How Has Multiculturalism Impacted British Society
In what Ways has Multi-Culturalism Impacted British Society in the last fifty years?
In a statement on the first of March 2011, Lord Justice Munby and Mr Justice Beatson, high court judges, stated that
‘We live in this country in a democratic and pluralistic society, in a secular state not a theocracy’.
‘Although historically this country is part of the Christian West, and although it has an established church which is Christian, there have been enormous changes in the social and religious life of our country over the last century’.
‘Our society is now pluralistic and largely secular. We sit as secular judges serving a multi-cultural community of many faiths. The laws and usages of the realm do not include Christianity, in whatever form’ (Telegraph, 2011).
David Cameron also stated that Christians must now ‘be tolerant and welcoming towards homosexuality’, just another one of the many values Christians are being told to betray in multi-cultural Britain. England has one of the largest gay and lesbian cultures in Europe; we also have equal age of consent laws, partnership laws and even legal commitment ceremonies in some of our major cities …show more content…
(Enjoy England, 2011).
Multiculturalism, according to Ruth Lea, should be defined as a diversity where individual groups have their own cultural beliefs and happy coexist but where there is a British identity to hold society together (Lea 2004). Individual faiths and cultures should be embraced and welcomed, each culture learning something from, and living amicably with, the other.
Over the last 50 years, Britain has become increasingly multi-cultural. Many immigrants came to the UK in the 1950’s and 1960’s, from India and Pakistan, in search of a better life and to escape from the disruption of British India being split into India and Pakistan. Many people came to Britain in fear or escaping persecution. According to the BBC, Britain 's Muslim population are almost all people who immigrated to Britain in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, or their descendants.
In 1970 there were about 375,000 Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs in Britain. By 1993 the figure was about 1,620,000, with the rise in the number of Muslims being particularly pronounced (Black 2011). Muslims now make up approximately 3% of the British population and over half of them were born in Britain (BBC 2009).
Before 1964, only seven new mosques had been registered in Britain, but in 1964, another seven were registered and over the following decade there were approximately eight new registrations per year. In 1996, it was estimated that there were six hundred and thirteen mosques in the UK. From the 1980’s, the sense of community grew as Muslims successfully campaigned to assert their own values and see halal food served in hospitals and schools (Lancashire Council of Mosques 2011).
However, different faiths lead to different cultures and British society was not always welcoming to people from overseas. Racial and religious violence has broken out many times, in 1976 and 1979 in Southall, 1980 and 1983 in Bristol, Brixton and Manchester among other cities, 1985 in Birmingham, 2001 in Burnley, Oldham and Bradford (Stott 2006:283). British society had to change to curb this violence and to encourage multi-culturalism. In 1976, the Commission for Racial equality was formed to stop racial discrimination. The Crime Disorder Act of 1998 was introduced to stop people being victimised because of their religion or their racial group. The Criminal Justice Act of 2003 forces judges to look at whether a crime was committed in response to the victim’s religion, ethnicity or sexual identity. The British legal system has tried to encourage Britons to accept people of other faiths and cultures or at least not mistreat them, although there do still seem to be areas of ghettoization. While many people in the UK are happy to reach out to the stranger and embrace multi-culturalism, there are still some who believe in ‘defending the rights for whites’.
David Cameron admitted in a speech in February that he believed that multi-culturalism in the UK had failed and that Britain needed to work towards a more definitive national identity in order to stamp out extremism from Muslims. However, he has been criticised for this viewpoint (Hawkins 2011). In spite of increasingly difficult immigration laws and the prime minister’s opinion, Britain in 2011 is no longer a country of white socially divided people – there are people of many different descents, of different colours, faiths and orientations.
Examine a Variety of Christian Theological Responses to Multi-Cultural Britain.
There have been many thoughts about how western Christians should respond to Britain becoming more multi-cultural.
In the name of political correctness, Britons are required by law not to be threatening, abusive or insulting to other people. Failure to observe this can result in prosecution under Section Five of the Public Order Act. For example, in 2003 the Divisional Court upheld the conviction of a British National Party member who had displayed a poster on the window of his flat with the words “Islam out of Britain” (Strickland 2010:5), because this caused insult to Muslims in a public place.
