David Anguish
Viewed either politically or religiously, the American commitment to pluralism has much to commend it. Politically, the founding fathers who hammered out the details of the U. S. Constitution remembered the flights to freedom which settled the original colonies and devised a system designed to protect freedom of choice. Religiously, the fact that so many views have been allowed to exist side-by-side has been hailed as part of the American success story. Nor should we forget the benefits of religious freedom for the advance of quests like our own restoration movement. Thomas Campbell, for example, saw clearly that the liberty in the American system enhanced his movement to unify warring sects on the basis of the New Testament alone (see his Declaration and Address, written in 1809, less than twenty years after the Constitutional Convention).
But something happened to the pluralism of this country's early days. We believe it gets to the heart of the problem to say that pluralism has changed from a position which held that people had the right to hold diverse views, even if some were wrong, to the current climate in which all ideas are considered equally valid. In other words, pluralism as now advocated does not stop with the dictum that all people are created equal, it insists that all ideas are equal.
This intellectual pluralism, or relativism, has become the accepted view of our time. It stands as a direct threat to biblical faith. As Ravi Zacharias has said, "In a culture where truth no longer exists, the very cardinal statement of Jesus, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life,' becomes meaningless. And unless truth as a category is defended, every commitment that is made because of a commitment to Christ Himself will be deemed a 'mere belief' and differentiated from fact, thereby making it unworthy of intellectual assent" (Appendix to Deliver Us From Evil: Restoring the Soul in a Disintegrating Culture, as printed on Zacharias's web site - www.rzim.com).
We've not heard of any in the church who would argue, as some have, that Christianity is just one way among many (see The Myth of God Incarnate [1977], edited by British philosopher John Hick, and his more recent The Metaphor of God Incarnate: Christology in a Pluralistic Age [1993]). We do hear affirmations that contradictory claims among different groups who profess to be Christian are equally correct. We hear some say that our inherited traditions make any claim to have the truth suspect, an acknowledgment of and surrender to postmodern relativism. We hear of church Bible classes where Christians have defended the notion that contradictory propositions can both be true. Because we hear these things, we are convinced that relativism needs to be confronted in our church teaching, not just in that directed to unbelievers.
That Jesus did not hold to relativism is evident in a number of passages. One which stands out in our mind is Mark 11:27-33 where the religious leaders demanded to know the authority by which he would drive moneychangers from the temple and teach as he did. As significant as what Jesus says in response is what he does not say. It is clear that he did not dispute their right to question his authority. In fact, he offered to tell them "by what authority I do these things" if they would tell him their view concerning the origin of John's baptism. His question implied that there was one right answer, that it was capable of being known, and that they should have known it.
In view of his example, we lack no confidence in declaring that intellectual pluralism must be challenged and avoided.