"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.  And you know the way to the place where I am going." 
     Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?"  Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.  If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."
     Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied."  Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, "Show us the Father'?  Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works.  Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves.  Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.  I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”

A few years ago I had a discussion with a man about Mahatma Gandhi.  I had told him about how much I admired Gandhi, and how Gandhi had long been a hero of mine.  The fact is that Gandhi’s life and beliefs had long inspired and guided me.  I first heard about him when I was in sixth grade, and I was immediately taken with his approach to life.  In my 20s I read three biographies about him, as well as his autobiography, and then saw the film, Gandhi, about ten times. 

What I discovered about Gandhi was that he was deeply inspired and guided by the gospels, and especially by Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.  He became aware of Jesus’ teachings through the writings of Leo Tolstoy, Gandhi’s favorite author, who wrote a lot about Jesus’ and his beliefs.  He was so inspired by the gospels that Gandhi decided to become a Christian while working as an attorney in South Africa.  During that time, the early 1900s, he was working to win equal rights for Indians living in South Africa.  One Sunday, inspired by Jesus’ teachings, and wanting to learn more, he decided to go to attend an Anglican church.  He entered the church and sat in the back.  Soon two white men walked up and told him that he couldn’t worship there.  When Gandhi asked why, the men told him that people of his kind weren’t welcome in “their” church.  Gandhi argued that Jesus accepted everyone.  The men told him that he wasn’t accepted there.  Gandhi left the church that day still inspired by Christ, but unwilling to become part of what he considered to be such a bigoted religion. 

I told all of this to the man I was talking to, and he responded, “Too bad that Gandhi is going to Hell.”  “Huh?” I said.  “What did you say?”  He repeated, “He’s going to Hell.  He wasn’t a Christian.”  I was stunned.  Gandhi had been my hero since I was in 6th grade.  I knew every inch of his life.  How do you respond to a statement like this?  Over the years I’ve discovered that many Christians believe that Gandhi went to Hell when a Hindu extremist assassinated him in 1948 by (in fact, one of our members told me after this sermon that what led him to start coming to Calvin Church was a sermon he heard in another church entitled, “Why Gandhi Is in Hell”)

So what do you think?  Did Gandhi go straight to Hell, despite leading people to live lives of love, peace, and freedom, or to heaven?  What happens to people of other religions when they die?   Heck, what happens to Christians who believe in Christ, but live lives of selfishness, bigotry, self-focus, who hurt others, start wars, and could care less about the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized?  Do they still go to heaven? 

This morning I want to answer these questions, but it’s going to take some time.  And I’m going to ask you for a commitment.  I want you to think deeply during this time.  The reality is that when addressing topics like this, it is always easier to simply say, “Everyone who isn’t a Christian is going to Hell,” and then sit down.  Or to say “Everyone is saved” and then sit down.  But neither of those answers would be true.  The fact is that the answer to these questions take time.  Digging into what Christianity really believes always takes time and effort because despite the voices of black-and-white Christians, real Christianity resists simplistic answers.  So I’m going to ask you to stay with me as I dig into all this. 

Let’s start with the basic reasons people have for believing that people of other faiths are going to Hell.  Not surprisingly, their beliefs tend to be rooted in the Old Testament.  Why?  Because the New Testament is much friendlier to the idea of God welcoming people of other faiths, while the Old Testament is much clearer in its rejection.  There are reasons why this is true, but to understand you have to understand something about the Bible in general. 

When the Old Testament speaks against people of other faiths, it is rejecting people whose faith is in tribal gods and superstitions.  But there are also other reasons.  You have to look at the Bible as a whole in terms of how it is written, and to understand this it helps to understand something of developmental psychology.  Most people learn basic developmental psychology in introductory psychology, sociology, anthropology, and education class.  What you learn is that humans develop cognitively over their lives, and go from basic rule-based, black-and-white thinking to more abstract thinking.  That is normal.  And in many ways the Bible is developmental.

If you look at the Bible developmentally, you recognize a pattern.  The Old Testament, especially the early books, focus on many of the same issues that are the focus of young children.  What parts of the Bible are you most likely to read or tell to your children?  Generally it is the stories from Genesis, which focus on basic rules that are so necessarily for children such as don’t kill your brother J, don’t sell your brother into slavery J, trust in God, don’t do what’s wrong, do do what’s right.  I don’t want to diminish the truth of these stories, but they are stories designed to impart basic lessons to immature people—especially spiritually immature.

Then we move into Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.  These books read like basic rulebooks.  Their focus is on following the rules, which is where elementary schoolchildren are developmentally.  You recognize this in your own children or other children.  You say to a child, “No, don’t do that!”  They then ask “Why?”  And you respond by teaching them the rules.  Rules are very, very important for child development, for when they learn they rules, they learn the limits of life.  The Israelites needed to be given basic rules because they were immature spiritually.

As we move through the prophets, they read like the dialogue of a parent with teenagers.  The prophets consistently lament that nation of Israel has not been responsible, that it had been given every advantage, but that it wanted to do its own thing.  And so Israel was going to suffer the consequences, which God, like a loving parent, will allow to happen.  This is very similar to what happens with teenagers.  They are given more freedom to make their own decisions, and sometimes they make bad decisions in which they go against the will of the parents.  Good parenting often means letting them suffer the consequences.

