So what about other religions?

Last updated on: July 17, 2014 at 2:17 pm by Morgan Guyton

So what about other religions? 2014-07-17T14:17:09-05:00 Morgan Guyton

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

We’ve been having a very stimulating conversation at our confirmation retreat that has completely derailed from my plans, but as I learned at the Missio Alliance, the Holy Spirit is a spirit of disruption. I’ve been so grateful that these kids have been bold with their questions because my presentation felt very flat and boring. And then they made me squirm by asking about people from other religions. Do they go to heaven too? Don’t we all just have different names for the same God? Oh boy…

The reason that I frame the confirmation retreat the way I do as a story of climbing out of the sea of wrath onto God’s island of mercy is to present salvation in a way that seems to me both more Biblically faithful and more credible to the sensibilities of kids in this generation than the individualized “getting saved” account of evangelicalism’s conversion industrial complex in which salvation is God checking the yes box in response to a display of “faith” (which definitively becomes a work by being something God evaluates).

I believe that hell is the eternal isolation of trying to justify ourselves like Adam and Eve did when they first got caught (“This woman you gave me handed me that fruit…” “I was just doing what the serpent told me…” etc). Self-justification is basically the default religion of humanity. It’s a lifestyle of CYA (cover your “actions”), which is what we naturally do when we haven’t been given the safety to confess our sins. We are saved from the eternal isolation of self-justification when we trust in the justification of Jesus’ cross and thus receive the basis for being reconciled into communion with God and one another. Salvation is our incorporation into the body of Christ, which starts the moment we climb out of the sea of wrath onto the island of mercy and continues through the sanctification process that conforms us into the image of Christ and absorbs us into God’s holiness.

Can people who don’t know Christ by name find their way onto his island of mercy accidentally? I say yes, because I interpret John 14:6 not to preclude the possibility that Jesus’ way, truth, and life can be stumbled upon, but the problem is just that: it’s something you might stumble upon like a path in the woods at night, but you have no assurance of finding it. Jesus says in John that he is the light and people without him are walking around in the dark. That’s the way I view the advantage of knowing Jesus and what he’s done for us explicitly versus discovering the mercy that allows us to live in truth and love accidentally. It’s like walking through a dense forest at night with a flashlight versus doing so in complete darkness.

So here’s where I went in answering the kids’ question about whether other religions are all worshiping the same God. I don’t think as some evangelicals do that Allah and Buddha and whoever else are demons sent by Satan who have created religions that are completely void of truth for the sole purpose of ensnaring billions of people into hell. Many true things about God can be and have been discovered in our world outside of Christianity. Paul stakes his claims in Romans 1 on this very basis.

So I told the kids that God is like the star quarterback of the high school football team. Everyone thinks they know him and will try to tell you all kinds of partly true stories about him based on hearsay and brief encounters in the hallway. But very few people really know him. Maybe he has an older brother in jail. Maybe his mom is an alcoholic. Only his real friends know that side of him. Obviously the metaphor is imperfect. But the point is that even if Allah is another name for the Triune God of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I believe as a Christian that the way God is revealed through the crucified and resurrected Jesus is the only completely true story about Him. I don’t believe that Islam or Buddhism or Hinduism or any other religion provides the adequate means of reconciliation that we need to enjoy eternity in the presence of God’s perfect truth and holiness.

So the question of the life after life is this. Do we know God well enough that spending forever at his party would be heaven to us? Or would it be hell? When I was in my third year of college, I fell into severe depression. I was actually a student leader at UVA so I had a lot of acquaintances and collaborators on projects, but very few true friends. I went to a lot of parties of other students whom I knew publicly and superficially. I would stand by the food table and eat, hating myself the whole time. As I reflected on those parties where I was absolutely miserable, I thought that must be what hell is: to be trapped in a party forever with people you don’t want to be with. And I really think that standing in God’s presence without having known Him through Christ would be like being stuck at a party where you don’t want to be.

I realize the metaphor is imperfect because a party is still a party; I don’t mean to trivialize a serious matter. The Eastern Orthodox say that God’s all-consuming fire is a lake of torture to some and absolute euphoria to others. That’s basically what I believe. Is Gandhi experiencing heaven or hell in God’s presence? I’m not going to answer that question absolutely, though everything I’ve heard about Gandhi suggests to me that his spirit was justified and sanctified in a similar way to the grace that saves us from ourselves as Christians.

I do know this much: if we entrust our lives to Jesus and grow into his body, then we’re going to a party forever that will be absolutely awesome where we will feel perfectly welcome and loved. I don’t think the Bible is as crystal clear as many evangelicals think (based on a misinterpretation of Romans 3) about heaven’s boundaries. I do feel like we should expect and trust God to protect people under His mercy from their unrepentant oppressors; that is absolutely a promise that He makes in scripture. All will be held accountable for everything we have done in some form, sinners prayer or not. The amnesty of Romans 8 doesn’t cancel out the final judgment in Romans 2; it rather explains how we survive standing before the One who sees our darkest secrets. But whatever else is true, we can be confident of finding our way to heaven through Christ and shouldn’t settle for anything less.

Previous Post

April 20, 2013

Defining sin for adolescents

Next Post

April 21, 2013 Don't stop immigration reform over the Boston bombing!

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Advent Beauty Will Save the World Bible Big Picture: Ephesians Bloggers Book Christian salvation and the Beautitudes Culture Daily Office Danceable Homiletics Deadly Sins Deep Roots: Genesis Devotions Dominican Republic May 2011 El Principio Misericordia (The Mercy Principle) Five verses God tattooed on my heart Fundraising FutureGospel Good Biblical Words Henri Nouwen Interview Jennings' Christian Imagination Jesus inside the beltway Jesus Is My Candidate Jesus vs the Pharisees Jesus vs. Plato Journey to Eternity Looking Back on 2012 Love Actually Monday Merton Monday Merton Music Occupy the manger On Earth As It Is In Heaven Original Sin Podcast Poetry Politics Prayer Psalm 119 Radical Jesus 101 Reviews Sermon on the Mount Sermons Spanish Bible study Special Series Spiritual but not religious Synchroblog Theology Things that made me think Thomas a Kempis Ugliness Into Beauty Uncategorized Viaje Dominicano 2013 Walking in the Valley (Lent) Welcome: It's More than a Mat Wild Goose 2013 Wrestling

Select a Month March 2022 January 2022 December 2021 September 2021 April 2021 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

True or False: In Revelation, the New Jerusalem has ten gates, each made of a single pearl.

Select your answer to see how you score.

FALSE TRUE