All religions teach basically the same thing in application, though their philosophies or worldviews may differ; however, Christianity is by definition, not a religion. Christianity is strictly a faith, seeing that is the virtue central to its plan of salvation, and that it holds to a body of faith. Religions all instruct man to ingratiate himself with God or some deity or higher power and to gain this approbation by a system of good works, thus meriting salvation--they all stress salvation in their own way. One must realize that all religions have an element of truth to them and just enough to inoculate a sincere person to the real thing! Sincerity isn't everything though a requisite; however, there are many who are sincerely wrong.
We don't need to delineate all religions to see how they are all mutually contradictory and don't teach the same concept of God, salvation, or even make the same diagnosis of man's problem and the ultimate cure. Dr. Karl Menninger, the psychiatrist who wrote Whatever Became of Sin?--yes, I read it and it's a good read and even a must-read for theologians and/or scholars--and this book shows Christianity's diagnosis of our dilemma as rooted in sin or rebellion against God, it's our Declaration of Independence from God, doing our own thing and going our own way--defined as "refusing the love of another [i.e., God]." This is a word psychiatrists are starting to use again in their quest for us being responsible and accountable for our choices--no sin means no ultimate accountability.
All religions have some noble goal to accomplish but they are optimistic about man's nature (i.e., he is basically or inherently good), and don't realize we cannot please God--all our good deeds are as filthy rags! For instance, in Islam, they deny the Fall of man. The point to note in a works religion, and all religion seeks to do some work for salvation, as man is incurably addicted to gaining God's approbation by good behavior, is that you can never know for sure whether you are "in" or not, in other words, of being saved and secure in it. In contrast, only Christianity offers a full and complete assurance of one's destiny to heave, and even power over sin in the here and now. The only way you can be sure of your salvation or place in heaven is for it to be a gift, not something to be earned or deserved--not by merit, but grace alone. If we had to do anything, we'd fail! In the Bible, people would ask the question, "What must I do to be saved?" (Cf. Acts 16:30; John 6:28). This shows his orientation towards works and that he doesn't realize it's a gift to be received.
Creeds don't save! Faith doesn't save! Christ alone saves and it's the object of the faith that matters, not the amount of faith. Meager faith in Christ saves, while a lot of faith in the Pope or the Church will not! We must turn our creeds into deeds though! Christianity is not only concerned with orthodoxy or right belief, but orthopraxy or right behavior, and we are not saved by good behavior, but unto good behavior (cf. Eph. 2:10). Not by works, nor without them! The Reformers formula was "by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone." We will not be rewarded according to the amount of faith we have (cf. Rom. 2:6; Psa. 62:12), but the quality of our works and whether they stand the test of fire--some will be saved as if by fire (cf. 1 Cor. 3:10).
All religions teach the same applications in principle (Christianity is superior though, for instance, of all 52 known virtues, they are all depicted in Scripture, but no other religion comes close to covering all these bases). Christianity must be admired even on the basis of its superior morals and virtues. When they say that all religions teach the same thing--and George Lucas has come to the conclusion that all religions are true--they are basically referring to the application, not the philosophy or worldview. For instance, they all teach the betterment of mankind, the value of virtue, and the necessity of good works, though Christianity raises the bar! The Golden Rule, as an example, is the highest code of honor and ethics one can attain, compared to the Brazen, Silver, and Iron Rules are known in this rat-race and the dog-eat-dog world of the law of the jungle.
People are more interested in what the religion does for you, not it's doctrines, though they are also important--teaching without application leaves one cold. They said of Jonathan Edwards, probably the clearest-thinking of all American theologians, that his doctrine was all application, and his application was all doctrine. The end result of the validity of a religion is its effect on the convert and what it can do for him. We stress what Christ has done for us, not what we do for God! The conversion experience is a miracle of transformation of the soul and only is apparent in the Christian faith, whereby the person becomes a new creature in Christ (cf. 2 Cor. 5:17) and gets a new lease on life and a new start.
The contrasts are manifold: religion says "do"--Christianity says "done"; Religion reaches out to God--Christianity is God reaching out to us; religion is all works based; Christianity is all grace-based and its a gift that cannot be earned, deserved, or paid back; Religion gives no assurance; Christianity gives full assurance; Religion teaches you to lift yourself up by your own bootstraps; Christianity says that God can transform your life in His control; Religion says works are in order to gain the approbation of God; Christianity says we work out of gratitude to please God and are therefore a "therefore," not an "in-order-to." Man tends to ingratiate himself fourfold: morality, good works, philosophy, and ritual or religion! Religion itself is all a "do-it-yourself" proposition! You can distinguish the person of religion simply by asking him if he's saved! The religious person doesn't know! You can be very religious and not be saved, or even have a formal religion!
