RESPONSE OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT TO

PLURALISM
By Venerable Dr Ifechukwu Ibeme
http://priscaquila.6te.net ; http://www.scribd.com/ifeogo ;
Comment on The Chapel of Grace Blog: http://thechapelofgrace.wordpress.com

WHAT IS RELIGION?
The word RELIGION (which refers to either human response of belief or/and behaviour in relation
to any superstition, supposition, speculation or human reverence in relation to redemptive
revelation) is derived from Latin RELIGIO = supernaturally constrained attitudes, beliefs,
experiences, powers and practices or RELIGARE = scrupulously restrained attitudes, beliefs,
experiences, powers and practices. Today’s liberalism with its antireligious, irreverent, rebellious,
and self-willed philosophies have given religion a bad name as faiths and forms that are antisocial,
intolerant and deceptive because of religious rules and regulations – often designating RELIGION
to mean religious organisations or regulations; but prefer SPIRITUALITY which is designated to
mean unregulated spontaneous spiritual worship and lifestyle or personal “salvation” experience.
Hence many in the Church and other religions are averse to the word “religion” or “religious” and
claim they are not religious: they would prefer to describe themselves as spirituals, spiritualists,
using spiritual powers or living in spiritual relationship.

RELIGIONS or SPIRITUALITIES are all about relationship with the spiritual or response to the
ineffable. In the world today, they offer or seek different concepts of SALVATION (e.g. Christian
redemption-ransom, rescue-release, regeneration-restoration; or Non-Christian self-realisation)
from BONDAGE (e.g. Christian sinful nature, divine wrath, demonic deceit, damnable death, error-
ignorance; or Non-Christian karma, reincarnation and matter) such that one salvation concept may
not satisfy the salvation concepts of the others.

RELIGION can be defined as the human way of living based on:

 human spiritual relationship of attitudes, or
 human ritual response of observances, or
 human rational response of faith in, fear of, fervour for, experience of and reverence for
God (or for other gods and numinous powers).
RELIGIONS
 are comprehensive belief systems about the divine, the spiritual and the sacred,
 which are in turn expressed in behaviour systems of ritual forms, religious community,
numinous experiences, ethical values and mystical practices.

Note that both the religious and the irreligious have their kinds of “God” and “gods” which regulate
their worldviews and behaviours such as:
 the Monotheists’ ALMIGHTY CREATOR God, (Author of order)
 the Mystics’ UNIVERSAL MIND/FORCE god,
 the Evolutionists' RANDOM SELECTOR goddess, (author of confusion)
 the Scientists’ “NATURAL LAW” goddess,
 the Secularists’ “AS YOU LIKE IT” god,
 the Polytheists’ specialised or tension gods and goddesses, and guiding/guardian spirits of
beasts, masters, heroes, heroines and ancestors.

CHRISTIAN RESPONSES TO OTHER RELIGIONS

The purpose of Gospel mission is to bring all humanity to BE SAVED through Christ from depravity,
demonism and damnation into God’s eternal Kingdom in order to know and do God’s will, to
worship God in spirit and truth (Act 26:15-18). Christians today adopt various views to non-
Christians’ hope of eternal salvation offered in the Gospel.
EXCLUSIVISM: this view holds that there is salvation only for Christians.
INCLUSIVISM: this view holds that, although salvation is by definition Christian salvation, brought
about by the atoning work of Christ, it is nevertheless in principle available to all human beings,
whether Christian or non-Christian; that good and devout people of other faiths may, even without

