1. Total Replacement Partial Replacement
“Replacement Model”
Total Replacement
Partial Replacement

2. C) Knitter: TYPOLOGY
Fulfillment Model:
Christianity is the “true” religion but it does not reject, but rather “confirms” good elements in others
Mutuality Model:
a “rough parity” between all religions; all ways lead to the same end goal
Three bridges:
1) PHILOSOPHICAL (Hick)
2) MYSTICAL (Panikkar)
3) ETHICAL (Knitter)
Acceptance Model:
there are real differences among religions and they are legitimate (different ends in different religions!)
Replacement Model:
Christianity, the “only way,” replaces other faiths (either totally or partially)

3. Overview
Knitter, p. 19 “In the final analysis, Christianity is meant to replace all other religions…It’s the dominant attitude, the one that generally has held sway throughout most of Christian history. Although views differed about the way this replacement was to be carried out and why it was necessary, Christian missionaries throughout the centuries have cast forth into the world with the conviction that it is God’s will to make all peoples Christians.”

4. Overview
Knitter’s typology: two forms of replacement model: total and partial replacement
a)  Total= older Protestantism with Barth as key figure and Evangelicalism/ Fundamentalism;
b) Partial: mainline Protestantism (Pannenberg, Tillich; WCC, etc.)

5. Main Features of Total Replacement (Knitter, ch.1)
Motto:
“Total Replacement: No Value in Other Religions”
Protestant ‘Only’s:
Grace alone
Faith alone
Christ alone
Scripture alone

6. Main Features of Total Replacement (Knitter, ch.1)
Christianity as the True Religion
Taking the New Testament and Jesus Seriously
Acts 4:12; 1 Cor 3:11; 1 Tim 2:5; John 14:6; 1 John 5:12 Jesus only Savior
Rom 1:21; 3:9 All are lost
John 3:36; Rom 10:14,17 Faith needed
“One Way” Makes Sense

7. Representatives of Total Replacement Model
Majority of Christians prior to the Enlightenment – and a large number even afterwards – has held this view in one way or another In contemporary scene, Fundamentalists and more conservative Christians subscribe to this view

8. Representatives of Total Replacement Model
Karl Barth represented many key convictions of this view
He did not call “revelation” any knowledge of God outside of self-revelation of God in Christ
He did not see any contact point between religions (religiosity) and faith in God
He didn’t see any connection between the God of the Bible and God of the Philosophers
Universalist?
Christ as Electing and the Elected

9. Reflections of Total Replacement Model
This model helps defend the uncompromising monotheism of the Bible and uniqueness of self-revelation of God
Its weaknesses include
A dismissal of general revelation and the innate (partial) knowledge of God – in a person having been created in the image of God
A radical discontinuity between nature and grace
Lack of emphasis on the saving Love of God with regard to all people(s)
The tendency to be pejorative of other religions and people in other faiths, even though they have been created in the image of God

10. Total and Partial: Same or different models?
A difference between total and partial models
Partial replacement closer to “Fulfillment” model
Most of the views in ch. 2 (WCC and theologians such as Pannenberg, Newbigin, Tillich, Samartha, etc.) are not supportive of replacement model but rather either inclusivist or Fulfillment model or “soft” pluralism (Samartha)

11. Evangelical theologies and Replacement Model?
It appears that it is only Fundamentalism and conservative Evangelicalism that fall neatly under Knitter’s Replacement Model (mostly total replacement)
Evangelical theologies of religions fall in to two camps
Evangelicals can be found both in (exclusivistic) total replacement and (inclusivistic) partial replacement

12. Main Features of Partial Replacement (KNITTER)
God Present in Other Religions?
Yes
And No!
Revelation: Yes!
Salvation: No!
Value of Dialogue
Limits of Dialogue!