God is not so concerned that we get all our doctrines straightened out or nitpick and split hairs on them, as He is that we love and serve Him. What matters most is whether our hearts are in the right place. Don't be content just to be doctrinally correct! We cannot avoid doctrine and must not reject it, but it's not everything--God wants us to learn to love, serve, obey, and know Him as the ultimate goal. Most important thing about knowing God is just knowing Jesus--what a concept--everything we need to know about Him is expressed in Jesus for us to see--if you've seen Jesus, you've seen the Father! In the final analysis, a person's eternal fate or destiny will be decided at Judgment Day by his view of Jesus and what he did with Him at the final audit of his life and work. How did he treat Jesus?
Instead of learning all the minutiae of the different religions we need to see the Big Picture and how unique our faith is so that we can readily tell the counterfeit--the Secret Service studies the real thing so they can recognize counterfeit bills! We believe uniquely in a personal God we can know, and that especially loves is and even is love and that's His essence and defining trait. We believe sin is the problem but God has solved the sin question by the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. We believe our salvation is complete, sure, knowable, and eternal in Christ and available to all who will believe. We believe God's final word to man is in Christ and God became a man in the incarnation of Jesus to make Himself known. We believe in the infallibility, inerrancy, perspicuity or clarity, sufficiency, reliability, accuracy, simplicity, authenticity, necessity, fidelity, integrity, inspiration, and authority of the Word--the battle cry of the Reformation was sola Scriptura, or by Scripture alone (as the sole rule of faith and authority).
Christianity alone postulates that God is a person we can know and is personal, has personality, and wants to get personal and go one-on-one with us as individuals He loves. Our faith alone satisfies the deepest desire of man to have a meaningful relationship with our Creator, that just believing He exists or knowing about Him doesn't fulfill. Contrary to popular opinion, the Golden Rule is not the essence of Christianity, but it's a faith that must be lived out and practiced by demonstrating it to the world by good works (as Paul would say, "I'll show you my works by my faith," and James would say the flip side, "I'll show you my faith by my good works").
The faith you have is the faith you show--is it any wonder that Mahatma Gandhi said that he'd become a Christian if he ever met one! Even he admired the high ethics of Christianity, but Christians are not perfect, just forgiven works in progress, with perfection as the standard, but direction as the test! In our faith alone, eternal life is equated with knowing God in Jesus' high priestly intercession in John 17:3! Thus we can have a growing and living relationship with God as our Father, who loves us personally.
One must note the foundations of Christianity are based on fact and history, not fable, tradition, myth, or legend, no other religion can uniquely claim this; and as proof of Scripture's authority and of God's approval, Scripture alone has thousands of fulfilled prophecies--not just a few lucky guesses or self-fulfilling prophecies either. Finally, with all due respect to world religions, Jesus alone claimed deity and no other founder did--not Buddha, not Confucius, not Muhammad, no one! This is what turns people off to our faith: its exclusiveness and positing absolute truth that can be known through Christ as the personification of Truth with a capital T--i.e., truth is not relative, but knowable and fixed for eternity; we are accountable for it--willful ignorance is no excuse! At Judgment Day one's fate will be determined by his answer to Christ's query to his disciples in Matt. 16:15, saying: "Who do you say that I am?" and He answered it in John 8:24 as, "Unless you believe that I Am ["He" is not in Greek manuscripts, stating His deity as the Great I Am], you will die in your sins." It doesn't matter what you think of these other false prophets, gurus, false teachers, the Pope, and even angels of light like Moroni, but it does matter what you make of Christ--whose Son is He?
One doesn't even have to believe in the Bible to get saved (as Paul found out on his missionary journeys to the Greeks), despite the fact that it's the only Holy Scriptures that claim God as the Author, saying over 2,000 times, "Thus saith the LORD," in the Old Testament alone! The very existence and continuity of the Bible is a miracle in itself due to all the systematic attempts to destroy it throughout history, and it's fidelity and integrity are firmly established and plain to see.
To make things clear by contrast: Religion lays down what man must do; Christianity lays down what God has done; religion is the best man can do; Christianity is the best God can do; religion is knowing a creed or the rules; Christianity is knowing a person; religion is a code of conduct, self-reformation, a philosophy, or a catalog of rules; Christianity is a relationship, a renewal, and more abundant life! Jesus said, "It is finished!" "Paid in full!" "Tetelestai!" This was stating that He had completed the work of our salvation on the cross and it's a "done deal" that only needs to be applied to believers who will receive it by faith as a gift in grace, undeserved, unmerited, and unearned. You can be very religious without being a Christian and vice versa: you can be a Christian without being very religious! The ultimate question to ponder is whether one knows God, not has an opinion about some concept of God.
