Dr Paul Allen

RELIGIOUS PLURALISM By the late twentieth century, however, there were growing numbers of those identifying themselves as Christians who explicitly rejected such inclusivist views and called for a radical pluralism in which Christianity is just one among many possible ways of responding to the divine.  Religious pluralism, as understood by these thinkers, means that all the major religions are more or less equally true and effective ways of responding to the religious ultimate; no single religion—including Christianity—can claim legitimately to be superior to others in terms of truth or in relating appropriately to the divine. There are many reasons that religious pluralism, as defined above, is so attractive today. We are much more aware of religious diversity today, due to globalization, increased immigration, international travel, and the impact of media and the internet.  As the West encounters religious others, there is often the realization that Hindus, Buddhists, and Sikhs are n

One of the issues we as Christians are constantly being confronted with today is, “How can you claim to know the only truth, how can you claim to serve the only God and still survive in a pluralistic society? Aren’t you necessarily, Christians, theocrats? Don’t you necessarily want to persecute everybody who disagrees with you?” I think the brilliance of Kuyper is to say, “Here is a way forward where we do not compromise our commitments to truth, but we find a way to develop a pluralistic society where we can live with one another without violating one another’s conscience, without violating one another’s abilities to live according to truth.”  I think if we were more Kuyperian in our thinking, we would be safe from some of our problems. He thought the world was wonderful, but in his analysis, he said, “The polar opposite today in Western society,” meaning the late 19th century, “is this tendency to the authoritative, tyrannical state on the one hand or utterly radical ind