'New Age' Christians: No One Path to Salvation
Pastor Dale Morgan
Monday, Jun. 23, 2008
*'New Age' Christians: No One Path to Salvation*
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life
Americans of every religious stripe are considerably more tolerant of
the beliefs of others than most of us might have assumed, according to a
new poll released Monday. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life last
year surveyed 35,000 Americans, and found that 70% of respondents agreed
with the statement "Many religions can lead to eternal life." Even more
remarkable was the fact that 57% of Evangelical 'New Age' Christians
were willing to accept that theirs might not be the only path to
salvation, since most Christians historically have embraced the words of
Jesus, in the Gospel of John, that "no one comes to the Father except
through me." Even as mainline churches had become more tolerant, the
exclusivity of Christianity's path to heaven has long been one of the
Evangelicals' fundamental tenets. The new poll suggests a major shift,
at least in the pews.
The Religious Landscape Survey's findings appear to signal that religion
may actually be a less divisive factor in American political life than
had been suggested by the national conversation over the last few
decades. Peter Berger, University Professor of Sociology and Theology at
Boston University, said that the poll confirms that "the so-called
culture war, in its more aggressive form, is mainly waged between rather
small groups of people." The combination of such tolerance with high
levels of religious participation and intensity in the U.S., says
Berger, "is distinctively American — and rather cheering. "
Less so, perhaps, to Christian conservatives, for whom Rice University
sociologist D. Michael Lindsay suggests the survey results have a
"devastating effect on theological purity." An acceptance of the notion
of other paths to salvation dilutes the impact of the doctrine that
Christ died to remove sin and thus opened the pathway to eternal life
for those who accept him as their personal savior. It could also reduce
the impulse to evangelize, which is based on the premise that those who
are not Christian are denied salvation. The problem, says Albert Mohler,
president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, is that "the
cultural context and the reality of pluralism has pulled many away from
historic Christianity."
Quizzed on the breadth of the poll's definition of "Evangelical," Pew
pollster John Green said the 296-page survey made use of
self-identification by the respondents' churches, denominations or
fellowships, whose variety is the report's overriding theme. However, he
said, if one isolates the most "traditionalist" members of the white
Evangelical group, 50% still agreed that other faiths might offer a path
to eternal life. In fact, of the dozens of denominations covered by the
Pew survey, it was only Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses who answered in
the majority that their own faith was the only way to eternal life.
Analysts expressed some surprise at how far the tolerance needle has
swung, but said the trend itself was foreseeable because of American
Christians' increasing proximity to other faiths since immigration
quotas were loosened in the 1960s. Says Rice's Lindsay, the author of
Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite:
"If you have a colleague who is Buddhist or your kid plays with a little
boy who is Hindu, it changes your appreciation of the religious 'other.'"
While the combination of Americans' religiosity — more than half those
polled said was "very important in their lives" — and their tolerance
for the beliefs of others may suggest creedal confusion, this appears
not to trouble good-hearted U.S. pew-sitters. Says Lindsay, "The problem
is not that Americans don't believe in anything, but that they believe
in everything, and the two things don't always fit together." But he
adds, the views are consistent with tolerant views expressed by
Evangelicals he met in various cities as he toured while promoting his
book. Mohler agrees: "We've seen this coming," adding that the query
about whether others can make it to heaven "has been the question I get
asked by more college students and on my radio program." More so than
Christ's divinity or Resurrection, he says, "the exclusivity of the
Gospel is the most vulnerable doctrine in the face of the modern world."
Liberals and conservatives will interpret the numbers in different ways,
says Pew's Green. "The liberal [interpretation] is that Americans are
becoming more universalistic, religiously. The conservative one is that
Americans are losing faith and becoming more accommodationist." But he
says the truth may lie elsewhere. "Just because they don't want to
believe that there's only one way to salvation doesn't meant that they
don't take their religion very seriously."
The political implications of the Pew findings are more difficult to
gauge. Green says that while Americans' unexpectedly high tolerance for
one others� creeds might seem to blunt the sharp religious edge of some
of today's campaign-trail discourse, it could also lead to larger
religious coalitions around certain issues as pious believers overcome
their inhibitions about working with others.
The survey's biggest challenge is to the theologians and pastors who
will have to reconcile their flocks' acceptance of a new, polyglot
heaven with the strict admission criteria to the gated community that
preceded it.