Geographic variety

Most religions contain truth. They are God's revelation to different people in different cultural circumstances. This has profound effects on my beliefs about the Bible and about Jesus' sacrifice of himself, but today I want to explore why I hold this belief.

None of these reasons are likely to convince anyone who has not already accepted my conclusion. I do not present proofs. Instead, I just want to present the circumstantial evidence that makes me believe this.

• Most people accept the religious tradition that they were taught to accept by their culture or family.
• Different religions are correlated with different geographic regions.
• Believers of different religious traditions believe what they believe just as strongly as Christians.
• While my greater familiarity with the Bible leads me to place it above other holy books, the Bible does not on its own stand out as more valid than many of these other holy books.
• People with different backgrounds do not see the same idea the same way. If their backgrounds are different enough, they may not even be able to see these ideas the same way.

All of these reasons lead me to believe that God tailors his revelation of himself to those he reveals himself to. When I wrote about Romans 14 and 15, I pointed out that God does not care about the specifics of our beliefs. I believe this holds not just within Christianity, but across all belief systems. What matters is connecting with the transcendent and living our own lives in a way that glorifies that transcendence.

Universal salvation

Madeleine L'Engle believed in universal salvation: everyone will ultimately be reconciled with God. She did not pretend to know how it would work, but she believed it to be true. The Bible supports this view, but it also contradicts this view. Madeleine gloried in contradiction.

Madeleine's believed separation from God was the punishment promised in the Bible. Unity with God was the reward.

Like Madeleine L'Engle, I know that I don't know all the answers, but I like this idea. My heart breaks when I think of people, even terrible people, being punished forever. Can even the worse sins on earth be worth eternal punishment? This does not seem compatible with a loving God. I also do not thing getting a an external reward or punishment can really provide lasting motivation to live a godly life. We should obey because the life we live when we obey is the best reward and the life we live when we don't obey is the worst punishment.

Universal salvation just gives us the chance to repent after death as well as before; death is not some arbitrary boundary between when you can repent and the time you can't. We always have the opportunity. If we have all eternity, we will all eventually repent. That, I believe, is what a loving God would want.