Why Easter is s...
No, not s...acred. A four letter profanity that the monkey in me wants to throw through the cage bars and daub on the wall. But out of a residual rankle of disgust at profaning the sacred, two evolved genetic opposed moral taste receptors in one, I won't. Even though I'm not profaning the Resurrection of The Saviour Elect, why Christ is Risen, the only warrant we have for the transcendent, for purpose, for life after death. I'm profaning the inadequate second rate imagining of that. Any version of the Resurrection that is not fully inclusive of all humanity having died and been raised to glory, elect for salvation in the Elect Saviour.
I watched The Mauritanian last night and was in tears for most of it it felt like. Just weeping silently trying not to let my wife see. Following on from my envy at Outside The City.
Disconnected? Not in the slightest.
My wife wants the Resurrection to be true, but cannot stand the excluding hubris of Easter.
Will even Francis include all humanity today? Without caveat? Without an implicit 'Yeah but...'? The Anglican communion won't, along with the vast majority of the Reformed here, who struggle to reach let alone grasp universal salvation, eternal life for all. Who cannot see it in Paul let alone Jesus.
This day should be the best day of the year with Christianity reaching out to every Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Confucianist, Jew, atheist, other, neighbour at every level and saying God bless you friend is there anything we can do together, do you need any help, any help at all? Can we start again? Can we deconstruct and reconstruct together?
The day that happens is Resurrection Day.
Today isn't that.
I watched The Mauritanian last night and was in tears for most of it it felt like. Just weeping silently trying not to let my wife see. Following on from my envy at Outside The City.
Disconnected? Not in the slightest.
My wife wants the Resurrection to be true, but cannot stand the excluding hubris of Easter.
Will even Francis include all humanity today? Without caveat? Without an implicit 'Yeah but...'? The Anglican communion won't, along with the vast majority of the Reformed here, who struggle to reach let alone grasp universal salvation, eternal life for all. Who cannot see it in Paul let alone Jesus.
This day should be the best day of the year with Christianity reaching out to every Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Confucianist, Jew, atheist, other, neighbour at every level and saying God bless you friend is there anything we can do together, do you need any help, any help at all? Can we start again? Can we deconstruct and reconstruct together?
The day that happens is Resurrection Day.
Today isn't that.

Comments
How universal is "universal"? What about the sheep and the goats?
Amen brother
What I want or don't want doesn't count for very much. I'm not the one in charge. I'm not the one making the decisions.
That's why Easter is shit.
This is what I meant by Paul being comfortable and authentic in abstractions. Thankfully, this abstraction has a concrete application, in that it achieves what you set out, @Martin54 . This is where you and I agree, even though we disagree about so much else.
I'll be with Penny's bishop, I hope. But I hope even more than neither of us will be doing anything other than living in the full reality of God's love, along with the rest of finally completing creation.
Do we disagree on anything of substance, meaningful, significant then @ThunderBunk? If even Paul is redeemed for us liberal folk?
Now there's a miracle for you, @Martin54 . The remeption of Saul of Tarsus.
"As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive."
...............the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son, Luke 19: 9-10................
At the end of the day there's evidence for both sides of the question, but to my mind the bias favours universalism.
Sorry to ask what's maybe obvious, but what's 'The Mauritanian'?
As for Easter and universalism. As much as I value scripture, I always try to remember that compared to the 'War and Peace' epic that must be the full knowledge of God's purposes and character, the Bible is barely a five word postcard from the edge of our human ability to comprehend God.
There are some great hints, revelations and glimpses - probably skewed by human interference and lack of perfection. But final destinations is God's business, not ours.
My personal notion is that we are held to account - judged, if you like - but I feel that the being despatched to everlasting torment business is more a cultural attachment of the times. I think the judgement is part of our ongoing eternal relationship with the Creator. And in a spiritual economy where death is not the last word, I can't see God giving up on his human creation after a short three-score years and ten, under less than ideal circumstances. But what that actually means, is beyond me to imagine.
The Mauritanian is a movie, based on the true story of a guy who was held at Guantanamo Bay for several years, based on false suspicions of having been the mastermind of 9/11. Stars Jodie Foster and Benedict Cumberbatch. Can't recall who plays the falsely accused man.
I watched it a couple of weeks back, and meant to write a review on the movie thread in Heaven, but never got around to it.
For several read 14. Tahar Rahim is the spitting image of Mohamedou Ould Slahi.