For Christian theologians, this has raised a number of questions, primarily, should Christians work towards the great commission of Matthew 28:19-20 of making disciples of all nations, challenging other beliefs or should they follow instruction of Exodus 22:21 to not oppress an alien and so to accept other beliefs about salvation? One of the ways Christian theologians and society as a whole have responded to the new multi-cultural society is by encouraging tolerance of other faiths.
Netland argues that there is a widely accepted assumption that being tolerant means having a positive attitude to people of other faiths and also to their beliefs. However, he argues that tolerance does in fact have a degree of condemnation in it and that it is ‘nonsensical to speak of tolerating a belief that one happens to accept is true’ (Netland 1987: 81).He argues that tolerance means that we accept that someone believes in something which is different to our own beliefs but that we don’t have to accept or embrace those beliefs. Tolerance is only necessary because not all faiths agree.
However, Nazir-Ali points out that a truly universal church must recognise that there are other faiths in the world and people from other faiths have lived in the west for a long time. He suggests that Christians must learn from people of other faiths. It is not only Israel which is the stage for God’s action but the entire world (Nazir-Ali 1998:129). He argues that God’s blessing is no longer just for Israel but that other nations are also blessed now. However, he does acknowledge that Israel (or the Judeo-Christian people) are the instrument God is using to extend that blessing to the nations (Nazir-Ali, 1998: 131).
Leffel suggests that Christians need to be respectful of other beliefs but that it is dangerous to be so subjective that nobody can ever be wrong about what they believe. It is fanatical to uncritically accept that all beliefs are true (Leffel, accessed 2011)
Indeed the Bible appears to say that Jesus is the only way to gain salvation (John 14:6) and so Christians are the bearers of the truth. They may accept respectfully that others have different beliefs but the Bible seems to suggest that Christians should be evangelising other faiths. As the Lausanne Covenant says
‘those who reject Christ condemn themselves to eternal separation from God… We need to break out of our ecclesiastical ghettos and permeate non-Christian society…we recognise that everyone has some knowledge of God through His general revelation in nature. But we deny that this can save…Jesus Christ is the only mediator between God and people. There is no other name by which we can be saved’.
However, saying that Jesus is the only means of salvation is regarded as exclusivism and is not always accepted by theologians. It can be regarded as being intolerant and not respecting other faiths. Or in fact, as Orr-Ewing demonstrates ‘All world religions…touch a different part of ultimate reality’ and so ‘Christians are arrogant to say that they have the truth’. (Orr-Ewing, 2011)
Kessler quotes the Second Vatican Council who suggests that we must learn what treasures God has distributed among the nations but then we must set these treasures free in them and ‘illuminate them in the light of the Holy Gospel’ (Kessler, accessed 18/3/11). We must dialogue and care for people of other faiths and discover God in them but then see them released by the power of Jesus.
However, these exclusivist viewpoints seems to suggest that while people have treasures from God and have some of the nature of God within them, it is not enough to simply accept them and allow them to live in their own faith – Christians must not be content with that but must reach out to them with the gospel to see them saved.
Nazir-Ali appears to disagree. He poses the question ‘are all faiths a path to God but different because of the historical, cultural and social contexts in which people have developed that faith?’ (Nazir-Ali, 1998:128). He identifies that Ruth was a Moabite but still became an ancestor of Jesus. Perhaps it is possible that Jesus is not the only way to the Father but that all religions, having something of God in them, can still lead to salvation.
Netland advances this argument when he writes
‘Christian exclusivism does not entail that none of the claims made by other religions are true. But what it does deny is that beliefs of other traditions can be true when they are incompatible with those derived from scripture’ (Netland, 1987:92).
This is a useful viewpoint when considering people in nations where the gospel has not permeated. What happens to people who have not had the opportunity to learn about Jesus?
