The Future of God in the Global Village

The boundaries of the once isolated domains of the world's religious and cultural communities are dissolving as modern communication and transportation networks push the globalization process forward. The reality and experience of religious pluralism is more evident today than at any other time in human history. This means that an increasing number of people are becoming aware of 1) how multiple religious groups define their insiders and outsiders, 2) how they differ in their views of life after death, 3) wht it takes for them not only to survive but to thrive in the market place of competing spiritual claims, 4) what behaviors--both good and ill--flow from their beliefs, 5) how their ideals affect both economic and political behavior, and 6) the many new religions that offer innovative expressions of human spirituality as attractive alternatives to older ones that many find unsatisfying. It is in the mix of the many spiritual pathways that tremendous opportunities exist for the members of the world's diverse religious communities to collaborate in creating a better world. In other words, the chance that peace would spread more rapidly throughout the emerging global village would increase because religious organizations would cooperate to advance it. Even though theological and philosophical differences would continue to exist between the leaders and laity of different groups, they would opt to resolve conflicts without resorting to violence. Under these conditions, religion becomes humanity's friend and not its enemy. At the same time, religious dedication often drives many faithful followers to believe that their religion (and theirs alone) embodies the truth, which causes them to conclude that all other views of ultimate reality are either false or inferior. This in turn leads to exclusivist or dichotomous thinking or to hierarchical judgments about how others understand the nature of ultimate reality. Since true believers are convinced they are right, everyone else must be wrong. Or, since theirs is the best, all others can be ranked by developing a sliding-scale of progressively inferior ideas that can be measured against theirs. This approache has been called inclusivism because while the members of one religion believe that theirs is superior to others, they include all of them on their hierarchical ladder of truthfulness. When both exclusivism and inclusivism are defined in this way, they are formulas for disaster. This is so because both positions enhance the likelihood that religious hatreds and hostilities will increase along with the potential for settling intergroup disputes through violence. World history is filled with examples of religious wars that consumed the lives of thousands of innocent victims along with the martyrs who willingly marched to their deaths rather than abandon their most sacred beliefs. Fortunately, exclusivist and hierarchical-inclusivist responses to religious differences are not the only ways to deal with the reality of religious diversity. there is a third option: pluralism. At the surface level, pluralism is east to grasp. It entails viewing all the religions as equal or more or less equal. This means that no one religion possesses the total truth about the nature of ultimate reality. the pluralistic perspective acknowledges that other religions can claim with equal measure that they also contain spiritual insights that embody divine truths. While these truths might differ from those of other faith communities, they are no less theologically genuine, defensible, or of lesser spiritual value.