I recently encountered three similar encouragements that EU is getting a bit of a better look:
Scot McKnight, a progressive evangelical N.T. prof at North Park recently blogged (Jesus Creed on Patheos) about Bell and Hell, and surprised me by challenging contributors who argued that the precise meaning of hell and damnation passages was less than clear, saying, “I’m stunned that anyone could think they are less than clear,” implying ECT or final hopelessness. But he also noted that he was planning soon to teach a class on Hell and Universalism, because there were unresolved issues that he thought he still needed to work through. My impression is that reading TEU has at least raised questions that I did not observe in him previously.
Similar was the N.T. Wright video link that someone here recently noted that defended Rob Bell. He did blast American Christians for a loveless obsession with justifying inflicting ‘hell’ on most of the world, saying Bell was rightly trying to affirm God again as someone who really loved people. He began though by saying that he has never been a universalist and doesn’t think that fits the N.T. But he added as I once reported about comments on TEU in San Diego that there are some passages that are hard to explain, and I took this to mean it’s hard to explain why they are not universalist.
Third, I listened to a lecture from a Regent College professor, John Stackhouse (a free download on their site). His students challenged his view that God does everything possible to keep people from going there, observing that it seems God would have the ability to be more successful than it appears he is. He responded like so many evangelical academics who can live with signing ECT statementsthat he didn’t think very many people would be in hell. Also striking, he vigorously defended that “aionios” doesn’t mean forever, which would be am outrageous injustice. He suggested sinners will suffer an appropriate length for justice’ sake, and then apparently disappear a la N.T. Wright, or be annihilated. But he did offer Biblical examples of ‘eternal’ as temporary, as if everyone should know it can’t mean eternal
