Being religious and Christianity

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Most Americans believe that "being religious," that is, being part of any religion, is sufficient to be saved in the end. Most Americans are self-described Christians. The following article seeks to shed light on these troubling findings.

Contents

[edit] Being religious in America – a short trip through a strange land

According to a 2002 poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, 75% of those polled believe that “many religions can lead to eternal life.”[1] This general openness to various religions was confirmed in a 2005 Newsweek/Beliefnet-poll, according to which 79% of those interviewed believed that a “good person” of any religion will go to heaven. The break-down of these 79% is also interesting, although it does not fundamentally alter the picture: 68% of Evangelical Christians – Pres. Bush, a Methodist, being one of them[2] – hold this belief as well as 83% of mainline Protestants and 91% of Catholics polled, while only 73% of non-Christians believe that members of other religions will be saved.[3]

In spite of this, a vast majority of Christians, 91% according to a 2004 Newsweek-poll, believes Jesus Christ to be “God or God’s Son” and not just a “religious leader” like Mohammed.[4]

As the 2002 poll shows, 74% of those polled have favorable views of mainline Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, while Protestant Evangelicals and Muslim-Americans rank at about the same rate, 55% and 54%, respectively. Those without a religion are viewed favorably by 51%, while generic Muslims are considered favorably by 47%; atheists are seen in a favorable light by only 34%. Islam as a religion is viewed favorably by only 38% of those polled.[5] Interestingly, the more a person believes to know about Islam, the more favorable their views are and the more they believe their religion to have in common with Islam.[6]

According to the 2005 poll, when asked for the reasons why they engage in religion, the top five answers were:

  • To forge a personal relationship with God (75%);
  • To become a better person and lead a moral life (75%);
  • To find happiness and peace of mind (70%);
  • To give meaning and structure to life (63%);
  • To connect to something larger than oneself (55%).

When asked for the main reason why people practice their religion, the 2005 poll revealed the following top three answers among “traditional” practitioners of religion (representing 71% of those polled):

  • To forge a personal relationship with God (40%);
  • To become a better person and lead a moral life (31%);
  • To find happiness and peace of mind (17%).

Interestingly, the 2002 poll found that 47% of those polled believe that belief in (any) God is necessary to be a moral person, while 50% believed that this is not the case. However, 61% of those polled believe that children with a religious upbringing will be moral adults, while only 35% believe that religion in their upbringing will make no difference.[7]

If, according to the 2005 poll, getting in touch with God is the most important purpose of being religious for most people, then how does one get into touch with God? The top five answers were:

  • By meditating / praying (40%);
  • By being in nature (21%);
  • By being in a house of worship (21%);
  • By praying with others (6%);
  • By reading sacred texts (2%).

Not surprisingly, 64% of those polled in 2005 say that they pray daily and 29% meditate daily; 30% of those interviewed attend religious services once a week, while only 20% say that they read their scriptures daily – given the perceived inefficacy of reading the scriptures for getting in touch with God, this is quite high.

As an aside, according to a 2006 Gallup poll, only 28% of those polled believe that the bible is the “actual” word of God, to be taken literally word by word, while 49% believe it to be God’s “inspired” word, not to be taken literally word by word; 19% believe it to be man’s word, containing fables, moral precepts, etc. In 1976, a little more than a generation earlier, the ratio was 38:45:13.[8]

As a further aside, the recently published Willow Creek self-study, Reveal: Where are You?, also found that people, in the latter stages of their spiritual development, grow best in developing a personal, mature relationship with Christ by engaging in “personal spiritual practices,” such as prayer, reading scripture, listening to God, and solitude, not by attending church services or other group activities at church.[9]

If prayer is thus so important, what are the chief purposes of prayer? According to the 2005 poll, the top five purposes of prayer are these:

  • To seek God’s guidance (27%);
  • To thank God (23%);
  • To be close to God (19%);
  • To help others (13%);
  • To improve one’s life (9%).

It is thus by prayer, not by reading religious texts like the bible, that Americans learn what to do on a daily basis or / and in difficult situations.

