As we wheeled John back to his room, he uttered those familiar words, "You know, I don't see how you can say my Jewish friends or anyone else who doesn't believe in Jesus won't go to heaven. Who are we to be so presumptuous?" Kind words from a gentle, soft-spoken 95-year-old man. Before I could challenge his thinking, we were at his room and he was ready to end a long day.

It was one isolated conversation, but it represents a thought pattern that permeates our society and our churches. Beneath the question is a system of belief called pluralism. It is counter to Christianity and, therefore, vital to understand. As Christians we are called to contend for the faith (Jude 3), to defend the hope we have in Christ (1 Peter 3:15).

To better understand religious pluralism, several terms need to be distinguished.

• Religious pluralism is the belief that every religion is true. One may be better than the others, but all are adequate.

• Relativism claims that there are no criteria by which one can tell which religion is true or best. There is no objective truth in religion, and each religion is true to the one holding it.

• Inclusivism claims that one religion is explicitly true, while all others are implicitly true. In other words, everyone will be saved.

• Exclusivism is the belief that only one religion is true, and the others opposed to it are false.

At the heart of the pluralist belief, however, is a self-defeating claim. For in claiming that pluralism is true, it thereby affirms that all forms of non-pluralism (including exclusivism) are false. In short, pluralism is making an exclusive claim.