Rejecting "Christianity" is Not the Same as Rejecting Christ

The Bishop of Rome is in trouble with his own church because he said what the Church has always said: That Christ died for everyone, not just Roman Catholics, Old Catholics, and or Eastern Rite Catholics, but EVERYONE! This is nothing new. This is what the Catholic Church -- the Church everywhere -- has always taught. The Bishop of Rome also declared that all are redeemed through Christ. Again, nothing new. This is what the Catholic Church has always taught.

The problem is not what the Bishop of Rome has said, but how people have interpreted what he has said. When the Bishop of Rome says that Jesus died for all people, and that all people are redeemed through Jesus Christ, he is not saying that all people are saved. Saying that Christ died for all is not saying that all are saved, but it is saying that those who are saved, are saved by Christ. A mother can make dinner for all who live in a house, but that does not mean that all who live in the house eat of that dinner. Some, or all, or most, or one, of those who live in that house could reject that dinner, even though it was made by her -- they can reject what she has done and eat something else.

So the issue seems to be in the “rejecting” of redemption, not in the redemption itself. Jesus Christ can die for me, and I may be redeemed by Him, but that does not mean that I will not still reject Him. The Church from the beginning has always had some notion that rejecting Christ is the key to not being saved -- rejecting Christ is rejecting salvation, even though the work of salvation has already been done by Christ.

The danger for all of us, “Christian” and non-Christian alike, is that we often assume that rejecting us, or our church, or our message, or our teaching, or our mission, or our whatever, is synonymous with rejecting Christ. We assume we have Christ and we are presenting Christ to others, and when they reject us, they are rejecting Christ. But maybe, just maybe, rejecting “Christianity” or even rejecting a “Christian message” or a “Christian group sharing the gospel” is not necessarily the same as rejecting Christ, or rejecting God.

Frankly there are many so-called “Christian” groups whose message I reject -- and the basis for my rejection of them is that I have NOT rejected Christ, or God. I have not rejected them because they are of another denomination, or another form of Christianity, but because they have rejected Christ, at least the Christ who appears in my New Testament, in their “Christianity.”

An example of this is the Westboro Baptist Church. These people claim to be Christian. Their worship may even look the same as other Protestant Christian groups and denominations that I do not reject. Their message, however, is not consistent with the message I hear from Christ. They may be “Christian” -- that is another debate -- but they are “Christian” in such a way that they reject Christ, at least they reject the Christ who appears in my New Testament. Yet, they think that because they are “Christian” they are saved, when salvation is not a matter of being Christian or not, it is a matter of rejecting Christ or not.

In Matthew 25 Jesus makes it clear that at the final Judgment, there will be many who took it for granted that they were saved, but who ARE NOT, and there are many who ARE saved when it had been taken for granted that they would not be. Jesus makes it clear that many are surprised. There will be many who are not Christian who will be surprised to find out that they have never rejected Christ, and there will be many who are “Christian” who will be surprised that they have -- probably over and over.

We must not confuse our Church, our message, our understanding, our preaching, our teaching, our mission, our denomination, our anything and everything with Christ. To be sure, our anything and everything we do as “Christians” should be founded upon Christ, but even if it is founded on Christ, it still is not Christ Himself. Therefore, we cannot assume that because someone has rejected us, or our efforts, or our understanding, that they have rejected Christ, any more than we should assume that we have accepted Christ.

I am sure that the people of Westboro Baptist Church believe that they are authentically Christian, and that they believe that their beliefs are the ultimate acceptance of Christ, and that anyone who does not accept what they take for granted is rejecting Christ. But I cannot accept what they say, neither can I accept how they say it, nor how they present it and live it. To me, it is a rejection of the Jesus Christ I encounter every time I open up my Bible, and every time I spend time with Him in prayer.

So we are in the same boat we have always been in: we can never say with certainty who is saved and who is not. We can never say with certainty who is damned and who is not. Many of the leaders of Christianity have been saying that all along. John Calvin the Reformer even said it over and over again. The Bible says we have hope, not a certainty. We have the hope of salvation. Hope is an expectation, but it is not a certainty. And our hope should be that we are saved, not that others are damned.

So spend a lot of time with Christ in the Bible and in prayer. Get to know Him. Let Him get to know you. Spend time with Him. When you pray, pray for others -- God loves that! Accept your role as a disciple, which unfortunately means, accept discipline -- set times to read, to pray, to do some good deeds, etc. Most of all, do not waste time deciding for yourself who is saved and who is damned because at the judgment, we are all in for some surprises -- let’s just hope our surprise is that we are not heading in the place we had assigned for others.

If we were really “Christian” in a way that accepts rather than rejects Jesus Christ, then we would be praying that everyone finds their way to heaven and the Kingdom of God, whether that Kingdom is in heaven or on earth. If we are hoping for people to be in hell, then we are doing it wrong, and frankly, are in danger of rejecting Christ, who taught us to love even our enemies and pray for even those who persecute us. We should not be upset at the idea all are saved if someone, even the Bishop of Rome, asserts such a thing; we should pray that it is so.

Imagine if we could all pray people into heaven, but not praying for them would consign them to hell -- how many people would be in hell right now because we wanted them there and refused to pray for them? We should all be praying that we all find our way to heaven -- that we all are saved. That is what Jesus would do, so if we accept Jesus, then that is what we would do too. If we do not, or will not, then we do not need a Final Judgment to tell us that we have rejected Christ, and we do not have to wait for that Judgment to be damned.

Reviews

[Emrick]

Nice article Father Joseph.
Christ came to save the whole world.Catholic wasn't existing when Christ was here.It was a result of spreading the gospel worldwide that's when Catholic was born.It's an act of selfishness to think that Christ will save only Christians. Christ came for everyone and he is going to save any one who is going to believe in him.