Mission Impossible⤒🔗

Of course, it is impossible to cover three religions and their interrelationships in one article. Passing on information about them alone would take up more space than we have. Therefore, I will have to limit myself. First, a few introductory notes.

We must beware lest we generalize. Islam as such does not exist. Within Islam there are all kinds of movements, differing schools, and varying cultural influences. Besides, every Muslim (every person) is again different from every other.

Imagine for a moment that in Indonesia a Muslim were to give a lecture on THE Christian faith and that he would base his views on Christianity on what he knows about the Reverend Ian Paisley. Or, for that matter, on what he has gleaned from Prime Minister Lubbers, who, as you may know, is also a Christian.

A person is more than his religion. There are several hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Holland, but as soon as you meet one, you meet a person. You meet a person who is married, who works or is unemployed, who is a Muslim who comes from Turkey, or whatever.

There is a growing body of information available, especially about Islam (even adapted to the local language), spoken or written by Muslims. There is an Islamic Radio Service. Don't stick to only this one article! Read, look around, and seek contact.¹

I intend to draw a few sketches based on the question: are all religions (about) the same? I give grateful acknowledgement especially to J. Verkuyl, Are all religions the same? and J.H. Bavinck, Religious sense and Christian faith.²

One more limitation has to do with the author. I am a minister of the gospel. That means I have studied theology, and not religious sciences or Islamic knowledge. The only difference is that as an evangelist among Hindustani and Pakistani I have some experience.

Your Choice: Four Paths←⤒🔗

I will take my starting point in the four pathways within the Hindu faith — roads that are declared passable in the pursuit of one's destiny. Generally speaking, in Hindu faith the aim is to reach unity with God (or rather, unity with the divine).

In line with true Hindu thinking, this objective can be reached by travelling along several paths. The idea of these different ways implies that you may choose, in accordance with your own abilities and preference, which one you prefer. But that clearly indicates that in this, as in many other religions, there is a case made for self-deliverance. People choose for a road towards redemption — a way of one's own choice. You opt for the way which is best attainable in your personal circumstances. In discussions with Hindus, they will always return to the imagery of the different paths that end up at the same goal. I heard someone use the example of all the streetcars and bus lines in Rotterdam and how they all converge on the Central Station. You will notice, by the way, that those four pathways are found back in all kinds of religions, including Islam, and even in so-called Christianity.

The First Path: Knowledge←⤒🔗

In this context, intellectual knowledge is not meant, but rather intuitive, speculative and mystical knowledge. Especially among the Hindu philosophers, this roadway is highly acclaimed. You are to discover your unity with God, or rather, with the divine. There is a primeval divine power, Brahman, without attributes, exalted above all contradictions. Somehow, this one Brahman reconstitutes himself as a multiplicity. Thus, the world (the worlds) originates from him, like a web originates from a spider. To this applies, in a very special way: “from him, and through him, and unto him are all things.” There is an eternal flow coming from and streaming towards Brahman. Hindus prefer to use the metaphor of the ocean, where all waters somehow end up. It may evaporate and be blown away, but it always comes back. And wherever you find water, it is always the same water with the same origin and the same destiny.

In this system of thought, the essence of every living being comes directly from Brahman, like a spark comes from the fire of which it is an essential part. Via the path of mystical knowledge you must discern that that essence of yourself is one with the divine origin. Thus, you work your own salvation. This takes the path of dispossession, the shedding of outward things, the non-real ones. Helpful for this purpose are ascetics and different kinds of yoga. Once you have reached "it" (namely, the realization of this unity), the experience is beyond words. Presently we find a strong influence of this thinking in the New Age movement.

Within this system there is also a place for Jesus. He is the example of the perfect man, who has realized that unity with God, which is why He says, “I and the Father are One.” Therein He is our example, the helper and trailblazer, going before us on the path where we make for ourselves that same discovery: I and the Father are one.³ People who follow this path exclusively are not at all interested in the world and their neighbours. Theirs is the ultimate ego-trip.

This type of mysticism is also found among Christians. In Islam you will find it among the Sufis. You will note that these things relate to an entire vision answering the following basic questions: Who is God? What is man? What is our essential problem? What is deliverance?

The Path of Works←⤒🔗

The second path is the one of works: to do your duty, to satisfy God. In that way you will gradually climb up the ladder and elevate yourself from good to better, and from there to best. Think of the young man who asks Jesus, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” This was typically someone who thinks in dimensions of good-better-best, whereby it is assumed that all of this is within our reach. But hear then the answer of our Lord: “No one is good but God alone.”

