In this era of interreligious tensions, which in some countries has erupted into open warfare, one might think it would be politically expedient to claim that all religions are basically the same. If we can somehow come to believe that all the major religions, at least, can be reduced to some basic combination of virtues, then surely, we can all get along reasonably well.

I celebrate any ethical common ground that many of the world’s religions share. Without such shared values, multicultural societies could not exist.

John G. Stackhouse Jr., a professor of history and adamant Christian, has studied and taught classes on major world religions, along with his extensive writing and teaching accomplishments. He tells us that the great religions really do differ across each major category of belief and practice. They do not all offer the same God or gods — or any deity at all. They do not all offer the same views of good and evil, the same appraisal of the human condition, the same answers to human questions, and the same solution to human problems.

Christianity makes extraordinary particular claims. Rather than commending its view of things by showing how Christianity corresponds to general intuitions about the world, Christianity rather scandalously plunks down it’s very particular narrative and says, “Here. Here is the Story we all must understand, accept as true, and live by.” Christianity thus doesn’t just surprise, it offends.

The so-called scandal of particularity in Christianity comes to us in at least three successive forms:

• Christianity ‘s focus on Jesus, as above the founders of all other religions
• Christian missions, the worldwide project of Christians using any means they can think of to convert their families, friends, neighbors, and even strangers to their faith—no matter how noble the religion those people are currently practicing or how well they are practicing it, and
• Christianity’s insistence that salvation can be had only according to this missionary enterprise and believing in Jesus—with the horrible entailment that those who do not hear, understand, and believe this message are destined for eternal torment in hell.

Let’s take these three scandals in turn, we may find that Christianity can be less scandalous than it appears.

Christianity’s Focus on Jesus

First, Jesus versus other religion’s founders. We can reduce the scandal, but not eliminate it, by reminding ourselves of what Christianity actually says and being careful to note what it doesn’t say. The Christian story says that Jesus was Israel’s long-awaited Messiah, the special One appointed by God. As the divine human One, the Gospel says, Jesus completed this stage of his earthly works (he will return someday for the next stage) and ascended to heaven to take the seat of authority over the world and particularly over the Church, which is why the early church confessed that “Jesus is Lord” as well as being the Savior.

The Christian story requires there to be a Savior who must also be the Lord. Only God can take on the suffering of the whole human race, while only God-in-human-form can stand in such solidarity with humanity. So, if Jesus of Nazareth is truly this instance of incarnation, of God becoming human, and if Jesus subsequently does those things necessary to procure the salvation of the world—through an innocent life, dreadful suffering, actual death and burial, and genuine resurrection—then ipso facto Jesus is the Savior.

More on this specific topic can be found in the post entitled “Did Jesus Really Have to Die.” 

There is plenty of room within Christianity’s voluminous embrace to respect the wisdom of Louzi, Kongzi, and the rest of the world’s great teachers. But Jesus isn’t being championed by Christians as if he were the smartest scholar in the seminar. He is held up as the one and only Savior because Christianity—remember, a religion completely founded on history, on what happened—believes Jesus did what needed doing.

No other religious leader in the world has even attempted to suffer and die for the sins of humanity, let alone try to defeat death by coming back to life. Only Christianity does and it does so because it is in the very logic of Christianity to do so. Christians have to say that Jesus is Savior and Lord if we are to claim for Jesus what the entire Christian story implies is true about him. If Christians say anything else, anything less, then we have failed to correctly grasp our own religion.

Christian Proselytizing

Christians not only believe this idea—that there is one Savior and Lord, and we know who it is—but we insist on telling other people about him. We do so because we believe if all people don’t do so, they are in peril of forfeiting the best of this world and all of the next.

Entertainer and outspoken atheist Penn Jillette sees the logic here:

“If you believe that there is a heaven and hell, and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life, or whatever, and you think that, “well, it’s not really worth telling them this, because it would make it socially awkward”—how much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that? I mean, if I believed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that a truck was coming at you and you didn’t believe it —that a truck was bearing down on you —there’s a certain point where I tackle you, and this is more important than that.”

