Orthodoxy: According to fundamentalist born-again Christians, only Christians can be saved (and thereby go to heaven), and only those who preach the doctrines of the trinity, salvation by grace, and biblical inerrancy can be Christians. Mormons go to hell because they "worship the wrong God." The idea seems to be this: if I say the little Jerry Fallwell prayer, I'll only really be saved if I accept the doctrine of the trinity. Otherwise I will have prayed to the wrong god.

Let's look at this from god's perspective: obviously god must hear the prayer of the misguided believer. He hears everything. So perhaps he concludes that they are talking to someone else. The obvious question now is: how wrong can a believer's theology be before god stop's listening? When someone says, "our father who art in heaven...." God says, "hey, that's me!" But when they say "our father who art on Kolob" he says "wha? They must be talking to someone else."

What about believers (such as little kids) who have no theological training at all? Does God respond to the prayer of a 4-year-old who thinks he has a beard and lives on a cloud? What if we imagine God having the wrong race or gender? Does he listen then? What if the little kid calls him by the wrong name? What if somebody says, "I don't know if there's anyone up there but if there is, I'm talking to you!" What if someone calls him Allah? Does he ignore those prayers? Germans say "Gott." Do their prayers get through? What if someone thinks "Satan" is the name of the all-powerful trinitarian God who saves by grace and is the father of Christ. Does God hear the prayer that runs, "our Satan who art in heaven..." The theology is right but the name is confused. Surely the true God would punish such a failed attempt at worship with the eternal lake of fire.