Is Jesus the Only Way? (Matt. 22:1-14; John 14:5-6)
Retired Senior Pastor, Christ United Methodist Church, Memphis, Tennessee
It may surprise you to know what many Americans consider to be the most serious sin. No, it’s not murder. Even murder can have mitigating factors. According to an article by Daniel Taylor in Christianity Today, many Americans consider the worst sin to be intolerance.
And guess who are the worst sinners, at least in the minds of many Americans? Evangelical Christians! One writer said, "Christians are seen as the pit bulls of culture wars—small brains, big teeth, strong jaws and no interest in compromise."
A guest on National Public Radio shocked even his liberal host when he objected to the Southern Baptist belief that a lot of people are going to hell. By the way, that’s not just a Southern Baptist belief; that’s a biblical truth. The guest on NPR offered this rather hateful comment: "The evaporation of four million Baptists who believe that garbage would leave the world a better place." Sounds to me like that guest was mighty intolerant of the Baptists. Don’t the Baptists have a right to their biblical interpretation?
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Dr. Laura, the popular and controversial radio host, has talked about the large volume of hate mail she receives for believing in moral absolutes. Her enemies ask her to be more tolerant of other moral views, but they don’t want to tolerate her views.
In America, we believe in religious toleration. You can even be a Satan worshipper and have your religious expression protected. But along with our toleration has come the dangerous idea that no religion should make exclusive claims to truth. R.C. Sproul says that making exclusive claims in America is "like attacking baseball, hot dogs, motherhood and apple pie (not to mention Chevrolet)."
1Jesus said many politically incorrect things, but the most shocking is recorded in
John 14: He said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (NIV).
Now that’s an exclusive statement! CNN would never allow someone to make such a statement without an instant rebuttal.
St. Peter made that claim of Jesus even more blatant when he said, "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).
Lots of Americans almost wallow in tolerance. They feel that as long as a person is sincere about his religious beliefs, it doesn’t matter what he believes. But isn’t it strange that they apply this logic to faith but not to any other area of their lives? They want the pilot flying their next commercial flight to be right, not just sincere. They want the accountant who does their taxes to be right, not just sincere. They want the pharmacist who prepares their prescription to be right, not just sincere. Why, then, in the single most important area of their lives—their relationship with God—would they be willing to settle for sincerity instead of accuracy? It makes no sense.