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Quotes by Robert Rothwell

1

Try as I might, I cannot find one verse that clearly teaches the rapture as it is understood by many American evangelicals. The radical separation between the people of God in the old covenant and the people of God in the new covenant is encouraged by this system of eschatology. And such teaching is foreign to the New Testament, which teaches that the Old Testament is really for new covenant believers.

2

Given that [the] major religions hold vastly different ideas of God, the human predicament, and the deity of Jesus Christ, a committed believer in any of these creeds could never find it acceptable even to imply that Jews, Muslims, and Christians all serve the same God.

3

Help the religious pluralist see that he does not really believe that all roads lead to heaven. If he did, then he would not express outrage at suicide bombings, human sacrifice, and other such practices that even staunch religious pluralists find abhorrent. One cannot consistently embrace religious pluralism and relativism and at the same time object to any religious belief or practice. If sincerity is all that matters for salvation, religious terrorists who sincerely believe their god calls them to kill others do nothing wrong when they obey him. To condemn even one religious belief is to appeal to some ultimate, normative standard by which we may evaluate religion, establishing that standard as the one, true religion – and there can be no one, true religion for the honest religious pluralist.

4

I can tolerate my atheist neighbor by being charitable and friendly toward him, respecting him as a person, and seeking to understand his views honestly rather than some caricature of his ideas. But there is a distinct difference between toleration and affirmation. We have embraced affirmation and not toleration if toleration means that I cannot tell my atheist friend that he is mistaken regarding God’s existence.

5

Were our culture to practice toleration authentically, they would not attempt to silence [Christians] even if they could not embrace our position. It is clear therefore that the so-called “tolerance” our society embraces is actually the most insidious form of intolerance.

6

Western culture at large freely “tolerates” any worldview as long as that worldview does not claim that other views are false. The only exclusive claim one can make is that no one can make an exclusive claim.