There’s a well-known (though perhaps apocryphal) story about C.S. Lewis and the distinctiveness of Christianity:

During a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world debated what, if any, belief was truly unique to the Christian faith.

They began eliminating possibilities. Incarnation? Other religions had their own versions of gods appearing in human form. Resurrection? Again, other traditions had accounts of return from death.

The debate went on for some time until C.S. Lewis wandered into the room. “What’s the rumpus about?” he asked, and was told that his colleagues were discussing Christianity’s unique contribution among the world’s religions. Lewis responded, “Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace.” After some discussion, the conferees had to agree.

The notion of God’s love coming to us free of charge—no strings attached—cuts against every instinct of humanity. The Buddhist Eightfold Path, the Hindu doctrine of karma, the Jewish covenant, and the Muslim code of law each offer a way to earn approval. Only Christianity dares to make God’s love unconditional.

(As recounted by Philip Yancey in What’s So Amazing About Grace?)

Whether this story happened exactly as written or not, it accurately reflects Lewis’s own understanding of Christianity and illustrates a very important truth. Christianity is unique among religions in presenting a God who gives grace and mercy even though we do not merit or deserve it. Indeed, Christianity presents a God who graciously died for us while we were still enemies and sinners and invites us into a relationship with Him.

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Not of works, lest any man should boast.
—Ephesians 2:8–9

This outpouring of gracious favor is radically different from the logic of other religious systems. In other faiths, the focus is on what we must do to qualify—to be with God, to achieve Nirvana, or to satisfy the universe’s demands. Timothy Keller referred to this way of thinking as a “performance narrative.” Christianity offers a very different equation—what Keller called the “grace narrative.”

At the heart of the grace narrative is the death of Christ for undeserving and powerless sinners:

“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.”
—Romans 5:6

I love how Christopher Watkin summarizes this grace narrative in his extraordinary book, Biblical Critical Theory:

“[W]hen it comes to the gospel, the criterion for being on the right side is mercy, not performance. Those who are saved by grace are not those who are smarter than others, more rational than others, better behaved than others, kinder or humbler or more generous than others, or better by any criterion of performance whatsoever. Those who are saved by grace are saved despite their performance, not because of it.”

This truly is Christianity’s most distinctive claim—and one that I, a sinner deeply in need of grace and mercy, am eternally grateful for.

Reflecting on it this Christmastime reminded me again of how big a difference there is between Biblical Christianity and Mormonism on this topic. While Christianity embraces grace already given, LDS leaders continue to see grace as something we merit and ultimately deserve.

In a BYU devotional, Apostle Bruce R. McConkie articulated this as explicitly as possible. He cited Doctrine and Covenants 132:5 and emphatically rejected the core of the grace narrative—the idea of unmerited and undeserved blessings:

“All who will have a blessing at my hands shall abide the law which was appointed for that blessing, and the conditions thereof, as were instituted from before the foundation of the world.”

That is the basic, governing, overriding principle that rules all of the acts of men in all ages. No one ever gets anything for nothing. We have received as a free gift the fact of resurrection, but in a sense even that is not free in that we lived meritoriously and uprightly in the pre-existence and earned the right to undergo this mortal probation and the resurrection that follows it. In the broadest and most eternal perspective that there is, no one ever gets anything for nothing; and so we live the law and we get the blessing.

For McConkie, nothing we receive is truly undeserved. We earned the right to come to earth because we were righteous in the pre-mortal life, and any eternal blessing we receive is likewise contingent on our righteousness and faithfulness. This is the heart of the performance narrative that Christ came to deliver us from.

I’ve been grateful to see Latter-day Saints move at least somewhat away from a purely performance-based approach and toward grace. LDS leaders now frequently speak of grace and mercy in ways that they rarely did in the past. But the question is not whether grace is mentioned, but whether it is allowed to be foundational. Is grace the basis of our standing before God, or is it ultimately conditioned on our obedience, faithfulness, and merit? Despite this progress, there remains a reliance on human performance and merit as the foundation for eternal reward.

President Oaks explained this a few years ago:

“We know from modern revelation that ‘all kingdoms have a law given’ and that the kingdom of glory we receive in the Final Judgment is determined by the laws we choose to follow in our mortal journey.”

Ultimately the logic of earning and just deserts expressed in D&C 130:20-21 remains central:

20 There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—
21 And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.

But Christ came to deliver us from this narrative of performance and to free us to live under grace.

In Romans 4, Paul contrasts a wage—something earned through labor—with a gift. Grace is not a wage but something we receive even while ungodly, by trusting in God’s promise:

“Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.”

Later, in Romans 10, Paul explains that it was this clinging to a performance narrative—and rejection of God’s free righteousness—that led Israel to reject Jesus:

“For I testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.”
—Romans 10:2–4

The beauty and power of the gospel of Christ is that, as we admit our own inability to earn God’s favor, we turn to Him in faith and receive it freely. God does not wait for us to merit or earn His blessings and favor. He came to die on a cross to extend grace liberally to us all. Christ died so that God could remain just and yet extend mercy beyond measure—beyond anything we could merit or deserve.

During Christmas, we celebrate this ultimate act of unmerited giving. Christ, who was truly God, condescended into this world to deliver us. We did nothing to merit this gift. God Himself came to dwell among us and to die for us. If Christ did that for us when we were undeserving and alienated from Him, how can we imagine that He will now demand that we earn His mercy and favor?

Christmas is the divine rejection of the performance narrative and the embrace of the grace narrative.

As we celebrate the birth of our Savior, may we look to Him, live by grace, and stop trying to merit or earn God’s favor through our own performance and works.