Dominus Iesus Research Articles

Christianity and the Religions: From Confrontation to Dialogue (review)

Reviewed by: Christianity and the Religions: From Confrontation to Dialogue John Borelli Christianity and the Religions: From Confrontation to Dialogue. By Jacques Dupuis, SJ. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001. 276 pp. Why read Jacques Dupuis's Christianity and the Religions (2001) when his more comprehensive, ground-breaking Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism (Orbis, 1997) is still available? Father Dupuis reminds us in the introduction to Christianity that he has actually written three books on the same subject—Jesus Christ at the Encounter of World Religions (Orbis, 1991) being the first—but he reaffirms the central importance of Religious Pluralism. After publication of this second work, his editors wanted another volume on the same topic, "less ponderous, more accessible, and aimed at an audience broader than the circle of specialists and the academy." That was the origin of Christianity and the Religions, a story Fr. Dupuis related to me when I visited him at Gregorian University in early February 2001. It was meant to be an easier-to-read version of Religious Pluralism, something for students who do not need abundant references to authors and historical developments. Circumstances, however, added another dimension to the need for yet another volume. [End Page 182] Christianity and the Religions was ready for publication in early 2001, but Fr. Dupuis was waiting for "official notification" from the Holy See's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding its charges that Religious Pluralism contained "serious doctrinal error." By then, the case was in its thirty-second and final month, for later in February 2001 he received word from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation, that the charge had been reduced to "ambiguities and difficulties on important points which could lead a reader to erroneous or harmful opinions." Dupuis last appeared before Cardinal Ratzinger and the Congregation's advisers on the day before Dominus Iesus was released in September 2000, accompanied by Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, superior general of the Jesuits, and Dupuis's advocate and colleague at the Gregorian University, Fr. Gerald O'Collins. Dupuis used the opportunity of a more accessible version of the book in question to address squarely the charges raised against him. He writes in the introduction to Christianity and the Religions: "Suffice it to say that in this new book I have scrupulously avoided all expressions that could raise any misunderstanding or create ambiguity over either the content of the faith or my thought." Dupuis dedicated the book to retired Cardinal Franz Kōnig. He chose to quote an earlier (1963) text by Cardinal Ratzinger on the page following the dedication: "What the Church needs today, as always, are not adulators to extol the status quo, but men whose humility and obedience are no less than their passion for truth: men who brave every misunderstanding and attack as they bear witness; men who in a word, love the Church more than ease and the unruffled course of their personal destiny." In 1999, Ratzinger and Kōnig had exchanged views, point and counterpoint, in the British Catholic weekly, The Tablet, over Dupuis's earlier Religious Pluralism. Fr. Jacques Dupuis died of an apparent stroke on 28 December 2004 at age 81. Although the investigation had brought him increased attention and invitations to speak, he was in Rome, his home since 1984, at the time of his death. When I visited him in 2001 and again heard him speak at the Catholic University of America just twenty-four days before his death, it was clear how much the case and accompanying suspicion had hurt him. Dupuis was principally a theologian who had considered it his good fortune to have lived and taught in India for thirty-six years. He also had taught theology for nearly fifteen years at Gregorian University, the premier university of his religious order. Many viewed the outcome of the investigation as a vindication of his work because he did not have to change a single sentence in Religious Pluralism for it to remain in publication, but the success of his defense came at a great price. The shadow of suspicion never left him. He had adopted a style of stopping, often amidst reflections on religious...

