Christian Exclusivism
My two favorite evangelists are Jack Chick and ‘Brother’ Jed Smock.
Chick Publications produces evangelical pamphlets you would probably recognize. Here are a couple of panels from a tract called “The Choice”.
Many more Chick tracts can be found here. Chick is an exponent of the “turn or burn” school of evangelism. He is the object of various internet parodies; the best I’ve seen is Cthulhu and Christ.
I cite Chick not to mock him, but rather because I think he accurately presents mainstream Christian doctrine in claiming that all non-Christians go to hell. Augustine, Calvin, Luther, and Edwards agree with Chick.
I first saw Jed Smock in action on the quad at the University of Illinois, Urbana. Jed always put on a great show. He and his disciples (the Destroyers) took a very confrontational, in-your-face approach to evangelization. Jed invited mockery, by design. He would accuse the students of being whores, whoremongers, and fornicators. Of course Jed drew crowds of heckler’s, and he gave as good as he got.
When I first saw Jed, he was arguing with a Jewish student. Jed told him in so many words that he was going to hell because Jews are all going to hell. In fairness to Jed, he would have said the same about atheists, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, or any other non-Christians.
At first I thought Jed was real yahoo, but I quickly changed my mind. He was actually very canny, with a quick wit and near total recall of the entire bible. What little I have read of his theological works strike me as erudite and well-argued.
The position these men defend is called Christian exclusivism. It is the traditional view. Here is the first article on Christian exclusivism returned by the Teoma search engine.
I pose the question to any Christian reading this. Are Chick and Smock correct? Is it true that all non-Christians are going to hell?
Posted on May 23rd, 2005 by pwyll
Filed under: religion
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Is God perfect? If God is perfect, then He lives in a perfect environment free from wrong. Logic would require that a human must be morally perfect to live in this environment and not instead only have more good than bad, as most models have of entering Heaven. Sin is sin and the tiniest one will keep us out of Heaven, if it is up to us.
God has a dilemma. He loves people and wants them to be with Him but everyone is disqualified from Heaven unless they have not reached the age of accountability.
God has a solution. Someone will live a sinless life and at the end have everyone else’s sin placed upon Him. It will not be something to work for but instead something offered as a free gift by grace. God will still remain just because it will be up to each individual to accept or reject the gift.
So I pose a question to you.
Why work your way to heaven? There is no certainty of getting there. So many people will say I hope I am going there. If it a free gift, then you did not do anything to earn it and there is nothing you can do to lose it.
Is that saying after you receive it you can live a life full of sin? First of all, God as Father will chasten you severely. Second of all, you will lose all rewards that God gives for those who follow Him. I can miss rewards in Heaven and be spanked on earth but once I am adopted into His family, He will never kick me out.
You ask questions, but do not answer mine. Are all non-Christians going to hell?
“Is God perfect? If God is perfect, then He lives in a perfect environment free from wrong.”
How odd then, that Christ lived in this world, and kept company with sinners.
“God has a dilemma. He loves people and wants them to be with Him but everyone is disqualified from Heaven unless they have not reached the age of accountability.”
The age of accountability is an idea without a shred of biblical support. It is routinely trotted out by those unwilling to face the grotesque doctrine of infant damnation.
Both of these threads, Christian exclusivism and infant damnation, come together another post of mine, here. I’d love to hear your answer to the questions it poses.