Salvation questioned

Type the word "salvation" into a web search engine and you will get over 7 million hits. Type in "who can be saved" and over 7,000 sites will come up. Present the same words to a Mennonite university student body, and most likely the diversity of opinions and ideas will be nearly as numerous.

As a small Mennonite school, EMU draws about half of its students from Mennonite backgrounds. Students agree on most hot topics, like peace, community, acceptance and service. Most students would claim these are at the core of their faith.

So what about salvation? Students will argue for hours about issues like war, abortion, homosexuality and divorce, but when asked about their belief in Jesus Christ and their definition of salvation, their stories often take on unexpected twists.

"Having a personal relationship with Jesus would be ideal, but it's not realistic and it's not a high priority," said one student who considers herself "more Mennonite than Christian." Another student said, "You cannot be Mennonite without the core of Christianity; without this, without Christ, there is no such thing as Mennonite."

Several students argued that Jesus might not be the only way to receive salvation: "God works in many different ways. If Islam is a way that people feel connected to God, and they are bettering themselves, what can I say to that? I have a hard time believing that the God I serve would condemn someone for what they were born into."

Others countered this idea. "If you are a Christian, then you are claiming Christ. To be a follower of Christ is to believe that there is only one way to heaven and that is through him. If you believe there are more ways to God and heaven than the way through Christ, that's fine, but you cannot in any sense claim to be Christian then."

Several other students talked about the possibility of God being in every religion, and that access to heaven is not to be limited to this one single belief of accepting Christ as a personal savior. They characterized the idea of only "one way" as close-minded, limited and unacceptable. "I don't know if Jesus is the only way to heaven. He is a way, but I don't know if he's the only way," said a student.

The concept of judgment brought an interesting angle to the conversation. Some students said that EMU puts too much emphasis on the idea of people judging one another over the ultimate judge being God in the end. "It's not for us to judge who can or can't be saved," said a student.

The Mennonite students mostly agreed that the focus on campus was more on following Jesus' teaching rather than getting to personally know Jesus. "On this campus, I don't think I hear the name Jesus at all. People are willing to pray with you, but I don't see having a relationship with Jesus emphasized. It's more about people's personal experience with a general God."

One student argued that salvation was overdone on campus and in the church as a whole, but that it is not as important as the church makes it sound. "I think with theology they try to understand it, and they say they do, but they don't understand it completely. The term salvation doesn't work very well, because most of the world doesn't speak Christianeze."

David Barrett, editor of the World Christian Encyclopedia: A comparative survey of churches and religions - AD 30 to 2200, states that there are 34,000 separate Christian groups that have been identified in the world. "Over half of them are independent churches that are not interested in linking with the big denominations; about 75 percent of the adults in both the U.S. and Canada are Christians. Many conservative Christians believe that one has to be 'born again' in order to be counted as a Christian. Using this definition, only about 35 percent of Americans would be counted as Christians. This difference in definitions between conservative Christians and the rest of the population causes much confusion. Some of the approximately 1,000 Christian faith groups in the U.S. and Canada believe themselves to be the only true Christian denomination."

Though to some the Bible seems clear, confusion still tortures the church. Type in "what is salvation" in a web search engine and over 10,000 sites will come up. EBay even offers salvation for sale in a sidebar of the search results. Though organizations, countries, denominations, and private religious schools may claim a certain title, it doesn't mean that all the core beliefs match up. In this case, salvation isn't even clear.