“There are lots of religions and I’m not sure only ONE has to be the right way.”

These comments all ring true with what I hear all the time as I encounter people as a pastor and in everyday life.

Options, Options and More Options

Part of what I hear in these responses is modern consumerism. In a world where we can instantly find, buy, and swap anything, spirituality becomes just another category in the mall of life. And what most people are shopping for are practical tips to live a better life according to whatever they define as better. Indian-born Christian thinker Ravi Zacharias called these people in our phone call for this project “happy pagans.” These people are in no mood to ponder the four great questions of origin, meaning, morality, and destiny. They suffer no pain. They feel no distress. The anvil has not fallen out of the sky on their life. They anticipate good times ahead and see little reason to include the Christian faith in their future. Why would anyone on a roll waste time on a religion with downer concepts like judgment and hell?

But something deeper than consumerism drives the belief that “There are lots of religions and I’m not sure only ONE has to be the right way.”

People have always had a beef with Christianity’s claim of exclusivism. They say it is wrong to claim that Jesus is the one Savior of the world or that faith in him is the one and only route to God. If they were back in my old neighborhood they might say there are many airlines and flights that get you to God. They would assure you there are tons of places to take off and land.

This opposition to exclusivism is vaguely intellectual. Critics of Christianity contend that all religions are limited in their grasp of reality, as in the old story of several blind men groping an elephant. A guy who finds the trunk does not describe the elephant in the same way as another who discovers an ear. Each has only a limited perspective of a larger whole, just as each religion only sees part of God. According to this analogy, every religion actually describes the same thing. Like a guy from Phoenix said, “Jesus, or God as we know him, Allah, Yahweh, they’re just different names for the same Almighty being.” In this scheme religious viewpoints are essentially interchangeable and equally true.

I do not think anyone actually lives like one faith is as valid as the next. Hardly anyone signs up to be a suicide bomber to score 72 virgins in paradise. Most do not worry about evil spirits lurking in trees and rocks. People feel safe ignoring Zeus. And on Sunday mornings many people would rather worship at the Church of the Holy Comforter than come to a Christian church.

This viewpoint of extreme religious pluralism does not hold up. Religious followers do not agree that all religions believe the same thing. Saying that all religions teach the same thing is highly offensive to all followers of all faiths. If you go up to a devout Muslim and say, “Uh, do you believe the same thing as a Buddhist?” they would say, “The Buddhist? The guy who doesn’t even believe in God? No!” If you ask a devoted Universalist, who believes that everybody goes to heaven, if they think like a Mormon, they will gladly buy you a coffee and explain how they are different.