What do these recent polls teach us about “being religious”? “Being religious” means to engage in certain human activities that are directed at God, such as prayer and meditation. These activities are believed to have benefits for one’s relationship with God (closeness) and man (guidance, strong morals). To reap those benefits it is not important to belong to a certain religion; it is more important to engage in these activities by yourself. The benefits reaped are all in the here and now, not first in the afterlife, though it is assumed that “good people” of any and all faiths will go to heaven. Jesus, while being believed to be God’s Son, is therefore not necessary for everybody, at least not in the same way. Given these findings, it is perhaps no surprise that books espousing this type of religion are often shelved in the “self-improvement” section at Barnes & Noble and other booksellers.

If (any) religion is positive for the individual, what is its impact on a nation such as this? A majority of Americans (67%), according to the 2002 poll, consider America to be a Christian nation, while an even larger majority considers it unnecessary to have either religious faith (84%) or “Judeo-Christian values” (80%) to be a good American.[10] In agreement with this and according to the same poll, most Americans across all demographic lines believe that America’s strength as a nation is based on the “religious faith” of its people: while the average is 58%, this belief is especially strong among those with high levels of religious commitment (89% of white Evangelicals, 72% of white mainline Protestants, 76% white Catholics, 80% of all highly religious Blacks, 64% of all highly religious Hispanics).[11] Perhaps not surprisingly, the older a person is, the more he/she shares this belief.[12] Note here again that “religious faith” as such is seen as the decisive factor, not a specific religion, creed, or confession.

Perhaps a quote from a text by Robert H. Schuller, of Crystal Cathedral, “I Am the American Flag,” expresses this specific American religion best:

How did this country survive? Why? Listen to me! What kept this tough, young giant standing on her wounded feet through these invincible two hundred years? Where did the courage come from? Where did the faith come from? Where did the American perseverance and endurance come from?
Say what you will, you cannot explain the courage, the faith or the toughness of this country without taking into account her churches, her temples, her holy books. Oh, more than we know, the explanation of our national strength and spirit is found in the words of the One who is teaching many in this nation reverence and respect. His name is Jesus Christ.[13]

America’s strength comes from “her churches, her temples, her holy books.” Jesus Christ plays a prominent role only as “the One who is teaching many in this nation reverence and respect.”

[edit] What kind of religion is this? Natural religion and its political implications

[edit] Natural religion

A majority of Americans (59%), according to a 2005 Fox News poll, believe that Christianity is under attack in America; 42% even believe that there is a war being waged against Christianity. The battleground issues are chiefly nativity scenes in public places; prayers and religious holidays in schools; and the public display of the Ten Commandments.[14]

Given what we’ve seen above, Christians seem to be Christianity’s worst enemies. For the religion held by most Americans, as it emerges in the polls, is not Christianity as taught in the bible and summarized in Luther’s Small Catechism. And it is not that kind of original Christianity because it has eliminated the First and Chief Commandment: “I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods beside me.” The battles about the display of the Ten Commandments by and large all have to do with the Second Table of the Decalogue, the commandments 4-10 that deal with man’s duties toward his neighbor; we can probably narrow this list down to commandments 5 and 6, touching on the issues of abortion and marriage. Exclusive monotheism, in addition to the issues of respecting the holy name of the Lord by teaching his word in all its truth and purity (Second Commandment), paying good wages for good work (Seventh Commandment), respecting the name of our neighbor (Eighth Commandment), or luring workers away from another employer (Tenth Commandment), does not seem to be at the center when we talk about “religion in the public square.”

But the ranking of the commandments of God is not determined by opinion polls. The First Commandment remains the most important one: a religion that does not teach the exclusive and universal supremacy of the biblical God, the Holy Trinity, has no right to call itself Christian, because with the First Commandment also stands and falls the uniqueness and universal significance of Jesus Christ. He is the one and only Savior of the world, because he is the one true God made man. The First Commandment is, if you will, the electric fence around the gospel. The gospel, as unfolded and summarized in the Creed, explains who the God is, besides whom we are to look to none other for all good things in this life and the next. In other words, to say that Jesus is the Savior or the Son of God is of course correct; but in today’s religious world, we must add: he is the only Savior and the only Son of God to be complete in our confession. Everything else leads down the path of inclusive, Hinduism-like polytheism (one God, many faces).

