Everyone can be saved

Yesterday Dustin was telling me about a conversation he had with the self-proclaimed preacher on campus who believes all Mormons are going to Hell and it is his job to "save" us. Talking with Dustin about this man's beliefs got me all riled up about something that always bothers me when I learn about the beliefs of some Christians in the world: the idea that people who are born into countries where Christianity isn't largely present, or in time periods when Christianity wasn't on the earth, are automatically going to Hell because they didn't have the opportunity to come to Christ in this life. I just don't understand how people can believe that they will be saved simply because they happened to be raised Christian and "believe," and anyone who hasn't "accepted Christ" on Earth is automatically damned. In what universe is that fair or just? It just doesn't make any sense. How can someone believe that God would send his children to earth knowing that because they were going to a non-christian society, he was damning them? Why not just send them straight to Hell if nothing they do or say on this earth makes any difference in the matter? It just absolutely blows my mind. I do believe that every person has to accept the Gospel of Christ to be saved, but I also know that a God who is truly a just and merciful God would make sure ALL of his children have the opportunity hear about and accept Jesus. Believing anything else is like picturing God as the teacher in a classroom, and on the first day of class, after assigning the children to their seats, tells them that the ones on the first row will be getting A's in the class, because he put them on the first row, and that everyone else fails automatically. Any 5-year-old child would be able to tell you that is unfair and just plain wrong. How can anyone picture God this way? It is so cruel.

On the flip side of this issue, I also don't understand the Christians who believe that by simply stating that they have accepted Christ's grace, they are now saved. For example, how can it be that a woman who has lived her whole life in poverty in the middle of, say, Thailand, who has never heard of Jesus but has lived a good life, helped her neighbors, raised her children well, and is as moral and virtuous as she can be, is going to Hell, when some greedy self-serving politician in the States is saved because he has supposedly "accepted" the grace of Christ? That just plain doesn't make any sense, and it is unfair. Besides, if you truly believe that grace is "unmerited," that is, given freely by Christ to God's children despite of their works, despite of anything they do or don't do, wouldn't it apply to everyone in the whole world? Isn't proclaiming you've accepted Christ an "act" and is therefore irrelevant to the saving powers of grace? I do believe that it is only through the grace of Christ we are saved. I know we can't become perfect on our own, thus we can't save ourselves by our works. The Bible is full of verses that state that we can only be saved by the grace of God, which is absolutely true, since we can't save ourselves. However, in James chapter 2 verses 14-18 it says

14 What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?
15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,
16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?
17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.

The Book of Mormon spells it out a little more clearly in 2 Nephi 25:23--"it is by grace we are saved, after all we can do." So, we work as hard as we can in this life but fall short, and that's when Christ intervenes with grace. This applies to EVERYONE who has ever lived, not just Christians. The Book of Mormon also lets us know that God will give everyone the chance to hear and accept the gospel of Christ. God loves his children. No one is going to be damned to Hell simply for being born in the wrong time and place. God is loving and merciful and completely fair and just. Every single one of his children will have the chance to choose to accept Christ's gospel and be saved by the ordinances necessary for salvation. Everyone.