THE “ISMS”
PLURALISM
DR. JIM DIXON
DEUTERONOMY 5:6-12
OCTOBER 24, 2010
The 16th century was the great century; it was the great century of adventure and exploration. In the 16th century Juan Ponce de Leon made his quest for the fountain of youth. He brought his expedition, the first recorded expedition, to the region that is now called Florida. The fountain of youth does not exist in Florida, even today (perhaps particularly today—that are a lot of elderly people in Florida. In fact, after the first service, somebody said to me, “Florida is for old people and their parents”).
Also in the 16th century, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado made his quest for the seven cities of Cibola, the renowned Cities of Gold. Coronado never found them. He did reach a region today called New Mexico. The City of Gold is not in New Mexico. The City of Gold is in heaven, just like the fountain of youth is in heaven. It is in heaven where like the freshness of morning dew our youth will return to us. So it is that the City of Gold, the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem awaits.
It was also in the 16th century that Ferdinand Magellan made what was considered to be the greatest quest to circumnavigate the globe. He set forth with five ships. He died on the journey; it turned out to be a three-year journey. Only one ship returned, and that with eighteen people (over three hundred started out).
The greatest quest is not on this earth has not to do with circumnavigating the globe. The greatest quest, the greatest adventure, is in heaven. It is in the New Heavens and the New Earth; it is in heaven itself. The fountain of youth, the city of gold, and the greatest adventure are all in heaven. I know we live in a world where most people long to go to heaven. That is true here in America. Most people at least hope to go to heaven. Around the world, the same thing is true. How do you get there? How can you secure that journey? How can you know you are bound for heaven and heaven is yours? Is it like Rome? You know what they said, “All roads lead to Rome.” Is heaven like that? Do all roads lead to heaven? Do all the religions of the world lead to heaven? Are they all pathways to heaven? Are all the gods that people worship all the same? Do they all offer entrance into heaven?
This view, that it is all the same, is pluralism. It is the view that there are many paths to God, that all religions of the world are pathways to God, that all the gods that people worship offer entrance to heaven. Pluralism. It is politically correct. After all, why should you believe that you have some unique access to the truth? Why should you be confident that your way is best? Isn’t there truth in all the religions of the world, and don’t they all lead to God? Should we not judge? Pluralism. It is the religion of our age, the religion of our culture, the religion of our nation. What does the Bible say about pluralism? I meet Christians who say, “I believe in Jesus Christ and Jesus is my Savior, but other people have other saviors, other people have other religions, other ways to heaven.” Are they correct in saying something like that? What does the Bible say about pluralism?
I want to give you, from holy scripture, four responses. First of all, pluralism offends God. I want you to understand the Bible is clear: pluralism offends God. I didn’t know Mark was going to mention the Broncos and the Raiders today. It is true, as some of you know, that I am something of a Bronco fan. I go back to Red Miller, John Ralston, and obviously prior eras. As soon as Barb and I moved to Denver, I started to love and follow the Broncos. It has not always been easy; there are mountain tops and valleys. I have to admit, when the Broncos win, it is more fun to read the newspaper the next day. It is more fun to get the sports page out when the Broncos win.
I also am a fan of the Colorado Buffaloes and the UCLA Bruins, because my father went to UCLA; my brothers and I had season tickets to those UCLA games. It has not been easy with the Broncos, the Buffs, and the Bruins—the three B’s. The last five years have been bad years with a lot of losses and sometimes it is frustrating. Barb says to me (Barb doesn’t understand), Barb says to me, “Why can’t you just pick another team?” She said, “The New York Jets are doing great. Just pick the New York Jets. Root for the New York Jets.” It doesn’t work like that, does it? It is true that there are a lot of teams out there, a whole bunch of teams, and they all have fans.
I hope you don’t think God is like that, that there is just a whole bunch of gods out there and it doesn’t matter. Because, you see, there is only one God. That is why I began with the scripture from the Decalogue. “I am the Lord God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; you shall have no other gods before me.” Theologians debate the meaning of “al panaya,” the Hebrew words, “al panaya,” “before me”—literally, “to my face.” All scholars understand that the thrust of meaning there is “in addition to me.” “You shall have no other god in addition to me. You shall have no other god beside me.” He alone is God. He is offended by the thought that there are other gods. He is the creator of all things. The Lord God Almighty, Yahweh Elohim, Yahweh Adonai, is unique and stands alone and is deserving of worship.
