Kind of true

My seven year old daughter's teacher told her that you don't have to believe in Jesus to get to heaven - you just have to be kind to people.

I guess strictly speaking, that's true. But as I said to my daughter that means you'd have to be 100% kind to 100% of the people 100% of the time, with 0% mean-ness or apathy ever in your whole life.

The whole problem is not whether people are kind to others - it's what to do with the sin and the unkindness and the meanness and the selfishness and the everything else that mucks up all of our lives all of the time.

All of that stuff just doesn't go away, or get cancelled out by extra kindness. It's not like some people believe - that our goodness cancels out our badness. Badness and its effects still exist no matter how much 'penance' is done for it.

The only way badness gets eliminated is by forgiveness. And who's going to forgive us if not God? As my daughter said, "To get forgiven you actually have to say you're sorry first." And if you think your levels of kindness are ok enough, you're not going to say you're sorry!

God's method of forgiveness for our badness is through Jesus. So to get to heaven, we have to accept his sacrifice and his forgiveness for all our sin.

So although Mrs F is right, if we're kind we'll go to heaven, she's only got the first half of the story right. She doesn't have a framework for the second half of the story, or a solution for it.