Dear Chuck,
Thank you so much for your email. I appreciate your sharing. let me state my belief. I do believe at Jesus is God and is the source of salvation for all people. You made the distinction in your comments between the salvation of those who reject Jesus and those who will never even hear his name mentioned in their lives. I believe that the latter group are loved by God and will be given a chance to encounter Christ and make a choice for or against Him. I see Jesus reflection on this in Matthew 25... I feel confident that God loves these people and will reveal himself to them in powerful ways beyond my understanding. He wants to spend all eternity with them.
As for those who don't choose Jesus, like the Jews and the Moslems, I have a hard time easily sending them all to hell. In the first place, who is the Jesus that they are rejecting, not choosing? For most Jews and Moslems, the Jesus they reject is the Jesus they experience in us Christians. They are not examining the Bible but us. Why would they be attracted to Christ if all they know of him is anti-Semitism and persecution of Moslems? Most of them don't reject the real Christ but rather the Christ they see in the Crusades, the Inquisition, strong Catholic belittling of Jews and now a Christian nation wanting to drop bombs on their people.
If we are responsible for giving them this distorted image of Jesus, perhaps when they come to the time of judgment, the one's to be condemned will not be those who were given a false image of Jesus but those who presented the false image.
As I also mentioned on the program, when I study the gospels, especially Mark, I find that Jesus is calling people to love His Father. When we pray we are called to pray to Our Father. His goal in life is to get people to love and give their lives to the Father. We see this also in John 11.
If this passionate love of Christ for his Father is real, I have a difficult time finding Jesus becoming indignant when devout Jews and Moslems praise the Father. I think that God the Son rejoices when His Father is praised. I have a difficult time believing Jesus would want to condemn people who praise His Father.
Thanks for listening to me, Chuck. Blessings on your walk with the Lord.
In Him,
Father Michael Manning, SVD