I don't believe in something, I believe in one thing

My mother and I have had some pretty lively debates about religion over the years. Now, my mom is a good person and she's given me the seeds for my own faith but her beliefs seem to me to be a tangled mix of Catholicism, humanism and "Maryism" (Mary, my mother -- not Jesus' mother).

Saturday night we had another campfire chat about faith. She said something to me that echoes a common humanist criticism of evangelical Christianity: that Christians are "bigots" because we believe that ours is the only way and so we exclude other good and "holy" people and, in fact, condemn them all to hell.

I don't believe that a simple reading of the facts -- that some people don't believe in Christ -- is judging. Jesus said in John 14:6 "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." If I believe in Christ and I believe in the Bible, I have to buy it all, not just the parts I like. So if Jesus says "no man cometh unto the Father but by me", that's it. Jesus or nobody. Christianity or hell. If I believe anything else, then I'm not Christian. I really don't believe -- or believe in --Jesus at all.

I don't want to be a "cafeteria" Christian. Granted, there are parts of the Bible that are uncomfortable for me or that I don't know what to do with. So I read, study and get help with interpretations. But I can't pick and choose the parts that make sense or make me feel good. And in some persons' eyes, that makes me a bigot. I'm genuinely sorry they feel that way but I can't compromise. After all, Muslims think I'm going to hell and no one criticizes them for saying so: Koran 98:1-8 "The unbelievers among the People of the Book and the pagans shall burn for ever in the fire of Hell. They are the vilest of all creatures."

That being said, I believe God loves us all and because He loves us He gives us free will to accept or reject that love. He gives us the ability to change course at any time. And when we do, He joyfully makes a place for us. Romans 11:22-24 says of Jews who have not accepted Jesus: "And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!" I think that Grace is not only available to the Jews but to everyone.