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How Should Christians Regard Other Religions?

There have been three main attitudes among Christians to this question.

1) Preparation for the Gospel
There are those who see other faiths as preparation for the gospel. In the past Christians gladly learned from Greek philosophers and Roman poets and saw aspects in their teaching that pointed towards Christ. Why should Christians today not learn more about community life under God from Jews, about devotion to God from Muslims, about peacefulness and detachment from the passions from Buddhists, and about good ethics from humanists? After all, a Christian believes that all good, wherever it is found, comes ultimately from God. And so it is perfectly possible to have the positive evaluation of some aspects of other faiths while still maintaining the New Testament emphasis that the full light has being revealed in Christ and that salvation is in Christ alone, who died for those “who were far off” as well as for those “who were near”.

2) Satanic Influence
Other Christians would tend to see all non-Christian religions as perilous. They are open to infection by spiritual forces that do not come from God, satanic forces that deceive people and lead them astray. This attitude is, perhaps, not as extreme as it sounds. Bishop Lesslie Newbigin, a lifelong missionary first in India and then in the West, argues first that the demonic shows itself most of all in the area of religion (think of the religious wars current in the world today), and he remarks on the care with which converts distance themselves from their inherited practices for that very reason. And second, he writes,

“It is precisely at points of highest ethical and spiritual achievement that the religions find themselves threatened by and therefore ranged against the gospel. It was the guardians of God's revelation who crucified the Son of God. It is the noblest among the Hindus who most emphatically reject the gospel. It is those who say “we see” who most emphatically blot out the light.”*

3) Human Aspiration
A third Christian view of other faiths is to regard them not so much as preparations for the gospel or propaganda from the devil, but as aspirations of the human spirit. Buddhism, for example, is a noble aspiration of the human spirit to counteract suffering. There is obviously some truth in this idea, but it is inadequate because it does not do justice to the element of natural revelation in other faiths. God does indeed, as Paul put it to the Athenians, intend that all people should “feel after him and find him”, for “in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:27-28). He quotes with approval the heathen poet Aratus, “we are indeed his offspring”. Moreover human conscience and morality are part of God's disclosure of Himself (Romans 2:14-16).

So it would be misleading for Christians to regard other faiths as simply the record of human striving after God. Anyway, on the whole, we human beings are not honest seekers after God. We do our best to keep out of His way and are amazed (and threatened) when it dawns on us that in fact God is seeking after us!

Conclusion
It is probably best to regard non-Christian religions as a sort of patchwork quilt. They contain elements of truth that must come from God Himself. But there are also elements that are definitely false and probably come from Satan, whose great aim is to keep humankind from the Saviour. Moreover, other faiths undoubtedly contain elements of human aspiration after God.

Key Bible Passage
Luke 10: 25-37
It is probably best to regard non-Christian religions as a sort of patchwork quilt.

Discussion Questions

Adapted, with permission, from Michael Green's book But don't all religions lead to God. (Sovereign/IVP 2002) Copyright © 2006 Michael Green.

* L. Newbigin, The Finality of Christ. (1969)