American religion is well under way of getting there. What kind of religion is it? To put it briefly, it is the religion devised by human reason, also known as “natural religion.” We see this religion in the philosophers of the Roman Empire as well as in the refined philosophers of the Enlightenment beginning in the 17th / 18th century. We also see it in all the religions of the world. In democratic societies that are about individuality, equality, and about giving and having opportunities for all, this religion is appealing because it is accessible to all thinking people: you don’t need to be a member of some elite group, you don’t need special training; you just need to be able to think for yourself. Natural religion is a religion that is moral to the core. And in this moral core, despite many “irrational” trappings we see in this or that particular religion, is also what makes it so utterly rational and universal. It agrees with the general way human reason governs the affairs of man here on earth: the good get rewarded; the bad get punished. It agrees with this model by applying the way humans relate to humans to the way humans relate to God. God is conceived as the Giver of a moral code who, at some time, will judge all men according to this code. God is also conceived as one who helps humans to fulfill this law, sometimes more, sometimes less. This help comes in the form of either supernatural strength (“grace”) e.g., in Hinduism or a lessening of the moral law (for those who, by their own strength, do as well as they can), e.g., in Islam.

Where does this religion come from? According to God’s word, man was first created in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:26-27). Man was at first “like God” in that he had perfect knowledge of God and his will, in that he was perfectly righteous and holy (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10). After the fall, a certain knowledge of God and a certain righteousness and holiness remained with man. The knowledge that remained was that of a supreme creator, lawgiver, and judge (Rom. 1:19-20), even though this god was given any number of companions and fellow deities, often imagined to exist in some type of form resembling human or animal creatures. God’s word calls this worshiping the creatures rather than the Creator (Rom. 1:23, 25). Scripture thus locates the origin of “being religious” in the darkened heart of fallen man (Rom. 1:21).

It is important for us to take note of this: sinners, without the light of the Holy Spirit in God’s word, are not simply atheists or non-religious. In fact, they are very religious (we need not decide here whether atheism is not in fact also a religion). When preaching in Athens, Paul said this much: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious” (Acts 17:22, ESV). The word here translated as “religious” means literally: “god-fearing,” which can obviously go in two directions: it can be a good quality, or it can be something like being superstitious. This is how Luther originally translated the term in the context of this verse: “Men of Athens, I see that you are in all things much too superstitious.” The Greek word in this verse is used only one more time in the New Testament, namely, in Acts 25:19, where the Roman official Festus gives a report to King Agrippa concerning the past legal action against Paul: During a hearing before Festus, some accusers of Paul had brought some questions concerning their own (Jewish) “religion” (Luther again translates “superstition”). In both cases, the term thus denotes a religion other than one’s own.

At any rate, the New Testament, as well as the Old, acknowledges the existence of religion and religious fervor (see only Acts 19:24ff.) outside of God’s people, the church. The New Testament acknowledges also some moral uprightness outside the people of God: While it is true that the denial of the one true God leads to all sorts of sin and vice (Rom. 1:18ff.), it is also true that God’s law remains in man’s heart even after the fall (Rom. 2:14-15). The existence of pagan religions (including prayer, praise, clergy, and various bodies of sacred scriptures), of government, of marriage, of family, of property, of notions of justice, honor, propriety, and decency among non-Christians bears striking witness to this fact.

As far as this goes, the proponents of “natural religion” are certainly on to something: there is a natural “revelation” related to man’s reason and the world. The ways part when it comes to the truth of this religion: Its proponents want to make this natural revelation and religion the yardstick and standard for all “positive religions” (like biblical Christianity), while God’s word teaches that human reason is darkened (and creation is damaged) by man’s fall into sin, which is why it is misleading when it comes to man’s salvation. This is why Luther is absolutely correct in saying, in the explanation of the Third Article of the Creed: “I believe that I cannot, by my own reason or strength, believe in Jesus Christ or come to him.” He’s also correct in teaching us to pray against our own nature which, corrupted by sin and in league with the devil and the world, does “not want us to hallow God’s name or let his kingdom come,” but rather seeks to “deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice.”

