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Question for Christians: Salvation for uncontacted tribes?

an anarchist

Your local anarchist.
I apologize in advance if there has been similar threads on this question.
Being raised Christian, I was taught that the only way to save your soul was through accepting Jesus’s blood as your personal salvation. This requires knowledge of Jesus. So what about those who never heard of Jesus? What is their fate when they die?
Columbus didn’t sail the ocean blue until 1492, so did all the Native Americans who never had a chance to hear about Jesus go to hell?
Or let’s look at the Natives of North Setinel Island. A few years ago, a Christian missionary was killed by the natives of that island.
The life and death of John Chau, the man who tried to convert his killers
I’m assuming the reason the missionary was on that island in the first place was because he figured that the natives were going to hell.
Is this the Christian teaching? Those, who through the circumstance of life, never hear of Jesus, do they go to hell?
 

Hockeycowboy

Witness for Jehovah
Premium Member
These are not Biblical teachings, I’m sorry, but they’re not. Torment (in Hell) was devised just to scare people….but it turns Jehovah God into a fiend!

Romans 6 7,23 is pretty clear: “He who has died, has been acquitted from his sin”; & “ the wages of sin is (what?) death.” (Not torment.)

if we put the two together: sin results in death. And once a person pays the price, ie., they die, their sin is no longer held against them; that’s what acquitted means.

So how are they judged? When all are resurrected, which will happen in the future (John 5:28-29; Acts of the Apostles 24:15), the unrighteous will be taught about Christ (and Jehovah God his Father who sent him -John 17:3), and that’s when their judgement starts. After their resurrection, How they respond to learning about the love that God has for them, through His Son’s sacrifice. (Bringing a person back to life, to be given another chance, surely will soften many hearts!!)

But it won’t be their past actions; at their death, they paid the price….they've been acquitted of those sins.
 

Hockeycowboy

Witness for Jehovah
Premium Member
@Xavier Graham SA , Jacob said that when he died, he was going to hell (Jacob was a good person)….
Here are 4 translations of Genesis 37:35. Please note the different words used to translate hell , ESPECIALLY note the last one, the Catholic Douay….


American Standard Version
And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said, For I will go down to Sheol to my son mourning. And his father wept for him.

Brenton Septuagint Translation
And all his sons and his daughters gathered themselves together, and came to comfort him; but he would not be comforted, saying, I will go down to my son mourning to Hades; and his father wept for him.

Contemporary English Version
All of Jacob's children came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. "No," he said, "I will go to my grave, mourning for my son." So Jacob kept on grieving.

Douay-Rheims Bible
And alibis children being gathered together to comfort their father in his sorrow, he would not receive comfort, but said: I will go down to my son into hell, mourning. And whilst he continued weeping,

source: Biblehub.com
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
I apologize in advance if there has been similar threads on this question.
Being raised Christian, I was taught that the only way to save your soul was through accepting Jesus’s blood as your personal salvation. This requires knowledge of Jesus. So what about those who never heard of Jesus? What is their fate when they die?
Columbus didn’t sail the ocean blue until 1492, so did all the Native Americans who never had a chance to hear about Jesus go to hell?
Or let’s look at the Natives of North Setinel Island. A few years ago, a Christian missionary was killed by the natives of that island.
The life and death of John Chau, the man who tried to convert his killers
I’m assuming the reason the missionary was on that island in the first place was because he figured that the natives were going to hell.
Is this the Christian teaching? Those, who through the circumstance of life, never hear of Jesus, do they go to hell?
No it's not Christian teaching and that man was a fool.

The church (at least the better thought-out branches of it) teaches that salvation comes from Christ. Membership of the Christian church offers a route to salvation for anyone. But no one is in a position to say this has to be the only route. For example, if I recall it correctly, the Catholic church explicitly acknowledges other possible routes, e.g. Judaism, Islam, etc. and says that it is possible for those that do not know God at all, through no fault of their own, to attain salvation. The key point it is up to God, not us.
 

Brian2

Veteran Member
I apologize in advance if there has been similar threads on this question.
Being raised Christian, I was taught that the only way to save your soul was through accepting Jesus’s blood as your personal salvation. This requires knowledge of Jesus. So what about those who never heard of Jesus? What is their fate when they die?
Columbus didn’t sail the ocean blue until 1492, so did all the Native Americans who never had a chance to hear about Jesus go to hell?
Or let’s look at the Natives of North Setinel Island. A few years ago, a Christian missionary was killed by the natives of that island.
The life and death of John Chau, the man who tried to convert his killers
I’m assuming the reason the missionary was on that island in the first place was because he figured that the natives were going to hell.
Is this the Christian teaching? Those, who through the circumstance of life, never hear of Jesus, do they go to hell?