Pinnock has an inclusivist viewpoint. He argues that people of other faiths are worshipping the same God as Christians. There are not two creators of the earth and “People fear God all over the world, and God accepts them, even where the gospel of Jesus has not yet been proclaimed" (Tangelder, 2001).
"I accept general or cosmic revelation, and I believe that many people in other religions worship God, even in ways that fall conceptually short of the revelation of God 's nature which Christ brings."
He acknowledges that Jesus gives a better insight into the character of God but that when people have not heard about him, God still desires to see them saved and will reach out and reveal Himself to them (Tangelder, 2001).
However, this does not appear to fit with the Great Commission, unless making disciples does not mean educating in the ways of Jesus but instead learning something about God, as a person understands him based on their culture and religion. It also makes preaching the gospel seem harder as people who have heard the gospel have the choice to accept Jesus or not, whereas, if they worship a God without hearing about Jesus, they will be accepted into heaven.
Nonetheless, Pinnock’s argument is supported by writing from John Hick who takes a pluralist viewpoint. He argues that just as the sun is at the centre of the universe, so is God in the centre of all the faiths. He is the sun and all the religions reflect Him in their own unique ways. God does not centre in Christianity but in all faith cultures (Hick 1980:54)
However, he realises that the dilemma each religion faces is that each professes to be true and that followers must decide whether to allow only a secondary place to other religions or to abandon the truth claims of their own faith (Hick 1993:16). Most faiths encourage evangelism and witness leading to conversion and not blindly accepting universalism as acceptable. Greene points out that
‘the Koran is clear about the duty to seek the conversion of the infidel and clear about the eternal consequences of not acknowledging Muhammad as Allah’s final prophet’ (Greene, 2004:19) , and argues that ‘obviously Christians should try to reach out to those of other faiths (Greene, 2004:19).
Christians in the UK have been trying to reach out to people from other faiths. One of the Judeo-Christian values which Christians in the west have been using to reach out is that of hospitality and of service to the foreigner. They open their homes and teach skills which are necessary in the UK. They have also tried to welcome people of other faiths by attending their worship and learning culturally from that. Often this has developed into friendship and prayer together and has led to the demand for inter-faith dialogue as there is awareness on all sides that there is one divine being who may be understood in different ways but is essentially the same God (Nazir-Ali, 1998:125).
Increasingly, Christians appear to be engaging in inter-faith dialogue, trying to make disciples. This is not about importing western culture but about translating the values that underpin the Christian viewpoint. It is not about forcing one’s opinion onto another but about living love and demonstrating Christian principles. However, as Christians, we still assume that the Holy Spirit is working to convert people to Jesus. As Netland argues,
‘humility and genuine respect should characterise our interaction with those of other faiths. But it is a serious error to presume that such humility and respect demand glossing over the truth (Netland, 1987:93).
Christians must stand firm to their truth, not covering up or denying their own beliefs in the name of political correctness. Hospitality involves tolerating other faiths, accepting different viewpoints but standing firm in the Lordship of Jesus, witnessing that Jesus is the way and the truth and the life as He claimed to be.
Christian witness, even in a multi-cultural society still involves the declaration that Jesus Christ is not just one way amongst others as described in the pluralist viewpoint. He may not be the only way as the exclusivist argues but He is certainly the unique, reliable, decisive way to God and our salvation (Kessler: 7).
In what ways have multi—culturalism and these theological responses affected Christian mission?
Multi-culturalism means that there are people of many different faiths and cultures in the UK. The consequence of this is that evangelism does not just involve talking to somebody with a similar worldview and similar experiences but can actually mean engaging with people who have a totally different mindset, perhaps a different faith or understanding of God. Where fifty years ago, British people were generally at least familiar with the concept of Jesus, this is not always the case anymore. In this context, the church faces issues like never before in trying to carry the gospel to an increasingly multi-cultural society. Leffel suggests that as Christians we must be willing to
‘move as far toward the culture as we need to, so long as it does not involve compromising biblical morality or truth. In short, it means adopting principles of cross-cultural mission in domestic evangelism’ (Leffel, accessed 18/3/11)
This involves recognising perhaps that Britain is becoming a post-Christendom society and seeing mission as moving from maintaining what we already have to becoming more missional communities.
