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WHY I AM NOT AN INCLUSIVIST

inclusivism can have a strong emotional appeal for many evangelical Christians. Many could sleep better if there were less urgency or no urgency in getting the gospel to the unevangelized. Many of us have loved ones who died with their relationship to Christ uncertain or whose prospects for eternity appear bleak. Some comfort, however false it might prove to be, could be derived from various inclusivist theories noted in this book.

However, wise Christians know better than to confuse the truth with the way we would sometimes like things to be. Whatever the appeal to the heart, we must evaluate inclusivism with our minds. How inclusivism squares with Scripture is more important than how it makes us feel.

It is obvious from the discussion in this book that I am not an inclusivist. I have argued that inclusivism is seriously flawed in its theology. The way that inclusivists handle Scripture is disturbing in many respects. I have raised the question whether some inclusivists, such as Clark Pinnock, are not really exclusivists who believe in the possibility of salvation after death.

To conclude this discussion and this book, I want to deal with a few remaining issues that constitute additional reasons to question or reject inclusivism.

THE INCLUSIVIST AS ROMANTIC

We sometimes refer to people as romantics when they give priority to feeling and emotion. Lutheran theologian Marc Mueller has described Pinnock’s inclusivism as a “romantic project” that fails to reflect “a truly biblical understanding of the awesomeness of God’s sovereignty over history, the nations and the world of men.” 1 J. I. Packer believes inclusivists are more influenced by the “American idea of fairness” than by anything they have learned from Scripture. 2

According to some, what we find in inclusivism is a troubling example of how good and sincere people allow their feelings to get the better of them. Once they convince themselves emotionally that a certain belief must be true, they conclude that it is true and must therefore be in the Bible. It is a matter of doing theology by imagination. Step after step, inclusivists indulge in heavy speculation. One speculation is laid on another until we have what is supposed to be an elaborate theological structure. Upon careful analysis, however, the system turns out to be a house of cards.

I have sought to say nothing in this book that implies that exclusivists lack concern for all the unevangelized who have died without Christ or for all the others for whom this fate is still future. When asked if there will be people in heaven who never had a chance to hear the gospel during their lifetime, the first thing a wise exclusivist will say is that he does not know. As Deuteronomy 29:29 states, “The secret things belong to the L ORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever.” Although we know about the Lamb’s Book of Life (Rev. 20:12 – 15), we do not know whose names appear in it. But much that we do know suggests that men and women who have not confessed Christ as Savior will not be there.

There is much wisdom in Packer’s advice that “[I]f we are wise, we shall not spend much time mulling over this notion [of the specific fate of specific unevangelized people]. Our job, after all, is to spread the gospel, not to guess what might happen to those to whom it never comes. Dealing with them is God’s business.” 3 Genesis 18:25 asks, “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” Not only is it God’s business, but also we can be certain that when God is finished dealing with all of us, none will be able to complain that they were treated unfairly.

John Sanders is sharply critical of thinking like this, labeling it “reverent agnosticism.” 4 But as I have sought to demonstrate, I believe that Sanders fails to present good enough information or to make a strong enough case to justify his certainty on the question.

Roger Nicole has responded to Pinnock’s supposition that heaven might contain some surprises for all of us. “My surprise,” Nicole says, “might be to find in heaven more people than I expected; I shall be most happy about that. [Pinnock’s] surprise may be to find substantially less. On balance, I prefer my potential surprise to his!” 5

Nicole’s words provide a natural transition to the quite different inclusivist and exclusivist attitudes toward evangelism and Christian missions.

THE PESKY PROBLEM OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS

Where inclusivism is concerned, the problem of Christian missions simply will not go away. Inclusivists like Pinnock and Sanders keep returning to the topic and are probably wise to do so. Even pluralist John Hick acknowledges that the major attraction of inclusivism “is that it negates the old missionary compulsion and yet is still Christocentric and still leaves Christianity in a uniquely central and normative position.” 6

Does inclusivism weaken missionary and evangelistic resolve? After admitting the appearance of a problem here, Pinnock usually begins with an ad hominem attack on exclusivists. Exclusivism does not always produce missionary zeal, he points out. He may feel that too many Christians who recognize the heathen as lost have chosen to do nothing about it. I would like nothing better than for this book to stir readers to a renewed concern for the lost.

