Pluralism

In the book The Faith of Elvis, Billy Stanley, half-brother of Elvis, shares poignantly of the ups and downs of Elvis’ walk with the Jesus. On a more humorous side he shared this encounter between Elvis and Sammy Davis Jr.:

It was a kind of a funny thing, and also serious in a way, but one time in Las Vegas, he was talking to Sammy Davis Jr. Sammy noticed Elvis wearing both a Star of David and a cross necklace—two things that don’t normally go together because they represent two distinct religions: Judaism and Christianity.

Sammy said, “Elvis, isn’t that kind of a contradiction?”

Elvis looked at him and said, “I don’t want to miss heaven on a technicality.”

Christmas is the season of choice. If you want to buy a food processor, Amazon offers you 2,000 types. Or how about a drill—there are more than 40,000 options. No, I'm not making those numbers up.

Choices can be glorious, and confusing, and empowering, and overwhelming, all at the same time. And in the West today, it looks as though it is the same with God. There is a huge array of deities to choose from, including the "no to all" option.

Walk through an airport or shopping mall anywhere and you will be walking past countless people who believe in no God, plenty of people who (believe) that there are many gods, and another great multitude who believe in one God but who have very different thoughts on what that one God is like and what he (or she, or it) thinks.

For some, God is kind of a distant grandfather guy, looking down benevolently and wanting us to be happy. To others, God is a harsh taskmaster, counting up your good and bad actions and weighing up whether he's going to have mercy on you in the end. To others, God is an impersonal force that wound the universe up and is now off doing other stuff while we get on with it down here. To others, God is the universe.

There are so many options to choose from—it's empowering and overwhelming at the same time. How do you know? How can you choose? And what does it matter?

Isaiah's claim was that the baby who would be born at the first Christmas would be "Mighty God." …. For all that Israel needed, for all that they lacked, for all that they could never be in themselves, they had God: The great I AM. The Mighty God … a purifying, ever present, shepherding, providing, healing, defending God.

A new worship center in the former East Berlin represents the ultimate secular view of religion. It also reflects the kind of cultural future the American left envisions for the US.

The House of One, to be built on the foundation of a demolished church, will enable Christians, Jews, and Muslims to worship under one roof. Each faith will have its own sanctuary surrounding a central hall that will serve as a place of public encounter. Contractors will lay the foundation stone in May, 2021, and construction is expected to take four years.

Roland Stolte, a theologian involved in the project said, “East Berlin is a very secular place. Religious institutions have to find new language and ways to be relevant, and to make connections.” In other words, religion must conform to, not challenge, the secular ethos.

The House of One embodies the secular view of religion as secondary, if not destructive, to human identity and progress. The divinities being worshiped are not Yahweh, Jesus, or Allah but diversity, multiculturalism, and inclusion.

Maureen Mullarkey, writing from a Catholic perspective, believes the Holy See has fallen into that trap. “This is politics. It is not testimony to those matters of personal sin and redemption at the core of the Church’s reason for being. … The Church’s pope (Francis) would put a spiritual face on the aims of secular politics.”

Replacing transcendent values with political ones often brings despotism. Americans see that now in the left’s hypersensitive tyranny, embodied by cancel culture, and hostility toward conservative religious ethics. East Berliners saw it for 45 years under communist domination.

In Berlin today, the House of One also reflects capitulation to the postmodern zeitgeist (spirit of the time). As one theologian said, “This is not a club for monotheistic religions—we want others to join us.”

In his book, Rick Mattson writes:

I’m not the one making the exclusive claim about salvation—Jesus is. He is the one who said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). I’m simply trusting his authority to know these things. It’s like going to my excellent family physician, Dr. Lehman. If he tells me my cholesterol is too high and that I need to cut down on sweets and fatty foods, I believe him. He’s an expert on the matter. Sure, there are plenty of other voices I could listen to about my health, including celebrities, infomercials and tabloid articles. To the extent that these voices disagree with Dr. Lehman, they’re most likely wrong. My physician has made the “exclusive” claim that his patient, me, has a certain malady that requires a certain treatment. I’m just the amateur who believes him.