However, cross-cultural mission can be difficult as Duncan points out. If Christians are not careful in the way that they handle the differences between themselves and other faiths
‘we end up in a situation where we are simply shouting for our rights and demanding that we are listened to because we are right and everybody else is wrong’ (Duncan 2007:94).
However, there have been a number of responses to this call to cross-cultural mission in the UK. For many Christian exclusivists, it is imperative that the gospel message is carried out to people of other faiths, otherwise they will not receive salvation.
An example of this would be the International Community Church in Derby who reach out to all people and welcome those of Asian, Indian, Pakistani, Chinese and Japanese descent among others to their churches to experience the redeeming power of Jesus.
When we live alongside people, it gives the best opportunity to grow to understand the culture our neighbours are living in and so allows us to best present the gospel in a way which is appropriate to that setting. As such, they have moved into neighbourhoods where there are many different ethnic groups and have become a part of that community. They are living life with people of different cultures and faith groups as friends and neighbours and so they are then able to introduce Jesus without being threatening while understanding the challenges that the people listening will
face.
Christian churches are also reaching out by offering ‘Pilates and Prayer’ classes such as that quoted by Amy Orr-Ewing where people are able to bond over shared interests and then are given the gospel and the opportunity to discuss it. She suggests that the world is full of spiritually open people and if we could see past our own discomfort and preconceptions, we would be able to engage with a vast array of people (Orr-Ewing2011). When we
However, Christians are also reaching out in multi-cultural mission without having to spread the gospel. There are organisations which carry the love of Jesus, to worship Jesus and to show Jesus through their actions but without having to speak the gospel. An example of this would be the Refugee Support Network which looks to aid, assist and welcome people who are displaced, poor or in need and to work with them regardless of whatever faith background they come from. They claim that their Christian theology is what shapes the work they do but that they are not frantically attempting to win converts to Christianity. They are looking to show the love of Jesus to the people who need it, in service to Jesus.
There are many different ways of doing mission in the new multicultural Britain. This is an opportunity the likes of which has never been seen before in this country. Christians in Britain no longer need to travel to engage in cross-cultural mission because it is available on the doorstep. Regardless of which theological viewpoint a Christian takes, whether they believe in exclusivism, inclusivism, pluralism or multi-faith dialogue, the Bible tells us that we should show hospitality, love mercy, show justice and walk humbly with our God. We should not oppress people just because they are different from us. This is a time for love in action, an opportunity to demonstrate Jesus to the people He came to save and a time for reaching out to our neighbour, regardless of where they have come from.
Bibliography
Duncan M, 2007, Kingdom Come, Oxford, Monarch Books
Greene M, 2004, Imagine How we can Reach the UK, Milton Keynes, Authentic Media
Hick J, 1980, God Has Many Names, London, The Macmillan Press Ltd
Hick J, 1993, God and the Universe of Faiths, Oxford, Oneworld Publications Ltd
Nazir-Ali M, 1998, Citizens and Exiles, London, SPCK
Netland, H. (1987) 'Exclusivism, tolerance, and truth ', Missiology, vol. 15, no. 2
Orr-Ewing A, 2011, One Way, Christianity Magazine, March 2011, p.47
Stott J, 2006, Issues Facing Christians Today, Grand Rapids, Zondervan
All biblical references are taken from The Holy Bible: New International Version (2002) unless stated otherwise in the text. Electronic References
BBC (2009) History of Islam in the UK. http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/uk_1.shtml [accessed 20/3/11]
Black J (2011) Overview: Britain from 1945 Onwards. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/overview_1945_present_01.shtml [accessed 18/3/11]
