Just before the end of 2008, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released a report indicating that a significant percentage of American evangelicals reject the biblical claim that Jesus is the only way of salvation.  According to the report, 52% of American Christians believe that "at least some non-Christian faiths can lead to eternal life."

Surprisingly, 37% of those specifically identified as evangelical Christians agreed, rejecting the claim that Jesus is the only Savior and identifying at least some non-Christian religion or religions as leading to eternal life.

The report was an important follow-up to the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, released in 2007, and it basically affirmed one of the most controversial findings of that survey -- the claim that evangelical Christians are increasingly rejecting the exclusivity of Christ.  A potential lack of precision in the way the question was first asked led the Pew Forum to take another look at the issue. This new report, based in solid research, corroborates the earlier study.  Many evangelicals are redefining the Gospel and rejecting the claim that faith in Jesus Christ is the only way to eternal life.

A most interesting response to this report now comes from Charles M. Blow, the "visual Op-Ed columnist" for The New York Times.  In "Heaven for the Godless?," published in the December 27, 2008 edition of the paper, Blow celebrates the report and expresses his pleasure in the fact that Americans are abandoning their belief that, in his words, "heaven is a velvet-roped V.I.P. area reserved for Christians."

Mr. Blow affirms that the Bible teaches the exclusivity of Christ and that the Christian church has defined the Gospel in these terms.  Nevertheless, he celebrates the fact that the doctrine is being abandoned by so many -- as many as 70% of all Americans.

He then asks why this change is happening, and he suggests several factors. First, he offers this:

One very plausible explanation is that Americans just want good things to come to good people, regardless of their faith. As Alan Segal, a professor of religion at Barnard College told me: “We are a multicultural society, and people expect this American life to continue the same way in heaven.” He explained that in our society, we meet so many good people of different faiths that it’s hard for us to imagine God letting them go to hell.