COMMENTARY: In search of a world in which religions can coexist

c. 1996 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) (RNS)-Many people think theology is a set of eternal beliefs etched in stone. Wrong. Theology constantly changes from generation to generation. In the past, theologians provided a strong religious sanction for believing that women, blacks, Jews and […]

c. 1996 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.)

(RNS)-Many people think theology is a set of eternal beliefs etched in stone. Wrong. Theology constantly changes from generation to generation.


In the past, theologians provided a strong religious sanction for believing that women, blacks, Jews and American Indians were inferior human beings. Fiercely held tenets about hell as a place of punishment after death are being challenged by the belief that we pay for our sins here on earth through guilt, shame and disgrace.

Theological concepts attributing masculine characteristics to God are under severe attack. And theologians are reinterpreting such fundamental concepts as the Bible’s meaning, the definition of prayer, sin and miracles, and the natures of God, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed.

But the most pressing task for today’s theologians is to develop a religious foundation for accepting a world with many faiths. That’s not easy, but it has become a moral imperative.

People urgently need to examine their spiritual traditions to discover how they can remain faithful to their own deeply held religious beliefs without attacking or negating the equally strong beliefs of others. Theology has a word for this: pluralism.

Is this possible? Are there sources within Judaism, Christianity and Islam that can aid religious thinkers in their quest for a theological foundation for pluralism?

The late philosopher Horace Kallen was among the first to develop the concept of pluralism. Kallen likened pluralism to an orchestra with many players working in harmony to produce beautiful music. Others view pluralism as a tapestry with individual threads woven together to form a beautiful work of art.

But if orchestra members play only for themselves, without respecting their fellow members, chaos ensues. If the threads of a tapestry are pulled apart, the entire fabric will disintegrate. The analogies presuppose a unified musical composition or a grand design for a finished tapestry. But in the world of religion, each faith community frequently goes its own way oblivious to or contemptuous of any other group’s existence.

Today, it is no longer good enough for separate faith communities to simply live side by side. Rather, religious faith must provide a genuine spiritual mooring for a world where people who believe differently can live together. Unless that happens, the cruel winds of bigotry and extremism, combined with political turbulence and economic dislocation, could mean disaster.


I wonder whether pluralism can be sustained in an America where public leaders outdo one another in their harsh demands for religious and political conformity. I seriously question whether our 200-year-old experiment in religious freedom can continue without a theological basis for pluralism. Without it, the carefully constructed”big tent”we call America might blow away.

When winds of change buffet America, as they inevitably will, will the concept of pluralism be able to survive? Our religious thinkers have no greater task than to develop an authentic basis for pluralism. But it will not be easy.

People generally love their religion and have little trouble affirming the truth of their own faith. But it is much harder, perhaps impossible, for those same people to acknowledge the truth and legitimacy of the other religions of the world. Jews, Christians and Muslims have always made exclusivist truth proclamations for themselves. Members of each group have employed repressive terms like”only one way to God”and”error has no rights”to justify their narrow claims.

In the best of times, adherents of one particular religion will grudgingly tolerate people of other faiths. In the worst of times, they will try to physically destroy them. As a Jew, I am keenly aware of the terrible things that politically and religiously closed societies have done to my people in other lands and other ages.

If there is to be true dialogue, we must move beyond the obvious fact that there are many religions out there. What is really needed is to accord full spiritual legitimacy to the beliefs of others without abandoning or weakening one’s own religious commitment. Simple to say; difficult to achieve.

What a potent force religion is: It can provide justification for human liberation as well as for brutal domination over others. But perhaps pluralism may reflect the will of God. After all, everything else has been attempted for thousands of years: murders, expulsions, forced conversions and violent hatreds, all with catastrophic results. Learning to accept and live with each other’s beliefs may not be a luxury, but a theological necessity.


MJP END RUDIN

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