Should Christians be intolerant?

[Magdalenbrother]

Note: By "intolerant" I mean "persuaded that one's own faith is true while all other faiths are wrong". Maybe I should have used the word "religious exclusivism" and reformulated my question as "Should Christians be religious exclusivists?", but since the term "intolerant" is shorter and more or less related in meaning, I will use it here. "Tolerant" will then mean "convinced that spiritual paths other than one's own may be equally valid".

Don't let us beat about the bush. The core of the Christian faith is that man can escape sin, and the eternal damnation that sin brings about, only through faith in a unique historical character, Jesus the Nazarene, who also happens to be the God's eternally only-begottten son, briefly God himself. If one is to be saved (and not just enlightened) one must imperatively establish a living relationship with this superindividual whom God has made mankind's sole door of salvation. Let me insist that the relationship is to a real person of flesh and blood who lived in Palestine two thousand years ago, not a god or God, not to an abstract disincarnated "Divine Wisdom", let alone to a corpus of teachings that one could practice independently. Salvation comes through a person, through a person's grace, through a person's intervention in human history, not through one's own moral and ascetic efforts.

I think that it is essential to realize that salvation is as much through Jesus the man as through Jesus God the Son. The divine Jesus is necessary because only a divine individual could have led a sinless life and made a perfect sacrifice. The earthly, human Jesus not only relates salvation to his (consubstantial) brothers, he also gives salvation a distinctive "Christian" character: he gives the Church its unique identity. There are no two Jesus Christs, there are therefore no two paths of salvation.

Now if you as a Christian claim that Buddhists can be saved, this can only mean one thing: that salvation is through good works. IOW, Jesus died for nothing. Or Jesus is redundant. My own conduct becomes the real means of salvation. I'm no longer saved, I save myself. I am the savior.

The only way out is for the Christian to claim that God, in his superabundant mercy, has decided to bestow His grace on any man who does good works, even if he doesn't know Jesus, but the grace will be the grace of Calvary. Buddhists and Muslims are saved through Jesus but they don't know it! But God and the Christians know what the truth is. This solution I call "religious imperialism".

Now something that occurred to me while reflecting on the content of this post is that the formula "we are saved by Jesus" is not accurate. Imagine that Jesus were still alive among us. How would he save us? How would we relate to him and thus obtain salvation? Would He have to know each of us personally and deliver us a "certificate of salvation"? Would He have to hold our hand at our death-bed? If you say: "We relate to Jesus through his teachings", you fall into the "good works" trap and make Jesus redundant.

But how do we relate to Jesus today? The usual answer is: "Through his body, which is the Church." I think that even this answer is inaccurate. The real answer is: through His spirit who dwells in His body the Church.

Obviously salvation through Jesus cannot happen through physical contact with the historical individual ("the flesh is useless", says Jesus in "John"). It must happen through something that transcends space and time (while being present in space-time): the Spirit (in the material church/body). Paul says that Jesus is a life-giving spirit.

We are saved by the Spirit. What spirit?

Not just any spirit, the spirit of Jesus. The spirit saves but through a material, historical reality: the congregation of Jesus' brothers and sisters.

But wait, does Jesus send his spirit to baptized church members alone?

Or does Jesus' spirit blow where it wills? Haven't we heard of people who were filled with the spirit even before being baptized?

If the spirit blows where it wills, we could understand how the followers of other religions are saved. But again, this is a disguised form of religious imperialism.

Or one must admit that Jesus, as a life-giving spirit, is not bound by his deeds and teachings in 1st century Palestine, by his incarnation. But how does one make Jesus' death and resurrection non temporal? John in Revelation says that the Lamb is slain from the beginning of the world. Is the eternal sacrifice John saw in heaven the true saving sacrifice, of which Calvary was but one illustration? As you can see, the problem becomes very complicated, but I see here a possibility of really opening Christianity to a universally tolerant perspective.

[shunyadragon]

Note: By "intolerant" I mean "persuaded that one's own faith is true while all other faiths are wrong". Maybe I should have used the word "religious exclusivism" and reformulated my question as "Should Christians be religious exclusivists?", but since the term "intolerant" is shorter and more or less related in meaning, I will use it here. "Tolerant" will then mean "convinced that spiritual paths other than one's own may be equally valid".
I do not view tolerance as "convinced that spiritual paths other than one's own may be equally valid". If you had this view there would be no need to tolerate them.

