One of the complications arising from living in Asia stems from the religious composition of the Asian population. The Asian continent is the very source of the world religions that thrive in the world today: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and a good many other religions.

Having to make sense of this plethora of religions together with their variety of truth claims must be disconcerting to the Asian man on the street. This is so even for those of us who follow Jesus Christ, who call ourselves Christians. Over the centuries, Asian Christians have come to make sense of these other religions among them in different ways. There are two prevalent notions I would like to briefly explicate here:

Two Common Notions about Other Religions

i. Only the Christians will be saved. If you have friends around you who are non-Catholic Christians, you may very likely have heard the claim that only Christians can be saved, and that for as long as a person has not “received Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Saviour”, he is bound for damnation. This is the prevalent notion among Evangelical Christians insofar as their understanding goes pertaining to the salvation of humankind.

This very exclusivist position on the salvation of peoples of other religions is one of two common notions among Christian people of other religions. For most of the strict Evangelical Christians (although not all), there is no relationship whatsoever between the Christians and people of other religions; it is only those who explicitly profess the Christian faith who will ultimately be saved. For the record, there are some of them who think Catholics are not saved either, since “they worship Mary and not Jesus Christ”!

ii. All people will be saved regardless of their religion. Another common position, strangely, seems to be very prevalent among Catholics in this part of the world. It is the pluralist position which claims that all religions lead to salvation, and that no one religion is better than others.

This pluralistic notion is, of course, rejected by the Holy Catholic Church. If all religions led to salvation, then Jesus Christ would have been a most foolish or insane person to think that He would have to die for the sins of the world. Furthermore, if the truth claims of all religions were equal, the unenviable onus would fall upon the adherents of all these religions to reconcile their seemingly conflicting beliefs. For example, some religions believe that after death, there will be judgement, heaven, and hell, whilst some others believe that death would merely lead to one’s reincarnation into another life which may be of a similar or different state. Two conflicting claims such as these cannot both be right; one must be correct and the other wrong.

The Catholic Church does not give assent to either one of these two positions in regard to her relationship with non-Christian peoples. It is therefore sad that many Catholics continue holding on to at least one of these two notions. What is even sadder is the fact that many, if not most, Catholics have no idea of the position of the Catholic Church on her relationship with peoples of other faiths. For those who have come to this knowledge, they continue to be fascinated and awed by the beauty of this position. It is a position that is inclusive, which takes into account God’s grace and love for our neighbours but without having to compromise the uniqueness of Jesus Christ who gave His life for the sins of the world, and whose Body and Blood is offered upon the altars of our churches daily as a result of His one timeless sacrifice.

Clearly, there is a need for Catholics to understand the finer nuances of the Catholic faith and position in regard to this issue rather than to hold naïve positions on it.