One of the most prominent and frequent asked
questions of me these days, is all religions are equal? Most of the mission
work that I do is in Union Gospel Mission of Tarrant County, it is a rescue
mission shelter that takes in the unsheltered, assault victims, domestic
violence victims, substance abused and addicts, mental illness, among others alike. The question is
asked, especially, when I preach on the exclusivism of Jesus Christ as the only
way to our salvation: John 14:6, “Jesus
answered, “I am the way and the truth and the
life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” This gives me
the opportunity to engage them in a deeper conversation about why we need a
savior and what we believe. Since this is short essay, I will limit the
discussion to two approaches that often surface during these types of
discussions. First, the approach that our belief system is specifically
personal and culturally relative. This approach is commonly known as pluralism.
Second, the exclusivism of Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation and onto heaven;
hence, is Jesus the only way?
Pluralism, by definition, “Some use it in combination with various spheres: cultural
pluralism, ideological pluralism, intellectual pluralism, religious pluralism,
and so forth. For our purposes it will be useful to consider not the spheres in
which pluralism is found, but three kinds of phenomena to which the word
commonly refers: empirical pluralism, cherished pluralism, and philosophical or
hermeneutical pluralism.”[1] I want
to focus on the third type of pluralism, hermeneutical pluralism. This has sneaked
into the church and pastors are preaching different gospels. Here is a sample
text from a pastor preaching on Acts 2:1-13, somehow, the theme was experiencing
God’s love, but the title of the sermon is, The Faith of Jesus
in Pluralistic World. Paraphrasing a statement from his sermon: he
has experienced love that was offered to him by Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and
even atheist, it is the very evident that they were responding to God’s love.[2] Paul
addressed this in Galatians 1:6-7, “I am astonished that you are
so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ
and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people
are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel
of Christ.” This is just one example of
many that have crept into our churches today. This gives the idea that the
other religions’ gods are as equally valid as the Christian God. “Philosophical
pluralism has generated many approaches in support of one stance: namely, that
any notion that a particular ideological or religious claim is intrinsically
superior to another is necessarily wrong. The only absolute creed is the creed
of pluralism. No religion has the right to pronounce itself right or true, and
the others false, or even (in the majority view) relatively inferior.”[3] The
definition given by D.A. Carson is exactly how society views pluralism; it is
not so much that every religion is to be considered on an equal level, but it
is hinges on preventing a single religion from pronouncing itself as the only
true way to salvation. In fact, the character of God from various religion is represented
with widely opposing views of one another: “In Islam and Christianity are so
radically different that it should be obvious to anyone that each faith is not
referring to the same God. He writes: One [the Christian God] is a Father and
shepherd and lover calling for a return of love; the other [the Muslim God] is
a Lord demanding service from his slaves. One commands love for neighbors and
even enemies, while the other does not command neighbor love and frowns on love
for enemies. One shows power by force, and the other by weakness. One is
numerically one without differentiation, while the other is three in one. In
short, those who worship one are not worshipping the other because they are two
different gods”[4]
How can these opposing view can be considered pluralistically equal? They are
not and can’t be considered equally true.
The pluralistic view is that there are many ways but all
ended up at the peak of the mountain. Essentially, are we worshiping the same
God? I will not deny that there are many ways and all will be ended up at God.
What happen after we meet God is the imperative question. Hence, the fundamental
question: are we all going to meet God judgment? Or is it the hope that He promised
us in John 14:2-4, “My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so,
would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come
back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am
going.” Pluralism approach regards every religion with equalness;
however, the approach is logically defeatist because it views Christianity as
not equal to all the other religion. “As such,
pluralism asserts that more than one perspective, more than one path, can be
true or efficacious. In what follows, we argue for a pluralistic view of the
Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.”[5] However, the approach is often
masked by cultural and ethnics diversity which is defined as empirical pluralism
can easily transcend into philosophical pluralism. “Empirical pluralism sums up the growing diversity in our
culture. Observable and largely measurable, it is what David Tracy prefers to
call “plurality.” “Plurality,” he writes, “is a fact.”[6] The
plurality of our culture and ethnicity does not have to dictate our hermeneutic.
However, our hermeneutic and our philosophy can influence our culture. Plurality
movements that are fundamentally empirical in the first place are now becoming philosophical.
