Faith among Faiths: Christian Theology and Non-Christian Religions.

Faith among Faiths:
Christian Theology and
Non-Christian Religions
James Fredericks
Paulist, $18.95, 188 pp.

Since the revolutionary statements found in the document Nostra aetate (concerning non-Christian religions) at the Second Vatican Council, there has been a strong impetus to explore the relationship of Christianity to the other world religions. As James Fredericks points out in his handy compendium Faith among Faiths: Christian Theology and Non-Christian Religions, the theological relationship between Christians and other religions falls roughly into three categories. First, the "exclusivists" argue that Christianity is the true faith and other religions are human constructs which fall outside the field of divine revelation. Karl Barth is the most sophisticated proponent of that position. By contrast, the "inclusivists" argue that other religions somehow, in the divine economy, come under the grace of Christ, albeit in an inchoate and hidden fashion. In a series of influential, but highly controversial, studies, Karl Rahner developed the notion of the "anonymous Christian." In response to his critics, Rahner said the term was not meant to be a patronizing tag but a way for Christians to understand the presence of grace, as well as the hope for salvation, to be found in non-Christian religions.

More recently, but more contentiously, a number of authors have jettisoned the inclusivist argument in favor of a pluralist understanding by which one could affirm many saviors and many paths to salvation. This school has been identified with figures like John Hick, Paul Knitter, and Wilfred Cantwell Smith. The precise merit of Fredericks's book is that he details how pluralist authors have evolved in response to both sympathetic and unsympathetic critics. Hick, for example, moved from a theocentric to a "reality centered" vision in order to argue for an inclusive idea of religion for all peoples and an understanding of the particularities of specific traditions. Knitter, a Catholic, described his evolution as going from a theocentric vision (which he decided was not a fresh start but a century-old throwback to the liberal Protestantism of Von Harnack) to a "soteriocentric" one. By this he means a form of salvation, common to all religions, which he puts in squarely liberationist and ecological terms.

Fredericks is not enamored of the pluralist project. Along with other critics, he discerns a subtle claim of omniscience in such schemes. The pluralists claim to know what religion is ultimately about; using that discovery they can relativize or critique any particular formulation of a religious tradition. In the final analysis, such approaches do not honestly listen to how people articulate and understand what they profess. The pluralist temptation is to announce an overarching principle and then say, when faced with particularity, "Yes, but what that really means is...." In other words, pluralists and inclusivists often skirt the same kind of reductionism.

An alternative approach, which Fredericks himself espouses, is comparative theology, by which he means the attempt of Christian theologians to study what other traditions hold in order to see their own tradition better without compromising it or being so closed off that they fail to listen to the other. Comparative theology prizes that form of intellectual and spiritual sharing which goes under the beautiful rubric of friendship. To do comparative theology is not for everyone since it requires, in addition to a grasp of one's own tradition, the ability to study texts in other languages. Still there is a body of talented comparativist scholars today.

Fredericks's eminently readable book tours the field of interreligious dialogue at the theological level. While not pretending to be comprehensive, it is an even-handed introduction, and Fredericks is a fair but tough critic of those who labor in this demanding specialty. He has provided us with a useful introduction to the subject, a good bibliography, and a fine preparation for the more demanding work of Jacques Dupuis in Towards a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism (Orbis, 1997).

Lawrence S. Cunningham teaches theology at the University of Notre Dame.