[edit] Political implications

The question is raised in defense of American-style polytheistic “civil religion:” But wouldn’t you agree that religious tolerance is the only way a religious pluralistic society like ours can function? Are you proposing to make Christianity – worse yet: your “sectarian” brand thereof! – the state religion? The simple answer is: Christians, in order to be Christians, do not need the state to be Christian as well. To elaborate a bit, first of all, what is a Christian state? A Christian state is the kind of state that enforces the public confession of the chief tenets of the Christian religion (as summarized, e.g., in the Small Catechism) by bodily punishments and rewards.

The Roman-Byzantine Empire, e.g., was such a Christian state beginning in the 4th century A.D.: unless you agreed with the Nicene Creed, you could not be a public servant; you could not exercise your religion; you could not be a citizen; you could not live in the empire. This stance was codified in the 5th and 6th centuries in the Codex Theodosianus and in the Codex Justinianus, respectively, based on earlier proclamations of Christian emperors. You were denied these “rights” because your false religion was considered a political liability, not only in terms of your possibly lacking allegiance to the Christian emperor, but also in terms of drawing God’s wrath on the empire (here the First and Second Commandments were taken very seriously: the Lord will punish those who use his name falsely by adhering to a false religion!). God’s dealings with OT Israel certainly gave power and precedent to this view.

This legal situation, known today in America mostly under the term “state church,” remained in force all the way through the 20th century in many European countries, even though it, beginning in the 17th / 18th century, more and more became a legal fiction until it was given up entirely. (Luther’s reformation did not aim at ending the “state church;” he merely wanted to right religion to govern the actions of all members of a given political community.) The 17th-century Puritans in America, while persecuted “Dissenters” in England, also held the view that membership in the political community required a person to be a member in a certain, established church. On occasion, Baptists were hanged in Massachusetts Colony because they were not of the Congregationalist persuasion of the colonists. While the US Constitution does not establish a Federal church, many states, esp. on the East coast, had such established churches.

However, beginning in the time of the Enlightenment, the 17th / 18th century, in the church also known as the time of Pietism, confessional strictures began to weaken. Expression of this was the term “denominationalism” that summarized all the Protestant groups under one head and declared them to be basically different in name (denomination) only: you could be saved in any and all of them, since you weren’t a Catholic or a Jew. Trying to turn America into a “Christian nation” in the 19th century – after several trans- or non-denominational revivals on the frontier and elsewhere – meant to seek to rally all (white) Protestants against the influence of Catholics and the Jews (and Blacks and Native Americans). “Christian” began to be defined, not based on a historic confession, such as the Nicene Creed or the Augsburg Confession or the Small Catechism, but based on some more or less superficial agreement between the various white “denominations.” Those who refused to join this club – e.g., the Missouri Synod: it continued to insist that the doctrinal differences between (Protestant) churches mattered (and that work on Sunday and drinking of alcohol and slavery were permitted) – were accused of being “sectarian.”[15]

The 20th century has seen the broadening of this concept: now “Christian” most definitely includes the Catholic Church and the African-American Christians (but not the Native Americans, it seems, as many of them have resisted Christianization). The talk of “Judeo-Christian values / civilization” marks the arrival of Judaism in the American mainstream as well. And, if everything continues as in the past, the 21st century will see the arrival of Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists in that mainstream as well. The chief foes are no longer Catholics, Jews, Blacks, or even Muslims, but, as seen in current opinion polls, the unreligious and atheists (ca. 3-6% of the total population, according to the 2002 and 2005 polls cited earlier – these are apparently the forces that wage war against Christianity in America, according to the opinion of most).[16] America now is still considered a “Christian nation,” in the minds of most Americans (most are self-described Christians), but “Christian” here really means “religious.” After all, all religions lead their devout practitioners to the same heaven. Once the boundaries between the Christian confessions have fallen in the philosophy of tolerant “denominationalism,” those between Christianity and other religions apparently cannot be upheld anymore in any meaningful way either.

