Is Christianity exclusive?
2024 Feb 26Is Christianity exclusive? Maybe.
Christianity is very inclusive because it includes all people and all ethnicities and all cultures. note
Saying this another way:
Christianity does not preference any gender, personal body characteristics, ethnicity, culture, or language (spoken or written). It does not preference any status or position (such as possession of wealth, power or independent freedom).
Christianity also does not disadvantage any persons lacking any of those characteristics.
This is what is true of what Jesus taught. Some people and organizations identifying with Christianity do not live up to what Jesus taught. Remember though that Jesus Christ set the standard for what is Christianity.
However, what is distinctive about Christianity is what it offers. The promise of Christianity is a relationship with the God represented by Jesus.
This God tells us he is the sole source of all being, so all existence comes from him. (He is the origin of all things abstract and material, and nothing that exists does so apart from him.) He tells us he is moral and loving. God isn’t that because he lives up to some established moral and loving ideas. He isn’t like that because he decided what those ideas would be. These ideas have existence because they are of him.
We can see what those ideas are in practice by looking at the life of Jesus. We can know what God is like by looking at how Jesus lived and then especially at why Jesus died and was resurrected. note Jesus demonstrates to us what love and morality is. And Jesus tells us that he loves us.
Jesus died to protect and save those that he loved. He protected his close followers from arrest and prosecution by giving himself up to government authorities. His death and resurrection (as God) is the means by which God took on himself the proper consequences of our own rebellion against God. So then by this, relationship with God could be restored. Therefore, Jesus saves us from having to always be separated from God.
On our own, we don’t look like Jesus. However, this God wants us to be like Jesus by being loving and moral like him. God wants us to follow the example of Jesus in all aspects of our life. When we ask God for help to be able to love God and love people, God aways helps our efforts. (Although be warned that this effort is challenging.)
Jesus is the only way to this God entity because Jesus actually is this God. note There is no other means to this God other than Jesus because the very destination of getting to this God is Jesus. note So in this way, certainly Christianity is very exclusive.
The God represented by Jesus claims to be the only God, therefore, all other entities are not God. Any spiritual path then that does not include Jesus will lead to some non-God entity.
This is where it can seem to get complicated. These statements are both true:
- There is only one God.
- There are three persons who are properly called God (Father, Jesus & Spirit).
If God is a God, then God is greater than us and completely, utterly different from us. We cannot judge God by the standards of what is true for humans. And we see all over the bible that God is self-revealed as plural and yet singular.
So Jesus is God, but Jesus is not all there is of God.
Jesus is the one making this offer of good relationship to you. If you find this offer in some way offensive, you might not want anything to do with Jesus or Christianity. However, if this offer is attractive it only makes sense because it comes from Jesus. If Jesus is attractive, it makes sense to follow him alone.