We should completely get rid of the idea of salvation. Salvation is a BAD idea. I’ve written about this before. Here’s a clip from that post:

Salvation is a bad idea because:
1. It’s based on a naïve and sentimental view about how life should be.
2. It says that humanity and the world are intrinsically flawed and need fixing.
3. It has requirements that must be met, or salvation won’t be attained. This creates the fear of losing out or even suffering negative consequences. In some situations, this can be personally damaging.
4. It can lead to unwavering dogmatism and denigration of those who have it wrong.
5. It provides the opportunity for religious institutions (and cults) to exert control over their adherents.
6. It can create a fatalism about this world that thwarts full engagement in making it a better place.
7. It creates an elite class of those who get the requirements right.
8. It casts a negative light on ultimate reality as the source of this reality and makes any fruits of that reality suspect. Theologically, God messed up.  Non-theologically, whatever is the source of this reality is either indifferent, evil, or incompetent.

So, if we get rid of the idea of salvation, then what? Then we can focus on what really matters – how we live. What’s ultimately important is how we treat ourselves, each other, other creatures, and our world. That’s it.

Does that mean that worldviews don’t matter? Absolutely not. Worldviews orient us in the grand scheme of things. They give us a sense of who and what we are, our place in the cosmos, and help us determine how we should live. In other words, they ground our sense of what it means to live a good life. Now, in that sense, if we get rid of the idea of salvation, then the conversations about worldviews can be helpful. If we can agree that how we live is what is ultimately important, then those dialogues can be constructive toward a better world.

Now, I don’t presume that getting rid of the idea of salvation will be easy. It won’t. There are deep existential concerns in play, and serious, profound problems to be addressed. But if we can just agree that this world is fundamentally a beneficent place and that whatever happens after life will also be beneficent, then perhaps that is enough. God chose to live finite lives (through kenosis) and experience life in all its dimensions, including the great joys and beauty as well as the great tragedies. All this is what makes life meaningful both for God-as-transcendent and God-as-living (God’s incarnations) as us and all other creatures. If we can accept that life has great value in all its dimensions, then we can see that this reality is not a mistake in need of a fix and instead get on with the hard work of living the best we can and shaping this world for the good of all.