The challenges we face did not arrive suddenly—rather, they developed gradually over the long river of history. Today, when we discuss “pluralistic society,” we usually define it as an aggregate composed of different beliefs, worldviews, and values. In such a society, people are required to respect and tolerate the beliefs and lifestyles of others.
When we deeply explore the seemingly “value-neutral” appearance of contemporary pluralistic society, however, we are startled to discover that its underlying logic possesses a “strong exclusive narrative.” Lesslie Newbigin pointed out in Gospel in a Pluralistic Society that the society of today, dominated by secularism, claims that it does not commit to any specific tradition or worldview; yet, this in itself is a very specific tradition and worldview that rejects the worldviews of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.1 The contemporary pluralistic society dominated by secularism is not a value-neutral society; rather, it is a society that rejects the one true God. In this pluralistic society that seemingly embraces diversity but demonstrates hostility toward any belief system that claims to possess absolute truth, Christians must first understand the social and cultural developments of the past five hundred years if they are to live out the power of the gospel in this context. They must understand how the cultural narrative of contemporary society formed step by step.
The Formation of Contemporary Pluralistic Society: Five Hundred Years of Historical Development
The emergence of contemporary pluralistic society is not an accidental coincidence. Rather, it is the result of multiple historical narratives interweaving together. From the Scientific Revolution of the sixteenth century to the explosion of AI technology, human society experienced a thorough reconstruction of ontology and values.
The Subject-Centeredness of the Enlightenment: Establishing the Subject and Respecting Pluralism
The starting point of this transformation traces back to the Scientific Revolution of the sixteenth century and the Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It originated from the objectification of the material world during the sixteenth-century Scientific Revolution, and it evolved into a ruptured dichotomy between “fact” and “value” during the subsequent Enlightenment. When science took responsibility for explaining the operational mechanisms of the material world, the objective foundation of traditional ethics was hollowed out, and value judgments shifted toward the subjective preferences of the individual.2 The subsequent Enlightenment further established “human subjectivity,” and it liberated the individual from the divine right and royal power of the past. Philosophically, this provided a foundation of legitimacy for “value pluralism”: since everyone is an independent thinking subject, they have the right to define their own good, evil, and truth.
The Political Narrative of Liberal Democracy: Guarding Human Rights and Supporting Pluralism
At the level of political practice, the founding of the United States at the end of the eighteenth century and the lessons of the European wars of religion became crucial. To end the bloody conflicts triggered by religious differences over many years, immigrants practiced “religious freedom” in the New World. The motto E pluribus unum (out of many, one) on the Great Seal of the United States marks that “supreme tolerance” officially became the core value of mainstream society. This set of political narratives views human rights as the highest standard. It aims to ensure that groups with different beliefs can coexist under the same political framework, but it also invisibly restricts religious belief to the private sphere, so that it no longer possesses the binding force of public truth.
The Consumer Society under Globalization: Providing Choices and Advocating Pluralism
From the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth century to the consumer society of the twentieth century, pluralistic choices gained the support of a material foundation. As productive forces exploded, the social structure shifted from being “producer-oriented” to “consumer-oriented.” In this fluid society, traditional institutions could no longer solidify human behavior, and the fragmentation of values became the norm. Individuals began to reconstruct their lifestyles and the meaning of life according to their own preferences, like a “collage.”3 In this culture, personal identity is no longer endowed by the community; rather, it is achieved through constantly changing “consumer choices.”
The Society of Strangers with Collapsed Communities: Highlighting Differences and Pursuing Pluralism
As we enter the twenty-first century, the rise of the internet and social media thoroughly dismantled traditional closed communities. Individuals are no longer permanently attached to a single geographical or blood-tie group; instead, they wander among point-to-point digital connections. This collapse of community brought about profound anxiety over identity. To be seen in the vast sea of humanity, people turned to strive for individual differences, and they constructed unique identity positioning through the “pursuit of pluralism.”4 This extreme pursuit of difference, however, often causes people to lose the language of deep connection with one another.
The Technological Narrative of AI Development: Breaking Boundaries and Reconstructing Pluralism
The popularization of contemporary AI and the enhancement of computing power are pushing this pluralistic movement to the extreme. If the previous four developments pursued pluralism within realistic physical boundaries, AI further “breaks boundaries.” It shatters human biological limitations in language, physical strength, and even creative speed. It recalculates the fragmented values and massive data accumulated over the past five hundred years, and it creates a new type of diversity that crosses the virtual and the real and involves human-machine collaboration.
