Evangelicals And Interreligious Dialogue -- By: Terry C. Muck

Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 36:4 (Dec 1993)
Article: Evangelicals And Interreligious Dialogue
Author: Terry C. Muck


Evangelicals And Interreligious Dialogue

Terry C. Muck*

Growing numbers of evangelicals seem optimistic about the possibilities of interreligious dialogue. Their writings seem to recognize the need for some kind of language for talking to those with whom we disagree on the most important questions of life. The writers are wary of dialogue that carries with it the assumptions of religious relativism and pluralism. But even as they are rejecting the implications of dialogue they are arguing—often very tentatively—for an evangelical approach to interreligious dialogue.

I would like to review their arguments regarding what it would take to develop such an approach to dialogue and make some suggestions about where the question might go from here.

I. The Evangelical Responses To Dialogue

1. The stagesetters. Hendrick Kraemer and Stephen Neill were both active in the missions discussions of the twentieth century that shifted back and forth between liberal and conservative approaches to missions. Both Kraemer and Neill longed for the unity of the Church. They did so for both theological and practical reasons. Their theological reasoning rested on their view of the Church, the body of Christ. Their practical reasons rested on their recognition that working together—Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist—would be the most efficient, powerful way for the gospel to be spread. It was their desire for unity that made both Kraemer and Neill conciliar missiologists.

Both men, however, were defenders of the radical uniqueness of Jesus Christ and the Christian faith. Their belief expressed itself in a fierce desire to see the world won for Christ. And it was their defense of exclusive Christianity and the conversionist urge that placed them solidly in the camp of what came to be called evangelical. In their theologies of missions both Kraemer and Neill can be rightly called stagesetters of neo-evangelical missions.

As Neill said: “Christian faith claims for itself that it is the only form of faith for men; by its own claim to truth it casts the shadow of falsehood, or at least of imperfect truth on every other system.” He did not say it naively. He recognized the implications both for those of other religions who

* Terry Muck is associate professor of comparative religion at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, 100 East 27th Street, Austin, TX 78705.

would find his stance offensive and to colleagues—modern thinkers—who would find it equally so.1

Kraemer and Neill were not again...

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