John Charles

The Christian Pluralist: an Invitation from the Pew John Charles

That The Christian Pluralist had to be written is a testimony to the power which fear plays in the lives of so many. We fragile humans ill tolerate ambiguity and ambivalance, so we are too often driven to black and white thinking, polarizing behaviors, scapegoating, and the projection of our own unacknowledged shadow onto others. Working within the Christian tradition, laymen Buffie and Charles summon believers to recover the compassion of their tradition, to use the minds they were given to consider the range of beliefs which the experience of divinity generates, and to respect the many images which arise from sincere experience. Why humility before the magnitude of divinity should be necessary to defend is, again, a measure of our fears, and the compensatory arrogance such fears beget. Their work will not be welcomed by some, but it is needed by all, if Christians wish to be faithful to the openness their Savior so obviously practiced. Dr. James HollisJungian AnalystAuthorThe Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Midlife