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Confronting Pluralism: Can Salvation Be Saved?

mattfivefour

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Confronting Pluralism: Can Salvation Be Saved?
By Michael Wittmer

Salvation may be at risk in the last place you would expect. By definition, evangelical Christians strongly agree that “only those who trust in Jesus Christ alone as their Savior receive God’s free gift of eternal salvation.” Yet according to the 2022 Lifeway Research State of Theology report, only 38% of Americans with evangelical beliefs disagree with the statement: “God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.”

How can approximately 6 in 10 evangelicals believe only those who trust in Jesus alone can be saved and, at the same time, be uncertain about or even agree with the statement that God accepts all religions?

Their confusion is certainly aided by society’s religious pluralism. Most polite folks aim to avoid the topic of religion. And when it comes up, they shrug that any religion can save you as long as you are sincere. Evangelicals are nice people who like to be liked by other nice people, so we nicely slip into accepting the default position of polite society.

Addressing pluralism

What is a pastor to do? We must address this problem head-on, explaining to our congregations why Western culture is pluralistic. Without diving too deeply into the philosophical weeds, I teach my church about Kant’s separation of faith from knowledge. Kant taught that God is inherently unknowable, thereby creating space for everyone to believe whatever they want about him, or her, or it, or them. I explain that pluralism is essentially Hinduism. Pluralists are not high-minded idealists rising above the religious fray. Their religious view is not bigger than all the rest but is in fact one of them. In 2009, when Newsweek covered religion in America, it noted that “We are slowly becoming more like Hindus and less like traditional Christians.”

I also preach why salvation comes only through faith in Jesus and why accepting other religions must inevitably push Jesus to the margins (Acts 4:12, Romans 10:13-17, 1 Thessalonians 2:16). If it is possible to be saved by any way other than Jesus, then Jesus and His death are unnecessary. We might think it is nice that Jesus died for us. But if we can be saved by Krishna or Allah, then we cannot say it is something we need. When it comes to salvation, it is Jesus or the field.

Enriching gospel soil

As important as this content is, we cannot preach every Sunday on the problem of religious pluralism. Meanwhile, our culture does not stop promoting it. Our people are being proselytized 24/7 by television, movies, the internet, social media, and their friends. We can hardly keep the pace. But all is not lost. We may not have space in our sermons to explicitly address pluralism each week. But we can enrich our church’s gospel soil so the weeds of pluralism do not take root. If we faithfully and passionately present the good news of Jesus, religious pluralism will strike our people as obviously implausible.

We nourish our soil in two ways, by emphasizing what we are saved from and who we are saved to. The mantra of religious pluralism, “Any religion can save you as long as you are sincere,” seems plausible to those who have forgotten what we are saved from.

If a visitor sat through one of your worship services, what would he conclude is the problem Jesus solves? If the main issue we address is stress, anxiety, depression, loneliness, marital conflict, parenting, or self-discipline, we should not be surprised when he assumes other religions work just as well. After all, Buddhist techniques are known to calm and center anxious souls, and Muslim children are often respectful and obedient. If the core problem we present is anything less than sin, death, and hell, we are giving our congregations permission to become pluralists.

Preaching the truth

I have never preached a fire and brimstone sermon, but I mention hell most weeks. I do this because Jesus did. No one in the Bible talked about hell more than Jesus. He described hell as a place of unimaginable torment and said it was worth mutilating your body to avoid going there (Luke 16:19-31; Matthew 5:29-30).

I talk about hell because Jesus is the only solution to sin, death, and hell. Why settle for small talk when we have the only answer to life’s large and insurmountable problems? I talk about it because I will give an account to the Lord Jesus for my ministry. And I hope to say I styled my ministry after Him and declared all that the Bible said without holding back. I talk about hell because it is condescending to think my congregation cannot handle the truth. I respect them and choose to speak to them as adults.

According to the State of Theology report, an increasing number of American adults believe in hell. In 2018 54% of Americans agreed that “Hell is a real place where certain people will be punished forever.” That number rose to 56% in 2020 and 59% in 2022. Preachers who warn about hell are in the mainstream—not only among evangelicals but also the broader culture.

