This article concludes the series on four critical questions.
i. ”What’s worthwhile?” is about values.
ii. “What’s Right? What’s Wrong?” is about ethics.
iii. “Who is calling the shots?” deals with authority.
iv. “Which Way to God?” deals with pluralism.
Recently, Fumiko, a young Japanese-American, walked along the California shoreline. She had just treated her two children at MacDonald’s. Fumiko had told them, “First a burger and then to the beach.”
Suddenly, she stopped, set her purse and diaper bag on the sand, composed herself, stepped into the ocean and started walking toward her native Japan. Her one arm held her six-month-old daughter and her other hand clutched the hand of her four-year-old son. She entered the chilly waters of the Pacific Ocean and kept walking until the three of them were totally submerged and overcome by the surf.
A little later, as the seagulls swooped over the bodies, the rescuers spotted them. The children were dead but the mother was alive. She was angry toward those who had saved her life. To her, what she had done was an act of worship. She was seeking peace with God. She was sincere.
At some point, everyone has a desire to connect with God. People have been reaching out to God from the earliest times. You read about it in both secular history and the Bible. I’ve watched the Kikuyu people of Kenya worshiping their god Ngai, whom they believe lives on Mt. Kenya. I’ve seen a Buddhist prostrate himself before idols of wood and stone. You see it in the fanaticism of the Islamic suicide bombers. People are lonely without God. They want to know if there’s life after death and what happens in the next life.
Our world offers many religious options. Suppose you were an alien from another planet and suppose you arrived knowing nothing of our culture or religions. Just suppose you wanted to discover God. How would you go about finding God? You’d face a great deal of confusion. Which of hundreds of religions is telling the truth? You’d be faced with a wide assortment of gods and teachings, all claiming to lead you to God. Trying to find the way to God is no simple matter. No wonder people are confused and get entangled in cults.
There’s never been a shortage of gods. The Egyptians listed more than 1,200 gods by name. The Romans had hundreds of gods. Idols to Greek gods in Athens, were as common as parking meters on city streets.
There has never been a shortage of religions claiming to lead people to God. There are Hindus in India, Buddhists in Thailand and Korea, Shintoists in Japan, Taoists and Confucianists in China and Muslims throughout the Middle East, Asia and Africa. All these religions talk about God.
Most people say they believe in God but when asked to explain who God is, you discover they don’t know a great deal about the God they say they believe in. Not everyone means the same thing when they talk about God. To some, god is simply an impersonal, abstract force. The word “god” has become a generic word and can mean whatever you want.
Some Christians wonder how they should treat people of other religions. One person said, “My neighbor may not believe in Jesus, but he loves God and serves God with all his heart. He loves God. I love God. How can you say one of us is right and the other is wrong? Can’t we both be right?”
In today’s world, to say you are right and everyone else is wrong, brands you as a religious bigot and people say you have no tolerance of other people’s beliefs. Tolerance used to mean that everyone has the right to his own beliefs and tolerance means we respect each person’s right. It doesn’t mean that any more. Tolerance now means you must not say that anyone else’s beliefs are in error. To say someone is religiously wrong is to be intolerant.
1. PLURALISM IS POPULAR
Pluralists not only say there are many roads to God, they say it is wrong to claim that one religion is the only road to God. Pluralism says it is arrogant to claim the exclusive way to God.
Pluralism says there is good in all religions. A majority of Americans say, “It doesn’t matter which religion you follow because all faiths teach similar lessons about life.”
Pluralists say we shouldn’t judge anyone for following a different road and we shouldn’t claim exclusive knowledge of truth ourselves. We should tolerate everyone because everyone is partially right and no one is totally right.
Pluralism claims all religions are equally true and each, in it’s own way, will lead you to God. They say, the only thing that matters is that you are sincere.
Pluralism is popular in public education and the media. We are not taught to avoid error but to avoid being intolerant. We’re not to think we are exclusively right and everyone else is wrong.
2. PLURALISM IS TRAGICALLY FLAWED
The issue is not the right of an individual to his religious preferences; that is established in our constitution. We must always be tolerant. Everyone has the right to believe what he wants to believe.
The problem with pluralism is that it doesn’t make sense; it is flawed. All religions do not teach the same thing. To say all religions teach the same thing, doesn’t square with the facts. The differences in religions are significant.
Religions teach different things about the nature of God. Many Eastern religions have an impersonal God who cannot love. Christianity teaches there is a personal God who loves and cares.
There are conflicts in the ways religions teach how to reach God. Islam says Jesus wasn’t crucified; Christianity says he was. Both can’t be right. There are many things that Mohammed taught, that would never come from the mouth of Jesus.
Hinduism says God has often been incarnate; Christians say God only became a man once. Both can’t be right.