True Christians have salvation through faith in Jesus and since Jesus is the judge of everyone, we all need to go through Him to get to the Father.
For Christians He would be deciding whether we are real Christians and for other He would be judging them on it seems their faith in God and the way they lived their lives.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
To me, Christ is not a religion, but rather a way of being. So it is not necessary for anyone to be indoctrinated with any religion to achieve that way of being.

Also, if we want other people to adopt that way of being, the best way to do it is by example. If they like what they see in us, they will want to emulate it. So again, religion is not necessary.
 

Brian2

Veteran Member
These are not Biblical teachings, I’m sorry, but they’re not. Torment (in Hell) was devised just to scare people….but it turns Jehovah God into a fiend!

Romans 6 7,23 is pretty clear: “He who has died, has been acquitted from his sin”; & “ the wages of sin is (what?) death.” (Not torment.)

if we put the two together: sin results in death. And once a person pays the price, ie., they die, their sin is no longer held against them; that’s what acquitted means.

So how are they judged? When all are resurrected, which will happen in the future (John 5:28-29; Acts of the Apostles 24:15), the unrighteous will be taught about Christ (and Jehovah God his Father who sent him -John 17:3), and that’s when their judgement starts. After their resurrection, How they respond to learning about the love that God has for them, through His Son’s sacrifice. (Bringing a person back to life, to be given another chance, surely will soften many hearts!!)

But it won’t be their past actions; at their death, they paid the price….they've been acquitted of those sins.

People will be judged on their deeds in life and of course even someone gaining salvation through faith in Jesus should bear the fruits of repentance and live their lives accordingly.
Rev 20:11Then I saw a great white throne and the One seated on it. Earth and heaven fled from His presence, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne. And there were open books, and one of them was the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their deeds, as recorded in the books. 13The sea gave up its dead, and Death and Hades gave up their dead, and each one was judged according to his deeds.…
People have not paid the price for sins after dying physically. The soul still exists and is alive (Matt 10:28) and after it is resurrected then people are judged according to their deeds and it is then that full death can be applied, which means that the body and soul are destroyed.
It is not being judged twice for the same sins, it is just the first judgement for sin, the one that can really bring a permanent death of the whole of our being.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
No it's not Christian teaching and that man was a fool.
Fool or not, Hell is certainly a Christian teaching.

Religions are determined by the beliefs and practices of their members. Plenty of Christians believe in a fiery Hell for non-believers, so that makes it a Christian teaching.

Christianity is a diverse religion. Plenty of other Christians believe the opposite; their belief is a Christian teaching, too.

All the talk in this thread about Bible passages and whatnot is all about opinions of what Christianity ought to be. It's a separate matter from what Christianity is.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
I apologize in advance if there has been similar threads on this question.
Being raised Christian, I was taught that the only way to save your soul was through accepting Jesus’s blood as your personal salvation. This requires knowledge of Jesus. So what about those who never heard of Jesus? What is their fate when they die?
Columbus didn’t sail the ocean blue until 1492, so did all the Native Americans who never had a chance to hear about Jesus go to hell?
I think it's a valid question... and it speaks to why Joseph Smith felt the need to invent (IMO) encounters between Jesus and the people on the American continents.

Or let’s look at the Natives of North Setinel Island. A few years ago, a Christian missionary was killed by the natives of that island.
The life and death of John Chau, the man who tried to convert his killers
I’m assuming the reason the missionary was on that island in the first place was because he figured that the natives were going to hell.
Is this the Christian teaching? Those, who through the circumstance of life, never hear of Jesus, do they go to hell?
Does that need a belief in Hell as a motive? Isn't the Great Commission enough to explain why a Christian would want to proselytize to remote groups of people?

I mean, you guys go on about divine command morality in other contexts. Why wouldn't God saying "go and spread the Gospel to all nations" be enough reason for you to want to do it?
 