13. Main Features of Partial Replacement (Knitter, ch.2)
While there are some revelatory elements in other religions, religions are not salvific There are some contact points between the God of the Bible and the deities of religions Some good features in other religions can be affirmed The value of interfaith dialogue is affirmed

14. Examples of Partial Replacement Model
World Council of Churches
“Religious plurality and Christian self-understanding”
(Inter-religious dialogue and cooperation)
Mainline Protestant Churches
Presbyterian Principles for Interfaith Dialogue (
Wolfhart Pannenberg
Lesslie Newbigin

15. Partial Replacement Model or Protestant Fulfillment Model
Wolfhart Pannenberg
Partial Replacement Model or
Protestant Fulfillment Model

16. Important Distinctives
Pursuit of Truth as the Main Goal of Doing Theology
Theology as Public Discipline
Rational Truth and Coherence with Universal Orientation
“For a ‘truth’ that would be simply my truth and would not at least claim to be universal and valid for every human being could not remain true even for me. This consideration explains why Christians cannot but try to defend the claim of their faith to be true.”

17. Important Distinctives
Quest for Universal Truth
Eschatology as the Final Verdict of Truth
Christ’s Resurrection as the “Prolepsis”
The Trinitarian God as the All-determining Reality
Trinitarian pneumatology
The History of Religions is the Arena for competition between gods
Only at eschaton the God of the Bible shows himself to the only True God

18. Important Distinctives
History as the Means and Arena of Revelation
Appeal to “universal” or “secular” history rather than Salvation History

19. Interfaith Dialogue Criticism of Pluralistic Approaches
Dismissal of history, pursuit of truth, centrality of Christ/Triune God, etc.
Dialogue entails honoring of convictions and differences
Participants come to the dialogue table to argue for the supremacy of their own view with an intention to convince the other party
Dialogue can become a “testing” place of various claims in the common search for the truth

20. Salvation
Similarly to Roman Catholic Fulfillment Model, strong Christocentrism and Trinitarian faith
Salvation to Christians is available only through faith in Christ
Those who have never heard of Christ will be judged according to their relation – orientation – to Christ and his teaching
Christ’s descent to hell

21. Contributions
Seeking to Claim Religious Truth as Rational and Public Truth
Value of Religions and History of Religions
Trying to Take the Claims of the Religions at Face Value
Openness to Mutual Modification and Enrichment in Dialogue:
Uniqueness of Christian Faith, yet openness to the value of religions and possibility of salvation
Ecumenism and theology of religions

22. Questions and Challenges
Biblical Considerations
Universalist Tendencies?
[Since] the Christian claim aims at the finality of revelation as well as of salvation, it also includes a tendency towards “universal salvation.”
Naïve about the nature of dialogue?
Excessive focus on quest for truth as the theme of interfaith dialogue could prove an obstacle
Faith not just about intellectual conviction
Overemphasis on rationality?
What about the mystical?
Are all religions committed to the same kind of concept of truth?
For example, not all religions value historicity as a criterion of truth
Quest for unified truth called into question by many today, including postmoderns

23. Missional Response to Religious Pluralism in the West and Beyond
Lesslie Newbigin
Missional Response to Religious Pluralism in the West and Beyond

24. Lesslie Newbigin: Introduction
years in India as Bishop of the Church of South India Secretary of International Missionary Council of WCC ( ) A Leading Critique of Modernity and theologian of missionary church

25. Lesslie Newbigin: Main Works
Gospel in a Pluralist Society (1989)
The Open Secret (1978; rev. ed.1995)
Foolishness to the Greeks (1986)
Proper Confidence (1995)
Truth to Tell (1996)

26. I Critique of the Culture of Modernity
Newbigin believes that the main problem of Christian Church and its lack of missional response is the overwhelming effects of the Enlightenment

27. Faith and Knowledge Relationship
St. Augustine’s Heritage: Faith and Knowledge were joined together
After Augustine: Faith and Knowledge got separated
At the Enlightenment: Faith and Knowledge became exclusive of each other
Knowledge became independent of faith

28. Enlightenment’s Skepticism
Enlightenment’s basic ideas, detrimental to theology are:
Doubt as the beginning of “knowledge” and certainty (Descartes)
The Idea of “neutral,” non-committed knowledge