Agreement in religion is thus still the basis for living together in one political community. There is thus, in a very real sense, still a “state church” in America. However, the religion agreed upon here is no longer biblical Christianity but Universalism. And the authority enforcing this religion is not some government agency, but popular opinion, as is to be expected in an egalitarian democracy. So school prayer, the demand of earlier generations of cultural-political Christians, now can also be substituted by a time of silence to maintain the appearance of having “religion” in America’s public schools. You can read for yourselves what Paul says about those “having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power” in 2 Tim. 3:1-5. Cultural forms of Christianity cannot, by themselves, preserve the religion they are meant to express; at some point, they become meaningless hulls and empty shells before being discarded themselves.

As stated earlier, Christians do not need such an agreement to live together with those who believe differently. In other words, Christians are free from the pressure to compromise the teachings of their religion toward the “religion all can agree on” to achieve relative political peace and stability. This is so because our religion commands us to love all people, even those who do not agree with our religion, even our enemies who persecute us. “Love” is specifically defined by the Second Table of the Ten Commandments and takes place in our callings / vocations in life (see specifically the Table of Duties in the Small Catechism): E.g., parents provide food and clothing and shelter for their children, even if the latter don’t want to go to church; children obey their parents, within the limits of God’s word, even if the latter don’t go to church.

During the first three centuries, Christianity was not the state religion of the Roman Empire; and yet, Jesus and his apostles command their followers to obey the pagan authorities, pray for them, pay their taxes, and serve them (Matt. 22:21; Rom. 13:1ff.; 1 Tim. 2:2; 1 Peter 2:13f.). The Jews, after the destruction of Solomon’s temple, lived also mostly under non-Jewish rulers; Daniel who served in highest government offices comes to mind as well as Jeremiah’s letter to those in exile in Babylon, where he writes: “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jer. 29:7).

This never meant to go along with every hell-bent fad of “the city” in which believers lived: for God must be obeyed more than man (Acts 5:29); Christians, ransomed by Christ’s precious blood, remain strangers in this world of sin and lead holy lives to the glory of the One who bought them (Hebrews 11:13; 1 Peter 1:17-19; 2:11). But it does mean to help and serve where this could be done, even if it supports the well-being and prosperity of unbelievers. For this prosperity is described in the scriptures either as one way in which God, thereby witnessing to his existence (Acts 14:17; Rom. 1:19-20), seeks to call them to repentance (Rom. 2:4; Acts 14:15) or as one way in which God blinds the mind of the unbelievers unto final destruction (Ps. 73:1-20). After all, in their loving their enemies according to God’s word, Christians are called to imitate their heavenly Father who lets the sun shine on the good and the evil (Matthew 5:44-48). God still wants to maintain his creation, even though his creation is no longer a source of correct knowledge of God but only leads to depraved human religions. For only when creation is maintained for the time being will those chosen from before the creation of the world all be called to repentance and faith by the gospel of Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:3ff.; 2 Tim. 1:8-10).

[edit] Is "being religious" enough to be saved?

[edit] The biblical response

We need not belabor the point: a Jesus who, while also being God’s Son, is chiefly an apostle of “Judeo-Christian values” might make you a good person; but being a good person, as this term is normally understood, does not save one soul. Also a Jesus who, while also being God’s Son, is just one path to salvation among others might make you a good person, but, again, being a good person does not save one soul. These Jesuses are simply not the Jesus who speaks to us in his word, the bible; they are lawgivers, not saviors. In the Large Catechism, Luther had this to say about the law’s power to save (II, 67-69):

… the Creed is a very different teaching than the Ten Commandments. For the latter teach us what we ought to do, but the Creed tells us what God does for us and gives to us. The Ten Commandments, moreover, are written in the hearts of all people, but no human wisdom is able to comprehend the Creed; it must be taught by the Holy Spirit alone. Therefore the Ten Commandments do not succeed in making us Christians, for God’s wrath and displeasure still remain upon us because we cannot fulfill what God demands of us. But the Creed brings pure grace and makes us righteous and acceptable to God. Through this knowledge we come to love and delight in all the commandments of God because we see here in the Creed how God gives himself completely to us, with all his gifts and power, to help us keep the Ten Commandments: the Father gives us all creation, Christ all his works, the Holy Spirit all his gifts.

