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The 2007 January/February issue of the Presbyterian Women’s magazine, Horizons, features a new book by Cynthia M. Campbell, President of McCormick Theological Seminary. The book, A Multitude of Blessings: A Christian Approach to Religious Diversity, is highlighted in the section “Pages Worth Turning.” Campbell, like others before her, endeavors to make a case for revelatory and redeeming paths in other religions. To put it another way, the author is not trying to help Christians proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to people of other faiths; instead she is attempting to show Christians that Jesus Christ is not the only way to God.

Campbell uses several approaches in her attempt to prove her point. She looks at what she calls the religious “other” in the Old and then the New Testament. Campbell also “rethinks” the meaning of such direct biblical statements as, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me, (John 14:6)” as well as “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)” She also tries to use the theological understanding of the Trinity to prove that God uses other religions in revelatory and saving ways.

Battling straw men!

Before I look at each of the above approaches Campbell uses in her book, I want to address a particular problem. One of the biggest difficulties I encountered in this book was Campbell’s constant use of straw men that she could easily knock down. In some places Campbell even points out acceptable beliefs by those she disagrees with and then adds something distasteful to their beliefs so she can with righteousness disagree with them. She then knocks down both truth and the distasteful action or belief at the same time.

For example, Campbell writes about those Christians who desire to make many disciples for Jesus Christ. But she colors their desires by insisting that these same Christians who may see other religions as the work of Satan feel they must “limit (or even, perhaps, eliminate) the practice of other religions. . . .” (82) Thus Campbell conjures up some evil to use against those who fervently desire to spread the gospel; she has added that they want to outlaw other religions.

Campbell, having given a definition of exclusivism, a position she disagrees with and defines as Christian orthodoxy, attempts to show that God’s dealing with those outside of the Abrahamic Covenant in the Old Testament invalidates any exclusivism view. Campbell’s references include Egypt during the time of Joseph, Cyrus, used by God to free the Jewish people and send them back to their homeland after exile; Hagar, an Egyptian slave; Zipporah, the wife of Moses; and Ruth. Having named and discussed these, Campbell then writes:

Another group of Old Testament characters appear both before and after the covenants and are regarded as worthy or approved by God, even though they do not know or follow the God of Israel. The book of Hebrews in the New Testament singles out some of them: Abel, whose offering was approved by God; Enoch, so righteous that he was taken up to heaven and escaped death; Noah, whose story we have already considered; and Melchizedek, priest of the ‘Most High God” who blesses Abraham and becomes the model for the priesthood of the Messiah. (31) (Bold mine)

The quote above presents an outrageous quandary. Is Campbell insisting that the God of Israel is not the same God as the God of Noah, or Abel, or Enoch, etc.? Are there two Gods calling and caring for people in the Old Testament? Campbell is seemingly confused and has proven nothing. The same God calls both Israel and others outside of Israel. Sometimes he uses others such as Egypt and Cyrus to protect his people. Sometimes he calls others into relationship with himself, such as Hagar and Ruth, but he is the same God and the relationship is always the same. It is full of compassion, protection, discipline, and care for the time, and it is full of promise for the future which includes the coming of the Savior.

For Campbell, the religious other of the New Testament turns out to be those from other nations who either seek out or are encountered by Jesus. For instance, she names the Roman centurion, the “Canaanite woman who begs Jesus to heal her daughter” and the Samaritan woman at the well. Constantly Campbell moves from discussing how Jesus is not the only way to God to equating that statement with those who are outside of Israel but are found and helped by Jesus Christ. Campbell does not seem to notice that with each of these biblical stories Jesus Christ is never out of the picture. Nowhere in her book has Campbell shown that anyone has come to God outside of the promises made to God’s people in the Old Testament or outside of the fulfillment of those promises in Jesus Christ in the New Testament.