You might say, “Aren’t all the names for God just references to the one God, then? The god of Islam, Allah, is he not the god of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ? The gods of Buddhism that you read about in the Tripitika, the gods of Hinduism in the Vedas, aren’t all these gods really references to the one God? Even the gods of tribal animism, the good and evil spirits that inhabit birds and trees, don’t they all ultimately relate, somehow, to the one God?” God says no.
Omri, king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, ruled Israel, perhaps, between 885 and 873BC, for about twelve years. In fact, in extra-biblical literature and the ancient secular literature, no king was greater the Omri. When you look at the Moabite stone (you can see the Moabite stone at the Louvre in Paris) it was once shattered by the Muslims, but it was put back together. This great black stone, this ancient stone, has thirty-four lines of ancient script and refers to Omri and “the house of Omri and the great king of Israel.” Indeed, for more than a century the whole nation of Israel was referred to as the house of Omri, even after Omri’s death. Omri conquered the Moabites.
You can also look at the black obelisk of Shalmaneser III, the great ruler of Assyria, and it references Omri and the house of Omri, respected in all the earth, even the Assyrian empire. Omri the great, the conqueror of nations, the ruler of many. He built the city of Samaria, the capital of the Northern Kingdom, the capital of Israel. It was a great city and fortified to the hilt, and it stood for centuries. It was conquered by the Assyrians, but only after a three-year siege. It was later conquered by Alexander the Great, in the year 331. It is said to be the burial place of John the Baptist, but that is a tradition we don’t know for sure. The city, Samaria, built by Omri the great.
In the Bible, Omri is only given a few verses. He was no big deal to God. These words are written: “Omri did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.” The words are added that he did more evil than any other who had come before him. Omri.
Why was he so evil in the sight of God? Pluralism. He was all pluralism. He brought into the nation of Israel the worship of foreign gods. He combined them all. This was evil in the sight of God. You can look at the ruins of Samaria today. Archeologists have found those ruins. You can look at the Ostracan house. Ostraca is a word that refers to pottery shards; it refers to pieces of pottery. Pieces of pottery, in Omri’s time, were used in voting. You would cast your vote by writing a name on a piece of pottery. It was also used in trials, jury trials. People would say thumbs up, thumbs down, incarceration or free, and they would write it on the pottery piece. When somebody was found guilty, they would take the pottery and throw it at them, and that is why the word ostracized comes from this word ostraca.
They would also take the piece of pottery and use it in worship. In the time of Omri, in all the high places and in the synagogues, they would use pottery pieces in worship. They would write the name of God—Yahweh Elohim, El Shaddai, Jehovah Jireh—and they would write these names on the pieces of pottery. But we go to the Ostracan (and archeologists have found the Ostracan house), and what did they find? People are starting to write the names of other gods. They have got the name of Yahweh there, but they also have the name Baal and Astarte and Amun Rah. So, they are writing the name of Zeus. It doesn’t matter. They are writing the names of other gods. How does God feel about this? Does God just think, hey, it is okay, these are all just names for me? God doesn’t feel that way at all. He knows that the very definition of those other gods is contrary to who he is. He takes holy offense. Judgment comes upon the house of Omri, his son Ahab, and his daughter-in-law Jezebel. You know the story.
I think the early church understood that the claims of Christ are exclusive and unique in all the earth. The early church proclaimed to the world, “Jesus is Lord.” The Roman Empire didn’t understand. They said, “How about Caesar? Worship him too. How about the Roman pantheon? How about a little Zeus worship? Just add it all in there.” The early church said, “No!” They went to their death, they were incarcerated (sometimes for life), they were whipped and beaten and scourged, because there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all. They understood.
So here today, in the 21st century, the church of Jesus Christ is infiltrated by pluralism. Many are losing their courage; many are losing their commitment to Jesus. They are losing their evangelistic zeal and they’re failing to proclaim Christ to the world. God is offended. That is the first problem with pluralism.