The “pluralism” brought about by contemporary AI and big data is often essentially an “echo chamber under algorithms.” This is exactly the opposite of the “independent thinking subject” pursued by the Enlightenment; individuals may have already lost true freedom of choice within the illusion of infinite choices. AI is not merely a tool. It is more like a potential “digital Tower of Babel.” It is attempting to reconstruct human ontology through technologies such as “digital avatars,” shifting the definition of humanity from the “call of God” to a “combination of data.”
AI also makes the building of a digital Tower of Babel seem possible. It translates human expression into information that can be processed and connected, promising that technology might one day solve all human problems. In that promise, people are persuaded to surrender freedom and privacy. Tech giants and nations alike now compete to become dominant builders of this future order, forming new alliances and rivalries in pursuit of digital power. In this emerging digital empire, users live under surveillance, enjoy an illusion of privacy, and are guided by algorithms while believing they have free choice.
Viewed across these five hundred years, digital technology and AI are not merely innovations; they intensify the logic of contemporary pluralistic society. The digital age turns post-Enlightenment subjectivity into calculable data and transforms liberal democracy’s tolerance into a false neutrality defined by algorithms. Today’s pluralism often becomes an algorithmic echo chamber, wearing the cloak of tolerance while excluding any claim to ultimate truth. This shift from the “call of God” to a “combination of data” is a severe challenge for the church’s public witness.
Paradigms of Faithfulness of God’s People in the Polytheistic Society of the Old Testament
When we face contemporary pluralistic society and digital technology, we may think this is a challenge humanity has never known. Yet the Old Testament world was also an extremely complex pluralistic society, marked by polytheistic worship and competing gods. In this sense, it profoundly echoes our secular age.
In the Old Testament era, people generally believed different tribes and regions were governed by different deities. Today, this concept of “territorial idols” has become a specialized “domain idol.” We no longer bow to wood and stone, but we divide life into fragments—economics governs wealth, biology health, psychology trauma, and algorithms truth.Christians face the same temptation as ancient Israelites—to compromise with different contemporary deities in different areas of life and lose complete allegiance to the one true God. Yet the Old Testament also offers paradigms of faithfulness for public witness today.
The Patriarchal Paradigm
In Canaan, wherever Abraham went, he built an altar, declaring that the land belonged to Yahweh (Genesis 12:7). Yet his worship was not closed or exclusive. He hosted travelers and even interceded before God for Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18).
The Liberation Paradigm
The exodus is a battle against domain idols. Through the ten plagues, God not only saved enslaved Israelites but also directly challenged Egypt’s gods. From the Nile to the sun, God exposed these idols before the power of the true God and revealed his absoluteness to Egyptians and Israelites alike.
The Sanctification Paradigm
Joshua’s entry into Canaan emphasizes sanctification—God’s people are set apart and must not mix with sin. Under the pressure of pagan worship, the Israelites had to separate themselves in life and belief, avoid erosion by syncretism, and guard the identity of God’s people from the customs of a polytheistic culture.
The Dynastic Paradigm
In the dynasties of David and Solomon, public witness became highly visible. The temple and Solomon’s wisdom manifested God’s glory; First Kings records that his wisdom attracted people from all nations (1 Kings 4:29–34). When God’s people live according to truth, their life can produce public attraction in a pluralistic society.
The Exile Paradigm
When God’s people fell into idolatry, they experienced the subjugation of the kingdom. Yet God made himself known not only through the strength of David’s dynasty but also through judgment upon it (Isaiah 56–66). In exile, he did not call his people to escape or military resistance, but to live in the land without assimilation and to “seek the welfare of the city” (Jeremiah 29:4–7). Daniel likewise bore witness within foreign courts while practicing nonviolent resistance when faith required it (Daniel 2–3).
The Transformation of Paradigms under the New Testament Cross Event
When we enter the New Testament era, the Greco-Roman world also resonates with contemporary pluralism. It was not only a vast empire but also a mixed cultural and religious laboratory. There Christians developed action paradigms that inherited Old Testament theology and were renewed through the cross.