C.S. Lewis put it so well in his book the Silver Chair. Jill sees Aslan the Lion, who is an image of Jesus in the Narnia chronicles. He is sitting by a stream, a wonderful stream, cool and refreshing, and Jill is thirsty. Jill has only heard of Aslan; she does not really know him, and after all, he is a Lion, a majestic lion, and scary. The conversation goes like this:

"Oh dear!” said Jill, coming another step nearer. "I suppose I must go and look for another stream then."

But Campbell insists there are other streams. Under the heading, “Rethinking Familiar Texts,” she rethinks the words of Jesus. Focusing on John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me,” Campbell writes:

The first thing to be said about this passage is that it is a statement about Jesus’ identity, not a statement about other religions. Most often, however, the statement is read to support the claim that if Jesus (and by extension, Christianity) is ‘the way,’ then there are no other ‘ways.’ But that is an extension of the statement and goes beyond what is claimed in the words themselves. The text says what Jesus is; it does not say what anything else is not. (46) (Italics the author's)

Further, referring to the question Thomas asks about where Jesus is going and the way, Campbell writes, “If you think Jesus is talking about a path or some other literal form of journey, no wonder you are confused when he responds, ‘I am the way.’”(47) She goes on to explain that Jesus is modeling, for Christians, the way to go to the Father. That is through suffering and death and resurrection. Campbell is making all kinds of illogical statements and is twisting scripture. Jesus in his statement defines his own meaning. He is the way to the Father, the only way to the Father. Not Krishna, not Mohammad, not Buddha, only Jesus Christ.

Of course Jesus as the way is not a literal path or journey; he is obviously something more than that. Jesus as way, truth and life is our redeeming Lord, our savior, the only begotten God who died for us.

And with some truth, Campbell says his way is suffering, death and resurrection, but it is by our union with him, not because we follow a model, that we experience the suffering and resurrection. Jesus Christ, by his life, death and resurrection, has joined, believers to himself, transforming them, giving them life and bringing them into the presence of the Father. Outside of him there is no way to the Father, no truth, and there can be no life.

Campbell also looks at Acts 4:12, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.” She tries to show that the emphasis in this verse has to do with God’s will to use the name of Jesus to save or heal only at this particular time in this particular culture. Campbell quotes theologian Beverly Gaventa, “’In context, the emphasis falls on God’s gift of salvation rather than on a negation of other religious practice.’”1 Constantly she pushes the idea that since salvation is the work of God it is his choice to use whatever means he desires even other religions.

However, with great contrast, John Calvin gives an exceptional clarification of what Peter has in mind when speaking of the name of Jesus and the choice of God. He writes, “In Christ alone, he [Peter] says, is salvation, for God has so decreed it. For by name he means the cause or means, as if he had said, ‘Since salvation is in God’s power only, He will not have us partakers of it by any other way than that we seek it from Christ alone’”2 (Calvin’s italics). So we see that Jesus Christ, by his death and resurrection is the “cause or means” of our salvation. And it is God the Father who insists that it must be so.

With what must be the ultimate reworking of biblical theology, Campbell tries to make the case that the Trinity mirrors God’s desire that humanity experience diverse ways of being in relationship with God. She asks the question: “Might the idea that God is one and also three suggest that God can be experienced by human beings in markedly different ways and still be the same God?”(75) Campbell uses two different authors to make her point.

S. Mark Hein is one of the authors; he wishes to make a case for other religions and their validity without sacrificing their differences. Campbell points out that Hein focuses on what he calls “religious ends.” Different religions have different ends simply because they “think about God and the human condition in very different ways.” She explains Hein’s attempts at validating his argument.

Campbell writes” He [Hein] argues that the diversity within the being of God opens the way to think about truth and reality in such a way that what appear to be “different truths” may be true simultaneously.”3(77) Campbell uses the incarnation of Christ versus the infiniteness of the Father and the diverse reactions to habitat in nature to back up her and Hein’s argument.

