Scot McKnight is picking up on some of these questions on his blog:

http://www.jesuscreed.org/?p=1689

He lists your three options and then suggests a few more:

What are the options? Are they the classical three: inclusivism (all can find salvation in Christ, even those who have not heard), exclusivism (only those in Christ find salvation), and pluralism (all can find salvation, regardless of one’s faith)?

5. Relativism: any of the religions have saving power in and of themselves, apart from Jesus Christ.

Thanks for the comment. You’ve nailed the reason that I think universalism barely makes it as a possibility for orthodox Christians.

Also, building on what you’ve said, we can press the same “kingdom-of-God thing” perspective with soft exclusivism and with inclusivism: Sure, they might be “ok” eternally because of how God’s working in them, but wouldn’t it be so much better for them to know Christ himself? Scripture’s answer is a resounding YES!

I think that evangelism for those who believe in universalism (even more than the other isms) is less of a duty and more of an opportunity. Sure, you can sit back and let God take care of everyone… but you have the opportunity to work with God to make a phenomenal difference in people’s lives!! It’s like the whole kingdom-of-God thing: WHY WAIT?! This isn’t just about what happens after you die. It’s NOW, baby!

It complete removes the “fire insurance” side of things and focuses on the IMMEDIATE need. And maybe in practice, universalists aren’t as passionate about evangelism as the strict exclusivists. After all, there aren’t any souls at stake… just lives.

Still. That OUGHT to be enough!

Thanks for sharing where you’re coming from. And thanks for affirming the blogging of this stuff. Thanks for your interaction as well. The conversation is tremendously helpful. I want to do something thinking and get back to you.

By the way, have you read any Chaim Potok novels? They are excellent. Set in Hasidic Jewish communities in New York City in the 20th century, the protagonist is usually wrestling with issues of personal identity and communal commitments and negotiating the waters of religion and the modern world. I’d recommend The Chosen, My Name is Asher Lev, and In the Beginning as my favorites so far.

Let me just take a moment to say thanks for blogging your way through these questions.

The interactions have been helpful as I work my way through some of these questions. Let me also be honest and say some of the questions and places I am in my investigation of how christians (and specificly me) should interact with other religions comes from some places that the majority of your sunday school class may not be in.

(For example have been working on this quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Our whole nineteen-hundred-year-old Christian preaching and theology rest on the “religious a priori” of mankind. “Christianity” has always been a form — perhaps the true form — of “religion.” But if one day it becomes clear that this a priori does not exist at all, but was historically conditioned and transient form of human self-expression, and if therefore humanity becomes radically religionless, what does that mean for “Christianity?” – they also include questions like: is identifing as a christian: a) helpful? b) important? c) faithful to the way of Jesus?)

So please feel dismiss all of my question about methods here as not normative to your class and/or context. I think religion is both personal action and motivation and the broad cultural meta-narrative of a group of people.

Consider for example, the Jewish side of my family. They ask me a lot what I think it means to be a Jew. I have learned now that Jewishness is a religion (as you defined it in the first post), a racial/tribal identification, and a wider cultural meta-narative. Members of my extended family can be indentified on all three of those axises. My grandfather was a jew by race more then anything else, I have counsins that were very religious one was even the cantor at his synagog, and I have cousins who helped form some of the goverment in Isreal for whom Jewishness means a great deal but are not all religious.

What is a Jew is something that folks have been wrestling with for a long time. But I would suggest the same could be said of my Irish Catholic grandmothers. For them Roman Catholicism and Irishness are as intertwined in all three catagories as they are for my Jewish relatives.

So even though I am a member of the UMC, even though I am seriously considering canadicy for orders, I am also at some levels a Jew and a Catholic. I know that in recent times the mainline churches have grown more comfortable in acknowledging that Catholics could be considered christians, would you claim my Jewishness as well? Can I honestly let you?

Under your explanation of salvation must a person change their indivigual racial, tribal, cultural, meta-narrative understandings and accept “christian” ones to become a christian? to profess faith in christ? I know Paul argued that Gentiles did not need to adopt the racial, tribal, cultural ideas of Jews to become christians.

The best I understand the proto-orthodox (patriastic fathers) world there were lots of religions (in my wide idea of christian as the same as Jew) that all claimed to be christian. I think some of that same stew is preserved in the bible and thus that stew is God given and God blessed (James and Galations for example). I think a fair historical critque can be made to argue that there are still a lot of religions out there that all claim to be christian and that they all have religious (in your deff), cultural, and tribal/ethnic demensions to them.

So I wonder, is it posible for a person to be a follow of the way of Jesus and identify as a muslim (tribal activities, language, culture)? As we honor the whitness of Paul and the proto-othordox dudes can we affirm that it might be better for their soul to stay a muslim and a follow of Jesus then become a christian?

If so would this distinction between Exclusive and Inclusivism fall away?