Three Faiths,
One God.
3. The People of God
Introduction
The People of God
Who are the people of God?
How does one become one of God’s people?
If we define a “universal” religion as:
- one that addresses all of humanity, encompasses the whole world in its vision of what God wants from God’s creation
then
- all three, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, are “universal”
- despite national or ethnic coloring on the local level
Judaism
Judaism
The Chosen People
Midrash Rabbah, Exodus, 2, 5:
God went around to different nations, asking them “Will you accept my Torah?
Well, we’re interested, what’s in it?
God replied, “You may not murder, steal
“No, we can’t take it;. . .”
So God went to the next people and asked them. Same rejection
Finally God went to the Israelites
“We will do and we will hear (accept and obey)”
Thus Israelites “self-chosen” by responding to God’s offer
Judaism
The Chosen People
Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 88a:
God approached the Jewish people about giving them the Torah. He overturned a mountain and suspended it above them
“If you accept the Torah, fine. If not, this mountain will drop on you and bury you and that’s the end.”
Judaism
The Chosen People
am sigulah: Hebrew for “chosen people”
Blessing recited a person when they go up during a service to read the Torah:
“Praise be Thou, O Lord our God, Ruler of the world, who has chosen us from among all peoples and given us the Torah.”
Jewish people view themselves as the instrument through which the Torah was given to humankind
It does not make them “better” than other peoples
Judaism
Israel
Jacob wrestles with God one night until God gave him God’s blessing
“You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed”
- Genesis 32:28
Jacob’s (= Israel’s) descendents were called Hebrews or Israelites
- Israelites: the people of God who struggle with God
Judaism
Ethnic Religion, or Universal?
How does one become a member of the people of Israel?
Judaism has been described as an “ethnic” religion. This derives from fact that one is born into the people of Israel if your mother is Jewish.
And unlike Christianity and Islam, Judaism is not a “missionary religion” and does not seek converts – for salvation is available to non-Jews as well as Jews
Judaism
Ethnic Religion, or Universal?
However, anyone may convert to Judaism, accepting the “yoke of Heaven” and the “yoke of the Torah”. In this sense, Judaism is “universal.”
Conversion requires:
- a profession of faith
- baptism for women and men
- circumcision in the covenant of Abraham for men
Judaism
Ethnic Religion, or Universal?
A gentile who accepts Torah becomes an Israelite. He or she is transformed, becoming a new creation
- he or she takes up a position at Mount Sinai
- their children are Israelite without qualification
- the gentile’s genealogy becomes the story that the Torah tells
Judaism
Metaphor of Israel as Family
Israelites the descendants of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob (Israel) and Leah and Rachel
- includes a sense of social contract. Israel is an extended family, with obligations of family
- includes a sense of Israel as a nation-people, with a right to the family inheritance of the Land of Israel
Judaism
Metaphor of Israel as Family – The Inheritance of the Land of Israel
Natural state for Jews is to be in the promised land, the Land of Israel
To be away from that land is the unnatural state of galut or exile. Exile is punishment
Christianity
Christianity
What is Israel?
Early Christian community struggled with question who can be Israel? Who can be part of the people of God?
Strictest view:
Circle of James
- James, brother of Jesus, head of the church in Jerusalem (killed in the temple in 62 AD)
- community continued to worship at the temple
- all laws of Moses must be obeyed; Gentiles cannot be part of Israel
Christianity
What is Israel?
Paul: the Body of Christ
The new Israel are those:
- who receive the Spirit of God in Baptism
- who share in the body of Christ through the Eucharist
Christianity
The Body of Christ
The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not fellowship in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not fellowship in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we are one body, although we are many, because we all share from the one bread
1 Cor. 10:16-17
Christianity
The Body of Christ
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body (being many) are one body, so is Christ. For in one spirit we were all baptized into one body – whether Jews or Greek, slave or free – and we all were given to drink of one spirit.
- 1 Cor. 12:12-13
Christianity
Ekklesia
Greek ekklesia, “church” those “called out” from their surroundings
the assembly of people summoned for a purpose. Word was used for:
- congregation of Israelites whom Moses led out to the wilderness (Acts 7:38)
- congregation of Jesus’ followers in Jerusalem subject to persecution (Acts 8:1)
- most common designation in the New Testament for early Christian communities (114 times)
Donatist Controversy
Roman emperor Diocletian (284-313) issued Edict of February 303:
- Christian books ordered to be burned
- Christian churches to be demolished
Persecution ended with conversion of Emperor Constantine and Edict of Milan 313
Church leaders who turned over books to be burned known as traditores “those who handed over” [their books]
Donatist Controversy
Felix of Aptunga was a traditor who later consecrated Caecilian as Bishop of Carthage, North Africa in 311
Donatists in North Africa (leader was African Donatus) argued:
- consecration invalid
- sacramental system of Catholic church thereby corrupted. All baptisms, ordinations by Caecilian and his priests tainted and invalid
- church leaders must be pure and cannot include traditores, even if they repent
Donatist Controversy
Donatists formed a separate church. Sociological issues complicated the theology:
- most Donatists: native Africans
- most Catholics: Roman colonists
By 388, when Augustine returned to North Africa from Rome, the Donatist Church was larger than the Catholic Church
Donatist Controversy
“Augustinian” View of the Church:
- church not a society of saints, but a “mixed body” of saints and sinners. He based this view on:
- Parable of the Net which catches many fish,
- and Parable of the Wheat and the Tares (Matt 13:24-31).
