FAQs and Faith


Frequently asked questions.


This page will try to deal with tough questions which you or your friends may have. We promise to be as honest and open as we can, but we also want to honour God. To this end our answers will always attempt to be true to the Bible’s teaching.


Do All Religions Lead to God?

Many people are happy with the idea of an ultimate reality or God. Many people pray and draw comfort from knowing that God is there.

Religion is the means by which we approach God, and the idea that all the different religions of the world are merely different ways to approach God is very appealing. Just as there are several routes between London and Paris so there are many routes to God. What is important is the sincerity of the believer, not what the person believes.

There are, however, a couple of problems with this view:

Firstly, people can be sincerely wrong. Truth does not depend on a person’s sincerity. Believing does not make something true that is false, neither does refusing to believe a truth make that truth false. Sincerity or zeal or propaganda does not make something true.

Secondly, there are major differences between the world’s religions. It is true that there are also great similarities in the area of morals and ethics. But on the greatest question of all, the world's religions contradict each other.

Jesus made some remarkable claims about himself, leaving the early church no choice but to conclude that Jesus was the unique Son of God.

On one occasion, a man who had been crippled since his birth had been miraculously healed. The apostle Peter was summonsed to appear before the rulers of the Jewish nation. He was in no doubt about the unique status of Jesus. He told the gathered people:

It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed... Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. Acts 4:10,12

Peter was only being faithful to what he had been taught by Jesus himself. Just before Jesus’ death, he was with his disciples in an upper room. Jesus told his hearers:

I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6

For Christians, the central place given to Jesus is unique amongst religions. Jesus not only claimed to be the unique revelation of God, God in the flesh, but also the only way to God. If he is who he claims to be, then all the other religions are wrong.

The full, complete picture of God can only be found by looking to Jesus. In him, and him alone, is God revealed as the one who saves, and through him and him alone is the way opened up to God.

Further Reading
Paul Barnett, "The Truth about Jesus." Available from © Copyright 2007 : St. Stephen's Church, Upper Basildon.