Evangelical
At the Evangelical Affirmations Conference held at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in May 1989, the question of the destiny of unevangelized people was discussed but no conclusion was reached because of disagreements. The same result was reached in 1992 by the World Evangelical Fellowship Theological Commission meeting in Manila. Peter Cotterell, a former missionary in Ethiopia and Principal of London Bible College, comments on John 14:6 as follows:

What this (verse) does say is that insofar as anyone approaches God that approach is made possible by Christ. There is no other way. What it does not do is to define the prerequisites of that approach.

Peter Cotterell’s book sets out his case in ten theses and they are provided in Appendix A (on page 7). He makes two core claims. The first is that it would be unjust of God to condemn anyone on the basis of what he has not heard. Cotterell believes in original sin but not original guilt. This is a basic issue. Secondly, he asserts that some people are bound to call to a God for mercy in a fallen world. Arguing that general revelation must be potentially salvific he says, “Although there is clear Bible testimony that salvation comes to us exclusively through Christ, that testimony does not also require an overt knowledge of Christ.” Being gracious, God will hear and answer them but only on the basis of Christ’s work. So salvation is by grace and through Christ but is not tied to faith in Christ.

Reformed
In a major 500-page work, Terrance Tiessen (also a missionary) addresses the twin questions of “how does God save people?” and “how do the religions fit into God’s purposes in the world?” This combination of subjects is unique in its literature. Tiessen aims to distinguish what he presents from the synergism of Arminianism and the universal sufficient grace of Amyraldianism. In a reader-friendly way he sets out his position on these matters by way of a series of 30 theses (see Appendix B – on page 8) which he then deals with in a very methodical way. He uses the term “Accessibilism” with regard to salvation and “Ambiguity” with regard to religions. This is the book to be interacted with. I have bolded the items in Tiessen’s theses that should be noted.

First, although Tiessen affirms the reality of original guilt he deems it necessary to declare that every person has at least one opportunity to respond to God’s self-revelation (that is, without the gospel) with a faith response that is acceptable to God as a means of justification” (Thesis 14). But in the next line of that thesis (not quoted) he declares that such grace is not enough by itself to save; another grace has to be given so that a person is effectively persuaded. So the first grace is sufficient but not salvific. Implicit in this attempt to couple real opportunity to be saved with original guilt is the notion that original guilt by itself is unjust.

Second, and with regard to religions, Tiessen works on the basis that there are points of contact between Christianity and other religions and not a common faith or some such. There can be no objection to this given the fact that man is still made in the image of God and is therefore incurably religious (sensus divinitatis) and Tiessen himself acknowledges that “human fallenness and demonic deception” operate when religions are constructed. That is what Thesis 26 expresses and Tiessen there speaks of “common grace.” But in Thesis 27 the adjective “common” is dropped and what is said belongs to the effects of special or redemptive grace—orthodoxy, orthopraxy, and sincerity of heart.

In the discussion, three positions are taken with regard to the salvation of the unevangelized:

1. Some “good pagans” may live up to the light which they have been given in creation and providence.
2. Some “good pagans” may cry to God for mercy because of their conscious need through sin and guilt.
3. God may quicken some directly by his Spirit.

There is an obvious difference between the first of these reasons and the other two. The first reason is based on an incorrect exegesis of Romans 1 & 2 in two respects. First, it assumes that what God reveals of himself and his will in creation and providence is enough to save and that someone or many could respond to it acceptably. Neither is true. The gospel is not revealed by general revelation and whatever light people have. Jews or not, no one lives up to it. No, not one, but all in Adam are therefore subject to God’s just wrath on account of ungodliness and unrighteousness. To teach otherwise is to teach another way of salvation. Such thinking is anti-evangelical as well as unbiblical and is to be rejected.

The other two are advocated on moot or ill-founded bases. He uses “the case of Old Testament believers who were saved apart from the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ” as examples of what God will do for such “good pagans.” But is this a fair parallel? Old Testament saints were not entirely without gospel information. By means of the Old Testament’s predictions and types they were in receipt of a kind of gospel proclamation though they could not in the nature of things hear the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Conclusion: Mission in the 21st Century
Archbishop Runcie concluded his Younghusband lecture by referring to words of the historian Sir Arnold Toynbee, who had died some ten years earlier. Toynbee favored syncretism and declared that the twentieth century would be chiefly celebrated by historians hundreds of years hence . . .as the time when the first sign became visible of that great interpretation of Eastern religions and Christianity which gave rise to the great universal religion of the third millennium.”

We are at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Are we going to just let Toynbee’s prediction come true? Of course we all and many more like us are unable in and of ourselves to stop this juggernaut. Is there then any hope? What must we beware of and what must be emphasized?