tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5596708332568087278.post2759232701642369700..comments2024-01-24T10:39:27.668-05:00Comments on Coming Untrue: Nationhood and Angelic RepresentationDr. S. L. Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06303707167715370504noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5596708332568087278.post-31049922918840903742015-12-31T16:44:58.404-05:002015-12-31T16:44:58.404-05:00IC:
Here I am.
We must not confuse religious re...IC:<br />Here I am. <br /><br />We must not confuse religious relativism for multiculturalism. Multiculturalism has to do with one's culture, not one's religion. So above, I'm saying that culture is not a greater barrier than inclusion in the Kingdom of God can overcome. But nothing less than entry into the Kingdom of God can overcome something so profound.<br /><br />Regarding religion, of course, things are quite different. There is no possibility of multi-religious peace: the world's best counterfeit of such a thing is religious relativism, in which indifference to or ignorance about other religions is permitted to lure one into the naïve hope that one is in some kind of unity with all religions because one cares about none of them but one's own. However, as John Locke proved, and as you note above, Q, multi-religious *tolerance* is a temporal possibility -- indeed, a rational necessity -- within a Protestant worldview. Protestantism requires us to allow people the right to be wrong, and because it focuses on the necessity of belief for salvation, it is always rationally self-defeating, from that perspective, to use force or compulsion to convert anyone.<br /><br />So multiculturalism? It can exist by God's grace in the realm of those who are His. Multi-religion? It is a saccharine delusion only, one launched from a liberal secular perspective -- but really bespeaks an intolerance so complete it wants to know nothing about any religion's particulars and to take none of any religion's truth claims seriously. And from a Christian perspective, multi-religion exists only in the form of a responsibility to tolerate -- provided there is added no pretext to agree with -- the other religions in question.<br /><br />And that makes sense, doesn't it? After all, if, as we believe, faith is the essential means of salvation, then it would make no sense at all for us to (to use your word) compromise on the question of faith itself. That would just amount to saying to people, "Be happy: imagine yourself as the same as us, but go to Hell." And that would hardly be tolerant -- indeed, not even moral -- from a Christian perspective.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5596708332568087278.post-67684666775866719532015-12-29T07:15:07.145-05:002015-12-29T07:15:07.145-05:00IC's currently on the road, Q, so you might no...IC's currently on the road, Q, so you might not get a response for a few days.<br /><br />But I think he <i>might</i> say that you seem to have identified religious convictions as one aspect of what makes multicultural societies ultimately unworkable. Religion is certainly part of it, though I highly doubt eliminating it (even if that were possible) would remove all sources of tension between ethnic groups. History (and IC, in <a href="http://www.cominguntrue.com/2014/07/lies-myths-and-misinformation.html" rel="nofollow">this previous post</a>) have shown pretty clearly that most wars between people groups are over causes very much unrelated to religious belief, despite the well-known Dawkins meme.Tomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00346761712248157930noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5596708332568087278.post-72080407499868127752015-12-28T22:52:48.334-05:002015-12-28T22:52:48.334-05:00So, basically you are implying that multiculturali...So, basically you are implying that multiculturalism remains a dream and can never (even partially?) succeed without the single underlying and unifying spiritual Christian perspective, which, in order to work, must obviously be applied in a practical and concrete manner by all cultures.<br /><br />Now, secular adherents of multiculturalism will point out something that they would see as wrong here. Namely, that this Christian perspective is of course claimed by every other religious group (Islam, ISIS, Hindu, ... and so on) not to forget the many protestant variations on Christianity. As a result this workable multiculturalism may uncannily actually be less feasible for the religious adherent because they would be the least willing to compromise.Qmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5596708332568087278.post-68571412465073251082015-12-27T11:39:33.504-05:002015-12-27T11:39:33.504-05:00It is one of the distinct glories given to the Chu...It is one of the distinct glories given to the Church by God that in her there is “neither Jew nor Gentile”. This is a glory because in this world’s terms, multiculturalism is never possible, biblically speaking. Ever since Babel it has been quite impossible to fuse multiple nations without the expedient of submerging the many in a single national identity, set of customs, language, religion, politics, etc. The Roman empire was, as you point out, well, “Roman”. Everybody else could become a citizen, but their citizenship was second-class if they lacked the customs, language, practices and so forth of the Romans. “When in Rome”, as the saying goes ...<br /><br />Not so the Church. Having the ultimate loyalty and citizenship in Heaven frees up the national person to love across all other barriers, even that intransigent language barrier.<br /><br />So multiculturalism is actually a Christian possibility taken over into a secular desire. And the secular desire is absolutely unfulfillable, since it lacks the transcendent point that relativizes human national identities. Like the dream of flying by flapping our arms, it would be a good dream in circumstance in which we could actually do it; it’s just a bad one if we can’t, but insist on trying anyway. <br /><br />Especially if we insist on using high buildings as launch points.Immanuel Cannoreply@blogger.com