3 Easter 06 b


“Christianity can’t be the only way to God,” claimed a person with whom I once talked. Among the many different obstacles to the Christian faith, this is one of the most common.

As survey was taken a while back and many people found it difficult to believe that Christianity could be unique.

They said:


The question about truth keeps coming up, “I believe in a ‘god,’ but to say Christianity is the true religion rather than Islam, Judaism, or Buddhism is hypocritical,” people say.

The question with which we must begin is “Do all religions lead to God? Don’t they all teach the same thing in different ways? Does it matter which way you follow?”

I love traveling. It’s the excitement of new places – the style of the buildings, the beauty of the landscape, the type of people we see and the smells that make the place unique. Traveling always seems to leave very permanent memories. They get filed away in my mind, ready to be pulled out and lived again.

Think for a moment about traveling, about getting to places. I remember when I was a kid taking family vacations in the car. My dad did not like to stop until we reached our destination. I remember one time my mother had to go to the bathroom really bad. My dad wouldn’t stop until she insisted we stop at the next roadside picnic rest area. There were no bathrooms there, so she simply hopped the fence to try to find a private place to do her business. In a moment we heard a blood curdling scream and we see my mom running full speed, trying to pull her pants up while being chased by a wild boar. She managed to fly over the fence right before the beast caught her. We laughed tell our sides hurt. We always knew where we were going on our family vacations, and on this occasion my mom knew exactly where she was going when we got back in the car. Right to the next restroom.

But imagine if you will that you and I are going to travel separately to a particular place and meet there. Say, for the sake of argument, that we wanted to meet at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and we’ll meet at a particular time at the ticket booth in front of the elevator. We both live in Fort Worth, but for various reasons we hsall be traveling separately.

The fact that we are making our separate ways to this place doesn’t really matter because we both know exactly where we are going. We know roughly where Paris is, even if we haven’t been there before. And we know the Eiffel Tower. It’s a world famous landmark that everyone knows about. We’ve seen photographs of it, so we shouldn’t have too many problems once we get to Paris.

It also doesn’t matter which way either of us goes. There is probably an infinite number of ways of getting there. Train, boat, train. Car, airplane, car. And so on. The important thing is that we’re both agreed about where and when we’ll meet, and that the place actually exists and can be located on a map.

Many people think about the different world religions in the same sort of way. “All religions are basically the same.” They all go in the same direction.” “They are all talking about the same God.”

And because they are all heading to the same destination, it doesn’t really matter which one people choose because they all get there in the end.

In many ways this idea has a lot going for it – particularly today when there is so much emphasis on being tolerant and broadminded. There are so many to choose from that there is no need to get uptight about one rather than another.

The trouble is, it just isn’t true. It can’t be true.

First of all, the only possible way it could be true is if there existed a general agreement between the different religions about who God actually is, and what he is like. BUT THEY DON’T AGREE!

Think back to our journey to the Eiffel Tower. Imagine that we’re on our way there – both taking our different routes. Someone independently asks both of us to describe the place we’re going to. We would probably start by saying , “the Eiffel Tower.” If we were asked to go on and describe this place in more detail we would probably go about it in different ways. We’d use different words. You might describe its shape. I might say that it’s the tower which dominates the city of Paris. We might talk about its height. But the point is that sooner or later it would become clear that we are talking about the same thing.

But when it comes to talking to people of different faiths in order to compare our views of God, it some becomes clear that we’re not talking about the same thing at all. In fact, most of the ideas cancel each other out rather quickly because they can’t all be true at the same time.

Buddha, for example, didn’t even know if God existed. Some Hindus describe God as an impersonal force. Some Hindus believe that there are many gods. Muslims believe there is only one God but humans can’t really know what He is like. The idea that he might reveal himself to humans is simply out of the question.

What a contrast this is to the idea of Christianity. What would be blasphemy to a Muslim is the central belief of Christianity. It is that Jesus actually does show us what God is like – in human form. And he does it in such a way that we may come to know God personally.

So if we stand back from these different ideas, we have to say that they can’t all be true. They can’t even be different ways of describing the same thing. No disinterested onlooker would recognize these different ideas as describing the same reality. God can’t be many different gods and yet at the same time be only one. He can’t be unknowable and yet at the same time fully reveal himself. The whole thing doesn’t make sense, and it is pointless to talk as if it did.

Let’s get back to our journey. We have to work to get there. We get there by our own efforts. Most religions are just like this. They revolve around the idea that we have to “get to God” by our own efforts. And if the effort is great enough then there is a chance (but no guarantee) that we’ll be good enough to get there.

Christianity is different. It is not a religion in which a person is accepted by God as a result of achievement or effort. This would be quite impossible since God is perfect and accepts only those who are similarly perfect. No one can reach God by making any kind of effort or journey.

And this is exactly why Christianity is unique. It’s not the individual who makes the journey. Christianity is all about God himself making the journey. It is he who does the traveling.