Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
IMHO, the fourth type of people do exist but not of your proposed fifth kind.
I think, Benjamin Netanyahu has a better claim on that.
I did not touch that question. But yes, I do think that we can take Jesus to have been a historical person. As for being the son of God (and immaculate conception and resurrection) the atheist position is succinctly clear. No God, no son of God, no immaculate conception, no resurrection. Well schizophrenics, people with personality conflict or sales people make all kinds of statements. The very fact that his world depended on a God makes his world different from mine. My world has no God or Allah.
Looking over the opening post, I would like to disagree with some of the ideas about fundamentalism. Fundamentalism isn't. It is no exegesis. I could qualify that extensively, however just look at the varieties of fundamentalism contrasting fundamentalist claims of purity and single vision. One group says fundamentalism means people must have the sign of speaking in tongues, supernaturally. Another says people absolutely must rest on sabbaths. It is not truly an exegesis but the requirement to conform which marks fundamentalism. Some posters here on RF blame the differences upon vagueness of scripture. I don't. Its the fickle insistence upon conformity, and the scriptures themselves argue against this burden of conformity. Therefore fundamentalism is not. It is but a dream and a "Chasing after the wind" to borrow the parlance of Ecclesiastes.
I cannot speak to Vatican II or Bahai ideas. I have a very simplistic view of scripture. I favor pointing out how it teaches us to tolerate each other and to trust God to make up the difference. I don't think ecumenical approaches can accomplish as much, and I don't think that extra prophets can do so. I view the ecumenical movement as healing for people who are Catholic, and I view extra prophets as balm for Baha'i people. I don't think fundamentalists need these things though they may learn from them or convert or adopt them. Many fundamentalists take up with the Catholic churches and the line of apostles, but I don't think that is absolutely a need. I don't think that Baha'i is the other end of the spectrum from fundamentalists, either.
Also this was true in Germany, just before the holocaust. Some were writing letters back and forth with rabbinical people, too; and ecumenicism was alive and well. This did not cause the holocaust, however, it was too small to prevent it. There have always been sparks of people discovering that NT writers are non-conformist and write frequently about freedom.
True today and for most of my lifetime. It may always be the case. I don't know if it will. The current system pays people to keep things the way they are, and things can continue as they are indefinitely.
Supersessionism is the belief that Judaism has been replaced by Christianity. It is but one pin in the lock. It benefits clergy in the current system, so it stays. If instead clergy felt a need to understand Judaism and speak on it then that would change. Instead they merely need to look like they know what they are doing or have a special relation to God -- since they are ordained. Tomorrow I can open a church, dress nicely, get ordained and act like I'm a holy man when people are looking at me, and that will be enough to get me into ministry. Supercessionism is merely convenient for me if I do so.
I think Covid 19 is the greatest thing to have happened (only in this context, but I am sorry about people getting sick) in a long, long time. Christians are going to be spending time without listening to preachers week after week. Some may realize that they don't need to have their ears scratched every week.
Sure.
My wife says it is because I am Black and White type, or so focused on the destination that I fail to see what is happening along the way. 
The first name in Aupmanyav's post, Moses. He made mistakes. Then Joseph Smith and Mirza Ghulam Ahmad are on that list. Did the angel Moroni speak to Joseph Smith and is Mirza Ghulam Ahmad the Mahdi? If not, then are they false prophets? If so, then are they "Special people that do not make mistakes?"
When we follow a person like that, will we ever learn?
Bahaollah says so because it suits him, it is so very obvious. He also claims to have been chosen by Allah. But where is the proof for existence God or Allah or for any one or all of them who claim to have been chosen by this imaginary personage; whether Moses, Jesus, Mohammad, Joseph Smith, Bahaollah or Mirza Ghulam Ahmad?
That has never been the purpose of religion. Religion is a divider of people for the benefit of those who establish or control it. There are psychological, generational. monetary or sexual benefits in being a religious leader or a priest. Agha Khan is the 49th in his line. The Dai of Daudi Muslims in India is 53 in his line. There are so many sects following dynastic succession, not just in Islam but in Hinduism too. Unfortunately, Bahaollah's line petered out in the third generation.
