The Evangelical Universalist Forum

You folks seen this website?

escapetoreality.org/2013/09/27/i … ment-37592

No, haven’t seen it. I’m not familiar with the “Inclusionist” ideas, so I can’t comment on that.

I would disagree with his characterization of Universalism as “All will come in, whether they like it or not.” I’d summarize it more like this: “God is working to bring all creation into Christ, and will continue this work until all are in.”

Sonia

Inclusionism, is the idea that all were included in Christ at the crucifiction and all will be included in its effects. Its basically a universalist position. I just wondered how you folks thought his arguments stack up.

Kind of a massive strawman, that site.

Inclusionism, according to this site, is basically saying that everyone is in (because of Christ) until you mess up somehow. In other words, you name is written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world until it gets blotted out.

Another article at the site it has this to say:

“The doctrine of inclusion is the idea the human race was included in Christ’s death and resurrection. Consequently, everyone of us, right down to the most perverse, God-hating pedophile, is now seated at the right hand of God with Christ Jesus.”

I agree with the first sentence, but saying that pedophiles are now seated at the right hand of God distorts the issue. Universalism says that one way or another we must be prepared for eternal life, whther that happens in the present life or the life to come. No unrepentent pedophile, nor any other sinner for that matter, will be seated at the right hand of God until the necessary regenerative change occurs.

Inclusionism isn’t universalism is one believes that some can be lost eventually.

Are there any inclusionists? Or is this just a made up thing? I’ve heard that Carlton Pearson uses this word; but it seems that he uses it as a synonym for universalism. :confused:

It doesn’t appear to mean the same as inclusivism - but this has at least two different meanings anyway. One is fro ultra-universalism where everyone is just included in salvation however they live without having to face purgatory (I think?); the other is wider hope that people of other religion’s who have not heard of Christ but live in accordance with the light that they know will be saved somehow.

There are non-universalistic inclusionists; naturally they’re going to be Arminian instead of Calv, as it’s a variety of Arm theology.

The idea, as noted above, is that while we don’t earn our salvation we can still exclude ourselves from it by various methods, and in practice that typically means an overt rejection of Christ. A looser but still important notion of inclusivism would be that although we are now included as heirs, which we didn’t have to earn, we must still actively appropriate it, and if we don’t too bad. This notion is tantamount to Arminian exclusivism where in practice someone isn’t yet included until they actively accept Christ, but technically isn’t the same as the classical notion of Pelagianism (probably not held by the historical Pelagius) where we earn our salvation by good deeds or right knowledge or whatever.

The relevant connection to us would be evangelical inclusivism, which is a hopeful answer to the question of “what about those who haven’t heard”, and which can be certainly held by Calvinists. :wink: But it involves a chance (even if per Calvinism only a pro forma chance) being given to everyone sooner or later, either at the point of death or post-mortem, to finally reject or accept salvation in Christ.

In other words, everyone gets included in evangelism eventually: a point that not all Arminians or Calvinists would agree with. But the evangelism (for various non-Kath options, Arm or Calv) isn’t going to be accepted by everyone eventually.

C. S. Lewis, whose ‘school’ of theology I follow (up to my universalism, farther than he took it), was a super-influential evangelical inclusivist, and no doubt stands at the head of modern trends in that direction. I’m not sure how much he influenced Roman Catholic thought (probably a lot, considering how much they appeal to him despite him being a low-church Anglican), but the RCC nowadays tends to be officially inclusivist (they weren’t always), and certainly recent popes have been, going back as far as John Paul II (possibly farther).

Inclusivism sounds like, if you want to retain the idea of people rejecting God forever, the most Biblical option, really

So this guy can officially do one :laughing:

I left a comment on one of his earlier posts where he compared universalism to (what did he call it?) inclusivism?

He doesn’t have much of a handle on universalism; therefore I doubt he has a very deep understanding of inclusivism either.

I was rather confused by the website actually. It seems to actually be putting down inclusivism/ universalism. That was my take based on what I read there. :confused:

Here is a short article detailing (or defending) evangelical inclusivism (he definitely isn’t a universalist but it gives an idea of the position). I also tend to fall into an evangelical inclusvist position (particularly as I considered at least part of the nature of the gospel as being the announcement and implementation of Jesus saving reign as Lord of the world, in which the nations already belong to Him) within the wider position of holding to orthodox universal reconciliation. It is definitely possible to be an orthodox exclusivist univeraslist and Robin Parry’s book was done from that angle in order to get the evangelical univeraslist position clearly across, but said in the Evangelical Universalist that he was sympathetic to an inclusivist position.

Anyway, that a short run down from a non-universalist evangelical inlusivist (lol that was a bit of a mouth-full, we Christians need shorter terms or abbreviations everyone knows :wink: ).

ukapologetics.net/evinc.htm

Melchi

Yes, I see he’s anti inclusivist, anti universalist. I don’t honestly think he knows much about either belief.

Maybe i’ll join in with him in this trend about writing about things about which i know nothing (enough abouts there? :laughing: )

Sports involve running about and often have some sort of spherical object called a “ball”. Sport appear to encourage aggressive behaviour and thus should be banned. Certainly no good Christian should participate.

How’s that? :laughing:

Sheman, i like how you cleared up those definitions for him…his flippant summary of Universalism, Inclusionism and “the Gospel” is pretty shoddy.

James! Sports sound simply awful! Is there a petition I could sign – shouldn’t we form a political action committee? Somebody needs to do something!!! :astonished:

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It can’t be underestimated how much damage this does to our young people! Also, i suspect it leads to the occult through its pagan origins! :astonished:

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You say this, but there was a time at school due to my complete uselessness at sport where I might have given some serious consideration to supporting this proposition :laughing:

Sounds about right :laughing: