Are our ideas about ‘salvation’ important in the daily life of the world? Or is this all just about our individual, personal, theologies?
I think that is a crucial question. I raise it because of comment made here two days ago in the Comment Section of this blog. As you know, I have been asking on this blog for several days now what Christians believe about ‘salvation.’
I am raising the question again here because of the response I am going to post here in just a minute from a blog reader. The question is…
Do Christians really believe that anyone who is a non-Christian is going straight to hell upon their death? This would include a Jew, say, or a Muslim…or a Buddhist, or a Mormon (who many Christians insist are not Christian, even though they call their church the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). And it would certainly include people who don’t believe in God at all.
To this question I received the following Comment from a regular poster here, a self-identified Muslim named Mounir…

WHO CARES
*************
Let them believe whatever they believe in.
It shouldn’t make any any difference to you and me AS LONG they don’t hurt me and others with their belief.
The most important thing to understand here, is for people to take care of each other here on earth even if what they believe in is hog wash.
Say, just for argument sake, if people believed in Hell/Heaven and did take care of their people, then they read your book and now they didn’t believe in Hell/Heaven and stopped caring about others and start behaving with arrogance.. Is this better? I think not, the bottom line is right here right now, you can believe all you want with after life stuff.
You dear Neale have no proof that Hell/Heaven doesn’t exist as much proof they have that it exists.. let’s concentrate on what is important…
Mounir

To this i want to say….can’t you see, Mounir, that this IS important? Do you not understand, yet, that wars have started over this question? Nations have fallen over this question? Lives have been destroyed over this question?
Are we all, each of us, unable to see how important this question — and its answer — is?
Mounir says that what is really important is how people live their lives. We must not stop caring about others and start behaving with arrogance, he asserts. Yet, Mounir, are you not able to see that it is precisely the answer to this question which has, in so many cases, CAUSED people to stop caring about others and start behaving with arrogance?
I just posted here, a few days ago, a note from a lady who was so sad because she lost a wonderful friend when he recently became a born-again Christian. He stopped caring about her and started behaving with arrogance BECAUSE of his religion, BECAUSE of his answer to this not unimportant question.
What makes this question important, Mounir, is that people’s behaviors spring from their beliefs. Belief creates behavior. For instance, if you believe that God condemns people who do not believe in Christ to everlasting and unremitting and indescrible torture in the fires of hell, you would have no compunction about killing them right on the spot — which Christians did in massive numbers during the 200 years of the Crusades.
If you believe that God wants it Only One Way in terms of what we believe about Him, you will think nothing of marauding through the countryside with an army of Beliebers in that One Way demanding that all people in their path join in this Nation of Believers or suffer not very happy consequences. This is exactly what Muslims did in Spain and elsewhere in Europe until this movement, like the Crusades, was finally stopped.
My book, What God Wants, offers a startling idea about all this, and makes the point that even today, Mounir, our thoughts about all this — our ideas about What God Wants — form and shape our global politics, our economics, and the education of our children. To this day these ideas start wars, providing the moral authority and offering a justification for killing others.
No, Mounir — with respect — i cannot agree that this is not important. Of course it is true that what really matters is how people behave with each other. Yet that is determined by what they believe about each other….and THAT, in turn, is determined by what they believe about What God Wants.
So I ask again…and I would really like some of the Christian writers who have regular blogs on Beliefnet to respond to this question, though it seems clear they have no intention of doing so…is it true that God sends everyone who does not accept Christ as their Lord and Savior to everlasting, unremitting, and indescribable torture in the fires of hell, no matter how good and kind and patient and understanding and caring and compassionate and generous and loving they may have been in their lifetimes?
Does Joel Osteen preach this? Does Franklin Graham? Did Billy Graham, for that matter? Is this what the Pope says? Do Muslims believe their is only one path to Allah? Or do Muslims say that Jews and Christians and Buddhists and Mormons and even “non-believers” in any kind of God go back to Paradise with Allah?
Or, if you are tired of addressing that question, how about this one: Does it matter what people believe? What do you think of Mounir’s observation?