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Walter Wangerin in his beautiful book about marriage, As for Me & My House,uses a poem by William Blake in order to speak of the destroying damage adultery causes to marriage. The poem is about a rose infested with a worm:

         O Rose, thou art sick!
         The invisible worm
         That flies in the night,
         In the howling storm, 
         Has found out thy bed
         Of crimson joy,
         And his dark secret love
         Does thy life destroy.

Wangerin writes of the worm as the “attitude of self-centeredness,” explaining that within the relationship, “His will has authority. Her ‘good’ is best for both.” Likewise, the leadership of Presbyterian Women and the Editors of Horizons magazine are infested with the worm that leads to unfaithfulness. In fact, they have allowed their self-centeredness, or in this case their self-interest, to place their destroying worm right in the middle of some good articles on how to study the Bible.

This issue of Horizons, May/June 2007, entitled, “Bible 101,” could have been so helpful to all those Presbyterian women who study the Bible in their local circles. Instead right in the midst of the magazine is an article, “Exclusivism, Inclusivism or Pluralism?”, that denies the Lordship of Jesus Christ, thus destroying the most basic reason for any Christian’s study of the Scriptures.

The article is a selection from the textbook, Faith, Religion and Theology, by Brennan Hill, Paul Knitter and William Madges. The article begins with an explanation of the term exclusivist.  The authors write that it is the traditional view and that it was prevalent from the “fourth to the seventeenth centuries.” Their definition: “It [the concept of exclusivism] viewed Jesus as the one and only Savior and the Christian church as the one and only true religion.” (24)

This is of course confusing because the authors have mixed the early Catholic doctrine of no salvation outside of the Church with the biblical teaching that there is no salvation outside of Jesus Christ. This allows them to rework the meaning of the exclusive claims of the Bible in the latter part of their article.

If one divides the biblical claim of Jesus as the only unique way to the Father from the later claim by the Church that there is no salvation outside of the church the authors’ time table changes. Furthermore that change is by thousands of years. Rather than exclusivism beginning in the fourth century it can biblically be held to begin in the midst of the Trinity at the foundation of the world. (Eph 1: 3-5; Rev 13: 8)

The next definition the authors give is for inclusivism. After explaining that “while it [inclusivism] holds to Jesus as the only…way of finding salvation, it believes that the saving presence of Jesus and his Spirit can operate beyond the visible church and can be found in other religions, even though adherents to those religions do not recognize it,” the authors opine that this leads back to a kind of exclusivism. They write, “So, while this model affirms the presence of God in all religions, it insists that this presence is found fully and finally only in Jesus.”

Finally, and for the rest of the article, the authors explain and lift up pluralism. They write that pluralist theologians believe that while Jesus is unique they also believe that there is the “possibility that Jesus may not be the only Savior for all persons.”  Further, such theologians “want to recognize the possibility that God may be working in and through other religions and religious figures in a way similar to God’s working in Jesus and Christianity.” This leads to a redefinition of Jesus’ view of himself as well as the early church’s view of him.

The authors explain that Jesus was directing others to the ‘kingdom of God’ but not to himself. For that reason, he was lifting up the kingdom but was not lifting up his own person. The authors also insist that the early church shifted the focus to Jesus because “they felt that preaching about Jesus was the best way to work for the kingdom.” They claim that while the disciples were “Jesus Centered,” Jesus was “’kingdom centered.’”  Subsequently, the authors attempt to reinterpret the biblical verses that would contradict their own pluralistic statements about Jesus.

The verses they refer to are first of all pulled out of context. They write, “And yet we also have powerful statements in the Bible that do use the word or idea only when speaking of Jesus: ‘only begotten Son of God…No other name…only mediator between God and humanity…once and for all…’” Neither writing out the whole verse nor referencing them, the authors are able to suggest that this “is a special kind of language….” They claim it is devotional language and is not meant to be taken literally.

Therefore, the authors insist that exclusive biblical language “was to extol Jesus as the presence of God, not to exclude or put down other people in whom God might also be present.” The authors name Buddha and Muhammad as two persons Christians might be putting down if they take the biblical terminology literally. All of these conjectures, redefinitions and reinterpretations require some sorting out.