As we move into the New Testament, and especially the gospels, they are much more mature.  They don’t present a rule-based religion, but a love-based religion.  Jesus calls us to act in mature ways based on love, compassion, and commitment.  For instance, under the Old Testament way of thinking we are good when we follow the rules and avoid punishment.  In the New Testament way of thinking, we do what is right when we act out of love.  And we do what is right because we want to do things for them out of love.  This is what it means to be mature.  And the gospels call us to act in mature ways. 

Unfortunately, when it comes to categorically consigning people like Gandhi to Hell, we are much more likely to root our beliefs in some Old Testament passage than a New Testament one.  That doesn’t mean you won’t find passages in the New Testament that seem to reject people of other faiths.  There are passages that can be read that way, but I believe that they generally are misread and our contradicted by other New Testament passages.  Let me give you an example. 

Look at our passage above.  It seems to clearly state that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one comes to God except through him.  Evangelicals use this passage all the time to show that non-Christians aren’t saved.  The problem is that they also consistently misread this passage.  This passage has nothing to do with non-Christians.  It is part of a much larger passage that begins in John 13, and ends in John 15, in which Jesus teaches his disciples about the Father, himself, and the Holy Spirit.  He has told them that he is about to leave them to join the Father in heaven, where he will prepare a place for them.  He then tells them that they will know the way.  They complain that they don’t know the way to the Father.  Jesus then says that they do know the way to the Father because he is the way.  Again, this sounds like a clear statement against non-Christians, but it isn’t.  It’s a relationship statement of how his followers can experience and know the Father.  It’s a Trinitarian statement in which Jesus is telling them that they know the way to the Father, and it leads through their direct relationship with him, just as the later gift of the Holy Spirit will give them direct access to him and the Father when he is gone. 

To understand what this means you have to understand basic Christian theology.  We understand that God is one, but that we can experience and relate with God through one, two, or three of the persons of God.  What does that word, “person,” mean?  It comes from the Latin word, “persona,” which means “mask.”  It’s a theatrical word.  An actor acts through a mask that helps us experience the character.  The mask doesn’t hide a person.  It helps the actor be the character and express the character better.  We Christians understand and experience God as a Father in heaven who created us and has a purpose for us.  We also understand that God has been incarnated in Christ, and that in this person of Christ is still incarnated in the world through people, events, nature, the church, and more.  You hear this in Christian language all the time.  What does Paul call the church?  The body of Christ.  When two or three are gathered, where is Christ?  In our midst.  Paul says, “Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in the faith. Test yourselves.  Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” (2 Corinthians 13:5).  We also understand that God, in the person of the Holy Spirit, is all around us, permeating us, filling us, surrounding us.  How does this relate to Jesus being the way, the truth, and the life?  Jesus isn’t talking about non-Christians at all.  He is simply saying to the disciples, who still consider God the Father to be distant and in heaven, that they are relating to the Father right then and there through Jesus.  Later, he tells them that they will be given the gift of the Holy Spirit, through whom they will have a direct link to both the Father and to him.  He isn’t saying that all non-Christians are destined to Hell.  He is simply saying that he has offered a way for people to have a direct relationship with the Father through him, and later, through the Holy Spirit. 

But let’s say you stay with the idea that this passage does consign non-Christians to Hell.  Then what do you do with passages such as Matthew 25, which says,
"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.  Then the king will say to those at his right hand, "Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;  for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.'  Then the righteous will answer him, "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?  And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?  And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?'  And the king will answer them, "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.'  Then he will say to those at his left hand, "You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.'  Then they also will answer, "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?'  Then he will answer them, "Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.'  And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

How do you reconcile this understanding of the passage with the idea that non-Christians are going to Hell, especially those non-Christians who live a life devoted to caring about the poor, the hungry, the naked, the thirsty, and the imprisoned—people like Mahatma Gandhi.  Also, how do you reconcile this understanding of the passage with the people Jesus holds up as heroes in the gospels?  Think about the people of great faith.  It isn’t the disciples.  For much of the gospels the disciples play the fools.  The Sadducees and the Pharisees are the enemies.  Who are the heroes?  Often they are sinners, many of whom are non-Jewish sinners who never become Jewish or Christian, at least as far as we know. 

Think, for instance, of the man with leprosy who Jesus heals.  What you need to know about leprosy in Jesus day is that any kind of persistent skin condition, like eczema or psoriasis, was considered to be leprosy.  And the reigning theology of the day was that those with leprosy had it because they were sinners, and that the condition would persist until they had either done enough penance for their sin, or had given up their sinful ways.  Yet Jesus heals the man because the man has great faith. 

Jesus is also approached by a Roman centurion, a commander in the Roman army, who asks Jesus to heal his servant.  If anyone was doomed to Hell, it was him.  The Jews considered members of the Roman military to be evil.  They would have considered the centurion to have been among the worst of the worst.   Yet he asks Jesus to heal his servant, telling Jesus that he could he the man with one word without even being with him.  Jesus declares that his faith is greater than anyone’s in all of Israel.  Never is it suggested or implied that the man became a Jew or a follower of Jesus. 