The second problem is it doesn’t make any sense. The second problem is pluralism is irrational. It really is irrational. There are certain things you just can’t hold simultaneously, certain things that just don’t agree with each other. If you have any desire for rational symmetry, if you have any dislike for cognitive dissonance, you can’t just simultaneously hold two things that are opposed to each other. That is what pluralism requires. You can’t, for instance, believe in astrology, which is more or less a religious system, and also believe in the God of the Bible. The Bible says that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob finds astrology to be an abomination in his sight. You can’t believe that the course of history is being guided by the movement of stars when the Bible says that the course of history is being guided by a sovereign God who created the stars. I stand amazed that sixty million Americans read their horoscope every day. How could that be? What a superstitious nation. I am Sagittarius; I have no clue what that means. I don’t read my horoscope; it never makes any sense to me. If someone says to me, “Here is what your horoscope says today…” (no one really says that to me) “…’Liquidate European investments.’” Normally, it doesn’t even apply. I don’t even have any European investments. Barb could take her Waterford crystal and put it in the bathtub. That would “liquidate European investments.”
In any event, it is amazing. When you look at the religions of the world, you cannot hold on to them and hold on to Christ because they are antithetical. We, last week, took a look at Islam. In the religion of Islam and in the Muslim world, people are taught that they really need to save themselves by their own righteousness, by their relative righteousness. We looked at shahada, the great confession: “There is no god but Allah and Muhammed is his prophet.” We looked at salat, ritualistic prayer offered five times a day at the sound of the crier from the minaret in an effort to save yourself. We looked at zakat, alms giving. We looked at the offering of your money to the cause of Allah and to the cause of Islam—two percent of your net worth year after year after year, every year, that you might try to save yourself. We looked at sawm, or Ramadan, the daylight fast in the month of Ramadan in an effort to please God and be relatively righteous. We looked at the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, the circling of the Kaaba, and the kissing of the black stone that allegedly fell from heaven. We looked at the Koran, the Hadith, and the sharia law and what it all means, even to the point of the burqa. It is all about relative righteousness and seeking to yourself and how Muslim theology teaches that on the judgment day, on the last day, everyone has two angels: one with a list of all your good stuff and one with a list of all your bad stuff. You just hope your good stuff is greater than your bad. Save yourself.
That is true of all the religions of the world. They all teach that kind of similar concept that you need to save yourself. You look at Buddhism and you read the Tripitika (or the Three Baskets), which includes the basket of discourses, the basket of discipline, and also the basket of higher dharma. Dharma, which means “saving truth,” is just a word that simply summarizes all the teachings of Buddha. Buddha gave us the dharma, and the dharma teaches how you must live if you were to save yourself. The dharma centers on death and rebirth, death and rebirth, death and rebirth again and again and again and again through this endless series of lives through which you might get better and better so that you might save yourself in your approaching of Nirvana so you don’t end up as some flea on a dog’s back. It is salvation by works. These people are precious, but they are seeking to save themselves.
It is true in Hinduism. Read the Vedas, read the Bhagavad-Gita, the conversation between Krishna and Arjuna. It is all about death and rebirth, death and rebirth, death and rebirth again. It doesn’t matter if you are talking about moksha or Nirvana. It is all a pilgrimage to save yourself by your relative righteousness. How can that be true if the gospel is true? The Bible says we are saved only by grace through faith. The word grace is “charis.” It means unmerited gift, unmerited favor. God says to us, “You cannot save yourself. You must come to me in faith. You must come to my Son in faith, and I will save you salvation as a gift. It is nothing you can merit.”
Ephesians 2:8-9: “By grace you are saved through faith. It is a gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast.” We are not saved by our righteousness; we are saved by the righteousness of Jesus Christ. That is what the gospel teaches. You come to Christ, and you place your faith in him, and his righteousness is vested upon you. His righteousness is imputed to you. You are not saved by your works; you are saved by his works. Thus, he died for us—in my place, in my stead, in your place, in your stead—in substitutionary atonement. How can that be true and Buddhism true, or Hinduism true, or Islam true? It is irrational to hold to pluralism. It is irrational. The god of the Koran and the gods of the Vedas and the gods of the Tripitika are nothing like the God of holy scripture and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Pluralism is simply irrational.
