Caroline's Blog

It may not be so easy after all

I wrote that it was easy to be a universalist; one just have to believe in the possibility of post-mortem conversion.

But now I am thinking it is not so easy because universalism calls for the re-conversion or re-evanglization of the Church. It seems like such a tiny change in theology to say that perhaps physical death is not a barrier to God's plans for a person but doing so seems to require a change in how we do everything from the kid's programs to the senior's programs.

I once taught Beta, which is a continuation of Alpha. Beta is based on Neil Anderson's Bondage Breaker, which is a great book, but Beta as taught by Anderson was extremely modern and foundational. Being postmodern, I had to tweak every chapter to fit my worldview. Universalism calls for such tweaking from the way I read my bible to the way I talk to people.

Great theologians like Martin Luther or Karl Barth have issued the call of refromation in their times. We are reformed and ever reforming. Semper reformada. I hope someone just like them will rise up under the banner of a universalism that is both trinitarian and biblical and be that voice in the desert.

annihilation/conditionalism

Someone asked me if I considered conditionalism as well as universalism.

I hadn't really thought about it. I used to be a 5 point Calvinist until the night C. Baxter Kruger preached at my church and I became convinced that Jesus Christ died for the sins of the entire world. With the L knocked out of TULIP, I slid into universalism. Conditionalism greased the way because those brave theologians proved exegetically that hell is not eternal.

I prefer universalism to conditionalism because:

1. Quite a few church fathers and a lot of the early Christians believed in universalism. How else could the message that salvation is by grace alone through faith be good news unless it included all those who have not heard because they could not hear. The Protestant Reformation resulted in so many universalist congregations that Catholic church historian Harnack said the reformers were "apocatastatists at heart".
2. All the passages about hell, punishment, damnation, condemnation can be read as remedial correction as well as finite in endurance. If Jesus Christ atoned for all of our sins, it seems odd that some people would be resurrected just so that they can be punished before being snuffed out permanently.

Nevertheless, a lot of my friends are conditionalists and I can live with that position. Universalism is a pretty scary step for nearly all Evangelicals and I think it's because universalism has always been linked with liberal theology, heresy and unitarianism for the last 2 centuries. It's time to re-ground and re-present universalism as biblically solid orthodox doctrine, a theological task ably taken by Thomas Talbott,  Jan Bonda and Gregory MacDonald (which is a pseudonym).

So now, if a Christian were presented with 3 biblically sound doctrines: exclusivism, conditionalism, and universalism, why would anyone not choose universalism? Does it not best represent God as revealed by Jesus, our God who chose to call Himself "The Lord saves" when he came to dwell among us as a man?

Aftermath

I had a family over for dinner last Saturday. She used to be in my cell group back when I was part of a church plant. She had decided to marry an atheist and my pastor insisted that I tell her that was wrong, even though she already knew that, because it was my duty as cell group leader. Another person in my cell group told me same saying that she'll feel bad if she did not say something to warn her sister and then something bad happened later. So I did. She cried. I felt bad. I wasn't invited to the wedding.

But now that I'm a Universalist, everything is new again. I sent her an email to check out the wikipedia article and I had them over. They have 2 beautiful daughters and he is going to church with the family and reading a lot. Ever the skeptic, he gravitates towards literature that is fringe like Gnosticism, in the belief that they probably have more truth than the mainstream publications. I told him I prefer the inclusiveness of mainstream Christianity to the elitism of Gnosticism. We had a great time. I feel much better about what happened so long ago. 'Sides, the Christian man she married before while on missions was kind of a weirdo and a creep.

As for my former pastor, he is leaning towards Universalism as well. His cousin died young and suddenly. His aunt collapsed in grief. They are a Christian family but his cousin was not a believer. As his aunt wept, the Holy Spirit spoke through my pastor, asking, can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion for the child she has borne? Even if she does, I will not forget you. My pastor  said it was a very holy moment.

Now if only I can find the girl I was trying to evangelize at some church winter camp eons ago. She tearfully told me she could not accept because then she would have to believe that her brother is in hell. I lamely told her that she can not know if he called out to Jesus just before he died.

Believing what I believe now, I  have truly good news for her.