Excerpted from Faith & Ethics
by Howard W. Roberts

A quick glance at our own religious traditions reveals there is internal diversity within a single one of them.. What is true of our particular tradition also is true of others. Each religion has internal diversity through its own history. First, the oral and written traditions of any given religion provide evidence of the process by which that religion has evolved.

Second, the geographical spread of a religion has contributed to its internal diversity. The various cultures that have accepted a religious tradition contribute to the diversity within a religion. Christianity in the United States and South Africa is diverse. Much of the diversity is related to the uniqueness of these two cultures. In these two cultures there is additional evidence of diversity within Christianity.

Vernacular translation of the Scriptures brought missionaries into contact with intimate and intricate aspects of culture, yielding wide-ranging consequences for both missionary and native alike. Translation destigmatizes culture, denying that culture is profane and asserting that the sacred message may be entrusted to the forms of everyday life. Translation also relativizes culture by denying there is only one normative expression of the gospel. Pluralism is the result in which God is the relativizing center.

Often the outcome of translation is that the missionary loses the position of being the expert. One result is that converts to Christianity may question any attempt at cultural, political, or religious domination. The paradox is that the vernacular Scriptures and the wider cultural and linguistic enterprise on which translation rests provide the means and occasion for arousing a sense of national pride intensifying religious plurality, yet the missionaries were the catalysts for the entire process.

Third, there is internal diversity within a particular religion because of the multilayered phenomena of a popular and a scriptural tradition that have resulted in layers of development, importance, and practice. Throughout the world there are 20,000 denominations in Christianity. Talk about pluralism and diversity!

It is necessary for those within a particular religious tradition to accept the plural nature of participants within that tradition in order to relate, worship, and work together. The same necessity and principle is true in the larger context of the plurality of religions. Embracing diversity is essential for the world community as we worship and work our way into the next millennium.

By embracing diversity, pluralism creates tension that can produce energy, insight, understanding, and religious development. There are three general themes and common principles religious pluralism has identified: (1) Religious pluralism can best be understood in terms of a logic that sees the One manifesting as the many-transcendent reality experienced through the various religions. (2) There is a common recognition of the instrumental quality of particular religious experience. (3) Spirituality is identified and validated by the superimposing of one's own criterion upon the other religions.

The logic that the One is manifested in the many is both the oldest and the most contemporary explanation of religious pluralism. To reduce all religions to one violates the principle of freedom. There must be unity with diversity, but not uniformity. When diversity is not permitted, coercion is being practiced.

Howard Roberts is the author of "Faith & Ethics." To order, go to the online bookpage or call 1-800-747-3016.

 

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