Peace be with you. Friends, for this fourth
Sunday of Easter, our first reading is from one of
the magnificent early kerygmatic sermons of St. Peter. The "kerygma" means
the basic proclamation. So here's Peter, in the earliest days,
talking about the meaning of Christianity. And here are a few lines that,
I submit to you, are kind of troubling for
a lot of people today. Listen: "He [Christ] is
the stone rejected by you, the builders, which has
become the cornerstone.' There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under
heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved." Pretty blunt stuff, huh?
Pretty exclusive sounding. We put such a premium on nonjudgmentalism,
and inclusivity, and "everyone gets around the table." Well, here are some
pretty uncompromising words. There is no salvation
apart from this name. It seems no Jew, no Hindu,
no Buddhist, no Muslim, no agnostic, no atheist
could possibly be saved. That no one gets into heaven except
explicit Christians. As I say, it runs counter to so many
of our cultural instincts today. And, furthermore, it seems to play
into a lot of our worst religious instincts —namely, us against them. Wouldn't this give rise,
people might say, to a sort of religious violence? "We're the inside group,
everybody else is outside. If we have to use violence
to bring them in, why not?" Hasn't this sort of thing been used
up and down the centuries to justify or sanction violence? Okay. As I say, it's a problematic text
for a lot of people today. Here's the first move I want to make
in helping us to understand it, is to make no move at all. What I mean here is, I think
it's important for us to let the difficulty of
this text sink in. We shouldn't turn immediately
to an explanation that kind of explains it away. No, no; let's stay with the
difficulty of this claim of St. Peter. Now, how come? Well, as I've said many,
many times, Jesus is different. Jesus is distinct vis-a-vis all
the other religious founders, all the other religious philosophers. Jesus spoke and acted in the
very person of God. Jesus, therefore, demanded
a choice and a decision that no other religious founder or
religious philosopher ever made; namely, "You're with me or
you're against me." If Jesus is who he says he is,
well then, I should give my
whole life to him. If he's not who he says he is, well,
he's a rather deluded bad man. There's no other founder
or philosopher that presents that same sort of challenge. And so, Jesus is distinctive. Does this make Christianity better
than other religions? Well, okay. So be it, if by that you mean,
yes, a claim is being made about Jesus that's
made about nobody else. All right.
So be it. And therefore, it's simply
true what Peter says. There is no other name
by which we are saved —if we mean that the fullness
of salvation that God intends for his people is on offer
in Jesus alone. True.
True. What's the fullness of salvation? That we become in Christ
and through Christ participants in God's own life. The Father sent the Son all the way
to the limits of godforsakenness that we might be gathered into
the divine life by the Holy Spirit. There's no other religion,
there's no other religious philosophy that holds out such a prospect. So that's true. There's no other name by which
we are offered the fullness of salvation
than the name of Jesus. I know. Everybody today will
say something like, "No. You follow Christ.
I follow the Buddha. They follow Sufi mystics.
They follow Jewish rabbis. And aren't we all just climbing the same
holy mountain by different routes?" Well, that's not
biblical religion, everybody. That just is not the
claim of Christianity. Something absolutely decisive is at
stake when we're talking about Jesus. Last week, I talked about the
reality of the Resurrection. One thing that that did was it
confirmed in the most vivid way possible the veracity of
Jesus' claims about himself. I might've been able to say
he was just a deluded madman if he had died and
stayed in his grave. But when Jesus came back through
the power of the Holy Spirit from the dead,
it confirmed for them that what he was saying
about himself was in fact true. And therefore, this great decision
—are you with him or against him?— remains. Yes, salvation as God fully intends it is on offer in Jesus
and in no one else. Okay. You still with me?
I know. I know. This is deeply challenging business
in our culture today. So, if you're still with me,
does this mean that something like
Christian imperialism is warranted? Does this mean that I can engage
even in violence against those who don't hold faith in Christ? Does this mean in fact, that
necessarily nobody else except explicitly Christian believers
make it to heaven? And the answer to those
questions is no. Now, how do we make sense of this? Well, can I suggest this now, in
light of the teaching of Vatican II. If you want to see the text
I'm relying on, it's in the Vatican II document
called "Lumen Gentium," the light of the nations. It's a document about the Church. It's in section 16
of "Lumen Gentium." And there, the council fathers
urge us to think about this question not so much in terms of
a stark either/or, but rather in terms of
fullness and participation. Fullness and participation. Is the fullness of salvation
on offer only in Jesus? Yes.
