I remain unconvinced that tolerance is necessarily derived from Christianity.
Your point about the teachings on the treatment of strangers is strong. But you also made the obvious counter-argument, that all the words about tolerance in the world can still be ignored when another central message is that non-believers are doomed to, and deserve, eternal damnation.
I wonder about the cause and effect angle here. You proposed that as Christianity swept into cultures, it became a reflection of those cultures, but ultimately subsumed those cultural values into a "truer" Christian ethos.
We have seen the West moderate over the last couple of hundred years, but I don't know that it is coincident with Christianity's spread. The Inquisition, mass killings of Jews, the burning of witches, and other cultural movements I believe would indicate that cultural mores stand independent of the current religious underpinnings of a culture. If a culture is currently burning heretics, they'll do it in the name of Christianity, in the name of mono-culturalism, or in the name of whatever the dominant national identity of the time is.
You mentioned that you had migrated to a kind of pluralistic view of Christianity and faith. Is it possible that this kind of view, along with other liberal (religiously liberal) interpretations of Christianity represent not the attainment of the true message of Christianity, but actually a secularized form of Christianity? A humanistic distortion, perhaps? In support of that question I submit that the most secular nations on Earth right now are Japan, Sweden, Norway, and France, and in recent studies, the United States is largely alone as a prosperous nation with belief levels approaching third-world levels. We share more in common, ethically, with Japan, Scandinavia and France, than we do with Nigeria and Indonesia which are closer to the US in levels of religiosity.
There is a correlation between secularization and what you and I would argue is ethical behavior.
To go back to your definition of Christianity for a minute, I would think that in the two-dimensional view of Christianity (the breadth of it today as well as the depth of Christians historically), you share very little in common in terms of your basic beliefs -- the Aquinas quote shows that. I think most of those Christians in both directions would agree with you that Jesus is the foundational teacher, but would vehemently disagree that your views of God, deity, afterlife and ethics are Christian at all. Your theology is sound, but Christianity is not, after all, the teachings of Jesus, it is the dominant ethical beliefs of the overwhelming majority of self-professed Christians at the time in question.
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Matt: I think most of those Christians in both directions would agree with you that Jesus is the foundational teacher, but would vehemently disagree that your views of God, deity, afterlife and ethics are Christian at all. Your theology is sound, but Christianity is not, after all, the teachings of Jesus, it is the dominant ethical beliefs of the overwhelming majority of self-professed Christians at the time in question.
Jim: This is interesting because I've been in the Church for my entire life. I've encounted many people who share my views of tolerance. Almost everyone understands the idea of God as Zeus is not only wrong, but probably a heresy. I was never in a church that focussed on the afterlife. And a solid majority of people I went to Sunday school with believed that non-Christians were not damned.
Furthermore, I suggest that many, if not most, seminaries teach similar things.
There are a lot of fundamentalist Christians who would strongly disagree with me. Probably more than I know. But I would suggest there are more thinking Christians that you know.
I think I'm less radical than you think, particularly among church leaders.
You are probably correct.
I have been spending a lot of time over the last two years familiarizing myself with evangelical fundamentalists (think "Way of the Master" radio), and I spent my high school years in a Southern Baptist school (Chapel every day and twice on Sundays), and Baptists are pretty afterlife-focused, as are evangelicals of course. In fact evangelicals are all about who is going to Hell and who isn't.
Given my attention to this theology, it is indeed probable that I have an eschatological mindset.
We could go on and on about who are Christians, who aren't, who thinks who is a Christian and who thinks who is not. I actually find it an interesting topic.
So let's put it aside and say that there are as many liberal Christians as there are fundamentalists for the purposes of the conversation. Perhaps we need to agree that a fundamentalist view is of equal, but no greater influence to cultural mores than is a liberal view.
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