The Greco-Roman world emphasized pluralistic coexistence, but its pluralism served imperial stability and expansion. Pax Romana was a false pluralism built on violence and conquest. Many beliefs could coexist only if they did not challenge Caesar as supreme lord.
Precisely in this context, Christians were viewed as aliens. They insisted on the uniqueness of God and the sovereignty of Christ, refusing Caesar’s narrative. Their stance brought hostility, ridicule, and persecution. Similarly, today, when Christians declare the absoluteness of the gospel, they are often labeled as destroyers of pluralistic harmony. Yet the New Testament church did not shrink back; the Spirit transformed and renewed the Old Testament paradigms for a more penetrating witness.
From the Patriarchal Paradigm to the “Boundary-Crossing Paradigm”
Abraham’s altar-building in Canaan becomes, in the New Testament, boundary-crossing action propelled by the Holy Spirit. From Pentecost (Acts 2:5–13), to the Samaritans (Acts 8:1–8), the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26–29), the calling of the Gentiles (Acts 9:4), and the Macedonian call (Acts 16:6–10), God’s people cross barriers of race, class, and gender. This is a new pluralistic practice, demonstrating the kingdom’s inclusive power beyond geography and blood ties.
From the Liberation Paradigm and Sanctification Paradigm to the “Power Paradigm”
The Old Testament liberation paradigm becomes a New Testament confrontation of power. The apostles heal and cast out demons in Jerusalem (Acts 5:12–16), and Paul confronts Elymas the sorcerer (Acts 13:9–12), demonstrating Christ’s sovereignty over darkness. This power is not secular strength; as Paul says, power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). In suffering and martyrdom, Christian hope exposes the impotence of the world’s idols.
From the Dynastic Paradigm to the “Self-Emptying Paradigm”
The glory and wisdom of Israel’s dynasties are reinterpreted as self-emptying. Paul becomes a slave to all and becomes all things to all people, not seeking his own advantage but the salvation of others (1 Corinthians 9:19–23; 10:31–33). He exhorts believers to have the mind of Christ, who emptied himself and took the form of a servant (Philippians 2:5–11). This subverts old images of authority and glory and becomes what Timothy Keller calls “subversive fulfillment”: Christ alone fulfills the deepest desire for truth.
From the Exile Paradigm to the “Sojourning Paradigm”
The exile paradigm develops into the New Testament theology of sojourning. Under Rome’s dominant narrative, Peter offers another narrative: “the household of God.” He calls believers to live as aliens and exiles according to God’s standards (1 Peter 1:1–2, 1:13–2:12), challenging them to ask which narrative truly governs their lives.
This exilic witness is embodied in priestly identity (1 Peter 2:9), holy life in hope (1 Peter 1:13–16), good deeds (1 Peter 2:11–12), gentle responses to challenge (1 Peter 3:13–16), and a mindset prepared to suffer (1 Peter 4:1–5). From Peter and John before the authorities, to Paul and Silas singing in prison, to Paul debating while on trial, the church speaks from the margins to the center. This powerless witness becomes profound public dissent.
Within the crevices of the Roman Empire, the church demonstrated the subversive nature of the gospel through these four paradigms, showing that the narrative of God’s household can counter earthly mainstream narratives. Today we face not Pax Romana enforced by swords, but a digital empire woven from big data and algorithms. This emerging “digital Rome” likewise flaunts pluralism and convenience while invisibly reconstructing humanity. The church must therefore inherit the New Testament paradigms and live anew as Christ’s alternative people.
Following Christ in the Pluralistic Society of the Digital Age
People desire to be loved, known, and accepted. Today’s digital services provide us with the illusion of being loved, known, and accepted, and they use this to collect more information about us. They use algorithms to more precisely analyze our desires and wants, and they feed this experience to us in a “painless” and “frictionless” manner. Everything seems beautiful, and we are satisfied—at least temporarily. The digital empire earns massive wealth. This enables it to develop products that make us even more addicted, and it continues this “flywheel effect.” The only problem is that our humanity is reduced to “relevance” and “statistical probability,” and this makes the separation between spirit and flesh increasingly severe. Over time, true humanity will inevitably rebel or reveal warning signs of maladaptation or even collapse.5 Perhaps the obvious worsening of mental health among American teenagers since the popularization of social media in 2012 is exactly such a warning sign![efn/note}Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (New York: Penguin Press, 2024).[/efn_note]
When facing secularism and technological challenge, the church’s public witness should not become a political movement to recapture power. It must be a way of life and communal witness that returns to the gospel. Through the reshaping of narrative, existence, and power, the church becomes an alternative community set apart for the common good amid shattered meaning and pluralistic values.
