The Geography of Grace: A Journey Through Four Faiths and the Question of Hell
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The Geography of Grace: A Journey Through Four Faiths and the Question of Hell
Let me tell you about hell. Not the fire-and-brimstone variety that Southern Baptist preachers warned me about in my youth, though we'll get to that. I'm talking about the hell of uncertainty - the kind that grips you when you're wheeled into your sixtieth surgery, wondering if this flesh-and-bone vessel will carry you through another day. When you've stared down mortality that many times, theological abstractions about eternal damnation tend to lose their bite.
What remains, stubbornly and beautifully, is the question that has haunted humanity since we first looked up at the stars: Are we alone in our search for the divine, or does grace extend beyond the boundaries we've drawn on our spiritual maps?
I write this as someone who began life watching my father perform abhishekham every Sunday, pouring sacred water over a Sri Chakra with a devotion that sometimes seemed to eclipse his dedication to his family. The Ganesha festival filled our home each year with the sweet scent of modak and the rhythmic chanting of ancient prayers. My mother believed in God the way one believes in breathing - simply, ambivalently, necessarily. And somewhere between these poles of fervent ritual and quiet faith, I began a journey that would take me through the philosophical heights of the Chinmaya Mission, into Presbyterian choir robes, through the passionate altar calls of Southern Baptist churches, and finally into a kind of generous orthodoxy that holds Christ as savior while refusing to consign my Hindu father to damnation.
Swami Brahmaji of Bangalore once told me, as we sat discussing the Bhagavad Gita, that religion should help and not divide people.
It's a simple statement that carries revolutionary implications. Because if we truly believe this - if we accept that the divine impulse toward unity supersedes our human tendency toward division - then we must grapple seriously with what our traditions actually say about the eternal fate of those outside our particular fold.
The Christian Paradox: Lewis, Love, and the Last Battle
C.S. Lewis, that Oxford don who gave us Narnia and helped millions think their way into faith, wrestled with this question more honestly than most. In Mere Christianity, he ventured what many evangelicals would consider heresy: "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."
Think about that for a moment. Here's Christianity's most celebrated apologist of the twentieth century suggesting that a Hindu performing puja, a Muslim prostrating toward Mecca, or a Jew lighting Sabbath candles might unknowingly be serving Christ. It's not universalism - Lewis was quite clear that some souls would ultimately reject God. But it's a far cry from the exclusivism that dominates much of contemporary Christianity.
The theological bombshell Lewis drops in The Last Battle makes this even clearer. Emeth, a devotee of the false god Tash, finds himself welcomed by Aslan (Lewis's Christ figure) with these words: "All the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me... if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn." The implications are staggering.
Sincere devotion to goodness, even when misdirected through false theology, is recognized and honored by the true God.
But what of Jesus's words in John 14:6 - "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me"? The exclusivists have their proof text, certainly. Yet consider the parable of the Good Samaritan. Here, Jesus holds up a heretic - for that's what Samaritans were to first-century Jews - as the exemplar of divine love. The Roman centurion, a pagan occupier, receives praise for faith exceeding anything Jesus found in Israel.
Are these not hints that the geography of grace extends beyond the boundaries of explicit Christian confession?
The Catholic tradition, with its doctrine of invincible ignorance, provides a theological framework for this inclusive impulse. Vatican II's Lumen Gentium declares that those who "through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart... may achieve eternal salvation." The emphasis on sincere seeking resonates deeply with anyone who has genuinely pursued truth across religious boundaries.
The Hindu Vision: Many Paths, One Summit
When Swami Vivekananda stood before the Parliament of Religions in 1893, his opening words - "Sisters and Brothers of America" - brought the audience to its feet in thunderous applause. But it was what followed that truly mattered: "I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true."
This wasn't mere politeness. The Rig Veda itself proclaims: "Ekam sat vipra bahudha vadanti" - Truth is one, sages call it by many names. When I studied with Swami Brahmaji, he would return to this verse repeatedly, unpacking its implications.
The divine reality that Christians call God, Muslims call Allah, and Hindus call Brahman is ultimately one, approached through different cultural and linguistic frameworks.
The Bhagavad Gita makes this even more explicit. Chapter 4, verse 11 reads:
"In whatever way people surrender unto Me, I reciprocate accordingly. Everyone follows My path, knowingly or unknowingly."
Krishna isn't speaking here as a tribal deity demanding exclusive allegiance. He's articulating a cosmic principle: sincere spiritual seeking, regardless of its particular form, meets with divine response.
What's particularly striking about Hinduism is its complete absence of eternal damnation. Hell (naraka) exists, but as a temporary state of purification, not endless torture.
Even the worst karma eventually exhausts itself.
All souls, Hindu theology insists, ultimately progress toward moksha - liberation. The universe is structured for redemption, not retribution.
This was the water I swam in as a child, watching my father's devotions, participating in festivals, absorbing the assumption that religious diversity was natural and good. It's perhaps why, even after accepting Christ, I cannot accept that my father's sincere bhakti condemns him to eternal separation from the God he worships with such dedication.
Islam: The Mercy That Encompasses All Things
The complexity of Islamic theology on this question mirrors the complexity within Christianity. Yes, Surah Al-Imran states:
"Whoever desires other than Islam as religion - never will it be accepted from him."
But the same Quran, in Surah Al-Baqarah, promises salvation to "those who believed and those who were Jews or Christians or Sabeans - those among them who believed in Allah and the Last Day and did righteousness."
The key to understanding this apparent contradiction lies in recognizing what "Islam" means in its most profound sense: submission to God. When understood this way, a devout Jew following Torah, a Christian following Christ, or a Hindu surrendering to Krishna might all be practicing "islam" in its essential meaning.
