[2] While Race’s three categories have been criticized, amended and refuted, most religious studies and interfaith scholars and students find the typologies useful as a starting point for conversations about the diversity of religions.
Paul Hedges suggests that each religion knows "transcendent reality ("God") yet in partial perspective", much like the oft-quoted parable of the seven blind men and the elephant.
'"[6]Along with Smith, another major proponent of pluralism is John Hick, who writes: [Exclusivism], with its baleful historical influence, in validating centuries of anti-semitism, the colonial exploitation by Christian Europe of what today we call the third world, and the subordination of women within a strongly patriarchal religious system, not only causes misgivings among many Christians but also alarms many of our non-Christian neighbors, creating invisible but powerful barriers within the human community.
[7]D’Costa has argued persuasively that logically, pluralism can no longer be considered a category, because when it makes the declarative truth claim that no single faith has a monopoly on revelation or salvation, it becomes another form of exclusivism.
After Jesus' death, his disciple Peter said publicly, "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).
While the Bible speaks about many topics of inclusion, diversity and tolerance in both the Old and New Testament – attitudes toward the alien and stranger; the hope of Christians being drawn from all nations and languages; God's universal care and sustaining of creation; the universal scope of the gospel and the universal mandate to take the gospel to the nations[15] the overwhelming feeling in the Church throughout most of its history mimics that of the Council of Florence in 1422: "The Council firmly believes, professes and proclaims that those not living within the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but Jews, heretics and schismatics, cannot participate in eternal life, but will depart into everlasting fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.
[18] Highlighting a unique contemporary take on the salvation problem, Strange introduces George Lindbeck's contention that those who do not know the Bible cannot be condemned for their lack of knowledge.
She highlights the work of the ‘New Wave of exclusivism,’ led by Griffiths, D’costa and Netland, who employ a ‘bottom up’ approach to religious diversity.
Citing t’Hooft and Kraemer, Pratt says open exclusivism, while never ceding the superior position, ‘may at least be amenably disposed toward the other,’ if only in order to know Them well enough for possible conversion.
Moser further believes that a God who would exclude people from salvation for neither hearing nor understanding the concept of the Trinity does not have a moral character, and is therefore undeserving of worship.
According to Herodotus, the Caunians, a Greek people who claimed to have originated in Crete and settled in Asia Minor, worshiped the Olympian Gods exclusively.
Interpretatio graeca, the common tendency of ancient Greek writers to identify foreign divinities with members of their own pantheon, can be seen as a kind of exclusivism.
[32] However, respondents who identified in the exclusivist category or believed that the United States was a Christian nation displayed much more negative views and a decreased willingness to include other religious people in the lives of their community.
[37] In addition, Hick, Smith and other pluralists balk at the idea that an all-loving God would condemn some people to hell,[38] or that anyone actually deserves to be damned.