World religions
The Christian faith and the faiths of the world
Comparison is only honest when the other side is described in a way its followers would accept. Each entry below sets out what a faith teaches, what it sees clearly, and then the point where Christianity genuinely disagrees.
The short version
Nearly every religion is a set of instructions for reaching God, becoming enlightened, or balancing a moral ledger. Christianity is the claim that God came down and did the reaching himself — and that the evidence for it is a tomb that was found empty.
c. 2000 BC · Torah
Judaism
The faith of Israel: one God, covenant, Torah — but Jesus is not received as Messiah.
What Judaism teaches
Judaism worships the one God who made covenant with Abraham and gave the Torah to Moses. Its Scriptures are the Tanakh (the same books as the Christian Old Testament, ordered differently), interpreted through the Talmud and rabbinic tradition.
Salvation language is largely about covenant faithfulness and repentance rather than a fall requiring a divine rescuer, and the Messiah is generally expected as a future human deliverer.
Shared ground
Christianity is not a rival religion invented from scratch; it began as a movement within Judaism claiming that Israel's promises had reached their fulfilment. Christians and Jews share Scripture, the moral law and the hope of a coming kingdom.
Where Christianity differs
- —The disagreement is about Jesus: Christians confess him as the promised Messiah, crucified and risen, and as God the Son.
- —Because of that, Christians read the Temple sacrifices as pointing forward to his once-for-all sacrifice.
To them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants... and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ.
Romans 9:4-5
c. 610 AD · Qur'an
Islam
One God (Allah), Muhammad as final prophet, Jesus honoured as prophet but not divine.
What Islam teaches
Islam is strictly monotheistic (tawhid). It reveres Jesus (Isa) as a great prophet born of a virgin, but denies that he is the Son of God and denies that he was crucified. The Qur'an is held to be God's final, uncorrupted word, delivered through Muhammad.
Salvation rests on submission to God, and on deeds weighed at judgement, with mercy at God's discretion.
Shared ground
Both faiths affirm one Creator, moral accountability, prophecy, prayer, charity and a final judgement. Conversations go best when Christians honour that seriousness rather than caricaturing it.
Where Christianity differs
- —Christianity confesses God as Trinity and Jesus as God incarnate — the very claims Islam denies. There is no way to hold both.
- —The crucifixion is denied in Islam and is the centre of the Christian gospel; the historical evidence for Jesus' death is unusually strong even among non-Christian historians.
- —Assurance differs: Christians rest on Christ's finished work, not on a balance of deeds.
God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
1 John 4:9
Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.
1 Peter 3:18
Ancient · Vedas
Hinduism
A family of Indian traditions: karma, reincarnation, and release (moksha) from the cycle.
What Hinduism teaches
Hinduism is not one system but many: some schools are pantheistic (Brahman is all), some devotional and effectively monotheistic (bhakti towards Vishnu or Shiva), some polytheistic in practice. Common threads are karma, samsara (rebirth) and moksha (release).
Time is generally cyclical, and the goal is escape from the cycle rather than resurrection into a renewed world.
Where Christianity differs
- —Christianity says history is linear and headed somewhere: creation, fall, redemption, new creation — not endless cycles.
- —Guilt is dealt with by forgiveness bought at the cross, not worked off across many lives.
- —The body is not a prison to escape; it is redeemed and raised.
It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.
Hebrews 9:27
c. 500 BC · Siddhartha Gautama
Buddhism
A path out of suffering by extinguishing craving — generally without a Creator God.
What Buddhism teaches
The Four Noble Truths diagnose life as marked by suffering (dukkha) caused by craving, and prescribe the Eightfold Path leading to nirvana. Classical Buddhism is non-theistic: there is no Creator to relate to, and the self as a permanent entity is denied (anatta).
Shared ground
Buddhism sees clearly that grasping and self-obsession wreck human life. Christians can agree entirely with the diagnosis of craving while disagreeing about the cure.
Where Christianity differs
- —Christianity treats suffering as an intrusion God will finally end, not as an illusion to detach from.
- —The self is not dissolved but healed, forgiven and raised; the goal is communion with a person, not extinction of desire.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more.
Revelation 21:4
c. 1500 AD · Guru Nanak
Sikhism
One formless God, ten Gurus, and liberation through devotion, honest work and service.
What Sikhism teaches
Sikhism affirms one God without form, rejects caste and ritualism, and centres on meditation on God's name, honest labour and sharing with others. Its scripture, the Guru Granth Sahib, is treated as the living Guru. Reincarnation and karma are retained from the Indian context.
Where Christianity differs
- —Sikhism's ethic of service and equality overlaps warmly with Christian practice; the divide is over the incarnation and the cross.
- —Christianity locates liberation in what God did for us in Christ, not in the merit of devotion and good living.
He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy.
Titus 3:5
Contemporary
New Age & modern spirituality
'Spiritual but not religious': inner divinity, energy, manifestation, and truth as personal.
What it teaches
This is less a religion than a mood: crystals and horoscopes for some, manifestation and 'your truth' for others. The common core is that the divine is within you and that spiritual authority is your own experience.
Where Christianity differs
- —Christianity says the problem is not that you have forgotten your inner divinity but that you are estranged from a God outside you who loves you.
- —Truth is not personal property; it is a person who can contradict you and still be for you.
I am the way, and the truth, and the life.
John 14:6
Modern · non-religious
Secular humanism
Human flourishing pursued through reason and science, without God.
What it teaches
Secular humanism affirms human dignity, rights, science and progress while denying the supernatural. Historically it inherited much of its moral furniture — equal worth, care for the weak, universal rights — from Christianity.
Where Christianity differs
- —Christians agree humans have extraordinary worth, and say why: they bear the image of God. Without that grounding, dignity becomes a preference we hope everyone keeps sharing.
So God created man in his own image.
Genesis 1:27
Where this came from
We're not experts — these are the sources we used while researching this page. Read them yourself, keep digging, and hold us to them.
- [1]Pew Research Center — The Global Religious Landscape
Adherent numbers and global distribution.
- [2]Britannica — Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism entries
Founders, scriptures, core teachings and historical development.
- [3]Harvard Divinity School — Religious Literacy Project country profiles
How each tradition is actually lived, not only what its texts say.
- [4]Primary scriptures: Qur'an (quran.com), Tanakh (sefaria.org), Bhagavad Gita and Pali Canon (accesstoinsight.org)
Where a religion is described, its own text was read first.