29. “The Fatal Dualism of Enlightenment”
When Faith and Reason were Separated, human reason was made the foundation of sure knowledge
The ideal of an “objective” knowledge without any “subjective” element is the key feature of modernist epistemology
Separation between
public knowledge (science)
personal opinion (religion, ethics)

30. II The Failure of Christian Church and Theology to Encounter Modern Culture
Newbigin’s key criticism is that the Church has utterly failed in its relationship with Modernity’s Culture

31. Marginalization of Faith
Christian Church has retreated to a private sphere and left public sphere to secular science, politics, philosophy, etc.
Church tries to influence choices in private area
Gospel is not presented as a claim to public area
Values are private choices, not facts

32. Marginalization of Faith: PIETISM
Ironically, Pietism reflects the same kind of privatization of religion
The value of pietism as a call to personal commitment is affirmed by Newbigin
Yet, it reflects a “Hindu-type a-historicism”

33. III Newbigin’s Missional Theology
From Accomodation to a Genuinely Missionary Encounter

34. Missionary Encounter: Two Tasks
DE-CONSTRUCTIVE TASK
To question the beliefs of modern culture and call for the repentance of MIND
CONSTRUCTIVE TASK
To offer a new fiduciary framework, a new “Christian” worldview

35. A Missionary Encounter: DECONSTRUCTION
The Gospel is presented as a challenger not only to spiritual needs but to the worldview as a whole
The “conversion of the mind” relates to the Gospel as THE PUBLIC TRUTH

36. “Personal Knowledge” and “Universal Intention”
From philosopher-scientist: M. Polanyi
Knowing means COMMITMENT, “personal” involvement
There is no “neutral”, non-committed knowledge even in science

37. “Personal Knowledge” and “Universal Intention”
While personal, all true knowledge is to be published and thus subjected to dialogue and critique
It is not only my opinion but claims to point to the truth that is “universal”

38. The Importance of Community and Tradition
community passes on the tradition
cf. Islam and Asian religions: communal faiths whereas Western modernism is individualistic
Newbigin compares theology to scientific work: even science works within and from a tradition
“apprenticeship” into the tradition
Indwelling the tradition, in this case Christian biblical narrative and worldview
cf. Islam and Asian religions

39. Importance of Tradition cont.
Acknowledging the authority appropriate to the tradition
yet in a critical way
cf. Islam and Asian religions: uncritical way
What makes Christian tradition unique is the authority of Revelation
God’s self-revelation as the Gospel NARRATIVE
As received by the church/community who seeks to understand and interpret it r

40. “The Gospel as Public Truth” The Heart of Newbigin’s program
The Church is called to present the Gospel as Public Truth
In humble, yet confident spirit
Church is not the “possessor” but rather carrier of the Truth of the Gospel
constantly testifying to and seeking for a fuller understanding of truth
in confidence and humility (Proper Confidence)
cf. Crusade-mentality (either Christian or Muslim)

41. This makes the church missionary church
The Church expresses the universal intention of the Gospel by proclaiming the Gospel with claim to all people and all reality
By doing so, the Church publishes its “personal knowledge” and commitment to the truth in Christ

42. “Logic of Mission”
An implication from the idea of the Gospel as Public Truth
The universal intention of the truth claim in Jesus by its own power makes Christian faith a missionary faith
Commitment to mission is the test of the commitment of Christian Church to its own truth claims

43. Church and Mission Belong Together: The Church as Mission
The Church that does not engage in mission – publishing the truth claims of the Gospel – does not indeed believe in the Gospel
And this is, of course, the basic dilemma of so much of Western Christianity, as well as theology in general and ecclesiology in particular
Church and mission have been divorced from each other

44. Reflections on the Partial Replacement Model
In my understanding, this model may come closest to negotiating the most foundational biblical dynamic between, on the one hand, the uniqueness of Christ (Acts 4:12) and the universal saving love of God (1 Tim 4:2) It helps preserve the uniqueness of Christian faith while trying to find ways of appreciating other religions and their search for the truth