The Evangelical Universalist Forum

EU's relevance to pluralists and atheists

Evangelical Universalism Arguments against Evangelical Universalism
#1

Hi Everybody,

We obviously spend a lot time defending and extending universalism to non-universalist Christians, but how successful r we to extending to non-Christians? Of course, some univ’s might not find an urgency as would a Cal or Arm to perform the Great Commission, though I think that reasoning is largely fallacious, for even if God’s wrath, or our separation from God, is only temporary, it still behooves one to know God as soon as possible. Yet, pluralists can be offended by the evangelical portion of universalism, EU is “modernist” (as opposed to post-modern) and “patronizing”, even though it has a very kind message of salvation for everybody. Then, agnostics and atheists, and even liberal Christians, seem to have an indifference to the afterlife, in that they are not terrified by the prospect of death and/or think the afterlife is mythological and unscientific. (Not to imply that the main pt of Christianity should be eternal life and the afterlife, but one would think they’d be significant portions :smiley: )

Can EU be significant to non-evangelicals? Why are people increasingly indifferent about the afterlife? (I concede I may be wrong about this - for, as Jason has proved to me, the gulf b/w experience and actual statistics/demographics can be quite surprising). Is it just that, in the West at least, our creature comforts and technology insulate us from such considerations? I don’t think people should be morbid and overly philosophical either (which is sometimes my tendency :smiley: ) but, I agree with WLC, and philosophers like Sartre, that life w/o God, and as a corollary to that, eternal life (though maybe some process theologians and liberals would deny this, for they differentiate b/w eternal life and eternal meaning) is meaningless and absurd, as I believe Michael Cole recently pointed out. Granted, we could be wrong about that, and atheists can lead happy lives perhaps, but do they do this either obliviously or stoically (a la Camus)?

Thoughts?

#2

I talk to a lot of atheists here and there on-line and I don’t see that those who do talk about death are uniformly blithe about the prospect. Some of them seem clinically depressed and frankly terrified – but they’re determined to face the facts without a crutch. It’s relatively easy for the young I suppose – mostly – it’s when you get older and friends start to die that it becomes bleaker and more dreary by the day. The other part of the equation of course is freedom. Young atheists are giddy about how drunk they are while posting, their many girls (yeah right . . .) and various and sundry transgressions. Again, as you get older and start to pay the price for a selfish life, it’s not so much freedom as bondage. Now certainly this isn’t the majority. It’s probably the majority of those who like to post on-line and ridicule “theists.” I’m guessing most atheists are just normal people doing their work and taking care of their families – or living under bridges too – I’ve know a few of those as well.

To me, I don’t have a lot of trouble talking to atheists. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems these days that anyone who doesn’t profess a particular religion tends to call himself an atheist or an agnostic. They’re not all dogmatic about it. But hey, they get in my face and ask some question intended to be offensive and I give them back a reasonable and intelligent answer. They asked. For that reason I find it easier to share (on-line) with atheists than just about anybody else. :wink: What they do with that is between them and God. Only the Holy Spirit can change hearts; that’s above my ability level.

#3

When i mention my faith to those that have none, i usually include the disclaimer that i don’t believe in hell, and try to keep it brief why not. I’ve had open curiosity from some. Usually my tactic is just to befriend people and accept them where they are, and let God hopefully shine through me, as He’s a better evangelist than i’ll ever be. But if people have questions, i can try to answer from my perspective. I think a lot of people (maybe in the UK at least) are starting to recognise that Dawkins isn’t totally accurate to say religion is behind all the badness in the world, and that religion and faith can add meaning and direction. So they find those things somewhat attractive, even if rationally they can’t believe it (yet?). They struggle with Genesis and hell, both of which i’ve struggled with myself, and so i have some thoughts to add that aren’t just “well the Bible says so, so it’s true”.

