People like to differentiate between Jesus and 'the church.' Such differentiation is often times appropriate, but it can also be inaccurate. It is sometimes done for the sake of a "tolerance" agenda which is a particularly inaccurate way to go about discussing Jesus.
In America, people often misunderstand freedom of religion. They think that because no one can be forced to believe a certain way (which I think is good) that that means all ways of thinking are equally true (which I think is silly). "You believe what you believe and I believe what I believe" is a fact. However, it does not inform reality, in other words, it does not cause what I believe and you believe to be true. That judgment (truth claims) is separate from personal beliefs. Our freedom is basically the freedom to be wrong!
One important datum for reflection is our previous experiences with truth claims. Have you ever believed something and later found out you were wrong? Of ocurse, we all have. The experience of having been wrong (again and again and again) has shown me that I need to be humble, but it has also shown me that I can move out of error into truth. We learned this lesson in third grade math (and geography, history, etc.). We learn it over and again in life.
Back to my initial point. It is common for people to say nice things about Jesus while denying He is "the only way to God." It is equally common for people to blame Christians or the church for this idea. Often the spiritual not religious folks say this. More commonly secularists. And almost always the 'tolerance crew' who want so firmly to convince us all that each one has his/her own truth.
In today's Gospel at Morning Prayer we heard Jesus say some things which are most "irritating" to a large segment of our population (Luke 10:22ff) "All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him" That, my friends, is JESUS talking. Now it is not terribly difficult to understand these words. They are straightforward. They are also the foundation for Christians who claim only Jesus. One thing to notice is the only Jesus claim is grounded in a deeper reality. Only the Fathe knows the Son and only the Son knows the Father. This means that human reason and human experience are INCOMPLETE. They cannot and do not go far enough. We are not able, on our own, to conjure up God. So all of us, to the extent we rely on our own thoughts and pondering are astray from truth. Me and you have all got an incomplete and incorrect understanding of God. This leads to two corollaries.
First, because all of us are incomplete and incorrect, none of us should impose our beliefs on others. We should be humble and listen and learn. However, because we are all incomplete and incorrect, we are all WRONG! Except, of course, for Jesus. HE knows, He alone knows and He is our source of correct and complete knowledge of God.
Such a claim is irritating to folks in our culture. "I can't imagine God would not reveal Himself in a myriad of ways!" is the battle cry of the Reasonable Folks. Yet it ignores the crucial element, two words which go together as the basis of the claim: "Jesus" and "said."
Jesus said that He ALONE knows the Father. What we know is revealed to us by Jesus (who is the Word made flesh). Our hearing and interpreting are always off just a bit. We must be humble about our claims. But we can also be sure that ONLY Jesus knows. And that means that when people talk nice about Jesus but are irritated by Christian claims that He alone is the way, well, they really are irritated with Jesus. The Romans were irritated with Jesus, too. They crucified Him because of it. Our unbelief is hammer and nail. Our desire to make the tolerance of a social contract respecting freedom of religion into a "tolerance" at the cost of truth is crucifixion.
In the end, how do you respond to Jesus' claim? Standing around the cross mocking, or kneeling at the cross weeping?
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