Dear Friends,
I’m finishing up teaching a course on Understanding Paganism in America to some students at BTS. Paganism as a whole embraces Polytheism( many gods ) and Pantheism( all is God ) in a monistic( all is one ) or non-binary worldview. It did not take the students long to recognize some of its elements fueling a socialistic bent penetrating various contours of our society.
For the Fall semester at BTS I’ll be teaching on World Religions. I’m often asked, “Why are there so many different religions”? The answer can be quite simple: “Because religions are different!” Religions differ in how they define God or ultimate authority, reality, sin or the human problem and its solution or salvation. Although there are similarities in many, the differences in religions often are the reasons why people choose one religion over another.
We live in a day and age of many instead of one. This is what we call religious pluralism- a concept that basically believes all people are children of God and all religious paths ultimately lead to the same God no matter what religion it may be. In other words, no one way is better than the other, which assumes that we can approach God in any way we want. For more on Religious Pluralism see A Little Knowledge, A Dangerous Thing?