Enjoy England (2011) Popular Gay Cities http://www.enjoyengland.com/ideas/city-breaks/gay-culture/ [accessed 18/3/11]
Hawkins M (2011) Multiculturalism ‘failed’ according to Cameron http://www.the-reading-list.co.uk/?p=305 [accessed 18/3/11]
International Community Church, A Message from the Pastor http://www.icc-nc.org/about-us.html [accessed 22/3/11]
Kessler H, The Uniqueness of Jesus Christ Among the Many Paths to Salvation http://www.religion-in-dialogue.net/downloads/kessler_1.pdf [Accessed 18/3/11]
Lancashire Council of Mosques (2011) Muslims in Britain http://www.lancashiremosques.com/discovery_muslims_in_britain.asp [accessed 21/3/11]
Lea R, BBC News 2004 So What Exactly is Multiculturalism? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3600791.stm [accessed 19/3/11]
Leffel J, Christian Witness in a Pluralistic Age, http://www.xenos.org/essays/pluralsm.htm [accessed 18/3/11]
Munby and Beatson in The Telegraph (2011) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8353527/Foster-parent-ban-this-is-a-secular-state-say-High-Court-judges.html
Strickland P (2010) Insulting Words or Behaviour: Section Five of the Public Order Act 1986 http://www.parliament.uk/briefingpapers/commons/lib/research/briefings/SNHA-05760.pdf
Tangelder JD (2001) Pinnocks Journey from Calvinism to Arminianism http://www.reformedreflections.ca/biography/4-clark-h-pinnock.html [accessed 18/3/11]
The Lausanne Movement (1974) The Lausanne Covenant http://www.lausanne.org/covenant [accessed 18/3/11]
In a statement on the first of March 2011, Lord Justice Munby and Mr Justice Beatson, high court judges, stated that
‘We live in this country in a democratic and pluralistic society, in a secular state not a theocracy’.
‘Although historically this country is part of the Christian West, and although it has an established church which is Christian, there have been enormous changes in the social and religious life of our country over the last century’.
‘Our society is now pluralistic and largely secular. We sit as secular judges serving a multi-cultural community of many faiths. The laws and usages of the realm do not include Christianity, in whatever form’ (Telegraph, 2011).
David Cameron also stated that Christians must now ‘be tolerant and welcoming towards homosexuality’, just another one of the many values Christians are being told to betray in multi-cultural Britain. England has one of the largest gay and lesbian cultures in Europe; we also have equal age of consent laws, partnership laws and even legal commitment ceremonies in some of our major cities …show more content…
(Enjoy England, 2011).
Multiculturalism, according to Ruth Lea, should be defined as a diversity where individual groups have their own cultural beliefs and happy coexist but where there is a British identity to hold society together (Lea 2004). Individual faiths and cultures should be embraced and welcomed, each culture learning something from, and living amicably with, the other.
Over the last 50 years, Britain has become increasingly multi-cultural. Many immigrants came to the UK in the 1950’s and 1960’s, from India and Pakistan, in search of a better life and to escape from the disruption of British India being split into India and Pakistan. Many people came to Britain in fear or escaping persecution. According to the BBC, Britain 's Muslim population are almost all people who immigrated to Britain in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, or their descendants.
In 1970 there were about 375,000 Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs in Britain. By 1993 the figure was about 1,620,000, with the rise in the number of Muslims being particularly pronounced (Black 2011). Muslims now make up approximately 3% of the British population and over half of them were born in Britain (BBC 2009).
Before 1964, only seven new mosques had been registered in Britain, but in 1964, another seven were registered and over the following decade there were approximately eight new registrations per year. In 1996, it was estimated that there were six hundred and thirteen mosques in the UK. From the 1980’s, the sense of community grew as Muslims successfully campaigned to assert their own values and see halal food served in hospitals and schools (Lancashire Council of Mosques 2011).
