Beyond the Salvation Wars: Why Both Protestants and Catholics Must Reimagine How We Are Saved

A Deep-Rooted Reimagining of Salvation

God has provided salvation, but when does it begin? What is required of us? Can we lose it? These and other disputed questions have divided Christians for centuries.

Matthew W. Bates has already shown that the gospel is about King Jesus and that faith includes allegiance. In Beyond the Salvation Wars, he unpacks additional truths from the Bible and the early church to describe how salvation happens.

Bates offers a new model, encouraging Protestants and Catholics toward long-term unity. But his proposal contains strong medicine: it doesn't sugarcoat current Protestant and Catholic errors but diagnoses with precision for the future health of the church.

By using accessible writing and stories, Bates shows what Scripture teaches about baptism, election, regeneration, assurance, and justification. A companion to his previous book, Gospel Allegiance, this book will appeal to those who want to discover core truths about how we are saved--for their personal journey as well as for final Christian unity.

Matthew W. Bates (PhD, University of Notre Dame) is a professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lombard, Illinois. He is the author of Gospel Allegiance, Salvation by Allegiance Alone, and Why the Gospel?, which won a 2024 Christianity Today Book Award and was named the 2024 Resource of the Year by Outreach magazine. Bates also cofounded and cohosts the popular Bible and theology podcast OnScript. He lives with his family in Quincy, Illinois.