“What About Other Religions?”



The first and shortest answer to this question is that Christianity is not a religion. Religion is when man rather than God tries to define and establish rules as to what his relationship to God is to be; whether his god is deity, truth, education, intelligence, money, sex or whatever. Christianity is based on what God has said in the Bible about what the relationship between man and Himself is to be. The Bible was written by men but under the divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Further, Christianity is a relationship between each believer and God; a relationship like that enjoyed by Adam before he disobeyed God. Christianity is not supposed to be a religion although many pervert it into a religion by adding their own rules just as the Pharisees had done in Jesus’ time. It then becomes “Christianism” rather than Christianity.

The world likes to say that “there are many roads that lead to the city” indicating that many religions can lead to God and heaven. But the Bible tells us that is absolutely not true. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” We have experienced the reality of Jesus and know that He lives today just as He said He would. Not only does He live but He lives in us. We know that our God is alive, the only true and living God. In Matthew 7:13-15, Jesus told us to “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.”

The world accuses us of being intolerant if we refuse to agree that other religions can also lead to God and salvation. Christians who have a personal relationship with God are not intolerant of the beliefs of others. Those who are practicing Christianism rather than having a personal relationship with God often are intolerant and are the source of many religious wars (see Ireland and Serbia as well as the Spanish Inquisition in the past). As Christians, we are bound by the gospel (Matthew 28:19; Mark 16:15) to share the “Good News” of the gospel with every person in the world. But if individuals will not receive the truth we tell them, we are not to castigate them or try to convert them by force as the Muslims do. Jesus told the disciples (Mark 6:11) “And any place that does not receive you or listen to you, as you go out from there, shake off the dust from the soles of your feet for a testimony against them.” T. L. Osborn, a powerful man of God, has said that no one has a right to hear the gospel twice until everyone has heard it once.

Judaism is focused on the same God, Jehovah or Yahweh, that we worship but most of them refuse to acknowledge that Jesus is the Messiah because of the blindness of the Pharisees and their adherence to their traditions. The Muslims claim to worship the same God but also fail to accept Jesus as Lord. They maintain that Jesus was only a prophet who was not crucified but was taken up by God as Enoch was. Muslims believe that forcible conversion to Islam is appropriate although originally Muhammad had a revelation that it was not. Later he said that he had another revelation that it was all right to forcibly convert others. The many differences between Judaism, Islam and Christianity are too numerous to cover here. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormonism focus on the God of the Bible but from a distorted viewpoint

Beyond these, no religion focuses on a single god or godhead. Hinduism and many other religions have multiple gods (sometimes a separate god for almost everything) and others have no god. Secular humanism is a religion lacking a god other than intellect, “truth”, education or self. Of course, their “truth” has nothing of the spiritual about it and is far from God’s Truth.

Buddhism originated with a man who was seeking the answer to the problem of suffering in human existence. He developed a philosophy that one could avoid suffering by following the “Middle Path” and thus avoiding desire. He felt that desire was the cause of suffering and if you avoided desire you would avoid suffering. Buddha made no claim to being God and, in fact, was basically atheistic. God had no place in his philosophy because God was unnecessary to his philosophy. Many Buddhists honor Buddha as a great teacher but others worship him and pray to him as a god. Most Buddhists have shrines with idols to which they pray in Buddha’s name.

Why are there so many different religions? In Abraham’s time there were already many religions that involved the worship of a variety of gods and idols. There is a need for God in all of us. God created us that way. Satan knows this and creates substitute religions because he wants to be worshiped (Luke 4:5-7) and he wants to keep people from seeking the one true living God. He does this by putting the thoughts into people’s minds that lead them to develop false religions rather than learning about and developing a relationship with the Creator of the universe.

There are many wonderful people who follow the various religions of the world. Many of their hearts are as right as human hearts can be without God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. They mean well and want to do “good”. Among the secular humanists there are many well-meaning people whose desire is to do good. They have been led to believe that pluralism and multiculturalism are the appropriate attitudes to have. Because they have been deceived, they find it hard to comprehend that there is only one way to God and salvation. They have been taught that there is “more than one way to skin a cat”. They have been taught (especially in this country today) that there are no absolute truths and that truth is a relative thing that can vary from person to person, and from day to day depending on circumstances. We cannot help them by agreeing with them or by arguing with them. We cannot help them by attacking their beliefs because that would put up a wall of resistance. We can only help them by showing them Jesus through the gospel message. Their only hope of salvation is to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and to be moved upon by the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 3:7 verifies that “..neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase”.

The Bible is clear. “Other religions” do not lead to God, heaven or salvation. Jesus is “the way, the truth and the life”! Acts 4:12 tells us “...Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” There is no other way.