I had an interesting conversation with my Esteemed Partner in Pavement Pounding the other day. He’d been reading about the Jehovah’s Witnesses and asked if I’d ever done any such reading. (My answer was yes. Jason Evert’s excellent Answering Jehovah’s Witnesses. From a Catholic perspective, just for the record.)
As an aside, I noted that there was a lot of weird theology cropping up in the 1800s, including that of Charles Taze Russell (Jehovah’s Witnesses), Joseph Smith (Mormonism), Ellen G. White (Seventh-Day Adventism), and John Nelson Darby (Dispensationalism).
The larger discussion we had was the question about how much wrong theology a person can have and still be a Christian. Or, to put it another way: What Must I Believe to Be Saved?
If you ask me, that’s really not the right question. Didn’t the Philippian Jailer ask a very different question?
Acts 16:29-30 (ESV)
29 And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. 30 Then he brought them out and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"
Of course, we can’t make all that much of his question, given that his theology was certainly very influenced by his native Roman paganism. And perhaps Paul and Silas’s answer is informative:
Acts 16:31-32 (ESV)
31 And they said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household." 32 And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house.
From everything else Paul wrote in the New Testament, we can pretty clearly say that salvation is by faith, not works. And since Paul and Silas apparently give the jailer the 411 on just what believing in the Lord Jesus means, salvation is by faith in something specific. Namely, “The Lord Jesus.”
So we have to believe in the Lord Jesus, but what does that mean? You’ll notice, I hope, that they didn’t say “Believe in the Three Spiritual Laws” or “Say the Sinner’s Prayer” or “Ask Jesus Into Your Heart.” So we’re not talking about a formula here. But they also didn’t say, “Believe in the correct conception of Jesus as the second part of the Triune God.”
That’s right, I’m putting it out there. I don’t see that belief in the Trinity is necessary for salvation. (However, I should probably point out that I do believe in the Trinity. I just don’t think it’s obvious from Scripture.)
There’s an additional passage in Acts that I find interesting, though perhaps not conclusive:
Acts 19:1-5 (ESV)
1 And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples. 2 And he said to them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" And they said, "No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit." 3 And he said, "Into what then were you baptized?" They said, "Into John’s baptism." 4 And Paul said, "John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus." 5 On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Notice that these men are referred to as “disciples.” Without any other qualification there (like “John’s disciples”), we’re left with the assumption (granted that it’s an assumption) that these are Christ-followers. Paul then asks them about what happened “when they believed,” drawing a nice parallel to Paul’s assertion of what one has to do to be saved. They believed, so they were saved.
Certainly, if these men didn’t even know about the Holy Spirit, they didn’t believe in the Trinity.
So where am I going with all this? Well, I think that Christians tend to be much too quick to label something as heresy, quick to put people in the “them” category. Outsiders. Heretics. Cultists. I’m not agitating for an uber-inclusive Christianity, but I think a little grace would be good.
Yes, it’s important to understand what the Bible says about Christ and God and the Church. But not everyone is at the same point on their journey of understanding. And not everyone will end up believing the same about everything.
True, there is probably a point at which different groups are worshipping a different God, or a different Jesus, though they may call him by the same name. I’m not suggesting that JWs and Mormons are necessarily Christians. But I’m not sure how far they are from the Kingdom. As always, this requires further study. Feel free to point me in the right direction.