One Way?

The Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life has just released the results of a survey of 35,000 Americans on their religious beliefs and practices. They found that Americans are quite flexible in their faith. On the one hand 71% believe that God is a certainty, 56% of those surveyed say religion is very important to their lives, and 58% pray daily. On the otherhand, we as a group also hold that whatever our faith is, it is not the only way to salvation and that there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of our religion.

A large percentage of those of us who consider ourselves followers of Christ think that others who have not professed faith in Jesus will still end up in heaven. The Pew survey found that only Mormons (57%) and Jehovah’s Witnesses (80%) have majorities who claim that their religion is the one true faith.

Are other faiths right?
I have dealt before with this problem of declaring Jesus to the The Way, The Truth and The Life while trying to acknowledge the good within other faiths. The religion column Can Other Religions Be True is my attempt to deal with this in 1,000 words.

What I Believe
I am not a Christian for no particular reason, with Christianity being just one path among many other equally valid ones. I feel that God is working beyond all denominations and even through many religions to reach as many as can be reached with the love that is God's. After all Jesus told Nicodemus that the wind blows where it will. I believe that wind is God's Holy Spirit present through all creation, and so present beyond any church, reaching out to all.

I also believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the best guide to God. I am a Christian because Jesus was and is who he said he was and in following him I have the clearest picture of who God is and what God wants. It is that spirit bearing witness to my spirit that causes me to affirm the Christian faith within me. So I am solidly and unapologetically Christian.

I preach Christianity because I know it to be true. I know that what Jesus taught works. I can not say that about other faiths, except in the ways in which their beliefs coincide with Christian teaching.

The Big BUT
Here comes the however that may be just my version of why so many persons of faith felt that their way might not be the only one: I don't have the arrogance to suggest that faithful adherants of other faiths who seem to be good and Godly (if not Christian) are not connected to God. I do know Jesus to be The Way, I just can't answer as to whether, for example, the faithful Rabbi that he has not found that way through Judaism. In my experience, there are others who do not hold to Christianity who seem to be connected to God in a significant way.

So I am left in that middle ground that seems to be American. I hold to my faith and think it is not just right for me, but truly right. I want others to follow that path and am concerned that they might never get to God without doing so. Then I see in the lives of some others of differing faiths that it seems that God has found them already. Can I deny that? I don't think so as I think to say someone else is not connected to God, I run the high risk of denying God's presence working in and through that person?

The edge of the herd
So, my strategy for mission is to leave alone those whose faith works for them in a real and meaningful way and say that when it comes to folks of other faiths, we should just pick the sickly ones off the edge of the herd who have yet to find God on the spiritual path they are on.

What do you think?
Yes, I know what I have written can come across as wishy-washy. I'm just trying to be honest about what I believe and where that leaves me. Where do you stand?

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor