Not All Faiths are Equal

I just finished a book by Rebecca Bynum that packs a lot of punch for such a short read. Essentially, she distills what the book title says: The Real Nature of Religion. She definitely has her biases, but they are legitimate in the way only a legitimate believer can know.

It seems these days, you have many non-believers (all truths are relative), but you also have the pseudo-believers (all religions are equal). Have you ever been to an interfaith meeting? If not, you haven't missed much. It's generally a kumbaya gathering, where people try to equate all their core beliefs (but coming through a very superficial lens). 

Truthfully, all the religions are not equal like a co-exist bumper sticker. 

Now, I am aware of the Perennialists take on the View where they go down to the ontological essence of God: and that all faiths are grounded in same esoteric experience at the mountain's peak. While this may be true, although debatable, most people of faith are not mystics. Moreover, it always comes down to the metaphysics that gets interpreted through ultimate experience or revelation.

And so today when you get the interpretations of all the original interpretations of a faith, it all gets very messy.

So what makes one religion better than another? Bynum starts by going after what doesn't a make a religion True (or even a religion). For example, “when a religion becomes completely reduced to a doctrine and only a doctrine, it is no longer a living faith.” And that's definitely a problem, but not as bad as this issue: “If there is no difference between man’s will and God’s will, there is no God to see. Oh I see. So now man has no autonomy and is in complete submission. And “if there is no difference between man’s will and God’s will, there is no God to seek.”  And if God is unknowable, then it's no longer about God... but something else. Maybe, an ideology?

I think you get my point.

So what makes a True religion? Bynum even offers a checklist:

• Is love, the progressive experience of God, encouraged? Check. I'll keep drinking.
• Are the fruits of the spirit, (truthfulness, joy, peace, loyalty, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance) encouraged? Check. By my fruits, you shall know me.
• Is loving service to humanity, without prejudice, encouraged? Check again. Not prejudice, but definitely discernment! 
• Are hatred, selfishness, intolerance, intemperance, disloyalty, deceit and violence discouraged? Big check! 
• Is violent coercion employed? No check. Wow, what would be the point? And the loss.

Did you pass?

Those who are unsure of right and wrong have no defense against those who are absolutely certain of the rightness of their cause and the purity of their motives. — Rebecca Bynum