A Concentration on God but Not on Jesus the Christ
What this approach does is make use of the fact that God (or a concept of deity) is common to all religions. This is to be maximized. Anglican Bishop John A. T. Robinson, author of Honest to God, took this view in the early 1960s, picking up Paul Tillich’s expression of God as the ground of all being. Robinson bracketed with it the omnipotence of his love. John Hick of the Claremont Graduate School of Theology crusaded for this approach, calling for a revolution in the church’s thinking about Christianity and world religions that he likened to Copernicus’ view of the universe. In adopting this perspective, the person and work of Jesus the Christ are necessarily marginalized, even dispensed with. Hick rejected the deity of Jesus and focused instead on the “God [who] has many names” which is the title of one of his books, whether that be Adonai or Allah, Rama or Krishna. Another of his books is entitled Whatever Path Men Choose is Mine. Hick co-operated with the Roman Catholic Paul Knitter in the Claremont Colloquy.

A Concentration on Christ but Not on Jesus
In this approach to other religions, use is made of the statement at the beginning of the Gospel of John that the Logos is the light of men. This is taken to mean that the Word that is Christ informs and is present in non-Christian religions. As a result people have written about the Unknown Christ (e.g. in Hinduism and by extension the devotees of such religions as “anonymous Christians”). An alternative phrasing, favored by non-Roman Catholics (e.g. Melchizedek and Cornelius) is “pagan saints.” Karl Rahner and Hans Kung have adopted this approach. Rahner used the BC-AD divide in two ways, chronologically and culturally, and along with Hans Kung was an influential figure behind the aggiornamento of Pope John Paul and the Second Vatican Council. Rahner claimed that religions in the BC era were salvific and ceased to be in the AD era, but then added that in the Christian era a culture could still be BC. That means that BC = Before Church! So devout adherents of other faiths are recognized as “anonymous Christians” because an implicit faith is present in their hearts.

A Concentration on the Spirit and Not on Jesus Christ
This is part and parcel of the position which has just been referred to, but as the Spirit is separately mentioned we should isolate this view. Archbishop Runcie has made several statements about God being “the irreducible mystery” present in all forms of worship, “a higher and stronger power than that of human beings.” In his Younghusband lecture on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the World Congress of Faiths, he referred to his own belief that “other faiths than our own are genuine mansions of the Spirit.” (Capital ‘S’ original)
 
The WCC Inter-Faith Dialogue speaks of the Spirit uncovering to Christians “in other faiths and cultures the deepest truths of their own Christian and human being.” There is no difference seen between the Spirit’s presence in the world and in the church—or in Christ for that matter. The adjective “holy” hardly ever figures. The Spirit is a numinous dimension in all life and a vocal energy in all movements for social justice. Salvation is by the Spirit at work in the world apart from Jesus Christ. But will not the Spirit of Truth always lead to Jesus, the Christ of God?

The Challenge of Religious Pluralism
The challenge of religious pluralism registers itself on three levels: the incarnation of the Son of God, the nature of truth, and the perspicuity of Scripture.

The Incarnation of the Son of God
This point has seen a three-pronged attack on Jesus as the God-Man, the revealer of the one true and living God, and the only mediator between God and men.

Anglican leader David Edwards commented on John 14:6 in a discussion with John Stott, saying that while it is only Christians who know God as Father, others know the same God by other names. But is this the same God? Can God be known personally if he is not known as Father?

The Nature of Truth
During the summer of 1989, the UK newspaper INDEPENDENT carried comments from a number of invited contributors on the subject of how the major world religions related to each other. Paul Helm was among those invited to comment and he pointed out that in all the pieces which had been published there was a “notable absentee,” namely “any concern for truth.” He wrote:

Pilate’s question, “What is truth?” when it was originally asked, was no doubt the question of a cynic who would not wait for an answer. But modern enquiries into the relations between the faiths are in a different case in that they do not even ask the question.

He then went on to point out that while an obsessive pursuit of truth marked the natural sciences and the humanities, that was not the case among theologians because current theological method was linked with an unbiblical theology of revelation. John Hick declared, “Truth is two-eyed,” meaning that truth is a statement and its logical opposite. Archbishop Runcie said in the fiftieth anniversary Younghusband Memorial Lecture that truth has a thousand eyes. This means that somehow everything is part of the Truth.

Theology is now governed by existentialist philosophy, that is, truth is what has become true for each individual—for you, for me, for the liberal, the radical; the ecumenical as well as the evangelical; the Roman Catholic as well as the Protestant; the Muslim, the Jew, the Hindu, as well as the Christian. Revelation, its interpretation and expression, is all personal but not propositional. Historic confessions are all outdated and not just time-related.