Rev. Dr. Lawrence Johnson

Religious Pluralism: A Historical Perspective

At a seminar of the Gregorian Study Circle in Houston in June, 2001  

I acquired the idea of Religious pluralism while I was growing up at my native place in India. I remember watching a Lutheran church, a Catholic church, a Hindu temple, and a mosque while walking to my own CSI church from my home every Sunday. Later, in college, philosophy was one of the subjects of my study, which also exposed me to other religions and their ways of thinking. I used to think that Christianity is altogether different from all other religions in that they are all unsuccessful human attempts to seek God, whereas Christianity is the only true religion in which God has revealed Himself to the mankind.

However, my exposure to the other religions gave me a different outlook. I began to think that it would be absolutely impossible even to seek God if there is no revelation from God. This would mean that there is God's revelation in all religions, though the degree might vary. Later when I became a theological student at the United Theological College at Bangalore, India, I was much more exposed to the other religions. I had the opportunity to come into close contact with several prominent figures in the field of inter-religious dialogs. Later when I was a student at Princeton, I was surprised to realize that being an Indian, I had an advantage over my American classmates. Unlike them, I didn't need to acquire Religious pluralism because it was already in my blood. I had already been exposed to other religions whereas most of my classmates had only heard about other religions.

During the period of European colonialism, it was widely held that the western world was fully Christian, the East was fully non-Christian, and that it was the divine responsibility of the West to convert the East to Christianity. The colonizers believed that all the non-Christian religions were satanic, and therefore, they couldn't find anything worthwhile in them. They went around the world as the sole custodians of the absolute truth, and made people convert to their beliefs using whatever means they could. At one time this conversion was so rapid that someone even claimed that at that rate, the entire world would be Christianized by 1990. However, to their dismay, history took a different turn. Not only that the East didn't become Christian, but also the West itself began moving away from its allegiance to Christianity. The "colonial" missionaries are still slowly and painfully realizing that they can't convert the entire humanity to a single religion.

Singularism and Pluralism

There are two disparate tendencies in the world in our time. On the one side we see the growth of fundamentalism in every religion. Fundamentalism is very narrow-minded, in the sense that they believe in Religious Singularism. They are not willing to listen to anyone with a different belief system than theirs. For example, there are Christian fundamentalists who believe that all the other religions are the agencies of Satan, and there are Hindu fundamentalists who believe that followers of other religions have no right to live in India. On the other side, there are people who make genuine, positive attempts to understand one another, and to learn from other religions. They believe in religious pluralism, and encourage inter-religious dialogs. They believe that the presence of various religions gives us the opportunity to see our life from different perspectives, and so diversity makes us richer, and makes our world a better place to live.

The ecumenical movement has been an expression of religious pluralism. Though its short-term goal is the unity of the Christian Churches, its long-term goal has been the unity of the humanity. The twentieth century witnessed several other pluralistic movements such as Human-Rights Movement, and Dialog Movement.

The Christian Church’s Approach

What has been the approach of the Christian Church toward the other religions? It was not at all a positive approach in the past. Christianity was seen unique, absolute, and normative. Theodosius, the Christian Roman emperor in the fourth century A.D., banished all the non-Christians from his empire. In the fourteenth century, a pope of the Roman Catholic Church declared that the Catholic Church is the only agent of salvation. In the nineteenth century, Pope Gregory XIV rejected religious freedom as insanity. The attitude of the protestant churches was not different either. If Christianity alone is true, all others should be either destroyed (as seen in the Crusades), or be converted to Christianity (as seen in the mission of the colonizers).

Coming to the twentieth century, it is possible to identify four different Christian approaches.

1. The extreme fundamentalist attitude that all other religions are from Satan.

2. The moderate fundamentalist attitude that all other religions are human attempts to reach God, whereas, Christianity is God's attempt to reach man.

3. An inclusive attitude that Christianity is the fulfillment of all other religions. An example would be the thought of Karl Rahner, a Catholic theologian. He introduced the concept of Cosmic Christ. He believed that Christ's salvation is available to all people irrespective of what religion they belong to. He used the term "Anonymous Christians" to refer to them.

4. Religious relativism, which states that no religion, including Christianity, is perfect. All religions are just diverse pathways to God. The story of four blind people seeking to understand an elephant is the classic metaphor that explains this approach. A few Christian thinkers in India, who promote this view, are encouraging Christians to think theo-centrically rather than Christo-centrically because God is common to all religions, whereas, Christ is specific to Christian religion only.

Conclusion

Finally, let me take the question of what I personally think of religious pluralism. I think it is extremely important to hold on to one's religious faith because it can provide a strong basis to our very existence. After having a strong foundation in one's own faith, it is important to develop an appreciation toward the faith of other people. It is always possible to learn more from others. Religious pluralism is not irreligion. It is not a mixture of religions, either.  


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