In sum, let me cite an old anecdote: One preacher was interrupted by a man who said that he "tried religion for five years and it didn't work for [him]!" The preacher countered that he "tried it for fifteen years and it didn't work, either!" The man asked him to explain why he was a preacher then: Then he "tried Jesus," was his telltale confession! Soli Deo Gloria!
We don't need to delineate all religions to see how they are all mutually contradictory and don't teach the same concept of God, salvation, or even make the same diagnosis of man's problem and the ultimate cure. Dr. Karl Menninger, the psychiatrist who wrote Whatever Became of Sin?--yes, I read it and it's a good read and even a must-read for theologians and/or scholars--and this book shows Christianity's diagnosis of our dilemma as rooted in sin or rebellion against God, it's our Declaration of Independence from God, doing our own thing and going our own way--defined as "refusing the love of another [i.e., God]." This is a word psychiatrists are starting to use again in their quest for us being responsible and accountable for our choices--no sin means no ultimate accountability.
All religions have some noble goal to accomplish but they are optimistic about man's nature (i.e., he is basically or inherently good), and don't realize we cannot please God--all our good deeds are as filthy rags! For instance, in Islam, they deny the Fall of man. The point to note in a works religion, and all religion seeks to do some work for salvation, as man is incurably addicted to gaining God's approbation by good behavior, is that you can never know for sure whether you are "in" or not, in other words, of being saved and secure in it. In contrast, only Christianity offers a full and complete assurance of one's destiny to heave, and even power over sin in the here and now. The only way you can be sure of your salvation or place in heaven is for it to be a gift, not something to be earned or deserved--not by merit, but grace alone. If we had to do anything, we'd fail! In the Bible, people would ask the question, "What must I do to be saved?" (Cf. Acts 16:30; John 6:28). This shows his orientation towards works and that he doesn't realize it's a gift to be received.
Creeds don't save! Faith doesn't save! Christ alone saves and it's the object of the faith that matters, not the amount of faith. Meager faith in Christ saves, while a lot of faith in the Pope or the Church will not! We must turn our creeds into deeds though! Christianity is not only concerned with orthodoxy or right belief, but orthopraxy or right behavior, and we are not saved by good behavior, but unto good behavior (cf. Eph. 2:10). Not by works, nor without them! The Reformers formula was "by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone." We will not be rewarded according to the amount of faith we have (cf. Rom. 2:6; Psa. 62:12), but the quality of our works and whether they stand the test of fire--some will be saved as if by fire (cf. 1 Cor. 3:10).
All religions teach the same applications in principle (Christianity is superior though, for instance, of all 52 known virtues, they are all depicted in Scripture, but no other religion comes close to covering all these bases). Christianity must be admired even on the basis of its superior morals and virtues. When they say that all religions teach the same thing--and George Lucas has come to the conclusion that all religions are true--they are basically referring to the application, not the philosophy or worldview. For instance, they all teach the betterment of mankind, the value of virtue, and the necessity of good works, though Christianity raises the bar! The Golden Rule, as an example, is the highest code of honor and ethics one can attain, compared to the Brazen, Silver, and Iron Rules are known in this rat-race and the dog-eat-dog world of the law of the jungle.
People are more interested in what the religion does for you, not it's doctrines, though they are also important--teaching without application leaves one cold. They said of Jonathan Edwards, probably the clearest-thinking of all American theologians, that his doctrine was all application, and his application was all doctrine. The end result of the validity of a religion is its effect on the convert and what it can do for him. We stress what Christ has done for us, not what we do for God! The conversion experience is a miracle of transformation of the soul and only is apparent in the Christian faith, whereby the person becomes a new creature in Christ (cf. 2 Cor. 5:17) and gets a new lease on life and a new start.
The contrasts are manifold: religion says "do"--Christianity says "done"; Religion reaches out to God--Christianity is God reaching out to us; religion is all works based; Christianity is all grace-based and its a gift that cannot be earned, deserved, or paid back; Religion gives no assurance; Christianity gives full assurance; Religion teaches you to lift yourself up by your own bootstraps; Christianity says that God can transform your life in His control; Religion says works are in order to gain the approbation of God; Christianity says we work out of gratitude to please God and are therefore a "therefore," not an "in-order-to." Man tends to ingratiate himself fourfold: morality, good works, philosophy, and ritual or religion! Religion itself is all a "do-it-yourself" proposition! You can distinguish the person of religion simply by asking him if he's saved! The religious person doesn't know! You can be very religious and not be saved, or even have a formal religion!
