The State of Theology report asked participants to answer the next statement: “God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.” At stake on this query just isn’t merely interreligious tolerance, but the character of worship itself and whether worship is defined by human sincerity or divine revelation. The statement elicited a spread of responses depending on single demographic characteristics or combos of characteristics, revealing significant theological confusion shaped by belief, affiliation, and practice. Note the next:
-As expected, the difference produced between those with evangelical and non-evangelical beliefs was significant (47% agreement versus 69% agreement), suggesting that doctrinal commitments still meaningfully shape perceptions of worship, though not decisively.
-For this query (though not necessarily for others within the study), belief, affiliation, and practice had a compounding effect on each other. Evangelical beliefs had less of an effect on their very own (47% agreement) than once they were combined with evangelical affiliation (31%). Evangelical belief combined with the opposite affiliations was significantly less influential on this measure: evangelical belief + mainline affiliation (64%), evangelical belief + black protestant affiliation (70%), evangelical belief + Roman Catholic affiliation (81%), and evangelical belief +other (60%). Combining evangelical beliefs with evangelical affiliation and attending church several times every week reduced agreement to 21%. All of those point to the importance of church affiliation and frequent church attendance (greater than once per week).
-Church attendance + affiliation across all beliefs (evangelical versus non-evangelical) also influences the responses to this query. Those with an evangelical affiliation who attended church several times per week (39%) or once per week (40%) were lower than evangelical belief alone (47%). Those with other church affiliations had significantly higher agreement no matter church attendance. For instance, 68% of those attending church several times per week for somebody with a mainline affiliation agreed with the statement.
Regardless of those perceptions or how widespread they could be, we’re left with the query: Does God accept the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam? To answer that query, we want to maneuver beyond survey data to the biblical text itself. First, we want a biblical understanding of worship. Second, we want to take into consideration what it means for God to simply accept something, particularly worship. Finally, we want to contemplate whether other religions are offering worship that is likely to be acceptable to God.
What Is Worship?
It is feasible to grasp worship as involving the task of price to someone or something and demonstrating that price through your devotion to it. This description would allow us to worship quite a lot of different people or things, depending on how price is assigned. In other words, it doesn’t speak to anything ultimate. As such, it’s theologically insufficient. It just isn’t a biblical description of worship since it lacks any reference to God’s self-revelation and authority.
When we expect of biblical worship, we’re considering of worship that faithfully and rightly responds to the Triune God. Worship is a right response to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As I suggest in Serpents and Doves, “true worship requires a right perception of and response to God.” Old Testament Scholar Daniel Block argues that worship “involves reverential human acts of submission and homage before the divine Sovereign in response to his gracious revelation of himself and in accord along with his will.” Let’s unpack all of this a bit.
1. Worship as response
Once we all know God is present, we are going to respond to him in a technique or one other. We will either recognize him as infinitely more relevant than another actor or factor, marginalize him, or reject him completely. Neutrality just isn’t an option.
2. Worship as submission and homage before the divine Sovereign
God is the final word authority. There is not any aspect of reality that defines itself aside from him. The submission and homage offered in worship have to be directed to the divine Sovereign. Generic worship toward “something” or worship offered to a god who claims sovereignty but doesn’t actually possess it’s insufficient. It doesn’t constitute true worship.
3. Worship and revelation
It is feasible for humans to worship without an understanding of God; nevertheless, such worship can’t be rightly directed worship to the Triune God aside from revelation. To know God, we’re depending on God’s self-disclosure. Without it, we are able to’t make certain that we’re worshipping the suitable God in the suitable way.
4. Worship and God’s will
Worship is, in some sense, participatory. When we worship, we live with the grain of the universe God has created in accordance with God’s direction and guidance. We might say that worship is a constrained activity—not constrained by human preference, but by divine command and self-disclosure. Those limits are set by God alone.
With this summary and framework in place, let’s consider some biblical examples.
