Evangelism Today Part Two

Last week I wrote about Evangelism in our multicultural, multifaith and secular world and how Christians and particularly Anglicans should approach evangelism.  The Anglican Church of Canada supports and encourages an ecumenical and multifaith approach and I proposed that we should focus on our actions to show the world “we are Christians by our love” of others as our neighbours, whether or not they are neighbours that we are comfortable with.

I noted that this week I want to explore one way which is very helpful on the approach we can use in interfaith dialogue; work done by the Snowmass Conference.  I was not aware of this organization before hearing about it a few weeks ago from Richard Rohr. 

In 1984 Father Thomas Keating invited a small group of contemplatives from eight different religious traditions—Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Islamic, Native American, Russian Orthodox, Protestant, and Roman Catholic—to gather at St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado, to engage in what he called “a big experiment.”

The Snowmass Conference Eight Points of Agreement

1.      The world religions bear witness to the experience of Ultimate Reality, to which they give various names.
 

2.      Ultimate Reality cannot be limited by any name or concept.
 

3.      Ultimate Reality is the ground of infinite potentiality and actualization.
 

4.      Faith is opening, accepting, and responding to Ultimate Reality. Faith in this sense precedes every belief system.
 

5.      The potential for human wholeness—or, in other frames of reference, enlightenment, salvation, transcendence, transformation, blessedness—is present in every human being.
 

6.      Ultimate Reality may be experienced not only through religious practices but also through nature, art, human relationships, and service to others.
 

7.      As long as the human condition is experienced as separate from Ultimate Reality, it is subject to ignorance and illusion, weakness and suffering.
 

8.      Disciplined practice is essential to the spiritual life; yet spiritual attainment is not the result of one’s own efforts, but the result of the experience of oneness with Ultimate Reality.

In closing, I would point our that throughout Human history, God has been given many names which have attempted to capture the ineffable nature of God.  This has been true within our Judaeo-Christian history from El to YHWH (Yahweh which was transcribed as Jehovah), to Our Heavenly Father.  This might make an interesting subject to write abut another time. 

However, Ultimate Reality is, I believe, as good an expression of the ineffable nature of God as any.  The eight points of agreement are a good way to begin conversations on an  interfaith and ecumenical basis.

Blessings on your journey.