December 2001 Call to Action News

Efroymson: Can Jesus abide other world religions?

Dominus Iesus, the September 2000 Vatican decree from Cardinal Ratzinger that so offended non-Christian world religions, should be taken with a grain of salt, said David Efroymson, theologian emeritus from La Salle University. Vatican II forever laid to rest the "outside the Church no salvation" idea. But just how God works through other world religions is an ongoing debate ever since, he said. The bishops of India in 1989 declared that the plurality of religions comes from the richness of creation and the manifold grace of God. Other world religions are a divine gift. John Paul II himself struck a similar note in Redemptoris Missio in 1992. But through the 1990s Ratzinger became fearful that embracing religious pluralism would slide into relativism. His doctrinal commission excommunicated Sri Lanka's Tissa Balasuriya (though relenting a year later), and put Belgian Jesuit Jacques Dupuis through the wringer for his book, "Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism." It remains the best book written on the subject, Efroymson said. Now American Jesuit Roger Haight is sitting in Cambridge, Mass., forbidden to teach while the commission dissects his book, "Jesus, Symbol of God." The book is Efroymson's choice for the best Christology yet written.

John Paul II's behavior toward non-Christians and their religions is much more accepting than the official Vatican documents that come out with his approval, said Efroymson. But Christians still have a "competitive urge" - Haight's phrase - to assert their religion's unique value. Stumbling blocks in Scripture are passages like Matthew 11: 27: "No one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son reveals him." But bible scholars insist that such sayings of Jesus were put in the written Gospels to respond to real questions then plaguing the recipient community. Matthew 11: 27 was written as part of a fierce polemic by Jews who had embraced Jesus against the other Jews who had not.

Like Roger Karban, Efroymson invoked the Book of Jonah. Jonah the Jew was certain Yahweh's spirit could not be at work among Ninevites. He learned otherwise. Who are we to limit God to our own religion?