Reshaping Narrative: Reshaping Identity with the Gospel of Grace
Under the narrative of contemporary science and AI, human identity is often reduced to matter or data. Praveen Sethupathy, a professor at Cornell University, once pointed out in a lecture that science tells us humans are astonishingly similar to other living creatures. We have surprising dependencies with other species, and we can even be viewed as being composed merely of stardust. He then emphasized, however, that the key that makes humans different from all creation is not biological superiority, but that God chose to speak to us. It is God’s own action that sets us apart from all creation.6
The foundation of human dignity lies in the fact that what makes a human being human is that God speaks to humans and endows them with a unique mission. When our identity narrative is no longer built upon consumer choices or algorithmic labels but is built upon God’s grace (Genesis 1:26–28), this gospel reshapes our life mission and our way of responding. Precisely because they deeply know that their identity originates from God’s call, believers can demonstrate gentleness and patience amidst the impact of a pluralistic society and remain firm amidst turbulent values (1 Peter 3:15–16).
When digital hegemony reduces human value to predictable and manipulable data labels, the gospel of grace becomes an anti-hegemonic narrative. It declares that human uniqueness lies in a created “dialogical nature,” not a computational “functional nature.” We are not merely digital users defined by clicks, but creatures made in God’s image, called by grace, and given a sacred mission.
Reshaping Existence: Responding to the Digital Tower of Babel with the Witness of an Embodied Community
When digital hegemony reconstructs human ontology, the church’s public witness must return to Pentecost to counter the false communion of the digital Tower of Babel. Digital Babel pursues frictionless, depersonalized homogeneity. Pentecost did not cancel linguistic plurality; the Spirit enabled all nations to hear God’s mighty works “in our own languages” (Acts 2:11). True unity does not erase difference. In an age where algorithms categorize and isolate, embodied fellowship is Pentecostal witness: deep communion through the Spirit beyond the logic of data.
The digital empire manufactures fear through surveillance, evaluation, and cancellation, causing people to self-censor in public spaces. Pentecost, however, is marked by the boldness of the Spirit, enabling disciples who once hid in the upper room to proclaim truth within a hostile mainstream narrative. The church needs this boldness—not manipulated by algorithms or seeking digital volume—to offer a true dissent full of warmth.
The digital age reduces humans to “users” or “labels” possessing specific functions, but Pentecost demonstrates the Holy Spirit distributing diverse “gifts” to all (1 Corinthians 12:4–7). These gifts are not meant to build individuals into brands, but to build up the church community and care for the neighbors around us. When the church uses the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we are declaring humans are not replaceable parts or data that can be commodified, but recipients of God’s gifts. Through the mutual coordination of the diverse gifts received, the church community produces an “organic influence” that algorithms cannot simulate, and it demonstrates wisdom and creativity in a hostile public sphere.
When AI attempts to reduce human existence to the flow of information, the Eucharist and physical fellowship of the church declare: humans are creatures who must live within flesh and the limitations of time and space. The church is not meant to fight for the right to speak in the public sphere. Instead, it must become a visible witness, and it must witness to the reality of the kingdom of God with the identity of an alternative community. When Christians gradually lose their influence in politics, economics, and culture, this is actually an opportunity. When we no longer worry about losing influence, we can properly return to the call to be the church, abandon the desire to try to control the world, and instead faithfully live according to the way of Christ.7
Theologian Stanley Hauerwas once pointed out that the most powerful public witness of the church is not to influence or formulate policies. Rather, it is that when the world observes the church community, it can see the church’s humility toward power, its passion for truth, and its insistence on peace, thereby realizing that the world’s logic in treating these things is completely different from that of the church.8 This embodied witness is reflected in concrete life practices: the Eucharist, as a true boundary-crossing paradigm, connects different classes and races in the bread and the cup (1 Corinthians 10:16–17); physical fellowship counters the virtual barriers of algorithmic echo chambers, and it practices the dialogue paradigm in true neighborly relationships. By being present with those in pain, the church demonstrates the reality of the gospel in the flesh (Colossians 1:24).
