“So… what denomination are you guys?”  Since founding Priority Living in 1984 – 40 short years ago – lots of people have labored to figure out what faith niche was our appropriate belief neighborhood. In a world working really hard to be fractured and divided, how could we be marginalized by our culture in an effort to dismiss us out-of-hand?

Our answer – from the beginning – has been very intentional and specific: we’re not sectarian or denominational. We are, instead, creedal: we embrace the Apostles’ Creed as the summation of our foundational beliefs. Some Protestants would deny the early Creeds; some Catholics would personally affirm the tenets of the Apostles’ Creed. It’s personal…

So, why is that a big deal?

Last week, Pope Francis – leader of 1.4 billion baptized Catholics, worldwide – made front-page news in comments made to young people in Singapore:

“Since God is God for all, then we are all children of God. If you start to fight, ‘my religion is more important than yours, mine is true and yours isn’t,’ where will that lead us? There is only one God, and each of us has a language to arrive at God. Some are Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, and they are different paths to God.” — Pope Francis

A few years ago, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life went on-the-hunt to find out where self-proclaimed Christians in America positioned themselves on this thorny issue. What beliefs are in the hearts of modern-day followers of Jesus?

Among the self-identified Evangelicals in America, 56% would agree with the Pope: there are many paths – other than faith in Christ – to connect with God and to have the assurance of eternal life. In follow-up surveys to confirm their earlier findings, only 45% of Evangelicals affirmed that a personal belief in – and relationship with – the Lord Jesus is essential to secure eternal life. 

According to the Evangelicals, 35% believe that Islam leads to eternal life with God, 33% believe that about Hinduism, and 26% believe that atheists – on the basis of their sincerity – will, in the end, be in relationship with God.

Those are all just line-items from a bucketload of positions sought by insightful researchers. Historically, taken in summation, these ideological conclusions are best defined as pluralism, which is a modern grouping within what is known as universalism: the belief that ultimately all people will be embraced by God and experience eternal life.

Not only did Jesus believe himself to be the only way to God – being one with God the Father – the early followers and apostles believed the same. Peter said:

“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved”
— Acts 4:12

Paul hated Christians before he saw the light – literally – and became a Jesus-follower. After his conversion, he spoke about Christ with clear conviction that He was the only way to salvation. His position:

“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord” — Paul (Phil. 2:10, 11)

In similar fashion, the apostle John wrote:

“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Messiah is born of God… God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life” — John (I Jn. 5:1, 11-12)

Bottom line: Pope Francis’s comments are out-of-sync with Jesus and the Scriptures. Modern American Christians’ core beliefs about redemptive faith are veering away from the clear truth of the Bible. These aren’t non-essential differences that are emerging among sincere Christians. One’s position on these matters will determine whether they will be welcomed – as adopted sons/daughters of the Creator’s family – into God’s eternal Heaven.

This is not just peripheral oddity: where you stand on these matters determines whether your claim to be a follower of Jesus is biblically sound or compromised by popular redefinitions that have broken connection with the Truth of God’s unchanging word.

What say ye?

Bob Shank