This document discusses the challenges and opportunities for Christians to develop identities and relationships with those of other faiths in a pluralistic world. It examines how Christians have historically built strong identities through hostility toward others, but argues this now threatens global solidarity. It proposes Christians build identities based on hospitality rather than hostility. It explores how doctrines can divide or heal, and how rituals like baptism could promote inclusion over exclusion. The document advocates for mission that focuses on compassion rather than proselytism or assimilation.

3. Christian Identity in a
Multi-Faith World

5. Can there be peace among
passionately faithful people?

8. humor
anti-humor

15. Why did the chicken cross the road?
Albert Einstein: Did the chicken really cross the road, or
did the road move beneath the chicken?
Sir Isaac Newton: Chickens at rest tend to stay at rest.
Chickens in motion tend to cross the road.
A nun: It was a habit.
Hamlet: That is not the question.
John Donne: It crosseth for thee.
Colonel Sanders: Did I miss one?

16. Why did the dinosaur cross the road?
(2 answers)
What is the chicken’s deepest dream?
Why did the Texas chicken cross the road?
Why did the chicken go to the seance?

17. Can you imagine Jesus, Moses, the Buddha,
and Mohammed walking together ...
If they could cross the road together, might it
be possible for us to follow them?

18. Starting Point:

19. We already know how to do 2
things quite well:

20. We already know how to do 2
things quite well:
1. how to have a strong Christian
identity that is hostile toward
people of other religions.

21. We have the only way.
STRONG-
You are going to hell.
HOSTILE
We are God’s chosen.
You worship false gods.
resistance is futile.
you will be assimilated - or

22. We already know how to do 2
things quite well:
1. how to have a strong Christian
identity that is hostile toward
people of other religions.
2. how to have a weak Christian
identity that is tolerant (benign)
toward people of other religions.

23. it doesn’t matter what you believe.
all religions are the same.
all roads lead to god.
only sincerity matters.
doctrines divide.
weak-benign
keep religion private.

24. We haven’t yet learned ...
to have a strong Christian identity
that is benevolent
toward other religions.

25. Because I Follow Jesus, I love you.
I move toward “the other.”
I break down walls of hostility.
i stand with you in solidarity.
you are made in God’s image.
strong-
i am your servant.
benevolent
I practice human-kindness.

26. A Popular
Misconception:
Our religious differences
keep us apart.

27. Actuality:
It is not our religious
differences that keep us apart,
but rather one thing we all
hold in common:

28. Actuality:
We build strong religious
identities through hostility
toward the other.

29. Give people a common enemy, and you will
give them a common identity. Deprive them
of an enemy and you will deprive them of
the crutch by which they know who they are.
- James Alison

30. Hostility has had survival
value ...
but it may now
threaten our survival.

31. "Historically, the amity, or goodwill, within the
group has often depended on enmity, or hatred,
between groups. But when you get to the global
level, that won't work... That cannot be the
dynamic that holds the planet together... But
what would be unprecedented is to have this
kind of solidarity and moral cohesion at a global
level that did not depend on the hatred of other
groups of people."
(Robert Wright, Nonzero: The Logic Of Human
Destiny, quoted in Evolutionaries: Unlocking The
Spiritual And Cultural Potential In Science's
Greatest Idea, by Carter Phipps)

32. Can Christians today build a new
kind of identity ... based on
hospitality and solidarity, not
hostility, to the other?
strong-
benevolent

34. Four Challenges
1. Historical
2. Doctrinal
3. Liturgical
4. Missional

35. Four Challenges
1. Historical
2. Doctrinal
3. Liturgical
4. Missional

37. 1495
2nd Voyage Return Cargo: 1600
male and female Taino slaves for
Spain
“It is possible, with the name of the
Holy Trinity, to sell all the slaves which
it is possible to sell … Here there are
so many of these slaves … although
they are living things they are as good
as gold.”

38. The Spaniards who remained in Hispaniola were
encouraged to take Taino slaves “in the amount
desired.” Columbus himself gave a teenage girl to
one of his crew, Miguel Cuneo, for his personal
“use.” Cuneo wrote that she “resisted with all her
strength” when he attempted to have sex with her,
so he “thrashed her mercilessly and raped her.”
Being given a Taino woman to rape was, in fact, a
popular “company perk” for Columbus’s men.
Columbus himself wrote to a friend, “There are
plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls;
those from nine to ten [years old] are now in
demand.”

39. - An eyewitness in the early 1500’s
As a result of the sufferings and hard labor they
endured, the Indians choose and have chosen
suicide. Occasionally a hundred have committed
mass suicide. The women, exhausted by labor, have
shunned conception and childbirth…. Many, when
pregnant, have taken something to abort and have
aborted. Others after delivery have killed their
children with their own hands, so as not to leave
them in such oppressive slavery.

