The Weekly Perspective
by Burke Shade, Associate Pastor
It’s the political season, and as usual, there is a mix of unbiblical teaching going around that should be addressed around the dinner table, especially since a lot of it is being said by ministers of one sort of another.
Methodist Pastor Adam Hamilton, Democrat candidate in Kansas’s Senate race, has taught and preached that all faiths end up in heaven: “When it comes to other faiths, I believe as a Christian that…–when they get to heaven, they’re going to see Jesus and they’re going to say, ‘Ah, it was you all along that I was searching for,’ but I don’t fear that those folks will spend eternity in Hell,” (2022 sermon titled “Is the Bible True? Is Jesus the Only Way?”). Hamilton has stated that he does not believe that an individual must know or follow Jesus Christ in their lifetime in order to be saved and spend eternity with God.
This unbiblical position raises a lot of questions: “Why be a Christian minister?”, “Why evangelize people in the first place?”, “Why even be a Christian?”
This position is clearly against the Great Commission in Matthew 28, where Jesus commands his followers to teach all the nations about “him,” and not just leave them in darkness. It is directly against John 14:6: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus clearly says he is the only way to the Father in heaven. This positions is against this very Father’s command at his Transfiguration in Matthew 17, where the Father says from heaven, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.” Not Buddha or Allah.
Finally, the Apostle Peter, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in Acts 4:8, says clearly in verse 12, “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”