The Eagle & Child

In order to produce a ‘normative’ statement out of the New Testament it is practically inevitable that one will emphasize one part of the text at the expense of the rest. This functions, at both a scholarly and a popular level, by means of elevating certain parts of the theology of the New Testament…into a [...]

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Perhaps I’ve done this before, but this kind of thing develops over time.  I was thinking about this post on the way home from class this morning and started thinking about the definition of the universalism I refer to from time-to-time on this blog.  There isn’t just one universalism; there are many.  What I am [...]

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I read this in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Ethics the other day: There is no part of the world, no matter how lost, no matter how godless, that has not been accepted by God in Jesus Christ and reconciled to God. (67) Hints of universalism, perhaps?  No.  Bonhoeffer makes a clear statement about the need for salvation [...]

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A cartoon by nakedpastor: (link) One of the appeals of Christian universalism* is that it allows God’s redemptive work in and through Jesus to be much broader than we have traditionally allowed–it sees God’s grace reaching as far as he desires, which is to everyone (see 2 Peter 3:9). The traditional view of eternal punishment [...]

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From Andre: A further thought on justice – because it’s on my mind and is integral to understanding judgment: Traditional Hell is not justice. It is merely torture to no end. The biblical idea of justice does not mean punishment to no end – it means making things right. It is restorative. The notion of [...]

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This is what N.T. Wright has to say about final judgment in Surprised by Hope (the book to which the author quoted in the last post was responding): . . . I believe [the following possibility] does justice to both the key texts and to the realities of human life of which, after a century [...]

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I haven’t touched the subject of Christian Universalism in a while, but I came across some interesting thoughts a couple of weeks ago, which I have been meaning to post.  Once again, even if we don’t believe that scripture supports a Christian Universalist perspective, it is fair to say that hoping for and desiring universal [...]

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