Lately I’ve been encountering something that is disturbing to me. There is a popular version of postmodernism — an on-the-street version — far from the literary deconstruction where it was born. It seems to over-simplify a great deal of information, leaving behind a great deal of the nuance and intelligent dialogue for a sort of shallow relativism. Taking up the slogan of our age, it pronounces “whatever” on every aspect of life and every human endeavor. For one thing, such thinking uses the label “pluralism” to equalize and homogenize all faiths. Deep down, it believes religion is like blue jeans — all that’s different is the label.

It seems some skeptics have adopted this view as well. Frequently, I get the impression that the similarities between religions are considered by some to be a dismissal of them all. After all, if there was something behind religion, something real, something on the level of the divine, wouldn’t we know it, and wouldn’t it establish the one true religion? The multiplicity of faiths, the common theological themes, the similar stories — all are taken as evidence that religion is nothing more than a subset of culture and an adaptation of the species and, as such (and here I think is the greatest error), it is all irrelevant.

Many religious people have severe reservations about this understanding of pluralism, fearing it threatens the reality, uniqueness, and exclusivity of their faith. Rightly so. Arguably, the three largest faith systems in the world rest a significant part of their truth claims on the idea that they are a least a unique way to God, if not the only one. Perhaps religious people feel instinctively what is at stake. If the skeptics are right, and all religions are the same despite their claims and contradictions of each other, then it is likely they are little more than human culture.

This may be not a reaction to “pluralism” as defined by some of its advocates, as much as it is religious relativism. As much as the popular usage of “pluralism” means that all religions are the same, it might be missing the point. For example, Harvard’s Pluralism Project [site] claims to work with both the commonality and real differences in religions. While they use the commonalities to establish dialogue, that dialogue must include the differences as well. Likewise, wikipedia describes pluralism in this way:

Adherents of religious pluralism reject religious relativism. They do not believe that religious truth is relative. Adherents of religious pluralism recognize that different religions make different truth claims. That religions may apparently contradict each other but on closer examination may be widely different claims. Therefore all religions can be true as far as their own truth-claims are concerned. [from “Religious Pluralism” on wikipedia.org]

Of course, this could be simply the PR side of smart people not wanting to alienate the religious majority. After all, the philosophical roots of pluralism are a bit troubling. It properly belongs to the category of metaphysics that says, in its softer forms, there is no one explanation to the universe. In its harder forms, it says that there is probably more than one reality. The problem is, physics in particular and scientific inquiry in general have gotten tantalizingly close to developing one explanation for all reality. Perhaps it’s too early to jump to conclusions, but most of science and religion seem to work on the idea that there is, ultimately, only one reality and explanation of it, at least as far as our existence is concerned. The quote above would have a problem in such a universe. If all religious truth claims are different, and all are true in their own system and understanding of reality, then one could question whether or not they have any true realism.

I’m a fan of “both-and” thinking (as much as either-or) in many cases, but not necessarily a “both-and” view of reality. For example, I think that the idea that religions are both similar and significantly different are both true and both very important for people to discuss and think about. Concentrating on just the similarity or difference is ignorant and absolutely disastrous. Exaggerations of commonality end inquiry, exploration, and introspection. We all begin to talk about “traditions” that cease to be probed, and, like Christmas, are free for corporate exploitation and consumerized use and disposal (or political manipulation as drunkentune explains here). On the other hand, over-emphasis on differences leads to arrogance, division, and conflict, and probably eventually violence. At the very least, it damages the human quest for truth in a way analogous to physicists disowning psychologists.

A friend and I where walking through the Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art) one day. We began in the Asian wing whose entrance hall contains many wonderful buddhas and bodhisattvas. A huge fresco of the Medicine Buddha greets visitors, seated on a lotus and surrounded by complicated religious imagery and twelve fierce generals, weapons drawn. In the center, a gold plated princely figure towers as he once did over worshipers, barely even lowering his eyes to our level. The far corner holds a stone shrine with several buddhas guarded by demon dogs, traced with intricate meridians of power, and sealed by sacred words.

What strikes me is the great variety of emotion contained in these works. Some statues stand over the viewer in regal condescension. Others draw them in with tranquility or parental kindness. Such is an invitation to join the many hundreds of watching witnesses carved in the edges and sides of the sculptures — the “cloud of witnesses” [Heb 12:1] as Christianity would call it.

