Are Christians Intolerant?

One of our Christian newspapers recently ran this story. According to one university professor, Christian students are “not convinced that there is such a thing as objective moral truth….they’re not convinced that Jesus is the only way. They’re not convinced, really, that other religions aren’t also ways to God.” He goes on to say, “It just seems somehow to many young people wrong and abrasive to simply look across at someone else’s way of looking at the world, and way of coming to God – and call it wrong.”

The concern of some (perhaps many?) Christian students of being ‘intolerant’ seems to be overriding another more important concern, that is, asking ‘what is the truth?’ The reluctance to think other religious people wrong overlooks one little point; namely, that those who hold those non-Christian religious beliefs also think that Christians are wrong!

Ask any non-Christian whether he or she believes that Jesus is the only way to God. The answer is usually either ‘no’, or Jesus is ‘one of many ways’. This is in disagreement with the Christian belief that Jesus is the only way.


In addition, those who call themselves religious pluralists (that is, those who believe that all religions are legitimate paths to knowing God or the ultimate reality) also think that Christians are wrong (for being intolerant of other religious beliefs). But the charge of intolerance, if one can be made at all, goes both ways. If Christians are intolerant because they reject certain beliefs of other religions, then adherents of those other religions are just as intolerant for thinking that Christians are wrong when they assert the truth of certain doctrinal beliefs. And religious pluralists who like to make the claim of being inclusive, are not so inclusive. They obviously reject the notion that only one religion can be true (and the usual suspect is Christianity). They are actually just as exclusive as Christians are since religious pluralists claim that their belief (i.e. pluralism) is exclusively true while the Christian who thinks her beliefs are exclusively true is wrong.

Addressing the objection that Christians are arrogant for believing Christianity is the only way to God, philosopher Timothy O’ Connor, in chapter 7 of Reason for the Hope Within writes the following:

“[A]s Peter van Inwagen has remarked, the pluralist who presses this kind of objection to traditional Christian belief is likely to ‘find himself surrounded by a lot of broken domestic glass.’ Why? Because the central idea behind the arrogance objection is one the pluralist is obliged to apply to nonreligious beliefs as well. Perhaps the following best captures this central idea:

For any belief of yours, once you become aware (a) that others disagree with it and (b) that you have no argument on its behalf that is likely to convince all or most of the reasonable, good-intentioned people who disagree with you, then it would be arrogant of you to continue holding that belief.

Now let’s think about this principle in light of the pluralist’s own views. He embraces this principle while surely aware that many others think it is false….But then, to be consistent, the pluralist should abandon this very principle. Believing the principle in the face of informed disagreement, as the pluralist does, violates the principle. The moral here is that pluralism is no way of escape from the charge of arrogance….[T]he fact that one cannot…defend this claim without falling prey to one’s own principle should lead us to reject this pluralist argument.” (pp. 171-172)

Religious pluralists, it seems, are hoist by their own petard.

In response to the story I wrote….