Three Worldviews

Brian Haynes is my church's visiting pastor for the summer, while our two sitting pastors enjoy a much-deserved sabbatical after nine years of work. He is from London, England, having served as a British Baptist pastor for 30 years. He is serving an interim role for us for six weeks.

Mr Haynes conducted a very good lesson Sunday morning at a joint class. His topic: the three current worldviews of Christianity, relating to how Christians should view their place among the world's other religions. Here are his three competing worldviews:

1) Exclusive: under this view, the Bible is inerrant, and Jesus is the sole voice of God. Christians everywhere are tasked with converting all other humans, in a bid to save their souls.

2) Inclusive: interprets the Bible in a non-literal fashion, and allows room for truth to be revealed in many of the other religions of the world. However, the sole beacon of real truth is best expressed by Jesus. Christians are to be tolerant and respectful of other faiths, and glean new insights from the study of them.

3) Pluralistic: treats the view of God to be an ultimate mystery, around which equal and competing religions seek to explain the mystery, each according to their society's cultural traditions. No one religion is dominant, and all are to be tolerated without question.

In the Q&A, Mr. Haynes sought to get the personal worldview of those in attendance. Most of our congregation seemed split between inclusive and exclusive. A few leaned toward Pluralistic.

Speaking personally, Mr. Haynes admitted that his own views have shifted over time among all three. He has settled currently on the inclusive camp. While he understands the Pluralistic view, he stated that in many cases, practices and beliefs of others, while based on religion, are not morally correct. For instance, Apartheid is fundamentally wrong, even though there are those who seek to hide behind religion while defending it. Mr. Haynes said that such cases have convinced him that a firm faith in the way of Jesus will keep Christians from being led astray on the altar of tolerance. Tolerance, in his view, is not always a good thing. Tolerance can often be wrong.