What I find puzzling is that you appear to be condemning evangelicals for being damnationist whilst being damnatory in respect of certain arseholes.
Much as I would like certain politicians and religious leaders to get what's coming to them if not now in the hereafter, I have to admit that not even Jacob Rees-Mogg deserves eternal damnation. The difference between a really long time and forever is not just a matter of degree.
Moreover, as hard as I find it to believe God loves even Jacob Rees-Mogg and doesn't want him to perish eternally.
There are broadly two things in the history of Christian theology that we need to be saved from:
1) Sin, bondage to sin, separation from God, death, and all the natural and organic consequences of sin;
2) externally imposed penalty for sin, or punishment.
In the human world the externally imposed punishment is a lot more obvious. There is no organic connection between committing grievous bodily harm and getting seven years in prison, but the difference between getting locked up and not getting locked up is clear. So we're naturally inclined to think of the consequences of sin as type 2): external penalties imposed by God. That model predominates in post-Reformation and counter-Reformation thought. I think the first model is more common in earlier Christian theology, and predominates in those currents of Eastern Orthodox thought that are taken up in the West.
Whether a particular punishment is proportionate to a crime is a matter of justice: an unending punishment for a finite crime isn't just. That question doesn't crop up under model 1. Under model 1 we would be damned eternally by ourselves and we are saved from that fate by God.
Universalism does not imply the ignoring, overlooking, excusing or minimalising of wrong. It does however state that God's redeeming work does not fail and can and will ultimately save all of creation from and despite what is destroying it.
I think the paradigm of salvation drawn from a legal-judicial metaphor is mistaken and unhelpful because it is based on what we have done rather than on a relational model of who we are. That conflict is particularly highlighted in the parable of the two sons, where the elder is obsessed by his property rights and the just treatment of his brother, whereas the father is just happy to recover the son he had lost. It was a pity the parent was the father because the strongest human bond is that between mother and child. It is instructive that when Jeremiah seeks to emphasise the love of God it is to that picture he refers: “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though [even] she may forget, I will not forget you!" : an umbilical image used by Julian of Norwich: "Our Saviour is our true Mother in whom we are endlessly born and out of whom we shall never come." Paul invites us to cry "Abba" and Christ is our "Elder Brother". These images are far better than judge, prosecutor and executioner.
I think the paradigm of salvation drawn from a legal-judicial metaphor is mistaken and unhelpful because it is based on what we have done rather than on a relational model of who we are. That conflict is particularly highlighted in the parable of the two sons, where the elder is obsessed by his property rights and the just treatment of his brother, whereas the father is just happy to recover the son he had lost. It was a pity the parent was the father because the strongest human bond is that between mother and child. It is instructive that when Jeremiah seeks to emphasise the love of God it is to that picture he refers: “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though [even] she may forget, I will not forget you!" : an umbilical image used by Julian of Norwich: "Our Saviour is our true Mother in whom we are endlessly born and out of whom we shall never come." Paul invites us to cry "Abba" and Christ is our "Elder Brother". These images are far better than judge, prosecutor and executioner.
There's something in that. A judge may indeed take the view that the individual before him is incorrigible, irredeemable and defined entirely by his crimes, and take the view that locking up and throwing the key away is the only course.
I would echo much, if not all, of what @KarlLB, @Dafyd and @Kwesi have said in their most recent posts, especially what Dafyd said about the two models of what we need to be saved from.
I’ll admit to be being somewhat uncomfortable with framing in terms of “being saved” or “who is saved.” Part of that may be because my experience in my particular stream of Christianity is one where things aren’t usually framed that way. And part of it, I think, is the unspoken assumption that “being saved” means “being saved from Hell” or “from damnation,” in line with Dafyd’s model 2, not “being saved (or healed?) from sin and death” as per his model 1.
I think perhaps I’m more likely to think and speak in terms of “universal reconciliation,” which seems to me at least to reflect that salvation is about something more than avoiding Hell.
Whether a particular punishment is proportionate to a crime is a matter of justice: an unending punishment for a finite crime isn't just.
I've mentioned this before, but just to say that Jonathan Edwards' thinking on this point (and he was no slouch) was that the "crime" was infinite because besmirched the infinite goodness of God. I'm not endorsing this, just saying how he resolved that.
Of course we don't imagine that paedophilia or racism can be redeemed, but I think we'd be in agreement that racists and paedophiles can be.
Yes we are, but I don't always get the impression that this is widely acknowledged.
Universalism does not imply the ignoring, overlooking, excusing or minimalising of wrong. It does however state that God's redeeming work does not fail and can and will ultimately save all of creation from and despite what is destroying it.
So far so good. I see two difficulties here, one theoretical and one practical.
Theoretical: there remains the thorny problem of whether one can be "redeemed" against one's will and "when".
Practical: what does a conviction that God will ultimately redeem all mean in terms of actions in the here and now in respect of (nasty) individuals - and, for that matter, (fragile) creation? The idea that Christ will make all things new is not normally considered justification for trashing the environment now. Similarly, shouldn't the hope that he will ultimately reconcile all people to himself change our attitudes to all the people we deem to be evil, starting now? Aren't we charged with the ministry of reconciliation, as of now? What does that look like?
Of course we don't imagine that paedophilia or racism can be redeemed, but I think we'd be in agreement that racists and paedophiles can be.
Yes we are, but I don't always get the impression that this is widely acknowledged.
Universalism does not imply the ignoring, overlooking, excusing or minimalising of wrong. It does however state that God's redeeming work does not fail and can and will ultimately save all of creation from and despite what is destroying it.
What does that look like?
