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The doctrine of religious pluralism says that all roads, spiritually speaking, end up at the same destination. It’s only that––so goes the belief––we’re all just taking different paths to the same god. But if all religions are the same, Jesus Christ is a liar, and He died in vain. It is the scandal of particularity, that there is but one God, in covenant with one people, who sent his one and only begotten Son to redeem the world that is so challenging for the world to accept.
Jesus said, “I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life. No one comes to the Father but by me” (John 14:6). Simon Peter said, “There is no other name given under heaven among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Paul said in another passage in Ephesians, “You were without God and without hope in the world” (Eph. 2:12). Jesus said, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:16).
The early Christians weren’t persecuted by the Romans because they worshiped Jesus as a god alongside all the others. The Romans had a lot of gods already, after all, and they wouldn’t have minded adding another statue to the pantheon. The reason they persecuted the Christians, however, is because Christians professed that Jesus is the only God and only Lord.
And so, be wary of politicians who boast their credentials as a “person of faith,” as if it were rare for demons to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! A person “of faith” has no hope apart from “the faith once for all delivered to the saints.”
Jordan Arnold
Hooker church of Christ
Hooker, OK