The Christian in a Culture of Religious Pluralism

In the October, 2002, edition of the Concordia Journal, Professor Richard Warneck offers the opinion that the situation involving Dr. David Benke and the Yankee Stadium Prayer for America should be dealt with from Scripture. He is right! But what if the Scripture does not speak directly to a situation. Warneck correctly states the following, "When the Word of God does not speak about a situation with laser-like directness, Lutheran pastors move back a step or two to the immediate circle of clear speaking … within this immediate circle … will be found the norms and principles yielding sound theological judgments, responsible decisions, and right actions."

Let us consider from Scripture the directions given by the Apostle Paul to Christians living within a culture of religious pluralism and apply it to the present situation regarding Dr. David Benke offering a prayer at Yankee Stadium in the midst of Jews, Muslims, and Hindus.

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What is this country coming to? The time was when there were only two groups of people in America – Christians and Jews. You either had to be one or the other. If you were not a Jew, you had to be a Christian. If you were a Christian, you were either a Protestant or Catholic. Being Protestant meant that you were neither a Jew nor a Catholic and you only went to church on Christmas and Easter. Those days are gone forever. I remember beginning each day with the Lord's Prayer in a public school in New York. I immediately knew who the Catholics were – they said "Amen" after "evil." The Protestants added the doxology and the Jewish kids just sat there.

Those who fight for prayer in public schools today and believe that the type of prayer offered in the classroom should represent the majority religious belief of the specific community might hope that they don't live in Detroit. They may be forced to go to Walmart and buy little Johnny a "prayer carpet" so he can kneel and face the East.

Following the atrocities of September 11^th, the President of the United States held a memorial service in the National Cathedral. It certainly did not appear to be a service representing the religiosity of the good ol' U.S. of A. There were Jewish rabbis, Muslim clerics, together with Christian clergy, including Billy Graham, and a female Episcopalian priest presiding over the entire event.

On September 23^rd, the Mayor of New York called for a Prayer for America at Yankee Stadium. Together with the Christian clergy, the Muslim clerics, and the Jewish Rabbis, a Hindu and a Sikh were tossed into the mix. None other that America's New Age spiritual guru Oprah Winfrey hosted this religious hodgepodge.

How are we Christians, especially within the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, to function within such pluralism?

There is no doubt that Christian Church today is rapidly finding itself in the midst of a culture similar to that which confronted the First Century Christians. In addition to having to deal with the opposition of the Jewish synagogue, the first century believers found themselves in the midst of a plethora of Roman deities. The pagans prayed and made sacrifices to gods for overall protection, and believed that each deity looked after a particular aspect of life. People prayed to Venus for success in love and beauty, and to Mars for success in war. Jupiter was King of the gods and of thunder and lightening, and his wife and sister Juno was Goddess of women and childbirth. Mercury was Jupiter's messenger and God of trade and thieves. Minerva was Goddess of wisdom, crafts, and war. Bacchus was God of wine, and Neptune was God of the sea.

The Epistles of Paul have much to say about the relationship between Christians and practitioners of non-Christian religions. The Apostle addresses the issue on two fronts: the Church and the civic community, or as Martin Luther defined, the Kingdom of Grace and the Kingdom of Power.

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The crucial issue that drives the Apostle's teaching on the relationship between Christians and their pagan neighbors is the objective reconciliation of the entire world of sinners in Christ Jesus. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:19-20:

God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.

Whereas in the Old Testament, the worshippers of false gods were the enemies of the true God and were put to the sword and driven from the land, in the New Testament, God's people are not prophets of doom and destruction by ambassadors of God's grace and reconciliation in Christ Jesus. The message of reconciliation has been committed to the Church. God's people share that message and live out the implications of their reconciliation with God. In assessing the Yankee Stadium event, many have applied Old Testament references thereby ignoring or rejecting the objective reconciliation of the entire world of sinners – Jews, Muslims and Hindus alike.

Since the message has been committed to the Church, a clean break and separation must take place in the church between the Christians and the paganism in which they once walked. The Apostle Paul clearly demanded that pagan worship and practices must never be mixed into the worship of the true God within the community of believers. In 2 Corinthians 6:14 he writes,

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God.

In the church, the preservation and purity of the Gospel of reconciliation in Christ Jesus was at stake and that Gospel could easily be polluted by pagan influences. The separation must be complete and strictly observed. The Christian cannot worship idols and take part in pagan rituals and gather around the Lord's Table. He writes in 1 Corinthians 10:14-22

Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf. Consider the people of Israel: Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar? Do I mean then that a sacrifice offered to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord's table and the table of demons. Are we trying to arouse the Lord's jealousy? Are we stronger than he?

When it came to the relationship between Christians and pagans outside the Church in the civil realm, the position of the Apostle Paul was just the opposite. It is here that the Christians are the ambassadors of God's reconciliation of the entire world of sinner in Christ Jesus. The issue is no longer perversion and pollution but witness and opportunity.

The closest human relationship is the marriage relationship. If a man became a Christian and was married to a pagan wife, the Apostle was not concerned that the unbeliever would pollute the Christian mate. Pollution was not the issue. The opposite was true. The Christian "sanctifies" the unbeliever. We read in 1 Corinthians 7: 12-14:

If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.

This is a very important reference. The separatist Anabaptists of the 16^th century taught, contrary to Scripture, that difference in faith is sufficient ground for married people to divorce each other. (Tappert 634:15) Consistent with their position, they also considered human government to be evil and required Christians to avoid participation in government.

Obviously, in the husband/wife relationship, the pagan husband or wife would not be permitted to join his or her mate around the Lord's Table since it would bring pollution, but would it be permissible and even desirable for the Christian husband or wife to offer prayer within the home in the civil context of marriage in the presence of his or her pagan mate? Within the civil realm, the Christian "sanctifies" the unbeliever.

