This is an e-mail that I wrote to my Religious Studies professor on the possibility of a Christian Perennialist (a Christian who believes that other religions are true). I write this mainly so that you can read this and be ready to have an answer when you come across a similar situation:
Professor ____________,
This question has been weighing in my mind this whole semester since we started Religious Studies 110: How can a Christian be Perennialist (all religions are equally true)? I myself hold an indiscriminate exclusivist view (only one religion is true, all other religions are false). Most christians would agree that Jesus is the only way (John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”). Your argument was that in the original greek translation, John 1 says, “In the begining was the Word (logos), and the Word (logos) was with God, and the Word (logos) was a God.” How then do you reconcile the next verse, which says that, “Through him (Jesus) all things were made; without him (Jesus) nothing was made that has been made.” I interpret this whole passage as talking of the Trinity, that Jesus was with God and WAS God.
Verse 14 also says that, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” From this verse we can assume that Jesus was the One and Only and that there WERE no others!
So staying within John, I can’t understand how a believer can believe that there are OTHER ways to salvation; Jesus Christ said so himself: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes through the Father except through me(singular).” I highly doubt that when Christ said “me”, he meant the greek term logos.
You specifically mentioned the head of Religious Studies as being a Christian Perennialist. Please show him this message if you’d like. With all due respect to the whole religious department, I become uneasy when I hear of other Christians holding to other religions as true, as the definition of Christian means believing Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the only way to salvation.
With all sincerity and all concerns,
Peter Kim
“Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” ~John 1:12