It means that racists and paedophiles are welcome in churches, but steps are taken to avoid them being able to harm others. So in the case of the latter they might be required not to talk or sit near to children or their parents, or to attend services where only adults are likely to be present. In both cases they would be barred from positions of trust or leadership, both to protect others and to avoid "leading them into temptation".
Of course we don't imagine that paedophilia or racism can be redeemed, but I think we'd be in agreement that racists and paedophiles can be.
Yes we are, but I don't always get the impression that this is widely acknowledged.
Universalism does not imply the ignoring, overlooking, excusing or minimalising of wrong. It does however state that God's redeeming work does not fail and can and will ultimately save all of creation from and despite what is destroying it.
So far so good. I see two difficulties here, one theoretical and one practical.
Theoretical: there remains the thorny problem of whether one can be "redeemed" against one's will and "when".
Practical: what does a conviction that God will ultimately redeem all mean in terms of actions in the here and now in respect of (nasty) individuals - and, for that matter, (fragile) creation? The idea that Christ will make all things new is not normally considered justification for trashing the environment now. Similarly, shouldn't the hope that he will ultimately reconcile all people to himself change our attitudes to all the people we deem to be evil, starting now? Aren't we charged with the ministry of reconciliation, as of now? What does that look like?
The theoretical. Is total bollocks. In the resurrection, in paradise, the therapy, deconstruction, reconstruction, rebirth of a mere fertilized ovum of a consciousness in a perfectly wired glorified brain in perfect full communion will make the "will", whatever that is, utterly irrelevant. Somebody should write the novel.
The practical. As you know better than any, bang them up. Because only in Norway (anywhere else?) are they actually going to be managed in the community. Apart from that humanly irredeemable monster Breivik. God will sort him out. We need another century or ten of economic growth before we can actually have the resources to rehabilitate non-psychopaths and be tough on the causes of crime.
The practical. As you know better than any, bang them up.
My "we" didn't refer to society and "them", and what "should be done" by someone else. It referred to you, me, the person that's in our face, and what our attitude to them is. Because if it doesn't come down to how I actually behave, what's the point? ("Think globally, act locally, be converted personally" is my new mantra).
The practical. As you know better than any, bang them up.
My "we" didn't refer to society and "them", and what "should be done" by someone else. It referred to you, me, the person that's in our face, and what our attitude to them is. Because if it doesn't come down to how I actually behave, what's the point? ("Think globally, act locally, be converted personally" is my new mantra).
You can. Should have got it on your first recommendation. I like the incarnational mantra. I've experienced the public sharp end as a 'soup kitchen' volunteer. A 10 year regular with not a lot going for him (Brit. understatement), whom I know carries a knife (as opposed to assuming they all do, and no we never ask...), and has a scarily aggressive, now muzzled dog (Staffie-crocodile cross, and I'm a dog man) approached me looking disturbed one night and said that a new elderly man was his childhood abuser (I've had the reverse too, an abuser approaching me in fear). The venue is a sanctuary obviously, so what's the protocol? We gave the regular a takeaway; I'd reported the situation to my boss. Seen neither since. What if they'd both come to church? That would have been truth and reconciliation time. Or at least truth. I'd have had them come to different services for a start. And not to bring knives... I've always been hands on with the more obviously broken at church, in a hands off way of course. Apart from once... Use the elegantly matching R.D. Laing approach. With a huge full on delusional schizophrene loud in services, talking about his poltergeists... (code for his violence). Er, no I didn't turf him out. It would have taken five men armed with chairs. He'd have a bite on him as bad as the Staffie.
There is an issue with paedophiles and churches, not that we should not accept and work with those identified as paedophiles. But that this issue is not that simple, and churches do need to be wise as serpents as well as gentle as doves.
I've worked with a number of teenagers and children who were with that service because they had sexually assaulted other younger children and were identified as too risky to continue educating in mainstream schools. It was part of the reason that service was established. We were providing not just an education but also therapy, a safe place for both them and any other children and also facilitating support with one of the two organisations that attempts to address their offences.
We struggled to keep both these youngsters and others in the service safe. They were often charming individuals who wanted to be with others in the group they had previously preyed on, and were attempting to make further contact. And for some, often the younger individuals, their behaviour continued to develop dangerously, resulting in placement in a secure unit to keep others in the community safe.
Having also worked trying to support and integrate adults, placed on the sex offenders register for child sex offences, into a church, attempting to agree a contract that limited these adults' contact with children was virtually impossible as they refused to agree and sign it. As someone who worked in the field, this was another factor that drove me out of church, seeing repeated behaviours playing out that I could neither condone nor speak out against, as I was bound by confidentiality clauses, meant I left.
In France we have nothing remotely approaching the UK's criminal background check as far as child protection issues go (at least not in terms of how it impacts church work. I recall my dad having to get a CRB in order to be able to weed the flowerbeds at his church while a mums and toddlers club was on indoors) and there is no obvious French term or concept relating to safeguarding. There just isn't. It's not immediately apparent to me that we have more, or fewer, sex offences as a result. What is clear is that there is a massive cultural component to this construct.
And "sex offenders" is just too broad a category. Two teenagers fooling around in the back of a car, one of whom is marginally under the age of consent, is not the same thing as someone who has sexually abused a family member, which is not the same thing again as a serial rapist who barely knows their victims.
The difficulty I have with @Arethosemyfeet's answers however sensible they may sound is that they also sound like the implementation of protocols designed to stop the spread of Covid rather than dealing with humans. I'm not minimising the dangers, just questioning how they are addressed at the coal face. @Martin54's anecdotal solution sounds more like what I would do.
