Of Issionaryresearch Who Dowe Saythathe Isr on the Uniqueness and Uniwrsality of Jesus Christ

A quarterly publication of the Overseas Ministries Study Center Vol. 4. No.1 continuing the Occasional Bulletin from the Missionary Research Library January, 1980 cessions• etln• Of Message and Messengers \\We conclude that faith is awakened by the message, and the tain "a spirituality, which is at the same time open and in its very message that awakens it comes through the word of essence interreligious." Christ" (Rom. 10:17 NEB). In "Leprosy: A Continuing Concern for Mission," Wendy P. "Messenger" is an acceptable translation of apostolos, the New Littman traces the origins of the stigma associated with that age Testament term that best characterizes a missionary. Missionaries old disease. She finds that a strictly secular approach to the prob have always been people sent to convey the faith-awakening mes lem is insufficient, and that leprosy patients still have special sage across various frontiers. The writersfor this issue of the Occa needs that can be met only by those motivated by commitment to sional Bulletin discuss the implications of that message as well as its a spiritual heritage and by the respect for life that is an outgrowth communication in today's pluralistic world. of Christian faith. Carl E. Braaten probes the missiological significance of a ques tion Jesus asked his earliest messengers: "Who do you say that I am?" How can we reconcile the uniqueness of Christ with his uni versality? Braaten argues that Christians should not be afraid of OnPoge dialogue with people of other faiths, and he affirms a conviction that the ultimate Lordship of Christ over the. world will include his 2 Who Do We Say That He Is? rule over all its religions. On the Uniqueness and Universality of Jesus Christ Our series on "Mission in the 1980s" was launched one year Carl E. Braaten ago, in January 1979, with an article by Bishop Stephen Neill. In 10 Mission in the 1980s: Two Viewpoints this first issue of the 1980s, we are pleased to present two view I. Barbara Hendricks, M.M. points-c-one by Maryknoll Sister Barbara Hendricks, and the other II. Desmond Tutu by Bishop Desmond Tutu, general secretary of the South African Council of Churches. 14 Wilhelm Schmidt's Legacy In "Wilhelm Schmidt's Legacy," Louis J. Luzbetak portrays a Louis f. Luzbeiak, S. V.D. German anthropologist who pioneered for the Roman Catholic So 20 Patterns of Chinese Theology ciety of the Divine Word in the study of non-Western cultures. Wing-hung Lam Schmidt's own intention to serve overseas was not realized, but in his long career as a scholar he never lost sight of the fact that he 26 Christ within Cultures: Dialogue in Context belonged to a mission society and that it was ultimately the mis Richard Friedli, O.P. sionary cause to which he had dedicated his life. Wing-hung Lam analyzes five different patterns of theologi 29 Leprosy: A Continuing Concern for Mission cal construction by Chinese intellectuals, beginning in the late .Wendy P. Littman 1920s following a temporary exodus of foreign missionaries from 31 Twelve Theses on Contemporary Mission China. The indigenization of theology, in that country as else Charles W Forman where, is a Christian response to the search for cultural identity: "to render Christianity suitable to the needs of the Chinese and to 32 Book Reviews accommodate it to the customs, environment, history, and think 37 Fifteen Outstanding Books of 1979 for Mission ing of the Chinese culture." Studies Richard Friedli, a Swiss Dominican missiologist, takes theo logical contextualization, and especially the cultural implications 41 Missionary Numbers vs. Missionary Attitudes of the incarnation, as his starting point in a discussion of interfaith 46 Dissertation Notices dialogue. Insisting that no Christian can claim to represent Christ in the fullness of his incarnate Person, Friedli cautions us to main 48 Book Notes of issionaryResearch Who DoWe SayThatHe Isr On the Uniqueness and Uniwrsality of Jesus Christ Carl E. Braaten I. The Heritage of Exclusiveness he true identity of Jesus Christ has been mediated to us to ment of the other major religions as valid ways of salvation. We T day in texts and traditions which unanimously confess that are living in one world with a plurality of cultures, religions, and he is the exclusive medium of eschatological salvation. Acts 4:12 is ideologies. Either we acknowledge the legitimacy of this pluralism, the classical locus of this Christological exclusiveness: "And there or we threaten the possibility of living together in a peaceful is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven world. We expect governments, corporations, and other agencies given among men by which we must be saved." Christian exclu to