Christian Pluralism

I have described myself as a Christian pluralist. I think it's important to say what I mean by that. I do not mean what neil, writing in comments on a thread below said:

But religious pluralism that says "all religions are valid paths to God" is intellectually bankrupt.

Now that is one of the truly stupid things that many people say.

For one thing, to make such a claim is to Christianize other religions. It makes an assumption about other religious beliefs that can be demonstrated as false. Some religions have one God, some have many, some have non at all. To claim that all religions are "path to God" is to reduce the beliefs of others to Christian categories, rather than taking them seriously for and as they are.

For another thing, such a claim assumes that is what religion, specifically Christianity, is about - a "path to God". I'll be honest and say I have no idea what such a phrase means, but it certainly doesn't describe my own faith, or the stated faith of my denomination (the United Methodist Church), so we'll just leave that to one side.

As a Christian pluralist, I believe that all religions are equally valid human expressions of a sense of the depth of reality. There are those, however, probably a majority, who do not adhere to any religious beliefs whatsoever. I believe that, too, is an equally valid way of living one's life. I am not "evangelical" in the sense that I feel it necessary to convince others to live and think as I do. Much of what I write is not so much polemical as it is just me trying to figure things out as I go. I write to make sense for me, not to try and convince other people that I'm right and they're wrong. That's not only highly presumptuous, it implies that I have some key to understanding reality that others are missing. Sorry, but I don't play like that.

I accept and profess the tenets of the Christian faith partly because that was how I was raised, partly because I find it useful for interpreting my own experiences in life, and partly because it reflects my commitment to life outside myself. I can imagine being a Buddhist, say, or Jewish, or Muslim, or Sikh, or even agnostic and still being fully me with the same political, social, and other commitments I have. It just so happens that my life has unfolded in a way in which Christianity has been an aid for understanding my life in a fuller, richer sense. I refuse to make any universal claims for the teachings of Christianity; at the same time, I will defend those claims against those who deride and belittle them precisely because most of the reasons I am a Christian are so personal.

Because I have staked my claim to this little patch of spiritual dirt, I refuse to belittle the religious and faith commitments of those who adhere to other faiths. Why should I? For one thing, I know little about them beyond vague generalities. For another, to say that adherents to other faiths are not just aberrant but actively evading the demands of God ignores the possibility that they're faith commitments may just be true and mine false. I have no assurance that I am right, or that the 2000 year history of Christianity is somehow more true than, say, the five thousand-plus year history of Chinese animism, the 2500 hundred year history of Buddhism, or the 1400 year history of Islam. I am a pluralist out of faithful, intellectual humility.

I refuse to exclude whole sectors of humanity from humanity simply because they live differently from me. How silly is that? I am a pluralist in the broadest sense - while I am committed to a certain way of living, and will defend that way of living against critics who charge me with error, I will also refuse to claim any exclusivity or universality to my own position. That goes for politics, social commitments, and religious belief as well. This isn't "relativism" (to anticipate one possible criticism). It is pluralism. There are multiple, sometimes incongruous, mutually contradictory ways to live a fully human life, and all are equally valid as expressions of a fully human life. Difference is not error. It is always and only just what it says - difference.