As I was getting ready for work this morning and listening to an Easter message on YouTube, I heard a very famous evangelical Christian pastor said “If you don’t believe in Jesus, you don’t believe in God.” This is in fact a theologically-loaded statement.

To be fair, his audience was Christian, but I would argue this is an irresponsible theological statement. Let me explain my reasons:

First of all, there are many religious traditions outside of Christianity that profess the belief in God, including Judaism, Islam, Yoruba religion, Vodou, Hinduism, etc. Yet they do not believe in Jesus as divine or God. Some do not equate the belief in Jesus with the belief in God. Othe faith traditions do not interpret this matter as a theological necessity or imperative, that is, to believe both in God and Jesus correspondingly as if these two entities are the same, share the same nature, and have equal power.

Secondly, the conception of God in these various traditions may vary. Thirdly, God is not the property of a particular religious system. Fourthly, even the so-called Abrahamaic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) espouse different conceptions of God that are often contradictory. Finally, while the Christian tradition views God as a Trinity and proclaims that God exists in three eternal persons as Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, other traditions that do not affirm the Christian trinitarian doctrine do not necessarily translate into a disbelief in God.

However, in the “Christian Orthodox tradition,” as a theological position and confession, it is a theological necessity to believe both in Jesus and God. It’s theologically unthinkable to deny Jesus as divine and God’s Messiah and profess the trinitarian God. Christians believe that belief in Jesus as divine is necessary for salvation and the forgiveness of sin.

On the other hand, from a non-Christian theistic framework and when considering non-Christian (religious) traditions, the “disbelief” in Jesus and the belief in God is not a religious transgression nor is it an act of theological agnosticism/atheism.