Jesus is not the Only Way to God: A Big Error in Religion

Watch Reed Summers speak on a Big Error in Religion, November 14, 2018

Well hello everyone. This is Reed Summers. And I just wanted to share a personal experience I had recently that has been with me for the last few days and I haven’t really been able to get out of my mind.

I was last week driving from Toronto to Buffalo, New York. And I stopped for coffee outside Toronto. And after getting my coffee, I came outside and I saw across the street a huge sign above a church that said, “Jesus—your only way to God.”

I got in my car and I drove on and I was thinking about this. And I was a bit disturbed by it, actually, because to me that statement represents two misunderstandings that are really big. And those misunderstandings perpetuated across time and across many people’s awareness have led to a lot of pain and damage in the name of religion, and really exemplify how in some cases religion really is failing its original purpose. And that statement “Jesus—the only way to God” is an example of the failure of religion to fulfill its original purpose.

So I’d just like to speak to you a little bit about that and how I view that statement and why I do not view it to be correct and to be beneficial, and even to be detrimental to the human family.

So first of all, I think it’s important to clarify that nobody comes to God through somebody. You don’t come to God through Jesus. You don’t come to God through another person or personality or prophet or Messenger or teacher.

In the New Message from God, it teaches that everyone comes to God through their innate God connection, what it calls Knowledge, the spiritual mind within each of us. This is where we make contact with the creator of all life, right inside of us in Knowledge.

Now, there are key relationships in our lives, and certainly Jesus is a key relationship for many people. Rightly so. And yet, what is that relationship but an encouragement to come to Knowledge, a demonstration—Jesus’ demonstration—of a life in connection to Knowledge, a calling to come to God within the individual? That is really what I feel the role of a prophet or Messenger would be is to call, is to demonstrate and encourage, and to bring a Revelation that can enable us to find this Knowledge and take the steps towards it and, therefore, come back into contact and communication with God through this Knowledge within us.

So this is the first point I wanted to make is that nobody comes to God through somebody. We come to God through Knowledge, the spiritual mind within us.

And second, I’d like to point out that if we all carry Knowledge—every human being of every religion—and that this is actually God within us, then it stands to reason that there is no one way to God. There is no one path or one message or one community in the world through whom we will find God, and everybody needs to come to that one reality, only that way to God. No. Not at all.

God has a way to reach those of every religion, those of no religion. God is the Creator of the universe in which we live, a universe of billions of races of beings who come to God in their own ways, their own religions, their own expressions. And so this is the second point I wanted to make is that there is no one path to God.

And so when I saw this statement across the street, “Jesus—the only way to God,” I felt how incorrect it is to be proclaiming that all people can only come to God through one individual. I feel like this is hurting the world more than helping the world.

The purpose of religion, I feel, is to bridge the divides of tribe and culture, language and ethnicity, and to establish our one human identity and reality as a human family created by God. This is the purpose of religion is to unite us and to establish our commonality beyond all the appearances that divide us.

And so religion, therefore, must acknowledge that there are multiple pathways God, and that the
individual possesses the connection point to God, not an outside source. This is really where religion needs to be taking us today, supporting human unity on the big world issues facing us all: the changing climate, environmental destruction, diminishing food supply in the world, diminishing fresh water, increasing war and conflict—even in the name of religion. These are the problems facing our one human family.

And the purpose of religion is to speak to this Knowledge that we all carry and establish our commonality as human beings in a larger universe of life. This is what’s needed.

And so when I see that statement written in huge letters across the street broadcasting a forceful, righteous message that claims single authority to bring all people to God, I say to myself, no. This is not the way. This is not what the world needs.

And this is what the New Message from God is saying as well. It’s saying that religion needs to come back to its essence, which is a means for connecting to Knowledge within us, a structure by which we can continue to make that connection day by day, an encouragement, a means for making this God connection within us.

Religion needs to acknowledge itself in many different forms, given at many different times for different people. This is religion coming back to its essence, bringing people back to Knowledge so that Knowledge can move through us to reach the world and meet its great and pressing needs t this time.

So this is what I’d like to share with you today. And I hope you can hear the spirit of this and realize where you are that there are many expressions of religion that do not support this. But there is also a growing expression of religion and spirituality that does. And one form of that is the New Message from God in the world, which is here to provide a new basis for the unity of the world’s religions working in concert with one another to support the future of humanity as one race in this beautiful planet Earth that we call home.

So thank you for being with me and may we take that message forward.