First it will not do to tear the words of Jesus apart from the words of his disciples. Jesus was not extolling just the kingdom of God while the disciples were merely extolling him. All the words of Scripture are inspired by God. (2 Tim 3:16-17).  As the authors of the “Westminster Confession of Faith” put it, “The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man or church, but wholly upon God (who is truth itself), the author thereof; and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God.” (6.004); see also, “The Second Helvetic Confession,” 5.010.

Secondly, the Kingdom does not exist without a King and in the three Gospels where Pilate asks Jesus about his Kingship, Jesus answers in the affirmative.  But his kingship was invested with so much more than that of earthly kings. Jesus was the suffering King as he is the compassionate Lord. As the suffering King and the compassionate Lord, Jesus most certainly points to himself.

 In the Gospels, Matthew and Mark, where Jesus certainly speaks continuously of the kingdom, he also often refers to himself as the Son of Man equating himself with  the “One like a Son of Man,” in the book of Daniel. In the Daniel reference the kingly and glorious position of Jesus Christ is revealed:

Third, the Bible verses which speak of the uniqueness of Jesus, but which the authors of “Faith, Religion and Theology insist must not be taken in a literal manner, are certainly better understood in their context. The authors’ insistence that these are merely devotional terms is unwarranted. 

For instance, “Peter’s retort that, “there is no one else; for there is salvation in no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12,” was made at a time when both John and he had been in prison and were giving testimony before the Jewish rulers. The statement is not devotional but apologetic, that is, it is Peter’s defense of the faith.

Another instance is Paul’s exhortation to Timothy, “For there is One God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time, (1 Tim 2: 5-6).” This statement is the answer to why believers should constantly pray for rulers and peace, because God desires the salvation of humanity. (2:1-4) Paul is also giving a defense of his ministry to the Gentiles. He writes that for this very reason he was “appointed” an apostle and teacher. This is not Paul’s devotional but rather his mentoring and training of a young pastor.

Finally, the authors make reference to God’s presence in other religious leaders such as Jesus and imply that to hold an exclusive view is to be abusive to those other leaders. But those who belong to Jesus Christ make a distinction that undoubtedly the authors do not. Jesus is God come in the flesh. He is the unique incarnation, the second person of the Trinity. To deny this is to be apostate. It is not a matter of abuse at all; it is a matter of faithfulness.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ministering as a teaching pastor at a seminary of the Confessing Church during some of the most oppressive years of Nazi rule, preached a sermon entitled “Who and What is Babylon?.” Some of his words are:

The gospel remains. It is an eternal gospel, our gospel, which we hear, read and preach, Sunday by Sunday, the gospel that once changed our lives, when we understood it for the first time. By many mocked and derided, and thrown into the dust. Yet, hidden and dearly loved, confessed by martyrs through the ages, by confessors and unnumbered souls. The gospel remains through all eternity. We need not fear or trouble ourselves with the thought it might, as it seems today, be abandoned. What are ten years or even more of our experience or observations? The gospel is eternal and remains despite everything. It remains the one and only true proclamation of God and his lordship over the world.1

Bonhoeffer was faithful during a time of apostasy. His faithfulness was unto death.  

The authors of the article “Exclusivism, Inclusivism or Pluralism?” at least at the end of their piece make the statement, “Whether this pluralist model is an acceptable Christian model and whether Christians can understand the uniqueness of Jesus differently than they have in the past are questions that still have to be decided.” Not so for the Presbyterian Women leadership and Editors of Horizons.

When introducing the article in the content section of Horizons the Editors write, “A helpful look at what early Christians meant when they declared Jesus as their Savior …” Faithful Christians should take note; to be a martyr in the early church meant to be a witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. The words are the same.

May Christian women in the Presbyterian Church USA be a witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and therefore a witness against the unfaithfulness of Presbyterian Women and their magazine Horizons. In fact, may those members of the General Assembly Council who are also called to be witnesses to Jesus Christ, and are bound together with PW by a covenant which grants autonomy to PW and their publications, be witnesses against the unfaithfulness of Presbyterian Women and Horizons.2