If Christianity is the ultimate truth about God and reality, what’s the status of other religions or faith systems? Do they teach truth, or are they entirely false? If there is truth in them, is it in any way saving? If God is sovereign like the Bible says he is, why does he allow other religions to exist at all? Beyond that, how should Christians engage their neighbors who espouse other faith systems? What good news does Christianity hold out to the adherents of other faiths?
Ours isn’t the first generation to ask such questions, of course, but they do press in on us with seemingly greater pressure than in times past. Globalism and immigration, the Internet, and cross-pollinating media culture have shrunk the world. The reality of other religions, then, isn’t merely of antiquarian interest or academic exoticism. Our children play with our Hindu neighbors up the street. Our favorite coworkers are Buddhist or Muslim. Visitors at church are just as likely to be studying Taoism as they are the Bible.
The church needs more than pop apologetic answers if we’re going to faithfully preach the gospel to the world that’s arriving on our doorstep. We also need more than soteriology focused on exclusivism and the fate of the unevangelized—as important as those questions are. The problem in part is that while other religious traditions have been busy articulating their own identity, evangelicals have often been caught up with other matters. As Daniel Strange puts it, Catholics have Vatican II, but evangelicals have . . . The Chronicles of Narnia? In his new book Their Rock Is Not Like Our Rock: A Theology of Religions, the lecturer in theology at London’s Oak Hill College sets out to fill the gap.
Strange aims to articulate a theology of religions for evangelicals based on Reformed theological presuppositions (such as sola scriptura) and anthropology. He happily depends on the Dutch Reformed stream of reflection flowing from Herman Bavinck, J. H. Bavinck, and the brilliant but largely forgotten Hendrik Kraemer (followed with heavy heapings of Cornelius Van Til, John Frame, and other related figures). His construction is ambitious. He aims to straddle multiple worlds—academy and church, as well as theology, biblical studies, and missiology—in order to produce a work that forwards the academic discussion while providing practical value to the pulpit and pew.
Subversive Fulfillment
Strange’s main thesis is distilled and repeated throughout:
From the presupposition of an epistemologically authoritative biblical revelation, non-Christian religions are sovereignly directed, variegated and dynamic, collective human idolatrous responses to divine revelation behind which stand deceiving demonic forces. Being antithetically against yet parasitically dependent on the truth of the Christian worldview, non-Christian religions are “subversively fulfilled” in the gospel of Jesus Christ. (42, 335).
Strange makes his case by first setting the stage for his project (ch. 1). Then he lays the groundwork for his thesis with the concept of humanity in God’s image as homo adorans, a worshiping being. Created for worship, his fall into sin inevitably leads to suppressing the truth of God and idolatry—“false faith” set in antithesis to true faith. All the same, his sin is restrained by the Holy Spirit and common grace, which yield the complex, inconsistent blend of good and evil we see in the religious practices of our neighbors (ch. 2). In the next two chapters (3 and 4), drawing on sources like Jonathan Edwards’s prisca (ancient) theology, Strange moves on to argue for the concept of “remnantal revelation,” or, basically, leftover theology. Essentially there was an ancient, original religion given by God from which every other faith has descended. Historical devolution of true revelation, then, is at the heart of the varieties of religious practice we encounter today. Strange also develops a “religio-genesis”—a false religion origins story, so to speak—through a reading of the Babel story. In this scenario, God’s confusion of “tongues” or “lip” after Babel is one not only of language but also of religious confession.
Their Rock is Not Like Our Rock: A Theology of Religions
Daniel Strange
This will be the most speculative and initially unfamiliar part for most, especially where Strange dives into controversial historical claims about an original monotheism in the prehistory of most religions and cultures. For those familiar with the material, some of the moves he makes actually recall early church polemics with the pagans. Indeed, reading Augustine’s City of God at the same time made me think it wouldn’t be a stretch to say Their Rock Is Not Like Our Rock isn’t so much a Reformed take but a recalibration of Augustine and the Church Fathers’ theology of religions. I hope more evangelical scholars engage Strange in constructive conversation.
From there Strange moves to firmer ground and gives a rich survey of the Old Testament’s evaluation of the religious Other, including an examination of patriarchal religion, the issue of exclusivity of the worship of YHWH (“No other gods before me”), and the unrelentingly negative status of idolatry and the gods of the nations (ch. 5). Building on this, he examines the exclusivity of the confession of Jesus Christ in the New Testament and offers a penetrating reading of the “perilous exchange” that trades Creator for creature, as described in Romans 1:18–32 (ch. 6).
Pastors and preachers, these chapters repay the effort.
Idolatrous Distortion
These discussions set the stage for Strange’s central chapter (ch. 7) presenting his thesis that, at heart, religions are distorted idolatrous responses to true revelation. This category of idolatrous response allows Strange to do a few things. First, it accounts for religions’ antithetical opposition to the truth as well as for their pseudo-similarity to and counterfeiting of divine revelation. In other words, here’s why we get so many strange similarities and truths in other faiths, alongside such distorted, gospel-denying ones. “Idolatrous response” also gives us a framework to recognize the reality of the “dark margin” of demonic deception, distraction, and distortion at work in other religions (Deut. 32:17; 1 Cor. 10:20). Finally, it ultimately enables us to acknowledge that even the distorted hopes and aspirations of the religions are subversively “fulfilled” in the gospel of Christ, which corrects their caricatured character while answering the fallen heart’s cry for salvation.
Two more chapters follow, one that applies this theology for missions work, with a special case study running Sunni Islam through a comparative analysis with the gospel using Strange’s “subversive fulfillment” lens (ch. 9). This is interesting for those those wondering what his model looks like in practice. Finally, Strange addresses our sovereign God’s various purposes in allowing and directing the rise and proliferation of other religions: to reveal his glory, to restraint evil in his world, and to prod his people (ch. 10).
Despite this seemingly lengthy summary section, it must be noted that this description barely scratches the surface of Strange’s careful, complex, and quite compelling argument.
Minor Quibbles
I do want to note a couple of minor, but not serious, criticisms. Because of Strange’s emphasis on developing a Reformed take, there isn’t much interaction or contrast with non-evangelical or non-Reformed approaches. Others theologies of religion focus more on developing trinitarian coordinates, or pneumatological ones, whereas Strange focuses on long-range biblical theology.
Another point is that the book is a bit too methodological and repetitive at points. I’m a fan of footnotes, and many of Strange’s are mostly helpful and full of good material. At times, though, they can be a bit bloated and repetitive.
Unavoidable Questions
These small concerns aside, Their Rock Is Not Like Our Rock is an immensely stimulating read. Even those sections that prompted lingering questions left me with serious questions about issues I’d simply never considered—questions I’m sure others need to take up as well. I would warmly commend this work to students of theology (professional or lay) interested in the topic of religions. I can only hope it will provoke greater academic attention to the subject among evangelicals.
For pastors and the missions-minded, as we move into an increasingly pluralistic culture we simply cannot avoid these questions, and Strange’s work is an excellent guide. He has done the church a service by advancing a model that’s creative, nuanced, and attentive to the complex reality of religion we encounter in history—and also thoroughly rooted in biblical orthodoxy.