Why I Hate World Religion Classes

I really hate classes on world religions and worldviews for one reason: they never accurately describe the beliefs of anyone I have met!  I got a taste of this fact during my first course on a particular world religion of the people we were going to work with.  One asked about this particular people group and their form of this world religion.  The professor threw his hands up and exclaimed, "First, you must convert them to (name of the world religion) and then you can begin sharing Christ with them."

I decided on a different theory, that being to treat every individual as unique.  Possibly, their world religion might have something to do with what they believe, but maybe not.  Three quick example may suffice to better explain why this is crucial to sharing the gospel with anyone from any group:

1.  My landlord proclaimed he would die for his world religion.  When I questioned him more closely about how his life did not seem to reflect the beliefs of his world religion, he admitted that he was an atheist, but would still die for his world religion.  This is not unusual in this part of the world.  Something, obviously different, is meant by religion to many people.

2.  The country I live in now claims to have 85% of a predominant world religion, but also 20% atheism and other.  For the mathematically challenged, this is not possible unless some are claiming both atheism and religion.

3.  I have heard with my own ears from a priest of a predominant world religion that salvation is not found in the church nor the sacraments of the church; that it is found by God's grace through faith and that we can only know God as He is revealed in the Bible.  He capped it off by saying that they were in need of a reformation.

It is easiest to lump people by category.  It is not accurate nor helpful in sharing Christ with that individual.  I am trying to resist that "categorization" of others and learning slowly to treat each as unique.

Below is a link about how people search for the quick and easy answer when there really are very few of those.  Thinking individually and not looking for easy answers and quick fixes.