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    Campolo:  Can Non-Christians Go To Heaven? We’re Not Sure.

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    “We are very very careful about pronouncing judgment on anybody. We leave judgment in the hands of God and we are saying Jesus is the way. We preach Jesus, but we have no way of knowing to whom the grace of God is extended.”

    FOR DISCUSSION:  What say you?

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    SOURCE:  Read the whole article at the Edmonton Journal...

    Here's an interesting answer to a question posed to Tony Campolo in a recent newspaper article. Q. Do you believe non-Christians can go to heaven? A. That's a good question to ask because the way we stand is we contend that trusting in Jesus is the way to heaven. However, we do not know who Jesus will bring into the kingdom and who He will not.

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    1. Ernie on Thu, February 01, 2007

      Unfortunately Tony Campolo has went from non-judgemental of people’s behavior and beliefs to actually tolerant.  Of course that is what the socialist elites of this nation want from Christians right? 


      Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.  If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is. John 14:6-7a NLT


      That’s enough for me!

    2. Wendi on Thu, February 01, 2007

      Actually, I think Tony handled that well.  He’s gonna get nailed for this statement from Christian conservatives, but I feel some are unable to filter out their distain for his liberal politics and will critique this short theological statement influenced by that distain.


      Tony said “we contend that trusting in Jesus is the way to heaven.”  Yes.  Then he said, “we do not know who Jesus will bring into the kingdom and who He will not.”  Yes, true again. 


      It’s true that some label us intolerant because of our belief in the exclusivity of the Gospel.  However, I think sometimes we’re viewed as intolerant because we act as if we’re God, able to determine their eternal address based on things like; whether someone has “prayed the prayer,” what sin they might be unwilling to give up, which denomination they associate with, even which political candidate they support.  In the later cases, we deserve the intolerant label (and I think the ignorant label as well).


      Furthermore, the public voice of evangelical Christianity is far too much about whether or not someone will get into heaven.  That’s why people like Tony Campolo get asked such questions.  If we stopped talking so much about what happens after someone dies, and talked more about how we could/should be identified as Christ followers while we are alive, maybe more of those still outside the faith would be less hung up about our views regarding heaven and hell.


      Wendi

    3. Daniel on Thu, February 01, 2007

      Wendi, as usual, your comments are spot on.


      Christianity hardly has anything to do with what happens when you die, and everything to do with acknowledging Christ’s Reign here and now.  I’m actually a little bummed out Campolo didn’t call out the assumptions of the question he was asked…


      Read your Bibles friends, God’s grace and God’s Spirit are a gift, but judgment is by works (on the basis of the whole life lived).


      My two cents.


      -Daniel-

    4. drbob on Thu, February 01, 2007

      Good responses! Compolo does state that we contend that Jesus is the only way; but, what about those who never hear? It’s one thing to reject the gospel, but what about those who have never heard of Jesus, but have a faith in something greater than themselves? I am not God; I am man. His ways are not my ways.

    5. Chip Sanders on Thu, February 01, 2007

      The Bible says “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12) It is pretty clear. We can be gentle and have respect for people who disagree but we need to be clear in our understanding and in our warning that there are consequences for rejecting Christ. I don’t know Tony C. but I know that he no longer speaks at our denominations events because he refuses to be clear on where he stands on certain issues. Kind of like nailing jello to a wall.


      And Daniel I disagree with you while being a Christian in this life is extremely important the gospel is very much about what happens when you die. That’s why Jesus referred to eternal life. Because this life is not all there is we are just passing through.

    6. Wendi on Thu, February 01, 2007

      Chip -


      I agree with you that Jesus had much to say about eternal life, but don’t you think we might have come to view His comments too narrowly . . . assuming He always meant “life after we die and go to heaven?”  The kingdom of God, and eternity as well, are concepts with an “already and not yet” reality (which our human minds can very poorly grasp).  Since the “already” is all we have control over, I think that is what we should spend our mental and practical resources on.


      And Campolo might well be far too vague about many topics, but I think any vagueness in the above comment is not only appropriate, it is absolutely correct.


      Wendi

    7. Brent on Thu, February 01, 2007

      I appreciate Campolo’s honesty and graciousness, although I don’t agree with him.  John 14:6 is pretty clear.  But even if we don’t know for sure what happens to those who don’t believe, we’re still compelled to share the gospel with them.

