At the Heart of Our Disunity: Idolatry

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life's recent report entitled, "Global Survey of Evangelical Protestant Leaders," which we've looked at in the last couple of postings, points to a fundamental difference between evangelical and ecumenical (or mainline) Protestants concerning salvation.  According to the report 96% of the global ecumenical leaders surveyed agreed that "Christianity is the one, true faith leading to eternal life."   Only 1% believed that "Many religions can lead to eternal life." (p. 47)  By way of contrast, a 2008 Pew survey,  "Religious Affiliation: Diverse & Dynamic," found that 83% of mainline Protestant surveyed agreed that "Many religions can lead to eternal life while only 12% felt their their religion alone leads to eternal life.  Interestingly, and as we saw in a previous posting (here), some 57% of evangelical Christians polled by Pew also agreed that many religions can lead to eternal life.  Thus, the global ecumenical leaders surveyed by Pew are notably far less likely to accept other religions as spiritually helpful.

Of all the things that divide us as Protestants, exclusivism, along with biblical literalism, contribute most to our disunity.  Each side can cite biblical passages to "prove" they are right and the other wrong.  We ecumenicals in our rejection of exclusivism, ironically, tend to become exclusive ourselves in our insistence that Christianity doesn't have a corner on salvation.  There is a point at which both sides cross a line that divides faith in Christ from faith in our doctrines about Christ.  The one is faith.  The other is idolatry.  It is difficult to know where that line lies, which is always the case with idolatry.