By contrast, I do not see that inclusivism encourages people toward missions. In 1991 a polling organization surveyed people who work for Christian relief and development organizations with a view to gauging their level of concern toward missions and evangelism (the issue of attitude) and how much evangelism actually accompanies their important humanitarian work (the issue of practice). The poll also surveyed a large sampling of Christian laypeople who contribute to these relief and development organizations. Polling the laypeople served two purposes: (1) to show how much importance these donors attach to the relief and development groups’ evangelism and missionary activity, and (2) to gauge how informed these donors are about the real priorities of the people running the organizations. 7

The large majority of Christians who contribute to relief and development organizations not only want these groups to include evangelism as a top priority, but believe that these groups really do include more typical missionary activity among their primary tasks. Their contributions reflect their dual concern to help people with their material and spiritual needs. But the survey of relief and development staff revealed a quite different picture. Thirty-seven percent of the agency staff people did not endorse the statement that “the ultimate goal of economic development projects should be to spread the gospel and convert people to Christian faith.” 8 Many people who work for relief and development organizations see their role as primarily or even exclusively one of providing humanitarian aid; evangelism and typical missionary activity are not seen as part of their task.

Does the survey reveal why so many people working in these organizations are indifferent to evangelism and missions activity? It is instructive in this connection to heed the conclusions of Thomas Guterbock, a secular social scientist, who examined the data.

On the average, the agency staff [of relief and development organizations] are significantly lower than the Evangelical public in their commitment to the distinctiveness of Christian relief and development efforts. On several key issues, agency staff are substantially less likely to respond in ways that emphasize Christian distinctiveness…The key predictor of which members of the agency staff express strong commitment to Christian distinctiveness is their personal theology. Particularly important is whether or not the staff member believes that personal Christian faith is the only route to salvation for people in other cultures—a point of doctrine that theologians call “exclusivity.”

Guterbock concludes his analysis by stating that we

may infer that there are strong pressures upon these [relief and development] professionals that tend in the direction of de-emphasizing the Christian aspect of their work. It seems that, once cast loose from their theological moorings, agency staff people are far more likely than members of the Evangelical public to modify their views on relief and development in a secular direction. If there may be other ways to heaven for the people of the Third World, then the imperative to evangelize is weakened as a logical result. If agency staff people face other circumstances or influences that work against that imperative, then this single change in theology opens the way for a major shift in policy and practice…Our Survey of Christian Relief and Development Agencies has told us clearly that the specific theological beliefs of agency leaders and senior staff people are critical to understanding why a significant segment among them are less committed than members of the Evangelical public to the distinctiveness of Christian relief and development. 9

Guterbock, it should be remembered, is a secular social scientist, but even he sees how a rejection of exclusivism weakens the resolve to place a high priority on evangelism when doing relief work.

Inclusivists like Pinnock and Sanders dismiss such comments. Sanders argues that “Just because some people feel it a crucial motivating factor to believe all the unevangelized are lost does not make it true that they are lost. Besides, there may be good reasons to continue missionary activity even if there is hope for the evangelized without it.” 10 Sanders offers an interesting example to support his point.

It is important to note that an argument from utility does not necessarily establish truth. In order to get my children to hurry up and get ready for church, I might tell them that it is 9:15 when it is actually only 9:00. If the strategy works, I don’t take that as evidence that it really is 9:00. Similarly, even if it is true that a belief in [exclusivism] leads to stronger support from [sic] missions, this does not tell us anything about the truth of [exclusivist] beliefs. And, conversely, if belief in the wider hope were conclusively shown to reduce support for missions, this would not in itself indicate that the wider hope view was false; the problem might well lie elsewhere—in an inadequate theory of missions, for instance. 11

Let us agree that the utility of a theory or practice does not establish its truth. Of course, a sword this sharp cuts both ways. It also rules out any attempts to sway people by appealing to their emotions. Just because inclusivism makes people feel better doesn’t make it true.

But I believe Sanders misconstrues the exclusivists’ concerns about missions. At no point in this book have I suggested that inclusivism’s negative effect upon certain forms of Christian activity proves the falsity of inclusivism. So what are we to make of the survey of people involved in certain relief and development organizations? Throughout this book I have been arguing that ideas have consequences. In most of it I have tried to show the theoretical or theological consequences of inclusivist ideas. But it is also important to show that inclusivist ideas have practical consequences as well. These consequences do not prove inclusivism false, but they do matter.

John Sanders concludes his book No Other Name with a very strong philosophy of Christian missions. 12 It is good enough that directors of Christian relief and development organizations ought to consider requiring their employees to read it. But as we have now seen so often, what inclusivists give with their right hands they often take back with their left. His impressive philosophy of missions notwithstanding, Sanders not only denies the necessity of evangelizing those who have not heard the gospel, but also holds out the possibility that many who have actually rejected the gospel after hearing it may still end up being saved. In Sanders’s words, “[R]efusal to accept the church’s invitation should not be equated with refusal to accept God’s invitation.” 13

I close this section with the following comments. I agree with Sanders that whatever effect inclusivism might have upon evangelism and missions fails to prove that inclusivism is false. However, other sections of part 2 of this book provide ample reasons to think inclusivism is false. It is one thing for a theory to be false; harmless errors can sometimes be ignored. But errors that strongly dispose people toward actions that can compromise the church’s mission on earth and place obstacles in the way of evangelism are much too serious to overlook.