The difficulty I have with @Arethosemyfeet's answers however sensible they may sound is that they also sound like the implementation of protocols designed to stop the spread of Covid rather than dealing with humans. I'm not minimising the dangers, just questioning how they are addressed at the coal face. @Martin54's anecdotal solution sounds more like what I would do.
It's fair criticism. I've never been the one having to deal with the situation, so what I'm suggesting is based on second hand experiences and what I know of official church policies. Doubtless were I actually faced with the situation my response would be different (better or worse).
I think this is where the "be converted personally" comes in for each of us.
The problem with protocols is that they can be applied without people fully understanding the issues they're designed to address. Pharasaism and legalism ensue, and miss the point. For any kind of disruption in church, be it paedophiles or terrorists (and unlike paedophiles, this is something my church regularly gets bulletins about from the authorities), I've long taken the approach that having a community of people that understand and practice certain values allows for more human-centric, intuitive responses that I wager might be just as effective if not more so than a whole list of protocols.
I guess the link with my earlier comments to the OP is that while speculation about the scope of salvation and/or damnation is fun, where the rubber really hits the road is in our individual attitudes to those around us. If we champion a universalist God while, in practice, routinely mentally consigning people to Hell (whether the Ship's or the actual one if there is one), while I accept as per @KarlLB that the consequences of our consigning aren't exactly the same as they would be with an actual Hell, the disconnect bothers me nonetheless.
I think there is room even when our goal is forgiveness and redemption to give voice to our anger. Anger can be righteous, particularly anger at injustice and oppression. The key is that the anger is not the end, it has to be put to bed, "do not let the sun go down on your anger" as Ephesians has it.
And "sex offenders" is just too broad a category. Two teenagers fooling around in the back of a car, one of whom is marginally under the age of consent, is not the same thing as someone who has sexually abused a family member, which is not the same thing again as a serial rapist who barely knows their victims.
I really wasn't talking about two teenagers fooling around in the back of a car, that's normal teenage behaviour that doesn't get them regarded as a danger to other students. I was referring to children and teenagers who have sexually abused younger siblings and/or who have been showing early signs of becoming a serial rapist, with a series of assaults on strangers, and a whole lot of other situations. (Also girls who have been gang raped or groomed and abused by paedophile groups.)
And having worked with a number of students with that background, the eagerness of the adults I was thinking about to volunteer to be in contact with others was horribly familiar.
I think this is where the "be converted personally" comes in for each of us.
The problem with protocols is that they can be applied without people fully understanding the issues they're designed to address. Pharasaism and legalism ensue, and miss the point. For any kind of disruption in church, be it paedophiles or terrorists (and unlike paedophiles, this is something my church regularly gets bulletins about from the authorities), I've long taken the approach that having a community of people that understand and practice certain values allows for more human-centric, intuitive responses that I wager might be just as effective if not more so than a whole list of protocols.
I guess the link with my earlier comments to the OP is that while speculation about the scope of salvation and/or damnation is fun, where the rubber really hits the road is in our individual attitudes to those around us. If we champion a universalist God while, in practice, routinely mentally consigning people to Hell (whether the Ship's or the actual one if there is one), while I accept as per @KarlLB that the consequences of our consigning aren't exactly the same as they would be with an actual Hell, the disconnect bothers me nonetheless.
I think the disconnect bothers you because you're seeing the consequences as "(not) exactly the same" whereas they are in fact absolutely poles apart and bearing no resemblance to each other. Similarly, bracketing together "whether the Ship's or the actual one if there is one" as if there was actually any similarity bemuses me. When someone on the Ship posts in the TICTH thread it doesn't mean "this person is utterly beyond any hope of redemption and must be either erased from existence or made to suffer eternally". It doesn't mean anything even remotely like that.
I don't think universalism per se actually makes a lot of difference to how we treat people, because in this life whether we're universalist or not we still should believe in the possibility of, and hope for, the redemption of anyone. The actual difference is that when they shuffle off this mortal coil, we have a continuing hope that the redemptive process can continue and will ultimately be successful, because of who is running it.
Okay. So if God has moral outrage, how is it expressed?
Cross. That's where, IMV, God resolves the conflict of the problem of the people hurting the people he loves being the people he loves. How exactly I don't know, but it looks like God expressing his own pain.
Never bashed your head against the wall wanting to hug and strangle your kids at the same time?
Being angry and open about that anger doesn't mean having to destroy and torment.
Missed edit window: Are you imaging by universalism a belief that when we die God looks at our rap sheet and says "hey, no sweat, doesn't matter. In you come"?
Cross. That's where, IMV, God resolves the conflict of the problem of the people hurting the people he loves being the people he loves. How exactly I don't know, but it looks like God expressing his own pain.
I'm glad you said that, beause I was going to but didn't want to get accused, wrongly, of going all PSA.
Being angry and open about that anger doesn't mean having to destroy and torment.
That's true, but the cross is tricky in that respect, isn't it? There was torment if not total destruction. Being somewhat cynical, and sticking to your banging one's head against the brick wall analogy, is cosmic self-harm any better than cosmic child abuse?
How about a parent whose child has persistently stolen from them?
What about them? Do they utterly reject and condemn that child? Or wouldn't they rather hope for that child to change their ways and be reconciled? If they reached a point where they were no longer open to that possibility wouldn't that be human frailty rather than a reflection of the divine?
Cross. That's where, IMV, God resolves the conflict of the problem of the people hurting the people he loves being the people he loves. How exactly I don't know, but it looks like God expressing his own pain.
I'm glad you said that, beause I was going to but didn't want to get accused, wrongly, of going all PSA.
Being angry and open about that anger doesn't mean having to destroy and torment.
