I suspect that we are talking past each other on many of these issues.
I think that we all understand the bottom line that we should not cannot compromise the gospel. I think that we understand this in a missionary setting. We understand that we are a very small minority and we understand what works. Obviously, it is important to share and understand each other's faith. But there is no compromise. Our missionaries preach the gospel.
Some believe that US is a great mission field. My understanding is that Europe certainly is. Perhaps if we had more of missionary mentality, we would spend more time listening to those of other faiths and philosophies.
Interfaith relations are a complicated topic. We strongly disagree on how this should work. I agree with the approach of the Catholic Church; you do not. No one is talking about ecumenism, certainly not the pope who refuses to be called Patriarch of the West. For me, we are called to change the world, not be sure that we don't interact with the unsaved.
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So, let's be clear. I may have miscommunicated. In the most fundamental sense, there is only one God, the triune God. Anyone who does not believe in God is in error and needs to be "evangelized', with words if necessary. However, we cannot make believe that we can understand His mysteries, other than in small whispers and small glimmers of light seen from within the dark cave. We walk in faith, one step at a time, while God lights that next step.
But I refuse to take the common evangelist position that all the rest of the world, except we who are elected, are led by the Devil. And I refuse to take the uber-Calvinist position that God created anyone for damnation.
The Catholic Church teaches that the Holy Spirit has gifted many non-Trintarian groups with a portion of the deposit of faith, and that one can faith even without hearing or understand anything about the Word. We pray for them all; we evangelize to them all. However, we also talk to them all, work with them all, listen to them all and to the degree it is feasable pray with them all.
IMHO, if we do not listen almost all of the time, we will not do a good job of evangelizing.
But the generic unknowable "Brahman" of Hinduism that is the ultimate oneness of all the thousands of gods in a monotheistic expression is certainly not the God of Israel, the Father of the Blessed Trinity. Personality, interaction with mankind, essence, and overall character doesn't match up. I'm not convinced that we can just claim any monotheistic expression is akin to Yaweah by nature of it being monotheistic. Look at Pharaoh Amenhotep IV. He takes Egypt away from polytheism to worship the sun god, Aton, as the one and only monotheistic expression of Egyptian religion. But is this the Abrahamic god?
Obviously St. Paul in Acts 17:23 goes to Athens and sees a generic unknown god monument and he makes a connection with it. He relates what the Greeks are missing to this shadow of a god they don't really know. But do the apostles like Paul or the Fathers actually think that pagan gods are the same as our Trinitarian God? It seems like they used pagan theology to explain Trinitarian truths, but did they actually think the god of neo-platonism is our God? This is something I would find fascinating. Could you post some excerpts, Meghan, to give as examples? You're obviously more learned in patristics than yours truly here.
