Sunday

The Basis of Interfaith Dialogue

Today, I wanted to share a really cool missiological design that my dear friend, Vincent Lee, created for me.  I came across a simple diagram in an article by another friend, Knud  Jørgensen in an article he had written on the subject of interfaith dialogue and missions.  I thought the diagram could use a little sprucing up, so I sent it to Vincent.  What follows is a few paragraph's from Knud's paper and Vincent's diagram:
We may not set limits to God’s grace, but at the same time we must reject an inclusivism that regards other religions as instruments for salvation in a Christian sense. Perhaps, says Newbigin, we could use a simple sketch, developed by Walter Freytag, to indicate the basis for dialogue between Christians and those of other faiths:
The staircase represents the many ways by which we learn to walk up towards God’s purpose. Here we find all the ethical and religious achievements of humankind, including the Christian religion. But in the middle of them and at the bottom is placed a symbol that represents something different – the historic place and the historic deed in which God exposed himself: God comes to meet us at the bottom of our stairways, not at the top – “I came to call not the righteous, but sinners” (Newbigin 1978: 204f). As I meet my neighbour, I meet him or her at the bottom of the staircase.

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