"Can't we all just get along?"
That seems to be the popular sentiment regarding Christians in the public square. Hasn't religion divided us enough? Can't we find common ground? But in an article Tuesday, Patrick Buchanan points out the problems of a just-get-along kind of faith. I've often disagreed with Buchanan's views on national defense, trade and other issues, but he nails it here. Weighing in on last week's exchange between Dr. Dobson and Barack Obama, he observed that Obama's position was:
"[S]ince Christians disagree deeply over what is biblical truth, why fight? Let us 'try to translate some of our concerns in a universal language so that we can have an open and vigorous debate rather than have religion divide us.' "
It shouldn't surprise anyone that Obama would encourage a unifying approach to faith discussions -- that's his brand. What helps people rally around his approach, however, is a trend Buchanan mentions: "The Pew poll out last week reveals that 82 percent of Protestants believe there are multiple paths to salvation, as do 79 percent of Catholics and 57 percent of evangelicals."
Belief in multiple paths to God is consistent with a culture of tolerance, but Buchanan reminds us that it's inconsistent with the core of Christianity: "In Catholicism, this is the heresy of indifferentism, which holds that one religion is just as good as another and all religions can be a path to salvation." Reacting to the Pew poll, Buchanan observes:
"A striking development. For did not Christ say, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me'?"
Buchanan's best observation is that Obama promotes a "let's get along" approach to faith, but holds up examples that don't fit that mold:
"[I]n his litany of moral heroes, Barack himself selected no 'can't-we-all-just-get-along?' Christians.
"Indeed, Obama celebrates the Underground Railroad and the abolitionists who, to end slavery, took us over the brink into Civil War. He invokes the defiant marchers of Selma Bridge and Dr. King, who chose confrontation and tore the nation asunder rather than see segregation endure.
"Obama, however, is now preaching a kumbaya Christianity where leaders who believe abortion is the killing of the innocent unborn are to set their convictions and cause aside in the name of ecumenical amity.
"It is Dobson who, in his intolerance of perceived evil, seems in the tradition of the abolitionists, and Barack who appears more like the milquetoast believers of whom Christ said he would spit them out of his mouth because they were neither hot nor cold and whom Dante consigned to the deepest reaches of hell."
Does social peace require the toleration of manifest evil?
Well, does it?
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Check out Focus on the Family's Boundless webzine for young adults.