Editor's Note: This simple illustration can show that proclaiming the exclusive claims of Christ need not be arrogant. Preachers can easily adapt this illustration with details from their own lives. Here’s my adaptation of the illustration (with a twist of humor):

I went to a sleep specialist doctor because apparently, I snore a lot. I told everyone, including the sleep specialist doctor, “Fine, do your study, but I am NOT wearing one of those CPAP machines.” I was convinced the doctor was getting kickbacks from the CPAP machine company. So I spent the night with electrodes stuck on my head and the doctor gave me his diagnosis: you have sleep apnea and you need to wear a CPAP. Now I trusted his expertise even less. I called a doctor friend to investigate this quack with his kickback scam. My friend said, “Your doctor is the real deal. Wear the CPAP machine. You’ll have more time on earth to enjoy your grandchildren.” So, every night I put that silly mask on my face. Why? Because after kicking and screaming, I have come to trust and to surrender to my doctor—his authority, his expertise. Why do followers of Jesus obey him in all things? Because they have surrendered to his authority and expertise.

Possible Preaching Angles: Rick Mattson writes, "This analogy can work with any authority figure you can think of: pilot, air traffic controller, professor, lawyer, scientist, astronaut, boat captain and so on. I prefer the doctor image because it’s so universally revered. I suppose a skeptic could push back on the analogy by pointing out that sometimes doctors are wrong and one should get a second opinion. That’s fine. The point is that somewhere in the process I, the amateur, trust in some authority who makes an exclusive truth claim about my condition.”

In his book, author Mark Clark wrote:

If you want to understand the dogma of religious pluralism, consider a scene from the comedy movie Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. If you haven't seen it, Ricky is a professional race car driver whose car crashes during a race. Thinking he's on fire, he runs around the track crying out, "Help me, Jesus! Help me, Jewish God! Help me, Allah! Help me, Tom Cruise! Use your witchcraft on me to get the fire off of me! Help me, Oprah Winfrey!"

In other words, when it comes to god, you'd best hedge your bets. One god doesn't necessarily exclude the other gods, so don't limit yourself to just one when you can believe in all of them at once! This concept has its roots in Hindu and eastern philosophy, and has largely been adopted in Western culture. It can be found in several popular versions:

I am absolutely against any religion that says one faith is Superior to another. I don't see how that is anything different than spiritual racism -Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

My position is that all great religions are fundamentally equal. -Mahatma Gandhi

One of the biggest mistakes humans make is to believe there's only one way. Actually, there are many diverse paths leading to God. -Oprah Winfrey

Pluralism’s basic premise is that all religions are true, or at least partially true; and have value. And in our culture, it is considered narrow-minded and judgmental to believe anything else. So how do we respond to the theology of Ricky Bobby?

It's difficult for many people to accept that there can be only one way to rescue us from sin and judgement. But a Christian apologist uses the following analogies to show how the cross of Christ is the one and only solution we need:

Most ailments need particular antidotes. Increasing the air pressure in your tires will not fix a troubled carburetor. Aspirin will not dissolve a tumor. Cutting up credit cards will not wipe out debt that is already owed. If your water pipes are leaking, you call a plumber, not an oncologist, but a plumber will not cure a cancer.

Any adequate solution must solve the problem that needs to be solved, and singular problems need singular solutions. Some antidotes are one-of-a-kind cures for one-of-a-kind ailments. Sometimes only one medicine will do the job, as much as we may like it to be otherwise.

Mankind faces a singular problem. People are broken and the world is broken because our friendship with God has been broken, ruined by human rebellion. Humans, you and I—are guilty, enslaved, lost, dead. All of us. Everyone. Everywhere. The guilt must be punished, the debt must be paid, the slave must be purchased. Promising better conduct in the future will not mend the crimes of the past. No, a rescuer must ransom the slaves, a kindred brother must pay the family debt, a substitute must shoulder the guilt. There is no other way of escape.

