hE WANTS YOU, SO WHY WOULDN'T hE GIVE YOU A FINAL CHANCE?:

[W]hat happens to those we fail to reach with this good news? Theologians usually lump the answers to this question into one of three options: exclusivism, inclusivism, or universalism. Most within our ranks embrace exclusivism, claiming that those who die without placing conscious, personal faith in Christ face eternal separation from God in hell. Our unease with this tragic end serves to catalyze our missionary and evangelistic efforts.

Over the past few decades, a minority of evangelical theologians have gravitated toward some form of inclusivism, the idea that some individuals can be saved by Jesus without ever having consciously believed in him. Some inclusivists teach that God saves those who have no knowledge of the gospel on the basis of what they do with general revelation. Others in this group suggest that God saves people according to his foreknowledge of what they would do if they had the opportunity to respond to the gospel.

Some self-professed evangelicals are universalists who believe Jesus will eventually save all people, regardless of whether they believed the gospel in this life or not. Insisting that Jesus is the only Savior, these universalists go to great lengths to distinguish their position from forms of religious pluralism that claim many valid pathways to God.

In his recent book, Postmortem Opportunity: A Biblical and Theological Assessment of Salvation After Death, Bethel University theologian James Beilby makes the case for an unconventional fourth option: postmortem conversions.

Beilby asserts that unevangelized persons will have the opportunity to respond to the gospel after death. "Unevangelized persons" may include those geographically beyond the reach of a missionary or an evangelist, those who die in infancy, and those who die without ever having the cognitive ability to understand the gospel. Beilby also believes God will extend the same opportunity to those who were proselytized by false teachers or hypocrites, a category of people he calls the "pseudoevangelized."

Beilby's argument for this unconventional approach proves to be relatively simple: God desires every individual to be saved, and because a person can only be saved by placing conscious faith in Christ, God will make an opportunity in this life or the next for that person to respond in faith. Because the Bible and Christian theology do not give us a reason to think God can't or won't do this, Beilby contends there is a strong possibility that there will be postmortem opportunities for the unevangelized and pseudoevangelized.

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