Why Christianity and not another religion?

What the Bible says

This question hides two questions. Can anyone say that Christianity is better than other religions? And why should I choose it? Many religions teach a similar morality and urge people to live well. What Christianity offers at its centre, however, is not a teaching but an event.

The first difference is grace. Our instincts, and many religious paths, lean toward earning a place before God by good deeds. Other faiths also speak of mercy, but the Bible rests salvation wholly on grace.

For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.

Eph 2:8-9

Salvation is a gift, not a wage. Grace does not pretend we are good; it is God's love reaching us while we are not: "But God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom 5:8).

The second difference is that God came to us. Christianity does not say a god sent directions from far away. It says God became a man.

The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:14

The third is that the claim is planted in history. Christianity stakes everything on one concrete assertion, that Jesus rose from the dead. Paul does not soften it.

And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is worthless, and so is your faith.

1 Cor 15:14

That is a risky thing to say. If the resurrection did not happen, Christianity collapses. But for the same reason the claim can be read, tested and doubted. The evidence is taken up in Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

The fourth is forgiveness and a relationship. Jesus did not stop at teaching rules. He spoke of God as Father and invited people to come to him, and to those who receive him he gives "the right to become children of God" (John 1:12).

None of this means that other faiths hold nothing true. In Athens Paul was deeply disturbed by a city full of idols (Acts 17:16), yet he did not sneer. He began from the Athenians' own religious sense and even quoted their poets.

From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands. God intended that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.

Acts 17:26-27

The Bible honours the human groping after God. The goodness, wisdom and devotion found in other traditions may be traces of that reaching.

The church's witness

From early on the church saw the difference as this: God came down. Chrysostom, commenting on John 1:14, writes that "God’s own Son was made the son of man, that he might make the sons of men the sons of God" Chrysostom. Augustine marvels at the same verse: "Know that God Himself was born of man" Augustine.

On the way, Augustine grants that even the philosophers saw that God is eternal life and the truth at which all knowledge aims. But not everyone, he says, has found the road, and the Word made it by taking on human nature. His advice is blunt: "it is better to limp on the right way, than to walk ever so stoutly by the wrong" Augustine. In his Confessions he also says why people seek God at all: "our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee" Augustine, Confessions 1.1.

Matthew Henry defines grace while reading Ephesians 2: "The grace that saves is the free, undeserved goodness and favour of God; and he saves, not by the works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus" Matthew Henry.

The Heidelberg Catechism asks in its first question what is our "only comfort in life and in death," and answers that I belong, body and soul, not to myself but to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ Heidelberg Catechism, Q1. Here too the heart of the faith is trust in a person more than a list of doctrines.

In the original languages

The New Testament word for grace is charis (χάρις). It means a favour given freely, a gift to someone who has no claim to it. Grace is received, not earned. Paul uses this very word when he says we are "justified freely by His grace" (Rom 3:24).

When John says the Word "made His dwelling" among us, the verb is skenoo (σκηνόω). It means "to pitch a tent." The word recalls the tabernacle in the wilderness, where God lived among Israel. Now God has pitched his tent among us in a human body.

Common objections

"All religions are different paths up the same mountain. Isn't it arrogant to say yours is right?" There is a decent instinct in this: not wanting to run down neighbours of other faiths. It is also true that many traditions teach love of neighbour, honesty and self-control. But the saying does not honour religions as much as it appears to, because they actually say different things. They answer differently whether God is personal, whether the human problem is ignorance or rebellion, whether salvation is release or forgiveness, whether Jesus was a prophet or God. To say they all teach the same thing is to stop listening to any of them. Christianity does not say that everything else is false; it grants that truth appears in many places. But it would be dishonest to hide its confession that Jesus is the way to the Father (John 14:6). That confession has at times made Christians arrogant. Yet it is not a claim that Christians are better, but that God gave what no one could earn, "so that no one can boast" (Eph 2:9). See Is Jesus the only way?.

"Look at what Christians have done." This is the most painful objection, and much of it must be conceded. In the church's name there were inquisitions and crusades, persecution of Jews and dissenters, and forced conversions. Christians owned slaves and defended slavery from the Bible, and abuse and hypocrisy still appear inside churches. Violence done in Jesus' name contradicts Jesus more than anything. Yet two questions need separating: whether Christianity is true, and whether Christians have lived by it. Jesus never promised that his followers would be perfect, and he reserved his sharpest words for hypocrites. It is also true that Christian faith moved many who fought slavery, and many who founded hospitals, schools and care for the poor. That does not erase the wrongs. It only means the wrongs are not the final verdict on the faith.

"What you believe is just an accident of where you were born." Someone born in Korea is shaped by Buddhism, Confucianism or Christianity, and someone born in India by something else. That is true, and it is true of every belief. But the setting in which a belief was formed does not decide whether it is true. People also learn mathematics, science and atheism because of where they grew up. The honest response is to examine the faith you inherited, or rejected, at least once.

Going further

Perhaps the one thing that most sets Christianity apart is this: it begins with God's act toward us rather than our effort toward God. That is no licence to look down on those on other paths. Paul spoke with respect, and Christians should too.

You might ask yourself some questions. Am I trying to win my place before God by what I do? If the resurrection is true, what follows? Is my reason for rejecting Christianity its teaching, or a wound I received from Christians?

To read further, see Is Jesus the only way?, Who is Jesus? and Why the cross?. Reading the Gospel of John slowly from the beginning is a good place to start.