The Christian Narrative and Spiritual DiversityIntroductionThe reality of religious pluralism (the view that there are many different religions with different teachings)does not logically imply any sort of religious relativism (the view that there is no such thing as truth, or thateverything is a matter of opinion). There are genuine distinctions between religions and worldviews. Giventhis fact, it is imperative that one be tolerant of differences and engage civilly with those of differentreligions or worldviews. It might be tempting to think that one is being tolerant or civil by simply rolling allreligions into one sort of generic "spirituality" and to claim that all religions are essentially the same. Butthis is simply false. Once again, there are genuine and important differences among religions; thesedifferences are meaningful to the followers of a particular faith. To simply talk of some sort of a generic"spirituality," while maybe properly descriptive of some, does not accurately describe most of the religiouspeople in the world. Furthermore, this terminology often reduces religion to a mere personal or culturalpreference, and it ignores the distinctions and particularity of each. The point is that such a reductionism isnot respectful of patients. It should also be noted that atheism or secularism are not simply default orperfectly objective (or supposedly "scientific") starting positions, while religious perspectives are somehowhopelessly biased. Every religion or worldview brings with it a set of assumptions about the nature ofreality; whether or not a particular view should be favored depends upon whether or not it is consideredtrue and explains well one's experience of reality.The Christian NarrativeWhile it is not possible to survey every possible religion, this survey will at least attempt to do justice to thebiblical narrative and Judeo-Christian tradition.The Bible is a collection of 66 books written over thousands of year in several different languages and indifferent genres (e.g., historical narrative, poetry, letters, prophecy), yet there is an overarching story, or bigpicture, which we will refer to as the "Christian biblical narrative." The Christian biblical narrative is oftensummarized as the story of the creation, fall, redemption, and restoration of human beings (and moreaccurately this includes the entire created order). Concepts such as "sin," "righteousness," and "shalom"provide a framework by which the Christian worldview understands the concepts of "health" and "disease."Briefly, consider the following summary of each of the four parts of the grand Christian story (yourinstructor will be sure to go through the actual biblical references together with you as you explore thisnarrative):CreationAccording to Christianity, the Christian God is the creator of everything that exists (Gen 1-2). There isnothing that exists, which does not have God as its creator. In Christianity there is a clear distinctionbetween God and the creation. Creation includes anything that is not God–the universe and everything in it,including human beings. Thus, the universe itself and all human beings were created. The act of creating byGod was intentional. In this original act of creation, everything exists on purpose, not accidentally or purelyrandomly, and it is good. When God describes His act or creating, and the creation itself as "good, " amongother things, it not only means that it is valuable and that God cares for it, but that everything is "the wayit's supposed to be." There is an "order" to creation, so to speak, and everything is it ought to be. This stateof order and peace is described by the termShalom. Yale theologian Nicholas Wolterstorff (1994) describesShalom as, "the human being dwelling at peace in all his or her relationships: With God, with self, withfellows, with nature" (p. 251).FallSometime after the creation, there occurred an event in human history in which this order was broken. InGenesis 3 the Bible describes this event as a fundamental act of disobedience to God. The disobedience ofAdam and Eve is referred to as "the fall," because, among other things, it was their rejection of God's ruleover them and it resulted in a break in Shalom. According to the Bible, the fall had universal implications.Sin entered into the world through the fall, and with it, spiritual and physical death. This break in Shalomhas affected the creation ever since; death, disease, suffering, and, most fundamentally, estrangement fromGod has been characteristic of human existence.