Then there is the Canaanite woman, a member of what the Jews considered to be an evil religion, who asks Jesus to heal her daughter.  Surprisingly, Jesus tells her that his healing is not for people like her, but only for the Israelites.  She says, “Yes, but even the dogs take crumbs from the master’s table.”  Jesus heals her daughter, exclaiming that this woman’s faith is so great.  And nowhere is it suggested that she became a Jew or a follower of Jesus. 

Finally, who is the hero of the parable of the Good Samaritan.  Not the priest or the Levite, both of whom would have been considered men of great faith by the Jews.  The hero was the Samaritan, a man who followed what the Jews of the time considered to be a false Jewish faith, false in the way that many modern evangelicals consider the Mormons today to have a false Christian faith.  Yet the Samaritan is considered to be good and filled with God’s love. 

What seems to matter to Jesus is not a person’s religion but a person’s openness to God, God’s love, power, and presence in Christ, whether that means to Christ personally or God’s presence however they experience God’s presence. 

There’s also one other problem with saying that the Bible rejects people of other faiths. Even in rejecting other faiths Bible wasn’t referring to the modern faiths of today.  Islam wouldn’t exist until 600 years after Jesus died.  And when it did emerge on the scene, it emerged out of Judaism just like Christianity.  When Muslims worship Allah, they are also worshiping our God, just as the Jews worship Yahweh who is our God.  The names might be different, but it is still God.  What’s different is that their understanding of God is much more similar to our understanding of God as Father.  They mostly conceive of God as being like the Father, who is in heaven and distant, which is similar to the way the disciples thought of the Father.  The task, in both Islam and Judaism, is to strive to live the kind of moral life God expects of us so that we can be considered acceptable to God and righteous.  To say that they don’t believe in the same God isn’t true.  It is more accurate to say that they don’t believe in the incarnation of God’s presence in all of life the way we understand God in Christ.  But they still worship God.  My sense is that their understanding of God just isn’t as full as Christianity’s, where we understand God as being in heaven (the Father), incarnated in the world (Christ), and permeating and surrounding everything (the Holy Spirit). 

You can also look at other faiths such as Buddhism, which did exist in Jesus’ day, but was mostly unknown to the people of the Roman Empire.  Buddhists don’t quite worship God as we know God, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t worship God.  Their understanding of God is less personal, but more spiritual.  In many ways their understanding of God is similar to our understanding of God as Holy Spirit.  They conceive of God as a universal energy or power that surrounds and permeates everything in life.  To say that they don’t believe in the same God isn’t quite true.  What might be better said is that their understanding of God is less personal and tangible than ours.  It is a belief in divinity, a universal Spirit. 

So why do people persist in saying that non-Christians are going to Hell?   Personally, I think it has a lot to do with basic psychology 101.  If you took basic psychology, you probably learned a concept from a psychologist named Abraham Maslow.   Maslow developed a pyramid of needs that showed how humans grow and mature psychological.   He said to develop further as human beings, we have to satisfy the conditions of lower needs before moving onto satisfying higher needs.  The pyramid looks like this: 

 

Maslow says that to grow psychologically we have to first satisfy our primary, physiological needs.  We can’t expect someone who is starving, thirsty, tired, and under constant stress to become mature.  But once the person has those needs satisfied, she or he begins to work on safety needs.  Once those are met, the person continues to address love, esteem, and self-actualization needs.  Here’s what I find interesting.  If you talk to many folks who emphasize that non-Christians are going to Hell, I find that they are often obsessed with safety needs.  You can hear it in what they consider to be the main focus of faith.  What do they talk about the most?  Salvation—being saved.  It’s all about safety.  And they feel safer knowing that they will get into heaven while others won’t. 

So does this mean that I think all faiths are equivalent?  No.  As implied before, I think the strength of Christianity isn’t that it gets some people into heaven while keeping out the riff-raff. The strength of Christianity is its fullness.  If you look at other faiths, they often emphasize only one aspect of God, what we might call one person of God. And their practices, theology, and beliefs all reflect this.  Christianity, when it is practiced well and completely, integrates everything that is good in other faiths.  It doesn’t just see God in one way, it experiences God as a creator in heaven, as incarnated in the world, and as a spirit that is everywhere.  This is God who is beyond anything we can imagine.

So, what should we as Christians think about other faiths?  Are they going to Heaven or Hell?  Here’s the basic truth:  life as a Christian is about much more than getting into heaven or avoiding hell.  It’s about growing to full maturity as a person, to become the people God created us to be.  This is what Christ offers us and others.  Christianity is about becoming people of love, devotion, faith, and of God.  It’s about becoming people who incarnate Christ in our lives, and share God’s Spirit with the world.  When we make it all about getting into Heaven and avoiding Hell, we cheapen Christian religion and diminish its power.  So, what about people of other faiths?  Trust me, God’s will take care of them just as God is taking care of us.  We just need to leave everything in God’s hands.