Next she focuses on Jacques Dupuis, a Jesuit. According to Campbell, Dupuis uses the distinctive relationships the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have with creation to posit the possibility of different religions being used by God as a means of salvation.4 In truth, Campbell and the theologians she is using see and use the Trinity as a model for a post-modern reality with different versions of truth operating simultaneously. The truth of who God really is, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, cancels out such a post-modern vision. The Trinity is neither a mechanical nor an organic model with which to understand reality. He is rather a personal God who demands our obedience and who through Jesus Christ alone forgives our disobedience.

After focusing on the Trinity, Campbell throws her version of pluralism into the lap of the Holy Spirit. She writes:

In various ways, these interpretations [about the Trinity] turn on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, who is at one and the same time the Spirit of Jesus Christ and the manifestation of God’s presence in all of life. This way of understanding Christian faith affirms that the Spirit will always do what Christ does—namely, save, heal, or redeem—but that the Spirit will not be limited in accomplishing this work to those who follow Christian faith. . . . (79)

Campbell’s statement that the Spirit is not limited to the Christian faith is not surprising. She has left one clue of where she is going in the midst of her book. When writing about God scattering the people at Babel, Campbell insists that God’s purpose was to create diversity among the people. She calls this a more straightforward reading and writes that “it is actually more consistent with the view of a God who out of God’s own being brought all things into being . . . “(40) In other words, humanity originated from God’s being rather than out of nothing by the spoken word of God.

Campbell’s view that creation came from the being of God is panentheism (God is to creation as the head is to the body) and it often includes the belief that God is somehow manifested in all of creation. As Campbell puts it the Holy Spirit is “the manifestation of God’s presence in all of life.” It is quite different from the biblical theistic view that God is present to all of creation, is with creation but not in or a part of creation.

Often, the Holy Spirit when described by a Panentheist seems somewhat like the chi (life-force) of Buddhism or the prana of Hinduism. And, although Campbell sees the Spirit as personal, her definition of the Spirit sees him operating outside of a biblical Trinitarian view of God. In Campbell’s view, the Holy Spirit aids peoples in their formation of culture as well as creating within humanity diverse ways of connecting with God, which includes other religious systems.

But the biblical view of the Holy Spirit is of one whose singular calling is to lift up Jesus Christ. Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit as the one who glorifies him. “He will glorify me, for he will take of mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are mine; Therefore, I said that he takes of mine and will disclose it to you.” (John 16:14-15). The Holy Spirit does not use other religions to save, heal or redeem humanity.

In the Narnia story I have quoted from above, Jill, in fear of the lion Aslan, asks if he eats girls. Aslan answers, “I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, Kings and emperors, cities and realms.” The author, C.S. Lewis, adds, “It didn’t say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.” The purpose of God is to redeem creation, to adopt sons and daughters, women and men, for his kingdom. With all his love and compassion God sent his Son to die on the cross for this very reason. How sad to reject his offer of redemption. How sad to be troubled at offering it to others.

Diversity in culture and ethnic groups is good and surely a part of God’s creation. Diversity among people, including their gifts and temperament, are also God’s blessing. But Campbell has taken God’s blessing a step too far and turned it into a Christless curse. Because of the fall, without the Lordship of Christ, without his saving power, diversity becomes an ugly mass of peoples competing in the name of a spirituality called self-interest. Nevertheless, Jesus is Lord.

1 Beverly Roberts Gaventa, The Acts of the Apostles, Abingdon New Testament Commentaries (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003), 94.

2 John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries: The Acts of the Apostles 1-13, John W. Fraser & W. J. G. McDonald, trans., David W. Torrance & Thomas F. Torrance, editors, reprint, (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans 19770 ,118.

3 S. Mark Hein, The Depth of the Riches: A Trinitarian Theology of Religious Ends (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001)n.p.

4 Jacques Dupuis, SJ, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism and the Religions: From Confrontation to Dialogue (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002) n.p.