Who's In?

Recently, I have been talking with a friend at my church about salvation (broadly speaking). Sometimes I find it difficult to address this issue and its salient points in ways that don't reveal the esoteric language and insulated nature of life as a seminarian. Tonight, we're watching a movie at church called "The Fourth Wise Man," which I have not seen, but which I have been told questions the stringent boundaries which the church has often put on salvation. (Essentially, a Zoroastrian lives out the life that Jesus calls all people to in the gospels--in particular Matthew, I believe--and thus the question is raised as to his salvation, given that his faith is not specifically in Christ, but he lives a Christlike life, so far as is possible. Again, I haven't seen this movie yet, so I apologize for any inaccuracies in my synopsis).

I have been asked to speak briefly after the movie. I think that the following is what I intend to say. It's surely incomplete, but hopefully it will entice conversation. Beforehand, I will read I John 1:1-4.

Many people have found reason to argue that faith in Christ, according to Christian doctrine, is the only way to get to Heaven, the only way to be saved, based on Scripture. But such a claim is a rather risky one for Christians to make. And it’s risky not because it is necessarily untrue, but because such a claim can allow us to separate ourselves from those who are not “saved,” from those who by our measures, won’t get into Heaven. It is easy to get Jesus’ claim that he is “the way, the truth and the life” confused with “Christianity (or the Church) is the way, the truth and the life.” Rarely, I think, are out thoughts and actions subtle enough to make this distinction and live within it’s light.

Regardless, we must remember that the Church, whose responsibility it is to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, is not evidence of our salvation, but a response to the grace through which we understand, experience and know our salvation. When we recognize this, we recognize first, that God reveals Godself to us, that God seeks and finds us, that God desires a relationship with us before we even begin to understand this—let alone how it is possible. In turn we can come to understand that we are not, as Christians, somehow moving towards God, or closer to God than others, or have a greater claim to God, but that God has come eternally to us. In God’s freedom, God has chosen to bind himself in loving relationship to all of creation, in and through the Cross event, the life death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And this is the joy we proclaim.

In the light of this good news, as it is revealed to us in Scripture we recognize our freedom from the things that separate us from God, that keep us living as though we are not saved, as though the incarnation of the living God whom we know, love and worship, does not matter. We recognize the worthiness of Christ as the focus and foundation of our faith. What we do not find in Scripture is our right to decide who’s in and who’s out—only that Christ came because all creation is loved beyond our capacity to understand and we are called to live lives that reflect this radical truth.