Pluralization as a Monolithic Faith System

Pluralization is the process by which the number of options in the private sphere of modern society gives the appearance of rapid multipication at all levels, especially at the level of Worldviews, faiths and ideologies.

Now apart from considering pluralization as it pertains to Worldviews, faiths and ideologies no one can doubt for a second the vast plethora of choices that we are confronted with daily. A trip down any grocery store aisle will give you so many types of toothpastes or deodorants to choose from that there can be no doubt that pluralization succeeds at the most fundamental of levels.

Or to extend the illustration one can look at the Television set. When I grew up there was ABC, CBS, NBC and that was it. Now the stations and programming runs into the hundreds if not thousands. We have pluralization in entertainment.

But what is exciting at the level of the kind of soap you put in your mouth or the kind of chemical you put under your arms becomes dangerous when applied to Worldviews, faiths or religions.

Nothing dangerous is going to happen to you if you use Colgate one week and Aquafresh the next week and Crest the next week and the Amway brand the following week. But when this approach to what we believe ends up being applied to Worldviews or faith systems it becomes a little dicier.

The fact that has indeed happened to some degree can be seen in the way that people do Church in various seasons or phases of their lives. I have met many people who tell me they grew up Reformed and now they are Wesleyan or Church of Christ or something else and when they vacation in Florida they attend a Lutheran Church. When I ask them what happened that they would have such a change they look at me with what I call the ‘dumb cow’ look.

The question doesn’t even make sense to them because all of these different Churches are just like so many different tubes of toothpaste to them. They, and the Churches they attend, have been smitten by the idea of pluralization. In the thinking of those I have spoken with who have made what I would have considered drastic changes in their Church homes all they have done is to switch brand names. They have gone from using Crest to using Colgate.

The Churches they attend are part of this equation also because the Churches they attend, in order to compete for a shrinking number of consumers have standardized so that even though you have different brand names out there all of them are pretty much the same.

Here we find the irony of pluralization as it pertains to the realm of Worldviews, faiths or religions. Because pluralization in a consumer setting must respond to consumer desire what ends up happening is that the real differences that you would expect to find among different worldviews gets washed out so that the competing Worldviews, and distinctives can be competitive. The differences that exist are reduced to the way the Church markets itself.

Let’s take for example the issue of denominations. In Charlotte alone we have 23 different Churches last time I counted.

That is quite a choice for such a little city. Indeed we would contend that pluralization is alive and well in Charlotte.

But is it really?

If it was real pluralization then you could go to each of those 23 Churches and it wouldn’t take you long to realize what the distinctives were. You would learn that Nazarenes have a doctrine of perfect love or entire sanctification that teaches a person can reach a point where they never sin. You would learn that the Church of Christ doesn’t think you’re saved unless you were baptized as an adult. You would learn that the Assembly of God Church believes that unless you speak in tongues you are not saved, you would learn that in a Reformed Church we teach a kind of thing called predestination and on and on it would go.

Real pluralization in the area of Worldviews, faiths and ideologies would bring these matters to the forefront just as the differences of food are brought to the forefront when one goes to various ethnic restaurants.

The fact that doesn’t happen and that the real distinctives among these putatively competing faith systems is not accentuated is perhaps indicative that pluralization in the area of Worldviews, Faiths, and beliefs systems is just a smokescreen created to hide the reality that pluralization itself is our monolithic belief system.

Pluralization thus is the sacred canopy or global umbrella for Americans. Pluralization is our common faith that unites us into one whole. Ironically, our unity is provided by the myth of diversity.

It is the kind of unity of ancient Rome where all the gods were welcomed into the pantheon.

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him. View all posts by jetbrane