Exclusivity IS Religiously Sinful
by Daniel O’Rourke • Cassadaga, NY

Exclusivity is religion’s besetting sin. In its purist form, exclusivity is the belief that only my religion can really teach the truth, lead you to God, offer enlightenment or bring you salvation.
Exclusivity taints much of the good that religious groups do. It has been in the news recently, but it is as old as the scriptures. It’s entwined in the warp and woof of structured religion. However, to be fair, its blatant intolerance embarrasses some religious thinkers and they struggle valiantly to soften or explain it away. Although too often they do so with lawyer-like distinctions and mind-numbing rationalizations.

The Vatican’s recent declaration on the identity of the church is a stark example. To those not Catholic, it is an offensive, self-justifying document stating that non-Catholic Churches are defective and flawed -- as if the Catholic Church wasn’t! Some Catholic ecumenists protest too much that the document really says nothing new. Many Protestant leaders, however, reacted with dismay and even anger at yet another papal retreat from the Second Vatican Council’s spirit of openness.

Religious exclusivity, however, is not only a Catholic failure; nevertheless permit me one more example from that church. There is another recent Roman document, a positive attempt to disassociate the church from the crazy exclusivity of its past. However, it dramatizes the persistent nature of such inbred thinking that reaches even into the afterlife. A recent but centuries overdue RC statement on limbo explains limbo away. For those unfamiliar with this quaint theological absurdity, in both medieval and popular belief, limbo was a place for babies who died without baptism. They were not “born again of water and the Spirit” therefore they could not enter Heaven. The babies were happy enough, but didn’t have sufficient ecclesiastical clearance to pass customs. Most Catholics had long ago abandoned such silliness, and now belatedly Rome is acknowledging the obvious.
Catholics, however, are not the only
religious group plagued by exclusivity. According to the official Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Website only 144,000 will be born again and saved as spiritual sons (sic) of God. These 144,000 will go to heaven and rule with Christ. I’m not sure what happens to women and the billions and billions of others. Perhaps the Jehovah Witnesses have their own limbo.

Predestination, which holds that eternal life is preordained for some and damnation preordained for others is another soul-chilling example of exclusivity. Especially since the Reformation the churches have struggled to deal with that theological landmine. Predestination has its roots in the biblical concept of a chosen people and in the dark theology of Saint Augustine. In the popular mind, however, it has come to be associated with John Calvin and the Presbyterians. I suspect Presbyterians get a bad rap on that; predestination was around long before Calvin. But whomever you blame for it, predestination could be a poster child for exclusivity.

Long before predestination, limbo and the 144,000 elect, however, the Hebrew Scriptures portrayed the Jews as God’s chosen people. They are the people of the Book, whom Yahweh protected and loved more than the pagan tribes who surrounded and threatened them.

In truth the pagans like the Presbyterians get a bad rap. The word “pagan” originally meant belonging to a village, of the earth, rural. The pagans were not of the city, not of the military, not of the Book. They were, as Huston Smith tells us in The World’s Religions, tribal, rustic -- and had no scriptures. Because they lacked scripture their traditions were oral. These primal religions had no sacred texts to codify and bolster their beliefs with claims of exclusivity. Like all religions, of course, they had their shadow side, but their respect for the earth and the cycles of nature could teach us respect and protection for the environment.

Religions’ claims of exclusivity embarrass many believers. Instinctively, they know that the Mystery we in the West call God is not that narrow or petty. For the most part people in the pews have followed common sense, not the self-serving claims of institutional documents or theologies.

Such exclusive claims, however, push others further away from the Mystery. For example, Sam Harris’ book The End of Faith, is especially critical of the religions of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity and Islam because these religions consider their scriptures divinely revealed. Cherry-picking these scriptures for self-serving texts does much to reinforce exclusivity and makes non-believers even more skeptical -- even disgusted.

The spiritual teachings that oppose religious exclusivity are the universality of divine love and the unity of the human race. In the light of The Holy, the race is one. In the eyes of God, we are all sisters and brothers. No church, synagogue or mosque is the one true community. There isn’t any; they all are flawed. No group is the exclusive broker of Life’s gifts. That grace is free as the air and as universal as the light from the sun. The primal religions taught us that. They had no exclusive books or pronouncements.

Daniel O’Rourke is a married Catholic priest, retired from the administration at State University of New York at Fredonia. His column appears the second and fourth Thursday of each month. Spirit at Your Back, a book of his previous columns has just been published. The book may be purchased or comments sent to orourke@netsync.net.