The Catholic Church and the Jews: Introduction To This Special Section of Shofar

At a Western States Jewish Studies Association Conference in Tempe, Arizona a small group of Jewish and Christian scholars came together to discuss the implications of the release of the Vatican's Statement, Iesus (DI), in the year 2000. These papers continue to have significance even a few years after the original discussion. To these original papers we have added the response of the distinguished Catholic scholar, Dr. Eugene J. Fisher, Associate Director, Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, U.S. Conference of Bishops. The first paper, written by Samuel Edelman, Director of Modern Jewish and Israel Studies at the California State University, Chico, was meant to offer the context of Christian/Catholic discussion over the last 60 plus years. This paper, Supersessionism Rears Its Ugly Head, categorizes the Jewish-Catholic dialogue as centered around ambiguity and ambivalence, pitting right-wing Catholic against left-wing Catholic in a behind-the-scene conflict in spite of the current Pope's public and positive embrace of Jews and Judaism in ways few in the Catholic have done since Pope John XXIII. Steven L. Jacobs, Aaron Aronov Chair of Judaic Studies at the University of Alabama, wrote the second paper. Dominus Iesus: Why This? Why Now? lays out in a logical and precise way the ironic twists and turns of Iesus. Jacobs argues persuasively that, Given the advancing age and increasing physical infirmities of the incumbent Pope, John Paul II; the power of the conservative wing of the Roman Catholic in the person of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger...Dominus Iesus is an attempt by those in positions of power within the to reverse the seemingly more liberal progress made by the incumbent prior to the election of his successor, to undo, as it were, the perceived falsely relativistic position of the (i.e., one among many) and restore it to its pre-Vatican II/Nostre Aetate understanding of No salvation outside the Church. The third paper, Church Faith and Religious Belief: A Reading of by Peter Haas, Abba Hillel Silver Professor of Jewish Studies and Director of the Samuel Rosenthal Center for Judaic Studies at Case Western University, posits the argument that the authors of Iesus were using the cloak of the of pluralism to attack pluralism. The having set into place 40 years of dialogue now seems bent on using language that marks a clear retreat back to pre-Vatican II exclusivity. Using a close textual analysis of the text of Iesus, Haas concludes by saying: What is likely going on here is just the surface manifestation of a much deeper and profound struggle over the future of the in the twenty-first century. The fourth paper, Impressions of Catholic Statements, by the distinguished Protestant scholar, James F. Moore of Valparaiso University, provides us with a Derrida-like post-modern analysis of not only the Catholic text but also of the avid interest of Jewish Studies scholars in this Catholic text. His claim is that the document is intended to restrict quite directly the scope of what these leading teachers can officially teach as Catholic theology. Yet, having said this, Moore begins to plumb the depths of both unintended and possibly intended consequences of Iesus. He concludes with singularly brilliant insight that If the aim of such a theology is both to eliminate certain views about Jews and others from Catholic teaching and thus to reinstate a particular memory about Christianity, then this would mean that the impact of Jewish studies, that is, the views of Jews about various topics, would be dramatically reduced in those places that do Christian studies, that is, among those who would teach about the themes that Jesus addresses. Above all, we lose the long-standing effort to reaffirm the Jewish roots of Christianity at least in part, and we lose sight of the important gains we have made in thinking about the Jewish Jesus, like the efforts I have made to re-think Christianity by seeing Jesus as preeminently a Jewish teacher teaching from within the Jewish tradition. …

Church Faith and Religious Belief: A Reading of Dominus Iesus

Dominus Iesus has sparked a wave of criticism for its exclusivistic message that salvation is available only through the Church. Although many Catholic theologians downplay the meaning or importance of the document and stress its inclusivistic language, a close reading shows that the text is in fact much less inclusivistic than it appears on the surface. Although there are various rhetorical nods toward inclusivism, the text not only undercuts inclusivism in its detail, but in substance reverts back to pre-Vatican II Catholic exclusivism. This dual nature of the text reflects the deep struggle within the Church as it tries to position itself in the twenty-first century.