However, different faiths lead to different cultures and British society was not always welcoming to people from overseas. Racial and religious violence has broken out many times, in 1976 and 1979 in Southall, 1980 and 1983 in Bristol, Brixton and Manchester among other cities, 1985 in Birmingham, 2001 in Burnley, Oldham and Bradford (Stott 2006:283). British society had to change to curb this violence and to encourage multi-culturalism. In 1976, the Commission for Racial equality was formed to stop racial discrimination. The Crime Disorder Act of 1998 was introduced to stop people being victimised because of their religion or their racial group. The Criminal Justice Act of 2003 forces judges to look at whether a crime was committed in response to the victim’s religion, ethnicity or sexual identity. The British legal system has tried to encourage Britons to accept people of other faiths and cultures or at least not mistreat them, although there do still seem to be areas of ghettoization. While many people in the UK are happy to reach out to the stranger and embrace multi-culturalism, there are still some who believe in ‘defending the rights for whites’.
David Cameron admitted in a speech in February that he believed that multi-culturalism in the UK had failed and that Britain needed to work towards a more definitive national identity in order to stamp out extremism from Muslims. However, he has been criticised for this viewpoint (Hawkins 2011). In spite of increasingly difficult immigration laws and the prime minister’s opinion, Britain in 2011 is no longer a country of white socially divided people – there are people of many different descents, of different colours, faiths and orientations.
Examine a Variety of Christian Theological Responses to Multi-Cultural Britain.
There have been many thoughts about how western Christians should respond to Britain becoming more multi-cultural.
In the name of political correctness, Britons are required by law not to be threatening, abusive or insulting to other people. Failure to observe this can result in prosecution under Section Five of the Public Order Act. For example, in 2003 the Divisional Court upheld the conviction of a British National Party member who had displayed a poster on the window of his flat with the words “Islam out of Britain” (Strickland 2010:5), because this caused insult to Muslims in a public place.
For Christian theologians, this has raised a number of questions, primarily, should Christians work towards the great commission of Matthew 28:19-20 of making disciples of all nations, challenging other beliefs or should they follow instruction of Exodus 22:21 to not oppress an alien and so to accept other beliefs about salvation? One of the ways Christian theologians and society as a whole have responded to the new multi-cultural society is by encouraging tolerance of other faiths.
Netland argues that there is a widely accepted assumption that being tolerant means having a positive attitude to people of other faiths and also to their beliefs. However, he argues that tolerance does in fact have a degree of condemnation in it and that it is ‘nonsensical to speak of tolerating a belief that one happens to accept is true’ (Netland 1987: 81).He argues that tolerance means that we accept that someone believes in something which is different to our own beliefs but that we don’t have to accept or embrace those beliefs. Tolerance is only necessary because not all faiths agree.
However, Nazir-Ali points out that a truly universal church must recognise that there are other faiths in the world and people from other faiths have lived in the west for a long time. He suggests that Christians must learn from people of other faiths. It is not only Israel which is the stage for God’s action but the entire world (Nazir-Ali 1998:129). He argues that God’s blessing is no longer just for Israel but that other nations are also blessed now. However, he does acknowledge that Israel (or the Judeo-Christian people) are the instrument God is using to extend that blessing to the nations (Nazir-Ali, 1998: 131).
Leffel suggests that Christians need to be respectful of other beliefs but that it is dangerous to be so subjective that nobody can ever be wrong about what they believe. It is fanatical to uncritically accept that all beliefs are true (Leffel, accessed 2011)
Indeed the Bible appears to say that Jesus is the only way to gain salvation (John 14:6) and so Christians are the bearers of the truth. They may accept respectfully that others have different beliefs but the Bible seems to suggest that Christians should be evangelising other faiths. As the Lausanne Covenant says
‘those who reject Christ condemn themselves to eternal separation from God… We need to break out of our ecclesiastical ghettos and permeate non-Christian society…we recognise that everyone has some knowledge of God through His general revelation in nature. But we deny that this can save…Jesus Christ is the only mediator between God and people. There is no other name by which we can be saved’.
However, saying that Jesus is the only means of salvation is regarded as exclusivism and is not always accepted by theologians. It can be regarded as being intolerant and not respecting other faiths. Or in fact, as Orr-Ewing demonstrates ‘All world religions…touch a different part of ultimate reality’ and so ‘Christians are arrogant to say that they have the truth’. (Orr-Ewing, 2011)
Kessler quotes the Second Vatican Council who suggests that we must learn what treasures God has distributed among the nations but then we must set these treasures free in them and ‘illuminate them in the light of the Holy Gospel’ (Kessler, accessed 18/3/11). We must dialogue and care for people of other faiths and discover God in them but then see them released by the power of Jesus.
