1. Alister McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction
Chapter 17
Christianity and the World Religions
Wiley-Blackwell 2010

2. Western Pluralism and the Question of Other Religions
Introduction
Increased attention to the question of other religions
Western colonial expansion
Immigration to the west
Western Pluralism and the Question of Other Religions
The detached approach
Anthony Gidden, Sociology
A committed approach
Wiley-Blackwell 2010

3. Approaches to Religions
The Enlightenment: religions as a corruption of the original religion of nature
Religion as superstition
Ludwig Feuerbach: religion as an objectification of human feeling
Human consciousness of feelings
Awareness of God = misunderstood self-awareness
Karl Marx: religion as the product of socioeconomic alienation
Religion results from social and economic conditions
Changing these conditions will remove the causes of religion, and thus eliminate religion itself
Sigmund Freud: religion as wish-fulfillment
Human need for a father-figure
Wiley-Blackwell 2010

4. Emile Durkheim: religion and ritual
Totemism and the worship of society
Religions as providing social cohesion
Mircea Eliade: religion and myth
“the sacred”
Myths
Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer: religion as a human invention
Karl Barth
Discontinuity between God’s self-revelation and humanity’s search for God (religion)
Religion as human construct, but necessary support to faith
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Religionless Christianity
The newly secular world
Trinitarian theologies of religion
Raimundo Panikkar
Jacques Dupuis
Gavin D’Costa
Wiley-Blackwell 2010

5. Christian Approaches to Other Religions
Exclusivism
Hendrik Kraemer ( )
Karl Barth ( )
Stephen C. Neill ( )
Lesslie Newbigin ( )
Inclusivism
The “fulfillment” model
Jean Daniélou ( )
Karl Rahner ( )
Anonymous Christians
Second Vatican Council
Evangelicalism
Clark Pinnock (b.1937)
Wiley-Blackwell 2010

6. Parallelism Pluralism A variation of inclusivism Joseph DiNoia
Mark Heim
Multiple salvations; plurality of absolutes
Pluralism
Ultimate spiritual reality behind all religions
John Hick
God (“the Real”) as universally accessible
Theocentric rather than christocentric approach
Gavin D’Costa’s critique
Basis in western liberal modernity
Wiley-Blackwell 2010