Pluralism or Exclusivism



Pluralism or exclusivism

As I indicated before, the use of the old paradigm has become largely ideological. We attempt to make exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism stand for theological positions. A good example of how this rakes shape is Paul Griffiths's book, Christianity through Non-Christian Eyes. (16) In each section of the book, Griffiths presents excerpts of views of Christianity from within a religious tradition--Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism--and it is not difficult to apply Race's labels to the positions taken (Schubert, 2002).

Griffiths's point is a good one: that there is no single view of other religions from within any tradition, just as there is no single Christian view of other religions. But will it really be productive in the future to do such labeling of Christian writings about other religions? Or will such labeling lead to less engagement with the ideas presented? Since I know that the exclusivist label means fundamentalist or evangelical, the inclusivist label is supposed to mean Roman Catholic or some Mainline Protestant (Schubert, 2002), and the pluralist label means academic theology of all sorts, isn't the temptation to simply dismiss the ideas as tainted by positions we have already examined?

Especially when the correspondence between the three positions and theological positions is becoming increasingly tenuous. It is difficult, for example, to read the Roman Catholics' recent declaration, "Dominus Iess (On the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church)," and think of it as being strictly an inclusivist document (Schubert, 2002). Trying to draw such one-to-one correlations is becoming as chary as trying to predict with accuracy a person's position on social issues such as abortion, welfare, and ecology based on whether they are registered Republicans or Democrats (Schubert, 2002). The correspondences are becoming more complex.

But it is not just a matter of crossing religious "party lines." What many religious people interested in engaging issues of interreligious interchange are discovering is that they seem to use a combination of all three positions at once. On some theological and practical issues they are pluralists, recognizing there are many good and valid positions one might rake; on others they are inclusivists (Gavin, 2003), recognizing that apparent differences are just that--apparent and culturally conditioned--and that underlying those differences lies a bedrock, common truth.

On still others they are exclusivist. After exploring all the options, they determine that only one position leads forward toward spiritual health and truth. ...