One of the things I’ve been thinking through while reading The Last Battle (by C.S. Lewis), and since the reference to it in A New Kind of Christian (by Brian McLaren) is about docrinal pluralism – pluralism actually just means the condition of being multiple or plural, and generally means a condition in which numerous distinct ethnic, religious, or cultural groups are present and tolerated within a society, etc..

To our minds (though I’m not sure to how many other people’s mind’s this is applicable to) its normally a discussion of the assertion that ‘all the different religions worship the same god’, obviously one that generally is not accepted by most followers of Christ, which is of course very different to universalism which is the assertion that ‘all people will eventually be saved’, and again generally not accepted by most followers of Christ.

The thought line for me immediately turns to Jeremiah 29 (also Duteronomy 4): “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. “. In both cases God is of course speaking to Israel as a nation and not to a person and so not neccaserily directly applicable on a personal level. The other thing is that this is a word given for a specific time (spoken to the exiles in Babylon).

Anyway, that word for a nation there combines well with Jesus’ words in Matthew 7 (also Luke 11) to display a clear promise and character attribute of God: “7 Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” (again, it needs to be read in context).

And, of course, there’s also the Joel 2 (and repeated in Acts 2/Romans 10): “…everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved.”

So I’m confident that being found when saught is in God’s character and not related to the nature (or ability) of the seeker (as modern prevenient grace doctrine would indicate anyway). Now, bearing in mind that the Arabic (?) word for God is allah, not referring especially to a ‘muslim god’ but just to ‘god’ where does that leave someone who has grown up in a muslim culture, seeks God and calls on his name? The natural, (natural for moderns), question is then “to which God does he pray/call?” and therefore corner themselves into all kinds of theological problems – like there is some kind of ‘prayer switchboard’ that determines whether the prayer is forwarded to heaven or hell depending on the nature of the person praying. Its almost like it is forgotten that in reality there IS only one God and a lot of demonic counterfeits too. If you seek and call on the name of the Lord can you see God really pick up the phone and say “ah, no, wait, this one is meant for downstairs” ?

I can see no reason why anyone, from any culture cannot call on the name of the Lord and be saved, ask, seek and knock and find simply because their theology isn’t right. If that were the case would any of us go to heaven? My theology certainly isn’t perfect. Does God care that you believe a particular theory of atonement or that you seek Him?  I think the main problem that other religions face is that we all have to repent and believe – how do you do that when most other religions promise heaven based on works?  Reliance on our works to make us righteous disqualifies us from the prize.

Jesus, in John 14, said “I am the way, the truth and the life, no-one comes to the father except by me.” I find it a huge leap of logic to assume that he means you have to know his humanly spoken name (I say humanly spoken name because there’s a lot more to a name than a mere label of course) to be saved when he goes on to say later on in the chapter “Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me”. They are one – to know the Father is to know the Son, and vice versa, and so I wonder if that is the reason that Abraham, Moses and ‘anyone else that is saved but had never heard of Jesus’ can be saved because Jesus is still and has always been the gatekeeper – to know the Father is to know the Son. (One theory I’m not so sure about is that there is some kind of special grace for people that have never heard of Jesus’ name). Abraham believed the Lord and it was credited to him as righteousness, etc. Why, when the bible makes no mention of it, have I heard it said that from the day of Christ onward that route through Jesus been closed?

Brian McLaren said “It’s none of your business who goes to hell” – perhaps we could further that to say “We’re in for a shock about who we’ll find in Heaven”..? Obviously I’m not endorsing pluralism (as we’ve come to understand it), but suddenly I seem to have a lot more hope for one of my muslim friends – we really do have something in common now because we both pray….? And at the same time I can feel my head filling with even more questions and internal shouts of “Heresy!”. I seem to both hate and love issues like these…

This isn’t a position I hold, merely a direction I’m exploring. I’ll leave you with this little section from C.S Lewis’ The Last Battle – naturally I found it on the web rather than type it in myself. The narrator, Emeth has followed a false god, Tash all of his life. He enters Heaven and meets The Great Lion, Aslan, who of course represents Jesus…:

…So I went over much grass and many flowers and among all kinds of wholesome and delectable trees till lo! in a narrow place between two rocks there came to meet me a great Lion. The speed of him was like the ostrich, and his size was an elephant’s; his hair was like pure gold and the brightness of his eyes, like gold that is liquid in the furnace. He was more terrible than the flaming Mountain of Lagour, and in beauty he surpassed all that is in the world, even as the rose in bloom surpasses the dust of the desert. Then I fell at his feet and thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him. Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be [king] of the world and live and not to have seen him. But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome. But I said, Alas, Lord, I am no son of Thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me. Then by reason of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him, for I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted… Beloved, said the Glorious one, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek. (The Last Battle, page 154-155)