Christian exclusivism states that “Christians are the only ones going to heaven. Everybody else is left behind.” Of course many other religions say the same thing, but let’s ponder the Christian exclusive club.
So before Jesus came there was nobody in heaven except God and angels. When the first official Christian died, there was only one soul who must have been lonely (Jesus’ death doesn’t count because he and God were in heaven before his death and he just returned to his rightful place there).
Way back, Christianity was floundering as to how many people had joined the church so heaven’s human population stayed small. There were martyrs so several groups went to heaven but that is not a large number. Heaven is so big how could they find each other?
When Constantine came along and mandated Christianity be the official religion of Rome, now THAT expanded the number of souls in heaven! Even Romans who were reluctant to abandon their pagan deities but were obedient to the mandate got in.
But which Christianity are we going to accept back there in early Christian times? There were quite a few rattling around and it wasn’t until the Council of Nicaea in 325 when Constantine demanded that Christianity shape up and decide what to believe officially, that the “real” Christianity emerged, meaning the one that modern Christians buy. Back then someone had to tell the souls that chose the wrong Christian beliefs to get out.
Now there are over 2.38 billion Christians world wide. Lots of souls will be up there, but what you might want to worry about is the fact that fundamentalist Christianity is growing by leaps and bounds and are they ever aggressive – 35,000 conversions a day, says one source (the Pulitzer Center). Depending on how reliable that poll is, when you get there be careful if you have any radical ideas about Jesus. You might get evicted.