THE SALVATION DEBATE CONTINUES

I won't drag on my self-initiated debate on salvation interminably. However, since I did pose some questions in a recent column for readers to consider, I offer here one typical reply to the "My Way or the Highway" questions, from RJF, via godsquadquestion@aol.com:

RJF: If I quote the New Testament and someone doesn't believe in the New Testament, I must ask, "Do they believe in Jesus at all?" and if so, where do they get their information about Christ but from the New Testament? Of course, the Bible is not a pick-and-choose book; it's either all true or throw the book out.

COMMENT-MARC GELLMAN: Knowing Jesus is a character in the New Testament doesn't require that a person believe Jesus is the Messiah in the world. And by the way, "throw the book out" is much too harsh a way to describe the loving admiration of non-Christians like me for the Christian faith of my neighbor. I love the New Testament. I even love it as a version of the word of God, just not the version that personally compels and orients me spiritually.

RJF: The reason I don't want to leave (non-believers) alone is because they're doomed to eternal damnation if they don't believe the way Jesus taught -- not the way I teach but the way Jesus taught. However, it's true that at some point I must shake the dust off my sandals and not throw pearls to the swine.

COMMENT: As a rabbi, I admit to being a little sensitive to pig analogies, but the people who decline your evangelizing efforts are not swine. They're climbers up the same mountain on another path. Your certainty that they are damned comes from your sacred texts. Their certainty that they are not damned comes from their sacred texts (or their secular reasoning). How in the world do you expect to decide this dispute short of the end of days? Why not just hold your belief about their eternal destiny with a greater degree of spiritual humility? Why not try to do your convincing by the loving, compassionate and charitable nature of your life, rather than by the condemnatory nature of your words?

RJF: The reason Christ's name was not revealed in the Old Testament is because it was a progressive revelation of the name. When Moses asked God, "Who shall I say sent me?" his answer was to be, "I AM has sent me to you." Jesus claimed to be the "I AM" of Exodus.

COMMENT: If Jesus is not named because of progressive revelation, why stop at Jesus? Why isn't Mohammad the result of a continuing progressive revelation from God that takes the next step beyond Judaism and Christianity? Once you admit that God can overrule a previous revelation, how do you stop sliding down the slippery slope you started out on to refute Judaism without your words coming back to haunt you? Wouldn't a better move be to believe that the rich, many-faceted revelation from God is received and understood with some degree of truth by many faiths? In reaching for an exclusive and true faith, you may grasp only a faith true for a few years until God's newer model is introduced.

RJF: My belief does not prevent me from working with people of other faiths; I will accept the people but will not accept their religion.

COMMENT: Accepting a person means respecting a person. Respecting a person means respecting what they believe. If you believe that what they believe is leading them to eternal damnation, it's difficult to image that you will have any friends from other faiths, and it is friends who change the world, not people who believe the person next to them is going to hell. However, if you can overcome theological differences and work together on fixing our broken world, God bless you. My experience is that you must accept a person as a whole in order for you to walk hand-in-hand toward justice and respect for the sanctity of life.

RJF: Meeting a holy person of another religion has nothing to do with their obedience to the teachings of Jesus. No one is saved by good works, so their accomplishments won't save them. It's not my way or the highway, it's HIS way or the highway.

COMMENT: Gandhi or the Dalai Lama are saved, in my view, not only because of their works but also because of the luminous and compassionate nature of their souls. They represent remote human achievements of spiritual nobility. The theological belief that they, and other non-Christian righteous ones, are damned represents to me a nearly certain refutation of any religion which would pronounce such a calumny upon them. If they are not saved, I want to go wherever they're going.

RJF: A morally corrupt person cannot be saved by faith alone, which would be in disobedience to Christ's teachings, as discussed in Romans ("Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid.") We must live a good, clean Christian life to the best of our ability. There's a difference between making a mistake or doing the wrong thing in a moment of weakness, and willingly living a sinful life.

COMMENT: Look, if salvation comes through faith, then works don't matter. If salvation comes through works, then faith is not enough. Pay your theological money and take your theological chance. I'm betting that a morally corrupt person who continues to behave immorally despite having faith is nowhere near the salvation finishing line.

RJF: People probably don't like me telling them the truth, just as I didn't like it when I first heard it. But after I was touched by the presence of God, I couldn't deny the reality of God's truth, and I thanked the person who first revealed it to me.

COMMENT: Did you ever thank someone who told you your notion of truth was too small?

(Send QUESTIONS ONLY to The God Squad, c/o Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, NY 14207, or email them to godsquadquestion@aol.com.