Enrichment Journal: What’s So Special About Jesus?

Responding to the Challenge of Religious Pluralism

Religious conflict marks the post-9/11 world. Many today, however, see the real enemy of global peace and harmony as not terrorism per se or religious violence, but religious fundamentalism or totalitarianism. In an article entitled “The Real War”¹ published in the wake of 9/11, New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, candidly expresses this view, placing the blame for 9/11 squarely at the feet of what he terms the ideology of religious totalitarianism — “a view of the world that my faith must reign supreme and can be affirmed and held passionately only if all others are negated.” He places all faiths that come out of the biblical tradition — Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — within this category because of their tendency to believe they have exclusive truth.

Friedman is a strong advocate of an ideology of pluralism that embraces religious diversity and allows equal recognition of alternative faith communities, so people can nurture their faith without claiming exclusive truth. Citing Rabbi David Hartman in support of his view, Friedman asks: “Can Islam, Christianity, and Judaism know that God speaks Arabic on Fridays, Hebrew on Saturdays, and Latin on Sundays, and that He welcomes different human beings approaching Him through their own history, out of their language and cultural heritage?

“Is single-minded fanaticism a necessity for passion and religious survival, or can we have a multilingual view of God — a notion that God is not exhausted by just one religious path?” This is a classic pluralist strategy of stereotyping religions that lay claims to absolute truth as “single-minded fanaticism” and trivializing the differences between religions as essentially linguistic, reflecting historically and culturally conditioned responses to ultimate reality. The issue is one with serious implications, raising a series of tough questions, some of which strike at the jugular of the Christian faith.

In the midst of a society that is increasingly multireligious and culturally diverse, what should the Christian posture be toward the diverse faiths of our neighbors? Do we view them as enemy-occupied territory that we need to conquer for Christ, or pilgrims traveling on different paths, eventually leading to the same destination? When we confess Jesus as the universal Lord and Savior, does this mean that Christianity is the only true religion and that there is no truth or goodness whatsoever in any other religion? If every religion claims to be the only true one and sees its mission as converting those of other faiths, will it not intensify religious bigotry, fanaticism, and communal strife? Read more