This is a serious question and means exactly what it says.
I have many Christian friends (I’m a confirmed atheist) and most of them, when asked if Hindus, Buddhists, Moslems, etc. are heading for damnation, answer no, there are other ways to God, etc.
Now, I can understand that most people would be uncomfortable with the thought of virtuous people suffering eternal hellfire, or exclusion from God’s presence, or whatever, simply because they were raised in a different religion. But isn’t there a huge problem with taking any other position? If you admit that there are other paths to salvation (and I don’t know the official teaching of the churches on this) then what’s so special about Christianity?
What price the suffering of Jesus on the cross, the sacrifice of God’s own son, etc, if Christianity could shut up shop tomorrow and all people quite happily attain heaven through Mohammed, Buddha or whoever?
In other words, either there is no salvation without Christ or Christianity means nothing. I’d be really interested to hear the views of intelligent Christians on this.
Not all Christians would answer your question the same way. But one possible answer is that any Buddhists, Moslems, etc. who are “saved” are in fact saved by/through Christ even if they don’t realize it, and that Christ’s sacrifice was necessary for their salvation even if they don’t know about it.
really your Christian friends ALL say there are other paths? Not mine. Some say if you don’t accept CHrist as your personal savior then you are not forgiven and you are going to hell, period. If I asked is Ghandi going to heaven the answer is no because he was Hindu not Christian.
Others agree with Thidlows suggestion. Salvation is through Jesus but there are many paths to Jesus. If you sincerly seek God, love and truth, then no matter where your path winds you will come to Jesus.
Liberal has a wonderful analogy about a garden he may share.
Personaly I don’t think there’s anything special about Christianity with the possible acception that it gets people looking at CHrist and thinking about what he taught. The whole process of discussing and delveing into it can be edifying.
Other than that it’s typical of mans struggle to understand the infinate. It reflects all the corruption and twists and turns that major religious movements go through. It contains all the human frailties. The quest for truth and love. Tradition in place of truth. Bigotry. Kindness Hatred. Compassion, Superiority. Hypocrisy. All that stuff. Speaking for myself I find these things just a part of the human exoerience. In religion they are no more or less than they are in any other aspect of our lives.
I don’t agree with this. Our experience within any religous belief is leading us somewhere. The meaning is personal. I was a true believer for several years although even then I had unanswered questions about certain aspects of belief and tradition. I think the process of social and spiritual growth must contain these things. Without some friction and a little confrontation how will we ever examine our own beliefs or entertain new ideas?
let’s say you inherit a trust that takes care of your basic needs for the rest of your life but you really know nothing about it. You get an occasional check that takes care of your expenses but you don’t know how long it will continue, if you will be expected to pay it back or anything else. Thus, while you are indeed provided for, you also have no certainly about how secure you are, so you toil & worry in case this stipend ever stops.
Thus, we inclusionist C’tians would say that those of other faiths who are saved by Christ still deserve to have the security of faith in Christ, so they don’t have to labor under all these other religious systems.
Also, we believe that Jesus is a fuller revelation of God than in Buddhist, Islamic, Hindu, Judaic, etc thought & that everyone should have an opportunity to know the Best, PLUS JC pretty much should get the credit He’s due for taking care of everybody.
I think because different things are special to different people. For me personally, as a nearly lifelong atheist before my conversion, it was the particular message and teaching of Jesus that changed how I see the world. Perhaps it was my cultural bias, or my intellectual capacity, or my childhood experiences — whatever it was, His words rang true to me and appealed to me, and I found myself swept up by His love. Perhaps some other man responds to struggle, and more readily hears the message of surrender in the Qur’an. Perhaps he responds to temperance, and more readily hears the message of the Buddha’s Middle Way. Perhaps he is descended from a long line of people who worshipped the God of the Hebrews, and hears more readily the law of the Torah. We tend to see what we’re looking for. We tend to hear what we’re listening for. It seems to me right and proper that God would reveal Himself in ways that men will readily receive.