That's true, but the cross is tricky in that respect, isn't it? There was torment if not total destruction. Being somewhat cynical, and sticking to your banging one's head against the brick wall analogy, is cosmic self-harm any better than cosmic child abuse?
Yes, I think it is. Better I put my fist through a wall than through someone's face.
Missed edit window: Are you imaging by universalism a belief that when we die God looks at our rap sheet and says "hey, no sweat, doesn't matter. In you come"?
I'm not sure what I'm imagining, but I'll make yet another plug for A Short Stay in Hell, not because it provides good answers but because it really got me thinking about some of the implications that I think can be easily glossed over in this kind of discussion.
The way round the problem you allude to above would appear to be some sort of Purgatory, albeit a redemptive rather than a punitive one*. A Short Stay in Hell really messes with that because it kind of brings home (in a seriously vertigo-inducing way) how truly vast expanses of time are as near to eternity as makes no difference in terms of human experience. As when the author discards his envisaged use of the term "eon":
There is no metaphor I can use to give you a sense of the time that's passed here. My earth life was so long ago that by now trillions of universes like the one in which I lived on earth have come and gone
...and that's before any prospect of Heaven.
*And if we are thinking in terms of ultimate redemption/restoration, then the whole punitive logic, "s/he deserves..." has to go, as well as its corollary, to which you alluded earlier, of avoiding punishment.
And if we are thinking in terms of ultimate redemption/restoration, then the whole punitive logic, "s/he deserves..." has to go, as well as its corollary, to which you alluded earlier, of avoiding punishment.
Quite. I'm interested in curing people, not punishing their sins. I'm not putting timescales on things so I'm not sure how what a trillion years feels like is relevant.
When I allude to issues as I see them in the Evangelical model I engage with it on its own terms, within which it most certainly about avoiding punishment. That shouldn't be taken to mean I think in or accept those terms.
It may be true that trillions of years is in human terms unimaginably vast. But in comparison to forever any finite number is a blink of an eye.
@Dafyd trillions of years might not look like a long time from the perspective of forever, but it might well feel like eternity at the time for all intents and purposes. That's certainly something A Short Stay in Hell conveys quite convincingly.
I'm not putting timescales on things so I'm not sure how what a trillion years feels like is relevant.
But even if time is not the right... dimension? to use, any process of "curing" (more on which in a minute) must fill up some individual experience in some way, otherwise one is left with the same problem you implied eariler: an instantaneous free pass.
I'm interested in curing people, not punishing their sins.
That has some rather sinister overtones. At least with punishment one usually has a fixed term after which one is released. If one is deemed to be ill, especially psychiatrically, there is a very real risk of never getting out. And what if one doesn't want to be "cured"? There is such a thing as therapeutic obstinacy. Can one be spiritually "cured" against one's will? What if one's definition of wellness doesn't match God's? And is the Ship Hell, say, really curative? (It can be, but that seems often to be by accident rather than design).
I am confused why you think my saying I hadn't put a timescale on something means it would be instantaneous. That's just - a complete non-sequitur.
As for sinister overtones - compared with eternal suffering I'll take the sinister overtone option. The only person suggesting cure against someone's will is you. And how would that be worse than torturing someone against their will? Or annihilating them?
Quite honestly I find all this stuff very hard to believe but of all the fifteen impossible things I am asked to believe before breakfast the idea that God loves everyone more than I can imagine but also has a torture chamber worse than I can imagine waiting for lots of them is the most ridiculous.
A problem with this discussion, ISTM, is the use 'eternity' as a concept of time, which it is not, because time is a consequence or function of creation. Eternity does not mean 'for ever and ever' because it is a state of being outside time, which language and verbal tenses have great difficulty in describing and comprehending.
A problem with this discussion, ISTM, is the use 'eternity' as a concept of time, which it is not, because time is a consequence or function of creation. Eternity does not mean 'for ever and ever' because it is a state of being outside time, which language and verbal tenses have great difficulty in describing and comprehending.
Eternity is also forever and ever. Backwards. I.e. for real.
Missed edit window: Are you imaging by universalism a belief that when we die God looks at our rap sheet and says "hey, no sweat, doesn't matter. In you come"?
That looked like you were objecting to instantaneous admission to Heaven. Were you not? I may have misunderstood.
The only person suggesting cure against someone's will is you.
So is your universalism qualified, hopeful, or what? Does God reconcile all things to himself or just most of them? If only most of them, who fails to make the cut, and why? What happens to them that is just in the sense of appropriate, fitting, as it should be?
(I mean, I'm tempted by universalism, but it's not without its problems...).
A problem with this discussion, ISTM, is the use 'eternity' as a concept of time, which it is not, because time is a consequence or function of creation. Eternity does not mean 'for ever and ever' because it is a state of being outside time, which language and verbal tenses have great difficulty in describing and comprehending.
A Short Stay in Heaven makes the limitations of thinking in terms of duration clear, but nevertheless helps explore the issues at hand, notably the idea of a Purgatory, which we seem to be discussing somewhat here.
Assuming a putative 'Purgatory' is in some way experienced, which seems to be consistent with allowing conscious realisation and transformation, one needs some sort of dimension in which that consciousness can be experienced. Time seems like the closest possible approximation.
Time-as-experienced and time-as-measured are not the same anyway. Does anyone doubt that we could have the transformational experiences, changes of mind and heart, in all their relief and all their pain, in the very moment of passing from this life to the next, and yet have it seem as 1000 years to us? We know that time does not even pass at the same measured rate in different places within the universe, nevermind what might pass as an approximation for time outside of it. I'm not sure we can even assume a linearity of temporal experience beyond this life.