DO INCLUSIVISTS TEACH SALVATION BY HUMAN WORKS?

Once again we confront an issue on which it appears that inclusivists want to walk down both sides of the street at the same time. On the one hand, John Sanders takes the historic evangelical position that no humans “are saved by their own moral efforts.” 14 On the other hand, he ignores inclusivist implications to the exact opposite. Sanders affirms Pinnock’s understanding of the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25:31 – 40 as an indication that serving the poor is an adequate substitute for faith and may count as one ground on which God saves the unevangelized. 15

Pinnock has written, “Surely God judges the heathen in relation to the light they have, not according to the light that did not reach them. Of course God condemns those who really are his enemies. But his judgment will take into account what people are conscious of, what they yearn for, what they have suffered, what they do out of love, and so forth.” 16 In A Wideness in God’s Mercy, Pinnock talks about God’s ethical criterion for salvation and then asks, “What if only the ethical criterion is apparent in a person? What if the person seems genuine according to the ethical criterion, but not a believer according to the cognitive one?” 17

In other words, Pinnock is suggesting that a person who lacks New Testament faith but produces good works of a certain kind may still be saved on that basis. Pinnock goes so far as to speculate about God’s saving “even the atheist who, though rejecting God (as he understands God), responds positively to him implicitly by acts of love shown to the neighbor.” 18 The reader should reflect on these words and the meaning they give to salvation. The reader should also meditate upon the negative effect these convictions are bound to have on the future shape of Christian thought and action.

In an earlier chapter we noticed a few evangelicals who have expressed concern over what they saw as a drift toward Pelagianism in some inclusivists. But that warning was uttered largely in connection with the tendency of some Arminians to view saving faith as a human work contributing to salvation. Now we find Pinnock suggesting that not even faith is necessary and that perhaps certain kinds of decent human conduct will serve just as well. I believe that all this is serious enough that Pinnock will reconsider his remarks and retract statements like these.

PLURALISM AND INCLUSIVISM ON SCRIPTURE: A DISTURBING SIMILARITY

Douglas Geivett recently drew attention to a troublesome parallel between the pilgrimage of John Hick and that being taken by Clark Pinnock and other inclusivists. Geivett notes that Hick’s “transformation took place somewhat gradually, as important philosophical commitments controlled the outworking of his theological views. A propositional view of divine revelation was an early casualty for Hick. Intuitions about what a loving God could be up to in allowing evil pushed him in the direction of universalism. Having forsaken the divine authority of the Bible, no amount of careful exegesis could cure him of his universalist impulse.” 19

It is helpful that Geivett focuses on Hick’s early abandonment of the evangelical view of Scripture, which saw him first reject any suggestion that divine special revelation might contain vital information or truth. 20 While Hick stayed rather close to orthodoxy during the years he flirted with a neo-liberal view of Scripture, once the authority of the Bible was no longer a controlling factor in his theology there was nothing left within historic Christianity to prevent the far more radical musings of his later years. His footsteps down the path to pluralism are recognizable by the discarded beliefs one finds along the way. Hick came to reject the Incarnation, the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the Resurrection, the Atonement, and every other essential Christian belief. And although Hick continues to identify himself as a Christian, no essential Christian belief remains in his thinking.

Geivett is struck by certain alarming similarities between John Hick at the early stages of his career and the attempt of Clark Pinnock to provide for the salvation of non-Christians and even some anti-Christians in a way that stops short of pluralism. Some inclusivists’ views of the “wideness of God’s mercy,” Geivett warns, appear

to be motivated by a similar sentimentalism about the love of God. It is their conviction that the Bible speaks with divine authority that seems to be keeping them (for now) from taking the ominous final step. But the exegetical support for their view is so fragile that one can only wonder how they can resist the temptation to go the way of John Hick. Capitulation must come pretty easily when sentiment is a fundamental control on one’s hermeneutics. 21

One hopes that Geivett will be proved wrong, but one fears that should some inclusivists ever find reason to reject inclusivism, they would choose pluralism over exclusivism.

INCLUSIVISM AND THE BOOK OF ACTS

I begin this section with a suggestion or challenge, as the case may be: Begin with the assumption that inclusivism is true and then read the entire book of Acts through inclusivist lenses. As you examine the messages delivered by Peter, Philip, Paul, and others in Acts, try to place yourself in their sandals and ask whether an inclusivist would have said and done the things that are recorded. I proceeded to read through Acts in this way and was stunned by what I discovered.

