By John W. Morehead.
In the early 1900s the phrase “What Would Jesus Do?” became popular through the book In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do? by Charles Sheldon, published in 1896. When I first encountered it in the early 1980s it was something of a pop culture fad expressed through bumper stickers and bracelets designed to help Christians reflect on what Jesus might do in response to various situations. This can certainly be helpful, but at the same time, if we don’t think carefully about Jesus in his original historical and cultural context and apply his differing responses in the right ways in our very different times and culture, the result can be a misapplication of Christ’s example.
This happens, for example, when Christians look at Jesus’ sharp rebuke of Jewish religious leaders in the Gospels and use this as a template or a justification for a strong apologetic refutation applied to those in “the cults” or new religious movements. I remember the late Walter Martin leading the way in this regard. He was criticized on a Christian television network for not being loving to those in other religions, and in his defense he quoted Jesus pronouncing woes to the scribes and pharisees, calling them “whitewashed tombs” and “vipers” (Matthew 23:27, 33). Martin then finished by saying this was incarnate love being seemingly harsh, the implication being since this was Jesus’ example, we are justified in similar practices with others.
But this is clearly a case of what we referred to in a Lausanne issue paper on mission to new religions as “wrong context, wrong texts.” In passages like Matthew 23 and similar passages, Jesus is speaking in the tradition of the Hebrew prophets and critiquing Israel’s leadership for their failure to guide the nation in righteous ways as a light to the nations. Jesus interacted often in this way with Israel’s religious leaders, but in a very different way when it came to the marginalized in Jewish society, as well as to Gentiles.
It is this different way of Jesus interacting with Gentiles—and why it should be important for us in a multifaith world—that is the focus of Senior Lecturer in Theology at Laidlaw College in Christchurch, New Zealand, Bob Robinson’s book Jesus and the Religions.[i] Robinson spent years in India doing research in the Christian-Hindu encounter there. In his view the “example of Christ” is “almost completely absent from the discussions” (p. 6). His continued reflections on this deficit led to his book on the example of Jesus in application to the Christian encounter with religious pluralism.
Robinson’s basic argument is that the texts of Jesus’ encounters with Gentiles and Samaritans should serve as examples that inform our encounters with adherents of other religions. Although these texts are few in number as the Gospels emphasize the priority of Jesus’ mission to Israel (Matthew 10:5-6; 15:24), Robinson counters that their limited number makes them even more significant where they can be seen as “gold nuggets” (p. 20). Although Christians often focus largely on Jesus’ death and resurrection rather than examples from his life, Robinson encourages us to follow the example of Christ’s humility (Phil. 2:1-22), for “whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did” (1 John 2:6).
In his analysis Robinson explores several important passages where Jesus interacts with those outsides of Israel, including a pagan centurion in Mt. 8:5-13 who approaches Jesus and makes a request that he heal his servant. Although the centurion is an outsider and a Roman oppressor of Israel, Jesus marvels at his faith and “his servant was healed at that moment.”
Robinson also explores Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman in John 4:4-42. A great deal of enmity existed between the Jews and Samaritans as they disagreed about appropriate worship locations and practices, coupled with Jewish feelings about Samaritan ethnic impurity. Yet even with this conflict, Robinson notes that Jesus’ engagement included facets of “patience and respect” as well as “mutual exchange” (p. 189).
At the end of the book Robinson draws several helpful conclusions about the example of Christ in his encounter with Gentiles and Samaritans and how this might (should!) inform our contemporary encounters with adherents of other religions. Perhaps surprisingly, to conservative evangelicals at least, Jesus often included an affirmation of the faith of others and did not denigrate them. A hallmark of his approach is his “philanthropia (loving concern for others)” (p. 251). In commenting on this Robinson quotes Wendy Cotter in her analysis of Christ’s healing stories: “If the followers of Jesus then were ‘to feel compassion, understanding, and more’ (9) then nothing less should be expected in today’s interreligious encounters which can also have their share of robust, insistent and even harsh dialogue and unfair polemic. The contemporary disciple who encounters such an atmosphere is offered, in the encounter stories, a reminder of how Jesus responded: with humility, graciousness and loving concern” (p. 253).
It is helpful here to consider specific examples of how this can be connected to interreligious encounters today. Two are most pressing. First, consider how Christians interact with Muslims. After 9/11 evangelical views of Muslims took a dramatic turn, shifting from seeing them as a religious group and the focus of missions, to a critical approach that views them as a violent movement, more political than religious, and one where the primary means of engagement should be harsh polemics. These feelings continue, fueled by the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the New Orleans terror attack of January 1, 2025.
A second example comes by way of The Satanic Temple (TST), an atheistic religion that does not believe in the Christian Devil, but instead views Satan as a literary figure of inspiration against unjust tyranny. The group is known for theatrical and legal forms of challenge to Christian hegemony, including Ten Commandment monuments on state capitol grounds. For the last few years during the Christmas season, local branches of TST have put Satanic “nativity scenes” up in public spaces near Christian nativity scene displays. This is often met with public outrage, and on more than one occasion the Satanic displays have been vandalized, most recently in 2024 by an Orthodox Christian who publicly admitted his actions and called for blasphemy laws, referencing biblical idol smashing as theological justification.
Reflecting on the example of Jesus’ humility, patience, and respect is especially important considering these more challenging forms of interreligious engagement. It’s one thing to relate to the calm Buddhist next door, but a neighboring Muslim or Satanist is often seen as more threatening and is more likely to elicit a confrontational response. When considering the two examples mentioned above, we need to ensure our safety and respond appropriately to the ongoing challenges of Islamist terrorism, but also recognize diversity of thought in Islam and acknowledge that the majority of the world’s Muslims do not engage in acts of violence.
Regarding TST’s Satanists, while the figure of Satan and the idea of Satanism evokes fears and revulsion given Christian theological assumptions and the stuff of horror films, we might use this group’s actions as an opportunity to think about our support for the freedoms of speech and religion. TST’s provocative actions provide us with theological and ethical opportunities to test whether we really do believe in these freedoms for everyone, or if we only want them for ourselves and those who don’t stray too far from our comfort zone in their beliefs and practices in the public square.
Consideration of the example of Jesus in his interactions with Gentiles and Samaritans in application to our religious neighbors can be an important tool for critical self-reflection by evangelicals. It provides us with a way to follow that moves us from fear, denigration, and an overemphasis on apologetic confrontation to loving and holistic engagement.
John W. Morehead is the Executive Director of the Foundation for Religious Diplomacy, and the Director of its Evangelical Chapter (Multifaith Matters). You may contact him at johnwmorehead@msn.com.
[i] See my previous interview and podcast with him for a deeper dive into this topic than this blog post permits.