But what about the early Church? Didn’t they all preach that ‘faith in Christ’ was the only way to God?

Like most evangelicals I had always believed and preached that, at least among the Apostles, there was total harmony and agreement as to how salvation was entered into. Yet a close look at the book of James, Jesus’ half brother, shows that this was simply not the case at all.

Any impartial reading of the Epistle of James will show that the James-led churches of Jerusalem and its surrounding area held a version of divine relationship that was far closer to the teachings of the synoptic Jesus. James taught that right relationship with God was birthed by listening to and living by ‘the word of truth’ and ‘the word implanted in you which is able to save you’ (James 1.16-25). Here this ‘word’ is not the person of Jesus Christ, nor is it a ‘word’ about Jesus Christ in any Pauline/Petrine sense. Rather, this ‘word implanted in you, which saves you’ is nothing other than what James refers to as the Royal Law, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself" (James 2.8). Nowhere in this epistle is it stated or even implied that entry into right relationship with God is reliant primarily on ‘believing in Jesus Christ’, and this despite James referring to his readers as those who had ‘believed in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ’ (James 2.1). It is abundantly clear that James has major issues with key aspects of Paul’s ‘salvation by faith alone’ teachings and argues vigorously for a thoroughly ‘synoptic Jesus’ version of entry into eternal life. He seems to be trying to counter what he regards as Paul’s over-emphasis on one side of the coin of salvation truth. It was this fact which made Martin Luther, founder of the Protestant Reformation and champion of all things Pauline, declare that the Epistle of James was an ‘epistle of straw’ which should be removed from the canon of scripture!

Clearly, it is a serious mistake to assume that Paul’s version was the only accepted salvation model among the Apostles in the years leading up to James’ death. It is only in the years following the martyrdom of the Apostle James in 61 AD that the Pauline, Petrine and Johannine model of salvation steadily suffocated to death this last faithful expression of the salvation teaching of the synoptic Jesus. From then on Paul’s way became for all practical purposes the only accepted salvation understanding of the Christian Church. It is this monumental loss of truth which is lies behind the ever widening gap between postmodern humankind and the evangelical Church.

The only hope the Church has of stemming the inexorable decline in its influence on the world is a return to the actual teachings of Jesus Christ, along with a realisation that the Pauline/Johannine salvation version, valid though it was, forms one side only of the coin of salvation truth. It is not the whole story. We must grow beyond our ‘Paul-ianity’ and return to an authentic ‘Christ-ianity’, rediscovering in that process the other side of the salvation coin, Christ’s ‘lost teaching’ on how to inherit eternal life.

The next step: an evangelical Mea Culpa to the world

The time is fast approaching when we the evangelical Church may well have to find the honesty and courage to offer our own version of the recent Papal mea culpa (‘I am guilty’), apologising to the world for declaring countless multitudes of non-Christian ‘good trees’ lost souls. We the Christian Church are being called to own up to our failure to follow all the clearly enunciated salvation teachings of our founder, Jesus Christ. We are to find a new radical humility which allows us at last to honour these non-Christians, recognising them for who they are in God - that is, none other than our spiritual brothers and sisters and part of the great family of disciples of the will of God on earth.

Then, and only then I suspect, will these good folk be set free from the cycle of judgement and mutual recrimination caused by Christian exclusivism. As we honour them and find the humility to learn from and be enriched by them so they in turn will be able to hear us and be enriched by us. Some at least will as a result recognise Christ as much more than a great human teacher and, like us, acknowledge him as the great ‘I Am’, the Word who created everything that was made, whose task it is to sustain, guide and propel the universe inexorably into Divine will and purpose.

‘Loking past the hair’ of our half truths and judgmental attitudes, they will perhaps at last look into our eyes and we into theirs. And in so doing we will together be able to grasp with new wonder the greatness, might and, above all, the love and grace of God.