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Conclusion: The Uniqueness of Jesus’ Central Message
All told, this is certainly a fascinating subject. However, this is an age where syncretism,
pluralism, and, most of all, tolerance 97 are often favored and preferred above all else, regardless
of whether the facts may point in other directions. It seems to be the case, at least in the popular
media, that proper attitudes outweigh data and truth.
Even in the scholarly literature, whether from a simple lack of information, from other
prejudicial looks, or something else, we almost never hear that in virtually all cases, the holy
books for non-biblical founders and prophets are written far after the person lived, with the
actual extant copies often dating even centuries later than that. But these facts do not seem to
make the pages of most texts and the very large gaps between the founders, their writings, and
the extant copies are actually quite difficult to track down, not to mention sometimes being
devastating arguments against the historicity of their claims.
To conclude this small volume, we are left with a number of Jesus’ teachings which at
least appear to be rather singular when compared to the messages of the other major religious
figures. All religions probably include distinctive elements depending on how these are
delineated and counted. However, we mentioned six such areas, each of which was related in
some way to the central Christian Gospel message. The crucial point to note here is that, due to
97 Parrinder reminds us that there are many different nuances and meanings for ideas like these. He reminds his
readers that more than one religion shares some common views of general revelation, such as God’s existence,
forgiveness, and eternal life. Yet, the chief, unique difference for Christians is “Christ himself.” (61) He also
remarks that “it is not necessary to relax one’s own faith a wit” in order to practice common courtesies such as
politeness towards those in other religions (62)! (Parrinder, Comparative Religion, 60-66). Corduan makes some
similar points regarding certain truths from natural revelation that are also shared by more than one religion
(Corduan, A Tapestry of Faiths, Chap. 2 in particular, especially 53-54).
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