Christ’s teaching and Buddha’s are hopelessly at odds with each other. You can’t believe both and have any mental integrity.
Some religions are monotheistic (one God) and some religions are polytheistic (many gods). In some religions, God is transcendent (outside and above us) while in some religions, God is in everything (pantheism). In a few religions, God is personal; in other religions, God is completely impersonal.
Simple logic tells you that all religions cannot be equally true. An intelligent person can conclude that one is right and the others are wrong, but no intelligent person could say they are all right. All religions are not teaching the same thing. They are teaching conflicting ideas of who God is, what God is like and how we can experience God’s forgiveness.
Tolerance is not the same as rightness. Tolerance in personal opinions and relationships is a virtue but tolerance with untruths is ridiculous.
A math teacher may say to her students, “If you don’t come up with the same answer as I do, either you are wrong or I am wrong because we both cannot be right.” I may tolerate others, but that doesn’t mean I agree with them. I may tolerate others, but that doesn’t mean we’re both correct.
Not all roads lead to God. Some roads lead away from God.
Pluralism flies in the face of Christian evangelism and world missions. If no religion has all the truth and all religions have some truth, evangelism is meaningless and missionary efforts are a waste of time. The thought of going to another country and converting someone from another religion to the Christian gospel is totally unnecessary. At best, missionaries are social workers, providing schools and hospitals.
Did Jesus and the New Testament church get it wrong? They certainly believed the uniqueness and necessity of the Christian gospel.
In the face of this smorgasbord of religions and gods, the Bible makes an astounding claim.
3. JESUS CHRIST IS THE ONLY WAY TO GOD
If all religions lead to God, Jesus did not have to die on the cross.
Some think it is narrow-minded to claim Jesus is the only way. They think it’s restrictive to say Jesus is the only way.
The real issue is this: man has no way to God. The Christian gospel says God provided a way. God is not restrictive and narrow-minded; God is good and loving and kind. Rather than criticizing, we ought to respond to Jesus with gratitude for providing a way to God.
Nearly 2,000 years ago, at a time when there was a large number of religions promoted throughout the world, at a time when people were worshipping a variety of idols representing thousands of gods, Jesus Christ made an astounding claim. Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6).
Jesus said, I am the way to God. He said, I am the only way to God. He said, there’s no other way. He claimed every other way is fraudulent. He said, No one comes to the Father except through me. That was an astounding claim to make. Jesus either is or is not, the only way to God. If he is the only way, it’s true for me and you and everyone else. It can’t be true for me but not for you!
The disciples of Jesus believed that Jesus was the one and only way. Following the ascension of Jesus, his followers went everywhere proclaiming Jesus was the only way to God. They did it so much that the first Christians were called followers of “The Way.” They not only preached it, they were prepared to suffer and die for it. They willingly went to jail rather than stop preaching it. Peter told the Jewish authorities who had jailed him: Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. (Acts 4:12). Peter didn’t say Jesus was one of many ways to be saved, he said Jesus was the only way. He stated, “Salvation is found in no one else.” He said there are no exceptions. Jesus is the only way to God, to forgiveness of sin and to heaven.
Why is Jesus the only way to God? It comes down to two things.
i. Who Jesus is
Christians don’t just believe in God; they believe Jesus is God. If you had gone to Buddha and asked him, “Are you the son of Bramah?” he would have denied it. If you had gone to Socrates and asked, “Are you the son of Zeus?” he would have laughed at you. If you asked Mohammed, “Are you the son of Allah?” he first would have torn his clothes and then he would have cut your head off.
Jesus Christ stands alone. He claimed to be the one and only Son of God. He said, whoever has seen me has seen the Father. He said, I and the Father are one.
Jesus Christ came into the world to reveal to us what God is like. If you want to know who God is, if you want to know what the one true and living God is like, look at the life of Jesus.
Jesus is the God-Man. At the same time, he was fully God and he was totally human.
ii. What Jesus did
Christianity is unique. Christianity is the only faith that tells you that God lost his Son in an act of violent injustice. Christianity is the only religion that tells you that God suffered and died for you. Christianity demonstrates God’s power and legitimacy when Jesus literally rose from the dead.
I’m often asked: “Isn’t there some other way to experience God?” “Isn’t there another way to heaven?” “Isn’t there another way to forgiveness from guilt?”
The answer is a resounding “no.” It doesn’t matter how religious you are or how sincere you are, until you receive Jesus into your life, you have no hope of knowing God and experiencing eternal life.
Jesus Christ offers the only sure way of salvation. Only Jesus Christ paid the penalty for your sin. Only Jesus did something for you to reconcile you to God. Other religions offer a list of moral rules or give you a code of conduct. Only Jesus Christ can forgive you because only Jesus Christ paid the price for your sin. Only Jesus Christ can bridge the gap between you and God the Father.
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