The British theologian Leslie Newbigin told the following story to illustrate how different cultures water down the claims of Jesus:

When I was a young missionary I used to spend one evening each week in the monastery of the Ramakrishna Mission in the town where I lived, sitting on the floor with the [Hindu] monks and studying with them the Upanishads and the Gospels. In the great hall of the monastery, as in all the premises of the Ramakrishna Mission, there is a gallery of portraits of the great religious teachers of humankind. Among them, of course, is a portrait of Jesus. Each year on Christmas Day worship was offered before this picture. Jesus was honored, worshipped, as one of the many manifestations of deity in the course of human history.

But this wasn't a step toward leading people to faith in Jesus Christ. It was actually what Newbigin called "the cooption of Jesus into the Hindu worldview." He explains:

Jesus had become just one figure in the endless cycle of karma and samsara, the wheel of being in which we are all caught up. He had been domesticated into the Hindu worldview. That view remained unchallenged. It was only slowly, through many experiences, that I began to see that something of this domestication had taken place in my own Christianity, that I too had been more ready to seek a "reasonable Christianity," a Christianity that could be defended on the terms of my whole intellectual formation as a twentieth-century Englishman, rather than something which placed my whole intellectual formation under a new and critical light. I, too, had been guilty of domesticating the gospel.

Leighton Ford, evangelist and brother-in-law of Billy Graham, once met the former boxing champion Muhammad Ali at a hotel in Sydney, Australia. Ford listened as Ali regaled a group of admiring onlookers before introducing himself as "Billy Graham's brother-in-law." Ali's face lit up as he said, "Oh Billy! Billy! I love Billy! I went up and saw him at the house at Montreat and he signed a book for me." Ford explained what happened next:

We got into a very interesting conversation. He was not only very articulate, he was also a very bright man. Of course earlier in his life Ali had become a Muslim, but he told me and the onlookers, "You know I have travelled all over the world. And I have seen all these different religions. It seems to me that they all have the same thing. It's kind of like you have a river, and you have a lake, and you have a pond, and you have a stream. But they all have water in them, so they are all the same, aren't they?"

I said, "Muhammad that is very interesting. But suppose you have all of them and suppose they are all polluted. Then you would need a purifier, don't you? You see that's who Jesus is. Jesus is the purifier." And he thought about that for a minute and he said, "That's good. I had never thought about it quite like that. Jesus, the purifier."

I know that Muslims don't refer to Jesus as "the Son of God" because they interpret that in some physical way that God had relations with Mary, which of course isn't true. So I told him, "Did you know that in the Bible Jesus is called the Second Adam?" And he said, "I didn't know that." I said, "Yes, you see there was the first Adam that God made in the first creation. Then the second Adam was Jesus, the new creation, in whom everyone can become new." And he said, "I've got to think about that."

Well it was 30 years ago and I haven't seen him since. I know that "The Greatest," as he called himself, has met the One who alone is really the Greatest, because all great ones pass away. But he has come face-to-face with the One great God. I wonder what Muhammad Ali had to say, or maybe he would say, "God what do you have to say?"

Buried within Pew's study on the American religious landscape was a startling find. Adults who identified with a specific religion were asked whether they see their religion as "the one, true faith leading to eternal life" or if, in their view, "many religions can lead to eternal life." How you answer such a question will determine whether evangelism is integral or peripheral, a matter of urgency or complacency.

In a stunning revelation, two-thirds of Christians believe that many religions can lead to eternal life and 50 percent of all Christians believe some non-Christian religions can lead to life everlasting.

Possible Preaching Angles: James Emery White concludes, "With such a mindset, one should not be surprised at tepid attempts at evangelism. And when attempted, poor results."

If you go skydiving at the Southwest Florida Skydiving Club in Punta Gorda, Florida, you can count on two things: (1) an exciting experience and (2) the need to follow some basic rules. For instance, before you participate in a dive, your "Jump Master" will give you the following instructions:

• Don't curl up into the fetal position. (You can slip out of your harness.)
• Arch your back and hold your arms out in front of you. (To keep you from slipping out of your harness and to get you flying in the correct position.)
• Stick your legs out in front when landing. (No explanation necessary.)
• Do everything your jump master tells you to do. (Immediately.)
• No pets allowed on your jump.

These are not negotiable, especially if you want to live. They are absolutes.

Now let's imagine another skydiving experience. When you arrive a smiling instructor begins strapping a parachute to your back while walking you toward a plane idling just outside. Over the plane's engine noise the instructor yells, "We here at the Relativist Skydiving School believe there are many ways to get from the plane to the ground. We respect everyone's desire to skydive and we don't believe in absolute rules. Just listen to your inner voice, respond honestly to your feelings, and have a memorable experience. We'll see you when you get down!"

If that was your experience, would you go skydiving? Most people who go skydiving are glad that there are strict, nonnegotiable rules. You can't be a relativist at skydiving. The rules are there for good reason. When we know why the rules are there it helps us embrace them.

There's a pervasive approach to the spiritual life in our culture that I would simply call "The Religion of Chipotle."

Now, if you love Chipotle, that's a good thing. Chipotle offers a very simple and fun way to eat lunch or dinner: you come up to a burrito bar, look down at all the food options, and then you decide how to concoct your own burrito. The ingredients are laid out behind the glass, but you design the meal to suit your personal tastes.

Unfortunately, some people take that same approach and apply it to the spiritual quest. In our culture it's tempting to think we can saunter up to the great burrito bar of the religious world and say something like this:

I'll have some of that evangelicalism. I like their energy and cultural adaptability. I like the regal nature of Roman Catholicism, and it seems kind of ancient, and I also need a little dab of mystery in my life—but not too much, please, because I also want to figure things out for myself. Give me a dash of Hinduism because I sure like that open-endedness; and if I'm a good person, I'll be reincarnated in a higher life form. I like the calmness and detachment of Buddhism. But once again, give me just a small portion because I don't want to quench all of my earthly desires. Wow, Islam has some seriousness and discipline. That would sure help me stay on track. I'll put a little bit of that in there. Oh, but that judgment of God stuff—that's too spicy. And that "Jesus is the only way to God" salsa—no, I don't want to limit myself to that option. Please keep that out.

We literally choose and pick, often without research, often very subjectively, the things that we think must be true. As a result, we make our own religion like a self-made burrito.

In an essay in the book A Place for Truth, Tim Keller claims that he often hears people say, "I don't know which religion is true" or "No one can know the truth." According to Keller, this often leads to a conversation that goes something like this:

I'm talking to someone who does not believe in Christianity or Christ. At some point he or she responds to me suddenly, "Wait a minute, what are you trying to do to me?"

I respond, "I'm trying to evangelize you."

"You mean you're trying to convert me?"

"Yeah."

"You're trying to get me to adopt your view of spiritual reality and convert me?"

"Yeah."

"How narrow! How awful! Nobody should say that their view of spirituality is better than anybody else and try to convert them to it. O no, no, no. Everybody should just leave everybody else alone."

"Wait a minute …" I say. "You want me to adopt your take on spiritual reality; you want me to adopt your view of all the various religions. What are you doing to me? What you're saying is, you have a take on spiritual reality, and you think I would be better off and the world would be better off if we adopted yours. I have my take on spiritual reality and I think mine is better than yours, and I'm trying to convert you to mine …. If you say, 'Don't evangelize anybody,' that is to evangelize me, into your Western, white, individualistic, privatized understanding of religion."

