What beliefs create peaceful behavior and deal with the discord of religion? Here’s the answer. Part of a series on truth.

There’s no getting around it: Everybody has an exclusive set of beliefs.

Moralists look down their noses at unbelievers as filthy, undisciplined misfits.

Secularists snub religious people as psychopathic nut jobs.

And pragmatists demand we shed our religious beliefs when we debate matters of life.

All privileged–but partial–views we hold over others.

Which View Is Right?

What we need to do [and what really matters in the long run] is to discover which set of beliefs create peaceful, inclusive and loving behavior…

…will radically change you into agents of reconciliation for the world…

…and deal with the discord of religion.

I know this sounds counter intuitive, but the set of beliefs that will do that are found in Christianity–and the uniqueness of the Christian gospel.

Here are three major ways Christianity is unique to other religious views.

1. Origin of Salvation

The founder of Christianity is not a human–he is God. God who came in the flesh. All other religious founders are human.

2. Purpose of Salvation

 That God came in the flesh is important. Most Eastern religions tend to teach liberation from the flesh. And most Western religions tend to condemn the flesh.

However, through the birth and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Christianity teaches that the flesh will be redeemed and renewed.

3. Method of Salvation

All other religions teach you to perform the truth to be saved. They put salvation in the hands of humans. Christianity, in contrast, puts salvation squarely in the hands of God:

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 

Jesus lived the life that we should have lived and died the death we deserved. He suffered for people who didn’t love him. And this is the highest act of love.

Is There One True Religion?

I believe so.

How can I say that in a flat, pluralistic world where every religious flower can bloom? And how does that deal with religious conflict?

In the next post I’ll explain how holding these unique truths of Christianity seals people off from religious superiority, transforms them into agents of peace and produces humble, patient and compassionate behavior…behavior that ultimately shuts down religious animosity.