If I'm Not Saved, You Are Not My Friend

I'm an atheist. If you believe I'm damned, go to hell.

In other words, if you believe that I'm going to go to hell for not believing in Jesus, then you can't possibly be my friend, and I can't possibly trust you.

Does that sound harsh? Oh, don't misunderstand me. I don't hate everyone who believes in exclusive salvation -- the doctrine that only those who accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior will go to heaven, and everyone else will burn in hell. I am quite capable of being polite, even friendly, to evangelical and fundamentalist Christians who believe this.

But if you really believe that my lack of "salvation" will consign me to everlasting torment in hell, how can you possibly be my friend?

If I was asleep and my house was on fire, wouldn't you try to wake me up and rescue me? If I was driving towards the edge of a cliff, wouldn't you try to stop me? If I was drowning, wouldn't you at least toss me a rope?

And if I was being stubborn and irrational and resisting your efforts to save me, wouldn't you try to save me anyway?

If you believe in eternal damnation, surely that's infinitely worse than burning, drowning, or falling off a cliff. How could a true friend allow me to suffer that fate? I'd like to think that a true friend would do whatever it takes to save me from being tortured for the rest of eternity. I know that if I was a born-again Christian who believed in exclusive salvation, I would be tormented by the thought of non-Christian friends and family burning in hell, and I'd do anything to save those I loved. How could I be so selfish as to worry about being ridiculed, ostracized, possibly even arrested, with such stakes?

"But," you protest, "if I try to preach at you after you've already rejected my message, further attempts to proselytize will only alienate you further and make it less likely that you'll ever see the light. No one can force another person to be saved."

True. So that means that you are now standing by quietly, convinced in your heart that I'll go to hell unless I accept Jesus, but you're not saying anything because you fear it will do no good. Maybe you're simply hoping God will "soften my heart" before I die, and I'll accept Jesus. But what if I die tomorrow in a car crash? Won't you feel awful for not having tried harder to save me from hell?

You may feel that I'm putting you in a catch-22: if you preach at me incessantly, you'll antagonize me and drive me away, but if you don't, you're failing to be a true friend and save me from hell.

You're right; it is a catch-22. And that's why exclusive salvationists cannot really be my friends. Because I know they believe I'm going to go to hell. The fact that they're not proselytizing and trying to save me can only mean they don't really care about me, certainly not enough to risk embarrassment or alienation just to save me from hell. Either that, or they are planning to try to save me, and might use any means necessary at that.

At one time, it was considered perfectly acceptable to torture Jews and pagans and other non-Christians into converting; after all, temporary suffering in this world can't compared to eternal suffering in the next. And really, it is a logical argument. Suppose I was going to burn in hell for eternity, but you knew that you could save me from that just by, say, breaking my arms, whipping me, burning me, and starving me. Wouldn't it be worth it?

Like I said, if I believed in eternal damnation, I'd certainly believe anything was worth saving those I loved.

So if you believe in eternal damnation, either you don't really care about me, or else you're willing to do something extreme, and I don't dare trust you.

Or, you just enjoy the feeling of moral superiority, the sad but resigned acceptance that "Of course I love him, but he's condemned himself to hell; I can't save him if he doesn't want to be saved."

Do you really think you can claim to respect me and consider me your equal when you believe you're going to heaven and I'm going to hell?

I don't think so.

I have quite a few Christian friends, and my parents are Christians too. But no one who believes I'm damned is my friend.