I think once we’ve “figured out” how amazing UR is (i’m not really an EU, as i’m definitely a post/ex evangelical and thus rather post modern in contrast to how you defined EU above), then the attraction and relevance this has for others ought to be the same as that extended by any sincere form of Christianity. The only difference is that we believe God is altogether more loving, forgiving and persistent than many Christians allow. So that means we ought to seize the day and come now, but it also means God is patient with us.

What was really cool was the other day, my missus and i were talking to my non-Christian friends, and while we both agreed on the essentials, she is more open to hell-as-eternal-separation-due-to-free-will, but we still held it together i think :laughing: We kept stressing how it’s not a rational choice, but a relational one…and that it really requires God to reach out to us. my friends wanted to believe but just found it difficult and asked questions like “eternal life is great, but what happens in several billion years when the sun goes out, or even after that if the universe ceases to exist.”
It was a cool chat!

#4

I don’t know that I talk to many pluralists per se, but when I talk about my religion with non-Christians I concentrate a lot more on ortho-trin. I do mention where I think orthodox trinitarian Christianity goes, but I think it’s even more important to talk about why I think final restoration to goodness is true – and that means talking about ortho-trin. Mainly I mention universalism to let non-Christians know I’m not going where they may be afraid I’m going.

I have a hard time imagining EU per se being relevant at all to pluralists any more than any other religious belief is ‘relevant’ to religious pluralists (other than the religious belief that all religious beliefs are equally relevant, which must logically be more relevant to religious pluralists than any religious belief that says all religious beliefs aren’t equally relevant !!wargamer.com/forums/smiley/icon_explosion.gif!!! :wink: ).

But in practice I have found it does seem relevant to even some pretty hardcore evangelical atheists (so to speak) because once they finally figure out I’m a Christian universalist (…they can be a bit thickheaded and unable to pay attention to detail) even they don’t seem to want to fight with me anymore. And far more sober atheistic apologists seem to respect me more than they already did for respecting sober atheism. :slight_smile:

It helps people give more of a hearing to the religious details I believe and am apologizing about in tiny meticulous details (since after all there are a bunch of details to discuss for establishing belief).

So it helps my evangelical efforts such as they are – I’ve always been more of an apologist and thus a supporter of evangelism than having gifts of actual evangelism, but then again I’ve done several times more evangelism (small though that still is compared to vocational evangelists) in the fifteen years since becoming a universalist than in all the decades before then.

Have I ever led anyone to Christ thereby? I don’t know. But as an apologist I’m not usually near the point of decision; I’m more like a tech support guy in the background. If I can help then great, but I’m naturally not going to be near many sales. :slight_smile:

#5

Modern society has evolved. We have learned and gained knowledge since the writings of the Bible. The Bible is false in many ways. It tells us to follow and imitate Christ who was so passive and selfless to the point where he let people abuse and torture him. This is what the martyrs did as well because they were following in the footsteps of Christ. My universalism is different. I believe God predestines everybody to heaven. Because God is in control and infinite in wisdom, love, power, and holds my future in His hands I have hope. I have value and worth because I have been created by God and I am His child. My ethic is - Trust God - Take care of yourself - and Help others. This is the basic teaching of the A.A. group that I go to. Not all groups are the same and not everybody agrees with each other but the basic idea is love, justice, and faith. How do I take this to others? I just share it and for those who want to listen and can get something out of it - great. I’ve tried to blend it with the Bible’s message, seeing that I was “saved” at 15 years old, but I can’t. I have to let go of the Bible. It’s out of date for the modern world and is less effective at helping people. Psychiatry, counseling, medicine, and spirituality is where it’s at in today’s pluralistic world. I want to gain more self-reliance, more patience, and more self-confidence. These are the things the Bible doesn’t want you to have. It tells you that your heart is wicked and to not lean on your own understanding. In such a position you never grow up. “Without Christ I can do nothing” is what it says. I’m moving in the opposite direction.

#6

Cole,

You might be in a position to talk with some meaningful experience about what AA means and how it works and what it does or doesn’t do, if you’ve been (more or less) experienced with it over a significant period of time; but I recommend waiting until you’ve held a Christian or even a non-Christian position consistently for ten years (instead of ten days, or less) before you offer interpretation on it against other views.

