All Roads Don’t Lead to Rome, Or to Heaven
I hear it all the time in this Oak Park/River Forest/Forest Park liberal lifestyle enclave. “All religions are basically the same, and they’re all headed to the same place.” Folks who say that are wrong on two counts and right on one.
They are wrong theologically. Compare Buddhism and Christianity, for example. In Buddhism time is cyclical. In Christianity it’s linear. In Buddhism the problem is suffering. In Christianity it’s sin. In Buddhism a person is “saved” by their own effort at gaining enlightenment. God or gods have nothing to do with it. In Christianity people are saved by the death and resurrection of Christ. God does the work. The goal in Buddhism is nirvana, a concept which is hard for my Western mind to grasp, a kind of self-consciousless state. In Christianity the goal is the resurrection of the body and eternal life.
Those who promote a kind of universalist pluralism are also wrong in terms of how the vast majority of people who devoutly practice their religion think. In Thailand, Buddhists respect the work Christians have done in their country very much, but after almost 200 years of missionary work, only 1% of the population is Christian. They’ve more or less said thank you for your help, but we just don’t buy the way you answer the big questions about life. Our way is the truth.
One Evangelical Christian who spends a lot of time in the Middle East told me that Muslims there respect him, not because they agree with him but because at least he takes his religion seriously enough to think it is the truth. They can relate to that spiritual posture if not the content.
Pluralists are right on one thing–ethics. In terms of what the major world religions teach about day to day getting along with the neighbor, there is an amazing overlap in teaching. They all promote some form of the golden rule as a guide for treating the people around us.
In terms of getting along with people who are different in an increasingly diverse society, that’s all that is necessary. To say that all the religions are the same and that all spiritual roads lead to the same place is not only wrong, it’s unnecessary.
The Buddhists I know would never say that they’ll see me in heaven one day, because they don’t believe there is such a place. Our two spiritual paths go in different directions. For the short time we’re together in one place, however, we get along fine, because our two belief systems teach pretty much the same thing as far as day to day getting along with one’s neighbor.
