by Robert W. McDonald

Created on: December 23, 2009

Is Christianity intolerant?  Was the Protestant Reformation just a doctrinal dispute within the Roman Church? Of course Christianity is intolerant!  What else should we call a religion which smugly proclaims the “fact” that every adherent to any faith other than Christianity is going to “burn in Hell?”

 Why shouldn’t there be room in Christianity for other beliefs? We might think that a religion containing beliefs originally found in Judaism, Greek Stoicism, Zoroasterism, and the polytheisms of Babylonia, Assyria, and Egypt would be at least be tolerant of other faiths if not overtly synergistic. Then why isn’t this so?

 As I have argued in other essays published here, and elsewhere, there is very little in the foundational beliefs of other faiths that can be taken as inconsistent with the foundational teachings of Christianity. If you honor your father and mother, is there no benefit if you do so because of your devotion to the teachings of Confucius rather than to the Laws of Moses? Do you love your neighbor less if you read the Quran rather than the Bible? Are your actions toward others wrong if you preferentially accept Kant’s Categorical Imperative over the words of Jesus of Nazareth?

 Although there will undoubtedly be more than a few Christians that will denounce such practices as heresies, there is more than ample evidence that other beliefs have already found a home in Christianity and have done so seemingly without causing damage to the latter. After establishing doctrinal authority, two examples will illustrate this observation.

 Christians hold that the body is “the temple of God made flesh,” primarily as the basis for condemnation of smoking, drinking alcohol, and recreational drug use. It must therefore hold true that any practice which improves the body’s function and health cannot be arbitrarily rejected. And now, we may consider the two examples.

 Yoga is routinely practiced by thousands of otherwise “orthodox” Christians, with the vast majority of these testifying to its beneficial effects. Since yoga has its historic origins within the faith of Hinduism, and since Hinduism emphasizes the importance of both bodily health and spiritual growth, how can yoga be attacked as “unchristian?”

 Deliberate meditation has long been practiced by the members of religious orders and by individuals whose goal was to gain insight into

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