The Falsehood of Religious Individualism

Did you know that rugged individualism is a political concept used to excuse a rich person’s lack of alms? In the late 1800’s it became the primary tenet of the Republican party’s platforms. In this theory, every person has to make his own way and solve his own problems without help or interference from outside of himself. This concept eventually infiltrated American Protestant churches to the point that every person was deemed competent to come up with his own interpretation of the scriptures. The rapid proliferation of Protestant denominations in the twentieth century bear witness to this fact. It has gotten to the point where each church goer is a denomination unto himself, and there is not even a semblance of unity in the American Protestant church.

More heinous is the logical extension of the religious form of rugged individualism. If every person has his own opinion on the scripture, and each is equally valid as any other, then what is to say that other religions are not also equally valid? I am not saying there is no value in any other religious faith than Christianity. But if two competing ideologies contradict one another, how can they be equally valid? There is some value in any form of faith, and God can use any religion to draw people to Himself. But that statement does not include the concept of equal validity to all forms of religious faith.

Jesus said, “I am the way (the road or path), the truth and the light. No man (or woman) comes to the Father but by Me.” That is in direct contradiction to the Hindu idea that all paths lead equally to God. Yet this concept of rugged individualism has so permeated the American religious scene that people give equal weight to Pagan and Eastern religions as to Christianity and the Jewish faith from which it derives. “The Lord your God is a jealous God.” “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.” These statements cannot be merely ignored for political correctness. Yet we tend to do so out of a rebellion against God and His Plan of Salvation.

What is the danger in this? For those who know no better, there is little danger, because Saint Paul wrote that all persons will be judged by what they know. But it is hard to imagine someone in the United States of America, Canada or Mexico who has not at least heard the Good News of Salvation in Jesus Christ. Anyone who rejects that Gospel, once they’ve heard and understood its implications, rejects the One Who made that Plan in the first place, and the Name of the Plan is Jesus.

No honest philosopher will argue against that logic, although there are many who are not even honest with themselves. Two competing and opposite claims cannot be equally valid. To say that the statement of Jesus that no other way exists to be saved is equally valid with the statement that all ways are equally true is illogical babbling that is not worth the air it takes to make the noise.

Think about it, and be honest with yourself.