Thirdly, pluralism denies the cross. It offends God, it makes no sense, and it denies the cross. “On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross, the emblem of suffering and shame. And I love that old cross where the dearest and best for a world of lost sinners was slain. I will cherish the old rugged cross till my trophies at last I lay down. I will cling to the old rugged cross and exchange it someday for a crown.” The cross is at the heart of the gospel. If all the other religions of the world can save you, why did Jesus have to come and die? Pluralism denies the efficacy of the cross, the necessity of Jesus dying for the sin of the world.
He died for you. That is what we say to Hindus. That is what we say to Buddhists. It is what we say to Muslims. “He died for you. Repent and believe.” The cross is at the heart of the gospel. Paul says in 1 Corinthians it is the stumbling block for the Jew and folly or foolishness to the nations—to the Greeks, the Gentiles, the “ethnos.” It is not foolishness intellectually. That would be the word “raca.” This is the word “moria.” The Bible is saying that to the nations, the cross is a moral stumbling block. It is a moral offense. The cross requires that you humble yourself; the cross requires I humble myself and I acknowledge I can’t save myself, that I am lost and need a savior. But it is the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:2, “When I came amongst you, I resolved to know nothing amongst you but Jesus Christ and him crucified.” So, we preach the crucified Christ to the world because the cross is the hope of the world. Jesus is the hope of the world. You might say, “Can I just say that I think Jesus died for everybody all over the world and therefore they are all saved? Is that a theologically okay perspective, that I can just say Buddhists and Hindus and Muslims are okay because Jesus died for everybody?” That is a little different than pluralism, but it is still wrong because it’s contrary to holy scripture. It is called universalism. It is universalism to believe that Jesus automatically saved everybody because the Bible says you must come to the cross. You must repent and you must believe. You must come in faith, you must appropriate what Jesus did on the cross.
We take the gospel to the nations, and it is dangerous. Yes, Jesus died for everyone in the world, and yes, Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He can save whoever he wants. The Bible tells us this much: he saves those who believe in him, who acknowledge his death on the cross and receive him as Savior and Lord. The gospel message is dangerous because the Bible also tells us that if you hear the gospel and you understand it and you reject it, theologically speaking, you are in deep doo-doo. If you hear it, understand it, and reject it, that is a scary thing. Yet, we have been called to take the gospel, that message of Jesus, to the nations.
This is what leads us to the fourth and final point, which is that pluralism undermines the Great Commission. It offends God, it doesn’t make any sense, it denies the cross, and it undermines the Great Commission. What is the Great Commission? It is the charge that Jesus gave us. “All power under heaven and earth has been given to me. Go ye, therefore, into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you. Lo, I am with you always, even to the close of the age.” That Great Commission is repeated in Mark 16 and really in Acts, chapter 1, where prior to his ascension into heaven, Jesus said to his disciples, “And you shall be my witness, in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the outermost parts of the earth.” He sends us forth. This is his charge—to go and tell the whole world about him.
Why would we do that if pluralism is true? It makes nonsense out of the words of the Son of God. He sends us to the nations, and it is not an easy task. Four thousand years ago when Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees, there was only one hundred million people on the earth, one-third of the population of United States today. When Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees, one hundred million people was all there was on the earth. Three thousand years ago, when David ascended the throne of Israel, there were one hundred twenty million people on the earth. Two thousand years ago, when Christ was crucified on Calvary, there were one hundred and forty million people on earth. So, when Jesus sent us forth to take his name to the nations, only one hundred and forty million people were on the whole earth, less than half the population of the United States today.
Population has grown exponentially. One thousand years ago, perhaps when Leif Ericson journeyed near the North American continent, the population of the earth reached two hundred and fifty million. Five hundred years ago, about the time that Christopher Columbus was sailing the ocean blue, the population of the earth reached four hundred and fifty million. It wasn’t until 1848, the time of Sutter’s Mill, one hundred and sixty-two years ago, that the population finally reached one billion people. Now today, there are over six billion people on the earth. The Bible says we are supposed to take the gospel to all ethnicities, to all language groups, to all people groups. The Bible promises that someday there is going to be believers from each and every one of those groups in heaven. This charge is a vast charge, and the call is great. Many have suffered to be faithful.
