APOSTASY: If you renounce Islam, you have comitted the ultimate crime and according to the Koran, MUST be put to death.
Now do you really want that kind of belief proliferating in the Unites States of America?

Christianity divided on being the only true religion

By Jonathan Reinhardt
The Daily Citizen
Thursday, September 15, 2005 9:04 PM CDT

Is Christianity the only true religion? The question has haunted Christendom since its inception and continues to be controversial.

The traditional Christian answer is anchored in the belief that God has revealed Himself most definitively in the person of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who Christians believe is the only Son and incarnation of God. Accordingly, for traditional Christians every other faith is at best a weak, corrupted human attempt to explain the evidence of God's presence in the world, tainted by human misunderstandings.

Like other early church fathers, the second century Justin Martyr observed in his "Dialogue with Trypho" that as Christians "we are enjoined by Christ to put no faith in human doctrines, but in those proclaimed by the blessed prophets and taught by Christ Himself" -- only Christ could be trusted to be "the way, the truth and the life."

Throughout the centuries, Christianity spread through the military might of the Roman Empire, the Medieval wars and crusades of European Christian kings, the conquests of the Catholic Spanish and other colonial powers during the Renaissance, and the world-wide colonialism spearheaded by France and Britain that did not end until the 20th century. Where Christians conquered, they frequently enforced Christianity and made life difficult for non-Christians.

Christians came to be seen as cocky and the Christian faith as a tool of power that could be twisted to best fit the opinions of those who held it -- from the corrupt bishops Martin Luther rebelled against, to the Southern Baptists who used the Bible to justify the inferiority of men and women of African descent, to the Episcopalians who turn their backs on more orthodox Anglicans in order to capitalize on the politics of homosexual empowerment.

Since such supposedly Christian behavior is a far cry from what Christians claim to believe about love and justice, the French Enlightenment thinker Voltaire was only being slightly sarcastic when he observed that, "of all religions, Christianity is without a doubt the one that should inspire tolerance most, although, up to now, the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men."

In what religion scholars now view as a flawed development, Enlightenment thinkers suggested that Christians should worry more about themselves and less about other religions, since all religions are at their root an outlook on life that believes in a supreme being, strives towards becoming morally sound, and worships a creator.

Viewing all religions as basically equal quests for supernatural truth now strikes most religion scholars as na•ve. Renown expert John B. Cobb Jr., for example, insists that religions cannot be compared because there really is no such thing.

"Arguments about what religion truly is are pointless," Cobb wrote. "There is no such thing as religion. There are only traditions, movements, communities, peoples, beliefs and practices that have features that are associated by many people with what they mean by religion."

Buddhism and Confucianism, Cobb points out, are examples of "religions" that do not believe in a supreme being.

Since other religions nevertheless persist, Christians have responded to other spiritual beliefs in three different ways.

The approach called particularism is the traditional Christian response to other religions. Theologian Hendrik Kraemer, for example, wrote that when Jesus claims to be "the way, the truth and the life," then that excludes all other religions from being true also. Knowledge of God is only available through Christ, or -- according to other theologians like Karl Barth -- can only be correctly understood with Christ in mind. Particularists criticize those who would make all religions equal for being more enamored with the idea of harmony between religions than with actually taking a careful look at what these religions do proclaim -- and at how different what they proclaim actually is.

Inclusivists agree with particularists that Christianity is the absolute religion, and that religious truth is based on God's self-revelation is Jesus Christ. Inclusivists like the Jesuit writer Karl Rahner do point out, however, that there needs to be a way for God to save those who have never been exposed to the Christian message. They also feel that Christians should take into account the similarities that do exist in many religions, such as a dedication to doing good. Inclusivists call those who are faithful adherents of other religions "anonymous Christians," to whom God will show mercy because of their righteousness. Critics of the inclusivist position claim that this attitude is patronizing both towards other religions and towards Christianity itself. The Second Vatican Council, for example, pointed out that while other religions "often reflect a ray of that truth that enlightens all men," the point of Christ is precisely that he, and only he, is the one in whom God could reconcile all things to himself.

The final approach, furthest from traditional Christian beliefs, is that of religious pluralism. Falling back on the Enlightenment idea that basically all types of spirituality are too similar and too personal to be judged objectively, pluralists call for complete tolerance of all religions that are in search of an "ultimate reality."

Pluralist John Hick writes, "During the last two hundred years or so we have been making new observations and have realized that there is deep devotion to God, true sainthood, and deep spiritual life within ... other religions. ... Would it not be more realistic now to make the shift from Christianity at the center to God at the center, and to see both our own and the other great world religions as revolving around the same divine reality?"

Traditional Christians reject the pluralist view because it does away with an identifiable god altogether, and thus renders Christ irrelevant. They point out that most religions are actually radically different in their beliefs and practices, and that a careful study of them reveals that they are not at all speaking of the same God.