Protestant Impressions of Catholic Statements

Some fascinating insights from Derrida I have been asked to join this group of scholars at this Jewish studies conference as the lone Christian theologian in order to give a Protestant's perspectives on the recent statements from the church, most particularly Dominus Iesus. Now this invitation is, itself, a wonder since my presence at this conference and on this panel raises basic questions about who it is that does Jewish studies and what it is that constitutes Jewish studies. That we are together responding to statements from the church enhances those questions even more, for what I do can be construed by many to be Christian studies, and surely the statements of the church are strictly within the realm of the circle of Christians, particularly teachers of theology. I will return to these questions at the end of my reflections, but the issues remain in my mind as I shape my contribution to this discussion. I begin my comments on the theological statement Dominus Iesus with an assertion. I believe it is quite clear that the intended audience of this document is the teaching leadership of the church. The intended audience may be especially the leadership of the church in America, including a number of people that we all have come to know. Thus, the statement does have a direct personal impact on many of us just in that fact. My claim is that the document is intended to restrict quite directly the scope of what these leading teachers can officially teach as theology. Of course, such efforts are not new, particularly coming from the particular Vatican congregation that issued this document over the signature of the Pope and mainly through the efforts of Cardinal Ratzinger. In fact, this document is quite dependent upon another fairly recent statement, Redemptoris Missio, and there are many references in this statement to the earlier document. It is also quite clear that this document is an attempt to clarify certain positions expressed in the critical conciliar document issued in the mid-sixties, Nostre Aetate. The point is that those in this Vatican congregation, especially Cardinal Ratzinger, view developments in teaching to be dangerous for the church, and they are hoping to create standards of judgment that can, in some cases, reverse the tide of development in the church. It is, in fact, an effort to control exactly what can be called Catholic religious memory. In that regard, we can suspect that this document is a companion piece to a number of other efforts to create an impression of the past. Why is it so important for the Vatican leadership to rush to beatify Pope Pius XII? There is a critical juncture in the development of memory which can shift the picture of the effectiveness of the church in the past century. Most especially, the church continues to bear the burden of a memory of failure, a failure that is represented to many by the figure Pius XII and the weakness of church leadership in providing the model for full and strong resistance to the Nazi onslaught.(1) That surely is the issue with the effort to paint a saintly picture of Pius XII, but it may also be a clue to the effort to shape the nature of teaching at the beginning of the twenty-first century. For this is a theology of the church, first and foremost, and the point is to set forth an image of the church that reinforces a theology that sees the church as the light of the world, the hope for all humanity. How is it possible for the church to do this if there is a lingering suspicion that the opposite is in fact true, the church is a model of the failure of humanity to respond to evil? Even more, we can understand that the leadership in Rome does not want dissidents in the teaching ranks who are prepared to challenge this image and open the door for seeing the church as one among many voices that humanity needs to listen to. It may be crass to say, but the document reads quite clearly as an effort to re-assert the oft-assumed principle that there is no salvation outside of the church, even as this must be set in post-Nostre Aetate terms. …

The 40th anniversary of Vatican II: examining Dominus Iesus, and contemporary issues for inter‐religious dialogue between Muslims and Catholics

Since the Second Vatican Council, Muslim–Catholic relations have taken monumental and historical steps in areas of inter‐religious dialogue, in social and religious cooperation, and in collaborating in protecting human freedom. The 40th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council celebrated last year highlighted this courageous move towards recognizing each other's unique religious traditions. This paper examines Muslim–Catholic relations in recent history under the leadership of John Paul II, and especially within the context of the controversial Vatican document Dominus Iesus issued in 2000. It explores critical areas of concern in Dominus Iesus for Muslim–Catholic relations, as well as analyzing its merits in terms of inter‐religious dialogue.

What Does Dominus Iesus Say about Judaism? Actually, Nothing

Many scholars commenting on Dominus Iesus have assumed that Judaism, from the perspective of the Catholic Church, is seen simply as one among the many "non-Christian religions," which Dominus Iesus deems to be "gravely deficient." But Judaism, as a response to divine revelation, is theologically for the Church in a category all of its own. For Judaism represents the faith of Abraham in the One God of Israel, and the Jewish People, no less than Christians, have been and are called by God to be the "People of God." This very serious, biblically based viewpoint has emerged since the Second Vatican Council in numerous documents of the magisterium, for example in the recent report of the Pontifical Biblical Commission (PBC), which appeared long after Dominus Iesus. The fact that Dominus Iesus does not comment on Judaism, one way or the other, cannot be taken to mean that its framers meant to slight it. The work on the development of a theology of Judaism is not affected one way or the other by Dominus Iesus.