Tolerance is more like getting along with or allowing others to believe as they chose with out the religious or social stigma of traditional Christianity. Christianity tried on tolerance in the 1950's and 60's, but it did not fit. The experiment of Eccumenism failed miserably, so it would be difficult for Christians today to show much in the way of tolerance toward other religions.

Intolerance is just a more blunt and forthright variation of tolerance. Both reflect that other people who believe differently a in some way inferior or different. If they are not too bad you can tolerate them, but if they are too different, than toleration is out of the question.

[Solly]

Don't let us beat about the bush. The core of the Christian faith is that man can escape sin, and the eternal damnation that sin brings about, only through faith in a unique historical character, Jesus the Nazarene, who also happens to be the God's eternally only-begottten son, briefly God himself. If one is to be saved (and not just enlightened) one must imperatively establish a living relationship with this superindividual whom God has made mankind's sole door of salvation. Let me insist that the relationship is to a real person of flesh and blood who lived in Palestine two thousand years ago, not a god or God, not to an abstract disincarnated "Divine Wisdom", let alone to a corpus of teachings that one could practice independently. Salvation comes through a person, through a person's grace, through a person's intervention in human history, not through one's own moral and ascetic efforts.

I think that it is essential to realize that salvation is as much through Jesus the man as through Jesus God the Son. The divine Jesus is necessary because only a divine individual could have led a sinless life and made a perfect sacrifice. The earthly, human Jesus not only relates salvation to his (consubstantial) brothers, he also gives salvation a distinctive "Christian" character: he gives the Church its unique identity. There are no two Jesus Christs, there are therefore no two paths of salvation.


Not sure where you are going with this MB, but well done on what you have stated in the excerpt above.

The Spirit does not come to baptised church members, rather it is the spirit who brings people into the church, the body of Christ. My problem with inclusivism of the kind you have mentioned is that it reuires the presence of the Spirit, but it doesn't require of Him to do his job, which is to reveal Jesus and the truth of Him. Jesus and the Spirit are the two hands of God, yet inclusivists require God to have one hand tied behind his back.

So in answer to your question, yes, for me Christianity is an exclusive religion; it can recognise aspects of truth, and celebrate actions that still reflect the image of God in human beings in other religions and no religions, but it ultimately points the finger and says, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and expects people to look, respond, and follow, for no one comes to the Father but through him. I certainly don't seek to 'baptise' the heathen as some would see it, nor would I encourage them to think that a greater attention to their own way is all they need. I do think Christians should be more open to what is in the other traditions, what itch they are seeking to scratch so to speak, as well as the simple delight in human diversity. But imperialism? No, heaven forbid. The son of man came to serve, and so should we.

A blessed Christmas to you and yours MB slly

[Magdalenbrother]

Excellent answer, Solly. You are a consistent Christian.

Holy Feast of the Nativity of the Sun of Justice to all!

[Solly]

Excellent answer, Solly. You are a consistent Christian.

High Praise indeed!!

Holy Feast of the Nativity of the Sun of Justice to all!

:thumb:

[Magdalenbrother]

The question is: do you believe that non Christians will be saved? It seems to me that any positive answer must fail to do justice to the full Christian faith.

Now is tolerance possible for Christians? I am reminded of the tears of a Catholic bishop as he passed by hundreds of people in the streets of Paris, knowing that they were not saved. Think about it: your neighbor who is a Muslim or a Buddhist will suffer eternally in hell because he doesn't know Jesus. How can you as a Christian remain indifferent? So, if there is to be tolerance it must be either infinitely tearful or accompanied by relentless attempts to bring others to the only true faith.

You see, when one lets the Christian faith, with its exclusivist grandeur, explode into one's heart, one begins to feel empathy for the Holy Inquisition and the forced conversion of primitive peoples by the Spaniards in the New World. For these people the torments of the damned in hell were no figures of speech. What if they really wanted to save the people whom they forced to get baptized? Don't we today force people to undergo vaccination? What is more important, the body or the soul?

If present-day Christians are quite different from Torquemada and other religious "fanatics"(aren't all true believers fanatics?), it is because they have become diffident about their faith. Or lukewarm. Or ignorant.

