Just some thoughts from my Bible study of Revelation 2:18-29...
So what does this all have to do with you and me? We have discussed the dangers of assimilation
with the world in order to fit in with other groups. There is also a danger of religious pluralism
that seems to surface here. Religious
pluralism is that belief that two or more religious systems with competing
views are equally valid. Do all roads
lead to heaven? In other words, if I
look at the sky with my wife and say it is blue and she says that it is red but
we both belief that the other’s view is as valid as our own, that is a
pluralistic view. When it comes to
religions, it would mean that a person believes that every religion on the
planet is equally valid and true. They
all lead to either heaven or nowhere.
People who proudly display the “Coexist” bumper sticker on a vehicle are
supporting religious pluralism. The
problem with the “Coexist” bumper sticker is exactly the fact that no world
religions can coexist with any other world religion with the exception of
Hinduism, which actually believes that all religions are valid as a part of its
basic belief system. This belief renders
Hinduism illegitimate for a number of reasons.
There isn’t space or time to enumerate those reasons here, but I will
just address one major issue with some common religions and why they are
completely incompatible with Christianity and why they simply cannot
“Coexist”.
Many world religions believe in God. This actually isn’t an uncommon belief,
however Christians understand that, just as their name suggests, the identity
of Jesus is what matters to their faith.
Many other world religions actually believe in Jesus, as well. There is a problem with these other
religions’ belief in Jesus, however. I
have said many times that the one belief that sets Christianity apart from
literally every other competing world religion is the belief that Jesus is
God. To say that every single religion
on the planet is equally valid is simply false and ignorant because too many of
them have divergent views as to who Jesus actually is! To say that Islam and Christianity are
equally valid is an example of this ignorance.
Muslims do NOT believe that Jesus is God! Christians absolutely believe that Jesus is
God! They are 180 degree, polar
opposites in their view of what matters to eternal salvation. The only way around this is to say that none
of these other world religions are correct, or to say that truth only matters
to that person who holds to it. In other
words, Islam is true to Muslims and Christianity is true to Christians. To say that a person gets into heaven by
holding A belief is simply false. What
sort of higher power would allow a person to enjoy eternity side by side with a
person who held an opposite belief? Why
would that eternity even matter? Why
would I want to serve or spend eternity with any god who said that my beliefs
and character basically do not matter? I
could hold to atheism and say that this is my view on religion and decide that
living an ethical life is my religion. I
don’t have to follow ANY god in this case!
That would certainly be the easy way to go, and it would make it easy
for every person on the planet to go to a blissful eternity, so what is the
problem with that view? The problem is
that you just can’t change truth! You
can’t change what truly IS! I can’t
redefine truth to be an arbitrary, individual preference. If that were the case a pedophile could say
that his or her truth includes the belief that raping children is okay and
actually healthy. Objective truth exists
and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
To say that all I have to do is believe SOMETHING and I’m okay with some
cosmic higher force is simply avoiding the truth that truth exists and the when
some views directly oppose one another that makes one of them a LIE. A thing cannot be both true and false at the
same time. The sky is either red or
blue. End of story.
