Christianity, Pluralism, and Public Life

they view as essential to it—as enlarging the
ability of Christians to live out their faith, not
limiting it.
In addition to this way of looking at the value
of religious pluralism, many of the Christian
leaders we interviewed did not simply view
religious pluralism as acceptable or good
because of what it allowed Christians to
do, but argued that a religiously pluralistic
context can help to deepen and sharpen the
faith of Christians and improve the health of
Christian communities. Dr. CJ Rhodes, Pastor
of Mt. Helm Baptist Church, represented this
perspective well when he said that religious
pluralism “forces us to really come to terms
with: Are we really believers are not?... it’s also
good for us to interrogate ways in which some
of our theological framings have been rather
sophomoric; so because we’ve been sheltered in
many ways, we’ve not seen the diversity of the
world.” Dr. Bob Roberts, Global Senior Pastor
at Northwood Church, echoed this sentiment,
saying that “there’s nothing better that you can
do for your faith than live next door to Muslims,
Jews, Buddhists. I think it also makes us ask
hard questions. Why do I believe what I believe,
and how do I explain it to someone else?”
Q: “Is Pluralism a good thing for
Christianity?”
A: I personally think it is, which is why I helped
to plant a church in a city like Washington, D.C.
because I believe we are better for it when we
are refined in our faith, knowing exactly what
we believe in when we’re challenged to live
with charitable spirits in our relationships with
our neighbors, when we’re not forced to live in
enclaves and fortresses of faith, sealed off from
neighbors that are different from ourselves. And
so, again, that’s not just for the sake of mission
in terms of bringing the gospel to our neighbors,
but it’s also in the neighbors bringing themselves
to us in a way that actually challenges and refines
our faith, not to mention our conviction that God’s
truth is sprinkled all over the place through all
kinds of institutions, all kinds of people’s lives.
And so we actually do encounter some version of
God and some aspects of God, even in things that
we might disagree with.
—Rev. Duke Kwon, Lead Pastor, Grace Meridian Hill,
Washington, D.C.
Dr. Catherine Orsborn, Executive Director of
Shoulder to Shoulder, personally reflected that
her “encounters with Eastern Christianity made
me ask…how American is my Christianity and how Christian is my Christianity?” She continued, “I think my encounters with
Muslims and Jews since then…have really strengthened my own Christian commitment.” Professor Aristotle Papanikolaou,
Archbishop Demetrios Chair in Orthodoxy, Theology, and Culture at Fordham University, affirmed the point, noting that
religious pluralism “forces those who take their Christian conviction seriously to actually embody those convictions in ways
that perhaps they didn’t think was possible without being in the midst of that kind of religious pluralism.” Sister Simone
Campbell, SSS, Executive Director of NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, told us that in her work with people of
different faiths, “I haven’t found a compromise. I’ve found it totally enriching, but I think the thing is that it’s more about
spiritual maturity than it is about doctrine…And that spiritual maturity then is not a threat for my own. It’s opening. It’s
interesting. It enriches. But it requires a spiritual practice that is more than a... I don’t know, what? A garment you put on
Sunday morning and then take off.”
Although the Christian leaders we spoke to were overwhelmingly positive about religious pluralism, several people we
interviewed discussed challenges to a viable religious pluralism. Pluralism can mean different things to different people. As
Bishop Claude Richard Alexander, Jr., Senior Pastor of the Park Church in Charlotte, N.C., noted: “It is our view of pluralism
that can be healthy or not.”
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