God is not so concerned that we get all our doctrines straightened out or nitpick and split hairs on them, as He is that we love and serve Him. What matters most is whether our hearts are in the right place. Don't be content just to be doctrinally correct! We cannot avoid doctrine and must not reject it, but it's not everything--God wants us to learn to love, serve, obey, and know Him as the ultimate goal. Most important thing about knowing God is just knowing Jesus--what a concept--everything we need to know about Him is expressed in Jesus for us to see--if you've seen Jesus, you've seen the Father! In the final analysis, a person's eternal fate or destiny will be decided at Judgment Day by his view of Jesus and what he did with Him at the final audit of his life and work. How did he treat Jesus?
Instead of learning all the minutiae of the different religions we need to see the Big Picture and how unique our faith is so that we can readily tell the counterfeit--the Secret Service studies the real thing so they can recognize counterfeit bills! We believe uniquely in a personal God we can know, and that especially loves is and even is love and that's His essence and defining trait. We believe sin is the problem but God has solved the sin question by the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. We believe our salvation is complete, sure, knowable, and eternal in Christ and available to all who will believe. We believe God's final word to man is in Christ and God became a man in the incarnation of Jesus to make Himself known. We believe in the infallibility, inerrancy, perspicuity or clarity, sufficiency, reliability, accuracy, simplicity, authenticity, necessity, fidelity, integrity, inspiration, and authority of the Word--the battle cry of the Reformation was sola Scriptura, or by Scripture alone (as the sole rule of faith and authority).
Christianity alone postulates that God is a person we can know and is personal, has personality, and wants to get personal and go one-on-one with us as individuals He loves. Our faith alone satisfies the deepest desire of man to have a meaningful relationship with our Creator, that just believing He exists or knowing about Him doesn't fulfill. Contrary to popular opinion, the Golden Rule is not the essence of Christianity, but it's a faith that must be lived out and practiced by demonstrating it to the world by good works (as Paul would say, "I'll show you my works by my faith," and James would say the flip side, "I'll show you my faith by my good works").
The faith you have is the faith you show--is it any wonder that Mahatma Gandhi said that he'd become a Christian if he ever met one! Even he admired the high ethics of Christianity, but Christians are not perfect, just forgiven works in progress, with perfection as the standard, but direction as the test! In our faith alone, eternal life is equated with knowing God in Jesus' high priestly intercession in John 17:3! Thus we can have a growing and living relationship with God as our Father, who loves us personally.
One must note the foundations of Christianity are based on fact and history, not fable, tradition, myth, or legend, no other religion can uniquely claim this; and as proof of Scripture's authority and of God's approval, Scripture alone has thousands of fulfilled prophecies--not just a few lucky guesses or self-fulfilling prophecies either. Finally, with all due respect to world religions, Jesus alone claimed deity and no other founder did--not Buddha, not Confucius, not Muhammad, no one! This is what turns people off to our faith: its exclusiveness and positing absolute truth that can be known through Christ as the personification of Truth with a capital T--i.e., truth is not relative, but knowable and fixed for eternity; we are accountable for it--willful ignorance is no excuse! At Judgment Day one's fate will be determined by his answer to Christ's query to his disciples in Matt. 16:15, saying: "Who do you say that I am?" and He answered it in John 8:24 as, "Unless you believe that I Am ["He" is not in Greek manuscripts, stating His deity as the Great I Am], you will die in your sins." It doesn't matter what you think of these other false prophets, gurus, false teachers, the Pope, and even angels of light like Moroni, but it does matter what you make of Christ--whose Son is He?
One doesn't even have to believe in the Bible to get saved (as Paul found out on his missionary journeys to the Greeks), despite the fact that it's the only Holy Scriptures that claim God as the Author, saying over 2,000 times, "Thus saith the LORD," in the Old Testament alone! The very existence and continuity of the Bible is a miracle in itself due to all the systematic attempts to destroy it throughout history, and it's fidelity and integrity are firmly established and plain to see.
To make things clear by contrast: Religion lays down what man must do; Christianity lays down what God has done; religion is the best man can do; Christianity is the best God can do; religion is knowing a creed or the rules; Christianity is knowing a person; religion is a code of conduct, self-reformation, a philosophy, or a catalog of rules; Christianity is a relationship, a renewal, and more abundant life! Jesus said, "It is finished!" "Paid in full!" "Tetelestai!" This was stating that He had completed the work of our salvation on the cross and it's a "done deal" that only needs to be applied to believers who will receive it by faith as a gift in grace, undeserved, unmerited, and unearned. You can be very religious without being a Christian and vice versa: you can be a Christian without being very religious! The ultimate question to ponder is whether one knows God, not has an opinion about some concept of God.
In sum, let me cite an old anecdote: One preacher was interrupted by a man who said that he "tried religion for five years and it didn't work for [him]!" The preacher countered that he "tried it for fifteen years and it didn't work, either!" The man asked him to explain why he was a preacher then: Then he "tried Jesus," was his telltale confession! Soli Deo Gloria!
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