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Introduction

Asia is the home of many religious traditions. Many of the great religions of the world have grown out of the Asian people's attempts over the centuries to grasp the meaning of life and human destiny. Dialogue has always been part and parcel of the Asian understanding of religious life and discipline.

When the Asia-Pacific Region of the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) asked me to write a book on dialogue, what they were looking for was something that would help an average Christian to relate to people who live by other faith convictions. How can Christians in today's world live and witness to Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and other religious communities in an attitude of dialogue? How can this be done without denying one's own faith, without even hiding it? Is it possible to be in dialogue and still remain a convinced Christian?

Much has been written during the last decade on the meaning and practice of interfaith dialogue, the need for it and the limits of it. An interested student can without difficulty find sufficient material to begin a serious reflection on the subject.

In responding to the WSCF request, therefore, I have chosen to deal with what in some ways is a more difficult subject, namely "The Bible and People of other Faiths". This subject should be of interest to a much larger constituency than the WSCF had in mind, and hence this joint WCC-WSCF (Asia-Pacific) publication. I am grateful to friends in both these organizations for their encouragement.

Why the Bible?

Much of the criticism leveled against dialogue is claimed to be based on the Bible. "The Bible says that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life," a friend told me the other day, "and the only way you can continue the dialogue program is by denying this unequivocal witness of the Bible to whom Jesus is, and why he was sent by the Father."

Is this indeed true? Is the Bible not supportive of dialogue with people of other religious traditions? Is there in it a teaching on Jesus and his significance that runs contrary to the intentions of genuine dialogue?

Even though it is difficult to deal with such a subject in a small book, it is important at least to begin an exploration of this issue.

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My intention is not to prove that dialogue is biblical, or that the friend who raised the question with me is wrong. I am well aware that the question arose out of a very genuine concern. It is quite understandable why people believe that the Bible is opposed to dialogue.

For many centuries the Bible itself, and particularly certain verses in the Bible which make exclusive claims for Christ, have been used in Christian teaching and preaching to show why people should become Christians, leaving behind the faiths of their ancestors. The churches in minority situations, as in Asia and in many others parts of the world, have been sustained by the belief that their life apart from the dominant culture and religious milieu is sanctioned, and even demanded, by the scripture.

Millions of Christians in Asia read the Bible daily, both as part of their personal devotion and at family prayers. Many take their Bible with them when they go to church for Sunday worship.

Large numbers of persons in many parts of the world who, for one reason or another, do not wish to display their Christian faith in public, or have chosen not to be part of the institutional structures of religion, cling to the reading of the Bible as the symbol and source of their Christian faith.

The question therefore must be faced sooner or later. And it should be faced not in the spirit of proving or disproving one's position, but in a spirit that opens up new ways of understanding and relating to the traditions handed down in scripture.

The difficulties

I must explain why this is a difficult subject to discuss. The first problem is that the Bible is not a book that deals with other faiths or with the question of dialogue with people of other faiths. In fact, in some ways, it deals with quite the opposite of dialogue. It is primarily about two of the faiths that we have today, Judaism and Christianity. In much of the material in it there is open witness offered to these two religious traditions by those who stand within them and bear testimony to their beliefs. What we have on other faiths in the Bible is therefore incidental to the major concern, which is to bear testimony to one's own faith. It is unreasonable to expect in the Bible a well-developed teaching on the faiths of others.

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We must, therefore, draw out the implications of the biblical teaching, rather than look for direct guidance on dialogue.

The second major problem has to do with the question of interpretation. There is no general agreement among Christians on how the scripture is to be read and interpreted. Some would treat the Bible as the Word of God in the sense that every word written there is true and given by God. There are, however, not too many who hold this view. But there are many who insist that the Bible should not be subjected to critical methods of study. For example, the question whether the sayings attributed to Jesus in St. John's Gospel were in fact said by Jesus would deeply upset them. They would argue that to say that St John's Gospel reflects the early church's beliefs about Jesus, rather than reproduce his very words, is to undermine the authority of scripture. They would not want to deal with the vastly different pictures drawn of Jesus by Mark on the one hand and John on the other, but would want to hold on to both within their overall understanding of who Jesus is.

Then there are others who make it their business to probe the scripture, in the sense of subjecting it to rigorous critical methods of study. They try to understand the life and teachings of Jesus which lie behind all that the early Christians have given us in the Bible. Here too, the Bible is taken seriously, but there is recognition that it is written by people whose reflections are colored by their own faith and by their own attempts to understand Christ and his significance.

It is therefore impossible to deal with the Bible in a way that is acceptable to all. I must confess that I have moved over the years from one position to another in the way I myself relate to the Bible. Therefore, even though I may now speak from the historical critical angle, I am aware of the honesty and intensity of other positions that people hold and other attitudes they have towards the Bible. It is my hope that whatever is said here comes through in a confessional rather than a dogmatic way of stating the case.

In fact, given the material that we have in the Bible, there is no argument to be won. All that one can hope to do is to show another side of the Bible that makes a clear case for a new attitude to people of other faiths. Or one would need to show why the material from scripture usually quoted against dialogue

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is in fact not against dialogue. This can only be done by showing the nature of the material quoted and the context in which it had been used.

The discussion, however, must focus not on isolated verses of the Bible but on the overall teaching of the Bible. Here I am firmly convinced that there is in the Bible another attitude to people of other faiths that Christians in Asia and elsewhere need to recover and celebrate. All that I hope to do is to lift this up.

In so doing I have tried, to the best of my ability, to be faithful to biblical scholarship. It is obvious, however, that in many places I have opted for one or another interpretation without adequately discussing all possible options. This is done mainly because of the constituency for which the book is being written. We have to assume that a large part of this constituency is not familiar with the debates within biblical scholarship, nor wants to be drawn into the details of them. Nor, for that matter, is the book meant for scholars. It is meant for ordinary Christians living in situations of religious pluralism, and constantly challenged to relate to people of other living faiths.

The primary purpose here is to show that some of the common assumptions about the Bible and persons of other faiths can indeed be questioned from within the Bible. It is hoped that this will kindle a desire in many to re-read the Bible in a new way and from another perspective.