lcc liberal arts studies / 2010 volume iii - LCC International University

URSULA GLIENECKE / REACTIONS ON CULTURAL AND RELIGIOUS PLURALISM
distribution of these positions as follows: “Evangelicals and Pentecostals hold an
exclusivist perspective, with insistence on explicit faith in Christ; Conciliars
[ecumenicals] move toward variances of inclusivist and pluralist perspectives; and,
while all three approaches are present within the Catholic Church, there seems to
be more attraction toward inclusivist and pluralist positions, or what Jacques
Dupuis calls an 'inclusive pluralism'” (Bevans, Schroeder, 2004, p. 254. Cf. Dupuis,
2002, p. 87-95). Among evangelicals and Pentecostals there are some exceptions
leaning towards inclusivism.
Exclusivism
Exclusivists take as a matter of fact that “there is only one true religion” (Danz, 2005,
p. 53), namely – their own. Christian exclusivists, in particular, regard what they
consider to be the central tenets of the Christian faith as exclusively true. According
to them, salvation is not to be found in or through other faiths. They are seen as per
se false, misleading (Netland, 1991, p. 9f), “human-made” or even demonic no
matter how many parallels, complimentary insights or similarities might exist
between them and the Christian tradition. People who adhere to them or even
simply to non-exclusivist interpretations of the Christian message are lost and
condemned to suffer eternal punishment by never ending torment in Hell or by
second death by a gas chamber-like annihilation.
The evangelical exclusivist position is connected with a certain view of the
world:
1. All humanity is condemned: Since Adam and Eve all humans are sinners who
have severed the primordial ties that connected them with God. As a result,
they are under God's judgement and deserve God's wrath and punishment.
This applies to everybody: all are lost and going to hell - even good and
religious people.
2. There is only one way to attain salvation: To believe in the substitutionary
sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. God's solution to the problem of sin and
damnation is to send his own son, Jesus Christ, to take God's wrath and
punishment upon himself and suffer torture and death to pay this price in
place of humankind.
3. Salvation can not be found apart from an “explicit acceptance of his work
through faith” (Manila Manifesto A.3.) (meaning accepting the atonement by
substitutionary sacrifice theory). The same holds true for the Abrahamic
traditions: Judaism and Islam.
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