If there is one thing that deeply perplexes the more fair minded of evangelical Christians, it is those non-Christians they know who do live consistent genuinely good lives.

Through the power of television we are constantly being bombarded with examples of the extremes of good and evil. On one hand, we see numerous examples of the horrendous evil of which human beings are capable, yet on the other hand we are increasingly seeing the amazing commitment to generosity and goodness of many other people. And while some of these genuinely good people will be committed Christians, many are not. This is a great puzzle for evangelical Christians brought up, as they are, on teachings which constantly proclaim how increasingly evil the world is getting, while at the same time desperately trying to trivialise and minimise the goodnesses of non-Christians.

While in pastoral ministry I talked with a woman who was a member of a local evangelical congregation. She expressed the struggle she was having in believing that only Christians would go to heaven on death. In her work for an international aid agency she was relating daily with both Christian and non-Christian people involved in long term commitment to the world’s poor. The work was low paid and most of those working in this field could have easily earned much higher salaries in the business world. To survive more than a few months required strong commitment of the will, great self sacrifice and above all a loving compassionate heart. From firsthand experience she had to admit that many of the non-Christians she worked with were at least as loving, even under real pressure to be otherwise, as any of the Christians involved, herself included!

She related daily with people of every belief system. Some had absolutely no religious commitment at all, some even claimed to be agnostic or atheistic. Then there were those of other faiths. Among them, she knew, were Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, several New Age types, Bahais, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus. All of these people’s lives showed a very deep level of consistent costly self sacrifice, consistent compassion and the highest level of personal integrity and honesty.

Her question to me was this, "Bruce, when I see these sorts of loving character traits in Christians, I say ‘Oh, isn’t it wonderful. These are the fruits of the Holy Spirit, this is Jesus at work through them. But when I see these very same character traits at work in non-Christians I am supposed to dismiss them as merely ‘humanistic good works’. Because we say that ‘good works’ can’t ever save you, these supposedly count for nothing with God! This simply isn’t fair and it isn’t just. How am I supposed to answer this?"