I regret disappointing you in this. Please allow me to reassess your OP. You were bringing up Christianity's "....capacity to adapt to modernity generally and religious pluralism in particular." I'd say its underlying scriptures would allow it to adapt to this very well. They have proven to be problematic, however. They can be read one way or another. I'd also say its clerics could allow it to adapt to modernity and religious pluralism but often find it inconvenient for themselves (or ourselves. I'm not a cleric but am posting as if one.).
The naming scheme is difficult, yes. Here in USA we have a century long (or longer) difference between two major groupings of Christians which go by either 'Evangelical' or 'Liberal'. Its an actual division which spans churches and has divided some large church denominations. If you aren't evangelical, fundamentalist or conservative enough, then you are called a liberal Christian. Its often considered a negative term implying that you aren't really a Christian or aren't towing the line of what it means to uphold truth. The term has become a political football, yes. I don't think that people here would readily understand the term Pluralistic. I'm not familiar with it. It sounds like a graduate level term, and if I used it in common areas people would probably think that I meant Hedonistic. Its a strange term to me.
Now that is difficult! I'm particularly stuck at 'liberal exclusivist'. I think you are referring to someone who insists upon acceptance of certain modern tenants such as Evolution and humanism? I can see that. I'm not sure how a fundamentalist can be pluralistic, unless you are talking about me. It kind of fits me I think. Does it fit you?
By using the term 'Balm' I didn't mean to imply that you were all in terrible agony. Sorry about that.
Its complicated for me to assess the History, because often the Jews did not directly challenge charges against themselves and were willing to die, perhaps too willing. Yes, they complained; but they didn't behave like other people would have. They accepted beatings and were convenient scapegoats for politicians. They become a kind of thermometer for how bad a place was. If it was a bad place they got persecuted. If they were treated well then that indicated the place was pretty darn good. With some exceptions they were quite nonviolent if annoying. They continue to be nonviolent today on the whole, Israel being a kind of oddity in the whole universe. Its hard to assess whether the antisemitism comes from the Christianity or from the harsh realities of medieval feudal culture. One thing taints another. Certainly Christianity failed on multiple occasions to perfectly protect the Jews and even got used against them.
What some people call leaving Christianity may actually not be. Just as there is a spectrum from pluralistic to whatever, there is also a spectrum of opinion on what counts as Christian. I prefer to think that Christians are voting against ministries rather than against being Christians. If you can't vote with your feet then what can you vote with? We have a forum member here who is on staff, named 'Dave'. He says he's an atheist who used to go the church, used to be Christian but still tries to follow the moral principles he learned. Did he really leave Christianity? Its debatable.
I am not sure.
At minimum I don't think religion does the opposite. The primary potential of religion is for a group of people to continue as one thing, like one creature. Maybe it can have different parts, but this remains as an objective not an accomplishment.
So I would imagine you mean manifestations of God.
Did Moses made mistakes? If yes, then he is not a manifestation. He is a man that listened to the commands of his God and followed them the best he could.
Have you answered the question about the "immaculacy" of Mary yet?
Well that's a nice paraphrase of the somebody. Who was it Abdul Baha'? And if religions really did that, the world would be a great place. But... it isn't.
Yes, Christianity brought changes to Judaism, but what did it do for the other religions in far away places? By the time Christianity reached some of them, Islam was already here. And that "guidance" was all the people of the Earth needed for over a thousand years? But, going back to Christianity, what was the guidance the Church was giving to the people? Most of what early Christianity taught is not true according to Baha'is... things like Satan, original sin and that thing about Jesus being God. That's not guidance. If the Baha'is are correct, that was misinformation.
Yeah fine. I don't have a need to make Moses a manifestation. He could have all sorts of faults, like King David, and still be used of God. But then again, I don't have a need that these have to be real people. They could just as well have been mythological. Which Baha'is almost agree with. Since they don't believe a lot of the stories said about these Biblical people. Like did Moses really have a staff that turned into a snake?