Don’t all religions basically teach the same thing?
Many people wonder why we make such a big deal about Jesus Christ and Christianity, since they believe all religions are basically the same. They assume that all faiths are talking about the same thing but are putting it in a different way. Those people are thinking that all the different religious groups – Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Mormons, etc. – experiencing the same God, yet explaining it in different ways. So can’t they all be true, but with each giving a different emphasis?
You are assuming that all these people are experiencing the same God, when in fact this is not true. Christianity and Islam cannot both be true at the same time. Neither can Buddhism and Mormonism both be correct simultaneously, nor can Christian Science and Roman Catholicism. All religions cannot be true at the same time because they teach many things completely opposite from one another. They all may be wrong, but certainly they all cannot be right, for the claims of one will exclude the other.
As to the matters of salvation and the person of Jesus Christ, only Christianity recognizes Him as the eternal God becoming a man who died for the sins of the world and rose again the third day. Salvation is obtained only by putting one’s trust in this Jesus. This Jesus of Islam was just like many prophets but not the Son of God who died for the sins of the world; neither is the Jesus of Mormonism or Christian Science the same Jesus as revealed in the Bible. Salvation is not by grace and through faith in these religions, but it is a matter of works.
Even though many religions seem to be the same on the surface, the closer one gets to the central teachings the more apparent the differences become. It is totally incorrect to say that all religions are the same. The God of the Christians is not the same God as that of the Mormons, Muslims or Christian Scientist. If the God of the Bible is the only true God, then the other gods are nonexistent and should not be worshiped.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him.
John 3:16-17