By Michael A. Milton
Michael A. Milton is President and Professor of Practical Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary, Charlotte, NC
The question remains: How do we conduct faithful gospel ministry in this environment? How can we be about biblical preaching in a pluralistic culture?
Pluralistic and Pluralism
Before I answer that question, it might be helpful to differentiate between pluralistic and pluralism as I use the terms. One is a matter of numbers and the other is a matter of ideology. Pluralistic refers to an undeniable plurality of beliefs and ideas and even the customs and cultures that are derived from those ideas. Even here Lesslie Newbigin sees inconsistency: “We are pluralist in respect to what we call beliefs but we are not pluralistic in respect of what we call fact. The former are a matter of personal decision; the latter are a matter of public knowledge.”
[11]Nevertheless, pluralists we are and pluralists we are becoming. Arguments not withstanding, for instance, even among conservatives like Pat Buchanan and Dinesh D’Souza on how immigrants truly become American (American by creed/Constitution, according to D’Souza, and through “bonds of history and memory, tradition and custom, language and literature, birth and faith, blood and soil,” according to Buchanan
[12]), we are becoming more pluralistic every day. Within this global soup, full of every religious morsel imaginable, there is the presence of the ideology of pluralism. It may be that, as I have seen suggested, pluralism is a faith that exists as a people are on their way from one orthodoxy to another. We are moving from a Christian West to something else, and pluralism serves as the necessary faith bridge, if you will, to get us there.
We have mentioned Lesslie Newbigin before, but he is key in this study. In
The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society, The Open Secret, and
Foolishness to the Greeks, among other increasingly important reflections on these matters, he reminds us we may be cooperative with one but without compromise with the other.
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