For example, if I had been an inclusivist present on the Day of Pentecost, I would have been struck by Peter’s emphasis on sin and the remission of sins that is available in Jesus Christ. I find Pinnock and Sanders strangely silent on the matter of the sin problem of unevangelized believers. Had I been an inclusivist, I would not have uttered Peter’s words in Acts 2:38: “Repent and be baptized every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.” Peter’s point here is clearly anti-inclusivist, strongly implying that if his hearers did not get their relationship with Jesus Christ right, their sins would not be forgiven.

Had I been Peter in that setting and also an inclusivist, I would have said something like this: “Now friends, I don’t want any of you thinking that I’m intolerant or narrow-minded in any way. I know that many of you are already saved because you’ve been faithfully seeking God as best you can. I want those of you in my audience who fit that description to know that I’m not preaching at you. It’s the rest of you—you sinners—who must repent and be baptized if your sins are to be forgiven. For those of you who are already saved, I’m offering you an opportunity for something more fulfilling.” No, I’m afraid that had I been the speaker that day and also been an inclusivist, I would not have been as specific and restrictive as Peter.

Had I been in Paul’s sandals, I would have answered the famous question of the Philippian jailer in a rather different way. When he asked, “Men, what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30), a good inclusivist would have advised him to calm down and realize that he may already be saved. Perhaps we could dialogue for a while and examine his relationship to the saving content of general revelation. Perhaps we would discover that he was already one of several million non-Christian believers in the world. Would not an inclusivist avoid saying Paul’s severely restricting phrase, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31)?

Even the most cursory reading of Acts will reveal the way in which almost every message in the book emphasizes the death and resurrection of Christ. Inclusivists, as we have seen, insist that the gospel does not have these two events as its central focus. They claim that Paul spoke of the gospel in these terms only because that was an appropriate message for the people of Corinth to hear. The implication is that some other gospel that makes no reference to the death and resurrection of Jesus would serve in another place at another time.

But why, then, did all those early gospel messages always emphasize the same thing, namely, that Christ died for our sins and rose again? I submit that if Paul had been an inclusivist, he would never have uttered the following words to an audience of Jews who had just rejected the gospel: “We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:46, italics mine). In these words Paul indicates not that his audience’s loss of eternal life became effective at that moment, but that they were devoid of it prior to hearing the gospel. As far as he could tell, their names were not written in the Book of Life (see Rev. 17:8).

How could an inclusivist have said what Paul states in Acts 20:26 – 27: “Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God.” If Paul had not been faithful in proclaiming the gospel, he would have had blood on his hands. This is no way for an inclusivist to think. Even if Christians fail to carry the gospel to the unevangelized, there is little or no culpability regarding “the blood of men” because God is saving unevangelized people all the time.

And finally, had I been Paul and an inclusivist, I would have been totally shocked by what God said when he called me: “I am sending you to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26:18). This survey through the book of Acts makes it clear that Peter and Paul did not speak and act like inclusivists. Acts 26:18 helps us see that God does not speak or act like an inclusivist either.

CONCLUSION

I close this book by inviting the reader to reflect on the spiritual condition of Saul of Tarsus before his conversion. Saul had passed every test of inclusivist salvation. He satisfied Clark Pinnock’s Faith Principle, drawn from Hebrews 11:6, with plenty to spare: Saul not only believed that God exists, but was diligently seeking him. But there is even more to say about Saul’s religious zeal: He was a Jew who sought Yahweh with such diligence that he participated in the persecution and murder of Yahweh’s enemies (Acts 22:20).

It is appropriate here to reread Paul’s own description of his pre-conversion zeal for God in Acts 26:4 – 5 and Philippians 3:4 – 6. If inclusivism is true, then Saul the Pharisee was saved. But, we note, this judgment was not shared by Paul the apostle (Phil. 3:7 – 11). Even though Saul satisfied every requirement of the inclusivists’ Faith Principle, Saul was still a lost sinner (1 Tim. 1:15).

We all know that if we begin with a premise that says If A, then B and then discover that B is false, we must conclude that A is false. Applying this logic to our present case, we quickly see that the following argument is sound: If inclusivism is true, then Saul of Tarsus was saved. But it is false that Saul was saved. Therefore, inclusivism is not true.

As we have seen, inclusivism has become an enormously influential position among evangelicals at the end of the twentieth century. Given the weaknesses of inclusivism that we have noted, it seems obvious that inclusivist evangelicals need to think further on these matters. For many of them, I suspect that inclusivism has appeared to be a relatively painless way to resolve difficulties about the fate of the unevangelized; it certainly makes a powerful appeal to our emotions. But I have tried to show that the adoption of inclusivism is not theologically harmless. The acceptance of this biblically unsupportable opinion carries an enormously high theological cost. One hopes that large numbers of evangelicals already committed to inclusivism will see these dangers and recognize the weaknesses of the position they have accepted in such a careless and unthinking way.