In yesterday’s New York Times there was an interesting article about religious tolerance in America today. Interestingly, the article claims that much of the so-called tolerance isn’t really tolerance at all, but rather an enormous compromise by believers on the doctrine of their respective faiths.
The report, the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, reveals a broad trend toward tolerance and an ability among many Americans to hold beliefs that might contradict the doctrines of their professed faiths.
For example, 70 percent of Americans affiliated with a religion or denomination said they agreed that “many religions can lead to eternal life,” including majorities among Protestants and Catholics. Among evangelical Christians, 57 percent agreed with the statement, and among Catholics, 79 percent did.
“It’s not that Americans don’t believe in anything,” said Michael Lindsay, assistant director of the Center on Race, Religion and Urban Life at Rice University. “It’s that we believe in everything. We aren’t religious purists or dogmatists.”
The most significant contradictory belief the survey reveals has to do with salvation. Previous surveys have shown that Americans think a majority of their countrymen and women will go to heaven, and that the circle is wide, embracing minorities like Jews, Muslims and atheists. But the Pew survey goes further, showing that such views are held by those within major branches of Christianity and minority faiths, too.
Scholars said such tolerance could stem in part from the greater diversity of American society: that there are more people of minority faiths or no faith and that “it is hard to hold a strongly sectarian view when you work together and your kids play soccer together,” Mr. Lindsay said.
But such a view of salvation may also grow out of doctrinal ignorance, scholars said.
“It could be that people are not very well educated and they are not expressing mature theological points of view,” said Todd Johnson, director of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. “It could also be a form of bland secularism. The real challenge to religious leaders is not to become more entrenched in their views, but to navigate the idea of what their religion is all about and how it relates to others.”
I would love to hear thoughts on this.
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4 responses to “Religious Tolerance in America”
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I think this comes from the emphasis of “faith” over Christ. If it is my “faith” then how could I impose that on you? If faith is just the cup that holds the true gift of Christ alone, then it becomes a whole new ballgame. The truth is objectively outside of ourselves so the uniqueness of Christ becomes the proclamation of an objective event that has very little to do with me.
I, therefore, am telling you of an objective historical truth (along with the conditions that made this necessary for the redemption of man) much like telling you that Julius Caesar occupied Gaul. If it is this, then it is not just trying to impose my idea of faith (whatever that is) on you.
Good points Dave!
Great comments by DB. They remind me of a remark by C.S. Lewis who said, in his attempt to stress the objective character of the Christian claim:
“One must keep on pointing out that Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.”