CartTolerance, Pluralism and the Christian
Doug Groothuis
Because of a rising Islamic presence in America's military, in December of 1993 the Army swore in its first Muslim chaplain. Imam Abdul-Raseed Muhamad is the first non-Judeo-Christian chaplain—but Buddhists are also looking for a chaplain.
America's album of religious pluralism is bursting full of such snapshots. Time recently produced an issue called "The New Face of America: How Immigrants Are Shaping the World's First Multicultural Society." One article, "One Nation Under Gods," highlighted the diverse challenges of our ever-increasing religious diversity. In light of this, Christians should ponder what God expects of us during this demanding hour.
A growing chorus of voices tell us to "celebrate diversity" and be tolerant of all views, lest we become like Fundamentalists who damn everyone with whom they disagree. The impassioned cry of our individualistic and relativistic culture is that everyone must be free to chose his or her own "lifestyle" utterly free from any evaluation that might bring it into question. But this is really intellectual cowardice and a capitulation to relativism.
Christian philosopher Peter Kreeft argues while we should be egalitarians when it comes to people we must be elitists when it comes to ideas—and not the reverse. All ideas—whether religious or ethical or whatever—are not equally true. Americans have freedom of religion but this hardly renders all religion right or reasonable. The Branch Davidians were neither. It is nothing less than intellectual suicide to presume that the perennially profound issues of life—concerning the existence and nature of God, the nature of humanity, spiritual salvation, etc.—have no right or wrong answers, like a multiple choice test with no answer key. Christians know otherwise because we are the humble recipients of God's answers revealed through Christ and in the holy Scriptures.
How, then, should Christians respond? Despite some Christian's shameful self-righteousness, we have the best possible reason to be tolerant of others: God commands it of us as Christ's disciples. We are to love our God-created neighbor, whoever he or she might be—Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, or atheist. And as Americans we can apply the benefits of the First Amendment, which both guarantees freedom of religion (whether ours or our neighbor's) and restricts its political enforcement. Nevertheless, we cannot in good conscience endorse alien theologies that contradict the Scriptures. We must respect and honor people from every spiritual tradition, but this does not mean we must accept all religions or that all roads lead to Truth.
The Christian task in an increasingly pluralistic culture should be that of respectful and informed persuasion. Concerning evangelism, we should honor people of differing points of view, but seek gently and rationally to persuade them of Christ—s truth. In public life, we should seek to convince others of the wisdom of biblical principles for social polity. However, Christians should neither receive special privileges nor be the targets of unfair discrimination. This task of persuasion is neither simple, easy, nor often modeled, but it is incumbent upon followers of Christ if we are to "speak the truth in love" to our pluralistic culture.