Help the religious pluralist see that he does not really believe that all roads lead to heaven. If he did, then he would not express outrage at suicide bombings, human sacrifice, and other such practices that even staunch religious pluralists find abhorrent. One cannot consistently embrace religious pluralism and relativism and at the same time object to any religious belief or practice. If sincerity is all that matters for salvation, religious terrorists who sincerely believe their god calls them to kill others do nothing wrong when they obey him. To condemn even one religious belief is to appeal to some ultimate, normative standard by which we may evaluate religion, establishing that standard as the one, true religion – and there can be no one, true religion for the honest religious pluralist.

Robert Rothwell, Reformierter Theologe, Pastor und Autor

Topics: Doubt & Hard Questions, Freedom & Truth, Ethical Questions

Occasions: For Reflection

Robert Rothwell

Robert Rothwell ist ein US-amerikanischer presbyterianischer Pastor, Theologe und Autor, der vor allem durch seine redaktionelle Arbeit für Ligonier Ministries und als Dozent in Florida bekannt ist. Er steht für eine historisch-bekenntnistreue reformierte Theologie, die Schriftauslegung und Bundestheologie an den traditionellen Bekenntnisschriften der Kirche ausrichtet. Heutigen Bibellesern vermittelt er in zahlreichen Kurzkommentaren und Aufsätzen ein klassisch-calvinistisches Schriftverständnis für Glaubenslehre und Alltag.

All quotes by Robert Rothwell (4)

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I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it but because, by it, I see everything else.

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Do you see the moon standing there? It's only half visible, and yet it's round and lovely! So it is with many things that we lightly laugh about, because our eyes cannot see them.

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The grip of our faith by which we hold on to the Lord may loosen. But the One in whom we believe holds us with his grip.

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A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.

C.S. Lewis

Now that I am a Christian I do not have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable.

C.S. Lewis

Faith comes and goes. It rises and falls like the tides of an invisible ocean. If it is presumptuous to think that faith will stay with you forever, it is just as presumptuous to think that unbelief will.

Flannery O'Connor

Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.

William Shakespeare

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