Matthew 7:20

The world does not consist of 100% Christians and 100% non-Christians. There are people (a great many of them) who are slowly ceasing to be Christians but who still call themselves by that name: some of them are clergymen. There are other people who are slowly becoming Christians though they do not yet call themselves so. These are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God's secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it. For example, a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy and to leave in the background (though he might still say he believed) the Buddhist teaching on certain other points. Many of the good Pagans [such as Plato, and maybe the radical Pharaoh Akhenaten who attempted to introduce Monotheism to ancient Egypt] long before Christ's birth may have been in this position. And always, of course, there are a great many people who are just confused in mind and have a lot of inconsistent beliefs all jumbled up together.

- C. S. Lewis

About two and a half years ago, I was questioning a lot of the beliefs I held. I wasn't questioning my faith in God, or that there was a God, or even that Christ is who He and the Gospels claim He is. I was however struggling with church. With pastors' sermons. With strenuous arguments about what the speaker considered "essential Christian doctrine". I was hearing blatant contradictions between pastors of the same denominations. There weren't contradictions about who Christ was, or the nature of God; the contradictions were far from what even I considered 'essential' topics of discussion. That's one of the reasons why when one pastor in particular claimed without any doubt, that one specific view on 'the end times' was "clearly stated" in the Bible, I was thrown for a loop. If it is not an essential doctrine, I thought, why not just say "this is a particular view that different Christians have differed on for a long time, and still do," instead of glibly saying that it is clearly spelled out in Scripture? I let that get to me. I stopped going to church, and I took a little spiritual vacation - it was time to relax from all the stress. What I call a 'vacation' was actually me forgoing any concern for the spiritual aspects of my life. During this time, I still had an interest in finding out some different Christian viewpoints than the ones I'd been raised in, but I was not interested in just throwing myself back into church still saddled with the questions and frustrations that had developed in me. When visiting a friend out of town, he gave me the book A New Kind of Christian by Brian D. McLaren. Some of the things in there pissed me off. Some of the things in the book scared me. As I kept reading, I could feel the parts of me that were taught to think a certain way about Christianity, and the practice of it through what I knew about church, screaming out in protest. On my flight home from the visit, I came across a passage in the book which brought me to tears. There I sat, alone on my row, flying from Minneapolis to Dallas, sobbing. While in a marital counseling session some time later, I shared the passage and my reaction to it with my wife and the therapist. My wife was upset that I wasn't able to share that with her before. I think the reason why I didn't share it with her was because I couldn't understand why it impacted me the way it did, so I didn't feel like I knew what I would say. I think I better understand now why it hit me the way it did. I have since misplaced the book, but by good fortune, the passage that hit me was quoting from another author, C. S. Lewis (surprised?). The quote was from the final installment of Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle. Towards the end of the story, Aslan, the Christ figure in the Chronicles is welcoming some of the main characters of the series into the afterlife: into His country, into Heaven. An unlikely character named Emeth turns up in Aslan's Heaven. Unlikely, it seems, because he spent his life earnestly following and serving a false god named Tash. Here's a passage from The Last Battle (which I do have in my possession) where Emeth comes to the undeniable realization that Tash is a false god because he is personally greeted by Aslan. Here is Emeth's account of their meeting:

But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said , 'Son, thou art welcome.' But I said , 'Alas Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash.' He answered, 'Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me.' Then by reason of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, 'Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one?' The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, 'It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites - I take to me the services which thou hast done for him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child?' I said, 'Lord, thou knowest how much I understand.' But I said also (for the truth constrained me), 'Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days.' 'Beloved,' said the Glorious One, 'unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.'

The reason this excerpt pierced me the way it did is because it presented God the way I had always hoped deep in my heart He would be. Yes, I know it was just a story, but the character I recognized in the story was the same Person I recognized as the ruler of my heart. This, I think is the first time I personally experienced what J.R.R. Tolkein calls a eucatastrophe. He defines it as, "the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears." He goes on to explain that a eucatastrophe has the effect it does because "it is a sudden glimpse of truth", and "it perceives...that this is indeed how things really do work in the Great World for which our nature is made." I felt overjoyed at the possibility that this is how God practices his judgement with non-Christians. It added a level of fairness and justice to the whole Christian idea relating to those that are not confessed believers in Christ. I like the idea of a secret influence, God's influence, that was echoed in this Lewis passage. It satisfies my longing for and my expectation of justice that I know is in the character of the God I serve.