Do All Roads Go to Heaven?

Introduction

Years ago in my mid-twenties, I went through a season where I became disillusioned about church

I had grown up in church and it had just become very routine

We would hold the exact same events year after year

There was no sense of movement or progress

It just felt like we were moving in circles, year after year

I had come across people in college who believed all sorts of things and were a part of different religions

So, I seriously considered converting to something else

Maybe become a Muslim or a Buddhist

I mean, all of the different religions all lead to the same place right?

At least that’s what I thought at the time

But that season led to me looking into different religions to understand what they believed

So I could decide exactly what I might be interested in transitioning to

What I Learned

I started off my journey by purchasing a book that I found in a Christian bookstore

The name of the book was “So What’s the Difference” by Fritz Ridenour

This book introduces you to other religions such as: Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism

It also covers Christian sects such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism, and Catholicism

I got it because it appeared to be exactly what I was looking for

Something that would give me insight and information into the various religions without having to get deeply involved in them to learn

See, even though I grew up in church, I always kind of felt that these other religions were all different pathways to the same God

I thought, as long as you are a good “whatever” and followed the tenets of that religion, you would end up at the same place in the end

So being a part of another religion wasn’t that big of a deal to me because the outcome would be the same

I basically did church because that’s what i grew up in and was comfortable with at the time

As a read through the book and learned about each religion, I learned quite a few things

If all of the religions lead to the same God at the end, then that God must be schizophrenic (which is why I named the series schizophrenic)

Although it seems like all of the religions are about love and being a good person

The way they go about defining good and instructing how to be a good person are vastly different

What quickly became evident to me was there was no way that all of these religions could point to the same God

The way they go about it is vastly different - and in most instances - very conflicting

It made me wonder why God would allow that kind of confusion and division into the world if all roads were supposed to lead to Him?

Next, as I studied about each of these religions, there was one sticking point that kept popping up over and over again

That is the person of Jesus Christ

Jesus the Sticking Point

Now, in almost every religion that I studied, Jesus was present in some way shape or form

In religions that identify as Christian such as Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witness, Jesus is there

Even in religions like Islam and Buddhism, Jesus is there

However, they all have very differing views on Jesus in comparison to the Jesus of the Bible

They pretty much all believe Jesus was a good teacher, or a prophet, and in some instances sent by God

But they all deny His divinity

However, the Bible identifies Jesus as God in the flesh

So why would God create religions that have such differing views of Jesus if all roads are supposed to lead to Him?

And why did Jesus keep popping up anyway?

Now full clarification, I am aware that there are religions that don’t talk about Jesus

And there are religions, mostly smaller, cultural ones that predate Jesus

However, I was studying larger, global religions at that time - and Jesus was present

These are the religions that I will be primarily focusing on in this series

But for me, regardless of what I was studying, I kept running into Jesus

And it cause me to ask the question, why?