i.Opening up the Christian tradition from within to other voices

If we are to maintain our identity and integrity as Anglican (Christian) chaplains, it is essential that we discover our own reasons for wishing to engage with the voices of those of other traditions of faith and belief. In particular we will need to resist accepting an imposed ‘repressive tolerance’ on the part of secular pluralism which attempts to render all voices equal by removing from them any public claim to truth and rendering each a purely private opinion. Neither can we offer, though it might be wanted in some quarters, a bland spirituality that amounts to a sanitised multi-faith pick-and-mix religion that makes no claims and causes no offence or difficulty. Both these frames of reference are essentially alienating to any religious tradition, and for us they cramp and distort an authentic understanding of the place and scope of our theological tradition. They leave no room to speak of God for Christ’s sake as transcending the particularities of space and time. Instead then, if dialogue is to take place, we need to find Christian reasons for engaging the other and for de-centring our present comprehension of what we hold as true. To begin this process, we might draw upon the following theological motifs that belong at the heart of the Christian Faith.

• Christology: Jesus is the foundation and source of the new creation. His life, death and resurrection are not an illustration of what we can hope God will do for us, but the very cause and basis of that future. It is through participation in him as enabled by the Spirit – and not apart from this – that we have grounds for hope. In him ‘God became like us, that we might become like God’ (Irenaeus). Since it is through his person that the new creation arrives, Jesus himself escapes final description as yet since, by definition, he cannot be fully comprehended on the basis of the world as it presently is. Only in the new creation can we see him as he is (1 Jn 3:2). So, ahead of this time, there must be space to listen to , entertain and weigh other responses to Jesus which currently lie beyond the bounds of the Christian church.
• Eschatological openness: ‘Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror…then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.’ (1 Cor 13:12). Central to Christian perception is the discernment of a fundamental distinction between the ‘now’ and the ‘then’ (not yet). This distinction is beautifully illustrated in the passage from which this quotation is taken which also affords a further amplification via two other complementary oppositions: that between the imperfect and the perfect (v10); the part and the full (v12). Christian existence takes place in the ‘overlap of the ages’. It lives between the ‘now’ of forgiveness and reconciliation with God and the ‘then’ of the final defeat of death and transience. And just as we await the coming of the Kingdom in all its fullness so we also await the final unveiling of the truth. Living ‘between the times’, then, Christianity cannot claim to be in possession of the ‘whole picture’. Thus without letting go of the foundation we already possess, and indeed using this as test and criterion, we must listen and reflect on other voices for the truth they may hold. To do anything other is to falsely claim as possession that which we await in hope. More, a closure against others would be contrary the one virtue which St Paul is convinced runs like a golden thread straight from the ‘now’ to the ‘then’: love (v.13).
• Doctrine of the Trinity: This is Christianity’s unique solution to the ancient conundrum of the relationship of the one to the many which demonstrates the equal primacy of both without antagonism or competition. However, in drawing upon this doctrine for wider implications, one must be diligent to exercise proper care since God as Trinity cannot find a perfect analogy within the realm of creation. This follows as a consequence of the ‘infinite qualitative difference’ between God and the world. But, this caution having been issued, belief in God as Trinity must at least  open up the possibility that different perspectives are capable of complementary integration. And this, in turn, should underscore the importance and priority that deserves to be given to conversations with ‘the other’. Let me be clear. What I am not suggesting here is a simplistic assumption that just because differences exist these must be capable of reconciliation. I am rather proposing that the prospect of the possibility of reconciliation suggests examining differences is always a worthwhile venture thought one without any guaranteed results.
• Pneumatology: In his book Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered (1990), Gavin D’Costa draws upon the conviction that the Father is revealed through the Son and the Spirit to open up the possibility of God’s activity and revelation beyond the limits of Christianity (that is beyond an explicit acknowledgement of Jesus the Son). Trinitarian thinking, he suggests, allows the subtle distinction to be made that while Jesus is wholly God, he (as the incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity) is not the whole of God. And, since the Spirit is at work in all times and places non-Christian insights into the nature and purpose of God have, at least potentially, narrative space (by virtue of the Spirit) within Christian theology. While there is a certain difficulty with D’Costa implied independence of the work of the Son and the Spirit, he is surely right to point out the scope and reach of the Spirit’s work. And the possibility that other traditions may exist in response to the Spirit’s action must require an attentive listening to their voices on the part of the church.
• Imago Dei: Taking this doctrine seriously means reckoning with the potential of humanity, in all its richness and diversity, to become a sacrament of the divine. More, if our participation in rational thought is one way in which we image and reflect something of the being of God, then philosophical reasoning, as a tool for interrogating both one’s own and other traditions, has its own proper place.