That those Christians on the cultural warpath demand the public display of copies of the Ten Commandments and not of the Creed (as the Byzantines might have done) shows the kind of Christianity they have in mind: a public-cultural Christianity that might address any number of social ills (drug use, pregnant teens, poverty) but still fails to address man’s greatest problem – the sin in his heart (original sin). But the adherents of this kind of public-cultural, civic Christianity are really outside the Christian church as much as the adherents of other false religions, since they too are adherents of a natural religion, that is, of a religion that is chiefly based on man’s reason, even though they borrow more verbal (Ten Commandments) and symbolic (manger scenes) trappings from the church than other religions such as Judaism and Islam. Luther also expressed this very clearly (LC II, 66).

It is true, the Ten Commandments are important, also to true Christianity, as the clearest expression of God’s unchanging moral will; they must be taught in all their truth and purity, being part and parcel of Christian doctrine. But, even though their denial – first the First Table, then the Second Table – has found their way into Christian churches, they are ill-suited as the symbol of Christianity. Here the cross (not the manger: Paul teaches “the word of the cross,” not the word of the manger, 1 Cor. 1:18) and the Creed – traditionally called a “symbol” – will have to do. The Byzantines got this much right.

It is also true that God’s moral law forms the foundation of the state and human society; so displaying the Ten Commandments on public buildings does have its merits. On the other hand, if we are to get beyond a coercive observance of the law, based on rewards and punishments, then the grace of the gospel needs to be added: The bible does not teach us to see man as a free moral agent, even though many churches (liberal and conservative!) today see him in this way, no longer teaching original sin. Besides, without the Creed (gospel, bible) sinners blinded by the fall do not even know anymore who the God of the Ten Commandments is. If we, by fighting for the display of the Ten Commandments really mean all of these ten, especially the first three concerning our duties toward the one true God (the First Table), then we should have an interest in people knowing the One besides whom they are to have no other gods.

In other words, while “being religious” is certainly good enough to establish and support some sort of decent political order and some sort of religious appearance, it is not sufficient to attain eternal salvation. If you are about strengthening human communities in a short-circuiting way, then you do want to add some sort of religious component to it. If you are about honoring God’s holy name above all things, attaining eternal salvation, and serving your neighbor in this world, I humbly suggest you stop being just religious and start being a Christian in repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, the God-man, as the one Savior of the world, according to the bible. For where there is genuine faith, there will also be genuine love that selflessly seeks the welfare of the city.

[edit] A Catholic view of “being religious”

Not all members of outward Christendom share this negative evaluation of “being religious.” At the beginning of this paper, we noticed that more than 9 in 10 Catholics are Universalists, holding that people in all religions can be saved. Being religious, engaging in some sort of religious activities would be seen very positive here. Why is this so? This is so because it happens to be the official position of the Roman Catholic Church. This might come as a surprise to some, but it is true, and it sheds a characteristic light on the Catholic Church.

This position was first officially enunciated at the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s and has found a more recent expression, with clarifications, in the 2000 Declaration ‘Dominus Iesus’ on the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, back then headed by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the current Pope Benedict XVI.[17]

In this document, the Roman Church first of all teaches that there is no salvation apart from Christ and from the Church. Christ is the universal and only Savior of the world, as the title of the declaration indicates. The same can be said of his body, the (Roman) Church: it too is necessary for the salvation of all men. In this sense, all religions are definitely not the same. Here the official Catholic Church would most vehemently disagree with religious indifferentism. But the decisive twist toward universalism happens when this same document states that the benefits of Christ (and the Church) are made available by the Spirit also in other religions, certainly not as fully and purely as in the Church, but available nonetheless. Consider the following quotes (from sections 20-21, emphasis added):

