Religious Pluralism

                                                                                                                       Vol. VII, No. 1, January 1994

[Editorial Comment: The reader is invited to evaluate the following quotations by the accompanying article by Gary Ledbetter on salvation doctrine. They demonstrate the validity of Ledbetter's concern. The first set of excerpts are by Dr. Hugo Culpeper, Emeritus Professor of Missions, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, and appeared in the Winter 1992 issue of Review and Expositor. Bold print added.]

Culpeper is discussing religious pluralism. "By religious pluralism we mean the existence of many different religions at the same time throughout the world.... It raises the question of the church's mission today. ... The writer spent 1972-73 on sabbatical at Harvard University. At the center for the study of religions, ...W.C. Smith directed every Wednesday night a three hour dialogue session of about fifty graduate students and visiting scholars. Most all of the religions in the world were represented. Each religion was considered a tradition which served as a bridge across which the person of that persuasion had crossed to become a person of faith. The bridge was not of greatest importance; where it led is what matters. If it led the person crossing it to become a person of faith that is what is of supreme importance. There were numerous "persons of faith," saved people, who had crossed differing bridges. Professor Palihawadena from Sri Lanka was a quiet, soft-spoken man who had crossed the bridge of Theravada Buddhism to become a person of faith. He had crossed the bridge of a non-theistic religion to become "saved" as a person of faith.

"... If there is a God beyond all gods, surely he uses every culture, all the differing religious traditions, even all history in seeking to get through to as many people as possible and bring them voluntarily into relationship with himself!"

[The next series of quotations are from an article, "Baptists and the Challenge of Religious Pluralism," by Thorwald Lorensen, Professor of Theology, Ruschlikon Seminary, Ruschlikon, Switzerland, which appeared in the same issue of Review and Expositor. Again, bold face is added. These passages may help the reader appreciate concerns of the Foreign Mission Board when they ceased funding Ruschlikon a couple of years ago, and also raise questions why the CBF would contribute to a seminary where such views are held by one or more professors.]

"Christians therefore need to distinguish between their confession to Jesus Christ as the truth, and a claim that Christianity is the only true religion. The truth cannot be captured by any religion, including the Christian religion. ...

"But what about other religions? Do we have to deny truth to other religions? Being aware of our own shortcomings, and at the same time witnessing the devotion for God and for justice by people like Mahatma Ghandi and the Dalai Lama, can we assert that God has limited His grace to Christians or the Judeo-Christian tradition? ...

"The truth claim of Christians therefore focuses on the story of Jesus Christ and on the quality of life and experience that this story mediates and promises....

"On the one hand we can face other religions and learn from them. ...

"Although for Christians God has most clearly expressed himself in his self-revelation in Jesus Christ, we expect that there are lights in the world that form analogies to the light of the world (John 8:12).”