What about people who don’t believe — or follow another religion?

Christianity does make a challenging claim. It doesn’t present Jesus simply as one good spiritual teacher among many. Christians believe something unique happened through Jesus and that reconciliation with God ultimately comes through Him.

But that doesn’t give Christians permission to look down on anybody else. Quite the opposite. Christianity teaches that every human being has profound value and should be treated with dignity, humility and love.

So what happens to somebody who sincerely follows another religion? What about an atheist? Or someone who has never properly encountered Christianity at all?

Christians agree that salvation — being put right with God — comes through Christ and that God judges perfectly. Christians have differed over exactly how that applies to people who have never knowingly understood or accepted the Christian message.

So we shouldn’t pretend to know the eternal destiny of every individual. Christianity asks us to trust that God knows every person’s heart, knowledge, circumstances and choices more completely than another human being ever could.

And perhaps the more immediate question isn’t: “What is God going to do with everybody else?” It’s: “Who do I think Jesus actually was?” That’s a question you can investigate for yourself.