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knowing it, be regarded as "anonymous Christians" or that non-Christians also are included within
the universal scope of Christ's salvific work and their religions are fulfilled in Christianity.
PLURALISM: this view holds that, the great world faiths, including Christianity, are valid spheres of
a salvation that takes characteristically different forms within each – though consisting in each
case in the transformation of human existence from self-centredness to a new orientation toward
the Divine Reality. The other religions are thus not secondary contexts of Christian redemption but
independently authentic paths of salvation.
HIERARCHISM: this view which derives from apostolic Gospel proclamation (kerygma) and
apostolic Gospel teaching (didache), holds that all religions and cultures of all humanity are at best
proto-Christian or sub-Christian stages of either FAULTY HUMAN GROPE WITH INSTINCT FOR GOD
(Rom 1; Act 17) or FRAIL HUMAN GRAPPLE WITH THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD (Heb 1; Gal 3-4).
Therefore, in order to obtain eternal salvation for kingdom heritage, humans would necessarily
have to repent of their failure and progress to receive the grace of divine help through faith in the
Christ’s redemptive work (by His passion and power), and through the acceptance of Christ’s
Gospel uniquely revealed in the Scriptural apostolic witness (Eph 2-3).

HOW OTHER RELIGIONS ARE RELATED TO THE GOSPEL

How is the Christian Faith or the Gospel of Christ’s Kingdom related to other faiths, religions and
cultures? This is a fundamental question the Church must answer for effective evangelism,
dialogue (for peaceful coexistence and community collaboration) and presence in a pluralistic
heathen world. For instance in the dialogue of the three monotheistic religions, it seems that:
 The Christian Gospel is a MESSIANIC OFFER of the Creator God’s eternal SALVATION to
sinful humanity from the bondage of sin and Satan through the POWER of Christ’s GRACE
as taught by Jesus Christ and His Apostles.
 The Jewish Old Testament is a PROPHETIC DEMAND for frail OBEDIENCE from sinful
humanity (e.g. Israel) to the law of the One Creator God (Yahweh) as taught by Moses and
the Prophets of Israel.
 The Islamic Qur’an is a PROPHETIC DEMAND for frail SUBMISSION from sinful humanity to
the will of Allah who they believe is the One Creator God as taught by Muhammad ibn
Abdallah.
On a general note the question of relationship of the Christian Gospel to other religions calls for a
broad grasp of not only the thrust of the various religions but also what religion basically is and
what types of religion (primal, philosophical and prophetic) there are in the world.

In the Apostolic times, the Gentiles worshiped spirits but believed in the inescapable ordinance
powers of the four rudiments/elements (air, water, earth and fire – faraway jungle Africans
seemed to believe rather in the power of every “animated” fetish) corresponding to the four
corners (east, wet, north and south) which also correspond to the four seasons and trigonal
constellations (warm-summer, moist-spring, dry-autumn and the cold-winter). Even their
physicians believed in the doctrine of humours dominant in persons corresponding to the seasons
of one’s birth (sanguine, melancholic, choleric, phlegmatic). The Jews believe God has chosen
them and exempted them from the power or claims of every spirit, rudiment, fetish, season,
constellation, or humour such that in place of these their own rudiments are the Law of Moses with
its powerful ritual Ordinances (priestly works of the Law) and highly ethical Precepts (personal
works of righteousness). On the basis of the Law, the Spirit of God has also inspired the Prophetic
and Wisdom Scriptures. The Gospel is that through Christ’s priestly works by His Blood, Christians
have been delivered, not only from the beggarly rudiments of the Gentiles and from the temporary
rituals of the Law but they have also been endowed with enabling grace for all spiritual works and
walk, worship and witness. This is the point about the SALVATION IN CHRIST being made by the
Apostles in the Scriptures especially in Galatians 3 and 4, Colossians 2 and Hebrews 8, 9 and 10.
Christ has also eternally propitiated for Divine damnation on sins of every Christian believer to
redeem them from guilt and reconcile them to God and guarantee their eternal heritage in God’s
eternal Kingdom.

PAGANS (Platonists, Gnostics, Neoplatonists, Kundalini Mystics, New Age Theosophists) teach that
the human spirit, despite being under the power of beggarly rudiments, could be illuminated or
“saved” (through intuition, contemplation, ecstasy or initiation) in order to be “free from inhibitions
by moral creed, mores and matter for attainment of limitless potential”, being led by spontaneous
persuasion and passion to self-actualise personal choice, dream, happiness, power and pleasure in
the hope of attaining utopian love and peace. Some Christians unwittingly integrate or syncretise
this impious and pagan spirituality into their faith.