Just a couple of weeks ago, Barb and I had dinner with friends. I have been blessed in my lifetime to have some really wonderful friends. One of my wonderful friends is John Haspels, John and his wife Gwen. They are missionaries in Africa. John was my roommate in seminary, at Fuller Theological Seminary. In fact, just this past week, we had Richard Mouw, who is the president at Fuller Theological Seminary, here at the church having a question-and-answer time with our staff. I roomed with John at fuller Seminary; he played football in college. He’s kind of a stocky guy, but just has a heart bigger than the world. I knew his love for Christ was such that he was ready to die for Jesus; I always knew that.
John married Gwen. They have gone to Africa, where they served Christ as missionaries. They raised their kids over there. John and Gwen serve in Ethiopia right now, amongst the lip-plate peoples. There are only two lip-plate peoples in the world. You have seen pictures of them, I am sure, in National Geographic or elsewhere. They put the lip-plate in and expand their lip outward. In their culture, it is a sign of great beauty. So, John works with the lip-plate people of Ethiopia. Just the week he left to come and take this break, he was at his house. His home is amongst the tribe. They all have grass, thatched roofs. John has a little house there that has no electricity. It has no plumbing. They have an outhouse, so John and Gwen use that. John was out in the outhouse taking care of business, sitting there, and suddenly he sees a black cobra coming out of the straw above. Startled, panicked, he ran out and he thought, man, I need to be more careful to look up at the straw and listen and be more careful.
A couple of days later, he looked really carefully, listened, saw nothing, felt safe, sat down, and there came another black cobra, right out of the top. He just panicked, he ran and got his machete to try to kill it. He came back and tried to kill it and took the outhouse down. Took the outhouse down and never could kill the cobra. Some kids in the village came; they took care of the cobra.
I looked at Barb and thought, wow, thank God for Cherry Hills Community Church! You know, John has faced death many times in the mission field. When he is ministering in Sudan, the Muslim government of the Sudan—which has literally perpetrated genocide, not only against Christians, but others too—took him captive and held him for months. John thought he would die, and Gwen thought she would never see her husband again. They took a shotgun and they tied it under his chin and they had the trigger cocked and fully loaded. They had him like that day after day after day after day so that if he even moved, he would die. He is ready to die for the cause of Christ. John has served in Kenya, Uganda, and the Congo. He has witch doctors curse him and pronounce death curses upon him and threaten to kill him personally. John loves Jesus. So why is he doing all that? If pluralism is true, why in the world is he doing all that? You see, pluralism isn’t true. Jesus Christ is the hope of the world; he is the way, the truth, and the light. No one comes to the Father but by him. There is no other name under heaven given amongst men whereby we may be saved. So, we are faithful to the Great Commission, and we tell the world about him.
I love 2 Corinthians, chapter eleven. I love the words of the Apostle Paul. “Is anyone a servant of Jesus Christ? I serve him more (though I am speaking like a fool). I have far greater labors with far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, often times near death. Five times I received at the hand of the Jews forty lashes less one, three times beaten with rods, once I was stoned near to death. Three times I was shipwrecked, a day and a night drifting at sea. On frequent journeys, dangers from rivers, danger from robbers, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger in the cities, danger from the gentiles, danger from the nations, danger from my own people, danger from false brethren, toil and hardship, many a sleepless night, hunger and thirst, often times without food, and cold and exposure.” Why did he do it? Because he believed Jesus Christ is the hope of the world and he wanted to be faithful unto death. That call is upon us, no matter what the culture says.
I should say to you, we should treat all people with love. We should treat people with reverence and gentleness, and we should respect people. But we honor Christ and we take him to the nations. We share the gospel. This call is upon every generation who believes in Jesus, and it is upon us today. There is no room to become afraid and bail out and crater to the culture. The world desperately needs Jesus Christ. The world needs him today. I thank God for our church, and I thank God that in giving to the Take a Seat Campaign you didn’t neglect giving to our ministry budget. I thank God that our ministry budget has remained strong. I thank you for your faithfulness. I thank God for the seventy nations where Cherry Hills Community Church now proclaims Christ. I thank God for all of our missionaries. I thank God for all of you who have gone on short-term mission trips. It is a call to faithfulness in a world with a whole lot of “isms.” Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.