olerance in Britain today is a very popular buzz word and attitude to life. Tolerance towards others has been promoted in recent years by many people including Tony Blair and Queen Elizabeth.
We live in a multicultural society where people practice many types of faith and have various kinds of beliefs about spiritual matters. Therefore, it seems tolerant, kind and humble to accept that all spiritual paths lead to the one same God. We also want to be able to live in peace with people of different backgrounds. People from different cultures have different values, traditions, ideas and religious backgrounds- so how can we live together without fighting? The solution in Britain has been to emphasis this view of tolerance. This word should mean that each of us respect each other, regardless of our different claims of absolute truth. However, this word now means that we must forget about anything being true for all people, and we must all accept each other on the basis that what they believe is just as true for them as what we believe to be true ourselves.
The view that truth is relative is promoted. This version of tolerance is very intolerant of those who believe in absolute/exclusive truth as Bible-believing Christians do. The result of tolerance is a belief in Religious Pluralism, which says that all spiritual paths and religious beliefs can co-exist as they are equally valid ways of living a good and peaceful spiritual life.
It is often said that each religion is a different path up the same mountain which eventually leads to the same summit. This view encourages the stance that we just need to respect one another’s faith journey and not worry about imposing our beliefs on others or seeking conversions, since they’ll be alright in the end.
However, this ignores the fact that all different religions have such radically different perspectives on things that they cannot even agree that they’re climbing the same mountain! Their beliefs and practices are so diverse that some do not even believe in the same kind of personal God. Some believe that they approach God by their good works, whilst others believe it requires child sacrifice. It is ridiculous and hopelessly simplistic to say they are all the same- indeed it’s arrogant because it says to religious people that the Religious Pluralist knows more about their religion than they do!
Popular culture thinks of religion like the story of the blind men and the elephant. They each think an elephant is like a trunk, or a leg, or a tail, but none of them see the whole elephant. Only the enlightened pluralist can see the whole elephant and see that
