Growing up, I remember hearing about boutiques.  There were Christmas boutiques, where thousands of women's crafts, quilts, scarves, ornaments, topiaries and toll-painting are featured for a few days. I remember female shoppers with baskets piled high as they found that one-of-a-kind gift or decoration for Christmas.  The point of a boutique is to buy what suits you, your home, your decorating style. Boutiques are usually one-of-a kind places to shop, so you can get the fashion you want for yourself, the look you want.  And religion is fast turning into a boutique shop, where we buy what makes us look good. Gone is the conviction that Rich Mullins had about Christianity,

I did not make it
No, it is making me
It is the very truth of God not the invention of any man.

Boutique religion is obvious in the prevalence of this one bumper sticker plastered on mini coopers, mini vans and classic cars.  It reads, "COEXIST," where every letter holds a symbol of a religion. The "C" is an Islamic crescent and star, the "X” is a Star of David, the "I" is dotted with the yin and yang, and the "T" is a Christian cross. This is boutique religion at its best. Basically, the bumper sticker says, "You choose what works for you.  Just live at peace with all those around you."  Actually it says a lot more than that, it says that no one religion is any better than another, sort of like when I choose an angel ornament at a boutique and you choose a quilted handbag, neither is better. You can customize your God, taking and choosing what fits you.  Gone is the question, "Do we fit God's world?"  Now God must fit ours.

In one way I agree with this bumper sticker.  Christianity makes it clear that human beings with different beliefs should coexist. The Bible says each person should decide about Jesus Christ according to their own conscience (2 Cor 4:1-2). God teaches us that all human beings are valuable (Gen 1:27).  

But, not all these religions believe in freedom of conscience.  Even worse, most religions, for most of history have not valued those who are weak, infirm, female or elderly.  So while believers of different religions can coexist together, their beliefs cannot. 

Let's take just one comparison of these "coexisting" religions to show that their religious beliefs cannot coexist, at least not in one person's mind.

Let's compare Chinese philosophy of the yin and yang with Christianity.  The yin and yang is one way of saying that all of life is made up of opposites. You have dark and light, you have evil and good, you have female and male; yet you cannot have balance unless both are present.

That last one is particularly interesting to me, for females are associated with the dark part, the yin.  Why is the female from the dark side, the negative side?  It's an accepted part of the Chinese philosophy, one you can read about in the New York Times Bestseller, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. She writes that the deepest parts of the yin are "negative, dark, and female." 

Because females are part of yin, they are less valuable. A daughter is sorrow; sons are happiness.  The old sayings of 19th century China went like this, "Raising a girl and marrying her off is like building a fancy road for others to use," and "Marrying a daughter is just like throwing out water."  A daughter is not valuable unless she produces a son.  Because of these beliefs, women endured horrible foot binding that crippled them during most of childhood and prevented them from running or taking long walks for the rest of their lives. Their feet became proof that they could suffer pain and serve their in-laws.  Their bodies became roads for others to use, show off and walk upon.

Can this idea coexist with Christianity? Either a female is negative or a female is made in God’s image?  Either God is yin and yang, both dark and light, or God is light and in him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5).  Which is it for you? You cannot put both into your shopping cart because they contradict each other. As soon as you choose one, the other gets excluded. While you can love those who believe in yin and yang, you can serve them and even die for them as Jesus did, you cannot believe both in yin and yang and Jesus Christ's message.

I challenge you to notice the popular phrases that advertise boutique religion today, things like "all religions lead to the divine" or "God is a force, not a person" or "karma" all of which are opposed to Jesus and his coming, his personality, his forgiveness. Next time I'll be talking on how the idea of karma ignores the most important point of Jesus' life, death and resurrection.

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© 2008 Dale & Jonalyn Fincher