Here's a brief followup of sorts to last week's post dealing with salvation and universalism. Today's Los Angeles Times has an article dealing with a recent survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. A sample of about 1400 people was asked a slate of questions on whether more than one religion can lead to salvation and what one must do to earn eternal life. The respondants were split among white evangelicals, white mainline Christians, black Protestants, and white Catholics. 65% of the whole sample agreed with the statement "Many religions can lead to eternal life". Asked whether actions or beliefs were more determinative of who gets saved, 11% of evangelicals opted for actions, while a solid 64% went for right beliefs. The respective figures for white mainliners were 33/25; Catholics somewhat surpisingly came out at 47/13. So much for all those catechism lessons. Oddly enough, those holding to universalism (the belief that everyone without exception will be saved) ranged from 1% of evangelicals to a whopping 3% of mainliners and Catholics, a figure so small as to be possibly statistically insignificant.