Is this the same Christ/Lord/YHWH you were also complaining about the Bible falsely teaching was so warlike and combatative yesterday? :unamused:

The point to Christ’s voluntary self-sacrifice was to help save His enemies, repeatedly talked about in the same scriptural texts you’ve decided (now) to throw away – something we’re called to also do once we’re strong enough to do so. Weak and crippled people aren’t called to do that yet.

You may decide to reject that, too, as false and unrealistic (in which case you should also reject AA and virtually everyone else who has voluntarily suffered to any degree out of their strength to help you), but at least take the time to get the point you’re rejecting right.

It is also the basic teaching you’re in principle throwing away in the other quote and related sayings from you recently, e.g. “‘Without Christ I can do nothing’ is what it says. I’m moving in the opposite direction.” That means you’re also moving in the opposite direction of God holding your future in His hands to give you hope, and having value and worth because you have been created by God and are His child. Nor can you or anyone else “Help others” who are moving in the opposite direction of being helped by those strong enough to sacrificially volunteer that help at whatever cost to themselves.

I do agree, however, that you throw your Bible away for a while and not talk about it or dwell on it or try to take any position on it pro or con. A simpler theism seems better suited for you in your condition, and I mean that sincerely not sarcastically. (Also taking your medicine etc.) I can certainly also applaud, in principle, any attempt at rejecting what you see to be inconsistencies, even if on particulars I (sometimes) don’t agree about what counts as an actual inconsistency.

But by that same token it’s hugely inconsistent to talk one moment about how you put your trust and faith in someone stronger than yourself to voluntarily and graciously help you, and then the next moment to reject as foolish and false and disempowering the sacrificial help of the strong for the weak (and to reject “grace” while keeping 'love") when it seems like you might be expected to do the sacrificial help now or later.

Certainly today’s modern world of militantly self-reliant atheists and religious pluralism and vague spiritualism etc. rejects in principle the theistic universalism you (now) profess to hold at the start of your paragraph, in favor of pretty much the same position you take at the end of the paragraph. But they’re being self-consistent about that, at least. “Without God, infinite in wisdom, love, and power, you have no hope and can do nothing, you say. We’re moving in the opposite direction. In such a position you’ll never grow up to gain more self-reliance and more self-confidence.” That’s what such people would (and do) say. Even a mere but sincere theism, even with universalism as part of it, is too hot or too repressive for them.

You can’t have it both ways in principle. But neither, in practice or even coherent principle, can you (or they) be so self-reliant as to not be dependent upon other people or upon fundamental reality, for your continuing existence; much less (unlike what some atheists aim for in principle over-against what they regard to be fundamental reality, impersonal Nature) can you qualitatively transcend ultimate reality. The self-reliance of “the modern world”, in its various modes of rejecting particular religious belief, isn’t altogether a bad thing, but it isn’t internally coherent with the facts.

Just, whatever you choose to believe this week or tomorrow, don’t be ungrateful to those who sacrificially help you out of their strength as though they are being fools to do so. People might stop helping you for a while if you do.

#7

Hey Jason,

Me and God work together. God doesn’t do everything for me like the Bible teaches. It’s God helps those who can’t help themselves and God helps those who help themselves. Human responsibility and predestination are paradoxical as Dr. Peter Kreeft has explained. It’s both/and. So, what I said isn’t contradictory at all. I’m grateful for those who have helped me. But I think they are wrong about the Bible. The Bible doesn’t fit reality. For reality is paradox. The Bible is contradiction. Grace is a concept I don’t hold to. I believe in love and justice. Take care of yourself and help others. I’m moving in the opposite direction of the Bible, not God. I simply refuse to let people abuse me the way Christ and the martyrs did. I believe in helping the weak. I’m a caregiver for an 83 year old man. But I also believe in helping the strong. When I become more dependent on God I become more independent. Again, it’s both/and. Another paradox. When you transcend either/or it becomes both either/or and both/and. This holds for reality. Jesus taught strictly either/or when He said you are either for me or against me. But Reality is both either/or and both/and.