It may be true that trillions of years is in human terms unimaginably vast. But in comparison to forever any finite number is a blink of an eye.
trillions of years might not look like a long time from the perspective of forever, but it might well feel like eternity at the time for all intents and purposes.
I don't see why how it feels subjectively at the time is the only or even the most important factor.
I can't see how instantaneous entry to heaven can work and at no point have said otherwise. I do not however put a time-scale on things; I do not say it would take years, minutes or geological eras. That's why this thing about trillions of years is irrelevant because I never proposed them.
I have no problem using time as an analogue for whatever change occurs in in eternity.
I cannot conceive of God ever giving up on anyone or thing he has created. Especially when he by definition understands how we tick so well.
The rich man (in Hell/Hades) 'looked up and saw Abraham far away..' (NIV). I think Jesus is here just using vivid imagery to make the point that even resurrection will not convince people to have compassion for the poor.
Upthread the Sheep and the Goats (Mat 25) was mentioned in relation to whether there is a literal hell. Again I think this is just vivid imagery to make the radical point that there are sins of *omission* eg failing to feed or clothe the poor or care for those in prison. Of course we are not told how much caring for the poor we have to do to avoid ending up like the 'goats' with 'eternal punishment'. So a moral warning, not a piece of systematic theology.
While I was in Matthew I thought I'd have a look there at the Sermon on the Mount;
2 references to hell: 'Anyone who says 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell'. A call for reconciliation really. And 'It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell'. I don't think Christians have ever taught that fornicating men should emasculate themselves to avoid hell!
Also 'You are the salt of the earth' must have been the subject of a million sermons. Who's to say it doesn't mean that the 'elect' are 'saved' as gift-bearers (the gift being grace) for the whole of humanity who will ultimately be saved (I got this idea from the mission theology of the late Lesslie Newbegin).
And while we are in the Sermon on the Mount how about the Beatitudes:
To be called 'sons of God' 'all' we have to do is be peacemakers. And to be shown mercy 'all' you have to do is -be merciful! etc etc.
Who's to say it doesn't mean that the 'elect' are 'saved' as gift-bearers (the gift being grace) for the whole of humanity who will ultimately be saved (I got this idea from the mission theology of the late Lesslie Newbegin).
Which is consistent with understanding Israel’s election as being a chosen people to be a light to the nations.
The rich man (in Hell/Hades) 'looked up and saw Abraham far away..' (NIV). I think Jesus is here just using vivid imagery to make the point that even resurrection will not convince people to have compassion for the poor.
Upthread the Sheep and the Goats (Mat 25) was mentioned in relation to whether there is a literal hell. Again I think this is just vivid imagery to make the radical point that there are sins of *omission* eg failing to feed or clothe the poor or care for those in prison. Of course we are not told how much caring for the poor we have to do to avoid ending up like the 'goats' with 'eternal punishment'. So a moral warning, not a piece of systematic theology.
While I was in Matthew I thought I'd have a look there at the Sermon on the Mount;
2 references to hell: 'Anyone who says 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell'. A call for reconciliation really. And 'It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell'. I don't think Christians have ever taught that fornicating men should emasculate themselves to avoid hell!
Also 'You are the salt of the earth' must have been the subject of a million sermons. Who's to say it doesn't mean that the 'elect' are 'saved' as gift-bearers (the gift being grace) for the whole of humanity who will ultimately be saved (I got this idea from the mission theology of the late Lesslie Newbegin).
And while we are in the Sermon on the Mount how about the Beatitudes:
To be called 'sons of God' 'all' we have to do is be peacemakers. And to be shown mercy 'all' you have to do is -be merciful! etc etc.
Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. It's more than doing the right stuff, it's being the believing people. Fruitfulness will only come through faithfulness.
The rich man (in Hell/Hades) 'looked up and saw Abraham far away..' (NIV). I think Jesus is here just using vivid imagery to make the point that even resurrection will not convince people to have compassion for the poor.
Upthread the Sheep and the Goats (Mat 25) was mentioned in relation to whether there is a literal hell. Again I think this is just vivid imagery to make the radical point that there are sins of *omission* eg failing to feed or clothe the poor or care for those in prison. Of course we are not told how much caring for the poor we have to do to avoid ending up like the 'goats' with 'eternal punishment'. So a moral warning, not a piece of systematic theology.
While I was in Matthew I thought I'd have a look there at the Sermon on the Mount;
2 references to hell: 'Anyone who says 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell'. A call for reconciliation really. And 'It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell'. I don't think Christians have ever taught that fornicating men should emasculate themselves to avoid hell!
Also 'You are the salt of the earth' must have been the subject of a million sermons. Who's to say it doesn't mean that the 'elect' are 'saved' as gift-bearers (the gift being grace) for the whole of humanity who will ultimately be saved (I got this idea from the mission theology of the late Lesslie Newbegin).
And while we are in the Sermon on the Mount how about the Beatitudes:
To be called 'sons of God' 'all' we have to do is be peacemakers. And to be shown mercy 'all' you have to do is -be merciful! etc etc.
Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. It's more than doing the right stuff, it's being the believing people. Fruitfulness will only come through faithfulness.
Tough for all those people who desperately want to believe but can't.
The rich man (in Hell/Hades) 'looked up and saw Abraham far away..' (NIV). I think Jesus is here just using vivid imagery to make the point that even resurrection will not convince people to have compassion for the poor.
