Criticisms of exclusivism

• It limits God's unconditional love ad forgiveness by tying him to a fundamentalist interpretation of certain biblical texts
• It lacks balance: the interpretation conflicts with the teaching of Jesus recorded in Luke's Gospel in particular and with the unconditional friendship he showed to those who were generally despised by Jewish society
• This conflict points to the fact that the New Testament is a product of the Church
• New Testament is a product of the Church:

  The Gospels were written by those who were members of the Christian communities and who had absorbed the outlook and teachings of those communities
• New Testament is a product of the Church:

  John's Gospel is thought to have been written in the late first century and to contain its author's beliefs about the significance for Christian belief of the portrayal of Jesus in the earlier Gospels rather than always reporting what Jesus actually said