[Solly]

The question is: do you believe that non Christians will be saved? It seems to me that any positive answer must fail to do justice to the full Christian faith.

If you mean do I think anyone can be 'saved' without a knowledge of the covenant God of the Bible, as revealed through his word, and fully and finally in Jesus Christ, consciously known by revelation of the Spirit, then no.
Do I think this can happen apart from the church? Yes.
Do I think vast swathes of humanity are left without this knowledge, yes and no, since the church and the Bible are present nearly everywhere, even in closed countries.
I heard about the testimony of one Nigerian Muslim who was antiChristian, and used to engage in debates with Christians to disprove Chrsitianity in faovur of Islam. Then one day he read in his Quran the words, Jesus is God's spirit, and saw them differently than he had ever done. He is now a Christian.
Equally, I think the influence of Christianity has touched other religions in ways they don't fully realise, for instance in writers like Thich Nhat Han.
When William Carey was in what is now Bangladesh, he was approached by a Hindu called Krishna Pal, who had done the rounds of the various Gurus and Swami's trying to find an answer to his problem; he found the answer in Christ once he met Carey and his team, and became the first modern Christian in India thorugh that work.
So, to elaborate, God can work through the religions that exist, and through people who aren't religious, but it must result in a conscious movement towards a revealed Christ.

And at this point someone mentions babies and the mentally handicapped...

[Solly]

The question is: do you believe that non Christians will be saved? It seems to me that any positive answer must fail to do justice to the full Christian faith.
You added more after my reply...

Now is tolerance possible for Christians? I am reminded of the tears of a Catholic bishop as he passed by hundreds of people in the streets of Paris, knowing that they were not saved. Think about it: your neighbor who is a Muslim or a Buddhist will suffer eternally in hell because he doesn't know Jesus. How can you as a Christian remain indifferent? So, if there is to be tolerance it must be either infinitely tearful or accompanied by relentless attempts to bring others to the only true faith.

Or? Both, more like. But tempered by the fact that men will not receive unless the Spirit moves first to open their eyes. We can't force people to be Christians, that is why your next example falls down as a good illustration. You can't force men's hearts and minds.

You see, when one lets the Christian faith, with its exclusivist grandeur, explode into one's heart, one begins to feel empathy for the Holy Inquisition and the forced conversion of primitive peoples by the Spaniards in the New World. For these people the torments of the damned in hell were no figures of speech. What if they really wanted to save the people whom they forced to get baptized? Don't we today force people to undergo vaccination? What is more important, the body or the soul?

No empathy at all; you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Unless there is the desire to drink, all you will do is drown people, losing body and soul.

If present-day Christians are quite different from Torquemada and other religious "fanatics"(aren't all true believers fanatics?), it is because they have become diffident about their faith. Or lukewarm. Or ignorant.

Tell that to YWAM, to OM, to Billy Graham, to every local church that goes knocking on doors, or preaching in the streets.

[anami]

Jesus was not intolerant.
He never told anyone they were going to hell for not following his words and he definatly would not have told someone they were going to hell for their ignorance of him.

[Solly]

Joh 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Joh 3:17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Joh 3:18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
Joh 3:19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.
Joh 3:20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.
Joh 3:21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been carried out in God."

[Clever]

"Now if you as a Christian claim that Buddhists can be saved, this can only mean one thing: that salvation is through good works. IOW, Jesus died for nothing. Or Jesus is redundant. My own conduct becomes the real means of salvation. I'm no longer saved, I save myself. I am the savior."

Not necessarily.

I believe the work of Jesus on the cross is more powerful than we can ever understand. I believe limiting it to certain beliefs makes the work of the cross less effective.

Clever

[themuzicman]

Jesus was not intolerant.
He never told anyone they were going to hell for not following his words and he definatly would not have told someone they were going to hell for their ignorance of him.


I think you need to go back and read John 3:16, John 6:28-29, John 6:40 and John 6:47. Jesus CLEARLY puts the condition of believing in Him upon receiving eternal life.

If you go over to Roman 10:13-14, you find that people cannot believe unless they've heard the gospel, so, it would seem apparant that ignorance isn't an excuse. The fact is that everyone knows that they've sinned (Romans 2), and aren't worthy in and of themselves. The job of the church, then, is to spread the good news that there is a way to eternal life through Christ.

