Faith stories now online!

Over the last 12 months I've spoken with hundreds of people about their beliefs, identities, spiritual journeys and encounters with people of different religions.

The "Faith Stories" I wrote following these inspiring interview are now available here. You can search for stories by location (I managed to get round more than 30 countries), religious, topic and keyword. 

So if you want to hear from  a Californian Jew who has converted to Hinduism; what it's like to run a Buddhist monastery in Taiwan; why 21st century Indian Hindus still need gurus;  the story of Canadian Muslim who almost became a terrorist; or from a Seventh Day Adventist who bonded with Muslims over basketball in Mozambique; check out Faith Stories. 

I've spoke with everyone from from Rabbi David Rosen in  London, to the Venerable Dharma Master Hsin Tao in Taiwan; and ordinary people from Syria to Tajikistan, and Norway to Ethiopia. It's been an amazing privilege to lead this project, so I hope you enjoy it, too. 

Christians versus everyone else?

"I am the way , the truth and the life. No-one comes to the father except through me." John 14 v 6

When I first became a Christian this verse was used to explain, excuse and insist that Christians had it right and everyone else had it wrong. That only we in the church were in the lifeboat and would be 'saved' from drowning in eternal damnation. That we could and should be bloody-minded: we had the answers to the meaning of life, death and the cosmos.

I still believe Jesus is both the bees knees and the cat's pyjamas. I still believe his words and in this verse. But as my understanding of God has deepened, my faith has grown and I appreciate more and more the value of mystery, I simple can no longer with any authenticity hold the view that I'm right and everyone else is screwed.

I've read many translations, interpretations and exegesis that try to unpack this thorny little verse that innumerable Christian friends have relied upon as a trump card in our theological debates.  I have pondered, prayed and meditated on it. More and more I am convinced it is utterly true, but that using it to exclude non-Christians from God's 'shalom' wholeness (or salvation, if you'd prefer) is to have got the wrong end of the stick.

Today on the Northern Line, somewhere around Kennington I think, I read a beautifully succinct perspective on this by my dear friend, teacher and occasional guru Noel Moules in his astonishing new book Fingerprints of Fire, Footprints of Peace

In these words Jesus declares that he is the road to God. What he is saying is that only a person who follows him can know God with the intimacy of Abba (meaning 'daddy') and the quality of personal spiritual experience this enables. But he is not claiming there is no truth or life without him, or that God cannot be known apart from him.

'Coming out' as a Christian who believes God is not restricted to Christian's understanding of him was a painful experience, but every time I read a reflection like this my soul breathes a sigh of gratitude as I'm reminded just how big God is.