Here’s how it works:

I have faith that God is in control because it gives me hope. When my faith is in God and His wisdom to run things along with my circumstances this is when fear is uprooted and the major defects of character loose their power. Because God is infinite in wisdom and love and He holds my future in His hands I have hope. It’s faith hope and love that is the motivating factor. I let go and let God as I trust Him to handle my circumstance. He is in control and knows what He is doing even if I don’t understand why at the time. Because I no longer fear the future and have hope I can live in the present moment. Trust God - Take care of yourself - Help Others.

#8

Cindy,

Hahaha … wow. Experience can be so different. Most of the atheists I know in the 30-50 range (though I hope i am not so naive as to think that they couldn’t also be debauching or whatever :smiley: ) tend to be very humanitarian, Greenpeace, charitable, politically motivated, etc And if they are hedonistic by our definition, it would seem consistent, for they have none of the Christian prohibitions against such vices (tho, certain exaggerations as you pointed out would still be pathetic :smiley: ). In fact, it is hypocrite Christians (of course, as Luther pointed out, perhaps Christians should be unashamed in their hypocrisy if we take sin to be a real problem, as opposed to Christians with sparkling smiles and perfect lives) I find to be more in the perpetual social media hedonistic crowd, though, to be fair, some of these wouldn’t qualify as Christian by an evangelical definition, for “Christian” is sufficiently ambiguous nowadays to include virtual atheists (i.e. process thinkers with very high anthropologies or low doctrines of sin).

I have found atheists to be varied as far as their attitude toward Christians, from tolerant (thinking Christianity an untrue, but harmless, hobby or myth) to adamant that Christianity is injurious. What I find a surprising lack of, though I think it is a defensible position, are deists. I don’t like how many atheists define themselves as “freethinkers” so as to suggest that theists are stupid, though perhaps they think faith has to be dogmatic, as opposed to an ideology or a “neutral” worldview. Yet, I hold with Russell that any ideology can be held dogmatically and that all dogmas can be dangerous.

What do you think re pluralism and the notion that any form of Christianity, from Cal to Univ., is somehow politically incorrect as it asserts an absolute truth? I have even heard some pluralists argue that exclusivist Christianity (Cal) is somehow more honest than inclusivist Christianity (Univ.), b/c it wasn’t “condescending”. I take it the patronizing part is that well-off Westerners just happen to have the right religion, while everybody else is deluded (though I might dispute the full validity of that demographical analysis), so Univ. is sort of passively announcing ultimate truth that everybody else is wrong, but with the sweet deal that it doesn’t matter if you aren’t Christian 'cuz you’ll still be loved and given eternal life through Jesus. I take it that you are not a relativist, being an evangelical (?), and that Christian Universalism is T and other religions are F. Have you had experiences defending this?

#9

Whatever, Cole. You aren’t someone who just picked up a Bible for the first time the other day and after reading a few random verses wildly out of context thought you ought to warn people about the wimpy Christ who lets people abuse and torture himself to death for no good reason. You don’t get to have even that bare excuse for ignoring the narrative and thematic contexts.

As Lewis used to say (on much the same topic), there is such a thing as the point of a story; and even if someone thinks the story didn’t happen or rejects the point, it’s still important to get the point right even for purposes of disagreement. Spit on what (on any reckoning) is world culture’s most important example of the strong sacrificially helping not only the weak but even the strong’s own worst enemies, if you insist. God knows you know better, or after all this time ought to know better; and no number of popular slogans like “Let go and let God” (which is entirely antithetical to the modern popular trends for self-reliance you also appealed to), or appeals to paradox to save you from the charge of blatant self-contradiction, or even Peter Kreeft (who is certainly antithetical to the modern popular trends for self-reliance you also appealed to), are going to help you get around the results of that slanderous and pernicious ingratitude.