Michael

[Jillyn'Toast]

Note: By "intolerant" I mean "persuaded that one's own faith is true while all other faiths are wrong". Maybe I should have used the word "religious exclusivism" and reformulated my question as "Should Christians be religious exclusivists?", but since the term "intolerant" is shorter and more or less related in meaning, I will use it here. "Tolerant" will then mean "convinced that spiritual paths other than one's own may be equally valid".

You're right, that's not the definition of tolerance. Christianity is very tolerant. You don't tolerate things you approve or like. Such as, you wouldn't tolerate apple pie. I think a better question is Should any religion be religiously exclusive? Name one religion that says any others are right. Even religions that claim to accept others beliefs say that the others are wrong because of their exclusiveness. I don't know much about Bahai, but I think they accept many other religious texts as true. But in doing that they are saying that Islam which does not accept other religions is wrong because it doesn't. And so every religion by default is exclusive.

Now if you as a Christian claim that Buddhists can be saved, this can only mean one thing: that salvation is through good works. IOW, Jesus died for nothing. Or Jesus is redundant. My own conduct becomes the real means of salvation. I'm no longer saved, I save myself. I am the savior.

Did you mean Buddhists can't be saved? I'm not sure what this paragraph means. I don't think a Christian would claim Buddhists (while remaining true to Buddhism) can be saved, since salvation comes through knowledge and acceptance of Jesus Christ and not through theism and good works.

The only way out is for the Christian to claim that God, in his superabundant mercy, has decided to bestow His grace on any man who does good works, even if he doesn't know Jesus, but the grace will be the grace of Calvary. Buddhists and Muslims are saved through Jesus but they don't know it! But God and the Christians know what the truth is. This solution I call "religious imperialism".

I have never heard anyone teach that ever... Christians don't claim salvation through good works.

Now something that occurred to me while reflecting on the content of this post is that the formula "we are saved by Jesus" is not accurate. Imagine that Jesus were still alive among us. How would he save us? How would we relate to him and thus obtain salvation? Would He have to know each of us personally and deliver us a "certificate of salvation"? Would He have to hold our hand at our death-bed? If you say: "We relate to Jesus through his teachings", you fall into the "good works" trap and make Jesus redundant.

If Jesus were still among us and we lived in a pre-atonement world, he would save us the same way he saved us originally. By being sinless, through a sacrifice that covers sin. We would relate to him on a personal level as we do now and obtaion salvation as we do now, through knowledge and acceptance of Jesus as the Christ.

But how do we relate to Jesus today? The usual answer is: "Through his body, which is the Church." I think that even this answer is inaccurate. The real answer is: through His spirit who dwells in His body the Church.

I think it's first through a general knowledge of God and then a personal revelation of his character through the Bible...

Obviously salvation through Jesus cannot happen through physical contact with the historical individual ("the flesh is useless", says Jesus in "John"). It must happen through something that transcends space and time (while being present in space-time): the Spirit (in the material church/body). Paul says that Jesus is a life-giving spirit.

Who (other than you) said physical contact?

Not just any spirit, the spirit of Jesus. The spirit saves but through a material, historical reality: the congregation of Jesus' brothers and sisters.

Where did you get that... By Jesus spirit do you mean the Holy Spirit? Or people as in the Church where spirit means more of an attitude?

Or does Jesus' spirit blow where it wills? Haven't we heard of people who were filled with the spirit even before being baptized?

Have we heard of that?

If the spirit blows where it wills, we could understand how the followers of other religions are saved. But again, this is a disguised form of religious imperialism.

I'd like to hear that one explained more.

Or one must admit that Jesus, as a life-giving spirit, is not bound by his deeds and teachings in 1st century Palestine, by his incarnation. But how does one make Jesus' death and resurrection non temporal? John in Revelation says that the Lamb is slain from the beginning of the world. Is the eternal sacrifice John saw in heaven the true saving sacrifice, of which Calvary was but one illustration? As you can see, the problem becomes very complicated, but I see here a possibility of really opening Christianity to a universally tolerant perspective.

I think that would not be Christianity then, but a religion made up. And that religion would be come exclusive because it would say Christianity in it's original form is wrong, excluding it from this new religion.