what do you think of christian universalism?:)

[jesus lover]

What do you think of christian universalism?

 

[Lamb]

Define what you mean by the term?

 

[Frankj]

Unsound doctrine.

Basically all roads lead to heaven, but that is not what Jesus taught when he taught of the wide and the narrow ones.

The last Pope seemed to think this way and the current one maybe also as well as a number of Christian denominations and New Age pseudo Christian movements.

I suppose it depends on what you believe about Biblical truth and whether or not you believe the Bible actually says what it means and means what it says as to whether you accept this as a true or false doctrine, but consider that the latter days are to be days of deceit according to prophecy.

 

[Can't think of a name]

What do you think of christian universalism?

There's a verse in Timothy that says "Christ is the saviour of all men. Even to those who believe". I think this COULD be taken in two senses. 1) Christ is the propitiation for all men but not all men will accept him. and 2) This denotes universal salvation for all people at the end of time.

It is because of verses like this that there are so many different groups of Christianity. And woe to you if you hold an exclusive interpretation that others consider to be heretical! It shouldn't really be that way though. And yes people will fight tooth and nail and to the death even over their cherished interpretation or belief. That's because beliefs are strong things and in the wrong hands they can become fanatical. Let's stop to consider that the Bible contains many passages like this one and that it is not a problem with the texts themselves but that they are often contradictory in such a way that leaves them open to different interpretations to different people. These aren't contradictions per se but subtle differences that can lead to people coming away from them with dogmatic views. It's hard to bring out of such texts just one view that is the only correct one.

People will say that if everybody goes to heaven in the end that hell isn't eternal either and thus a great portion of the Bible appears to be contradicted. But usually you will find that those that are staunch in their views about this matter are more interested and involved in eschatological points of view. They have a fear based approach. They concentrate so much on the book of Revelation to the detriment of what is meant by the "Kingdom of God" that they don't even seem to realise that Revelation is part of the literary genre of apocalyptic literature which contain so much symbolism it is almost impossible to derive any literal understandings from the text (although some of that is mixed in). They are petrified of going to hell or of their friends and family going to hell that instead of concentrating on God they are more focused on the afterlife. But the presence of God now is the same thing as heaven, not so much in location but in conscious awareness. All of that is to not say that hell doesn't exist in some way. Certainly if the soul or spirit exists and is present in the physical body right now while we are alive then it stands to reason it has to go somewhere when the physical body dies. And that might be a bad place or a good place. It's helpful to keep hell in mind during this life we have so that when we die we end up in a good place. But overemphasis on hell is not good. I didn't get bamboozled into outright terror of hell when I came to God and God saved me because my priority was not that God could save me from hell but rather that I wanted to be with God for God's sake alone. Otherwise it would have constituted a bribe and the Bible says God doesn't accept a bribe.

One factor in favour of the idea of a universal salvation is that humans are made in the image of God. That means that God would have to send a part of Himself to hell when he sent people to hell and that view is ludicrous. My own view is that I don't know what the complete picture is but if we can allow the Bible to speak for itself and not force our own views on the text, there are possibilities that leave room for different views. In other words, I don't know. But I do know this - humans are stubborn creatures and it is due to bigotry, pride and anger that they feel it is justified to murder other people who hold a different view - and that that type of behaviour belongs to the dark ages and ought not to exist today.