Peter Kreeft would be the first person to agree: you’re totally misrepresenting what the sacrifice of Christ and the martyrs is about. Have fun blinking past any time C. S. Lewis tells you the same thing.

#10

Jason,

I have to take care of myself. If there was a circumstance where I had to complely sacrifice myself I would. But I’m going down fighting.

#11

Jason,

I’m surprised how you can’t see how that works. It has worked for me and millions of others.

#12

Myshkin,

I can’t say as I’ve talked to many pluralists – at least not about spiritual things. I do think they might take exception to the idea that Jesus is the only way to the Father for the reasons you mention. I don’t know what I’d say to such a person – I could guess, but I never actually know until I’m in the situation. Jesus promised the HS would give us the things to say. I do think we need to “study to show ourselves approved,” but everyone’s different and has a different need. If we have our tool-bag well stocked, the HS can show us whether to pull out the screwdriver or the socket set or etc. when the time comes. :wink:

#13

Excellent question Myshkin! I’ve found it easier to talk to atheists/agnostics since becoming an EU.

However, it’s trickier to tell if you’re talking to a Pluralist because when you tell them about Jesus they usually just smile & nod (they don’t necessarily tell you they happen to think He’s just one of many). Even if you pick up they are one, they aren’t usually the kind of person who will bite but instead just stay chilled, almost apathetic, “That’s nice Alex, you have your truth & I have mine - don’t stress about it man.” I haven’t had that many conversation with them so not sure what would happen if I pressed them further…

#14

Cindy,

Well, a pluralist might resent the tool belt analogy :smiley: (though I not the best chooser of analogies myself and am often politically incorrect), I think you are right that the HS can guide us. Speaking of political incorrectness, I am not sure that Jesus was anything like politically correct (which would have been as much, or more as, a virtue in imperial Rome as our day - i.e Pilate Quid est veritas?), for He seemed to make His exclusivist claims to T with little or no compunction. Though, He did seek common ground and cited scripture and used miracles to confirm His T claims. (Maybe, you can perform a miracle to prove EU :smiley: - I wonder if any universalists sought/seek to establish their claims through miracles like the apostles). Now, I’ll have to say if you could, for instance, miraculously transform my Elder Scrolls Online character to a level 70 with a horse and enchanted equipment, then I would have no more doubts about the veracity of universalism - though you may now have doubts about my integrity :smiley:

#15

Alex,

Interesting, I might have think about the faith of some of my friends, though I don’t know how many of those I’ve met are hidden pluralists, b/c the pluralists I come across tend to be those who think that Christianity is essentially exclusivist and doesn’t fit in the pluralist plethora of religions, that Christianity is somehow the only religion that is unable to be pluralistic, does that make sense? The Christians who do try to be pluralist in my exp never mention Christ, and just mention sort of vague things about God to avoid seeming exclusivist. The only example I know of who are both explicit about Christ and pluralism would like the liberal side of the Jesus Seminar, though obviously they don’t hold to any sort of divinity of Christ and meet the pluralist objection to Christainity to being exclusivist that way. (However, I don’t understand this - b/c holders other religions largely don’t feel the need to demythologize ) So, I wasn’t aware of the possibility you’re mentioning…

#16

Radically misinterpreting the sacrifice of Christ for the weak and for His enemies (as though Christ was a fool to do so, so also anyone strong is a fool to sacrifice themselves to help the weak and to help bring their enemies to goodness) has never helped anyone, anywhere, at any time. And that’s what I’ve been complaining about in your approach. All it can do is undermine charity.

If someone spat on you for the efforts you make to help others with what strength you have, and said they won’t be like you, they’re going to help themselves instead, I would be indignant for the same reasons: they’d be assassinating your character and leading other people to not help with what strength they have.

#17

Jason,

Thanks for clearing that up. After talking to Dick I’ve decided to go to the Episcopalian church. That’s where Lewis went and they are not dogmatic about hell.