Fall 2019 · Vol. 48 No. 2 · pp. 203–205
Book Review
Encountering World Religions: A Christian Introduction
Irving Hexham. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2019. 224 pages.
Irving Hexham, professor of religious studies at the University of Calgary, has maintained a longstanding professional interest in world religions. Encountering World Religions expands on his previously released textbook, Understanding World Religions (Zondervan, 2011).
Christians can make two types of mistakes in writing books about world religions. The first and most common is to assume that religions must be evaluated using neutral and objective language, acceptable to all. p. 204 Such books often begin with a definition of “religion” and then follow with chapters describing the various practices of different religions, concluding with another “objective” overview. Christians worry about the particularity of Christian claims; they fear that any effort to speak to world religions from a Christian perspective would be immediately dismissed as essentially sectarian. The problem with this approach is that holding to the possibility of a supposedly objective stance is itself an incoherent stance. There is no universally accepted objective ground from which one can evaluate world religions. Furthermore, writing from a supposedly objective stance undermines the Christian message in that it subordinates Christianity to the problematic ideology of modernity.
At first it appears that Hexham avoids this error as he unapologetically acknowledges his Christian stance. He writes the book with the explicit task of helping Christians better understand other religions, which are introduced and evaluated on their theological connection, or lack thereof, to Christianity. Unlike most books on world religions, there is no chapter about Christianity as such because Christianity pervades the whole book.
The second mistake Christian authors make in writing about world religions is to equate their own ideological understanding of Christianity with Christianity as such. This mistake is evident in much of the colonial missionary effort, where it was assumed that European-style Christianity was the only acceptable form of faith. It is not clear that Hexham avoids this error. While he is candid about his theological commitments as a Christian, they are of a particular brand within the wider world of Christianity, where ideological agreement between and within its different branches is often elusive.
Furthermore, Hexham’s idealistic account of Christianity enables him to ignore the vast array of tragic missteps and errors Christians have made in interacting with others. To claim Christ as Lord does not mean that the church is immune from error but rather that such mistakes are, in principle, fixable. At the very least, it means that we Christians can name and repent of our sins. Hexham rarely finds anything disturbing in Christian history. For example, while he often mentions the Crusades as examples of the overreach of the church, he explains them away as matters of misinterpretation. Moreover, Hexham’s attempt to explain away the Holocaust as a strictly pagan enterprise for which Christians bear no responsibility is deeply troubling. The extent of Christian anti-Semitism, which he ignores to make his point, is simply staggering. Indeed, he repeatedly draws our attention to faults in the practice of other religious groups (such as human sacrifice in Hinduism or slavery in Islam) while glossing over any problems in the history of Christian practice. p. 205
Hexham does acknowledge that the fall of Christendom has made the task of evangelism more difficult, but he appears to mourn the loss. Christians should not hurry to convert those of other faiths, he says, but should rather take time to hear their stories. However, his tone is patronizing. So, while I endorse his call for friendship with others, the call to evangelism here is disingenuous absent an acknowledgment of our errors.
Moreover, Hexham’s understanding of Christianity blinds him to the fact that encounters with people of other religions can enrich and transform Christians. The Bible includes many accounts of non-Jews being lauded for their exemplary actions. Hexham uses the story of the Good Samaritan, but not as an example of how Jesus calls on an outsider to show his followers how to follow. Instead, he highlights Jesus’s silence in regard to the validity of Samaritan beliefs.
Those who insist on idolizing one of many ideological understandings of Christianity do so because they fear that any loosening of the ideological grip will inevitably slide Christians into relativism. This may be a consequence, but not a necessary one. I have had the good fortune to travel through the Middle East on multiple occasions and have been amazed at the level of hospitality offered by the Muslim community. God has used Muslims to help me be a better Christian. Hexham claims that Christians have “nothing to fear from exposure to the beliefs of others” (13). I suggest that Christians stuck in a particular form of Christianity may rightly fear the transformations which may follow encounters with others, since the call of evangelism calls for humility rather than pride.
In the end, whether one chooses a supposedly objective stance or a certain Christian ideology as supreme, the nature of these mistakes is similar. Perhaps Christians forget that we are distinct in that we follow a person, not a creed, ideology, set of laws, or book. In other words, if one has already elevated one ideology among many others to the status of Truth, then one no longer needs God, Jesus, or the church. In fact, the church receives little attention in this book. For Hexham, the primary inculcator of Christianity has been the so-called Christian society of Christendom. In which case evangelism becomes not the task of the church but rather of individual Christians. Therefore, while I appreciate Hexham’s efforts to speak to a post-Christendom world, I fear that the chains binding him to modernity are still strong.