As we walked on to the Assyrian exhibit, we talked about the great need expressed by this art. It was in the Asian wing and all over the Assyrian exhibit as well — its entrances hemmed by giant cherub temple guards. If there is something divine, then it must be brought into our material experience if we are to experience it at all. Unless we can see and touch, we have no access to know. There is at root in humanity, be it divine placed or evolutionarily developed, and hunger for incarnation — to see God within the human world.

Eventually we made our way back to the European painters. There, in a back room was Caravaggio’s rare composition of the Holy Family. Mary looks extremely strained as if she finds herself a reluctant mother. The toddler Jesus stands on her lap with a look of arrogant distaste in his eyes as he glares over his shoulder at a child John the Baptist. John is innocently attempting to touch Jesus with outstretched finger, but Joseph, firm and strict, is holding back his hand.

Right there the similarity struck me. The Buddha’s generals and demon-dogs, the cherubs, and Caravaggio’s Joseph — within the human expectation of incarnation there is an impulse to protect God-with-us. If humanity has access to the transcendent in our experience, is there not a danger that we will taint him with our vulgarity? Isn’t this why self-prophesying “god-kings” lived in guarded seclusion from the time of Ramsey until David Koresh? Isn’t this why temples were closed to all but the most holy prepared? Could this by why the shaman’s apprentice must be initiated properly before he can touch the magic objects and learn the magic words?

This expectation for incarnation is so wide-spread it is astounding, but to allow such wonder to declare it universal is a mistake. Even though stories of incarnation are found in every religion that I have experienced, to then move to say they are all the same is wrong. For example, when Jesus was arrested in the olive grove, this same expectation appears. Peter draws his sword to protect the incarnation and separates the High Priest’s servant Malcus from his ear in an attempt more likely intended to remove his head. Jesus tells Peter to put his sword away, heals Malcus, and is arrested to be tried and killed.

This is making a statement in opposition to the usual human expectation of incarnation. It is as if Jesus is saying that thinking we need to protect God is a little foolish. After all, why would the creator of the universe fear any action we, in our relative smallness, could take against him. This story says something different: God can maintain vulnerability and access because he has confidence in his own power and identity, leaving him open to act redemptively.

Now this story varies from all other incarnation stories very little — the great bulk of the information is the same — but to say that such difference is insignificant misses the point. Let me use a biological principle to illustrate my point. At the level of DNA, a chimp and a human vary by only 1.2 percent — about 35 million chemical letters. Even though we are 98.8% similar genetically speaking, it is a mistake to negate the significance of the difference that this tiny percentage makes. For the last 6000 years chimps have only evolved to breaking nuts with rocks and poking sticks into ant hills. They are barely into their Stone-Age. On the other hand, the last 6000 years of human history have seen the creation of cities, the development of civilizations, the creation of science, the development of art and music, tremendous colonization of Earth environments, and several journeys to the Moon. In fact, what it means to be human is largely a discussion about the different 1.2% makes.

Yvonne Latte, a journalism professor at NYU, said something at a forum on Race, Violence, and Reconciliation that bothered me. She said that we need to understand we are all basically the same, as if this were a solution to race problems in America. It seems to me to be wishful and unrealistic thinking to suppose racism can be overcome by negating the meaning of race itself. Suppose I, a white man, where to walk a few blocks to the projects near my house and stand at the door proclaiming, “You need to understand you’re just like me.” How would that go over? Most of my closest friends are not white. Our friendships are built on both the great deal of commonality we share as humans, and also an extremely robust respect for how significant our small degree of cultural and biological difference really is. I think any effective approach to religion must take a similar stance.

So here is my “both-and”: we must understand that religions are both very similar in the huge amount of information they share on the human condition and expectations and very different in the ways they approach this condition, work with it on a missional level, and proclaim divine interaction in the human context. To me, this means that it is time for believers of different faiths and people with no faith to build conversations and cooperation on our human commonality. At the same time, everyone should responsibly educate themselves on our significant differences and actively engage in the dialogue of discovery while maintaining personal and communal freedom to choose among such differences.