Which Is It? Religious Pluralism or Global Theology?

Abstract

Perhaps no one has been more insistent than John Hick that Anglo-American philosophers of religion face the facts: not only one but many ancient and culturally entrenched religions are practiced worldwide. Each has produced saints. Each has had adherents who promoted it as “the one true faith” and justified cruelty and oppression in the name of religion. Liberal that he is, Hick finds the degrading treatment of other human beings to be the acid test of what is absolutely intolerable. In many of his books, but quintessentially, in An Interpretation of Religion,¹ Hick seeks to alleviate the practical problem by furnishing a theoretical framework that would make religious toleration reasonable. What liberal theologian, what liberal citizen would not welcome this ‘consciousness-raising’, the many constructive debates that Hick’s books have fostered, and the civil and religious policy changes that they have inspired?