Then Peter addressed them: ‘The truth I have now come to realise’ he said ‘is that God does not have favourites, but that anybody of any nationality who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to him.’ (Acts 10:35)

Many places in the world describe themselves as ‘God’s Own Country.’ Throughout history, certain groups and nations have declared themselves as special in God’s eyes or thought that they were favoured by God over other groups. German soldiers even had belt buckles inscribed with the phrase ‘God is with us’ (and presumably not with those they were trying to kill).

If you think God is a Christian, then you are mistaken. He isn’t a Muslim or a Hindu, either. We can’t pin labels on God; he is not a tribal or sectarian deity; too often, organized religions make God absurdly small and petty in order to fit their own prejudices and small-mindedness. There is no contradiction between being a Christian and accepting the notion that God can reveal himself in other faiths and in those with no faith.

Jesus himself was a Jew. The religion based on his teachings – Christianity – came later. Jesus preached the Gospel to all comers – to the hated Samaritans, to the Pharisees and scribes, to the lowly and dispossessed – no one was excluded because of their background or prior beliefs. The Gospel is for all peoples, in all places, at all times. The workings of the Holy Spirit are never confined to any one person, nation, Christian denomination, or faith group. The Spirit blows where it wants and when it wills. If we think that our particular ways are somehow superior to everyone else’s, if we look down on others, if we are exclusive rather than inclusive, then that is to embrace the pride and arrogance that Jesus was at such pains to attack in the religious leaders of his day. They were so concerned with preserving their own power and prestige that they couldn’t see the Truth when it was standing in front of them.

No one group has a monopoly on holiness or love, no one person has a special hot-line to God that no-one else can access. What does God want? He wants to share himself with us, with the whole of creation – a loving relationship that is open to everyone and freely given. This isn’t theology – it’s common sense. 

As St Peter said, ‘God has no favourites’. No matter who you are, where you are from, or what you have done, God sees you as his beloved child.

Paul Higginson is a retired Religious Education and Politics teacher and author of Doing Christianity: How Religion is about what you do, not what you believe. Before teaching, he worked in a halfway house for people living with schizophrenia and later spent time working with St. Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta. He now works part-time as a Schools Inspector. Married with three children, he lives in Hertfordshire, UK.