Who Goes to Heaven?

I have a good friend who thoroughly enjoys speaking to the “lost” and thoroughly enjoys telling them that if they don’t convert to Christianity, begin living their lives the way that she does, and give their lives quickly to God that they are certainly going to Hell.  In fact her entire poorly contrived, come-to-Christ sales pitch is based upon avoidance of an eternity of damnation surrounded by molten pools of hot who-knows-what.  If you can’t tell yet, I abhor this.  And here is why.

Many sects, whether or not Christian, hold to the idea that their path is the true path and that holding to their true path will result in entrance to heaven, nirvana, or some other form of eternal bliss once a person leaves his or her body, if not sooner.  Many of these sects hold that this premise is exclusive to their beliefs, that is, theirs is the only true path and others have somehow distorted the “truth”.  I recall an older gentleman who had a four-foot by eight-foot stand at the local swap meet covered with Gospel tracts.  These tracts, for the most part, explained where other Christian and non-Christian groups fell short.  After looking his stand over for a while and realizing that everything he offered was some sort of criticism of all other religions and denominations except his, I asked him, “How do you know that your’s is the right path?”

He replied, “Just look at the tracts.  You can clearly see that everyone else is wrong.”

“So that makes you right?”

He responded seriously, “Clearly.”

I tried to explain to him the concept of syllogistic fallacy and that “all others are wrong therefore I am right” is clearly a false statement but he merely smiled and moved on to his next customer.

All of this got me to thinking about my own relationship with God and how I seem to constantly find myself mistaken.  How can it be that I have been a Christian for all my life yet seem to constantly be learning?  And even I am sometimes learning the same lesson over and over?  Of course, almost everyone can make the statement, “I know so much more today than I did just some short number of years ago.”  In fact, if I compared the person I am today with the one that I once was I would say that I was naïve, immature, and perhaps even a bit foolish.  Yet, I believe, God promised to save me back then, just as well as right now.  He covered my sin and ignorance.  So how can anyone say that God would not do that for others in differing belief systems, denominations, or sects?

Of course this can go too far.  I went to a friend’s father’s funeral some number of years ago and was shocked to hear the pastor preach something about “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.”  As I found out later, the dead man was an admitted atheist and even the night of his death, lying in his bed, life slipping out of his body with each breath, shallower and shallower, surrounded by his closest family, daughters crying, begging him to give himself over to God, him adamantly, stoically, refusing, darkness creeping in by the minute, shadows playing tricks on the walls, his wife wailing, his sons shaking, he exhaled his last, defiant hiss of air.  He died an atheist.

Yet the pastor continually preached over the man’s casket, hollering out “how ‘bout now?”  and explaining that the dead man was sitting in heaven with Jesus.  His stance being that a person could deny a relationship with God and even the very existence of God and that when the person died they would have a second chance to accept.  He said Jesus would be standing on the judgment seat saying, “how ‘bout now?”

My ears burning red, my heart shaking in utter disbelief, I approached him after the service and asked him to tell me where this doctrine came from.  He said simply, “Jesus teaches us to forgive and He will forgive all.”

“Does everyone go to heaven then?”  I said.

“All humans?  Yes.  Hell is only for demons,” He replied then turned on his heel.

So on one hand there are people who believe that no one goes to heaven except a select few who share some very strict common beliefs and on the other extreme there are people who think that everyone, regardless of faith or lack of faith, go to heaven.  Personally, I cannot accept either extreme and am somewhere in the middle but I am not exactly sure where my heart falls.

I am so sorry to not be able to directly answer the question in the title, but here are a few observations that I have made.

No matter what church I attend, however big or small, I can find a variety of different beliefs among the different people in attendance.  If there are 50 different people in a church I am quite certain that I can find at least 20 or so differences in thought or belief that some who enjoy sorting, labeling and classifying would call marked differences.  Now this might seem harmless but let’s turn over the rock and see if there are any worms underneath.  Suppose my conception of God is a certain way and yours is slightly different.  Do we believe in the same God?  Do we worship the same God?  What if we call him different names but believe he has all the same essential characteristics?  Do we worship the same God then?  It is these types of questions that lead me to press on with God, trying to learn and grow as much as I can, and not waste too much time judging others or condemning what others believe.