While within the church the issue of perverting the truth of the Gospel was very real and separating from paganism was necessary, when it came to the functioning of the Christian within the civic community, the Apostle's perspective was totally different. Paul was most certainly not a separatist. He could not be accused of promoting Monasticism or being an Anabaptist.

The Apostle writes in 1 Corinthians 5:9-12:

I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people-- not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?

Christians, according to the Apostle, should have nothing to do with those who claim to be brothers in Christ yet are immoral, or greedy, or idolaters, or dishonest, or drunkards, or slanderers. Since their actions deny the very reconciliation they claim to accept, Christians should not associate with them nor sit down and have table fellowship with them. Here it is proper to pass judgment. While this is probably not a reference to the Lord's Supper, yet within the First Century Church, the Lord's Supper was set into the context of table fellowship.

Amazingly, this avoidance of table fellowship within the Church does not apply to pagans and unbelievers outside the Church, even if the food being served may have been offered to the Roman idols. Paul says, "What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church?" There is, according to the Apostle, a major difference between mixing idol worship and idol feasts with the Lord's Table and eating at the table of an idol worshipper. One action is a syncretism in the Church and pollutes the Lord's Table; the other is in the civic community and provides an opportunity to witness. It is clearly contrary to Scripture to apply fellowship principles governing the life of the Church to the manner in which a Christian functions in the civic community.

The Apostle writes in 1 Corinthians 10:27:

If some unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience. But if anyone says to you, "This has been offered in sacrifice," then do not eat it, both for the sake of the man who told you and for conscience' sake-- the other man's conscience, I mean, not yours. For why should my freedom be judged by another's conscience? If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for?

If the Christian chooses to accept an invitation to "break bread" in the homes of pagans they should have no fear but eat what is set before them, even though the food may have been offered to pagan idols, unless a weaker Christian is present who may stumble and lose their faith. The Apostle encourages the Christian to even thank God for that food – perhaps even as a prayer spoken in the presence of the pagans. The Apostle taught that the Word of God and prayer sanctified the food offered in the pagan temples. In 1 Timothy 4:4,5, he writes:

For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the Word of God and prayer.

For the Christian to be interacting with pagans and unbelievers within the civil realm was a matter of Christian freedom, but the Christian must walk carefully. Weaker Christians who were converted out of paganism might observe another Christian interacting with pagans and those who acknowledge other gods and think that the Christian is giving credibility to the false gods. In response to this concern, the Apostle Paul makes it clear that there is only one God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He writes in 1 Corinthians 8:4-13:

So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one. For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many "gods" and many "lords"), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live. But not everyone knows this. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat such food they think of it as having been sacrificed to an idol, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled. But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do. Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone with a weak conscience sees you who have this knowledge eating in an idol's temple, won't he be emboldened to eat what has been sacrificed to idols? So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall.

So while there is no doubt that a stronger Christian has an obligation not to abuse the conscience of a weaker Christian who had previously been involved in paganism and cause that weaker Christian to lose faith, the weaker Christian must be called to grow and to recognize that there are no other gods but the true God. The Apostle Paul does not condemn the man who is actually "reclining at a table" (katakeimenon) in a pagan temple. It is an issue of Christian freedom. Can you imagine the uproar in the church today if a Christian pastor was seen "reclining," breaking bread and having table fellowship in a pagan temple? Perhaps this is merely indicative of the level of faith, freedom, and understanding that exists in the church today.

The Christian interacting in the midst of a pagan culture should use much wisdom and seek the "kairos" moment to share the Gospel and speak of the Lord Jesus. In Colossians 4:5-6 Paul writes:

Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

The manner in which the Christian confronts the "outsider" is vital. There are specific "kairos moments" (opportunity) in which the Christian is given the chance to speak truth. In so doing, the Christian's words should be winsome and filled with grace so that the unbeliever will ask questions. This same approach to confronting the unbeliever is confirmed by the Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 3:15"

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.

In the midst of the pagan community, the Christian is to always function with integrity. The Apostle writes in 2 Corinthians 4:1:

Therefore, since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

On the one hand, the Christian should not use deceptive measures in confronting the unbeliever with the truth. On the other hand, the Christian should not water-down the truth in order to appeal to the unbeliever.

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Application

1) It is a misapplication of Scripture to apply the Old Testament condemnation of worshippers of false gods to the relationship between Christians and unbelievers in the New Testament. Christians are not prophets of doom but ambassadors of reconciliation.

2) In the teachings of the Apostle Paul, if one does not distinguish the difference between the actions of a Christian in the Church and a Christian in the community, his teachings make no sense. How can a Christian be forbidden to have fellowship with pagans (2 Corinthians 6:14ff.) and be free to have dinner at the home of a pagan (1 Corinthians 10:27) or "recline at table" in a pagan temple (1 Corinthians 8:4ff.)?

3) Those accusing Dr. Benke have stated that he acknowledged other gods. One accuser wondered to which god he was praying? According to the Apostle Paul, there are no other gods. There is only one God – the Father of our Lord Jesus. For Dr. Benke to violate the First Commandment at Yankee Stadium he would have had to bow down to an idol or make a false god out of wood or stone and worship the same. He no more violated the First Commandment then the Christian who has supper in the home of a pagan and thanks God for the food set before him violates the First Commandment, even if the food had been offered to pagan gods in a pagan temple.

4) In accepting the opportunity to participate at Yankee Stadium, Dr. Benke did everything Scripture required of him. He was winsome and his speech was full of grace. He was not deceptive in saying more than he was invited to say. He did not water down the Word of God as others did but clearly prayed in Jesus' name.

Pastor Don Matzat
Zion Lutheran Church
Bridgeville, PA

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