rescue from a dead end road

Like it or not, the world we live in is interconnected more than ever before.  I grew up on a farm in small town America, and remember encountering one student at our small school who was from another race.  Moving on to college brought my first experience interacting with and living beside people from all over the world.  (It helped that I lived in International House.)  Now, a trip to the mall may mean brushing shoulders with people who have come here from the other side of the world.  My husband has sat and worked between a Muslim and a Hindu.  If we haven't thought deeply about matters of faith yet, most certainly we will need to do so in the days to come.

In the name of tolerance for other peoples and ideas, there are a couple of statements that have gained favor in our culture, and Green addresses these in chapters 2 and 3 of his book, But Don't All Religions Lead to God.  The first is, "All religions are pretty much the same."  Mahatma Gandhi sought to unify India's people of many differing religions with thoughts along these lines.  "The soul of religion is one, but it is encased in a multitude of forms."  We have probably heard the story of the elephant.  One can feel his tail, another his trunk, and each describes what seems to be a conflicting part of something bigger.  We assume that is how religion is expressed: we are all describing something about God, even if it is expressed in different ways.

The problem with this argument is that religions all describe something that is quite different and these ideas cannot be recast into anything that will unify.  Even a cursory examination of the major religions will show opposing views of what God is like.  Buddhism is a religion without God and without an afterlife. Hindus do not believe in a personal god yet worship many deities.  Muslims believe in an impersonal God (Allah) who reveals only his will and never himself.  To claim a personal relationship with Allah is blasphemy to a Muslim.  Christianity proclaims an all-knowing God who desires relationship with man.

What God is like is one essential element of religion, and it appears that there is not agreement on that between the major religions of the world.  But there is also not agreement on the goal of religion.  Buddhists hope to achieve nirvana, which is not heaven but extinction of self.  Hindus hope for nirvana as well, a final union with the Absolute.  Muslims look forward to a paradise of wine, women, and song.  Christians hope to "know God and enjoy him forever in the company of his redeemed people." (Green, p. 15)  If there is not agreement on the essentials of religion, how can we say that religions are all pretty much the same?

The second argument often heard in the marketplace of ideas is that all religions lead to God.  The fact is, many religions don't even have God as their goal.  There are religions that seek to appease the spirit world, those that demand total allegiance to rulers and their ways of thinking (like Stalin, Hitler, and communist ideas), and religions that promote self-renunciation.  There are others that celebrate fertility and worship sex, those that celebrate self-improvement, and those which were started as ideas by dynamic leaders who quickly gained a following.  There are only two religions in the world that teach a personal God who can be known by those who believe in Him: Judaism and Christianity.  Not all religions lead to God.

In fact, it is in the belief that "all religions lead to God" we find the human argument about religion completely breaks down when examined in the light of Christianity.  The Bible teaches not only that not all religions lead to God, but that relationship with God is not possible unless He first comes to us.  As Greene states: "If there is a God at all, He must be the source both of humankind and our environment.  The prophet Isaiah asks, 'Have you not known?  Have you not heard?  Has it not been told to you from the beginning?  It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers...the nations are like a drop from a bucket, like dust on the scales.' (Isaiah 40:21, 22, 15)"  How can we climb to a place where we can know a God like that?

The sobering fact is, we can't.  The amazing reality is that God has come to us, first by revelation of His promises and character to a small rag-tag nation called Israel, and then by coming to us Himself through the person of His own Son, Jesus Christ.  If it hadn't been for God's own intervention, not one of us could make it to Him.

There are no religions that lead to God, but He has come that we might know Him.  "The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us" (John 1:14).

sincerity is not enough

In our exploration of the Eastern Hemisphere, we have seen all kinds of people who believe all sorts of things.  Hindus, Buddhists, animists, ancestor worship, appeasing household gods, Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians: their ideas and way of life have peppered each book we have read.  It came as no surprise when my daughter recently asked me at bedtime, "Mom, how do we know Christianity is the right religion?"

I love the way Rachel's heart was prepared for our next book, But Don't All Religions Lead to God? by Michael Green.  In this short, easy-to-read book the author examines the questions common to our culture about faith issues.  Many in America today promote tolerance and acceptance of all religions.  I thought I would summarize the things we are learning here, because Rachel's question, or one like it, "What IS the right religion?" is one we all must wrestle with at some point if we are going to be serious about the pursuit of truth in matters of faith.

Micah did an excellent job summarizing the first chapter, so I will let his words speak here.

The world says, "It doesn't matter what you believe as long as you are sincere."  That doesn't work.  Sincerity is good, but not enough.  You can be sincere but still be very wrong.  People nowadays aren't known for philosophical thinking.  We don't like to think about "life and death" issues, so we just pick a religion, be sincere, and hope we get to heaven.  What if you were sincere, but wrong?  We would not apply the sincerity question to science or math, so why apply it to religion?  Belief is the spring of action, so right belief leads to right action.

I can sincerely believe that 2+2=5, but I am sincerely wrong.  Hitler sincerely believed that exterminating Jews was necessary for a better world, but he was sincerely wrong.  We are quick to spot error in examples like this, but are we willing to pursue truth to its end and bank our eternal destiny on an answer that may not even make sense, let alone be right?

Have you encountered this thinking, that it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you are sincere?  If this statement is incorrect, then the conclusion that follows is that what we believe matters very much.  More on that to come!