40. Of the estimated 300,000 Taino alive when
Columbus “discovered” them in 1492, about 12,000
remained in 1516, fewer than 200 in 1546, and zero in
1555. What our history calls “the discovery of America,”
Taino history might call “the arrival of the Christian
genociders,” if, that is, any Taino survived to tell an
alternate history. None did.

41. The 16th-Century conquests of the Conquistadors
The 4th-Century conquests of Constantine

42. From Eusebius’ “Ecclesiastical History”:
“[Constantine] said that about noon,
when the day was already beginning
to decline, he saw with his own eyes
the trophy of a cross of light in the
heavens, above the sun, and bearing
the inscription, CONQUER BY THIS.

43. “In hoc signo vinces”
IN THIS SIGN CONQUER?
CONVERT BY THE SWORD?
DOMINATE?
COLONIZE?
ASSIMILATE?
INVADE AND OCCUPY?
KILL?
TERRORIZE?
43

45. Serve like this ...
Love like this ...
Reconcile like this ...
Transcend violence like this ...

46. Four Challenges
1. Historical
2. Doctrinal
3. Liturgical
4. Missional

47. Must doctrinal differences
always divide us?

48. From Follow the Sacredness, by Jonathan Haidt
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/17/forget-the-money-follow-the-sacredness/
Despite what you might have learned in
Economics 101, people aren’t always
selfish. In politics, they’re more often
groupish. When people feel that a group
they value — be it racial, religious, regional
or ideological — is under attack, they rally
to its defense, even at some cost to
themselves. We evolved to be tribal, and
politics is a competition among coalitions
of tribes.

49. ... The key to understanding tribal behavior is
not money, it’s sacredness. The great trick that
humans developed at some point in the last few
hundred thousand years is the ability to circle
around a tree, rock, ancestor, flag, book or god,
and then treat that thing as sacred. People who
worship the same idol can trust one another,
work as a team and prevail over less cohesive
groups. So if you want to understand politics,
and especially our divisive culture wars, you
must follow the sacredness.

50. “Sacred groupishness” often makes a
“centering idol” out of a list of doctrines.
Doctrines provide a loyalty test ...
helping us test others for membership in
our safe group.
Doctrine is not simply about “truth” - it’s
about loyalty, safety, security, and
groupishness.

51. But doctrine can have another meaning ...
another purpose:
Doctrine can mean
“a healing teaching.”

52. What might happen if we took a
second look at our core
doctrines - not as centering
idols, but as
healing teachings?

53. healing teachings
intended to bind together what
has been torn and broken
(re-ligion)?

54. The Healing Teaching of
Creation

55. The Healing Teaching of
Original Sin

56. The Healing Teaching of
Election
(or chosen-ness)

57. Four Challenges
1. Historical
2. Doctrinal
3. Liturgical
4. Missional

58. All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful:
The Lord God made them all.
- Ms. Cecil Alexander (1848)

59. Each little flower that opens,/ Each little bird that sings,/
He made their glowing colors./ He made their tiny wings.
The purple headed mountains,/ The river running by,/ The
sunset and the morning/ That brightens up the sky.
The cold wind in the winter,/ The pleasant summer sun,/
The ripe fruits in the garden,/ He made them every one.
The tall trees in the greenwood,/The meadows where we
play,/ The rushes by the water,/ To gather every day.
He gave us eyes to see them,/ And lips that we might tell/
How great is God Almighty,/ Who has made all things
well.
All things bright and beautiful,/ All creatures great and
small,/ All things wise and wonderful:/ The Lord God
made them all.

60. The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
He made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.
All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful:
The Lord God made them all.

61. France, 1847
Placide Clappeau, a French wine merchant,
mayor of the French town Roquemaure,
writes a poem.
Adolphe Adam sets it to music.
Later the song is translated into English by John
S. Dwight –
It is said to have been the first music ever
broadcast over radio.

62. O holy night, the stars are brightly shining;
It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth!
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope, the weary soul rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born!
O night, O holy night, O night divine!

63. Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His Gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother
And in His Name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy Name!
Christ is the Lord! O praise His name forever!
His pow’r and glory evermore proclaim!
His pow’r and glory evermore proclaim!
1847

64. The Rituals We Practice

65. Baptism: A ritual of cleansing

66. Clean - unclean
Acceptance - revulsion
Us - them
Clean, still water
Certified Gatekeepers

67. Meanwhile in the
wilderness:
The Essenes
- Hyper-clearn
-Hyper-puritan
- Isolated communes
- Multiple daily baptisms

68. What would it mean for John ...
- to leave his father’s priestly work
- to leave the Temple
- to leave Jerusalem
- to avoid the Essenes
- and to baptize ...

69. in the Jordan River?
- in public
- in running water
- in an “undeveloped”
setting
- with a message, not of
cleanliness, but ...

70. rethinking, reformulation, repentance?