We accommodate proselytizing—let’s call it what it is —in economics and political discussions all the time. We do the same about a wide range of social and environmental issues as well —from sex and gender to global climate change. In fact, we positively expect people to try to persuade others to change their minds about these things. Great matters are at stake, and doing all you legitimately can to bring people over to your side is extremely normal. Somehow, however, we’re still finding our way towards accommodating each other’s advocacy regarding the Most Important Issue of All.

How Much Faith is Enough?

One might concede that the imperative to share the Gospel with others makes sense. But what about the millions of people over the millennia of human history who have never heard this Story, through no fault of their own? Are they all doomed? Lots of Christians have thought so.

But let’s notice something that many Christians have yet to notice in their own New Testament—the explicitly Christian part of the Bible. These Christian scriptures hold up as models of faith many Old Testament believers who did not know the story of Jesus—since he had yet to be born. In fact, a key chapter of the New Testament, Hebrews 11, sets out for the inspiration of Christian believers, a whole gallery of faithful people, not one of whom could have heard of Jesus, since the list is drawn from the Old Testament. And remember, this is a Christian book in the Christian New Testament written by a Christian author for a Christian audience.

Hebrews 11 is prefaced by a definition of faith. “Without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (11: 6).

So, anyone who

• believes that God exists—and Romans 1: 19-21 (below) makes it clear that God has shown everyone that God exists—and
• trusts God to be good to us if we will turn to him

meets the definition of faith.

That person’s actual understanding of God might be shadowy and distorted indeed, as Christian theologians believe is true of, say, a Muslim believer or a Hindu devotee of Vishnu, or, frankly, a typical North American Christian! But whoever actually encounters God (as the Holy Spirit can make possible for anyone, anywhere) and responds in humble trust, meets the criteria of this famous biblical chapter on faith.

John Stackhouse is not espousing the popular view that God is happy to bless anyone who is sincere in whatever he or she believes. God is not pleased with sincere racism, or sincere sexism, or the sincere worship of dark divinities whose values are at cross purposes with Gods. People must respond positively to whatever vision they have received of the true God, however conceptually deficient that understanding might be at that moment. But if they do respond in faith to God—again, this isn’t a matter of asserting a certain correct doctrine about the Divine, but of responding personally to a mystical encounter with the true God—then God receives them gladly.

So, how accurately does one have to understand the gospel? What about children or people with mental disorders, or people trying to understand the Gospel through very different worldviews, or people whose previous experience of the Christian religion has been abusive? Must they get every element of the gospel message straight, to the satisfaction of a theologian, before they can be assured of their salvation? The understanding of faith that Professor Stackhouse is setting out here is consistent with the Bible ‘s own portrayal of person after person, in the Old Testament and the New, who simply could not have had a very rich and accurate conception of God, let alone a properly framed understanding of Jesus, and yet they are clearly accepted by God on the basis of their demonstrated faith in (the true) God.

The Christian life is a process of maturation, of growing up to be a properly formed adult (Colossians 1: 28), and so each convert would benefit greatly from being introduced to the Bible and the Church as soon and as well as possible. God becomes much more attractive when clearly distinguished from the world’s confused portraits of the divine and made available instead in the image of God’s son, Jesus Christ. So, hearing the good news about Jesus would make coming to faith in God much easier.

So Christian missions are hardly pointless. Instead, these ideas both reframe the values and remove what to some is a serious obstacle to faith—namely, the terrible idea that God doesn’t care about, or somehow cannot do anything about, all those people whom Christians haven’t yet reached with their evangelism.

Perhaps then you will agree that it makes sense for Christians to champion Jesus and to commend him to our neighbors around the world.

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Relevant Scripture

since what may be known about God is plain to them because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. (Romans 1: 19-20)

the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people.  To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. (Colossians 1: 26-28)

Reference

Can I Believe? Christianity for the Hesitant by John G. Stackhouse, Jr.