Supersessionism Rears Its Ugly Head in the Church's Dominus Iesus : A Contextual Analysis

Ambiguity and ambivalence have marked the Catholic Churches' relationship with the Jewish people and Judaism since Saul of Tarsus converted and became Paul. Condemnation and protection have been the twin pillars of Vatican policy towards the Jews since the Church became Rome's Church under Constantine.(1) Degradation and a good interest rate were the watchwords of the medieval Church. The Jews may have been a royal pain, but they were necessary. The Church needed its Jews. They needed them to show the vast unwashed how much better they all were than the Jews; the Church took over all that was good in Judaism while at the same time throwing out the bad. The Church was the new Israel, the new chosen, and the Gospels and the other early Church writings that made up the New Testament were to supersede Judaism and the Jews. Unfortunately for both the Church and the Jews those vast unwashed sometimes did not understand the subtlety of Church ambivalence and ambiguity. Those who could not see the difference between the Church's need to vilify and demonize the Jews and their need to keep the Jews around from a theological perspective, murdered millions of Jews over the 2000 years of Church history. The logical conclusion drawn by the populace was that they now had carte blanche to destroy those evil Jews. During the last 60 years the Catholic Church has found itself in a position of great controversy. Once again ambiguity and ambivalence has marked the relationship between the Church and the Jewish community. In light of Auschwitz, the Catholic Church has had to confront the question of doctrines that had been central to Church that may have had an impact in setting the groundwork for future atrocities against the Jews. In the post-Shoah world what will be the Church's relationship with the Jewish people? It has been only in the last 50-plus years that some in the Catholic Church have begun to understand that Jesus himself would have been one of the six million murdered by the Nazis. This understanding places in question some of the most critical and crucial dogmas of the Church of last two thousand years. It places into question the Church's teaching of contempt of the Jews for not accepting the divinity of Jesus. It places into question the Church's false accusation of Jewish deicide. It places into question the supersessionist doctrine of the Church. It also questions the Church's role in 2000 years of antisemitism. Finally, it places into question the Church's institutional silence in light of the deaths of 6,000,000 Jews. Yet, most of all it places into question the Church's own relationship to itself and to its Jewish roots. On one hand Pope John Paul II has moved mountains to bring about reconciliation between Jews and Catholics. On the other hand the church moves with speed to beatify Edith Stein and Pope Pins XII, while closing down the Vatican archives to a joint Jewish-Catholic commission. It moves to convert Auschwitz into a Catholic shrine while remaining silent on the words of Catholic anti-Jewish proponents such as Pat Buchanan and Joseph Sobran. It remains silent in the face of outrageous anti-Jewish statements by Bashir Assad, president of Syria, made while the Pope stood next to him. The activities of the excommunicated anti-Jewish prelate Levevre still resonate among some from the right of the Catholic Church. In spite of the good faith effort of many in the Church from Pope John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council's Declaration Nostra Aetate to the German and French Church hierarchies and the efforts of Cardinal O'Connor, until recently there has been very little movement to translate these exciting and important events down to the parish level. I say recently because it has not been long since the beginning of what seems to be a growing movement to confront the issues of the church's long history of anti-Judaism and its role in the Holocaust. Cardinal O'Connor's letter to the Jewish community prior to Yore Kippur and before his death, in the form of a traditional Jewish Yom Kippur confessional, was a dramatic statement. …

Dominus Iesus : Why This? Why Now?

Even for one not trained in the academic discipline of political science, it is impossible to escape the conclusion that Dominus Iesus is a political document by those within the Roman Catholic Church, specifically its conservatizing element the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, under Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. Quotations from those both within and outside the Church support this conclusion. Therefore, this significant text must be understood as laying the groundwork for the incumbent pope's successor as evidence of political jockeying already hard at work.