Upthread the Sheep and the Goats (Mat 25) was mentioned in relation to whether there is a literal hell. Again I think this is just vivid imagery to make the radical point that there are sins of *omission* eg failing to feed or clothe the poor or care for those in prison. Of course we are not told how much caring for the poor we have to do to avoid ending up like the 'goats' with 'eternal punishment'. So a moral warning, not a piece of systematic theology.
While I was in Matthew I thought I'd have a look there at the Sermon on the Mount;
2 references to hell: 'Anyone who says 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell'. A call for reconciliation really. And 'It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell'. I don't think Christians have ever taught that fornicating men should emasculate themselves to avoid hell!
Also 'You are the salt of the earth' must have been the subject of a million sermons. Who's to say it doesn't mean that the 'elect' are 'saved' as gift-bearers (the gift being grace) for the whole of humanity who will ultimately be saved (I got this idea from the mission theology of the late Lesslie Newbegin).
And while we are in the Sermon on the Mount how about the Beatitudes:
To be called 'sons of God' 'all' we have to do is be peacemakers. And to be shown mercy 'all' you have to do is -be merciful! etc etc.
Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. It's more than doing the right stuff, it's being the believing people. Fruitfulness will only come through faithfulness.
Tough for all those people who desperately want to believe but can't.
If you can't trully believe, just try and follow the 2nd of Jesus's commandments
The rich man (in Hell/Hades) 'looked up and saw Abraham far away..' (NIV). I think Jesus is here just using vivid imagery to make the point that even resurrection will not convince people to have compassion for the poor.
Upthread the Sheep and the Goats (Mat 25) was mentioned in relation to whether there is a literal hell. Again I think this is just vivid imagery to make the radical point that there are sins of *omission* eg failing to feed or clothe the poor or care for those in prison. Of course we are not told how much caring for the poor we have to do to avoid ending up like the 'goats' with 'eternal punishment'. So a moral warning, not a piece of systematic theology.
While I was in Matthew I thought I'd have a look there at the Sermon on the Mount;
2 references to hell: 'Anyone who says 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell'. A call for reconciliation really. And 'It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell'. I don't think Christians have ever taught that fornicating men should emasculate themselves to avoid hell!
Also 'You are the salt of the earth' must have been the subject of a million sermons. Who's to say it doesn't mean that the 'elect' are 'saved' as gift-bearers (the gift being grace) for the whole of humanity who will ultimately be saved (I got this idea from the mission theology of the late Lesslie Newbegin).
And while we are in the Sermon on the Mount how about the Beatitudes:
To be called 'sons of God' 'all' we have to do is be peacemakers. And to be shown mercy 'all' you have to do is -be merciful! etc etc.
Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. It's more than doing the right stuff, it's being the believing people. Fruitfulness will only come through faithfulness.
Tough for all those people who desperately want to believe but can't.
If you can't trully believe, just try and follow the 2nd of Jesus's commandments
That does not turn one into a believer, which @ExclamationMark makes the requirement.
The rich man (in Hell/Hades) 'looked up and saw Abraham far away..' (NIV). I think Jesus is here just using vivid imagery to make the point that even resurrection will not convince people to have compassion for the poor.
Upthread the Sheep and the Goats (Mat 25) was mentioned in relation to whether there is a literal hell. Again I think this is just vivid imagery to make the radical point that there are sins of *omission* eg failing to feed or clothe the poor or care for those in prison. Of course we are not told how much caring for the poor we have to do to avoid ending up like the 'goats' with 'eternal punishment'. So a moral warning, not a piece of systematic theology.
While I was in Matthew I thought I'd have a look there at the Sermon on the Mount;
2 references to hell: 'Anyone who says 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell'. A call for reconciliation really. And 'It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell'. I don't think Christians have ever taught that fornicating men should emasculate themselves to avoid hell!
Also 'You are the salt of the earth' must have been the subject of a million sermons. Who's to say it doesn't mean that the 'elect' are 'saved' as gift-bearers (the gift being grace) for the whole of humanity who will ultimately be saved (I got this idea from the mission theology of the late Lesslie Newbegin).
And while we are in the Sermon on the Mount how about the Beatitudes:
To be called 'sons of God' 'all' we have to do is be peacemakers. And to be shown mercy 'all' you have to do is -be merciful! etc etc.
Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. It's more than doing the right stuff, it's being the believing people. Fruitfulness will only come through faithfulness.
Tough for all those people who desperately want to believe but can't.
If you can't trully believe, just try and follow the 2nd of Jesus's commandments
That does not turn one into a believer, which @ExclamationMark makes the requirement.
That does not turn one into a believer, which @ExclamationMark makes the requirement.
I was down to preach on Easter Sunday, and came across this in Matthew 28:17-18:
And when they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came to them
I take comfort from the fact a) that some doubted - even when face to face with the risen Christ! b) that this detail is included in the narrative, not airbrushed over c) that Jesus drew near to the doubters as well as the convinced and d) he promised all of them, both doubters and convinced, that he would be with them until the end of the age.
If doubt was admissible then, it surely is now; more than that, I think it's a healthy component of genuine faith, not a symptom of defective faith. It's not the same thing as the wilful unbelief of the soldiers and those they colluded with, who knew the truth and sought to cover it up because it was the truth, not because of any legitimate doubt.
Comments
Moreover, as hard as I find it to believe God loves even Jacob Rees-Mogg and doesn't want him to perish eternally.
There are broadly two things in the history of Christian theology that we need to be saved from:
1) Sin, bondage to sin, separation from God, death, and all the natural and organic consequences of sin;
2) externally imposed penalty for sin, or punishment.
