Universalism and universality

Replies to readers' questions

and its word definition/meaning

ver.: 12 January 2007

A site user writes :

> The scriptures, to me, seem to implicate there will be a hell for the unsaved.  Yet my local Episcopal
> minister believes we are all saved, no matter what.

If your local priest is an Episcopalian, he/she is free to believe as his/her conscience dictates. That is the Anglican tradition.  But the teaching of the Anglican communion of churches, which the Episcopal church is part of, is that Jesus Christ descended to the dead, and returned from there, and will come again to judge the living and the dead (so the creeds). In Matthew 25, a key Scripture on matters of justice, Jesus is quite clear that there are those who will eternally perish. In the Gospels, Jesus speaks some pretty harsh words about the eternal fate of some people -- words so harsh that the gospel authors sometimes seem embarassed. And one doesn't have to be a flaming fundie to recognize that this is a main thrust of the apocalyptic scenes of Revelation.

The intent of the Crucifixion was universal -- to save all. The gift of salvation is universal -- it is given to all. The mission of a Christian is universal, with love and with the gospel message. But humans as creatures are, in a sense, cosmically suicidal due to our self-evaluation :

1. I'm too good to be sent to a hell, so I must be going to heaven;
2. I'm so unworthy of a heaven that I won't let God bring me there to ruin it.

Christ's death means that our being worthy or unworthy has nothing to do with it. We can, however, still choose not to take part in what God has in store.

God created us as creatures with choice. Some of us are like a prodigal son who decides he'd rather stay with the pigs than be with his father. There is no reconciliation, no welcome, no love, no re-started life, just eternal piggishness. And as much as the father wants the son by his side, he is not; the isolation is complete. The father loses sleep over that, to be sure. Hell is that sort of isolation from God, that sort of eternal piggishness. Hell is a gift rejected, a relationship destroyed, a citizenship betrayed. You know such things happen in life, and when you see it, you see and feel the pull of hell -- just like you see the Spirit at work in doing good, making good things happen, just like we find Christ in the Bread and Wine. When the scales fall from our eyes, some of us put them back on.

God wants an empty hell, passionately. So must his true followers. But that is not in our hands. God will not void our freedom for it, nor is God a Cosmic Teddy Bear who can be smiley-faced nice in the face of cold evil. An empty hell is a goal, a goal which God's revealed Word says is nothing more than that. Your minister bets on the hope, the niceness, the idea that maybe God will eventually convince them all back into the Kingdom by some sort of maneuvering or trickery or sophisticated argument, or a zap that overrides their soul. But that is not Scripture, and is not what Jesus was talking about. God loves us too much and too honestly to do that.

This is the Christian tradition, which is so important to Anglicans. Much more importantly, it is also part of the core of the Christian faith. While one can be in Christ and not believe that some are eternally damned, it comes pretty close to missing the point of it all. That is why the creed authors put it into the creeds so long ago.

What it means to be "universal"

universalism: A universalist (small-u) believes that all people will in the end come into the same situation, the one the Christians call 'the Kingdom of God'. It's been said in many ways over the years : "everyone will be saved", "all will become one", "all will totally cease to be", and so on. This can be treated in many ways. For instance, a Christian-oriented universalist believes that in the end everyone will come to the presence of an all-embracing God who transforms everyone into goodness through divine love. The common conclusion of universalists is that since all will end up the same, then it does not ultimately matter which God you believe in, or that you have any specific beliefs. (That is not to say that they are immoral or evil; they may have other ways of understanding good and evil, and other reasons for loving people and doing deeds that any sane Christian would call "good".)

This is a starkly different view of things than is found in the Bible. In the Bible, it matters whether you worship God or Baal or Mammon -- both for right now and for the hereafter. It matters whether you follow Jesus or reject Him -- both for now and for the hereafter. The Christian faith is not without its legitimately universal side : God loves all, Jesus' death on the cross makes the Kingdom available to all, ethnicity and gender don't matter. Christians are to love all (including our enemies), be a light unto all (part of what Abraham was blessed for), and share the gospel truth with all. But not all accept these blessings, indeed some despise them. However you may envision 'salvation', one thing the New Testament makes clear : it is not yours except through Christ. People are able to refuse God, and the Bible makes very clear that there are serious eternal consequences to that choice.