Celebrating Jesus

Pastors prevent pluralism from taking root by preaching not only what we have been saved from but also who we are saved to. If a visitor sat through one of your worship services, what would she conclude is the answer to the problem you presented? Is the solution forgiveness? Self-discipline? Patience? Vulnerability? Contentment? Gratitude? Honesty? These are all good things, but none of them require Jesus. Satan is pleased if we call our people to forgiveness in general, gratitude in general, or contentment in general. Satan has won if our solution is anything in general. But the gospel is not a general practice or principle. The gospel is a person. The gospel is Jesus. Full stop.

If our preaching boasts in Jesus, glories in Jesus, and urges all to rest in Jesus then, and only then, will pluralism seem laughably absurd. If Jesus is merely a means to an end—a friend who helps us exhale, cope with misfortune, or discover our true selves—then other friends and religious techniques might work just as well. But if Jesus is life itself, there is nowhere else to turn. Defeating pluralism is as simple as celebrating Jesus. Jesus’s closest friend testified, “The one who has the Son has life. The one who does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:12, CSB). When our people believe this and know why it is true, they will not be content with anything less. Salvation will be saved, and can only be saved, by the Savior.

Original article available at Lifeway Research and republished here by their kind permission.

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Michael Wittmer (PhD, Calvin Theological Seminary) serves as professor of systematic and historical theology and director of the Center for Christian Worldview at Cornerstone University. He is the author of Urban Legends of Theology.
 
Some are ignorant, some are Christians in name only, others prefer their own understanding to God's. The latter is also ignorance in my opinion.

I agree.

The Bible says, "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus". (1 Tim. 2:5)

Those who disagree with this, are not only ignorant. They are wilfully ignorant. They choose to disagree with what God says in the Bible. They do not want God.

Jesus Christ is the only way. No other way will matter.

This illustration came to me years ago to help describe. Say you have committed a serious crime worthy of prison or death. And you're in court and in a line going before the judge. As you are standing in line, you listen to the man in front of you and find out he is guilty of the exact same crime, whatever it was. And further, you find out that this one is the son of the judge yall are standing in front of.

Your thoughts...what a happy day this is. Why? Because the judge surely will be lenient and merciful towards his son, and so when you come up guilty of the same, how can he do otherwise with you?

But, the son comes up before the judge, and the judge says 'guilty' and sentences him to the maximum punishment. Now what? What hope do you have now that you will get leniency when the judges son got none. (Rom. 8:32) "He that spared not his own Son, but delievered him up for us all...." Answer: No hope.

So, anyone who wants to come before God the Father, in their sins, because they think their good outweighs their bad, are in trouble. God spared not His own Son. He will not spare you.

Our only hope is the One slain who was not guilty of sin on our behalf. We come not declaring we are good and deserving. We come declaring we are sinners but accept the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This is the only thing pleasing to the Father. This is the only thing which will work. Nothing else will.

This is why there is no other way to God, no other way to Heaven, than Jesus Christ. If one comes any other way before the Father, who witnessed the cruel death of His Son, Who was, I say respectfully, responsible for the death of His Son, can you imagine the response that one will receive?

The 'only' thing important to the Father on that day is...'what did you do with my Son'?

My opinion.

Quantrill
 
islamic propaganda, mostly via cair and some public schools systems and employers, has made inroads. "children of the book," meaning Judaism, Christianity, and islam.

Sometimes the way survey questions also confuses or misleads people, which causes inaccurate results. Sometimes this is done intentionally so as to get "desired results." Most Christians I know believe God will accept prayers from Jewish people and don't believe God accepts prayers from muslims, but the way that question appears to have been worded, it likely produced an inaccurate result.

I hate bad research, no matter if it's intentional or not.

I hate even more that at least some Pastors aren't preaching and teaching more plainly and stridently against heresy, heterodoxy, and plain out paganism/new age/cults/satanism/etc. Warning the flocks is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo important. Yet another reason why Teachers and Pastors will be judged more strictly, to a higher standard.

And parents, who don't teach, supervise, correct their children

John 3:16-18 and John 14:6 should be mandatory memory verses from a very young age/very early in a new Christian's discipleship. Even a very young child can believe and explain, and a very elderly person can remember and cling to.

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
John 3:16-18, KJV

16 “For God so loved the world,[i] that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
John 3:16-18, ESV

6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
John 14:6, KJV

6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
John 14:6, ESV
 
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