Tolerant or Intolerant? Are All Beliefs Equal and Valid?

In 21st-century Western culture, we live in a context of spiritual longing. But this spiritual openness does not always translate into people following Christ. People have a dizzying array of options when it comes to religion. The culture around us believes all religions are equally valid. It seems bizarre to people that someone would claim that only one way is the truth and the only truth.

In my experience, people usually have three motivations in dismissing the idea that Christ is the only way to God. We need to be able to deal with each of these. The first objection is that it is intolerant to believe that Christianity is true. It may help to define tolerance. Tolerance is the willingness to accept or tolerate someone or something, especially opinions or behaviors that you may not agree with, or people who are not like you. In other words, I only need to tolerate other religions if I disagree with them. If all paths lead to God, I do not need to be tolerant since I agree with all religions and views.

The irony is that religious people on all sides suffer in this paradigm. Whenever anyone attempts to make all religious groups say the same things and to suppress the diversity that exists, he marginalizes and paints orthodox believers as intolerant. In reality, the move to homogenize and relativize is itself intolerant of the real views of different religions. If I believe that Christ is the only way to God, I can still be tolerant by showing respect to those who disagree with me.

The second motivation behind dismissing Christ as the only way to God is that this claim is perceived as arrogant. How could we be so arrogant as to say that all other religions are wrong and Jesus is the only path to God? People often use the parable of the elephant to illustrate how arrogant Christians are: Blind scribes are touching different parts of an elephant. One is holding its tail, and saying, “This is a rope.”

Another is holding its front leg, and saying, “No, this is not a rope. It is a tree trunk.”

A third person is holding its trunk, and saying, “You are both wrong. It is a snake.”

The moral of this story is that all religions are like those men. They were each touching a different part of ultimate reality. Therefore, Christians are arrogant when they claim that only they have the truth.

As we consider this illustration, we discover two main differences between the person telling the story and the people in the story. The first difference is that the scribes touching the elephant are blind and the narrator can see.

The second is one of perspective. The blind scribes are near the elephant, but the narrator is standing back and has the full picture. The breathtaking claim the storyteller makes is that Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Moses, and Muhammad are all blind, but I can see. They had a small perspective, but I see the full picture — all ways lead to God. The question is now: Who is the arrogant one?

It is just as arrogant to claim that Buddha, Muhammad, and Jesus were wrong in their exclusive claims, as it is to say that Jesus is the only way. The issue, then, is not about who is arrogant or not, but what is actually true and real.

The third motivation concerns exclusion. How can you exclude all other religions? Jesus said that He was the way to the Father, but I cannot follow Him because I do not want to be an intolerant person who excludes others. Again, we need to think carefully about this because, in reality, whatever position we hold, we exclude some views. Even the person who believes that all ways — including Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Stalin, and Osama bin Laden — lead to God excludes the view that only some ways lead to God or only one way leads to God. In the same way, the average person in the West would probably want to exclude some of the extremists, such as Hitler or Milosovich. He may believe that only some ways lead to God, such as the five main world religions. This excludes the view that all ways lead to God or that only one way leads to God. And the Christian who says, “I follow Jesus because He said that He is the only way to the Father,” excludes the view that all ways or some ways lead to God. Every view excludes some. The issue is not who is excluding people but, again, what is true and real.

Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). There are many possibilities here. Perhaps He was a genuinely good person, but He was deluded; He was sincere, but wrong. He believed He was God and misled people because, in reality, He was mentally imbalanced. Perhaps, He knew He was not God, but still went around telling people He was the only way to God, in which case He was a sinister character. Or, He was who He said He was and is the only way to God.

Amy Orr-Ewing lives in London and is training director at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries Trust, where she oversees the Trust’s apologetics training program. She is author of Is the Bible Intolerant?