- separation of good and evil will be at the end of time
- no human being can make that separation
Reformation
Calvin’s View of the Church
Visible versus the Invisible Church
- Visible Church: the visible community of Christian believers. Includes elect and the reprobate
- Invisible Church: the fellowship of saints and the company of the elect
- known only to God
- will become the only Church at the end of time
Believers should honor the Visible Church on account of the Invisible Church within it
Models and Images of the Church
Church is like a Sacrament (Sacramental Model)
Church is where the Word of God is proclaimed (“Kerygmatic” or “Heraldic” Model)
Church is a Communion or Fellowship (Community Model)
Church is the People of God
Church is God’s Servant to the World (Diaconal or Servant Model)
Models and Images of the Church
Communion or Fellowship
Church is a communion or fellowship involving the sharing of a common life
- vertical: between God and believers
- horizontal: between individual believers
Models and Images of the Church
People of God
Church is the new people of God, continuous with Israel
“The idea of the people of God is the oldest and most fundamental concept underlying the self-interpretation of the ekklesia. Images such as those of the body of Christ, the temple and so on, are secondary by comparison.”
- Hans Küng
Models and Images of the Church
People of God
“. . . emphasis is on walking by faith and not by sight, going out in answer to a call and not knowing where it will lead, sojourning in the land of promise, living in tents, being strangers and exiles in the earth, pressing on only in light of the promise of God, and looking to Jesus as the pioneer.”
- Thomas & Wondra, Introduction to Theology, 3rd Ed, Morehouse, 2002
Models and Images of the Church
God’s Servant to the World
Church exists to be God’s instrument in divine mission to the world
- Church is a servant to the world
- Church exists for the sake of the world
- Church thus has a responsibility to the world, a responsibility to help the world to be as God intended it
- “The church does not have a mission; it is mission”
The “Notes” or “Marks” of the Church
“I believe in:
- one
- holy
- catholic
- apostolic
church”
The “Notes” or “Marks” of the Church
One
Cyprian of Carthage 251: church is the “seamless rob of Christ” which should not be divided
How can we today speak of “one” church, when it is so divided institutionally?
The “Notes” or “Marks” of the Church
One
Approaches:
1. Imperialist or Sectarian approach: there is only one true church; rest are fraudulent
2. Platonic approach: there is an empirical historical church (divided) and an “ideal church” (unified)
3. Eschatological approach: disunity will be abolished on the last day
4. Biological approach: church development like the branches of a tree. Like a tree, still retains an organic unity
5. Theological: unity is the belief in the saving work of Christ. Diversity results in adapting this message to the world’s diversity
The “Notes” or “Marks” of the Church
One
“The gospel in Anglicanism is, then, one facet in a vast mosaic. In its essentials, it corresponds to the gospel as it has been proclaimed and believed all over the world. Yet it is also characterized by its particularity as an experience of God’s saving work in particular cultures, and is shaped by in insights and limitations of persons who were themselves seeking to live the gospel within a particular context.”
- Louis Weil
The “Notes” or “Marks” of the Church
One
“The unity of the church is a spiritual unity. It is one and the same God who gathers the scattered from all places and all ages and makes them into one people of God. It is one and same Christ who through his word and Spirit unites all together in the same bond of fellowship of the same body of Christ. . . the Church is one, and therefore should be one”
- Hans Küng
The “Notes” or “Marks” of the Church
Holy
History has clearly documented the sinfulness of the church and its members
How is the church then “holy”? Approaches:
1. Sectarian. Donatist and Anabaptism. Church must exclude unholy members
2. Church holy, members sinful. (But what is the meaning of church disembodied of its members?)
3. Eschatological: church as sinful as its members, but will be purified on the last day
The “Notes” or “Marks” of the Church
Holy
“Whenever I have described the church as being without spot or wrinkle, I have not intended to imply that it was like this already, but that it should prepare itself to be like this, at the time when it too will appear in glory”
- Augustine
“That the church will be. . . without spot or wrinkle. . . will only be true in our eternal home, not on the way there. We would deceive ourselves if we were to say that we have no sin, as 1 John 1:8 reminds us.”
