Index of Subjects
I have given these chapters the title The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. The gospel is news of what has happened. The problem of communicating it in a pluralist society is that it simply disappears into the undifferentiated ocean of information. It represents one opinion among millions of others. It cannot be "the truth," since in a pluralist society truth is not one but many. It may be "true for you," but it cannot be true for everyone. To claim that it is true for everyone is simply arrogance. It is permitted as one opinion among many.
Churches, at least in Britain, have been eager to avoid the charge of arrogance. They have been eloquent in their efforts to distance themselves from what is now judged to have been the arrogance of missionaries who talked of the evangelization of the world in their generation. They are eager to repent of the arrogance of their predecessors. In reaction to this arrogance, two moods are widely discernible. One is timidity. This is, I think, the most obvious feature of much contemporary English theology. Most theology in this country is carried on within the universities whose curricula are governed by the assumptions of "modernity." It is difficult for theologians to step outside these boundaries. Literary, historical, and phenomenological studies in religious history and practice can be carried on without transgressing these boundaries. "Religious studies" can flourish, since they are--in general-descriptive rather than normative. They do not pass judgment on the truth or otherwise of the religious beliefs studied, much less on what is taught as truth in other faculties. But Christian dogmatics, the teaching as truth of beliefs which run counter to the accepted assumptions of our culture, is much more difficult. Academic theology tends to live within the fron tiers which the reigning "plausibility structure" dictates. The resulting tension between academic theology and the beliefs of ordinary churchgoers is a familiar matter of comment.
The other mood is one of anxiety. Christianity is perceived to be a good cause which is in danger of collapsing through lack of support. Or-in a quite different manifestation of the same fundamental attitude-there is a strident summons to more energetic efforts in evangelism and social action. I do not mean by speaking in this way that it is not very important for Christians to be active in both evangelism and social action. But I do sense an underlying Pelagianism which lays too much stress on our own activities and is too little controlled by the sense of the greatness and majesty and sufficiency of God. I am saying that there can be a kind of Christian activity which only thinly masks a lack of confidence in the sufficiency of God.
I want to suggest the word "confidence" as the one which designates the proper attitude. In a pluralist society, any confident affirmation of the truth is met by the response, "Why should I believe this rather than that?" Everv statement of ultimate belief is liable to be met by this criticism, and-of course-if it is indeed an ultimate belief then it cannot be validated by something more ultimate. Our ultimate commitments are (as I have argued in an earlier chapter) always circular in structure. Having been brought (not by our own action but by the action of God) to the point of believing in Jesus as Lord and Savior, we seek to understand and cope with every kind of experience and every evidence of truth in the light of this faith. We are constantly called upon to rethink our faith in the light of these new experiences and evidences. We are prepared to recognize (as every human being has to recognize) that there are areas of mystery and that there are puzzles which are not solved for a long time. But we expect to find, and we do find, that the initial faith is confirmed, strengthened, and enlarged as we go on through life. And if, as always happens in a pluralist society, we are asked: "But why start with Jesus? Why not start somewhere else?" we have to answer that no rational thought is possible except by starting with something which is already given in some human tradition of rational thought and discourse. Our immediate answer may well be, "Why not?" For the ultimate answer we have to wait for the end of all things. That expectant waiting is part of what it is to live a full human life.
I therefore believe that a Christian must welcome some measure of plurality but reject pluralism. We can and must welcome a plural society because it provides us with a wider range of experience and a wider diversity of human responses to experience, and therefore richer opportunities for testing the sufficiency of our faith than are available in a monochrome society. As we confess Jesus as Lord in a plural society, and as the Church grows through the coming of people from many different cultural and religious traditions to faith in Christ, we are enabled to learn more of the length and breadth and height and depth of the love of God (Eph. 3:14-19) than we can in a monochrome society. But we must reject the ideology of pluralism. We must reject the invitation to live in a society where everything is subjective and relative, a society which has abandoned the belief that truth can be known and has settled for a purely subjective view of truth-"truth for you" but not truth for all. For one thing, I doubt whether such a society can long sustain its integrity in the face of the claims of those who have a firm commitment to some vision of truth. As I write, the press is full of the cries of outrage from Western liberal writers and critics in face of the Muslim reaction to Salman Rushdie's book The Satanic Verses. But it is doubtful whether these cries have behind them anything that can withstand the determined onslaught of those who hold firm beliefs about the truth. Freedom to think and say what you like will not provide the resources for a resolute grappling with false beliefs. The demand for freedom of thought and expression must itself rest on some firmly held belief about the origin, nature, and destiny of human life. If it has no such foundation it will prove powerless in the face of those who have firm beliefs about the truth.
In a pluralist society there is always a temptation to judge the importance of any statement of the truth by the number of people who believe it. Truth, for practical purposes, is what most people believe. Christians can fall into this trap. It may well be that for some decades, while churches grow rapidly in other parts of the world, Christians in Europe may continue to be a small and even shrinking minority. If this should be so, it must be seen as an example of that pruning which is promised to the Church in order that it may bear more fruit (John 15:1ff.). When that happens it is painful. But Jesus assures us, "My Father is the gardener." He knows what he is doing, and we can trust him. Such experience is a summons to self-searching, to repentance, and to fresh commitment. It is not an occasion for anxiety. God is faithful, and he will complete what he has begun.