God willed diversity. . .

Once again what comes from Rome continues to mystify and, more significantly, incite the faithful.  Those in Rome and those outside should sit up and take notice what happened when Pope Frank and his buddy, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahamad al-Tayyib, signed a common statement entitled “Fratellanza Umana per la Pace Mondiale e la convivenza comune… Human Fraternity for world peace and living together”.

While there is much in that statement, the following paragraph is the most interesting one:

Freedom is a right of every person: each individual enjoys the freedom of belief, thought, expression and action. The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings. This divine wisdom is the source from which the right to freedom of belief and the freedom to be different derives. Therefore, the fact that people are forced to adhere to a certain religion or culture must be rejected, as too the imposition of a cultural way of life that others do not accept. . .

So, diversity is not simply a symptom of a sinful and fallen world but God's secret plan after all?!?  This is not simply a nod to the human rights of people but an admission that Christ is not an exclusive Savior in whom is found the true inclusivity of God's grace and mercy.  It is God's wisdom that has not simply allowed but willed the existence of many religions as well as the other distinctives of race, ethnicity, language, and gender.  Wow.  Bet you never thought you would hear the leader of the majority of the world's Christians make that statement.

Rome is imploding under the weight of a pope who does not even understand his own faith or hear the voice of Scripture.  He represents a rupture in Benedict's hermeneutic of continuity and he may well lead the Roman Catholic Church to becoming the true visible sect on earth -- unless there are those who are willing to challenge him and incur his substantive wrath to undo what he has done to Rome's faith and structures designed to preserve it.

Since, as the saying goes, when Rome sneezes, the rest of us catch a cold, it will be interesting to see how his concordat with the Imam, Islam, and a progressive world view sits with those outside of Rome.  If we hear nothing, then we have heard all we need to hear.  In my previous post on the lie of dialogue I posited a Peters' Law that suggested the best we could do in the world was to slow or hold the growth of the progressive movement but then, and only then, at a cost of constant vigilance.  Friends, this is one such moment not to sit idly by while the exclusive claims of Christ to be Savior of all are undermined by the suggestion that our pluralistic and diverse religious world is God willed.