This Letter to the Editor was a response to a newspaper article, “Some Presbyterians see salvation by other faiths”

There can be little doubt that this article inflamed emotions and deepened the pool of misunderstanding within and outside of the church. While this is certainly regrettable, it must also be acknowledged that the article raised deep and complex ideas worth discussing and wrestling over.

Whatever else this article may have raised, it provides a brief opportunity to broadly discuss an idea that billions of people over thousands of years have held to be true and vital. It provides an opportunity for greater understanding and, thus, tolerance, even among those who strongly disagree.

Few concepts are more inflammatory, misunderstood, and criticized today than the Christian belief that Jesus is the only way to God and salvation. Within a pluralistic culture, few ideas are more confusing and insulting. Small wonder then that a minority of Presbyterians (and for that matter, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, Catholics, etc.) are questioning and even rejecting the church’s ancient teaching of the centrality, uniqueness and exclusivity of Jesus.

But there is a reason the church has always held strongly to this teaching and why it must continue to do so.

Jesus is, and always has been, the center of the Christian faith. His followers have held that he uniquely unveils to us both the heart and nature of God and what it means to be truly human. As God enveloped in the bounds of human flesh, Jesus is the singularly unique and authoritative point where God steps out from behind the impenetrable veil of deity to reveal with unprecedented and unrivaled clarity who he is and what he desires.