The contrast between mainstream Islamic scholarship and fundamentalist interpretation on this point couldn't be starker. While extremists weaponize the concept of kafir (infidel), classical Islamic theology recognizes multiple categories of non-Muslims, with "People of the Book" holding special status. Al-Ghazali, perhaps Islam's greatest theologian, argued that those who never received an authentic presentation of Islam cannot be held culpable for not accepting it.
The principle of "la ikraha fi al-din" - no compulsion in religion - stands as a permanent rebuke to those who would turn faith into coercion. And the repeated Quranic emphasis on divine mercy ("My mercy encompasses all things") suggests a cosmic generosity that transcends sectarian boundaries.
Judaism: The Righteous of All Nations
Of all the Abrahamic faiths, Judaism articulates perhaps the clearest vision of universal salvation. The Talmudic principle is breathtaking in its simplicity: "The righteous of all nations have a share in the World to Come." Full stop. No conversion necessary. No correct creed required. Just righteousness.
The Seven Noahide Laws provide the framework - prohibitions against murder, theft, sexual immorality, blasphemy, idolatry, cruelty to animals, and the positive commandment to establish courts of justice. Any gentile who observes these basic ethical principles is considered righteous and assured of divine favor.
What strikes me most powerfully about the Jewish position is what it doesn't claim. Judaism doesn't assert that only Jews can be saved or that Jewish practice is necessary for gentiles. It's a chosen people, not the exclusively saved people. This theological humility offers a profound model for how religious communities might understand their particular calling without denying the validity of other paths.
Moreover, Judaism's emphasis on this world over the next - the focus on tikkun olam (repairing the world) rather than securing one's place in heaven - redirects religious energy from anxiety about afterlife to ethics in present life. As someone who has spent considerable time contemplating mortality, I find this emphasis both refreshing and wise.
The Chinmaya Mission and the Presbyterian Choir: A Personal Synthesis
My own journey from the Hinduism of my youth through various Christian denominations has convinced me that exclusive claims about damnation say more about human insecurity than divine justice. When Swami Brahmaji taught me the Gita, emphasizing how religion should unite rather than divide, he planted seeds that would flower even after I encountered Christ through Tim and Jeremy Epling at that Southern Baptist church.
Those altar calls were powerful - the sense of personal encounter with Jesus as savior was real and transformative.
But accepting Christ didn't require me to consign Swami Brahmaji to hell. When I joined the Presbyterian choir, and later found my home in the thoughtful faith of Dr. Stuart Robertson at Purdue, I discovered a Christianity spacious enough to hold both the particularity of Christian revelation and the universality of divine mercy.
My wife, a Methodist who holds firm faith in Jesus while remaining reticent about public display, embodies another way of being Christian - one that trusts more in quiet faithfulness than loud proclamation.
Her approach reminds me that perhaps our anxiety about others' eternal fate reveals our own lack of trust in God's character.
What Sixty Surgeries Teach About Eternity
When you've been under the knife as many times as I have, when disability becomes your daily companion, certain things come into focus. The materialistic concerns that dominate so much of life reveal themselves as the distractions they are. What matters - what truly, eternally matters - is the impact we have on friends, family, colleagues, the wider world. This is why we're on this planet.
This conviction doesn't come from any single religious tradition but from the crucible of suffering and the grace of survival. It's a truth I've found echoed in the Sermon on the Mount, the Bhagavad Gita, the Quran's calls to justice, and the Jewish emphasis on ethical action.
If this convergence isn't a hint about the universal nature of divine truth, I don't know what is.
Toward a Theology of Generous Orthodoxy
So, where does this leave us? I write as a Christian who believes in Christ as Savior and Redeemer, and who experiences the Holy Spirit as a living presence. But I also write as someone whose spiritual DNA contains Hindu devotion, whose understanding of scripture was shaped by Jewish respect for textual interpretation, whose sense of divine mercy has been enriched by Islamic theology.
The evidence from within each tradition suggests more room for inclusivity than their exclusivist adherents typically acknowledge. Christianity has Lewis and the Catholic magisterium pointing toward salvation beyond explicit Christian faith. Hinduism has always embraced multiple paths. Islam speaks of divine mercy encompassing all things. Judaism explicitly includes righteous gentiles in the World to Come.
Perhaps the question isn't whether followers of other religions are going to hell, but whether our concept of hell itself needs redemption. When we weaponize afterlife anxiety to enforce religious conformity, we betray the very traditions we claim to defend. When we imagine God as less merciful than the best human beings we know, we engage in a kind of theological blasphemy.
The strong mind I've been blessed with, despite a body broken by surgery, tells me this:
Ultimate reality—whether we name it God, Brahman, Allah, or Adonai—must be at least as compassionate as we are at our best.
And at our best, we don't condemn sincere seekers for seeking in the wrong direction. We recognize the universal human hunger for transcendence and meaning. We celebrate when that hunger finds satisfaction, wherever it finds it.
This isn't relativism - distinctions between traditions matter, and not all religious claims are equally valid.
However, it is a recognition that the geography of grace extends beyond our maps, that the divine mercy we proclaim must be truly holy in its scope, and that any God worthy of worship must be greater than our tribal loyalties.
In the end, perhaps my father's performance of abhishekham and my wife's quiet trust in Jesus are engaged in the same fundamental human act: acknowledging our dependence on transcendent love and ordering our lives accordingly.
If that doesn't merit divine approval, then we're all in trouble, regardless of which tradition we follow.
The God I've encountered through multiple surgeries and diverse spiritual traditions seems infinitely more interested in our movement toward light than in our credentials for the journey. And for that, whatever name we give it, we can all say: Thanks be to God. Or Brahman. Or Allah.