Maybe you have not thought too much about Christianity as a universal religion. Since the world is full of an assortment of religions, some have concluded that one religion is just as good as another. Presently, the world community is being pressed to bow to Islam or else. The else could be your head being removed or other bloodthirsty deaths by the Muslims demanding you accept and bow to Sharia law. A religion that demands acceptance or death could not be a religion that is received universally.
Informational Note: The religion of Islam is a combination of Paganism, of Judaism, of apostate Catholicism and of Sensualism (Hutto-El Dareer Debate).
A Universal Religion Must Be
Able to Appeal to All People
Regardless of Their Culture
Let us consider the following:
The word “universal” was not new; it occurs in Polybius, Philo, and elsewhere. But as an epithet of a religion, or of a religious body, it was entirely new. All religions previous to Christianity were national or state religions. Each tribe, country, and government had its own gods and its own forms of worship. Religion, so far from drawing nations together, kept them more sharply divided. It was an additional barrier to be surmounted or swept away before union was possible. No doubt one people sometimes borrowed a deity or a ceremony from another; but that no more created a religious union between the two than the reception of refugees created a political union. In the very nature of things it is impossible that any form of polytheism can become universal. If the plurality of gods is once admitted, each nation and class will choose its own divinities. A religion that aspires to become universal must at least have risen to the truth that there is but one God, and the only religion which before the birth of Christ had attained to this truth had cut itself off from all others, only fitfully making, or attempting to make, converts. The purest religion which the world had yet seen was also the most exclusive. Thus, while the Gentile always lacked the power, the Jew often lacked the will, to make his faith and worship universal. (Plummer 2-3)
Our Lord Jesus proclaims the universal message to go and seek truth seekers to be obedient and to be saved. “And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen” (Matthew 28:18-20 KJV).
Love Is the Message of Our Lord Jesus Christ
“Ye that love the LORD, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked” (Psalm 97:10). “O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day” (Psalm 119:97). “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
Works Cited
Hutton, Hiram O. Hutto-El Dareer Debate. Athens: Hiram O. Hutton, 1978.
Plummer, Alfred. The Church of the Early Fathers: External History. London: Longmans, Green and Company, 1887.