However, these exclusivist viewpoints seems to suggest that while people have treasures from God and have some of the nature of God within them, it is not enough to simply accept them and allow them to live in their own faith – Christians must not be content with that but must reach out to them with the gospel to see them saved.
Nazir-Ali appears to disagree. He poses the question ‘are all faiths a path to God but different because of the historical, cultural and social contexts in which people have developed that faith?’ (Nazir-Ali, 1998:128). He identifies that Ruth was a Moabite but still became an ancestor of Jesus. Perhaps it is possible that Jesus is not the only way to the Father but that all religions, having something of God in them, can still lead to salvation.
Netland advances this argument when he writes
‘Christian exclusivism does not entail that none of the claims made by other religions are true. But what it does deny is that beliefs of other traditions can be true when they are incompatible with those derived from scripture’ (Netland, 1987:92).
This is a useful viewpoint when considering people in nations where the gospel has not permeated. What happens to people who have not had the opportunity to learn about Jesus?
Pinnock has an inclusivist viewpoint. He argues that people of other faiths are worshipping the same God as Christians. There are not two creators of the earth and “People fear God all over the world, and God accepts them, even where the gospel of Jesus has not yet been proclaimed" (Tangelder, 2001).
"I accept general or cosmic revelation, and I believe that many people in other religions worship God, even in ways that fall conceptually short of the revelation of God 's nature which Christ brings."
He acknowledges that Jesus gives a better insight into the character of God but that when people have not heard about him, God still desires to see them saved and will reach out and reveal Himself to them (Tangelder, 2001).
However, this does not appear to fit with the Great Commission, unless making disciples does not mean educating in the ways of Jesus but instead learning something about God, as a person understands him based on their culture and religion. It also makes preaching the gospel seem harder as people who have heard the gospel have the choice to accept Jesus or not, whereas, if they worship a God without hearing about Jesus, they will be accepted into heaven.
Nonetheless, Pinnock’s argument is supported by writing from John Hick who takes a pluralist viewpoint. He argues that just as the sun is at the centre of the universe, so is God in the centre of all the faiths. He is the sun and all the religions reflect Him in their own unique ways. God does not centre in Christianity but in all faith cultures (Hick 1980:54)
However, he realises that the dilemma each religion faces is that each professes to be true and that followers must decide whether to allow only a secondary place to other religions or to abandon the truth claims of their own faith (Hick 1993:16). Most faiths encourage evangelism and witness leading to conversion and not blindly accepting universalism as acceptable. Greene points out that
‘the Koran is clear about the duty to seek the conversion of the infidel and clear about the eternal consequences of not acknowledging Muhammad as Allah’s final prophet’ (Greene, 2004:19) , and argues that ‘obviously Christians should try to reach out to those of other faiths (Greene, 2004:19).
Christians in the UK have been trying to reach out to people from other faiths. One of the Judeo-Christian values which Christians in the west have been using to reach out is that of hospitality and of service to the foreigner. They open their homes and teach skills which are necessary in the UK. They have also tried to welcome people of other faiths by attending their worship and learning culturally from that. Often this has developed into friendship and prayer together and has led to the demand for inter-faith dialogue as there is awareness on all sides that there is one divine being who may be understood in different ways but is essentially the same God (Nazir-Ali, 1998:125).
Increasingly, Christians appear to be engaging in inter-faith dialogue, trying to make disciples. This is not about importing western culture but about translating the values that underpin the Christian viewpoint. It is not about forcing one’s opinion onto another but about living love and demonstrating Christian principles. However, as Christians, we still assume that the Holy Spirit is working to convert people to Jesus. As Netland argues,
‘humility and genuine respect should characterise our interaction with those of other faiths. But it is a serious error to presume that such humility and respect demand glossing over the truth (Netland, 1987:93).