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this article:John Barton (ed.), The Biblical WorldWalter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, AdvocacyBernhard W. Anderson, Contours of Old Testament TheologyJames Barr, The Concept of Biblical Theology: An Old Testament PerspectiveCarl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson (eds.), Reclaiming the Bible for the ChurchNancy L. deClaissè‐Walford, Reading from th eBeginning: The Shaping of the Hebrew PsalterBirger Gerhardsson, The Reliability of the Gospel TraditionBen Witherington III, New Testament History: A Narrative AccountNeil Richardson, God in the New TestamentJohn S. Kloppenborg Verbin, Excavating Q: The History and Setting of the Sayings GospelFrancis J. Moloney, The Gospel of JohnMartin Hengel and Anna Maria Schwemer, Paul Between Damascus and Antioch. The Unknown YearsF. Gerald Downing, Cynics, Paul and the Pauline Churches: Cynics and Christian Origins IIAnthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the CorinthiansKieran J. O'Mahony, Pauline Persuasion: A Sounding in 2 Corinthians 8‐9C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, Volume I: Acts XV–XXVIIApril D. DeConick, Voices of the Mystics: Early Christian Discourse in the Gospels of John and Thomas and Other Ancient Christian LiteratureManlio Simonetti (ed.), Ippolito. Contro NoetoCatherine Brown Tkacz, The Key to the Brescia Casket: Typology and the Early Christian ImaginationSerge Lancel, St AugustinePatricia Cox Miller, The Poetry of Thought in Late Antiquity: Essays in Imagination and ReligionThomas Head (ed.), Medieval Hagiography: An AnthologyAllan Greer (ed.), The Jesuit Relations: Natives and Missionaries in Seventeenth‐Century North AmericaStephen R. Holmes, God of Glory and God of Grace: An Account of the Theology of Jonathan EdwardsStephen Prickett, Narrative, Religion and Science. Fundamentalism versus Irony, 1700–1999Linda Woodhead (ed.), Reinventing Christianity: Nineteenth‐Century ContextsFlorent Gaboriau, The Conversion of Edith SteinJeffrey S. Siker, Scripture and Ethics. Twentieth‐Century PortraitsRicherd B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament. Community, Cross, New CreationJohn Kavanaugh, Who Counts as Persons: Human Identity and the Ethics of KillingJohn Keown, Euthanasia, Ethics and Public Policy: An Argument against LegalisationStephen J. Pope and Charles Hefling (eds.), Sic et Non: Encountering ‘Dominus Iesus’J'annine Jobling and Ian Markham (eds.), Theological Liberalism, Creative and CriticalHans Küng, Women in ChristianityLynne Broadbent and Alan Brown (eds.), Issues in Religious EducationJeremy Waldron, God, Locke, and Equality: Christian Foundations in Locke's Political ThoughtGiles Fraser, Redeeming NietzscheAlexander Garcia Düttman, The Memory of Thought: An Essay on Heidegger and AdornoRobert J. Dostal (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to GadamerMichael Fuller, Making Sense of MacIntyre

The Catholic Church and the Other Religious Paths: Rejecting Nothing that is True and Holy

[Catholic thinking about other religious traditions has continued to develop rapidly since the Second Vatican Council. The author discusses the impact of conciliar texts, the thought of John Paul II, the “pluralist” and “regnocentric” theologies of religion, and the practice of interreligious dialogue on Catholic views of other religious paths. The multiple issues selected for discussion reflect the controversy surrounding the declaration Dominus Iesus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.]

Sic et Non: Encountering Dominus Iesus. Edited by Stephen J. Pope and Charles Hefling. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002. xi + 204 pages. $25.00 (paper).

Sic et Non: Encountering Dominus Iesus. Edited by Stephen J. Pope and Charles Hefling. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002. xi + 204 pages. $25.00 (paper).

Christianity in the Crucible of East-West Dialogue: A Critical Look at Catholic Participation; and, God, Zen, and the Intuition of Being (review)

This book combines an original book-length essay, Critical Look at the Catholic Participation in the East-West Dialogue, and a new edition of the 1988 work God, Zen, and the Intuition of Being. In the first part of the volume, Arraj discusses the approaches of a large variety of individuals and institutions who have been involved in the Christian dialogue with Buddhism (Habito, Enomiya-Lasalle, Jaeger, MacInnes, Hawk, Kennedy, Corless, etc.) and in the dialogue with Hinduism (Abhishiktananda, Grant, de Mello, Griffiths, Teasdale, etc.). The main perspective from which he discusses each of these authors is that of their conception of the relationship between Christian contemplation and enlightenment or realization. Arraj finds most of the existing approaches to the East-West dialogue wanting insofar as they all consider the Christian experience of contemplation from the perspective of the Hindu or Buddhist view of nonduality. As he puts it: "But what does this kind of nondualist imperialism do to Christianity? It eliminates its distinctive nature. Let me be clear about this. Used in this way, Zen awakening, which could be a wonderful gift for Christians, becomes destructive of Christianity" (31). Arraj sees this as but one expression of what he calls reactionary theology or "theology without a net," which has been developing since the Second Vatican Council. As opposed to this form of dialogue, which compromises the essence of Christian faith, Arraj discusses the approaches of Jacques Dupuis and the document Dominus Iesus, which he understands as two different versions of a proper Catholic position. After discussing a number of unsatisfactory approaches to the question of religious pluralism, he introduces the distinction between an existentialist approach, which focuses on the universality of the salvific will of God, and an essentialist approach, which emphasizes the uniqueness of Jesus as the mediator of salvation. This distinction between existence and essence forms one of the dominant themes of the book.

