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1. Walking fully in the path of Jesus, without denying the legitimacy of other paths God may provide humanity;
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You've got to respect a list that starts out with such a controversial statement.
For most of its history the most common position of the Christian Church has been that it is the sole owner of truth, the only path to God, and the only hope of salvation. The idea of salvation is often expressed as "Christians will go to Heaven, everyone else will be sent to Hell to suffer eternal punishment for all eternity."
Salvation and Hell are big topics and I'm going to hold off on saying much about them for a later post. For now I'll just say that there are a lot of Christians who say that any non-Christian religion is automatically wrong. There's also a line of reasoning that an Evangelical friend once explained to me. Effectively he said: You can't respect another religion, because respecting it implies that there is some validity to it. If you imply validity, then you put it on an equal footing with Christianity. If you do that you're saying that Christianity isn't THE way, only one way of many, and that will lure other people to eternal damnation.
These Christians have a number of scriptures they go to for support, like John 14:6, which reads: "Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me'."
It sounds pretty simple, but it’s not. John is addressing a specific historical situation. His audience is largely composed of Jews, some of whom accepted Jesus as the Messiah, and some of whom favored other Messiah candidates like Simon bar Kokhba. John is effectively saying to the undecided Jews that Jesus is the one and only Messiah. His pronouncement has everything to do with the situation he was living in and nothing at all to do with the spirituality of Buddhists, or Muslims, etc.
Then too, there are scriptures like the judgment of the nations found in .”Matthew 25:31-36. The people in this parable are judged, not on faith in Christ, but in how they treat others.
"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
That scene is even more dramatic when you realize who it is addressed to. When the scripture talks about this as the judgment of “the nations”, it is translating a phrase used to refer to outsiders or non-believers. In other words, this verse is telling us that non-believers will be judged and found worthy on the basis of their compassion.
There are actually quite a few verses in the New Testament like this. They hold out the possibility that non-believers can be good people, can have a full relationship with God and the deep spirituality that comes with it, and can even find salvation. That sounds scandalous to Christians who have been raised on the doctrine of ‘limited atonement’ but the rest of us see them as reflecting God’s loving nature.
That’s not to say that we don’t think our way is special. Far from it, I wouldn’t be anything but a Christian. I find something in my faith that I don’t believe I could find anywhere else. In fact, I believe there is something so special to be found only in following Christ, that I wish everyone could experience it.
But that doesn’t mean that I can’t respect the faith of a Muslim, or a Buddhist, or a Jew. I’ve known people in all these religions whose faith and wisdom puts mine to shame. I’ve seen what I would call a genuine closeness to God in Taoists and Baha’i’s and agnostics, and I have to admire and respect that.
That’s not saying that all other religions are on the right path, and it’s certainly not saying that all practitioners of other religions are on the right path (I should add that many people who are professing Christians are not on the right path either). It’s simply saying that, non-Christians can find God. Actually, since my tradition talks about being found by God rather than finding God, maybe this line from the novel The Shack says it better (I’m quoting from memory so please forgive me if I get a couple of words wrong).
“Not all roads lead to me, but I will travel down any road to reach you."
Bravo.
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