Lighthouse Trails Research Journal
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“Supreme Beings”—continued from previous page
you become complete. You become
a Buddhist with Jesus, a Hindu
with Jesus, a Muslim with Jesus
and so on. You can throw out the
term Christianity and still be a
follower of Jesus. In fact, you can
throw out the term Christian too.
In some countries, you could be
persecuted for calling yourself a
Christian, and there is no need for
that. Just ask Jesus into your heart,
you don’t have to identify yourself
as a Christian. 4 — Rick Warren
(pastor of Saddleback Church)
New Light embodiment means to
be ‘in connection’ and ‘information’
with other faiths. To be in-
formation means to know each
other’s songs almost as well as one
knows them oneself, and to enlarge
the community to include those
whose conceptions of God differ
from ours in form. . . . One can be
a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ
without denying the flickers of the
sacred in followers of Yahweh, or
Kali, or Krishna. A globalization
of evangelism ‘in connection’ with
others, and a globally ‘in-formed’
gospel, is capable of talking across
the fence with Hindu, Buddhist,
Sikh, Muslim—people from other
so called ‘new’ religious traditions
(‘new’ only to us)—without
assumption of superiority and
power. 5 —New Age sympathizer,
Leonard Sweet (emerging
church author)
Today I personally believe that while
Jesus came to open the door to God’s
house, all human beings can walk
through that door, whether they
know about Jesus or not. Today I
see it as my call to help every person
claim his or her own way to God. 6 —
Henri Nouwen (Catholic mystic)
Volume 7—No. 5
From a YWAM Foundation magazine
article:
The Charisma article noted:
“Messianic Muslims, who continue
to read the Koran, visit the mosque
and say their daily prayers but
accept Christ as their Savior, are
the products of the strategy which
is being tried in several countries.”
A YWAM staff writer wrote: “They
continue a life of following the
Islamic requirements, including
mosque attendance, fasting and
Koranic reading, besides getting
together as a fellowship of Muslims
who acknowledge Christ as the
source of God’s mercy for them.
. . . YWAM is also adopting this
approach in India, where a team
is working with a Hindu holy
man. 7 — YWAM
We walk side by side, fellow
travelers on life’s pathways. I speak
of being awakened to the wonder
and mystery of the world, using
words that reflect my window to
the divine, the one whom I call
my Lord and my God, Jesus, the
Risen Christ. You, too, speak of
being awakened to the wonder and
mystery of the world, using words
that reflect your window, to the
divine through the teachings of the
Buddha, of Baha’u’llah, of Lord
Mahavir, of Muhammad, teachings
from the Torah, the Guru Granth
Sahib and the Vedas. As I hear you
speak and as I look into your eyes,
I see God. I feel God. I experience
God in you, not just a partial
reflection of my Christian God,
but the creator, the divine spirit
in whom we all live and move and
have our being. How magnificent
is this divine force that it should
appear across the Earth like the
flowers of a garden in so many
different shapes and hues. . . . There
is no place for religious exclusivism in
Christianity. It has been arguably the
single greatest source of human misery
during the past two millenniums. It
must be replaced by an understanding
of the interwovenness of all life, of
all religious traditions. 8 — Victor
Kazaniian, JR. (an Episcopal priest)
Allah is not another God. . . .
we worship the same God. . . .
We can and should investigate
and learn from the wisdom in
other religions. 9 — Peter Kreeft
(professor and author, often quoted
in evangelical books)
We know the things the major
faiths can agree on. We try to
focus on those without offending
those with different viewpoints,
or without compromising the
integrity of my own Christian
commitment. 10 — Robert Schuller
(Crystal Cathedral)
Standing before a crowd of devout
Muslims with the Grand Mufti, I
know that we’re all doing God’s
work together. Standing on the
edge of a new millennium, we’re
laboring hand in hand to repair the
breach. 11 — Schuller
The Christ Spirit dwells in every
human being, whether the person
knows it or not. 12 — Schuller
It may be advisable in many (not
all!) circumstances to help people
become followers of Jesus and
remain within their Buddhist,
Hindu, or Jewish context. . . .
Is our religion the only one that
understands the true meaning of
life? Or does God place his truth
in others too? . . . The gospel is not
our gospel, but the gospel of the
kingdom of God, and what belongs
to the kingdom of God cannot be
Concludes on next page
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019