Today’s pluralistic setting is no different from what the early church faced in the Roman Empire. We know that it was Christianized within a few centuries after Christ’s resurrection due in part to the church’s founding fathers’ unwavering commitment to keeping the gospel preserved in its entirety, unchanged by outside influences. The call is the same for us today, to proclaim Christ crucified without compromise, while reasoning and engaging the followers of the world’s religions and the religious pluralists through study, observation, and reasoned dialog. 

Diversity. Respect. Tolerance. Coexistence. These are buzz-words for the twenty-first century. I remember the first time I saw a Coexist bumper sticker, around 2004 in Irvine, California. Coexist was spelled using symbols from various belief systems: a crescent moon for the C, a peace symbol for the o, male/female symbols were integrated into the e, the Star of David for the x, a Wiccan pentagram for the dot of the i, a yin-yang symbol for the s, and a cross for the t. I was mystified. I thought it was ingenious. I had never seen so many religions standing side by side to form a single word.

But what really floored me was the message itself. When these bumper stickers first hit the scene, America was at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. We had an openly Christian president who commonly used religious rhetoric when discussing the war on terrorism, and it couldn’t be ignored that the men who hijacked the planes on September 11 were Muslims. Some saw the necessity to clarify that the hijackers were radical Muslims, but even the addition of that distinction didn’t take away from the fact that America was attacked by Muslims on domestic soil or that American soldiers were fighting against Al-Qaida, a Muslim terrorist organization.

In such a context, coexist, spelled with religious symbols, had a significant message that religious disagreements have unnecessarily caused much animosity and violence. As humans, we ought to agree with the coexist sticker’s call for peace. After all, are we not better than the animals? As humans, we have the ability to strive to live together in peace without hating each other or killing each other over differences in race, culture, sexual orientation, politics, or religion.

Trailing the coexist adhesive in popularity is the tolerance bumper sticker. Tolerance is at the heart of successful coexistence. By definition, the word implies that there are differences within the world’s religions, and that the tensions caused by these differences must be resolved through practicing tolerance.

This should not be misconstrued as agreement, as some might interpret it. Tolerance is not agreement but a state of allowance. We must first recognize that individuals have the freedom of religious choice and expression. From there, the necessity to tolerate conflicting religious beliefs must exist if the preservation of human liberties is to continue. If we cannot muster the will to tolerate opposing beliefs, we resort to weeding out any belief other than our own. In the process, we kill all freedom of religious expression.

The coexistence and tolerance movements must be applauded for their calls for peace, but numerous people derive another message from these stickers. I have spent three years talking with students about their views on these two stickers at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) in the campus’s freedom of speech zone. I have learned that many students think these stickers also imply that all religions are the same at their core, or that all religions lead to God. I have also learned that many students agree with this view and care enough to spend hours debating this position with me, even though I am a complete stranger to them. I have to admit to them that the idea that all religions are the same is a good sentiment. If it’s true, there is no reason why we can’t all get along.

If all religions led to the same positive outcome, we’d be able to move beyond simply tolerating religious differences to an arms-wide, open embrace of all faiths. Such an open acceptance can only be possible for someone who hasn’t taken the time to study the world’s religions. The shortest of studies of the sacred texts of just a few different religions would reveal contradictions in their fundamental teachings.  If two beliefs directly contradict each other, both of them cannot be true, no matter how “tolerant” we become. This means it is false to say that every religion is true, or that every religion leads to God.  Logically they could all be false, but they cannot all be true.

Religious Pluralism Thrives in Ignorance

If one knows the basic history, teachings, and practices of a handful of religions, it would be inconceivable for that person to think that all religions are basically the same, or equally valid and true. The problem is that many people do not know what other religions believe, teach, and confess.

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