It’s election season in America, and that brings a lot of questions about how we interact in the public square. How do we disagree respectfully across our differences? What do we do with competing truth claims in a pluralistic society?
In today’s episode, you’ll hear pastor and author Tim Keller (1950 — 2023) discuss these questions. Tim lays out a brief history of pluralism in America, four perspectives on building a pluralistic society, and what his Christian faith can offer to the conversation.
This forum was held at New York University in 2017 and originally titled “The Closing of the Modern Mind.” It’s one of our most popular forums, with over 300,000 views on YouTube. Thank you to the forums team for making this event possible.
You've got something in the very middle of your Christian faith that ought to destroy self-righteousness and make you — at the very least — agents of pluralism and civility. It's the idea that you are saved by grace alone, not by your good works.
Jon Haidt, in his book The Righteous Mind, says that human beings are programmed — not just to be righteous but to be self-righteous. There is no doubt in my mind that is the main problem.
I don't have a relationship with God because I'm better but because of God's grace — Jesus Christ died for me, and I believe in him. It's not because I'm a better, smarter, or more moral person. So, when I talk to my Hindu, Muslim, or atheist neighbors, I have every reason to expect they could be better people than me. Why? Because my understanding of how Christianity works is that I have no basis for that kind of superiority.
