Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

[xiv] The primary use of this term is to refer to the increasingly common experience of living in communities in which several faiths coexist [32: i]. It is also used to describe theological responses within Christianity to the issues raised by such experience. Such responses are frequently classified in three ways. ‘Exclusivism’, championed by such thinkers as Karl Barth and Hendrik Kraemer [54; 55], stresses the radical uniqueness of Christianity. ‘Inclusivism’, taught by thinkers like Hans Küng [56] and taken up both by the Second Vatican Council and by Pope John Paul II, gives primacy to Christianity, but also sees Christ's saving work as at least partially present in other traditions which have many spiritual values. ‘Pluralism’ sees each of the great traditions as comparable in value and of probable equal performance [42: vii–viii]. The last position has been so vigorously developed and defended by John Hick in recent decades that it has acquired almost a technical reference to his theological position and hence this latter response to global religion is the one which will now be described.The central difficulty in the way of global understanding of religion is how one can do justice to what appear to be common themes in the reported religious experience of the human race, while at the same time facing up to the tremendous diversity of the world's religions. People of many ... log in or subscribe to read full text