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CHRIST and His Apostles taught that the human spirit is saved or redeemed (by divine grace
through penitent faith in Christ) in order to be “free before God from demonic bondage to error
and self and divine damnation for sin”, being led by the Holy Spirit through moral principles and
examples found in the Scriptures of the Law, the Prophets and the Apostles to please God and do
His revealed will on His earth which shall be accounted for on the last day. This is the piety.

A parallel comparison of PAGAN “spirituality” versus CHRISTIAN Spirituality is important at this

point. Spirituality is the conviction that humans have spiritual nature and could live spiritual life.
Piety has to do with faith in and submission to God Who has revealed Himself to the biblical
Prophets and through Christ. To be pious is to be god-fearing. To be impious is to be self-serving
or god-hating. There are subtle but far-reaching differences between PAGAN impious spirituality
and CHRISTIAN pious spirituality.

Common elements and concepts shared by most religions are the beliefs in the repercussion of
MORALS and the powers of RITUALS. Religions are of two main classes but three broad types:
1. Nature Religion: PRIMAL Faiths, polytheistic, pantheistic, idolatrous, deistic and cyclical
religions – e.g. animistic and monist religions, totemic and nature worship religions,
ancestral worship religions, and Hinduism.
2. Founder Religion:
(i) PHILOSOPHICAL Faiths: atheistic, agnostic, polytheistic, pantheistic, idolatrous,
deistic and cyclical religions – e.g. mystic religions, Buddhism, Shinto, Tao, Bon,
Confucianism, Gnosticism, Jainism and Sikhism (Sikhism is Islamic Buddhism =
monotheistic and cyclical)
(ii) PROPHETIC Faiths: monotheistic and eschatological religions – e.g. God-
seeking (theoreunatic) religions, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Zoroastrianism and
Baha’ism.

In contradistinction to THEISM, the belief in an immanent God who actively intervenes in the affairs of men, the
word DEISM is used to represent the view of those who reduced the role of God to a mere act of creation in
accordance with rational laws discoverable by man and held that, after the original act, God virtually withdrew

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 and refrained from interfering in the processes of nature and involvement in the ways of man. The Deist God has
left nature to forces of natural properties and left humanity to personal and popular preferences.
In the DEISTIC treatises of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, five religious ideas were recognized as God-given and
innate in the mind of man from the beginning of time: the belief
 in a supreme being,
 in the need for his worship,
 in the pursuit of a pious and virtuous life as the most desirable form of worship,
 in the need of repentance for sins, and
 in rewards and punishments in the next world.
Herbert held that these are fundamental religious beliefs that had been the possession of the first man, and
they were basic to all the worthy positive institutionalized religions of later times. Thus, differences among sects
and cults all over the world were usually benign, mere modifications of universally accepted truths; they were
corruptions only when they led to barbarous practices such as the immolation of human victims and the
slaughter of religious rivals.
POLYTHEISM and idolatry turn every want and wonder into god or goddess based on one legend, myth
superstition or another. For instance, WANTS such as health and wealth are met with GOD(DESSE)S of health and
wealth, while WONDERS like thunder and sun are met with GOD(DESSE)S of thunder and sun.

The Christ came down from heaven to graciously grant us the blessed experience of eternal
salvation into heavenly spiritual blessing which by far outweighs and outlasts all blessedness
humanity may think, imagine, ask or ever know (Eph 1:3-4, 17-23; 3:16-21): whether by all
human actualisation and all human speculation or even by prophetic revelation. From Christ’s
dialogue with the Samaritan woman in John 4:19-26 and St Paul’s introduction to his Epistle to the
Romans 1:18-32 and his sermon at the Athenian Areopagus in Acts 17:18-34, we learn that
through Spirituality or Religion, humans instinctively SEEK TO RELATE WITH AND REVERENCE
GOD but to succeed, need HELP by the TRUTH of Divine Revelation and GRACE of Eternal Salvation
through Christ. Otherwise, humanity being HINDERED by the ERROR of human mystical
supposition and syncretism and being HOODWINKED by the FRAUD of demonic manipulation,
eventually ENDS UP RELATING WITH AND REVERENCING THE “GODS” (e.g. mistaken “God”,
demonic spirits, dead ancestors, natural object and natural or spiritual forces). Without God
reaching us, humans cannot succeed to reach God (Mat 11:27; John 6:44; 14:6-7).

