christian living on Pluralism

Christmas in May I’m pretty sure it was Stephen Covey, back in the day ( The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People ) who originally said, “The main thing is to let the main thing be the main thing...

It is no more narrow to claim that one religion is right than to claim that one way to think about all religions (namely that all are equal) is right.

The current context of cultural and religious pluralism magnifies this development. After the disintegration of Christendom-a historical topical apparatus that gave cultural pride of place to Christia...

Place is furthermore never individualistic; rather, it “insinuates itself into a collectivity.”

“I think... if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.”

Across all barriers of land and language, wealth and poverty, knowledge and ignorance, we are one, created from the same dust, subject to the same laws, and destined for the same end. With this compas...

The Power—the Spirit—is thus a social power, working to bring all minds into its own unity, sometimes by similarity and at other times by contrast. There is a diversity of gifts, but the same spirit.

Creeds must disagree: it is the whole fun of the thing. If I think the universe is triangular, and you think it is square, there cannot be room for two universes. We may argue politely, we may argue h...

God’s vision for his people is not for the elimination of ethnicity to form a colorblind uniformity of sanctified blandness. Instead God sees the creation of a community of different cultures united b...

There can be more genuine fellowship among those who share the same disposition than among those who share the same beliefs, especially if that disposition is toward kindness and generosity

As sensitive and broad-minded humans, we must never allow ourselves to be in any way judgmental of the religious practices of other people, even when these people clearly are raving space loons.

Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.

Persecution is simply the clash between two irreconcilable value-systems.

So if we want to get the church right, we have to learn to see it as a salad in a bowl, made the Right Way of course. For a good salad is a fellowship of different tastes, all mixed together with the ...

All peoples are equally created and tasked to shape their communities toward shalom.

We need to give each other the space to grow, to be ourselves, to exercise our diversity. We need to give each other space so that we may both give and receive such beautiful things as ideas, openness...

There have been times, not least the time of the birth of Athenian democracy, when most of the people who thought and wrote about human wholeness concluded that no one could be a whole human being, no...

O God of the ages, you have created each of us uniquely. We each have so much that makes us interesting and unique! Yet at times, even against our own wishes, we find ourselves falling prey to the -is...

Tradition is a willingness to read Scripture, taking into account the ways in which it has been read in the past. It is an awareness of the communal dimension of Christian faith, which calls shallow i...

This concept [the parish system] has helped Christians understand how interconnected all the pieces within a community are and the importance of pursuing the common good there. Jesus’ call to be peace...

Followers of Jesus should not be in bed with any of the political parties. Even if one affiliates with a particular party, may we maintain a posture to collaborate, listen, hold accountable, and engag...

In Essentials Unity; In Non-Essentials Liberty; In All Things Charity

Some of us are interested in religious studies because we are interested in people. People do religious things; they symbolize and ritualize their lives and desire to be in a community. What piqued my...

Paul points out that some say, 'I'm of Paul,' while others say, 'I'm of Apollos.' He asked, 'Isn't that carnal?' But what's the difference between saying that o...

Up until the 1950s the subject of the missionary movement was referred to as "missions" in the plural form. In fact, the term "missions" was first used in its current context by th...

In a world of greed and consumerism, the church ought to be a community of generosity and selflessness. In a host empire that is committed to marginalizing the poor, resisting the place of women, caus...

One of the gravest dangers to the Christian faith is its wholesale appropriation of the larger culture. When this happens, the citizens of those places cannot recognize the difference between their cu...

Far too many people, especially within evangelicalism, think that the individual is all that matters, and that the corporate dimension is a distraction or diversion. Of course Christianity is deeply p...

Writer Michael Novak says that doubt is not so much a dividing line that separates people into different camps, as it is a razor’s edge that runs through every soul. Many believers tend to think doubt...

Spiritual timekeeping is nourished by Jesus’s promise that the Spirit will guide us into all truth across time… This stands in contrast to what I’ll call the “primitivism” of so much American Christia...