Hawkins

Well-Known Member
I apologize in advance if there has been similar threads on this question.
Being raised Christian, I was taught that the only way to save your soul was through accepting Jesus’s blood as your personal salvation. This requires knowledge of Jesus. So what about those who never heard of Jesus? What is their fate when they die?
Columbus didn’t sail the ocean blue until 1492, so did all the Native Americans who never had a chance to hear about Jesus go to hell?
Or let’s look at the Natives of North Setinel Island. A few years ago, a Christian missionary was killed by the natives of that island.
The life and death of John Chau, the man who tried to convert his killers
I’m assuming the reason the missionary was on that island in the first place was because he figured that the natives were going to hell.
Is this the Christian teaching? Those, who through the circumstance of life, never hear of Jesus, do they go to hell?

You are missing the big picture.

The effect of Law is to judge one's behavior in the past. The judgment of Jesus extends this to one's heart and even one's future. So the judgment of Jesus surpasses the judgment of Law. That's the judgment of Jesus can deliver a much just and fair judgment than the judgment of Law. Do tribes have porn movies? Modern humans are much more corrupted, even when compare today's people to those in 30s. In 30s maybe 1% people can get in touch with porn photos or movies, but today in contrary there could only be 1% won't be able to get in touch with porn. Perhaps those living in tribes are without such an infection. The Bible warning is more for those living in a modern society.

That said. Covenants have a accumulative effect. The covenant brought by Noah specifies that gentiles will rely on conscience to act. God has a version of Law written in everyone's heart. Then the Mosaic covenant was granted to the Jews, which is added upon one's conscience. That is, the Jews need to obey Mosaic Law, at the same time they also need to follow one's conscience to act. Similarly, when gentiles have the New Covenant they need to believe in Jesus, at the same time they also need to follow their own conscience to act. That's how covenants overlap. If you failed to believe in Jesus to fulfill the requirement of the New Covenant, you'll be judged by how well you act in accordance to conscience. In a modern society you will certainly fall. But in a tribe, they may survive the "act by conscience" judgment. Of course in the end, only Jesus knows and only Jesus can deliver a thorough fair and just judgment.
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
Fool or not, Hell is certainly a Christian teaching.

Religions are determined by the beliefs and practices of their members. Plenty of Christians believe in a fiery Hell for non-believers, so that makes it a Christian teaching.

Christianity is a diverse religion. Plenty of other Christians believe the opposite; their belief is a Christian teaching, too.

All the talk in this thread about Bible passages and whatnot is all about opinions of what Christianity ought to be. It's a separate matter from what Christianity is.
Religions are not determined by what members believe, for any religion with a body of codified doctrine. Just as physics is not determined by what individual physicists may believe on subjects in physics that are not their speciality, which they may well not get quite right, so it is with individual religious beliefs. Very few people, in either physics or a religion, have a perfect grasp of everything about the subject.

I made a point of qualifying my comments by speaking of the better thought out branches of Christianity. Obviously there are badly thought out branches that have funny ideas. I won't deny that.;)
 

pearl

Well-Known Member
Is this the Christian teaching? Those, who through the circumstance of life, never hear of Jesus, do they go to hell?

Religions are determined by the beliefs and practices of their members. Plenty of Christians believe in a fiery Hell for non-believers, so that makes it a Christian teaching.

Does not apply to all Christians;
From this mystery of unity it follows that all men and women who are saved share, though differently, in the same mystery of salvation in Jesus Christ through his Spirit. Christians know this through their faith, while others remain unaware that Jesus Christ is the source of their salvation. The mystery of salvation reaches out to them, in a way known to God, through the invisible action of the Spirit of Christ. Concretely, it will be in the sincere practice of what is good in their own religious traditions and by following the dictates of their conscience that the members of other religions respond positively to God's invitation and receive salvation in Jesus Christ, even while they do not recognize or acknowledge him as their saviour
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
Being raised Christian, I was taught that the only way to save your soul was through accepting Jesus’s blood as your personal salvation.
In the Catholic Church, this was considered an unanswerable question, but the Church was insistent on trying to convert "pagans" anyway. Nowadays, most Catholic theologians that I have read do not judge people who don't know about the Gospel, and also that the role of judging is God's, not ours.
 