Keller concludes by stating,

Who's more narrow? It's not narrow to make an exclusive truth claim because everybody makes an exclusive truth claim …. Everybody has a take on reality. Everybody thinks the world would be better if those people over there adopted mine. Everybody …. Narrowness is not the content of a truth claim. Narrowness is our attitude toward the people who don't share our point of view.

The central assumption of many in the interfaith dialogue business has been that at their core, all religious people—Hindus and Buddhists, Muslims and Jews, Christians and Animists—are striving for the same thing, and are just using different words and concepts to get there ….. But how true is that assumption?

Let's take a closer look at the four world religions that represent about three-quarters of the global population …. And let's start with the most basic belief in each religion: the idea of God. Within the various streams of Hindu thought alone, there are multiple answers to the question, "Who or what is god?" Hindus can believe that there is one god, 330 million gods, or no god at all. The Vedas, the most ancient of Hindu scriptures, which are accepted by most Hindus as normative, teach that atman is Brahman, or "the soul is god," meaning that god is in each of us and each of us is part of god. The common greeting, Namaste, which means, roughly, "The god within me recognizes and greets the god within you," reflects this belief.

In his apologetic for the Buddhist faith, Ven S. Dhammika, the author of several popular books on Buddhism, writes, "Do Buddhists believe in god? No, we do not. There are several reasons for this. The Buddha, like modern sociologists and psychologists, believed that religious ideas and especially the god idea have their origin in fear. The Buddha says, 'Gripped by fear, men go to the sacred mountains, sacred groves, sacred trees and shrines.' " So, for most orthodox Buddhists (in the Theravada tradition), the concept of a personal supreme being is at best unimportant, at worst an oppressive superstition.

What about Islam? In the Qur'an, sura 112 ayat 1-4, we read, "Say: He is Allah, the One and Only. Allah, the Eternal, Absolute. He begets not, nor is he begotten. And there is none like unto him." This passage in a primer for Muslim children puts it simply: "Allah is absolute, and free from all defects and has no partner. He exists from eternity and shall remain eternal. All are dependent on him, but he is independent of all. He is father to none, nor has he any son."

In contrast, Christians believe that there is one God who is creator of the world. He is a personal God, a conscious, free, and righteous being. And he is not only a personal God but a God of providence who is involved in the day-to-day affairs of creation. He is a righteous God who expects ethical behavior from each of us. He expects his followers to live out their belief by loving him with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, and by loving their neighbors as themselves. God, while one in essence, also reveals himself in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

So according to the four largest world religions, God is one with creation and takes on millions of forms, God may or may not exist, God is one and absolute, and God is one but exists in three persons.

If we cannot agree on even the basic definition of God or his character, how can we say that all the major religions are on the same path toward the truth about God?

National Geographic: In God's Name is a 2007 documentary that explores the views of 12 prominent spiritual leaders. Topics include calling, the presence of God, sacrifice, doubt, and the meaning of life. One of the segments in the bonus features section of the DVD is titled "Can All Religions Co-Exist?" Six of the contributing leaders offer their thoughts—thoughts that might be useful for preachers to interact with in a sermon.

From Reverend Mark Hanson, President, Lutheran World Federation, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America:

I think people of different religious beliefs must co-exist because we share two things: a common humanity and a common earth. I think one of the greatest challenges today is the relationship between unity and diversity. If we didn't have a sense of what holds us together, what unites us, a common humanity and a common earth, then our differences will become cause for division and conflict, one seeking to dominate the other. But if we have a sense of what unites us, then our diversity will enrich our lives. Dialogue is very difficult. It takes commitment, it takes honesty, and it takes a willingness to be open to the other.

From Yona Metzher, Chief Rabbi of Israel:

The answer as to whether religions can live together, the answer is yes. They can. They have to. Our sages say: "As faces differ, so do opinions differ." Every person has a different face. Do I hate him because his face is different from mine? If he doesn't have eyes like mine, am I supposed to hate him? It is like this also with different opinions. If his belief is different than mine, why should I hate him? We can stay friends. Each with his own laws. Each with his own beliefs. Everything depends on the religious leader and what kind of attitude they promote in their communities toward other religions.

From Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, Church of England:

I believe that the Christian faith is true. I believe that what is revealed in Jesus Christ is the truth about God. But that does not make me feel I must now force everybody to accept that. It means I am grateful for what I have been given. That I would love to share it. That, also, I need to know that other people have come to their faith by a route that deserves my respect. So we talk to one another. We listen to one another. We have our convictions. We have our firm commitments to truth. But that does not mean violence. I think we can live together.

From Alexy II, Patriarch of Moscow and All-Russia Russian Orthodox Church:

We need to find common ground. We need to find out more about each other. That's why we support people knowing about religious values. First of all about the values of their own religion. And after that, about the values of other religions. This will help people to understand each other better, and not to address people of other religions with hostility or hatred.

From Tenzin Gyatso, The 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, Tibetan Buddhist:

We can't decree that this or that religion is the most important. I cannot tell that Buddhism is the best for each one of us. For example, for one of my Christian friends, Christianity is the best, and that is the most suitable for him. Thus, Buddhism is the best for me, but I can't say that this is the best for you too. And it being the best for him, he cannot say it is the best for me as well.

Likes and interests are different, as in the food habits of different people. Some people like chilies. Others do not. Those that like chilies cannot say that the food having chilies is the best. For those that don't like chilies, the food without chilies is the best.

Take medicines also for another example. There are different varieties of medicine because there are different varieties of diseases. We cannot claim that only one medicine is the best for all diseases ….

Whatever religion it is, they are all beneficial to many people. I feel wonderstruck that these religions have been beneficial for millions of people for many thousand years. I always think they are very favorable to humanity.

From Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, Shia Muslim:

I have always been open to humanity as a whole. I have always thought that if I have the right to differ with the other, the same applies to the other. That is why I am always ready to engage Christians, Jews, and secularists and all other people who have a different religion than mine. I have never been a religious fanatic.

Elapsed Time: DVD, bonus feature titled "Can All Religions Co-Exist?" (the clip runs about five minutes)

Sometimes the uniqueness of the revealed Word of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ is seen most clearly when contrasted with other spiritual beliefs.

Lauding the Dalai Lama as one of the world's 100 most influential leaders, author Deepak Chopra wrote in Time magazine:

The most inspiring thing [the Dalai Lama] ever told me was to ignore all organized faiths and keep to the road of higher consciousness. "Without relying on religion, we look to common sense, common experience and the findings of science for understanding," he said.

The Dalai Lama sounds wise, and his words certainly fit the mood of our culture. But we must see clearly what his advice means. It means you ignore Christianity because it is an organized religious faith. It means you ignore the church of Jesus Christ, which Jesus himself said he would build. It means you reject the gospel of Jesus Christ—the Son of God in the flesh, crucified for our sins, raised from the dead—because the gospel flies in the face of all common sense, human experience, and science.

Make no mistake, the gentle-looking man in the maroon robe is offering advice that will lead you far from the only way of salvation.

I believe in God. I believe in Jesus and Buddha and Mohammed and all those that were enlightened. I wouldn't say necessarily that I'm a strict Christian. I'm not sure I believe in heaven.

—Rock singer Sheryl Crow in an interview with the New York Post in September of 2005

Theologian Helmut Thielicke once visited the United States and toured the United Nations building in New York. When he was shown the "chapel" in the UN building, he was appalled. It was a room decorated by spotlights and little else. Thielicke commented:

The spotlights were ignorant of what they were illuminating, and the responsible men who were invited to come to this room were not shown to whom they should direct their thoughts. It was a temple of utterly weird desolation, an empty, ruined field of faith long since fled…only here, where the ultimate was at stake, only here was emptiness and desolation. Would it not have been more honest to strike the whole pseudo temple out of the budget and use the space for a cloakroom or bar?