Christianity, Pluralism, and Public Life

Insights into Christianity and Public Life
VIEWS OF RELIGIOUS PLURALISM AND ITS ROLE
The Christian leaders we interviewed were reflexively positive about pluralism. Their consensus view is that, when properly
understood, religious pluralism is an essential and just arrangement in the midst of difference, of benefit to society broadly as
well as Christians specifically.
The fact of religious pluralism was stated as a reflection of a reality that is core to American ideals and congruent with
Christianity. Many of the Christian leaders we spoke to also suggested that religious pluralism is not just a fact to be accepted,
but a good for which Christians (and others) can be grateful. Religious pluralism, and the religious freedom that makes
religious pluralism possible, provide a context for true belief and practice.
Jenny Yang, Vice President of Advocacy and Policy at World Relief, suggested that religious pluralism is “a bedrock principle
of our democracy…for any person to be able to practice their faith freely, or even if they have no faith at all, is fundamental to
our country and the way that we live.” Rev. Jim Wallis, President and Founder of Sojourners, echoing Yang, said that religious
pluralism is “necessary.” He explained, “in our founding as a nation, we wanted to protect any and all religions and even
people with no religion from state intrusion into those questions.”
Rev. Canon Peg Chamberlin, Lead Consultant at the Justice Connection Consultancy and former President of the National
Council of Churches, like several others, tied religious pluralism and religious freedom together. “Religious pluralism,” she
said, “is a fact of religious freedom and imperative to the founders, and I think imperative to any of us who want to have
a religious freedom in our lives.” Rev. Dr. Serene Jones, President of Union Theological Seminary, argued that religious
pluralism is “first of all, biblically, it’s well-grounded, but secondly, it’s just a fact of our reality…There would be no
Christianity without religious pluralism. Jesus was Jewish. And Jesus lifted up the Good Samaritan as a model of faithfulness,
and they were of two different religions.” Rev. Diana Butler Bass, a Christian author, speaker, and independent scholar,
simply stated, “If it worked for Jesus, it really should work for us.”
In our interviews, religious pluralism was broadly recognized as good for what it allows in a context of diversity: the
protection of conscience and belief and for the right to share one’s faith. Collin Hansen, Editorial Director for the Gospel
Coalition, raised this most directly when he explained
that, in his view, religious pluralism “is an accommodation
to the already not yet where the kingdom of God has
dawned and yet it’s not yet been consummated. So I would
say perhaps it’s not an ultimate eternal good, but it is a
provisional common good. Let’s be honest, Baptists like
me didn’t exactly thrive in environments without religious
pluralism.” Rev. Tish Harrison Warren, Writer-in-Residence,
Church of the Ascension, observed that “it just feels like
pluralism is the only way we’re going to preserve peace in
society.” Rev. Dr. Gabriel Salguero, President of the National
Latino Evangelical Coalition, told us that “religious
pluralism helps us avoid the dangers and the perils of the
imposition of religion by a government or the state.” In
different ways, Hansen, Salguero, and Warren affirmed
religious pluralism—and the religious freedom protections
18 | Christianity, Pluralism, and Public Life in the United States