“Academic level, ethicists
completely committed to pluralism are diligently attempting to create a
consensus morality based on certain societal commitments: on the recognition that human beings are persons who demand
mutual respect, for instance, or on the assumption that reason is sufficient to
evaluate the relative merits of concrete elements of competing moral systems.”[7] When we
accepted others’ ethnic diversity, there is a covert assumption that we should
also respect and accept their philosophy and not tell them about the truth of Jesus
Christ.
Exclusivism of
the Gospel and Jesus Christ vows that Christ is the only way to salvation and
to heaven. “Exclusivism is the view that only
those who place their faith in the Christ of the Bible are saved.”[8] The
counter argument relies on the pluralism approach as stated, “Dalai Lama makes rigorously
exclusivist truth…The Problem of Exclusivism’
(emphasis shamefacedly mine!), he states clearly that ‘. . . for me Buddhism is
the best, but this does not mean that Buddhism is the best for all’. He goes on
to explain that talk of ‘one truth, one religion’ is to be made only ‘in the
context of an individual religious practice.”[9] The argument
here is that my religion existed only in the context of my personal micro sphere.
Therefore, from the macro sphere, the plurality of all religion is to be regarded.
However, if my one truth and one religion existed in my personal sphere, it
will, at some point, influence others or be influenced by others. If we are
restrained from telling others about the most meaningful innermost value of our
lives, should we consider ourselves free? Christ came to set us free, and we
are free because we know the truth. In fact, the moral values from our
conviction compel us to tell others about the truth. “If you hold to my
teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you
free.” John 8:31-32.
“Salvation is found in no one
else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must
be saved.” Acts 4:12. No other religion has a pathway to salvation which
claims everlasting eternal life. “This
thereby counters any form of pluralism de iure (in principle). It also shows
why the other religions cannot be understood as a ‘means of salvation’ as this
term is uniquely applied to the Church precisely because of its Christological
foundations.”[10]
In John 1:1-2, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.” Pope Benedict
XVI put it this way: “The world comes from reason, and this reason
is a Person, is Love—this is what our biblical faith tells us about God. Reason
can speak about God, it must speak about God, or else it cuts itself short.
Included in this is the concept of creation.”[11]
We
must ask ourselves the obvious, what is wrong with being right? Perhaps since
the history of mankind is loaded with oppression and human created suffering,
we take it upon ourselves to mitigate how we should live with one another in
order to usher in greater peaceful future. But here’s the thing, God offers us
a better way to live, John 13:34, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
How do we love one another? We do this by putting our faith in Christ. Christ
has modelled the way for us in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal
life.” Therefore, I will end with this. John 3:36, “Whoever believes in
the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see
life, for God’s wrath remains on them.”
[1]
D. A. Carson, The Gagging of God:
Christianity Confronts Pluralism (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan,
2002), ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/liberty/detail.action?docID=5397874
[2]
Rev. Dr. Eric Elnes, “The
Faith of Jesus in Pluralistic World,” YouTube video, 1:12:34,
streamed January 10, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/live/hYJzNm64P2U
[3]
D. A. Carson, The Gagging of God:
Christianity Confronts Pluralism (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan,
2002), ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/liberty/detail.action?docID=5397874
[4]
R. C. Sproul, John Piper, Al Mohler, and Miroslav Volf, Do Christians, Muslims, and Jews Worship the
Same God?: Four Views (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2019), ProQuest
Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/liberty/detail.action?docID=6121590
[5]
Chad V. Meister, ed., Do
Christians, Muslims, and Jews Worship the Same God?: Four Views
(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2019), ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/liberty/detail.action?docID=6121590
[6]
D. A. Carson, The Gagging of God:
Christianity Confronts Pluralism (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan,
2002), ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/liberty/detail.action?docID=5397874
[7]
Ibid
[8]
D. A. Carson, The Gagging of God:
Christianity Confronts Pluralism (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan,
2002), ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/liberty/detail.action?docID=5397874
[9]
Gavin D’Costa, Only One Way? Three Christian
Responses to the Uniqueness of Christ in a Religiously Plural World
(London: SCM Press, 2011), ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/liberty/detail.action?docID=3306162
[10]
Ibid
[11]
Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), “Christianity: Yesterday, Today, and
Tomorrow,” in Christian Apologetics: An
Anthology of Primary Sources, ed. Khaldoun A. Sweis and Chad V.
Meister (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 536.