    8. Daniel on Thu, February 01, 2007

      Chip, I’m sorry you disagree with me.  But if anything proves my point, it’s Acts 4, which you quote.  Here are verses 9 and 10: “if we are being examined today for a good deed done to a sick man – by what means this man was healed – let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, this man stands before you healthy.” (NET)  Peter’s point about ‘salvation’ (at least in this passage) has everything to do with healing the sick (not some ethereal afterlife).


      99% of the time, ‘salvation’ in the Bible (Old and New Testaments) has to do with earthly realities.  In the Old Testament, it’s primarily about Israel being saved from its oppressors, and in the New Testament, it’s also about (the new) Israel (viz. the Church) being saved from its oppressors (the Roman empire, but more generally the power of death, and the principalities and powers).  Now, for those of us who believe in resurrection, there are obviously ‘long-term’ implications.  But Evangelicalism has badly distorted the Bible’s teaching on salvation in Christ.  God redeems the world in Christ, he doesn’t pluck us out of it!


      Further, though Christ is the means of reconciliation, the wind of the Spirit blows where God wills.  Remember Jesus’ description of God’s judgment: the ‘sheep’ are those who follow Christ (by caring for the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized), and the ‘goats’ are those who don’t (by not doing the above—and this is all regardless of what they claim to believe).  It is therefore quite plausible to suggest that non-believers might have a foretaste of the Kingdom.


      Resurrection and life on the renewed Earth (not in ‘heaven’) is an extension of the Bible’s teachings on salvation, but not their primary center.


      Cheers,


      -Daniel-

    9. Leonard on Thu, February 01, 2007

      This one hits a nerve with me so please forgive my boldness and challenges, they come from passion not anger. 


      Wendi,


      I am a Christian conservative and while I might nail Tony for his statements it is not because of his politics.  That is the same “lump then all together” statement that frustrates you about conservatives.  Tony gets nailed by me because Tony increasingly strays from orthodox thinking.  He gets nailed because he blends his theology and his politics and both are liberal.  To nail a conservative for doing so but not actually nail Campolo is disingenuous at best and double standard.  You cannot hold Tony to a different standard that Dobson, both visit the white house, both are political activists, and both are Christian leaders.  Now Back on topic:


      “Christianity hardly has anything to do with what happens when you die, and everything to do with acknowledging Christ’s Reign here and now.”  Daniel what bible are you reading?  You are flat out wrong on this.  What was Paul speaking of when he wrote, to live is Christ to die is gain, I long to depart with is much better but I will stay here.  John wrote of eternity, Paul wrote of eternity, Peter wrote of eternity and Jesus spoke of eternity. 


      Tony’s response is accurate; God only knows who gets grace.  He is inaccurate as to what Christians do, playing into the sound-bite anti Christian culture.  Our media is waiting for us to say someone is going to hell so they can say we are judgmental and harsh.  Tony fell for it hook line and sinker, so much so that he does a disservice to the bible’s truth on eternity, heaven, hell and the atonement of Christ.  To speak of hell is not to pronounce judgment on someone; this is the trap of liberal anti biblical thinking.  John 3:16-17 gives me some helpful thoughts.


      Whoever believes will not perish.  If that is true then I am perishing already and the remedy is faith in Christ.  I am perishing not because some preacher “pronounced judgment” but because my sin separated me from God and I was born that way, then chose to live that way.  I was not on my way to heaven when God changed the rules and I was suddenly disqualified.  I was going to perish.  Jesus did not come to condemn the world because it was already condemned.  He came to save the world from condemnation, already pronounced by God.  I cannot pronounce eternal judgment, I can however announce eternal judgment, warn people, encourage repentance, offer hope and love, but I have now power to pronounce eternal judgment.  If there is such a thing as eternal judgment and it really is as described by the bible as hell.  I am duty bound, obligated by God to announce its reality. 


      The pendulum is swinging away from the talk of hell but we mustn’t swing to far out of balance.  We mustn’t let our cultures prideful refusal to be taught, refusal to be humble before their creator determine a message the bible speaks clearly.  With that said I also firmly believe we must not ever speak of hell without the hope of eternity beginning in this life and we must never announce eternal judgment apart from a broken heart.  Sorry for the long post, I cut it way down.

    10. Daniel on Thu, February 01, 2007

      Leonard—passion is good.  Thank you for caring about this.  http://www.mondaymorninginsight.com/images/smileys/grin.gif  And thank you for your wonderful tone.