You will find this, too, as one of the paths of Hinduism: to fulfil your duties in accordance with the demands of your caste. Follow your dharma. More than the previous path, this one prescribes what you must perform within society. In the Bhagavad Gita, one of the holiest books for the Hindus, Krishna admonishes Arjuna: “Even though you dread having to fight the war, do your duty. You are, after all, army leader. Be no coward. Act in accordance with your responsibility!”

Within Hinduism you will find the conviction that this path of works is to be followed only up to a certain age in our life. When you have grown older (and you have earned enough for yourself and your family), you could opt for the direction that was mentioned first. Within Hinduism (and more recently, also more and more outside it) we find the belief in reincarnation: that after death the soul searches for a new body, so that again it can spend a certain time on earth. One who proceeds on the path of works is thereby building up towards a better reincarnation in a future life.⁴

Islam is based on five pillars, which quite markedly represent the duties of man: the (audible) confession of faith, prayer, alms for the poor, the month of fasting, and the pilgrimage.

Man must fulfil his obligations toward God and the neighbour, and God the merciful, the forgiving, will take all these works into account when he decides whether or not to admit you into paradise. In this faith, man is deemed capable of doing good unto the end. He needs a good example, and good reliable road signs: the prophets. Isa, Jesus, for example, is such a prophet.

Within Christianity a man like Luther ran obviously stuck when he tried to proceed on that same road.

We must not regard this second path (of works) as if it invariably prescribes a heartless and hopeless servitude, reducing man to a slave who goes his way with tears and much sighing; or, on the other hand, a haughty way of pride and vanity where magnificent achievements are noted and recorded. The second and the third paths are often combined. I have met Muslims and Hindus who fondly speak of their love of God and of their gratitude. They are proud of their religion. They are heartily grateful for it.

The Path of Love and Surrender←⤒🔗

This third road is most interesting to us, Christians of the Reformation. For us too, love is obviously the core: love and faith, surrender to the grace and goodness of God.

The following is an interesting detail (Verkuyl): When Xaverius, the Roman Catholic missionary in Japan, came into contact with Buddhism, where this path is also followed (deliverance through surrender), he wrote home that even in Japan there were traces of Luther's heresy!

With all this outward similarity there are, however, deep and fundamental differences. Renunciation, called “bhakti” in Hindu faith, functions entirely different from our faith and surrender to the grace of God in Christ. That is always an important question: how do (outwardly similar) aspects function? Bhakti shows us the road we must go to acquire deliverance. But the question remains: deliverance of what? What is the problem from which we seek deliverance? What are we striving for?

In Hindu philosophy, the greatest problem calling for a solution is our lack of knowledge and our blindness: believing that we are somebody, a separate personality; imagining that our body and our soul are realities; and forgetting that the only reality that counts is Brahman (of whom our own “self” is a part). Therefore, sin is not in the first place the breaking up of the relationship with the holy God through a gainsaying rebellion against his holy will, but rather our attachment to the outward world as though this were the real one. Hindus often pray, “Lead us from what is unreal towards reality.” For them, God's holiness consists of exaltation, his untouchable peace, his serenity — and to that level we must climb up.

You achieve this by renunciation, by offering a lovely flower, by reciting a name, by experiencing a sense of love.

Krishna's ideal in the Bhagavad Gita is that you do your duty (the path of works) but without any attachment, and in so doing surrender to him. This is the combination of the second and third paths — the one of works, and the other of love/surrender.

To portray the similarity as well as the difference, we could use the image of the axle. The wheels look like each other — love, devotion, death of the ego, atonement, trust, renunciation — but they turn around different axles. Thus equipped, it is impossible to launch a cart – you would never stay on track!⁵

Emphasis is placed on the grace of God to which we must entrust ourselves, but deliverance is in fact more present in the renunciation itself as a psychic process of detachment than in the grace of God which saves us apart from ourselves.

Note how much this third path has in common with the second, and especially the first one. Bhakti, renunciation, is in fact itself a “work” — an activity through which we acquire deliverance.

The Path of Rituals and Magic←⤒🔗

On this fourth path, men attempt to master powers which they believe are divine (or in any case, superhuman), for their own profit. In this corner belongs occultism. In popular Islam, people visit a Pir, a holy man who has supernatural powers at his disposal. (Christians in Islamic countries have been known to honour the Pirs as well). This opens the door to the thoroughly religious world of sorcery, soothsaying, superstition, and in general, faith in outward rituals. (In this respect it is again close to the second path, with, among your duties, also the performing of the rites that are expected from you.)