These other PRIMAL, PHILOSOPHICAL and PROPHETIC non-Christian Faiths/Religions and cultures
unaided by Divine Revelation and the Redeeming Grace of the Divine Christ may have their few
merits despite their gross demerits and limitations. However, ONLY CHRIST EFFECTUALLY SAVES
US ETERNALLY FROM EVERY BONDAGE TO ORDINANCES (repercussions of sin and manipulations
of rituals) AGAINST US, whether of Jewish Mosaic Law and regulations or of Gentile Philosophical
Rudiments and traditions (Gal 3:22-26; 4:1-10; Col 2:8-17). This apostolic teaching is often
missed or misunderstood by the Church. Only the Divine Christ has the ultimate POWER that saves
from every bondage to dark territorial PRINCIPALITIES of spiritual error and from every bondage
to wicked celestial POWERS of spiritual evil (Eph 6:10-12; 1John 4:1-6). Only Christ has made or
could ever have made the valid ATONEMENT/PROPITIATION that saves from human DEPRAVITY,
demonic DOMINATION and divine DAMNATION (Col 1:12-23).

EXCLUSIVIST, INCLUSIVIST, PLURALIST, HIERARCHIST, or whatever view of Christian

understanding of its relationship to science, other faiths, cultures, philosophies and worldviews,
the basic biblical precept of the Kingdom Gospel and mission is that all humanity
 is lost, perishing and dead in their sin,
 is enslaved by the devil, is under divine wrath and condemnation (John 3:35-36; Eph 2:1-
3) and
 is in dire need of eternal salvation only possible by divine intervention; which salvation has
been powerfully accomplished and graciously offered by God through Jesus Christ (John
3:13-19).

Christ was preordained in eternity before all time by God to judge the living and the dead but was
presented and proved in time to be the Christ and the eternally reigning Son of God by His
incarnation, resurrection and ascension (Acts 10:42; 17:31; Rom 1:2-6). The basic biblical
purpose of Christian mission in the world is to share with all humanity the Gospel of this distinctly
boundless blessing of eternal salvation freely offered, revealed and brought to the world through
Christ. This eternal salvation is far beyond every other available levels and options of blessedness
ever sought and imagined or attainable by humanity (Eph 1:17-23; 3:16-21). This
REVELATIONIST and REDEMPTIONIST perspective of the Christian witness was testified by Christ
and His Apostles.

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John 4:19-26
(19) The woman said to him, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
(20) Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people
ought to worship."
(21) Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in
Jerusalem will you worship the Father.
(22) You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.
(23) But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in
spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.
(24) God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."
(25) The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes,
he will tell us all things."
(26) Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am he."
Acts 17:24-31
(24) The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth. He doesn't live
in shrines made by human hands,
(25) and he isn't served by hands as if he needed anything. He himself gives everyone life, breath, and
everything.
(26) From one man he made every nation of humanity to live all over the earth, fixing the seasons of
the year and the boundaries they live in,
(27) so that they might look for God, somehow reach for him, and find him. Of course, he is never far
from any one of us.
(28) For we live, move, and exist because of him, as some of your own poets have said: 'For we are his
children, too.'
(29) So if we are God's children, we shouldn't think that the divine being is like gold, silver, or stone, or
is an image carved by human imagination and skill.
(30) Though God has overlooked those times of ignorance, he now commands everyone everywhere to
repent,
(31) for he has set a day when he is going to judge the world with justice through a man he has
appointed, and he has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead."

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This chart of “HIERARCHY OF FOUR VARIETIES OF BLESSEDNESS” attempts to present this in
perspectives.

