The topic of chapter six is Christian faith and world religion. It is written by Lesslie Newbigin, who was a minister of the Presbyterian Church and a leading figure in the ecumenical movement of the twentieth century. In the chapter, the author has mentioned various points under the topics of Christian faith and world religion. The author says that Christianity is seen as only one religion among the many world religions. All of which are to be treated with respect because they are all concerned with God and the immortal soul. Religious belief is a matter of personal choice, and everyone is entitled to have a faith of his or her own. The proper way in which religious people should behave towards one another is to be described in terms of coexistence, cooperation, and dialogue, not in terms such as proselytism, conversion, or mission and evangelism. The author says Christians have been among the plurality of the world from the very beginning until now. There is no new thing about the plurality of the world's religions for Christ. There has always been a Christian who is well aware of this plurality. For the churches of the old Christendom, the widespread acceptance of religious pluralism as an ideology Traditionally, imidines have seen dharma as universal and eternal. Muslims have affirmed that the Quran is God’s final and decisive word to the whole of humankind. And Christians have affirmed that Jesus is the Lord of all and the light of the whole world.
The contemporary debate was among the missionaries who were in direct contact with people of other faiths. It was largely through the writings of missionaries that Christians in the West came to know something of missionaries. Hendrick Kraemer wrote the book The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World, and W.E. Hocking wrote the book Re-Thinking Missions. In 1961, the IMC (international missionary council) and WCC (world council of churches) gathered together and debated the ways in which different religious communities can live and work together in the interest of the human community as a whole and the relation of Christianity to the other religions. They are clear that there was no common mind among the churches. The pluralist is represented by John Hick; John Hick is one of the most influential of those who disclaim any uniqueness or centrality for Christianity among the religions. He argued that we require a shift from the dogma that Christ is at the centre to the realisation that it is God who is at the centre and that all the religions of mankind, including our own, serve and resolve around him. Inclusivism is represented by Karl Rahner. He says Jesus can be found in other religions as well. There are those who affirm that faithfulness to the revelation in Christ as attested in Scripture requires us to believe that all those who have not made an explicit commitment of faith in Christ are eternally lost. This represents exclusivist views, which are supported by Kraemer. Exclusivism is represented by Kraemer. Kraemer regards all who have not accepted the gospel as lost. Hendrik Kraemer refused to recognise any of the world religions as a way of salvation alternative to Christ. He says that the gospel is the announcement of a unique event that cannot be put in a class with other religions. The shape of the Christian faith was hammered out by the brilliant intellect of those living in a religiously plural world but refusing to accept religious pluralism by affirming the supremacy of Jesus Christ over all religious superstitions of their time. The centre of attention in the Bible is not the destiny of the human soul considered as an atomic entity; it is the completion of God’s whole purpose in a consummation that gathers up the Story of both the human soul and of the cosmos. The gospel is not an answer to the question, which we put either in terms of personal salvation or in terms of the human future. It is the announcement of a sovereign work of God that sets aside this self-centred question and directs attention to God and his glory. It invites us to a life of worship and obedience that is wholly directed to God, a life that finds its central direction in the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples. (Mt5). The gospel of God’s free and sovereign grace carries with it the invitation to believe that there is truth to the story. This is not the story of the triumph of modern civilization with its science and technology or the story of religion. It is the real story of Jesus Christ, which looks towards a real ending at which it will all make sense. because it is a real story and contains the names of people and places and the dates of crucial events. According to the New Testament, the whole human race from its beginning is involved. The men and women of faith of all ages were looking to Christ. They are not lost. It is one story with one goal.
The Christian church points unambiguously to Jesus Christ as the one whom God has set forth to be the given centre of human unity, the one who, through the blood of his cross, can reconcile all people and all things. To affirm the centrality of Christ and the cruciality of his incarnation, ministry, death, and resurrection for the entire human story is an act of faith. Jesus’ promise to lead the church into the fullness of the truth is part of the missionary commission. The church is not led into the fullness of the truth simply by theological reflection. It is led as it allows the Holy Spirit to challenge the world’s assumptions about sin, righteousness, and judgement as it moves into one human culture after another. The true pluralism will not look for a plurality of divergent human stories but for the plurality of many different gifts in the one body of him in whom all the fullness of God is pleased to dwell and through whom God is pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross (Col. 1:19–20). To deny the religious pluralism and affirm the centrality, the decisiveness, and the absoluteness of the one name is to say that the human story is one story, not a medley of different stories. It is to affirm that we belong together in one history, and that history has a shape, a meaning, and a goal. This is not in the name of the Christian church but in the name of the one who reigns from the tree, the one who has made peace by the blood of the cross, the one who alone has broken the power of sin and death and pierced the barrier that divides the times of our human history from the eternity of God, in whom we find our home.
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