Hi friends,
I will be sharing more on Colossians later in the week, but I wanted to address the question that we saw on Youtube yesterday. Pastor Gary got us thinking a little bit about the very big question, "Can people who have never heard about Jesus be saved?" Like most big questions, Christians have thought about this one for a long time--almost since the very beginning of the faith!
Traditionally there have been three responses that help us to form an answer. Of course, these responses are oversimplified, but that helps people like me keep them straight!
1. Pluralism. This is the view that it seemed Oprah wanted to take. It takes seriously that there are millions, perhaps billions of people, who will never hear the name of Jesus even though they are religious and engage in worship. The basic idea is that all religions are equal and can lead to God, or whatever one calls the Supreme Being of the universe. A classic image is that of four blind people feeling a large elephant, each describing something different: One feels the legs, one feels the trunk, one feels the tail, one feels the body and so give a different description, even though they are all feeling the same animal. The idea is that people have different experiences of God, but are all feeling God.
This view has not been held by traditional Christians.
2. Exclusivism. This view says that conscious knowledge of Jesus Christ is the only route to being saved. Exclusivists point to passages like Acts 4:12. This view takes seriously the person of Jesus of Nazareth and traditional beliefs of orthodox Christianity, for example that Jesus is God incarnate.
This view has been held by many Christians.
3. Inclusivism. This view says that anyone who is saved is saved by Jesus and his work on the cross, even though a person may never have heard of Jesus. This view takes seriously that the Christian faith makes true claims and that other religions are in error, but that the God and Father of Jesus may still reach other people in spite of their wrong beliefs. Often inclusivists will point to Acts 2 and Pentecost as evidence that the Holy Spirit is at work in many cultures.
This view has been held by many Christians, as well, including C.S. Lewis. Lewis' final book of the Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle, pictures a soldier who does not worship Aslan (Jesus figure), but has worshiped a false god named Tash. When the soldier asks Aslan how he can be in Aslan's kingdom since he worshiped Tash, Aslan says, "All the service thou hast done to Tash, I accept as service done to me," and goes on to say, "No service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him."
Keep reading Colossians!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Please find a completely different understanding of the meaning & significance of death---the understanding of which is the key to right life altogether.
1. www.easydeathbook.com
2. www.dabase.org/dualsens.htm
3. www.dabase.org/noface.htm
Meanwhile we live in a time when all of the Sacred Scriptures (and every detail positive & negative) of the entire Great Tradition of Humankind are freely available to anyone with an internet connection.
Therefore to claim that your belief system is the only "true" way is just an affirmation of your own unexamined and essentially benighted "religious" provincialism.
In effect it is also an affirmation (or declaration) of conflict or warfare with or against every one who does not share your set of beliefs.
Both Christianity and Islam specialise in this attitude. And their centuries long bloody conflicts are evidence of this.
Meanwhile Who Owns The Holy Brightness?
www.adidam.org/flash/truthandreligion/index.html
And why do you propose/think that the writings of a small tribalist cult of 2000 years ago are binding on all of Humankind??
Such an attitude is just benighted ignorance---and in a world that is now totally and instanteously connected extremely dangerous when it becomes the basis of applied politics.
Wow, lots of rhetoric there! It would be helpful if you could share an opinion besides, "You're wrong!" and "You propagate violence!" with actual argumentation.
But, it's not just the writings of a small "tribalist cult" (which it wasn't as evidenced by the incorporation and voluntary joining of many outside one race, let alone tribe), but the raising of one specific man from the dead.
Your implied opinion that one cannot know truth until all religious avenues have been explored is false. I think reading in different religious traditions is important, however, for critical historical examination, one need not interview all possible witnesses to ascertain a high probability of what happened. Since Christianity is rooted in history, one can arrive at a critical examination of its historical claims outside the examination of other religions.
Post a Comment