2007 February — wadehodges.com

World Religions: Three Possibilities

I can’t help but come back to the world religions discussion. If you’re joining us late you can find previous posts here, here, and here.

While I haven’t done a lot of in-depth research on specific world religions–I’ve noodled around in books about Buddhism and I’ve listened to an audio book about Islam–I have spent some time thinking about Christianity’s relationship to the other great religions of the world. (Please don’t freak out because I called them “great.” It’s a figure of speech.)

Somewhere along the way, someone reduced the possibilities of people from other religions being saved down to three. Of course it’s more complicated than this, but three options are easy to remember and I think these three cover the bases pretty well. These are rendered from the Christian point of view using the traditional Christian definition of salvation as “going to heaven when you die.”

Possibility #1: “Everybody is in.” This is good old fashioned universalism. No one is really “lost” in the ultimate sense of the word.

Possibility #2: “It’s Jesus or else.” If you have not intentionally called Jesus “Lord” and been covered by his saving blood, then you have absolutely no hope of salvation outside of Christ. You can assume everyone you meet who is not a Christian is “lost” and doomed to spend eternity in hell if they don’t repent and believe the good news about Jesus.

Possibility #3: “Preach the gospel and let God be God.” Tell the story of Jesus, announce the good news of his resurrection, invite everyone you know to trust him and follow his teachings, but leave room for God to save whomever he chooses. You can assume that every non-Christian you meet needs Jesus, but you don’t have to pass judgment on where they’ll spend eternity.

What is your response to these three possibilities?

February 27, 2007 By Wade 36 Comments

It’s All Relative

Filed Under: Theology

Speaking of world religions . . .

A handful of years ago, I did a sermon in Bellingham where I dealt with the problem of the world religions and the exclusive claims of Christianity. My thinking was pretty fuzzy and I asked lots of questions that I didn’t know the answer to. But I did go for broke. I asked my church to think with me through the issues surrounding Christianity’s relationship to Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and the like.

After the sermon, a guy came up to me and said, “You know, I really l liked what you said. I’ve been thinking about that very thing quite a bit lately.”

At this point, I’m thinking, “Seriously? That’s awesome. I’m glad I’m not the only one struggling with some of this stuff.”

He continued, “Yep. Sometimes when I look at the Baptists and the Methodists and some of those Charismatics, I think they may be going to heaven too.”

February 26, 2007 By Wade 13 Comments

Christianity and Buddhism

Filed Under: Theology

Here’s a link to an interesting post from Tim Geoffrion that is a good follow up to yesterday’s post. (HT:EV)

One thing that struck me from my post and the comments that have followed so far is the emphasis that I put on intellectual honesty or epistemology. This is certainly a western way of framing the conversation. Perhaps it betrays my tendency to still think of Christianity as a set of beliefs instead of a way of life. From my understanding, Buddhism is to be characterized more as a set of practices than a set of beliefs. There are are basic beliefs behind the practices to be sure, but you don’t enter the Buddhist conversation through the door of belief or epistemology, but through practice.

One of the problems I have with “taste and see” Christianity, even though I’ve preached it countless times, is that every other world religion can make the same offer. There are thousands of satisfied Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims in the world today. There are plenty of dissatisfied ones as well, but the same can be said for Christianity.

The emotional or spiritual peace experienced in Christianity has its parallels in the other religions. What we call affirmation or validation from the Holy Spirit, they might call enlightenment.

February 22, 2007 By Wade 16 Comments

The World’s Religions

Filed Under: Books, Theology

I’ve been teaching the High School class on Wednesday nights for the past couple of months. We’ve been playing “stump the preacher.” On the first night, they wrote down their questions that they’d love to see me tackle and I promised to give some straight answers. The questions ranged from make-me-proud smart alecky to dead serious.

“Are nudists closer to God than normal people (ala Adam and Eve)?” (My answer: no, but they are more easily irritated.)

“Why is smoking weed so bad?”
“What happens to the good people who die without hearing about Jesus?”
“What separates Christianity from all the other religions?”

So far I’ve been happy with the way I’ve answered these questions. Some of my answers have generated even more questions even when I wasn’t trying to do so.

I answered the question about what separates Christianity from all the other world religions by focusing primarily on the identity of Jesus and the implications of the resurrection. Afterwards I got to thinking about how little I know about the other religions of the world. I know the stereotypical basics: Hindus believe in karma, Buddhists don’t believe in a personal God, Muslims think Jesus was a prophet but not the Son of God, and so on. Beyond that I’m not nearly as informed as I’d like to be.

Which got me to thinking . . .As Christians, how can we really know that our religion is superior to all others if we’ve never studied or explored the other religions beyond their stereotypes to see what they actually teach? I’ve always been told that Christianity is the only religion that teaches the concept of grace. Is that really true? Are you sure? How do you know?

How much of the other religions do we need to understand in order to be intellectually honest about our assessment that Christianity is the best way to go?

All of these questions motivated me to pick up Huston Smith’s The World’s Religions, which has probably been the most popular textbook used in comparative religion courses and studies for several decades. It’s a well-written, fascinating read. I’ll say more about it later.

For now, chime in with your answer this question: how much of the other religions do we need to understand in order to be intellectually honest about our assessment that Christianity is the best way to go?

February 21, 2007 By Wade 25 Comments

Tea Snob

Filed Under: Random

Over the past year, I’ve become quite the tea snob. No more Liptons for me. I’ve recently found a neat little tea shoppe with a great online presence that’s not too far from where I used to live. Check it out and get yourself some tea. I recommend the jasmine pearls.

February 19, 2007 By Wade 10 Comments