The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Without Opposition...

Without opposition we run the risk of getting lost in our own minutia and losing the real message - the Gospel itself. Sitting here on Mount Olympus is gratifying - but I would rather be called a heretic than an elitist.

If this place turns into Sleepy Hollow again for lack of contention and fun! - then wake me up every couple weeks so I can read the latest post or two - like the good old days.

And now, with the new ability to ignore ‘foes’, one could go months before seeing a new post. Of course, it’s a little arrogant of me to think that even this post is being read…

I read it. Feel better now?

Are you kidding? There are no less than 20 other threads I want to get back to discussing, not counting other projects I’m working on (or wanting to start working on); and that also doesn’t even count posting up MacDonald transcripts and BSM entries (which are more about providing resources than discussion though that would be okay, too. :slight_smile: )

One of the reasons for making this forum in the first place–the primary reason, actually, or so I was told–was to provide somewhere for universalists to present and find various resources. Which would include discussion on technical points. But sometimes members just like being able to read something that we can make use of in developing a better understanding of what we believe and why; for devotional use; and for our own outreach efforts.

Having opponents around is fine (and we have enough breadth to fence one another on various points, too); but I would rather opponents be Glenn caliber than… well… you know. :wink: Poor opponents are usually at best a distraction (though they can also come up with topics worth discussion. But being poor opponents, they won’t be able to discuss those topics very well.)

‘For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.’

What’s on the line here?

As poor as an opponent might be, they are arguing for something important to them and every Christian. Debaters are made not born - it’s something that can be learned.

I understand what you are saying Jason, but the Gospel (and the understanding of it) is not the exclusive property of those sitting in the rarefied air of Olympus, nor is their argument all that much different from ‘the common man’.

Which Gospel should one be willing to lose his life for? There’s more at stake here than discussing theories - or pretending that an elitism that can’t quite make up it’s mind is somehow superior to a man who has.

‘Dispassionate conversations’ are fine for discussing things - but if they become a call for dispassion itself - is the real message (the thing they SAY they are discussing) then lost?