When Worship Misses the Mark
In Genesis 4, we see that “in the midst of time Cain dropped at the Lord an offering” (4:2). Abel, Cain’s brother, also brings a sacrifice. The offerings, nevertheless, are different as indicated by the relatively ambiguous phrasing used to explain Cain’s offering versus the more specific description of Abel’s offering: Cain brings “an offering of the fruit of the bottom” (4:3), whereas Abel “brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions” (4:4). The distinction between a plant-based and animal-based offering just isn’t problematic in itself. Plant-based offerings were a staple of the sacrificial system (Lev 2:1-16; 6:14-18; 7:9-10). Instead, the issue appears to be that Cain doesn’t bring the very best of his produce. He simply brings some portion of it.
Cain doesn’t appear to bring this offering out of ignorance. God’s word to Cain seems to assume that Cain knows easy methods to “do well” in order that his offering can be “accepted” (4:6). Cain’s initial try and worship on his own terms fails resulting from God’s rejection of his offering. Abel’s offering gives God another—a faithful act of worship that exposes Cain’s unfaithfulness. He can reject Cain’s offering because he has options. Rather than “do well,” Cain decides to eliminate his competition by killing Abel in order that his offering can be the one offering (4:8). Again, his gambit doesn’t work, and he’s banished from the face of the Lord and from the bottom he used to work (4:12-18). The Cain and Abel narrative offers an image of inadequate sacrifice, the lengths to which some will go to worship on their very own terms, and the futility of attempting to achieve this. For a more comprehensive discussion of this narrative, you may hearken to “Worshipping God on Our Own Terms?” on Thinking Christian.
In Leviticus, we see the sons of Aaron offer a sacrifice that was not commanded by the Lord: “Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them” (Lev 10:1-2). Though the text doesn’t specify exactly why the hearth was “unauthorized,” it’s definitely related to the command of the Lord. The offering doesn’t conform to the Lord’s command. Their mistake costs Nadab and Abihu their lives, underscoring the gravity of worshipping God in ways he has not authorized.
Other Levitical laws also provides insight into the need of right sacrifice—sacrifice that conforms to the boundaries set by God’s word. For instance, in Leviticus 7:18, we see that worshippers is not going to be accepted in the event that they eat the “flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offering…on the third day” (Lev 7:18; cf. 19:7). The guidelines given for sacrifice are intended to make sure that the offerings given can be acceptable as offerings which have their intended effect (Lev 22:29; 23:11; cf. Deut 12:1-4; 29-31; 1 Kgs 9:9; 11:26-40).
One might object that these examples assume a knowledge of God. It is sensible that God’s covenant people, to whom he has revealed his laws and statutes, would have guidelines for worship. After all, they’re to represent God. But what about those that don’t know God? Would God accept the worship of those that worship in ignorance and even worship in opposition to his self-revelation? The answer would appear to be “no.”
When we take into consideration Islam and even Buddhism or Confucianism, we want to acknowledge that these religions stand against, whether intentionally or unintentionally, God’s revelation. They contradict it and seek to shape those that practice these religions into something apart from the image of Christ. Even Judaism, since it doesn’t recognize Jesus as Lord, cannot offer right worship. The worship of those religions just isn’t acceptable, but lamentable. Non-Christian religions deny and warp the Triune God, encouraging adherents to live in ways in which don’t reflect God by constructing another image to which human behavior, character, and purpose are directed. This kind of worship is unacceptable not since the individuals who offer it are particularly evil, deviant, or insincere, but because worship involves responding to the Triune God via his self-revelation and in accordance along with his will. Worship is to be offered on God’s terms and in alignment with who he’s.
As we glance out and see well-meaning, kind men and women who’re doing good things on the earth, it will possibly be hard to think that God wouldn’t accept their worship. However, in the event that they will not be worshipping the Triune God on his terms, there isn’t a basis for God to simply accept it. In a really real sense, it just isn’t actually being offered to him, but to something else. It is obtainable to a theological substitute that can’t bear the load of divine price. It is being given to some conception “made with human hands” that just isn’t actually God. Once we recognize that the worship of other religions just isn’t really being offered to the Triune God, we understand that this worship just isn’t simply uninformed—something that we would hope God would accept in his graciousness—but additionally misdirected—it is definitely given to something else, thus denying the worthiness of God and ascribing it to someone or something else.
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