Quote:
Originally Posted by Imp
This is a major sticking point for me though & if you look at the whole picture where you are born has a huge bearing on your chances.
Generalising but being born in the West say means you have a good chance of decent living conditions & are likely to adopt some faith involving Christ.
Being born in Asia possibly a worse standard of living & more likely to adopt another faith. So I would think its fair enough to say the odds have been stacked against you simply because of your place of birth.
If so for a God to be fair does he not have to judge you on your actions & the way you live your life with the fact that you believe him having little bearing on the outcome.
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"Standard of living" not only has less relevance than you think it does, it has the opposite effect.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Matthew 19:23 (Revised Standard Version)
And Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."
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(If you'd like more context, I recommend reading Matthew 19:16-30.)
Affluence makes it
more difficult to recognize your own need for
any form of spirituality. I was raised as a Lutheran, and can't consciously remember a time when I didn't believe in Jesus, but the closest I've ever felt to God was during a two-week period when I was homeless. (I'd rather not discuss my circumstances at that time in any detail.)
I tried to dig up a better answer to your question, but disagreed myself with the conclusions people came to in the first couple search results I looked at. The first piece I found that I thought worth linking to was
this PDF from the Free Church of Scotland.There's an article in it titled "Cross-cultural Evangelism", written by a Hindu who converted to Christianity:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ram Gidoomal
What about those who live and die without
ever hearing the gospel? What about - to take
one people group at random - the Western
Gaisu people in China? [...] They practice
ancestor worship, and no Gaisu or indeed no-
body in the immediate area has ever been
known to become a Christian. The area is al-
most untouched by Christian witness. So what
will become of those Gaisu who have died and
will die without hearing the gospel?
The answer is, we just don’t know.
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As frustrating as it is, this is the most honest answer I've found to your question. The people who are absolutely sure they
know the answer are the ones whose arguments I find the most painful to read.