Christ came down to graciously grant us the experience of eternal salvation as free redemptive blessing which by
far outweighs and outlasts all levels of blessedness that humanity may think, imagine, ask or ever know (Eph 1:3-
4, 17-23; 3:16-21): whether by human actualisation and human speculation or even by prophetic revelation.
Every human is responsible for the level of blessedness one chooses to seek because every level of blessedness
has its eternal consequence after death. The workings and worth, powers and purposes of the four levels of
blessedness are attested to all over the Scripture. Here are some examples:

4. SALVATION in Christ into the eternal heavenly heritage for all humanity whosoever believes.
Luke 7:28
(28) For I say unto you, Among those that are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John
the Baptist: but he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.
Hebrews 1:1-3
(1) God, having spoken in former times in fragmentary and varied fashion to our forefathers by the
prophets,
(2) has in these last days spoken to us by a Son whom he appointed to be the heir of everything and
through whom he also made the universe.
(3) He is the reflection of God's glory and the exact likeness of his being, and he holds everything
together by his powerful word. After he had provided a cleansing from sins, he sat down at the right
hand of the Highest Majesty.
Acts 4:12-13
(12) There is no salvation by anyone else, for there is no other name under heaven given among people
by which we must be saved.
(13) Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and found out that they were uneducated and
ordinary men, they were amazed and realized that they had been with Jesus.

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Eternal Salvation level is obtainable through faith in Christ and through living by His Grace as
witnessed to by Christ and His Apostles in the Scriptures of the New Testament.

3. REVELATION for walking with the Creator God as found in the experiences of Old Testament Patriarchs and
Prophets.
Hebrews 11:39-40
(39) And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise:
(40) God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.
Matthew 11:9-11
(9) Really, what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and even more than a prophet!
(10) This is the man about whom it is written, 'See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will
prepare your way before you.'
(11) Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has appeared who is greater than John the
Baptist. Yet even the least important person in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
1 Corinthians 13:9-10
(9) For our knowledge is only in part, and the prophet's word gives only a part of what is true:
(10) But when that which is complete is come, then that which is in part will be no longer necessary.
Divine Revelation level is accessible through obedience to the Law of Moses and faith in the
Scriptures of the Old Testament Patriarchs and Prophets.

2. TRANSCENDATION through human wisdom and curiosity all through the ages for transcending into the
exotic.
1 Corinthians 1:21-25
(21) For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know God, God decided
through the nonsense of our preaching to save those who believe.
(22) Jews ask for signs, and Greeks look for wisdom,
(23) but we preach Christ crucified. He is a stumbling block to Jews and nonsense to gentiles,
(24) but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is God's power and God's wisdom.
(25) For God's nonsense is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human
strength.
Colossians 2:8-9
(8) Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after
the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
(9) For in him dwells all the fullness of the Deity bodily.
Human Transcendation level is attainable with transcendent instinct that senses and
searches for the unapparent, the invisible, the spiritual, the supernatural, whether divine or
demonic, whether inclined to primal or philosophic religion, whether by scientific or mystical
mind-set.

1. ACTUALISATION driven by the motivation to meet humanly felt-needs, satisfy selfish and mundane passions,
pride and pomp.
Luke 12:15
(15) And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consists not in the
abundance of the things which he possesses.
Luke 12:20-23
(20) But God said unto him, You fool, this night your soul shall be required of you: then whose shall
those things be, which you have prepared?
(21) So is he that lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.
1 Corinthians 15:19
(19) If our hope in Christ is good for this life only and no more, then we deserve more pity than anyone
else in all the world.
1 John 2:15-17
(15) Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is
not in him,
(16) because all that is in the world (the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the arrogance
produced by material possessions) is not from the Father, but is from the world.
(17) And the world is passing away with all its desires, but the person who does the will of God remains
forever.
Human Actualisation level is attainable even with or without any religion, with or without
transcendation, with or without revelation, with or without salvation, whether atheistic or
not, agnostic or not, idolatrous or not.

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 Updated March 15, 2016
by Ven. Dr. I. U. Ibeme
Copyright © PriscAquila Publishing, Maiduguri, Nigeria.
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