- Thomas Aquinas
The “Notes” or “Marks” of the Church
Holy
4. Holy as being “set apart for God”
- Old Testament idea of holiness: something or someone set aside for God
- People holy when
- dedicated to God
- distinguished from the world on the basis of their calling
- Holiness of the church theological (“set apart”) rather than moral
The “Notes” or “Marks” of the Church
Catholic
catholic
- Greek phrase kath’ holou (“referring to the whole”)
- Latin word catholicus “universal or general”)
The “Notes” or “Marks” of the Church
Catholic
Aquinas: church is universal and general:
- geographically: encompasses the whole world
- anthropologically: for all people. No one is rejected, whether master or slave, male or female
- chronologically: church will last to the end of time
The “Notes” or “Marks” of the Church
Apostolic
“apostolic:” originating with the apostles, or having a direct link to the apostles
Three aspects of the “apostolic” (H. B. Swete, Cambridge Regius Professor of Divinity, 1890-1915):
1. planted in the world by the apostles
2. adheres to the teaching of the apostles
3. carries on the succession of apostolic ministry
Islam
Islam
Place of Human Beings in Creation
God created the world and human beings in the form of Adam as God’s caliphs or vicegerents
God taught Adam the names of all things, and then ordered the angels to bow to Adam (Qur’an 2:31-34)
- Iblis refused and was punished by God
Human beings are intended to serve God by their active choice
Those faithful to God are promised eternal life in an eternal Garden or Paradise
- evildoers also are promised eternal life, but in a punishment of Fire
Islam
Ummah
Ideal culmination of human history: the growth of humanity into a single Ummah muslinah or “submissive community”
And let there be [formed] of you a community (Ummah) that invites [people] to the good, demands what is right, and condemns what is reprehensible – such are the ones who flourish. And do not be like those who split away and disputed [even] after there had come to them clear evidence; for them is mighty punishment
- Qur’an 3:104-105
Islam
Ummah
Ummah
- based on faith, not blood affiliation
- embraces all human beings willing to obey and worship God alone
- first Ummah – a human community under God – was founded in Medina between 622-632 B.C. by the Prophet Muhammad
- today is a world-wide spiritual community embracing one-seventh of humanity
Islam
Din
The faith and practice (din) that defines the Ummah -- Islam(“the true religion in God’s eyes,” Qur’an 3:19) is the true monotheism to which God has called human beings to again and again since the time of Adam
Islam was the religion of Abraham, Moses, Jesus and all the prophets
Muhammad called as God’s final messenger to reform the diluted monotheism of Judaism and Christianity to the true worship of the One God
Islam
Din
Abraham was not a Jew, nor a Christian. Rather, he was one of pure faith (hanif), one who submitted to God (muslim), and not one of the polytheists (literally: those who associate partners with God)
- Qur’an 3:67
Islam
Fitrah = “natural disposition”
Human beings are naturally disposed at birth to islam, to true submission to the will of God
- fitrah = “way of being created” or “natural disposition”
It is the upbringing that causes a child to turn to less complete or evil religious practices
Fitrah implies that once the Qur’an was revealed, the most perfect path of worship and service to God was clearly manifest for the rest of history – the Ummah Muslimah
Islam
Fitrah = “natural disposition”
You are the best community (ummah) brought forth for humanity; you enjoin what is reputable and prohibit was is reprehensible, and you have faith in God
- Qur’an 3:110
The “last call” of God to islam (submission to God) through Muhammad and the Qur’an is not just a call to personal faith, but a call to be part of the Ummah, to be brothers and sisters of others who have submitted to God
Islam
The Centrist or Traditional (sunni) position on the Ummah
a religiously defined community under divine authority
a monocracy, or society under the authority of God’s law, the Shari’a
the caliph is the absolute temporal ruler charged with administering and defending the realm of Islam
- possesses no special authority in matters of faith
anyone who professes “There is no god but God, and Muhammad is His Messenger” should be considered a Muslim”
- not even mortal sin automatically excludes a person
Islam
Ummah Today
After the first few caliphs, the true Ummah was never a functioning political entity, but it remains a powerful spiritual fellowship in the consciousness of all Muslims
- symbolizes the community of faithful submitters to God, the community intended for humankind by their Maker
Islam
Ummah Today
Faith cannot be merely private, but must also be political and social
- secular societies that tolerate religious pluralism can do so only with the assumption that religion is a “private matter,” separate from society and politics
- keeping religion a “private matter” is unacceptable in true islam (submission to God)