St. Peter, of course, is right. There's no salvation offered
in any other name. That's what God intends. But are there participations
in that fullness on offer in other religions and
other religious philosophies? And there, the answer is yes,
according to Vatican II. So the council fathers
talk about rays of light. It's a lovely little expression. As you look at Buddhism,
or Hinduism, or you look at Islam, or Judaism,
and other religious philosophies, can we see rays of light? Yeah. Elements of truth, and goodness,
and beauty in them. How should we read those? As participations in the fullness
of light found in Jesus Christ. Yes, it's Christ who says,
"I am the light of the world." Quite right. Are there reflections of
that light on available in other religious traditions
and philosophies? And the answer is yes. Now, press it further. Can one find salvation even
by means of these lesser lights? And the answer of the
council fathers is yes. Now, don't write me letters,
and read Vatican II carefully. I'm not saying, "Oh, don't worry about it.
Everyone's going to be saved." No, no; that's not
the point at all. *Can* someone be saved
by the grace of Christ offered in a participated way
in these other traditions? And the answer is yes, it's possible. Does that mean I stop announcing Christ? Of course not.
Of course not. I'm called upon to announce
the fullness of salvation. Of course, I want to share
the fullness of the light. So don't fall into that trap
—that this means some sort of bland religious indifferentism. No, no, no. Here's one of the best ways to
see it, I think, with the help of the person I've called the most
influential dead person at Vatican II. What I mean is, the theologian
who wasn't there in person, but who influenced the council
in so many ways. I'm referring to the great
St. John Henry Newman. Newman spoke of the conscience,
in his beautiful language now, as the aboriginal vicar of Christ
in the soul. Striking, isn't it? The conscience—my deep sense of
what's right and what's wrong— is the aboriginal vicar,
representative, of Christ in the soul. So when my conscience speaks to me
—it says, "Do this; don't do that"— and I, in good faith, am following
the prompt of my conscience, what am I in fact following, even
though I might not fully know it? I'm following, in fact,
the voice of Christ. And so—again, read
Lumen Gentium, section 16— can even a nonbeliever, who sincerely follows his
own conscience, be saved? Vatican II says yes. Now, again, again, mind you:
*can* be. So this is not some
namby-pamby relativism. Because, in point of fact, that
even nonbeliever who's sincerely following his conscience is
following the voice of Christ. Because the conscience is the
aboriginal vicar of Christ in the soul. Just as someone in another
religious tradition in the measure that he follows
whatever is good and true and beautiful in that tradition, is in fact following
the light of Christ though he might not be
fully aware of it. That's the way that Vatican II
I think very deftly handles this problem. Is it compromising what St. Peter says? Mm-mm;
no, no. "There is no salvation
through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven...
by which we are to be saved." That's true. The fullness of salvation,
participation in the divine life, is on offer fully in
Jesus Christ alone. Which is why—look, I've dedicated
my life to it— which is why the Church
evangelizes constantly, proclaims Christ in season and out,
when it's popular, when it's unpopular. We preach Christ and him crucified. Absolutely. But it doesn't mean
we have to succumb to a sort of aggressive exclusivism. Through participations in the fullness
of Christ, others can be saved, and they are being saved indeed by him. So here's the trick—and I know, in our
culture, these two options are on wide offer. Listen: we must affirm Christian
distinctiveness and completeness without falling into a kind of
imperialism or violence. And we must affirm the truth in
other religions without falling into relativism or indifferentism. As I say, the two extremes
are on clear display. Go on the internet anytime of the
day or night, and you'll see them both. Vatican II urges us onto
this enlivening path. Christ, the fullness of salvation,
and then participations in that fullness by which others can be saved. So, let me just say
as I bring it to a close, let St. Peter's speech bother you today. Don't gloss it over.
No, no; it's saying something of absolutely
permanent value and truth: that Jesus Christ,
the fullness of salvation, is distinctive,
not one figure among many. But never allow yourself
to use St. Peter's speech as an excuse to attack,
or exclude, or belittle others. Take a good look at Lumen Gentium,
section 16. And I think you'll find the path
for understanding this sermon well. And God bless you. Thanks so much for watching. If you enjoyed this video,
I invite you to share it and to subscribe to my YouTube channel.
