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The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church (2004), in paragraph 104, “Reason,” has:
…, our theological task is informed by the experience of the church and by the common experiences of all humanity. In our attempts to understand the biblical message, we recognize that God’s gift of liberating love embraces the whole of creation. (emphasis mine)
In regard to the vitality of engaging other religious traditions, the Discipline sets forth, in paragraph 104, “Ecumenical Commitment”:
…, we have entered into serious interfaith encounters and explorations between Christians and adherents of other living faiths of the world. … Such encounters require us to reflect anew on our faith and to seek guidance for our witness among neighbors of other faiths. We then discover that God who has acted in Jesus Christ for the salvation of the whole world is also the Creator of all humankind, that One who is “above all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4.6).
However, still, a problem is making literal statements as implying or affirming that Jesus Christ is confined only to those who have a rational acknowledgment of Jesus Christ. Rather, faith in Jesus Christ, being the Universal Christ Presence, transcending culture and faith tradition, transcending all, does not rely on intellectual affirmation, though such can open, or may not, to living faith. Rather, for example, as I point out in this article, to be in Love, means to be “in Christ,” for only Love is “in Christ”: for God is Love. This Love, then, is not reliant on intellectual affirmation, though it might lead to or lead out from such mental signification.
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“Signification” is the key. For “in Christ” is the Living sign of a Reality, pointed by but not reduced to a historical manifestation in time. Thus, Jesus Christ opens to an Infinite Fact, to which we are each and all accountable. Therefore, to this historical Fact we point, but we do not reduce faith to the historical itself, nor do we exclude from being “in Christ” persons who are “in Christ” outside a particular faith tradition. Even as a contemplative Buddhist does not reduce “Buddha nature” to the historical Buddha or to only those who intellectually affirm allegiance to Buddhist teaching or practice.
This statement on inclusiveness, in the above Discipline is, essentially, a contemplative affirmation of faith. And, thereby, as a United Methodist Elder, I am seeking to maximize this opportunity to allow other faiths to inform Christian faith and, likewise, allow a mutual, compassionate transformation of Christian faith traditions to occur. Not a transformation that would entail a compromise of elements that do differ, but a transformation that entails seeing the contemplative intersections and likeness at places that would otherwise appear to be irreconcilable, and are when approached only from a rational ontology.
Therefore, this writing, like many of my writings, is a commentary or sign of my own engaging with Truth. This engagement is a seeking to allow understanding of Christ, as Signification, to entail an embrace that transcends rational theology. This leads to seeing “in Christ” to include all those who have realized what that means, and often through systems of religion, ideology, and practice that differ much from my own Christian faith, at least in relative details.
I share a Scriptural support for this methodology, which is not a defense of Christian faith, but a witness of Christian faith through exploring and sharing its contemplative depth of meaning and significance:
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