Christians must stand firm to their truth, not covering up or denying their own beliefs in the name of political correctness. Hospitality involves tolerating other faiths, accepting different viewpoints but standing firm in the Lordship of Jesus, witnessing that Jesus is the way and the truth and the life as He claimed to be.
Christian witness, even in a multi-cultural society still involves the declaration that Jesus Christ is not just one way amongst others as described in the pluralist viewpoint. He may not be the only way as the exclusivist argues but He is certainly the unique, reliable, decisive way to God and our salvation (Kessler: 7).
In what ways have multi—culturalism and these theological responses affected Christian mission?
Multi-culturalism means that there are people of many different faiths and cultures in the UK. The consequence of this is that evangelism does not just involve talking to somebody with a similar worldview and similar experiences but can actually mean engaging with people who have a totally different mindset, perhaps a different faith or understanding of God. Where fifty years ago, British people were generally at least familiar with the concept of Jesus, this is not always the case anymore. In this context, the church faces issues like never before in trying to carry the gospel to an increasingly multi-cultural society. Leffel suggests that as Christians we must be willing to
‘move as far toward the culture as we need to, so long as it does not involve compromising biblical morality or truth. In short, it means adopting principles of cross-cultural mission in domestic evangelism’ (Leffel, accessed 18/3/11)
This involves recognising perhaps that Britain is becoming a post-Christendom society and seeing mission as moving from maintaining what we already have to becoming more missional communities.
However, cross-cultural mission can be difficult as Duncan points out. If Christians are not careful in the way that they handle the differences between themselves and other faiths
‘we end up in a situation where we are simply shouting for our rights and demanding that we are listened to because we are right and everybody else is wrong’ (Duncan 2007:94).
However, there have been a number of responses to this call to cross-cultural mission in the UK. For many Christian exclusivists, it is imperative that the gospel message is carried out to people of other faiths, otherwise they will not receive salvation.
An example of this would be the International Community Church in Derby who reach out to all people and welcome those of Asian, Indian, Pakistani, Chinese and Japanese descent among others to their churches to experience the redeeming power of Jesus.
When we live alongside people, it gives the best opportunity to grow to understand the culture our neighbours are living in and so allows us to best present the gospel in a way which is appropriate to that setting. As such, they have moved into neighbourhoods where there are many different ethnic groups and have become a part of that community. They are living life with people of different cultures and faith groups as friends and neighbours and so they are then able to introduce Jesus without being threatening while understanding the challenges that the people listening will
face.
Christian churches are also reaching out by offering ‘Pilates and Prayer’ classes such as that quoted by Amy Orr-Ewing where people are able to bond over shared interests and then are given the gospel and the opportunity to discuss it. She suggests that the world is full of spiritually open people and if we could see past our own discomfort and preconceptions, we would be able to engage with a vast array of people (Orr-Ewing2011). When we
However, Christians are also reaching out in multi-cultural mission without having to spread the gospel. There are organisations which carry the love of Jesus, to worship Jesus and to show Jesus through their actions but without having to speak the gospel. An example of this would be the Refugee Support Network which looks to aid, assist and welcome people who are displaced, poor or in need and to work with them regardless of whatever faith background they come from. They claim that their Christian theology is what shapes the work they do but that they are not frantically attempting to win converts to Christianity. They are looking to show the love of Jesus to the people who need it, in service to Jesus.
There are many different ways of doing mission in the new multicultural Britain. This is an opportunity the likes of which has never been seen before in this country. Christians in Britain no longer need to travel to engage in cross-cultural mission because it is available on the doorstep. Regardless of which theological viewpoint a Christian takes, whether they believe in exclusivism, inclusivism, pluralism or multi-faith dialogue, the Bible tells us that we should show hospitality, love mercy, show justice and walk humbly with our God. We should not oppress people just because they are different from us. This is a time for love in action, an opportunity to demonstrate Jesus to the people He came to save and a time for reaching out to our neighbour, regardless of where they have come from.
Bibliography
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