Seine

If these are the necessary conditions to be met for salvation to obtain:

1) Knowledge of Jesus' life, ministry and message.
2) Acceptance of said message.
3) A baptism of water and/or fire (spirit).

And these conditions went into effect at time t1, which is Jesus' resurrection. And given that the spread of this gospel would take quite a long time. It is reasonable to believe that hundreds of thousands of people died without meeting these conditions. Which in turn means that hundreds of thousands of people died, appeared before god and it went like this:

Deceased: "What the hell?!?!"
God: "Hell, indeed."
Deceased: (after realizing the conditions for salvation) :notworthy
God: "Too late" :wave:
Deceased: (screaming. Yes, like the recently stolen painting.)

So I'm wondering how Christians deal with this. There must be another way of interpreting the conditions for salvation in order to avoid this unjust end for a lot of unfortunate people. I mean, geeze, how do you stomach this?

Seine
_/\_

funinspace

Well as a former one, there's a few things that go on to deal with it. But first, many do not believe that baptism is a requirement for salvation (aka not going to hell or eternal sleep). It is merely an important jester of respect or public announcement of said faith.

Since the NT is a fairly large seemingly contradictory set of writings, the individual has some wiggle room. I forget the verse that is relied up, but many mainstream xains believe that if one did not have the opportunity to hear the "good news", then they are judged (mysteriously) on their life. This is also used to make it easier for the xian to be happy that children who are too young to understand, are also safe. Though the age of accountability is kept very vague. This is based sometimes on the notion that humans have an innate, god given, idea of morality. So even these lost souls can know right from wrong. Though this idea does somewhat contradict the other popular notion that we are all depraved evil souls.

Others seam to turn a blind to this vulgar idea that people without any chance to get the "good news" get hell. You'll see it around here quite often, when trying to get some xians to respond to this very real problem with the "true believers" understanding of the NT. They just seam to not have a real problem with an all powerfull diety being so evil.

There are even some xians who simply pick and chose what they want out of the NT, and simply state that they believe that each person is judge by god for how they lived their life, and goodness can win out.

jbernier

I think that a big part of the problem is the universalizing claims made by much of Christian thought. I am not convinced that either Paul or the other NT writers ever envisioned a Christianity that would encompass all of humanity. I think that Paul understood the church more as many Jewish thinkers, philosophers and Rabbis have understood their status as the Chosen People: As a community whose role was to remain faithful to the revelation of God that was vouchsafed to said community. I think that for Paul the church's main task was to demonstrate how a new type of community could be forged, a community based upon the radical human equality that he imagined existed within Christ. Remember that Paul wrote within a context in which human relationships were entirely heirarchical and humans were defined by their position in that heirarchy; in other words, a woman was a woman precisely because she was inferior to the man. Paul envisioned a community in which such heirarchies of being did not exist in the essence of the person - even if he still imagined that some of the 'fleshly' responsibilities attached to the male or female bodies (for instance) were still normative (and this is precisely where I would part company with Paul).

What does this mean for salvation in Christ? It means that salvation in Christ is precisely induction into a community of radical equality between male and female, Greek and barbarian, etc.. Now, can there be a salvation apart from this? I would argue that Christian thought should take the an approach parallel to one taken (in general) by its sister faith, Judaism: Just as the Jewish community is for those born Jewish the community of radical equality in Christ is for those who have been saved in Christ (or, to put it more eloquently, just as the Jewish community is for those born Jewish the Christian community is for those born in Christ). The salvific efficacy of those things that lie outside the Christian community are for those outside that community to decide for themselves; all Christians need to do is witness to the radical equality found in Christ (which I will be the first to admit that Christians have been very bad at historically). In short the real goal of Christian practice should not be the swelling of our numbers but rather the faithful practice of equality in Christ; all else is of far less relevance.

