Being faithful in a world of many faiths
“Continue to live your lives in Christ, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”
Colossians 2.6-7 (New Revised Standard Version)
As the Christian faith spread from Jerusalem throughout the Mediterranean world, its missionaries carried the good news of Jesus Christ from city to city: it was mainly an urban movement. One of the cities that became a center for this growing faith was Colossae, in what is now the country of Turkey.
Several hundred years before the birth of Christ, Colossae had been a city of some importance. But thirty years after the death of Christ, it was recognized as a place of faded glory. Nevertheless, a Christian community gathered there, and one of Christianity’s great missionaries, Paul, maintained close ties with the congregation’s leadership. It is possible that Paul was in prison in Rome when he received word that this infant community of faith had developed a problem. A group of unknown size in the congregation believed that Christ was critical to their faith, but could not be relied upon to enable faithful living in all situations. In other words, he needed to be supplemented. So this group of ‘spiritual elites’ tried to convince their brothers and sisters in the faith that they needed to take on extra disciplines in order to navigate the challenges of living faithfully in the world. Apparently these disciplines included a special diet, worship of angels, and the keeping of certain festivals and holidays.
Paul’s concern, expressed through his Letter to the Colossians, argues that Christ is sufficient for all the demands of living. In Christ, argues Paul, we see the fullness of God (“in him the whole fullness of God dwells bodily”) and all that God provides for faith, hope and love. When it comes to our relationship to Christ, no supplements are needed! Furthermore, Paul must have been concerned that some of the Colossians were confusing the indispensable with the optional, and if Christ (truly indispensable for faith) became an optional extra, then Christianity would lose its heart and soul. He encouraged the Colossians to “continue to live your lives in Christ, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”
We do not know how the Colossians responded to Paul’s letter. And if this letter was written from Rome, and had to travel all the way to the other side of the Mediterranean, a great deal of time may have passed between the writing of the words and a public reading in the community of faith. Maybe no one knew what Paul was talking about by the time they received this letter. And maybe this brief letter has as much, or more, to say to us as it did to its original audience.
Paul raises questions that are important for us as we think about what it means to be faithful in a world of many faiths. How can we be truly rooted and established in one faith, and still be open to the claims made by people of other faiths? How can we be confident in the power of Christian faith to bring healing energy to a wounded world, yet humble enough to believe that other traditions also bring wisdom and practices that are necessary for the creation of a hopeful future? Have we added so many ‘supplements’ to local church life that we can no longer find the center of our own spiritual traditions?
As we think and pray together about living faithfully in a multi-faith world, it is important to hear Paul’s concern that we remain rooted and established in Christ. To be rooted in Christ is to be nurtured in a unique way of life that fills us with a longing for God, the power of forgiveness, the passion for justice, and compassion for the most fragile among us. But we need to embrace with understanding those people in the Colossian church who wanted to explore the resources of other religious traditions. If we really respect people of other faiths, we may find that their wisdom and prayer and passion can strengthen our faith instead of threatening it. A partnership with our brothers and sisters of other faiths may help us to see our own beliefs in a fresh way. It may even help us to see the weaknesses as well as the strengths in our religious traditions. With confidence and humility we can be rooted in Christ, and open to the movement of God through the faith traditions of people across the world.
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