Violence, Religion, and Salvation

"[T]he typical response to the problem of religiously induced violence, or violence which has a religious component to it, is to say, 'Well, minimize religious commitment. [The] less of a religious commitment, [the] less violence we will have in the world.' And my sense is that's not the case. My sense is that it's precisely the vague religiosity, abstract religiosity, religiosity that is emptied of its proper content, that can be claimed for any project that I myself pursue that is the source of violence. It's the content-filled religiosity that will steer me in particular directions, that will guide me and that will also lessen the propensity towards violence...It has been standard teaching also of [the] majority, I think, of evangelical Christians that a person who is not explicitly professing Christ can be, in the end, saved. [The] claim has always been that salvation will happen through some form of encounter with Jesus Christ. We may not be able to tell how, but nonetheless, salvation is not available simply to people who profess Jesus Christ in this life. It's available also to others. I don't think it's a plausible position to say, "Well, different religions are equally valid ways to God. They are all, at the bottom, the same and they're equal in their access to God." You have to empty many claims of various religions of their content in order to show somehow that they are the same. That doesn't seem to me to respect sufficiently what adherents of these religions claim. It almost seems like somebody's looking through me and beyond me to find something else that I really believe, of which I'm not quite aware. That doesn't strike me as very respectful. I think [a] much more respectful thing is to say [that] Muslims have very definite claims about how salvation happens. Christians have definite claims about that. What we have to do is engage in a dialogue about these claims. We are different, and we make truth claims as we are different. And, yet, we can all discuss that. We can also invite the other person to see things from our end and vice versa. We will engage in constructive dialogue. We may not end up agreeing, but I find it almost like an insult to human nature, an insult to religious people, whatever religion they belong to, to say, "We have to agree [at] the bottom in order to be able to live in peace." That strikes me as not a plausible position. I want to believe that if you and I disagree about something, that we can still be very good neighbors; indeed, that we can be friends. And I think that ought to apply also for various world religions. We can disagree on profound matters of life and nonetheless, we can live in peace with one another. Why? Because I do believe that different religions have their own internal resources -- and I could make that claim for Christian tradition, certainly -- which will motivate us to live in peace, indeed, to love those who differ from us."

--Miroslav Volf, Henry B. Wright Professor of Systematic Theology, Yale, in an interview at
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week731/interview.html


For those interested the posted picture is "Body of Abel Discovered by Adam and Eve" by William Blake, 1825.