ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects Christian responses to religious pluralism based on three primary assertions. It explains the grouping of individual theologians into one of the three broad categories, exclusivist, inclusivist or pluralist. While the retention of the three broad divisions is necessary, a much more sophisticated spectrum of responses within each is essential. It describes the classical pluralist response, from amongst all those dealt with, as the one which offers the most creative and positive future in the relationships between world religions. The chapter argues that the exclusivist response, in all its forms, is divisive and destructive in regard to relationships between Christianity and other religious traditions. In their attempt to gather up the religions into the salvation won by Christ and their assertion that the religions find their fulfilment in Christianity, the inclusivists are also dismissive of the independent identity and significance of other religions in their own right.