GD Disclaimer:
The following is my personal belief, not meant to reflect the beliefs of other Christians.
I’m of the belief that there is salvation outside of the Church, but not outside of Christ. (Which is one of the reasons why we’re told to preach, because there’s a whole world full of fellow potential Christians that only need to hear the message.)
Are there people of other religions that will be saved? Absolutely. But they have to come to saving faith through Christ. (And I’m sure God uses extraordinary means to reach people who would otherwise not be reached, or allows for mitigating circumstances.)
While many Christians believe there are paths to god that do not necessarily involve practicing Christianity in the traditional sense a “practicing Christian” feels that the specific modes of worship and the lessons for day-to-day living found via the path of their specific form of Christianity make that path intrinsically special and even “superior” to all others.
I would be a Christian even if there were no promise of eternal life. And yet I believe that there are many paths to God. I learn from many, but this one is very personal to me.
In short, Christ is the truth of this Earth, from which all truth flows. T follow him, one must be good (in a myrad variety of ways which I am not geting into). Most religions and peoples have at least nods in the irection of Christ’s teachings; they’re not all that complicated.
Christiantity seeks to bring the truth of Christ to our understanding. In that sense, we try to look at the fundamental truth and nature of God as revealed through Christ, which we believe helps us more closely follow Him. Following Christ is not a means to and end, but an end in and of itself.
I was raised as a Southern Baptist. I was taught that unless you accepted Jesus as your personal Savior you were going to Hell. No exceptions. No ifs, ands, or buts. (This is the part that eventually caused me to leave Christianity) Even if you had never heard of Him. I decided that I didn’t want to believe in a God who would punish someone for not believing in something they had never heard of.
Thats plain enough. Personnaly I think no religion has a grasp on the truth or of what Jesus taught. They are examples of our struggle to comune with God and seek the truth.
And THAT is the difference, we hold that in Jesus, God’s fullest revelation came to us, and that Jesus successfully conveyed His teachings to His followers and started a society to continue His message and mission. I admit that society, the Church, has often failed, but hey, all Jesus has to work with is us & does the best He can with what He has L
To Snakescatlady- and alas, there are plenty of C’tians, including Southern Baptists, who realize that those unreached by the Gospel are not unreached by God’s Grace. Whether in this life or the next, every human soul will recieve adequate opportunity to entrust themselves to God through Jesus. Those who refuse may well be allowed to go into Eternity outside of Their embrace (or they may spend Eternity in Their embrace & desperately want to escape it.)
So you left Christianity before you figured out that Southern Baptists are a particularly intolerant branch of the religion?
Baptists have always struck me as being willing to cherry-pick from the Bible to support whatever their beliefs toward the issue in question happen to be, while other denominations seem to be more willing to evaluate things within the greater framework of Christ’s intentions and actions, without picking (for example) irrelevant passages from Numbers to support their pre-conceived notions.
I suspect had you grown up Methodist, Episcopalian or even Catholic that you might have seen things differently.
Anyway, I’m with ** Liberal **. Based on my religious education, I can’t believe that a just God would set things up so that 2/3 or more of the world’s people will fail out of hand, just for being non-Christian.
I mean, what if the missionaries who come to convert them are particularly incompetent, and turn them off of Christianity? They’re damned because some idiots from Waco showed up and did something stupid? I don’t think so.
“Ex ecclesia nulla salus.” It was the good old Roman Church that started that, AFAIK in the early centuries of the Church Patriarchs when the main ecumenical councils establishing permanent dogma were held. I don’t know of any religion who asserted such hardcore exclusiveness prior to that.
When I, failed Catholic, learned of that phrase, it caused such radical revulsion that it drove me entirely out of the Church.
—I’d like to be in San Juan.
—I know a boat you can get on. Bye-bye.
I see, I would phrase it differently. Jesus, God’s fullest revelation came to us and successfully lived his teachings. To convey them requires Something from the reciever that I don’t think any were capable off. Complete surrender. We still struggle with that.