Hi Bonnie,These web pages which discuss some of the differences between Christianity and Spiritualism may interest you.
http://www.geocities.com/chs4o8pt/principles.html
http://www.geocities.com/chs4o8pt/christian_spiritualism.html
The page, principles.html, also discusses justice in the afterlife.
The main difference is that Spiritualists don't believe in eternal damnation or vicarious atonement. (The question of the deity of Jesus and the trinity are not addressed in the principles of Spiritualism. They is not denied, but are not affirmed either.) You can start on the path of righteousness anytime here or hereafter, but you have to earn your way by doing good works. You don't get a free ticket into the highest levels of the afterlife by what you believe or by forgiveness.
What you believe while you are on earth is less important than that you believe in doing good and desire to avoid harming others. When you reach the afterlife if you have correct expectations it will be easier to make the transition. If you are just aware of what spiritualist believe, when you cross over and you see for yourself you can decide. The Christian ideals of love, forgiveness, selflessness, and humility that Jesus taught are absolute truths and it doesn't matter how you dress them up or what you call it. Buddha taught the same things.
My advice it to take your time deciding what to believe. Find out as much as you can and over time you will discover whether or not your beliefs change. Let them develop by themselves and reveal themselves to you.
There are a couple of very interesting books writen by a Christian minister who was contacted by highly evolved spirits and they tried to teach him about spiritualism. They explained everything they could and then left him to decide for himself (They didn't try to bribe him or threaten him). The books are a bit intellectual so they may not be to everyone's taste but you might look at them to see what you think. There are many Bible references so you may find that interesting. You can download them free from the internet:
http://www.meilach.com/spiritual/books/st/spteach.htm
http://www.meilach.com/spiritual/books/morest/mspteach.htm
There are also links to more free e-books here:
http://www.geocities.com/chs4o8pt/elibs.html
I wouldn't worry too much about evil spirits unless you are interested in learning to be a medium yourself. Evil spirits are not very likely to promote a religion that says you have to earn your way into heaven by good works and that you have to atone for evil deeds also by good works.
The only way to judge a medium is to get a reading by them for yourself. My experience is that mental mediumship (the type of mediumship done by John Edward) is good for proving that our loved ones continue in the afterlife, and for healing grief but it is not very good for obtaining advice on what we should do in this life. Mediumship is not 100% accurate. If I tell you ten very specific things about a spirit and seven of them sound like a spirit you know, then statistically it is very unlikely that I guessed them. However, if I give you a message and I get one word wrong (the word "not") then the entire message can be worthless or harmful.
This link has more on how to recognize a good medium:
http://www.geocities.com/chs4o8pt/natural_mediumship.html#natural_warning2