71. What does it mean for
Jesus to accept John’s
baptism?

72. What would it
mean for the
Spirit in the form
of a dove to
descend upon
Jesus?

73. And what would it mean
for Jesus’ disciples to
expand John’s “guerrilla
theatre” around the
world?

74. Baptism - not into a
new “hyper-clean”
religion - but into
Christ, a new
humanity, a new
kingdom, a new way
of life?

75. Peter, Acts 10:
“God has shown me I
should never call
anyone impure or
unclean.”
“I now realize ... God
does not show
favoritism.”

76. From Catherine Maresca (Catechesis of the Good Shepherd) -
Finally, [Maria] Cavalletti emphasizes the importance of being specific.
You can’t teach children language without teaching children a language.
She writes, “Wishing to stay on a vague level without any specific
content is the same as wanting a child to talk without using any
particular language.”9 Some parents say they don’t want their children
to learn a particular religion because they want them to be free to
choose their own. But these children are missing the opportunity to
become spiritually literate.
To be initiated into the signs of their religious tradition creates the
possibility of grasping the signs of many traditions, and of respecting
the integrity of each of those traditions. So we need to be religious in a
particular way, true to the faith we affirm for ourselves, in order to
foster the spiritual and religious literacy of our children.... this is a
service to our children. We have to be specific.

77. While we don’t reject other traditions, a particular
religion has to be our starting point. To say, “I’m
spiritual but not religious” is like saying, “I’m linguistic
but don’t speak any particular language.” Everyone has
innate linguistic capacity that gets activated as one
learns a particular language or languages. Likewise,
everyone has spiritual capacity that gets activated and
mobilized through becoming religious in a particular
way. Becoming religious in a particular way is
foundational for relating to the religious other.

78. Children who have learned their native language well are poised
to learn new languages with greater ease. Children who learned
the language of their religious tradition are likewise poised to
grasp the sacred signs of another tradition. As we nurture the
spiritual life of young children with sacred signs, we
simultaneously build the foundation of respect and understanding
for others’ beliefs. With spiritual literacy, faith and interfaith
formation work hand in hand, promoting in turn a more peaceful
world.
Children, Signs, and Spiritual
Literacy: An Interfaith Experience
By Catherine Maresca

79. Four Challenges
1. Historical
2. Doctrinal
3. Liturgical
4. Missional

80. Gods of the oppressors
2
Gods of the oppressed

81. Mission as
proselytism, pacification,
assimilation

83. Indonesian tea, rubber, and
peanuts

84. Mission as
proselytism, pacification,
assimilation
Mission as charity,
compassion,
responsibility

85. From this vantage point, Christianity has nothing –
absolutely nothing – to teach Indigenous people about how
to live in a good way on this land. In fact, Christians have
only demonstrated that there is something profoundly wrong
with the cosmology and worldview behind more than five
centuries of carnage—carnage that has yet to even slow
down. Christians have so much negative history and dogma
to overcome within their own tradition, I do not believe the
religion is even salvageable. The world is deep in the throes
of an ecological crisis based in Western economies of
hyper-exploitation. The planet will not survive another 500
years of Christian domination.
- Waziyatawin, PhD, 2012

86. From this vantage point, Christianity has nothing –
absolutely nothing – to teach Indigenous people about how
to live in a good way on this land. In fact, Christians have
only demonstrated that there is something profoundly wrong
with the cosmology and worldview behind more than five
centuries of carnage—carnage that has yet to even slow
down. Christians have so much negative history and dogma
to overcome within their own tradition, I do not believe the
religion is even salvageable. The world is deep in the throes
of an ecological crisis based in Western economies of
hyper-exploitation. The planet will not survive another 500
years of Christian domination.
- Waziyatawin, PhD, 2012

88. words from vincent
donovan

89. “‘…do not try to call them back to where
they were, and do not try to call them to
where you are, as beautiful as that place
might seem to you. You must have the
courage to go with them to a place that
neither you nor they have ever been
before.’ Good missionary advice, and a
beautiful description of the unpredictable
process of evangelization, a process
leading to that new place where none of us
has ever been before.” - Vincent Donovan

90. clean energy mission
90

91. Embodiment of Christ

92. Solidarity with the Victim &
Vulnerable

93. Witness ...
Withness -
Mission of Presence
“Transgressive” friendship

94. The mission of presence

95. the mission of example ...
modeling another way of life

96. the mission of vocation:
sending people out to do their daily work
with uncommon love ...

97. the mission of the new evangelism:
Proclaiming Jesus’ good news of the
kingdom, reign, commonwealth, or
dream of God
Calling people to rethink everything and
learn/follow a new path

98. Gods of domination,
conquest, and empire ....
2
Gods of resistance,
differentiation, and
freedom ....

99. violent gods of the oppressors
violent gods of the oppressed
3rd
option
a nonviolent God of reconciliation
99

100. A
Are

101. you

102. ready

103. to

104. cross

105. the

106. road?

108. www.brianmclaren.net