Most American religious believers, including most Christians, say eternal life is not exclusively for those who accept Christ as their savior, a new survey finds.
Of the 65% of people who held this open view of heaven's gates, 80% named at least one non-Christian group — Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists or people with no religion at all — who may also be saved, according to a new survey released today by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Most Christians believe Jesus is not THE Savior
From USA Today:
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5 comments:
To be sure, this is symptomatic of a lack of catechising and training in doctrine that permeates the Church to-day. But I also think it is a result of the prevalent worship of the god known as Diversity. Something as 'exclusive' as Christ can't be allowed!
Most American religious believers, including most Christians, say eternal life is not exclusively for those who accept Christ as their savior, a new survey finds.
John. Technically, one does not have to "accept Christ as their savior" to be saved right? Infants? Mentally retarded? Other cases of invincible ignorance.
The question is poorly worded. Christ is the savior of all who are saved but some (like infants) don't technically "accept Him as their savior."
@ Sean,
Technically, yes. If one is physically incapable, Christ can save no matter what.
The issue in the article was the number of Christians who think there are other roads to God other than through Jesus Christ. In my estimation, and from tons of conversations, this is nothing but a capitulation to religious pluralism.
I should clarify, all are incapable outside the work of the Holy Spirit.
OK. I didn't actually read the article the first time.
But I am still wary of 'polls' like these. I saw a poll around election time that said something like, "40% of Catholic voters are pro-choice." I did some research and the pollsters made no effort to figure out if the people who claimed to be Catholic actually practiced the faith (or any faith) and also the question itself was worded in a very confusing way (I had to read it several times before I knew which answer was the pro life position).
But, the 'religious pluralism' is a problem. So many Christians (and tons of Catholics included) have no catechesis. I think confessional reformed churches do a very good job at this...the only problem being that some of their catechism answers are wrong (wink wink...hug hug). But seriously, we can learn something (and hopefully we are) about the importance of teaching the doctrines of the faith from the confessional Presbyterian brothers.
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