Although digital technology promises connections that break boundaries, it also brings about a rupture between soul and flesh. When society indulges in virtual social illusions and wanders in depersonalized digital spaces, the “embodied” witness of the church is precisely the most radical response to digital hegemony. We choose to encounter our neighbors within physical time and space, and to receive the Eucharist in the limited material bread and cup. This “real presence” directly challenges digital hegemony’s depersonalizing deconstruction of life. Through physical fellowship, we puncture the false communion woven by algorithms, and we demonstrate the kind of true, warm life connection in the kingdom of God that cannot be datafied.
Reshaping Power: Responding to Hostility with a Mindset of Suffering
In the power struggles of a pluralistic society, the best public witness of the church is not to fight for cultural leadership, but to become an alternative community that people yearn for. This attraction is often revealed through the witness of facing suffering, which is exactly God’s way of responding to the suffering in the world. Christian compassion is built upon a double paradox: our love will bring suffering, but this suffering will lead us to a greater love.9
Only when we allow ourselves to be broken by the pain in the world and are willing to cross boundaries to host others and be hosted by others, can we truly experience and embrace God’s love. To risk giving love in a cold world is a mindset prepared to suffer (1 Peter 4:1–2). This action of not countering hostility with power, but transforming hostility with suffering, is exactly the logic of power that Christ manifested on the cross, and it is also the most powerful narrative of the church in today’s pluralistic society.
When the mainstream logic of the digital age is to pursue a “painless, fast, zero-friction” consumer experience, the Christian “mindset of suffering” becomes the most shocking dissent in the culture. Digital hegemony encourages us to escape conflict and hide in echo chambers to attack one another, but the gospel calls us to cross boundaries and connect with people in true suffering. When the church does not respond to hostility with online volume or the hegemony of data but responds to the violence and indifference of the digital age with the suffering spirit of the cross, this “anti-efficiency” compassion instead becomes the only power in this cold algorithmic world that can cause human hearts to be reborn after breaking.
Conclusion
Contemporary pluralistic society seemingly provides infinite choices, but it actually imprisons people in the echo chambers of data and consumption. The public witness of the church is not to win political power or cultural hegemony in this “competition of gods.” Rather, it is to imitate Christ, seeking the peace of the city in exile, living out embodied love in the virtual, and witnessing to the eternal kingdom in suffering. As the church of Christ, we remain unique at this moment not to isolate ourselves from the world, but to let the world see in us another possibility of “what makes a human being human.”
- Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1989), 217.
- For MacIntyre’s discussion of emotivism, see Robert N. Bellah, “Christian Faithfulness in a Pluralistic World,” in Postmodern Theology, ed. Frederic B. Burnham (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1989), 78.
- Sung Ming Chow 鄒崇銘, Jiangxue Han 韓江雪, and Catherine Yeung 楊夢瑩, Yong xiaofei gaibian shijie—gongping maoyi @ xin shehui jingji yundong [Buy Brings Changes! Fair Trade@New Social Economic Movement] (Hong Kong: Logos Ministries Limited & Hong Kong Fair Trade Power, 2012), 123.
- Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman, Networked: The New Social Operating System (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012), 12.
- Autumn Alcott Ridenour, Restlessness and Belonging (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2025), 10.
- Praveen Sethupathy, “What Our Genes Can (and Can’t) Tell Us,” July 27, 2023, in The Veritas Forum, podcast, https://www.veritas.org/podcast/what-our-genes-can-and-cant-tell-us-praveen-sethupathy.
- Stanley Hauerwas, Jesus Changes Everything: A New World Made Possible, ed. Charles E. Moore (Walden, NY: Plough Publishing House, 2025), ch. 24.
- Yucheng Bai and Xiaopeng Ren, Rongyao yu zhongfu: Meiguo Jidujiao lishi jianshu [Glory and Burden: A Concise History of American Christianity] (Grand Rapids, MI: ReFrame Ministries, 2025), 295.
- Parker J. Palmer, Gonggong de jiaohui: Bamo’er tan yu mosheng ren zuo pengyou [The Company of Strangers: Christians and the Renewal of America’s Public Life], trans. Zhang Yun 張韞 (New Taipei City: Campus Evangelical Fellowship Press, 2020).
