c. 1997 Religion News Service

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

UNDATED _ A recent conference at one of America’s largest divinity school, Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., brought together leaders of two religious groups _ Jews and evangelical Christians _ that have often been strangers to one another in the United States.

Over the past 200 years, evangelical Christians and Jews have moved past each other like proverbial”ships in the night,”never really encountering each other as vibrant faith communities and because of this limited contact, negative images and stereotypes have frequently characterized their relations.

Can anyone honestly believe terms such as”redneck,””cracker,””Elmer Gantry,”or”bigot”fairly describe contemporary evangelical Christians? And can anyone honestly believe the epithets of”Christ killer,””scribes and Pharisees,”or”Shylock”have any basis in fact as accurate descriptions of Jewish history, religion and culture? Sadly, these pernicious images have poisoned relations between evangelicals and Jews.

Co-sponsored by Fuller and the American Jewish Committee, the conference focused on how evangelicals and Jews view one another as well as jointly exploring the dynamic interplay between religion and politics in a diverse America.

Politicians, academics, clergy, lawyers and members of the media zeroed in on such topics as religious pluralism, church-state relations, the intense conflicts sometimes experienced by elected officials when their public duties collide with their private faith commitments, the critical role played by the media in shaping Christian-Jewish relations, and religion’s vital function in addressing society’s injustices.

Fuller was an excellent location for Jews and Christians to tackle these important issues. Founded in 1947, Fuller today has 3,325 students from 80 countries, representing over 120 different denominations. However, the school is not linked to any one of those groups, and is independent in nature.

Richard J. Mouw, Fuller’s president, has been a long-time leader in building positive Christian-Jewish relations. Much of the conference’s success was due to his vision and commitment.

At one of these sessions, Ronald F. Thiemann, dean of Harvard Divinity School, and I explored the possibility of developing a”theology of pluralism”within the Christian and Jewish traditions.

Pluralism frequently compels individuals to acknowledge there are various ways to achieve a spiritually fulfilling life.

While all religions are true for their believers, pluralism teaches that no one religion contains all the truth for everyone everywhere throughout the world.

Creating a theology of pluralism, however, is not an easy task because while believers have little or no trouble affirming and celebrating the truth of their own religion, it is much harder _ but equally important _ for people of faith to appreciate the truth and legitimacy of other religions.

Thiemann faced this vexing dilemma head on by rejecting the”wide-spread conviction that in order for one to hold firmly to truth and to the truth claims of one’s own faith you must … by force say the other is false.” Fuller students were quick to ask Thiemann some perplexing questions. One questioner sensed a conflict between belief that Jesus is the only way to salvation and a theology of pluralism. Thiemann responded by calling such thinking”binary logic”: two views in opposition to each other. The Harvard dean reminded his fellow Christians that”we are called to follow,”and warned,”there is no blueprint … we don’t see the whole picture … there may be (non-Christian) companions with us who also witness to God’s truth.” I strongly believe a theology of religious pluralism is needed to ensure the future of religious liberty in the United States.

While we Americans currently enjoy constitutional safeguards, it is possible that a future severe economic dislocation combined with an extremist Christian nationalism could undermine the traditional freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Developing a spiritual basis for pluralism is not a cop-out to the exigencies of modernity. Nor is a theology of pluralism an example of”religious correctness”in contemporary America. Rather, it is clear recognition that there was, is, and apparently will continue to be, a wide variety of religious expressions directed toward the universal God.

Theology, after all, is always evolving. In the past, some theologians provided religious justification for believing that women, blacks, Jews and Native Americans were inferior human and spiritual beings.

Theological concepts attributing masculine characteristics to God are under severe attack. And theologians are constantly reinterpreting the Bible and the definitions of prayer, sin, miracles and revelations.

It is now time to devote the same energy and talent toward developing a theology of pluralism, and the Fuller conference was a significant contribution to this important event.

MJP END RUDIN