Again, this path is, alas, not foreign to Christianity. Think of the adoration of images, idolatry with the water of baptism or the bread of the Lord's Supper, magic use of the cross or the crucifix, manipulations with faith healing. It is unfortunately not always easy to distinguish symbolism from superstition.⁶

Christianity and Christ←⤒🔗

I have already pointed out that all those paths on which people travel in order to find salvation (or to improve themselves) are found back among Christian practice. In our contact with Muslims and Hindus we must keep well in mind that they too will notice that! But then we should make it clear that those are derailments which, in the light of the Scriptures, must be denounced. Exactly therein we find such an effective illustration of how deeply human, and humanistic, it is always and again to attempt to climb up by ourselves to a level acceptable before God. All men, Christians included, are guilty of trying that.

But then, the core of the Christian faith is this: that God calls us away from ourselves to put our trust in Christ. The very heart of the Christian faith is the Christ. And it is very important that Christ be defined and described in his qualities. Only mentioning the name Jesus is not enough, since both Islam and Hinduism have a place for Jesus, in a certain way.

Jesus, the Muslim’s Great Prophet←⤒🔗

Let me say something about the place of Jesus in Islam. As you may know, the Koran gives Jesus a place of major importance. He is the great prophet. Born of the virgin Mary, he performed miracles, he healed, he raised the dead. As a baby in the cradle, he spoke already. He made a bird of clay and, with God's permission, blew his breath into it so that it became a bird and flew away. All kinds of honourable names are ascribed to Jesus: Messiah, the Prophet, Word, and Spirit. Jesus was taken up into heaven without having to die. He is a prophet without sin. Muslims sometimes ask me, “We believe in Jesus, so why don't you believe in Mohammed with us?”

Although the Muslims give Jesus the name “Al Masih,” this title does not have the depth and the meaning of the Christian confession of faith when we say, “He is the Messiah, the Christ.” Muslims believe that God has given the Injil to Jesus, a holy book (the gospel), but they do not accept that Jesus himself is the fulfillment of that gospel, yes, of the entire Word of God. And that is exactly the core of our faith in Christ (“you are the Christ, the Son of the living God”). That also is what is absent in Islam.

As you may know, it is exactly with reference to the fact that Jesus was the great prophet of God that his death (and resurrection) is denied. Someone else must have hung on the cross in his stead. Although this denial of his death on the cross is the result of sympathy for him (like Peter about the suffering: “God forbid”), we must insist that this shows more concern about the sensitivities of man than for the government of all things by God (Matthew 16). The necessity of the cross because of the power of sin and because of the holiness of God are not recognized.

Thus we must conclude that the doctrine of sin (original sin) constitutes an essential difference between Islam and Christianity. It may seem to be an unimportant part of doctrine, but everything connects to it. What kind of a deliverer do we need: a prophet who SHOWS the way, or One who says, “I AM the way?” Someone who acts as an example for us, or one who takes our place and takes our guilt upon himself in total holiness? Does it suffice that he is a prophet, or must he also be priest? And what priest would qualify for this reconciliation with God the holy One – someone from among men, or only the Son of God (Hebrews).

Therefore, when we say Jesus is the difference between the Christian faith and all other religions, we are not specific enough. At stake is the confession of THE Christ, the Son of the living God, who at the cross repudiates every attempt by us to climb up to God.

For many Hindus Jesus is the Coming down of God←⤒🔗

Also in the faith of the Hindus there is a place for a Jesus. In Hindu faith the views of the  avatars are noted. It means that the exalted, unmovable God does come down to earth in some shape or form, in order to put things in order and to prevent total chaos on earth. Krishna is such an avatar.

Just to mention an example: Sai Baba (a Hindu saint in India who is considered a manifestation of God in the flesh) utters beautiful words about Jesus. He calls Jesus the Son of God. But then when he expounds the meaning of that statement, he explains that in that way Jesus is the example, showing us what we all are. Because we are all sons and daughters of God, therefore we are in nature one with God, as Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.” On this path Jesus is again an example for us, because he goes before us on our way towards self-realization. Such an example will give much support to the people. God comes, as it were, to meet us. In this respect we could speak of grace and forgiveness, but it functions in a context that is entirely different from the biblical message of Jesus Christ, THE avatar of God.

It is remarkable in this connection to note that Sai Baba pays much more attention to the birth, the coming, of Jesus into the world than to his death. And where he pays attention to the resurrection of Christ, that event is again turned around in typical Hindu fashion: it is not an event in this time, not a transition from death to life, but rather a manner of speech to indicate that Jesus in fact never really died because he was not at all attached to this life. Through his unselfish death he has soared above all life and death. He went up into God, into Brahman.

The conclusion is clear: the mention of Christ's name is not the unique aspect of Christianity. Muslims call him the Word of God, Son of the Virgin Mary, the great prophet. But the question is this: What is the content of all those beautiful titles?

This is what is at stake: Which Christ? And in that question, all others come to the fore as well: Which God? Which deliverance? Which purpose in life?