Multiple Religions: Part 1

Here is an interesting question: What to make of different religions?

A couple of years ago, at a conference I was at, the theologian in residence pointed out that there is no such thing as a "winning" religion. According to her, the point of a religion is to explain the world, not to "win."

Still, if you're christian, the tendency generally is to want to believe the right thing. Protestants especially have a focus on belief as the way to salvation. This isn't true for all religions--for some what you do is more important than what you think about what you're doing. But if you believe that what you believe is what saves you, then you want to be sure you believe the right thing.

And when everybody agrees with you, it's easier to feel like you do believe the right thing after all.

So I think that sums up some of the motivations behind the hard-core converters who think everybody except a particular slice of christians is going to hell. Right belief saves, wrong belief leads to death.

I haven't decided yet where I am on this--to me salvation is a relationship with God, and is an ongoing process, like any relationship. God is good to me now, and I trust God to be good to me after I die. But the point is, while it helps to believe certain things in order to establish this relationship, believing the right things is not what ultimately saves me; it's God who saves.

So where does that leave christians in terms of thinking about other religions, which describe the world in different ways and value different things?