Theologians, Coroners, and the World Religions

I think of good books as time bombs. They sit there in the stack ticking away, waiting patiently for you to pick them up so they can explode in your mind.

I finally picked up a book that I bought probably twenty years ago. It doesn’t rise to the level of a “good book,” but it was a useful one. It was about how Christianity should think about other religions. I give it credit for being very fair in laying out the various positions—from so-called “exclusivism” (I object to the term because I think it is pre-loaded against the position it describes) to “inclusivism” to “pluralism.” It comes out in favor of the last, with arguments that I didn’t find convincing, but it was quite honest in admitting the problems with its own view as well as the others.

I think all views on most everything are “exclusivist” in that they object to opposing positions. Seeing Christianity as truer than other religions is seen as “exclusive.” So why is not seeing your pluralism or universalism as truer than other positions not also “exclusive”? (It is, but the one who controls the terminology and definitions is the one who controls the argument.)

What I most objected to in the book (I’m not going to tell you the title unless you email me), was the repeated notion that we “must” (a word used repeatedly) adopt the pluralist position in order to rescue Christianity from “embarrassment.” The position, in essence, is that all “major” religions (a cop-out qualifier in my view) are valid responses to God’s initiative and that even Christ commends us to see these other religions as equally valid. Any other view, apparently, is embarrassing.

Depends on who you’re trying to impress, I would say. The author is very anxious to be acceptable to his fellow theologians (especially those of a certain stripe: Tillich, Hick, Cantwell Smith, et al). I just can’t work up that much concern to be acceptable to these folks. I think they have their own things to be embarrassed about.

Do not misunderstand me. Some of my best friends are theologians. But I think that looking to theologians (or academics generally) to help us best understand faith, religion, or the divine is like expecting coroners to be the best sculptors because they know the most about anatomy.