For those who are not formally and visibly members of the Church, “salvation in Christ is accessible by virtue of a grace which, while having a mysterious relationship to the Church, does not make them formally part of the Church, but enlightens them in a way which is accommodated to their spiritual and material situation. This grace comes from Christ; it is the result of his sacrifice and is communicated by the Holy Spirit”; it has a relationship with the Church, which “according to the plan of the Father, has her origin in the mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit”.
With respect to the way in which the salvific grace of God — which is always given by means of Christ in the Spirit and has a mysterious relationship to the Church — comes to individual non-Christians, the Second Vatican Council limited itself to the statement that God bestows it “in ways known to himself”. Theologians are seeking to understand this question more fully. Their work is to be encouraged, since it is certainly useful for understanding better God's salvific plan and the ways in which it is accomplished.
Certainly, the various religious traditions contain and offer religious elements which come from God, and which are part of what “the Spirit brings about in human hearts and in the history of peoples, in cultures, and religions”. Indeed, some prayers and rituals of the other religions may assume a role of preparation for the Gospel, in that they are occasions or pedagogical helps in which the human heart is prompted to be open to the action of God. One cannot attribute to these, however, a divine origin or an ex opere operato salvific efficacy, which is proper to the Christian sacraments. Furthermore, it cannot be overlooked that other rituals, insofar as they depend on superstitions or other errors (cf. 1 Cor 10:20-21), constitute an obstacle to salvation.

Yes, Christ is the only Savior, but his saving action in the world today, while connected to the Holy Spirit, is not longer exclusively tied to the means of grace: the Word of the gospel, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. Luther criticized the Catholic church of his day for inventing, without divine command, additional sacraments beyond the two instituted by Christ. This point needs to be reiterated today; and it needs to be applied to those “mysterious ways” in which the Holy Spirit is to save those who never hear the gospel.

Let us finally listen to the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium (“light of the nations,” see Isaiah 49:6; Acts 13:47, referred to Christ in this document, see section 1), that the Second Vatican Council adopted in 1964 (section 16, emphasis added):[18]

Finally, those who have not yet received the Gospel are related in various ways to the people of God. In the first place we must recall the people to whom the testament and the promises were given and from whom Christ was born according to the flesh. On account of their fathers this people remains most dear to God, for God does not repent of the gifts He makes nor of the calls He issues. But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohamedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind. Nor is God far distant from those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God, for it is He who gives to all men life and breath and all things, and as Saviour wills that all men be saved. Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience. Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life. Whatever good or truth is found amongst them is looked upon by the Church as a preparation for the Gospel. She knows that it is given by Him who enlightens all men so that they may finally have life.

This is to say, Jews, Muslims, and even polytheists (“those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God”), can be saved by the grace of God, when and as they “strive to live a good life,” that is, “to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience.” Clearly, there are many allusions to Paul’s preaching to the heathen in Athens (Acts 17), but Paul there did not develop a general theory of how the idolaters of the world also actually worship the one true God; he rather called them to repentance, that is, from the dead idols to the living God (1 Thess. 1:9; Acts 14:15; 17:30). Let us also not forget that Paul, while in Athens, is provoked by the multitude of idols (Acts 17:16), that he clearly states that the one true God is not “like gold or silver or stone” (Acts 17:29). Moreover, the “unknown God” was worshiped in one particular temple in Athens, not “in shadows and images” in general.

To be sure, the Vatican Council concedes in the same section, referring to Rom. 1: “But often men, deceived by the Evil One, have become vain in their reasonings and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, serving the creature rather than the Creator.” Just that this, according to God’s word, did not only happen “often;” it happens always. Quoting Ps. 14:1-3, Paul affirms in Rom. 3:11: “No one seeks for God.” After all, all men prior to faith are instruments of the devil (Eph. 2:2; 1 John 5:19), therefore unable to know the things of God (1 Cor. 2:14).

In Lumen Gentium we see again what we already saw in the 2000 document Dominus Iesus: while the salvation of those who are saved is tied to Jesus and the (Roman) Church, it is nonetheless a salvation available also for those in other religions. For salvation, in the Roman Church as well as in all reasonable religions of the world, is ultimately by works and not by faith, since even the false beliefs of the pagans cannot stop their entry into heaven, so long as they live in sincerity according to the dictates of their conscience. The grace spoken of here is thus not primarily God’s favor toward the sinner for the sake of Jesus Christ that is offered in the gospel in word and sacraments; “grace” in the Catholic Church – for members and anonymous members alike – is primarily a supernatural power that enables sinners to do what needs to be done to fulfill God’s moral law as well as possible, thereby reaching heaven.

