God Squad: Many religious paths up the same mountain

Dear Rabbi Gellman: I am a little confused about different religions. I am a Christian, I believe there is one God and his name is Jesus Christ. (I don’t believe in the trinity.) You are a Jew, you believe in one God and his title is Yahweh, or Jehovah, or the I Am. Muslims believe his name is Allah. So, are there multiple gods up there or is there just one God and some of us are right and some of us are wrong?

I am aware of your “different paths up the same mountain” analogy, but I don’t see that teaching in any religion except your column. Can we believe what we want to believe and expect God to follow us, or are we supposed to find out what God wants and follow him?  — R  

MG: Let’s start with the mountain. If the teaching that “there are many religions in the world for the same reason that there are many paths up the same mountain to the same summit” was just something I made up, I would still believe it. It just does not make any sense to me that God would give all the truth of life and salvation to just one faith and no truth to any other faith. Truth is just too broad and complex to be contained completely in only one faith.

I am also amazed how different religions with no contact still were able to develop exactly the same teachings. The Golden Rule appears in exactly the same form in the teachings of many different climbers to God. The core teachings of all the religions of the world are remarkably similar.

The problem with spiritual mountain climbing is when we encounter climbers who believe firmly that their way is the only way up. I personally believe that Judaism is a perfect blend of theology and history, but my friendship with Father Tom convinced me (and him) that other faiths had so much to teach us. We were more than friends to each other. We were teachers for each other. That is why the mountain was true for us.

Fortunately, it is also what the great faiths believe. Islam and Christianity both teach that the prophets of the Hebrew Bible were real prophets of the same God. The rabbis of Judaism taught that, “The righteous of all nations shall have a share in the World to Come.” In the Christian Testament Paul taught that God’s covenant with the Jewish people was valid forever and that, “There are different gifts but the same Spirit. There are different ministries but the same Lord. . . . It is one and the same Spirit who produces all these gifts, distributing them to each as He wills” (I Corinthians 12:4-11).

So you see, the mountain is not Gellman’s mountain. The mountain is God’s mountain. Our task as spiritual mountain climbers is to learn from the other climbers. I was recently doing a Buddhist breathing meditation and afterward thanked God for sending the Buddha. I know he lived at about the same time as the prophet Isaiah, who taught, “In sitting still you shall be saved” (Isaiah 30:15). I wonder to this day if over the spice roads of the ancient world a Buddhist monk encountered a Jewish prophet and if they ate a meal together and drank some tea and shared some stories . . . about mountain climbing to God.