. The apologists of the second century saw too clearly the truth and goodness in some of the teachings and some aspects of the lives of men like Socrates to regard them as evil. Yet, convinced as they were that the one true God was the source of all good, such men as Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria accounted for the wisdom of the nobler pagans as due to revelations of that same Logos. Considering both Justin’s faithfulness unto death and the effectiveness of the Greek apologists in extending the Gospel, as well as the intrinsic persuasiveness of the doctrine, we should be slow to cast aside the doctrine of Christian fulfillment of which the Logos view is one specific form.

C. THE INEVITABLE MISSIONARY USE OF PREPARATION BY OTHER RELIGIONS Actually, among adherents of other religions, Christian missionaries always do build on selected concepts, understandings, and valuations previously provided by the other religions, whether they are aware of the fact or not—although they might often do better if they understood what was taking place. When the missionary speaks of God, or goodness, or life, or death, or spirit, he must use words which have been fashioned and given meaning in communication of the old religion. To be sure, the meaning must be corrected so that the words will become carriers of new meaning. Nevertheless, something of the old meaning is held to be sound, else there would be no means of communicating the new.

For example, in preaching the Gospel to the Mashona of Rhodesia (where I had most of my own brief missionary experience), as the missionaries preach and translate the Bible, they use the Shona word Mwari for God. Some ideas conveyed by the word are unchristian, as, for example, the notion of one who is not normally concerned for the individual person. Yet the word does imply, in the old religious culture of the people, the sovereign ruler of the universe who, when he acts, always acts justly. The meanings of just action, universe, and sovereign rule will also need correction. However, nearly everywhere in Africa the missionaries are 211grateful that the doctrine of a single sovereign high god has so well prepared the way for Christian preaching. This preparation must explain the fact on which H. A. Junod is quoted as commenting in the words, “It is wonderful to notice how easily the idea of the Christian God is accepted by the Bantus.” 22 Of course it is not only the idea of God, but also ideas of spirit, holiness, goodness, prayer, love, and many others, which, through traditional religious teachings, have provided language by means of which the missionary can communicate the Christian message.

In several regions of Africa I asked first-generation Christians why they had accepted Christ. Various answers were given, all of them complex, but one element was included without exception. Every man questioned said that he had recognized that the Gospel offered a way to the actual living of the kind of life which he had dimly sensed before as the life which ought to be lived but of which he had never before held a clear idea or a lively hope. Many of the missionaries who had evangelized those regions had believed in radical displacement, but in the experience of their converts the Gospel had come, nevertheless, as fulfillment.

D. THE HOLY TRINITY What is needed in resolution of the problem before us is that we should understand anew and take more seriously the doctrine of the Trinity. If God has revealed Himself to men solely as the Son and only in Jesus of Nazareth, then we cannot hope to find any sign of His revelation of Himself where there is no knowledge of Jesus. Such a unitarianism of the Second Person implies the doctrine that God has left Himself without witness in most of the world through most of the centuries. Precisely such unitarianism of revelation is implied by the logic of Kraemer’s theory.

But God is not only the Son, the Word spoken in Jesus. Even that Word was active in creation and “enlightens every man.” But God is also the Father of all, who gives good gifts,?* gladdens the heart 4 and convicts the conscience of men and women everywhere. =

Beneath the fearfulness with which some would seek to exclude all real exchange of communication between the Christian Church 212and the non-Christian religions is a lack of faith in the Holy Spirit. With a renewal of this faith we shall be eager to share our testimony to Christ—testimony both of word and deed—in every possible way with the people of other religions, entrusting to the present action of the Holy Spirit the guarding and nurturing of the precious seed.

In all of our homelands, even in all of our home churches, the wheat of Christian faith grows in the field with tares of every ungodly motive and thought. Yet we know that we must be in real and constant communication with our culture in all its depths. As Christians we cannot accept everything in Western culture. Much of it is hedonistic, materialistic, nationalistic, and hateful. All that must be condemned and rejected. But we do not reject all of Western secular culture. We seek to welcome every good element in it and to fulfill its best promise by bringing all into subjection to the lordship of Christ. Whether we are dealing with modern science, literature, industry, government, family life, or religious institutions, whether professedly Christian or not, this is the way of faith in the Triune God. It is He who made all men and is sovereign over all, who informed all creation by the Word of His active meaningful purpose, who disclosed Himself most fully in Jesus the embodiment of His Word, and who is actively seeking, by His loving Spirit, every one of His children everywhere.

His revelation, like all communication, depends on reception by the hearer, as well as on the disclosing by the one who speaks. Both in Christendom and in the non-Christian religions, His disclosure is clouded, distorted, and confused with illusions by the sin and ignorance of men. Yet nowhere has He left Himself without witness and everywhere we need to walk with quiet step and sensitive ear lest we miss some new disclosure of His grace. We must not presume to dictate to God the channel through which that disclosure may come.

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