URAVIP2ME

Veteran Member
I apologize in advance if there has been similar threads on this question.
Being raised Christian, I was taught that the only way to save your soul was through accepting Jesus’s blood as your personal salvation. This requires knowledge of Jesus. So what about those who never heard of Jesus? What is their fate when they die?
Columbus didn’t sail the ocean blue until 1492, so did all the Native Americans who never had a chance to hear about Jesus go to hell?
Or let’s look at the Natives of North Setinel Island. A few years ago, a Christian missionary was killed by the natives of that island.
The life and death of John Chau, the man who tried to convert his killers
I’m assuming the reason the missionary was on that island in the first place was because he figured that the natives were going to hell.
Is this the Christian teaching? Those, who through the circumstance of life, never hear of Jesus, do they go to hell?
I think it is good to remember that before Jesus died the way to being 'saved/delivered/rescued' was Not open.
Jesus' death and resurrection was necessary for mankind.
None of the faithful of Hebrews chapter 11 knew of Jesus, so we are speaking of a future hope of living again.
Acts of the Apostles 24:15 uses the ' future tense' that there 'is going to be' a resurrection......
Thus, the already dead people mentioned ^ above ^ will have the opportunity to learn about Jesus ' after' they are resurrected.
Death stamps the price tag of sin as Paid In Full - Romans 6:23; Romans 6:7.
It is Not death with a post-mortem penalty, No double jeopardy in death.
Those ^ above ^ dead people thus have paid the price tag of sin when they died.
None of the ^ above ^ have committed the unforgivable sin of Matthew 12:32, so they will be resurrected.

P.S. Please remember there is a BIG difference between ' biblical hell' and the teaching of a 'religious-myth hell'.
The Bible's hell is simply mankind's temporary stone-cold grave for the sleeping dead.
This why Jesus and the OT both teach ' sleep ' in death ( No pain just unconscious sleep til Resurrection Day )
- John 11:11-14; Psalms 6:5; Psalms 13:3; Psalms 115:17; Isaiah 38:18; Ecclesiastes 9:5
'Christendom' ( so-called Christian ) falsely teaches fire at death.
KJV mistakenly translated the word Gehenna into English as: hell fire.
Gehenna was just a garbage pit outside of Jerusalem where things were destroyed.
So, it is No wonder Scripture teaches 'destruction' for the wicked - Psalms 92:7; Psalms 104:35; Proverbs 2:21-22
 

URAVIP2ME

Veteran Member
Fool or not, Hell is certainly a Christian teaching.
Religions are determined by the beliefs and practices of their members. Plenty of Christians believe in a fiery Hell for non-believers, so that makes it a Christian teaching........................
No, Not a first-century Christian Bible teaching, but a religious-myth teaching after the first century ended.
Jesus said MANY would come in his name but prove false - Matthew 7:21-23.
So, that makes a religious-myth teaching as being Non-Christian or part of ' Christendom' (so-called Christian )
Especially when KJV translated the word Gehenna into English as hell fire that put flames in death.
Gehenna was a garbage pit outside of Jerusalem where things were: destroyed.
So, Gehenna is a fitting word for: destruction.
Scripture teaches forever destruction for the wicked, Not flames :
- Psalms 92:7; Psalms 104:35; Proverbs 2:21-22 and at 2 Peter 3:9 it's 'repent' or 'perish' ( be destroyed ).
 

URAVIP2ME

Veteran Member
To me, Christ is not a religion, but rather a way of being. So it is not necessary for anyone to be indoctrinated with any religion to achieve that way of being.
Also, if we want other people to adopt that way of being, the best way to do it is by example. If they like what they see in us, they will want to emulate it. So again, religion is not necessary.
I find Jesus taught that 'worship' is necessary at John 4:23-24.
There Jesus taught an acceptable way of worship.
To worship God with spirit and truth.
One should have a spirited worship (active) and worship based on 'religious truth' as Jesus taught at John 17:17.
Jesus believed that God's Word (Scripture) is: religious truth.
 

Oberon12

Member
Gehenna was just a garbage pit outside of Jerusalem where things were destroyed.

Correct, it was an actual physical location. They burned trash and waste there, so its possible allegorical references are left for believers to decide for themselves.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
I find Jesus taught that 'worship' is necessary at John 4:23-24.
There Jesus taught an acceptable way of worship.
To worship God with spirit and truth.
One should have a spirited worship (active) and worship based on 'religious truth' as Jesus taught at John 17:17.
Jesus believed that God's Word (Scripture) is: religious truth.
There are many ways to interpret scriptures. Religious people tend to interpret them in religious ways, as they were taught to by other religious people. And that's fine. But it is not necessary to interpret them in that way to embody the spirit of Christ, within. Because the spirit of Christ is not a religion, and is not dependent upon any religion. Jesus, himself, was a Jew, and yet he never admonished anyone else to become a Jew. And that's because he was not preaching a religious ideology. He was revealing a spiritual way of life that anyone, religious or otherwise, could adopt.

This is the way I understand the revelation and promise of Jesus as Christ.
 
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