Volume 4 No 2 - Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

658 JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF ANTISEMITISM [ VOL. 4:647white evangelicals, almost half of evangelicals (47% of white and 49% ofblacks) said that many religions can lead to eternal life. 17In reaction to those 2008 survey results, Albert Mohler, president ofthe Southern Baptist Theological Seminar, admitted that “the exclusivity ofthe Gospel is the most vulnerable doctrine in the face of the modernworld.” 18 A 2011 Pew survey of global evangelical leaders, however,showed rather different results, almost unanimously agreeing that Christianityis the one true faith leading to eternal life. 19 Exclusivism, expressed inan organization’s public “statement of faith,” remains the official stance ofmany evangelical organizations large and small, including the SouthernBaptist Convention (reiterated in 2000), 20 the Assemblies of God, CampusCrusade for Christ, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, the Promise Keepers,and Focus on the Family. This suggests a real tension, either betweenAmerican evangelicals and global evangelicals or between leaders andthose in the pews. 21When it comes to Judaism, this issue of exclusivism takes on a specialsignificance, and is particularly challenging for evangelical Christian Zionists.One of the characteristics that define Christian Zionists is their rejectionof antisemitism and a deep shame at the history of Christian treatmentof the Jews. They find themselves faced with a delicate dilemma: How to17. Almost three–quarters (72%) of those white evangelicals who assert thatmany religions can lead to eternal life can specifically name at least one non-Christianreligion that can lead to salvation. While Time magazine referred to this as “amajor shift in the pews,” this actually reflects a decline in the number expressingsimilar attitudes in 2007. See http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599.1817217,00.html, accessed September 10, 2011.18. David Van Biema, “No One Path to Salvation,” Time, June 23, 2008.19. http://pewresearch.org/pubs/2036/worldwide-evangelical-christian-leaderspoll-lausanne-congress,accessed September 10, 2011.20. http://www.sbc.net/bfm/bfm2000.asp#iv, accessed September 11, 2011.21. In 2011, this tension over the issue of exclusivity exploded into publicChristian controversy when popular evangelical pastor Rob Bell openly challengedestablished dogma about hell and salvation in his book Love Wins: A Book AboutHeaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived (Harper One, 2011).Despite the fact that Rev. Franklin Graham called the author “a false teacher” and“a heretic” on national television (see http://www.samaritanspurse.org/index.php/Samaritans_Purse_Today/post/franklin_graham on_fox_news/, accessed September21, 2011), the ensuing controversy made it clear that the actual picture of evangelicalbelief is more divided on this issue than the exclusivist doctrinal statementsabove would suggest and raised questions about the plausibility and sustainabilityof exclusivistic doctrines in pluralistic contexts. For a sense of the range of views,see Mark Galli, “Heaven, Hell, and Rob Bell: Putting the Pastor in Context,” http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/marchweb-only/rob-bell-universalism.html?start=1 (posted March 2, 2011, accessed September 21, 2011).