Is Jesus the only way to God?

Note: The theme for today, Monday, July 28, is "Engaging with a multi-faith world: the bishop, Christian witness, and other faiths." This is what I wrote for today's Lambeth Witness.

Is Jesus the only way to God?

That’s the question I hear behind today’s theme, “Engaging with a multi-faith world: the bishop, Christian witness, and other faiths.”

It’s an important question to ask in the midst of the multicultural and pluralistic reality of our post-modern lives. It’s a daunting task to try and accomplish in less than 400 words.

My particular perspective is that of a woman who is a mother and grandmother. I am also a priest who has the privilege of ordained leadership in my community of faith as well as one of several religious leaders in the wider, religious and cultural community of the highly pluralistic Northeast Corridor of the United States where I call home.

I claim my gender and place in my family first not because I value it any more or less than my priesthood; rather I believe that being a woman and a parent and grandparent influences the way in which I serve and lead in the church, my family of God, as well as colors the way in which I function in the human family. That clergy sometimes use the title, “Father” or “Mother” is not coincidental.

Parents, good parents anyway, seek to help their children become who they are as individuals who gain their identity, in part, because of their relationship with the various individual members of their family.

The South African idea of “Ubuntu” – “I am because you are,” as articulated by Desmond Tutu has deep resonance with the Western European idea of “I and Thou,” as articulated by Martin Buber.

In the family systems theory of Murray Bowen as applied to parish families by Edwin Friedman, this process of developing authentic identity in the midst of others is known as ‘self-differentiation.’

We are Christian not only because of our relationship with Jesus, but because we know the Christ in ourselves and as revealed in relationships with others. In our baptismal covenant in the church in the USA, we promise to see Christ in all peoples – without stipulation to their particular religious affiliation.

If we fail to see the Christ in Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Taoists, Hindi, and others, it is not the fault of their faith, but of how we are living into our faith.

Is Jesus the only way to God?

Someone once asked the great Louis Armstrong, “Pops, what is Jazz?”

The Great Satchmo laughed and said, “Man, if you gotta ask, you’ll never know,”