This, so aptly called idol, of Tolerance is a real concern. I have three teen sons and we talk about it periodically because they get SO MUCH of it in school.

Like you, I know, like and respect several people of religious persuasion or thoughts that are not Christian. I don’t push my faith on them and try to be everything God wants me to be in their lives. But I definitely care too much about them to lie to them. Jesus really is the ONLY way to God. So why would I pretend differently just to make others comfortable when the stakes are so high?

Thank you for the risk and courage involved in writing on this topic. I believe that the build-a-god idolatry is a real and present danger within the spiritual life of the USA (and elsewhere).

I have often heard the John passage you referenced quoted to support the Jesus-Is-The-Only-Way doctrine (also sometimes known by its corollary that “Non-Christians are wrong and hell-bound” doctrine). However, Jesus is addressing people within his own Jewish tradition in that discourse. He is not addressing a conference on world religions, or an ecumenical workshop. He is speaking to his own people who believed that an adherence to commands of God (or to “right behavior”) was the center of life. He reveals that his WAY (which centers on seeking first the Kingdom of God and right relationship with God, loving YHWH with the whole being, and the neighbor as yourself) brings us into Truth and Life.

So, I seek to follow the WAY of Jesus. In this I do not worry about whether Buddhists or Muslims or Episcopalians or Post-millenial dispensationalists are right or wrong, but am called to bear witness to the transforming way of Jesus Christ in my life and the community of believers through the ages who have followed in His Way.

I’m not arguing at all against the main point of what you are writing, but I am challenging part of the route you took to get to that point. And I am thankful that as brothers in Christ, we can do that.

God Bless you,
Michael