[edit] Summary

In summary, the Catholic model might be theologically more sophisticated than the common American model. But the question is: how many of the faithful get all the dogmatic fine print? The publication of Dominus Iesus in 2000 seems to suggest: not very many. At any rate, whatever the underlying theological rationale, salvation is now available also outside the church[19] – if the boundary of the church is marked by the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Luther, again, has the correct position, when he in the Large Catechism answers the question of how the Holy Spirit makes us holy by stating (II, 42, 45):

In the first place [the Holy Spirit] has a unique community in the world, which is the mother that begets and bears every Christian through the Word of God, which the Holy Spirit reveals and proclaims, through which he illuminates and inflames hearts so that they grasp and accept it, cling to it, and persevere in it.
… where Christ is not preached, there is no Holy Spirit to create, call, and gather the Christian church, apart from which no one can come to the Lord Christ.

The Holy Spirit cannot be separated from Christ; here we agree most definitely with the Roman Catholic Church. But the Holy Spirit also cannot be separated from the preached gospel of Jesus Christ that gathers the Church. As Luther stated in the 1537 Smalcald Articles (III, 8, 3): “God gives no one his Spirit or grace apart from the external Word which goes before.” It is, also in light of the findings of this paper, no surprise that Luther lists the papacy right next to those who deny baptism and the Lord’s Supper and classifies them all as “enthusiasts” who seek the Spirit apart from God’s word (Sm. Art. III, 8, 4ff.). In fact, this separation of Word and Spirit is identified by Luther as the “source, power, and might of all heresies, even that of the papacy and Mohammed” (ibid., 9). Those most heavily engaged in American civil religion are precisely those churches which do not believe in the biblical means of grace; for them, the Spirit comes without the vehicle of created means (word, water, bread-wine). If that is the case, however, then there is ultimately no barrier that would prevent the Spirit also from acting in a saving way outside the church gathered around the means of grace.

If we diligently keep the Spirit and the means of grace together, then we will avoid falling into all sorts of natural religion, thereby losing Christ for ourselves and others.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ↑ Published here, see esp. pages 3-4, 9-10.
  2. ↑ See the quotes assembled here.
  3. ↑ Published here.
  4. ↑ See here.
  5. ↑ See pages 14-15.
  6. ↑ See page 20.
  7. ↑ See pages 3, 8-9.
  8. ↑ See here.
  9. ↑ Cf. Hawkins, G. L., Parkinson, C., Reveal: Where are You? (Barrington: Willow Creek Resources, 2007), 43-45. See this review.
  10. ↑ See page 4.
  11. ↑ See page 9.
  12. ↑ See page 12.
  13. ↑ See here, emphasis added. Preached on July 1, 2007.
  14. ↑ See here. Cf. the 2006 piece by Molly Ziegler Hemmingway in the LA Times on the various ups and downs of observing Christmas publicly in the US since the Puritans (who did not observe Christmas liturgically).
  15. ↑ Given certain mission strategies in the LCMS today, one has the impression that this position is no longer held by those in charge of missions: after 160 years on the scene, the LCMS has finally arrived in American Protestantism.
  16. ↑ See here for the 2005 poll; here, on page 50, for the 2002 poll; and the article “Changes in culture provide challenge, opportunity” in the March 2008 issue of the LCMS President’s Leadership News which, opening with a reference to several recent publications on atheism, asserts that today’s culture is one “accepting of atheism.”
  17. ↑ See the official online edition.
  18. ↑ See the official online edition.
  19. ↑ As footnote 82 of Dominus Iesus notes, “The famous formula extra Ecclesiam nullus omnino salvatur [No one will be saved at all ouside the Church] is to be interpreted in this sense,” that is, in the sense of the universal saving activity of the Holy Spirit no longer tied to the means of grace and that those affected by his activity are also members of the Church, albeit in an informal manner.
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