do their part to cooperate in establishing conditions which drive siveness has found several ways of manifesting itself. Tradition toward the unity of the human world without diminishing the ally, the Catholic type has focused on the church. "Outside the plurality of its forms. Why should not the religions of the world church there is no salvation." The statement first appeared in one do their part? Christianity has begun to open up channels of dia of Cyprian's letters in the third century. It was reiterated in the pa logue with people of other religions. But many feel that the pal bull Linam sane/am of Boniface VIII in 1302. "We believe that exclusivistic premise that it brings to the dialogue clogs the chan there is one holy catholic and apostolic church ... outside of nels and makes a real exchange impossible. which there is no salvation.... We declare that it is necessary for Professor John Hick of Birmingham, England ·has taken the salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman lead among Protestants in calling for a "Copernican revolution,"? Pontiff."! Traditionally, the Protestant type has felt uncomfortable which aims to overturn the Christological dogma at the bottom of with the ecclesiocentric form of Roman Catholic exclusivism. It all Christian exclusivism. It is not enough to broaden the way of has focused instead on faith, quoting passages like John 3:18: "He Christian salvation by speaking with Tillich of a "latent church" who believes in him is not condemned: he who does not believe is or with Rahner of "anonymous Christianity." Those are the con condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of venient modem loopholes. He calls them "epicycles." So Hick goes the only Son of God." Also Romans 10:17: "So faith comes from deeper and lays the ax at the Christological roots of exclusivism. what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of He says, "For understood literally the Son of God, God the Son, Christ." God-incarnate language implies that God can be adequately The heritage of Christian exclusiveness runs deep into the known and responded to only through [esus: and the whole reli New Testament and dominates the tradition from earliest times to gious life of mankind, beyond the stream of Judaic-Christian faith the present. But from the beginning the very same tradition has is thus by implication excluded as lying outside the sphere of sal created loopholes to provide people outside the Christian circle vation."3 Pluralism is compatible with the unity of all humankind with the chance of salvation. Catholics of the most exclusive type if we acknowledge that the various streams of religion in the world conceded that people outside the church can be saved through the carry th~ same waters of salvation leading to eternal life with God. loopholes of "invincible ignorance" or "baptism by desire." Prot God is at the center of the universe of Faiths: Jesus is only one of estants in the older line of dogmatics appealed to 1 Peter 3:19, the many ways-the Christian way-that leads to God. He is not which states that Christ preached to the spirits in prison, as proof the one and only Son of God, Lord of the world, and Savior of hu that people who did not encounter Christ and believe in this life mankind. Each religion has its own, and they do the job in their would be given a "second chance" on the threshold of the future own way. In this way John Hick has successfully rooted out the life. Sometimes they also talked about the invisible church whose last vestige of exclusivism. limits are unknown, and thus presumably might also include some On the Catholic side the left wing of Rahner's school has also of the "noble pagans." The judgment that reservations will be abandoned the Christian claim that Jesus Christ is "different," taken in heaven only for Christians, that only those who accept "decisive," "unique," "normative," or "final," toppling the pillar Christ by faith in this life or belong to his church, has seemed too on which the traditional claims to exclusiveness lean. For surely it harsh to be taken in a strictly literal sense. makes no sense to argue that believing in Jesus Christ or belonging Currently, there are voices being raised against every sort of to his church are essential for salvation, if he is ultimately only one Christian exclusivism, including all the loop~oles that continue to among many founders pointing the way to God. Paul Knitter has reinforce the underlying premise. The focus now takes the form of made the clearest case I know among Catholics for a revision of the question whether there is full and equal salvation through the the traditional claim that Jesus Christ is the one and only Savior of non-Christian religions.

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