It is available in Australia from Koorong. It is also available in book form. The true story about an African of Scottish heritage called Angus Buchan is called “Faith like Potatoes”. It is about a man, who got to the end of himself and reluctantly went to hear preaching about the gospel by a layman. Hearing this man’s heartfelt testimony, he gave his life to Christ… God’s hand is at work now. Faith may come by hearing, but God’s provision provides the encouragement for it.

Angus felt led to hold a prayer meeting for farmers like him who were in desperate need. He was led to have it in a huge sports stadium, which amazingly he was able to use. At it he said he would plant a crop of potatoes, a crop which if it failed would bankrupt him, but if it succeeded would be highly profitable. He planted it despite the forecast of El Nino, despite the fact he did not have irrigation to pipes to provide the water needed for potatoes. Needless to say, when the time came to dig up the potatoes, there was a bumper crop.

(There is much more to this story, like the Zulu workers he employed, miracles of healing…)

If we put our faith in God, he will provide for us. What a challenge this message is to us in this land, where we have financial prosperity but spiritual poverty.

Matthew Mulvaney

Yes quite right. And this book mentions Don Richardson’s Eternity in Their Hearts on a number of occasions and interacts with it.

Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

The ruling class of the Incas was one of these cases. Unfortunately, in this case, the Spanish put all to the sword before this knowledge was conveyed to other classes in their society.

Also, Biblical history states that all cultures have descended from a true and accurate and detailed knowledge of God via Noah but have drifted away or corrupted the true knowledge of God (as Paul states in Romans). Thus, we all have some sort of race knowledge about God (which still could be argued as a form of specific revelation (as differing from purely from nature alone)) but cultures may have lost the specifics.

God does act to preserve or re-initiate knowledge of Himself throughout history. Often He reveals Himself to a beacon or reformer (such as Martin Luther) who either points the way back to God or goes off in search of the truth to bring back to his people.

I believe that the Holy Spirit pre-acts and prepares the hearts of individuals leading up to salvation or at least to a point when they can choose to reject or accept God and I also believe that he prepares cultures and peoples accordingly. A NT example of this is the huge numbers of Gentile adherents to synagogues (but who were not practicing Jews or converts but “God fearers”) who quickly responded to the Gospel just beginning to spread out among the Jews only.

However these cases are rare, and the burden still remains upon us to spread the gospel. Otherwise those who God judges or who come to a knowledge of salvation have the just right to accuse us “But why didn’t you tell us?”

Lennard Caldwell, Clifton QLD

As mentioned in another comment, Catholics and Protestants do have differing views on this subject, because they have different understandings us such things as natural law, general revelation, the nature of sin and salvation, and the like. So in one sense I understand your point of view, but of course as a Protestant I do not accept all of it.

But just a few thoughts if I may to help explain where I am/we are coming from. Yes, if you read the book, you might gain a better understanding of why most evangelicals hold to exclusivism. Protestants find that many biblical passages push them in that direction. For example, there are a stack of Scriptures which say we are condemned already, we are already dead in our sins, and we are already guilty in God’s eyes. Consider just a few. Ephesians 2:1 says we are “dead in our trespasses and sins”. Dead people don’t need reform, they need resurrection.

Jesus himself made this clear. He said “whoever does not believe stands condemned already” (John 3:18). Indeed, if one simply just reads all of John 3, the exclusivist position would pretty much seem to be the only logical option. Indeed, that is why Jesus said we must be born again (John 3:3)

As to those living before Christ, the meritous effects of Christ’s atoning death is what saves people, but the actual response of people is to whatever God has revealed of himself. People living before Christ of course could not respond to Jesus, but they could respond to God’s revelation at the time. Thus Abraham believed God’s revelation of himself, and that faith saved him.

People will be judged by their knowledge. The more knowledge or light we have of God, the greater our guilt. Thus the mentally impaired, or infants, who cannot have proper knowledge of God, will not be held accountable as those who do have knowledge of God yet reject it.

And Romans 1-2 says that we all have enough knowledge about God based on his general revelation of himself in the created world around us, and our moral sense, or conscience. That is enough knowledge of God to make us guilty before God, and worthy of judgment.

But they main thing is, if we are worried about those who have not heard the good news of the gospel, then we should be doing everything we can to tell them. That is what the Great Commission is all about (Matt 28:19). We are commanded to go and tell everyone the Gospel. That is our primary Christian responsibility.

And a quick remark about the only biblical passage you do raise: with all due respect, you are simply reading things into the John 14:2 text (about many mansions). It says nothing there about people who have not heard the Gospel somehow still being welcomed by God. That may be a view one wishes to hold to, but one certainly cannot get it from that passage!

Much more can obviously be said. But as I say, there are a number of areas where Catholics and Protestants differ, so that will result in differing views on inclusion and exclusion. For Protestants, the bottom line is what we regard as the plain teaching of Scripture on this issue. But I am aware that others will take a different approach to all this.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

To be honest, I did not even have Catholicism in mind as I wrote this article. As I said in my review, non-Christians will certainly have problems with the ideas that Jesus is the only Saviour and that the Gospel must be embraced. Of course I and the authors of the book are evangelical Protestants, so that is the perspective we are coming from. And we all were mainly engaging with fellow evangelical Protestants on this issue.

But yes, I am aware of Catholic thinking on this issue, and it is obviously one area in which Catholics and Protestants tend to differ theologically. That is why there are Catholics and Protestants.

As to what persons might have chosen (or as you put it, “if they had known”), there is a position known as God’s middle knowledge which speaks of God knowing what choices people might have made under different circumstances. This concept arose from the Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina, and so is sometimes referred to as Molinism. Some Protestant philosophers have been interested in the concept, and are willing to entertain that notion to some extent in certain discussions about philosophy of religion. So there is some common ground here.

But of course three of the chief guiding principles of the Reformation were sola scriptura, sola fide and sola Christus (by Scripture alone, by faith alone, and Christ alone). These of course have been Protestant distinctives for around half a millennium, and this means that on some of these issues Catholics and Protestants will of necessity see things differently.

As to infants, Protestants take a similar line, arguing that they lack knowledge of God and the Gospel, and so avoid judgment, since judgment is based on the knowledge that we have. So God will be merciful to them, as they lack the ability to reject God.

But the main discussion here is adults who do have knowledge of God through general revelation (the created order without, and the moral law within). That knowledge is sufficient to condemn them, and they need to find a way out of that condemnation. Protestants believe that salvation comes from responding to the Gospel, repenting, and placing one’s faith in Christ. Catholics of course have a somewhat different understanding of the nature of salvation. But that is where we may have to agree to disagree.

Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

To add to the debate I put part of the Catholic position to you. The Catholic Catechisim states “Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of His Church, but seeks the Truth and does the Will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. Such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity.

Also those who suffer death for the sake of the Faith without having received Baptism are baptised by their death for and with Christ ie Baptism of Blood.

As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God.

John McMahon