      I too am passionate about this subject.  We seem to come at this from different angles.  You seem to working within a fairly traditional (perhaps Reformed?) framework.  I read the same Bible as you (at least I think—I have been known to dabble in the apocrypha…) but I read them through the lens of recent (more or less conservative) scholarship (e.g. NT Wright, Andrew Perriman, Doug Campbell, etc).  There is certainly an ‘eternal’ aspect to the teachings of the New Testament, but it has been so incredibly overemphasized that I have trouble doing anything less than underemphasizing it.  Perhaps this is my mistake.  If I keep bringing up eschatology on different threads, it’s because it really does inform everything else.


      As a side note, I too am uncomfortable with Campolo’s relative fusion of theology and politics.  It is harder for me to be ‘objective’ because I tend to agree with him more than with someone like Dobson, but you’re correct in saying both kinds of fusion are dangerous.  Greg Boyd has done a remarkable service to the Church by pointing this out in his “The Myth of a Christian Nation”.


      I wish you the best,


      -Daniel-

    11. Bart on Thu, February 01, 2007

      As posted above, I think Tony was trying to avoid being bashed by the media for being selective and judgemental.  Perhaps the better question than “can non-Christians get to heaven” would have been “do all Christians get to heaven”?  When we see reports that 80 % of Americans say they are Christian, but many do nto believe in the Bible, Jesus, etc. it causes me to wonder if the word Christian, just as evangelical, etc is being misused.  In that way I agree with Daniel’s post in that we know them by their love, or actions here on earth, and not just by thier words.

    12. drbob on Thu, February 01, 2007

      “I go to prepare a place for you…if it were not so I would have told you” We all know there will be an eternity spent with the Father, but the issue comes when we are so “heavenly-minded” that we are no earthly good. Jesus taught on eternity, but he preached also on the “kingdom of God”; living life in such a way that we bring others into the kingdom. The greatest commandment is about relationships, not only our relationship with the Father, but equally with our “neighbor”. To gain an audience we must know who we are trying to reach. Paul used an “unknown God” to teach the people of Mars Hill about Jesus. Eternity - looking forward to it. Life - live it abundantly.

    13. kent on Thu, February 01, 2007

      What is interesting is that while we are often pointed to eternal life in the gospels, very little is actually stated about what heaven is like. Jesus spent most of his time about the kingdom of God which seesm to have a very present component. Yes eternal life is crictical, essential, but if Jesus simply came to give us life after death he could have handled that in three days, not three years.


      But back on the issue at hand, Judgment isin God’s hand, and he has made it clear what judgment is like and for. Rejecting him, his commands, his son. We can be a loving and kind as we can be, but the standard does not move. Jesus is life. This life has expectations for current behavior, but this life is what we are called to. If that seems narrow minded, it is how God has determined it. Even in the gospel there were those who thought they could dance at the edges and we told, no life is not your, “I do not know you.”

    14. Jonathan K. on Thu, February 01, 2007

      I’m going to respond to some of the comments being presented here…


      First, I disagree with the way Dr. Campolo initially answered the question. He should have said an unequivcal “No,” rather than waivering as he did.  His response was not an “evangelical” response… John 14:6 and other Scriptures others have mentioned are spot on, as Jesus is the ONLY way.


      Daniel, I disagree with you, in part.  Christianity is about BOTH the here and now, AND what happens when you die.  If you’re not following Jesus by faith, then you’re not going to heaven.  Its as simple as that.  Judgment by works is basicallly a Catholic teaching, as an evangelical, I completely disagree with it.


      Drbob, you asked about people who never hear.  Romans 1 and 2 suggests they’ll be judged by their conscience.  But if they’re worshipping some god that is clearly a man-made idol… they’re not going to heaven.  This is a BIG reason why everyone needs to be supporting missions efforts to reached so-called “un-reached” people groups, go on mission trips themselves, or both.


      Chip & Wendi, I think I agree with you.


      Leonard, you’re characterization is even more spot on.

    15. Tony A on Thu, February 01, 2007

      I think Mr. Campolo know the answer.  I think he may be afraid to answer directly.  It would not be politically correct and Mr. Campolo is VERY political.  I guess I would ask the age-old question of Mr. Campolo - if we can’t know who is invited to the table, the why did Jesus have to die?  I find it rather fascinating that men like Mr. Campolo and Mr. McLaren, folks that can’t seem to answer this important question directly, are such magnets to the mainstream media recently - do you ever notice that media guru’s like Larry King always pin this question on them right away?  They hem and haw, and sort-of half-answer the question.  It’s really a sad state of affairs - especially when you consider the audience that is listening… intently.

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