Christian Attitude Toward Other World Religions

¶ … Christian Attitude to Other World Religions -- a Five-Paragraph Essay of the Paradoxes of Tolerance and Intolerance

Christianity is, in many ways, a peculiar religion. Its early history is a series of paradoxes and its attitude towards other religions of the world continues to be paradoxical to this day. Christianity began as a subsidiary sect of Judaism. Eventually, Christianity became a religion predominantly composed of gentiles. The Christian religion began as a Messianic response to the institutions of Roman control and the Roman Empire. Later, the Christian religion was taken up as the official religion of Rome, after the revelation of the cross to the Emperor Constantine. Christianity began as a sect of a national religion, the Hebraic Israeli-based Judaism of Jesus. It eventually evolved into a portable (particularly in its Protestant incarnation) religion 'of the book,' a religion of many nations, and catholic in spirit (in the sense of attempting to be all-encompassing) as well as in its official name in the form of the Catholic Church. Christianity began as a revolutionary sect -- its founder was crucified for the crime of sedition, and became an institutionalized state religion in many countries today, from England to Italy.

The attitude of Christianity towards other religious faiths has also been paradoxical. Born of Judaism, anti-Semitism has plagued the faith since its inception. The disappointment that Jews did not wholly reform and conform their religion to the interpretations of Jesus, many have suggested, is the reason for this rejection. Regardless, this hostility to Judaism and the religion from whence Christianity sprang can be seen in Saint Paul's angry diatribes against his own people, in Luther's frustration at his inability to win German converts to his new faith, and even in the script of Mel Gibson's "Passion" film today. More than half of the Christian Bible is the story of the Jewish people, yet the Jewish people have been defamed for the death of the religion's founder, who was of the Jewish nation.

There is a strong missionary influence to Christianity as well. Christians have founded organizations to help others in many areas of the world, tempering some of the excesses of colonialism. The Christian emphasis on missionary conversion has itself opened up some missionaries to charges of cultural imperialism and intolerance of world religions. However, this accusation is somewhat belied by the ability of Christianity to be fused with local religions -- such as seen in many African religions, where local deities and Christian saints both occupy many adherents' faith structures, even if this local blending of apparently unharmonious concepts of the deity might be unfamiliar or even objectionable to the missionary's original intents.

Within its own institutionalized frameworks, Christianity has occasionally accommodated other religions. More liberal sects of Christianity, such as Unitarianism, stresses that all religions worship the same God, even if that God may take different forms in the eyes of adherents. Even more traditional aspects of the faith today stress that even if Christians may believe that Christ is the most valid form of religious faith, this does not mean that other religions do not contain truths that are spiritually valid for Christians.