David Quinn
Our task is still to make disciples of all nations, write David Quinn
Last week, Pope Francis made one of the most important overseas trips of his pontificate so far when he visited the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Obviously any trip by a Pope to a Muslim nation is important for both historical reasons and for sensitivities around Muslim emigration to Europe and the reality of extreme and violent versions of Islam, not to mention the widespread persecution of Christians in many Muslim countries.
But what made this trip stand out even more was the fact that the UAE is on the Arabian peninsula where Mohammed founded the Muslim religion and on which Mecca and Medina are to be found. Based on one interpretation of the teachings of Mohammed, only Muslims may set foot on the Arabian peninsula, and certainly not a Pope.
Admittedly, the UAE, although on the Arabian peninsula, is not Saudi Arabia, home to Mecca and Medina. Admittedly also, many non-Muslims live on the Arabian peninsula because it needs so many ‘guest workers’ from overseas. Many of those are from countries like the Philippines, which is overwhelmingly and often fervently Catholic. In fact, those who attended the big papal Mass in the UAE were mainly Filipino.
Significant
All this aside, however, a visit by a Pope to a country that exists on the Arabian peninsula is still very significant because it is still the part of the world where Islam originated and is regarded as the heartland of Islam.
While in the UAE, Francis met Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Egypt’s al-Azhar mosque, who urged his fellow Muslims to “embrace your Christian brothers and fellow citizens”. This was important, because in Egypt, the Coptic Christian minority (making up 10% of the Egyptian population) is often subjected to violent persecution.
For his part, Pope Francis said something which is, on the surface, extraordinary. He stated: “The pluralism and diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in his wisdom.”
We can grant the truth of this statement when it comes to racial diversity, the diversity of language, the differences between the sexes. But did God really will diversity of religion given that Jesus urged his followers to “make disciples of all nations”, and prayed that “all should be one”?
Did God will the existence of Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, to name three of the major faiths that exist today? Did he will the existence of animist religions such as Voodoo, or the Aztec religion with its bloody human sacrifice? What about the religion of the ancient Carthaginians who also practised human sacrifice, or the Norse religions which did the same, as did the ancient Celtic druids.
It is very hard to believe he willed the existence of those later religions which flagrantly breached the deepest moral laws and not just as an aberration of their beliefs, but as an integral part of them.
We need not concern ourselves about such religions today, of course, because no religion that practices human sacrifice exists any more.
Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism are obviously in a different category, being far higher expressions of the religious instinct. (Judaism, from a Christian perspective, is directly willed by God.)
What is certainly true is that religion itself is willed by God because the religious instinct is so deeply hard-wired into human nature. That is why religion is so universal in its many forms. Atheists like to say the graveyards of the world are full of ‘dead gods’ like Odin or Zeus, that is, gods no-one worships any more. But actually those ‘graveyards’ are testament to the strength of the religious instinct. We are worshipping creatures by instincts. We seek to revere something. We seek transcendence. We seek meaning and purpose. This is why religion occurs again and again.
God obviously knew that a great variety of religions would spring up across the world, so in that sense he did will it.
But does he not also will that “all shall be one”, and that the followers of Jesus should seek to “make disciples of all nations”?
So, if all the varieties of religion that have existed, and do exist is in some way an inevitable result of human nature and how we are made, isn’t it also the duty of Christians to make the whole world Christian, which is to say, followers of Jesus Christ, who we believe is True God and True Man? In fact, isn’t this a divine commandment? The unavoidable conclusion is, yes.
Diversity
But doesn’t this flatly contradict the present creed of diversity and multi-culturalism? The answer to this is also, yes.
Christian is a universalist creed, it is for everyone, which is where the word ‘Catholic’ comes from. It seeks to convert everyone. So does Islam. So, for that matter, does socialism. It wants the whole world to be socialist.
And ultimately, liberalism wants the whole world to be liberal and subscribe to its creed that all religions and all cultures are basically of the same value and that the individual is the fundamental unit of society. This is a truth claim, even if liberalism pretends at some level to be tolerant of all truth claims. It wants all of us to be liberal and to relativise our alternative ways of looking at the truth. Liberalism also wants ‘all to be one’. Yes, you can be a Catholic, under liberalism, but you are encouraged to keep your Catholicism private.
To return to the Pope’s remarks, he is correct to say that religious pluralism is at some level willed by God, but the Pope would also clearly wish that one day, through peaceful conversion, the whole world follows Christ, in order to fulfil the injunction of Christ to “make disciples of all nations”.