Seine

Now I can accept this interpretation. But coming from a fundementalist Christain perspective (and even a catholic one) the idea that salvation outside of Christ is even possible would render the torture and death of Jesus meaningless. If there was a loophole, then why would god bother to execute himsel...er..his son?

Seine

Veovis

[Christian]If it is God's will, then it must be right. God's judgement is always perfectly fair.[/Christian]

^I've heard that a lot from some people on this board.^

Heathen Dawn

In truth, whenever I encounter claims of God as Intelligent Designer, I always check up to see whether things have really been designed intelligently. Not seeing this in biology is why I’m an evolutionist. Not seeing this in the Christian afterlife system is why I’m not a Christian.

Philippe*

In catholicism, one must be baptised. Before the second vatican council, one had to be a member of RCC to be saved.
Non-baptised babies and mental disabled go neither to heaven neither to hell but to limbo for eternity. I don't know whether there are many catholics aware of that statement. Some theologians invoke the notion that the aborted fetus is "baptised by blood". This was a concept developed early in the church history to cover unbaptised persons who were matyred. But it is no official.

Philippe

Biff the unclean

What utter nonsense. That conveniently placed "etc." replaces remarks about slaves and freemen.
Jesus saves you from nothing. The church insists that women are subservient to men, slaves to their masters and you to those who God has placed over you. It is a complete supporter the the Imperial Roman concept of the "status quo" with itself on the top of the food chain.
"Salvation in Christ" is a catch phrase used by the church. Translated into 21st century English it is "Put up with all the shit we pull on you without complaint, like a good little sheep, then after you are dead and buried your life will be much better."

jbernier

Not intended to. It is there because I think one could go on ad infinitum with a listing of heirarchical relationships that are dissolved in Christ.

Note that I put in a disclaimer to the effect that the church has historically not been so great at practicing this agenda. But if you go back to the ideals of the first few generations of Christians I think you will see something similar to what I sketched above. Of course those generations were still people of their time - and their writings reflect that. Hence we need to keep that in mind as we read. However I do think that it is this vision of a community of equals that drove men such as Paul.

We must distinguish between Christendom and Christian (or, even better, Christocentric living). Christendom are those political structures which had a particular reading of Christian thought and practice as their ideological basis. However, this reading was not necessary nor have all who were called Christian ascribed to it.

This is where the notion of Christocentricity comes in. Yes, Christendom was a Christian ideology; however its centre was not the Christ was crucified by imperial power but rather (as you rightly observed) the imperial powers themselves. It turned from glorifying the Creator to glorifying the creation - precisely what Paul railed against in Romans 1. It was precisely the failure to live up to the egalitarian vision of the early church that caused the tragedy that was Christendom. This was a turning away from Christ, not a turning to salvation in Christ.

jack_hunter

What happens to all the people throughout time who never had the chance, nor ever will have the chance, to hear of Jesus?

Let me give you a glimpse of...some of the answers I have received..and maybe that will assist you in answering.


Answer 1: God won't save these people. They are doomed to hell. - Yuck. Is this the picture of a loving God? That God would just toss away a large portion of humanity - literally BILLIONS of souls - because they never heard about Jesus is...horrifying. If you say, "Well God knows everyone, and knows that those who don't hear of Christ would have turned out evil to begin with." Double Yuck..so God made them just to burn?

Answer 2: God will save whoever is "good". This position completely erases the necessity of Jesus. If you can just be good and be accepted by God...very dangerous thinking for a Christian. Make sure that's really what you mean if you choose this answer.
Answer 3: God can choose to save whomever he wants. - This is all well and good, but think about the Pandora's box you open with this answer. Remember we are talking about someone who never got (or gets) the chance to hear about Christ. Again, this negates the necessity of Jesus.

Answer 4: We are only liable for the truth that has been revealed to us. This is a nifty answer that seeks to say, in effect, "Well if you've heard about Christ, then you are liable...you must not reject him. If you haven't, then you aren't liable for that." If this position is true, then by the very act of evangelism we put the world at RISK when they might not otherwise be.