Many inclusivists and pluralists reject exclusivism because of their interaction with members of non-Christian religions. How could such kind people be lost? Because of their hospitality, many people conclude that they are “anonymous Christians.” This was unfortunately the view of C. S. Lewis:
“There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it.”[i]
We have already demonstrated in the previous chapter that members of other religions do not worship the one true God and are still in need of salvation (Luke 10:16; 12:48; John 3:18, 36; 5:23; 8:24; 10:26-27; 17:20; Rom 1:18-23; 2:12; 8:7-9; 10:9-17; 1 Cor 1:21; Eph 2:12; 1 Thess 4:13-14; 2 Thess 1:7-9; 2:13-14; Heb 2:3; 1 John 2:23; 5:5; 2 John 1:9). What I would like to do in this section is respond to specific examples of “holy pagans” that inclusivists bring up to argue that these individuals must have been saved before they were brought the gospel.
Don Richardson uses the examples of Kusaho, Kaiyo, Tibeluk, Arap-Sumbey, and Warrasa Wange to demonstrate that there are Job-like individuals out there who are saved but have not heard the gospel yet.[ii] But there are several questions we need to ask about their life before hearing the gospel from missionaries:
- Did these individuals ever rebuke their fellow villagers for their idolatry and pagan religious practices?
- Did they ever proclaim the truth that there is only one true and living God and denounce the false gods and spirits of their tribe?
- Did they ever bow down to, serve, or make idols?
- Did they destroy, burn, or bury their household gods?
- Did they call on their fellow villagers to destroy their household gods?
- Did they destroy the idols of their village as Gideon did in Judges 6:25-32?
- Did they forsake their animistic beliefs and practices?
Can a person be an animist and be saved at the same time? If these were Job-like individuals, did they have access to God’s Word (Job 23:12), believe in only one God (Job 9:8), and look forward to the coming Messiah? (Job 19:25).
The problem with viewing these individuals as saved is that as practicing animists they were living in violation of Exodus 20:3-5 as idolaters:
“You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me.”
Christians, whether they are “anonymous” or not, have been changed so that they no longer desire to practice idolatry:
“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor 6:9-11).
The religion of animism is incompatible with the worship of the one true God. Elements associated with animism include shamanism, witchcraft, fetishism, totemism, ancestor worship, casting spells and curses, and all manner of superstition. God commanded that those who practice these things must die (Lev 20:27; Deut 17:2-5; 18:9-14). If these individuals were living in Israel in Moses’ day, they would have been stoned to death. For those rare animists who believe in only one God, such as the Kikuyu in Kenya, we must remember that believing in monotheism does not save anyone. Saving faith is trusting in God and his Messiah who will crush the serpent’s head (Gen 3:15).
But it is not just some animists who are viewed as “holy pagans.” Clark Pinnock believes that Buddha and Muhammad were righteous men: “I also respect the Buddha as a righteous man (Matt. 10:41) and Mohammed as a prophet figure in the style of the Old Testament.”[iii] But Buddha abandoned his wife and child contrary to Paul’s teaching in 1 Timothy 5:8: “But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”[iv] Does a righteous man abandon his family?
His comment that Muhammad is “a prophet figure in the style of the Old Testament” displays an incredible ignorance of the life of Muhammad and the teachings of Islam.[v] There is absolutely no parallel between the Old Testament prophets and Muhammad. This is a man who rejected the Christian religion, persecuted Jews and Christians, killed Jewish prisoners of war, had people tortured for money, owned black slaves, married a nine-year-old girl, married the wife of his adoptive son after forcing them to divorce, had sex with his slave girls, gave approval to mut’ah which is prostitution, allowed men to beat their wives, and promoted the idolatrous practices of the Quraysh tribe. The god of Islam is unitarian in person having no Son. The Quran denies central Christian doctrines such as the crucifixion of Christ, the sonship of Christ, and the deity of Christ while the prophets of the Old Testament told of the death and resurrection of Christ (Isa 53:5-12).
Pinnock also seems to believe that atheists can be “holy pagans” as well: “Someone might be an atheist because he or she does not understand who God is, and still have faith.”[vi] But the Bible teaches that no atheist has eternal life: “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Heb 11:6). Since atheists do not believe that God exists, they cannot by definition draw near to him. If God does not exist, then Christ could not have been raised from the dead (Rom 10:9). It is this kind of thinking that demonstrates why inclusivists are in danger of losing the gospel.
[i]C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, HarperCollins Edition (San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), 209.
[ii]Don Richardson, Heaven Wins: Heaven, Hell, and the Hope of Every Person (Ventura, CA: Regal, 2013), 112-23.
[iii]Clark H. Pinnock, “An Inclusivist View,” in Four Views on Salvation in a Pluralistic World, ed. Dennis L. Okholm and Timothy R. Phillips (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing: 1995), 110.
[iv]See the article “Buddhism Unmasked” by Robert A. Morey at https://faithdefenders.com/buddhism-unmasked/.
[v]See the videos by David Wood on YouTube: “Muhammad vs. Jesus: Judging Religions by Their Central Figures,” “50 Reasons Muhammad Was Not a Prophet (in Under Five Minutes),” and “The Deuteronomy Deductions: Why Moses Would Have Executed Muhammad (David Wood).”
[vi]Pinnock, “An Inclusivist View,” 118.
James Attebury 
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