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Other Beliefs & Religions
Other faiths and movements stated fairly, in their own terms, and answered from Scripture.
- 1Do all religions lead to God?No, and the reason is not tribal loyalty: the faiths contradict each other about God, sin, and salvation, so they cannot all be roads to the same place. More decisively, Jesus did not present himself as one guide among many, saying, I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me. Christians can respect their neighbours of other faiths, and should, without pretending the differences are small.
- 2Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God?In one sense yes, and in the decisive sense no: both faiths worship the one Creator, the God of Abraham, and reject every idol, but Christianity's whole claim is that this God has made himself known in his Son, and Islam denies that Jesus is God's Son or that he was crucified. John states the test plainly: whoever denies the Son does not have the Father. The God is one, but the knowledge of him is not the same.
- 3What do Jehovah's Witnesses believe?Jehovah's Witnesses share a great deal of Christian vocabulary and moral teaching, and differ at the centre. They teach that Jesus is a created being, God's first work, who was the archangel Michael before his earthly life, and that the Holy Spirit is God's impersonal active force rather than a person. The historic church, by contrast, confesses Jesus as God of God in the Nicene Creed, and it is on his identity that the two faiths divide.
Where these lead
The questions these answers open onto, in the neighbouring categories.
How can I be saved?Salvation & the GospelWhat is the gospel?Salvation & the GospelIs Jesus God?JesusWhat is the Trinity?God & the TrinityWho is the Holy Spirit?The Holy Spirit
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