Can We Understand Religious Diversity With A Single Biblical Verse?

Exclusivism: only my faith tradition contains the truth and/or salvation

To find a hymn that contains exclusivist theology, I walked over to my piano bench in my living room and pulled out a hymnal created by moderate Baptists. Maybe that’s not fair to the Baptists, but hymnody expresses our theology well. I found the following lines in the hymn “Christ in the World’s Light.”

Christ is the world’s light, Christ and none other.
Christ is the world’s peace, Christ and none other.
Christ is the world’s life, Christ and none other.
Give God the glory, God and none other.

This hymn provides a good example of exclusivism's claim. The first phrase of the first line in each verse provides a nice Christian declaration. Christ is the world’s light and peace and life. So far, we are standing on the solid ground of affirming Christological claims. But then the hymn writer makes a grander claim, a totalizing claim, a claim that moves beyond the congregation: “Christ and none other.” It is a theological claim that leaves little mystery, an assertion without humility, a claim to perfect sight. What is the theological and rhetorical purpose of that second phrase? Is it necessary for the overall point? Does it not, in fact, serve only to be exclusionary?

When I posted some of these thoughts on Facebook, my Southern Baptist cousin, whom I love dearly, did not appreciate my musings. She commented by quoting a Bible verse: “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” The verse is from Acts 4:12 in the NKJV translation.

It was a perfect retort in many ways, demonstrating our differing starting points for this conversation and our different priorities. She quoted one verse from the Bible to settle the issue. I wrote paragraphs of explanation on my Facebook post; she considers the whole matter summarized in a verse. Her understanding of the authority of Scripture and truth guides her theology about other faiths. Absent too was a discussion about this critical topic. She literally just quoted the verse at me. No salutation. I felt like I had transgressed the tightly patrolled boundaries of orthodoxy in her tradition, and I was being reprimanded with a Bible quotation. The irony is even sweeter when you consider that I am a professional Bible scholar. Perhaps she thought my biblical knowledge did not extend to the New Testament!

For my cousin, this biblical verse explains the issue clearly.

Terrance Tiessen, Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology and Ethics at Providence Theological Seminary in Manitoba, Canada, explores several types of exclusivist in his book, Who Can Be Saved? The title of the book demonstrates his emphasis on salvation, often the primary question for Christians, especially evangelicals, when considering additional faith traditions.

He notes correctly that not all exclusivists are alike. Some exclude based on communion with the Church. This is known in official Roman Catholic teachings as Extra ecclesiam nulla salus “Outside the church there is no salvation.”

Others believe God saves only through faith by hearing and believing the gospel of Jesus.

There’s even a category that allows for God to save people whom God knows would have believed in Jesus if they had only heard about him.

To my ears, it sounds like a lot of mental gymnastics, but we need to also listen for the real concern here. The challenge that Christian exclusivists know well is that not all people throughout history and across the globe have encountered the gospel of Christianity. So, are they all doomed? Some would say yes, while others would allow for possibilities. All would, of course, assume that the gospel is what saves, not another religion.

Out of curiosity, I asked ChatGPT to create a list of quotes from Christians displaying exclusivism. The program spit out 10 quotations from the New Testament. As a biblical scholar, I would hesitate to label any of these verses as “Christian” since they were not written by Christians. But the verses are certainly used by the Christian tradition to make an exclusivist argument.

But does the Bible as a whole espouse an exclusivist vision for truth and salvation?

A Benediction (Or Miscellaneous Thoughts)

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