Views and Counterviews

Kenan B. Osborne A Response to “Dominus Iesus as Ecumenical Shock” p.169

Dominus Iesus and Asian Theologies

ABSTRACTThe document Dominus Iesus, issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on September 5, 2000, was perhaps the most talked-about document in recent church history, both within and without the Catholic Church. Some of the reactions to it, which came from all quarters, were profound, and provided both a field day for the mass media and much data for theological reflections. Significantly missing from theological journals in the West, however, is the response of the Asian church and its implications for Asian theologies. This is a serious omission since Dominus Iesus, seems to have been written because of and for the Asian church in general and its theologians in particular. The present essay, therefore, looks at this Asian factor, especially in the context of the renewal inaugurated by the Second Vatican Council.

Dominus Iesus as Ecumenical Shock

The Roman Catholic declaration of 2000, Dominus Iesus, shocked the ecumenical world by declaring that Protestant churches are not “churches in the proper sense.” The two reasons given are that Protestants fail to maintain a valid episcopate and the fail to celebrate genuinely the Eucharistic mystery. This article takes up the latter claim by defending Protestantism and pleading for Roman Catholic self–correction, specifically opposing private masses and requiring the gathered community to celebrate the Eucharist.

Emptiness and Dogma

The controversial Vatican document Dominus Iesus reasserts that non-Christian religions are objectively in a defective situation as regards salvation.Etymologically, salvation (soteria salus) means health. Here I should like to reflect on apparent symptoms of ill health in Christian theology and ask if Buddhist wisdom can help us formulate a diagnosis and bring the issues into perspective in a healing way. I shall take as my guiding thread an idea familiar to readers of this journal, namely, that Christian theology has suffered from a delusive clinging to substance and identity, and that the Buddhist teachings of dependent co-arising, emptiness, and non-self may provide an antidote.

Has the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Exceeded its Authority?

The declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dominus Iesus, has frequently been misunderstood. It does not assert that Catholicism is the sole path to salvation and it has a number of important points to affirm. Yet some of its judgments in regard to other churches may go beyond what was actually taught by Vatican II. If this is so, the congregation has exceeded its authority and runs the risk of closing off theological dialogue.

Toward the Fullness of Christ: A Catholic Vision of Ecumenism

This article locates the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s recent document Dominus Iesus against the background of great ecumenical advance in North America and elsewhere and a series of highly encouraging ecumenical statements published by John Paul II. Its most contentious statement is a reiteration and clarification of the Vatican II teaching in Lumen Gentium that the church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church. It distinguishes among churches in the proper sense, with valid episcopate and eucharist, and defective ecclesial communities. The church of Christ cannot subsist in them but only in the Catholic Church. The article points out, nevertheless, that since all these bodies are recognized as having elements of the church, the operation of grace is still ecclesial and not individual and secondly that a pneumatologically orientated Christology sees ecumenism as a response in grace to the divine economy.

How Would Karl Rahner Respond to “Dominus Iesus”?

How Would Karl Rahner Respond to “Dominus Iesus”?

El contexto filosófico y cultural de la declaración "Dominus Iesus"

This paper tries to shed light on the view of contemporary culture that underlies Dominus Iesus. According to that view relativism has become one the distinctive features of our time as well as the main challenge to the Christian truth-claim. The analysis focuses first on its philosophical and theological background, showing that today's pluralistic theology is an outcome of Kant's rationalistic criticism of religion. The analysis moves then to the political level, holding that some widespread misunderstandings of liberal democracy are responsible for the rise of relativism in our time.