Our pastor has used the arresting metaphor of a man lost in an airport, who has misplaced his itinerary and is now trying desperately to find the right gate to board his plane home. The pastor then asks the congregation, How helpful is it if he is told, “Don’t worry about it: Any of the gates will work, and any of the planes will take you home”? Not very, right? — but this is what we’re told by those nonjudgmental bien pensants who assure us that all faiths, any faith can take us to Heaven.
I like that metaphor, and I note the way it complements Walker Percy’s (and I think others’) metaphor of man as a castaway. We sense that our island home — that is, life on this earth — is not our true and final destination, and so we should, we must continue to search (discerningly) for it.