Universal Christianity

One of the dilemmas for Christianity today is how to communicate the gospel in a non-competitive way in the context of other faiths. . . .For the exclusivist Christian, of course, this is nonsensical. But perhaps. . . .the Spirit is trying to teach us something. Perhaps Christianity is learning that if it is truly universal it must recognize itself in all forms of human spiritual experience [. . . .] We are today in need of a new way of religious dialogue, of tolerance, mutual reverence, and way of learning from each other that those before us could never have imagined.

Yet the rightness of such a way is attested by the fact that it is so compatible with the personality and example of Jesus. He rejected no-one, tolerated all and saw the mystery of God in all people and in nature. He ate with those he should have despised. He spoke with those he should have avoided. He was as open to others as he was to God.

In Jesus, time and eternity intersect. . . and the intersection happens in human poverty of spirit. . . Poverty is not only the absence of things, but the awareness of our need for others, for God. Human neediness is universal. The richest and the most powerful, like the poorest and most marginalized, are all equally in need. Need is simply the strong feeling that arises in response to the fact of our interdependence. We are not separate from each other or from God. Wisdom is the recognition of that fact, and compassion is the practice of it.

In meditation, we dive to a level of reality deeper than that of our surface, ego-driven minds where so often we are caught in the net of illusion. Untangling from that net is the daily work of meditation and it is the new pattern of the practice of the presence of God: in ordinary life, in all nature and in all people.

An excerpt from Laurence Freeman, “Dearest Friends,” WCCM International Newsletter, Winter, 1996.