Ah, but what about the redemption of St. Paul among liberals?
My muslim colleague rang me up to wish me a happy Easter. Does that count?
I find the Ship is generally very inclusive in matters of salvation, until it gets to right-wing politicians and/or pedophiles.
Of course it's true. Or it's all bollocks. Or worse. God is an incompetent nasty bastard.
Well, the alternative is you get to sit in Heaven knowing they're sweating it out in Hell, or at best have ceased to exist.
Will it still be heaven if that's the case? Is heaven actually impossible if there's also a Hell?
But that's allowing for the assumption that salvation, if not universal, depends on belief.
Exactly @KarlLB, Luther's ignorant shadow is half a millennium long. Salvation has nothing to do with faith and everything to do with faithfulness: Jesus'.
Isn't there something in the gospels about Jesus only wanting those who are prepared to give up family for the sake of being with Him ?
I'm fucked then.
I am impressed that you are certain of these things
Ceasing to exist would be my best bet as Jesus said that if you are not saved, you perish.
Anyone here done that? Anyone know anyone who's done that? How's it worked out? Being with Him?
You're all right then. Is your best bet the result of a full phenomenological hermeneutic and transformation? And that Jesus was talking about the after life?
He does. Right now. Most refuse it. Including here.
You sound as if it's an either/or.
You're right, the general emphasis is all about the after death version. Bothers me much.
If youre fucked, it's on the side of the angels--or of Jesus, actually, who went to the greatest lengths possible to prevent this becoming a real live issue. For if it's unbearable for us, how much more him?
Those who speak easily of giving up family, as if it were not horrific, show there's something seriously wrong there.
We can have no idea of what faithfulness is unless we have faith. "Seek first the kingdom of God" is qualified/defined by "... and His righteousness".
If all are saved then why bother with sacrifice, giving and blessing in this life? If all are saved then it doesn't matter if we are all self focussed, grasping and never think of others
Show me mate. Show me how much you've sacrificed. How much you've given. How many you've blessed? How much you seek the kingdom of God, righteousness in any meaningful way. Like Luther eh? Or anyone. Show me. Incarnation not pious platitudes.
I don't need faith to understand faithfulness. I see faithfulness in Jesus' righteousness, sacrifice, giving, blessing, seeking. I need faith for Him to be transcendent. To be God.
To see faithfulness you need faith.
It is. What @NOprophet_NØprofit said. And more. Salvation, the Kingdom of God, righteousness aka full social justice are only about now. Faith is only measurable by those works. Only meaningful as a life positively affected by the realisation of the completely efficacious faithfulness of Christ to save all, in saving all from oblivion after death and before, to give us transcendent hope and purpose and thus have our lives saved, made purposeful now. How we doing? Saving faith is only about life redeemed now, we have opportunity now.
Waste of breath.
If my eternity depends on the sinner's prayer, on singing pious faith, on being responsible for murdering Jesus, for Jesus being murdered by God in my stead, I fully repudiate that. I don't want it. I'll take oblivion please rather than have the company of the of those living everted with their insides out and saying it's lovely.
Aye, it takes a while. 66 years in my case. There are no shortcuts to losing smothering apostasy accumulated over 2000 years.
If the threat of eternal damnation is all that prevents you from being the latter then you have bigger problems than theology.
In any case I take my cue from C S Lewis (who was no doubt paraphrasing theologians less accessible to me) - sin represents not just a wrong thing done but an injury to the soul, an injury that will need undoing, an undoing that will be hard and painful.
Exactly.
There are millions and millions of people who reject Christ, theology and any concept of an afterlife - yet are selfless, giving people and always put others first.
If it’s only the threat of damnation which causes you to care you need help.
That's not what I said. Whoever is saved is not my choice but God's. I would say, though, that for all to be saved negates the message and work of the cross.
Hard as we might see it, tough as we might find it - there seems, in scripture, to be a sense, that not all will be saved even though God longs for none to be lost. Universalism suggests a lack of free will /choice that elsewhere is highly commended.
I have never understood this. I don't think you can just assert it as if it's self-evident. It seems to imply that if something is 100% effective it wasn't necessary.
Damnationism suggests a game of Russian Roulette in which most folk don't even know they're playing, much less know the rules or have any choice.
Good chose everyone in the Elect: Christ. It's what His title means. His name means He can do it. Save. Everyone. No problem. The humble hubris of the randomly, arbitrarily, meaninglessly 'saved' is nauseating.