In the human world the externally imposed punishment is a lot more obvious. There is no organic connection between committing grievous bodily harm and getting seven years in prison, but the difference between getting locked up and not getting locked up is clear. So we're naturally inclined to think of the consequences of sin as type 2): external penalties imposed by God. That model predominates in post-Reformation and counter-Reformation thought. I think the first model is more common in earlier Christian theology, and predominates in those currents of Eastern Orthodox thought that are taken up in the West.
Whether a particular punishment is proportionate to a crime is a matter of justice: an unending punishment for a finite crime isn't just. That question doesn't crop up under model 1. Under model 1 we would be damned eternally by ourselves and we are saved from that fate by God.
What KarlLB said.
There's something in that. A judge may indeed take the view that the individual before him is incorrigible, irredeemable and defined entirely by his crimes, and take the view that locking up and throwing the key away is the only course.
For a parent it is different.
I’ll admit to be being somewhat uncomfortable with framing in terms of “being saved” or “who is saved.” Part of that may be because my experience in my particular stream of Christianity is one where things aren’t usually framed that way. And part of it, I think, is the unspoken assumption that “being saved” means “being saved from Hell” or “from damnation,” in line with Dafyd’s model 2, not “being saved (or healed?) from sin and death” as per his model 1.
I think perhaps I’m more likely to think and speak in terms of “universal reconciliation,” which seems to me at least to reflect that salvation is about something more than avoiding Hell.
So far so good. I see two difficulties here, one theoretical and one practical.
Theoretical: there remains the thorny problem of whether one can be "redeemed" against one's will and "when".
Practical: what does a conviction that God will ultimately redeem all mean in terms of actions in the here and now in respect of (nasty) individuals - and, for that matter, (fragile) creation? The idea that Christ will make all things new is not normally considered justification for trashing the environment now. Similarly, shouldn't the hope that he will ultimately reconcile all people to himself change our attitudes to all the people we deem to be evil, starting now? Aren't we charged with the ministry of reconciliation, as of now? What does that look like?
It means that racists and paedophiles are welcome in churches, but steps are taken to avoid them being able to harm others. So in the case of the latter they might be required not to talk or sit near to children or their parents, or to attend services where only adults are likely to be present. In both cases they would be barred from positions of trust or leadership, both to protect others and to avoid "leading them into temptation".
The theoretical. Is total bollocks. In the resurrection, in paradise, the therapy, deconstruction, reconstruction, rebirth of a mere fertilized ovum of a consciousness in a perfectly wired glorified brain in perfect full communion will make the "will", whatever that is, utterly irrelevant. Somebody should write the novel.
The practical. As you know better than any, bang them up. Because only in Norway (anywhere else?) are they actually going to be managed in the community. Apart from that humanly irredeemable monster Breivik. God will sort him out. We need another century or ten of economic growth before we can actually have the resources to rehabilitate non-psychopaths and be tough on the causes of crime.
And what @Arethosemyfeet said once they're out.
My "we" didn't refer to society and "them", and what "should be done" by someone else. It referred to you, me, the person that's in our face, and what our attitude to them is. Because if it doesn't come down to how I actually behave, what's the point? ("Think globally, act locally, be converted personally" is my new mantra).
You can. Should have got it on your first recommendation. I like the incarnational mantra. I've experienced the public sharp end as a 'soup kitchen' volunteer. A 10 year regular with not a lot going for him (Brit. understatement), whom I know carries a knife (as opposed to assuming they all do, and no we never ask...), and has a scarily aggressive, now muzzled dog (Staffie-crocodile cross, and I'm a dog man) approached me looking disturbed one night and said that a new elderly man was his childhood abuser (I've had the reverse too, an abuser approaching me in fear). The venue is a sanctuary obviously, so what's the protocol? We gave the regular a takeaway; I'd reported the situation to my boss. Seen neither since. What if they'd both come to church? That would have been truth and reconciliation time. Or at least truth. I'd have had them come to different services for a start. And not to bring knives... I've always been hands on with the more obviously broken at church, in a hands off way of course. Apart from once... Use the elegantly matching R.D. Laing approach. With a huge full on delusional schizophrene loud in services, talking about his poltergeists... (code for his violence). Er, no I didn't turf him out. It would have taken five men armed with chairs. He'd have a bite on him as bad as the Staffie.
I've worked with a number of teenagers and children who were with that service because they had sexually assaulted other younger children and were identified as too risky to continue educating in mainstream schools. It was part of the reason that service was established. We were providing not just an education but also therapy, a safe place for both them and any other children and also facilitating support with one of the two organisations that attempts to address their offences.
We struggled to keep both these youngsters and others in the service safe. They were often charming individuals who wanted to be with others in the group they had previously preyed on, and were attempting to make further contact. And for some, often the younger individuals, their behaviour continued to develop dangerously, resulting in placement in a secure unit to keep others in the community safe.
Having also worked trying to support and integrate adults, placed on the sex offenders register for child sex offences, into a church, attempting to agree a contract that limited these adults' contact with children was virtually impossible as they refused to agree and sign it. As someone who worked in the field, this was another factor that drove me out of church, seeing repeated behaviours playing out that I could neither condone nor speak out against, as I was bound by confidentiality clauses, meant I left.
In France we have nothing remotely approaching the UK's criminal background check as far as child protection issues go (at least not in terms of how it impacts church work. I recall my dad having to get a CRB in order to be able to weed the flowerbeds at his church while a mums and toddlers club was on indoors) and there is no obvious French term or concept relating to safeguarding. There just isn't. It's not immediately apparent to me that we have more, or fewer, sex offences as a result. What is clear is that there is a massive cultural component to this construct.
And "sex offenders" is just too broad a category. Two teenagers fooling around in the back of a car, one of whom is marginally under the age of consent, is not the same thing as someone who has sexually abused a family member, which is not the same thing again as a serial rapist who barely knows their victims.
The difficulty I have with @Arethosemyfeet's answers however sensible they may sound is that they also sound like the implementation of protocols designed to stop the spread of Covid rather than dealing with humans. I'm not minimising the dangers, just questioning how they are addressed at the coal face. @Martin54's anecdotal solution sounds more like what I would do.
It's fair criticism. I've never been the one having to deal with the situation, so what I'm suggesting is based on second hand experiences and what I know of official church policies. Doubtless were I actually faced with the situation my response would be different (better or worse).
The problem with protocols is that they can be applied without people fully understanding the issues they're designed to address. Pharasaism and legalism ensue, and miss the point. For any kind of disruption in church, be it paedophiles or terrorists (and unlike paedophiles, this is something my church regularly gets bulletins about from the authorities), I've long taken the approach that having a community of people that understand and practice certain values allows for more human-centric, intuitive responses that I wager might be just as effective if not more so than a whole list of protocols.
I guess the link with my earlier comments to the OP is that while speculation about the scope of salvation and/or damnation is fun, where the rubber really hits the road is in our individual attitudes to those around us. If we champion a universalist God while, in practice, routinely mentally consigning people to Hell (whether the Ship's or the actual one if there is one), while I accept as per @KarlLB that the consequences of our consigning aren't exactly the same as they would be with an actual Hell, the disconnect bothers me nonetheless.
I really wasn't talking about two teenagers fooling around in the back of a car, that's normal teenage behaviour that doesn't get them regarded as a danger to other students. I was referring to children and teenagers who have sexually abused younger siblings and/or who have been showing early signs of becoming a serial rapist, with a series of assaults on strangers, and a whole lot of other situations. (Also girls who have been gang raped or groomed and abused by paedophile groups.)
And having worked with a number of students with that background, the eagerness of the adults I was thinking about to volunteer to be in contact with others was horribly familiar.
I think the disconnect bothers you because you're seeing the consequences as "(not) exactly the same" whereas they are in fact absolutely poles apart and bearing no resemblance to each other. Similarly, bracketing together "whether the Ship's or the actual one if there is one" as if there was actually any similarity bemuses me. When someone on the Ship posts in the TICTH thread it doesn't mean "this person is utterly beyond any hope of redemption and must be either erased from existence or made to suffer eternally". It doesn't mean anything even remotely like that.
I don't think universalism per se actually makes a lot of difference to how we treat people, because in this life whether we're universalist or not we still should believe in the possibility of, and hope for, the redemption of anyone. The actual difference is that when they shuffle off this mortal coil, we have a continuing hope that the redemptive process can continue and will ultimately be successful, because of who is running it.
Cross. That's where, IMV, God resolves the conflict of the problem of the people hurting the people he loves being the people he loves. How exactly I don't know, but it looks like God expressing his own pain.
Never bashed your head against the wall wanting to hug and strangle your kids at the same time?
Being angry and open about that anger doesn't mean having to destroy and torment.
That's true, but the cross is tricky in that respect, isn't it? There was torment if not total destruction. Being somewhat cynical, and sticking to your banging one's head against the brick wall analogy, is cosmic self-harm any better than cosmic child abuse?
What about them? Do they utterly reject and condemn that child? Or wouldn't they rather hope for that child to change their ways and be reconciled? If they reached a point where they were no longer open to that possibility wouldn't that be human frailty rather than a reflection of the divine?
Yes, I think it is. Better I put my fist through a wall than through someone's face.
The way round the problem you allude to above would appear to be some sort of Purgatory, albeit a redemptive rather than a punitive one*. A Short Stay in Hell really messes with that because it kind of brings home (in a seriously vertigo-inducing way) how truly vast expanses of time are as near to eternity as makes no difference in terms of human experience. As when the author discards his envisaged use of the term "eon":
...and that's before any prospect of Heaven.
*And if we are thinking in terms of ultimate redemption/restoration, then the whole punitive logic, "s/he deserves..." has to go, as well as its corollary, to which you alluded earlier, of avoiding punishment.
Quite. I'm interested in curing people, not punishing their sins. I'm not putting timescales on things so I'm not sure how what a trillion years feels like is relevant.
When I allude to issues as I see them in the Evangelical model I engage with it on its own terms, within which it most certainly about avoiding punishment. That shouldn't be taken to mean I think in or accept those terms.
But even if time is not the right... dimension? to use, any process of "curing" (more on which in a minute) must fill up some individual experience in some way, otherwise one is left with the same problem you implied eariler: an instantaneous free pass.
That has some rather sinister overtones. At least with punishment one usually has a fixed term after which one is released. If one is deemed to be ill, especially psychiatrically, there is a very real risk of never getting out. And what if one doesn't want to be "cured"? There is such a thing as therapeutic obstinacy. Can one be spiritually "cured" against one's will? What if one's definition of wellness doesn't match God's? And is the Ship Hell, say, really curative? (It can be, but that seems often to be by accident rather than design).
As for sinister overtones - compared with eternal suffering I'll take the sinister overtone option. The only person suggesting cure against someone's will is you. And how would that be worse than torturing someone against their will? Or annihilating them?
Quite honestly I find all this stuff very hard to believe but of all the fifteen impossible things I am asked to believe before breakfast the idea that God loves everyone more than I can imagine but also has a torture chamber worse than I can imagine waiting for lots of them is the most ridiculous.
Eternity is also forever and ever. Backwards. I.e. for real.
So is your universalism qualified, hopeful, or what? Does God reconcile all things to himself or just most of them? If only most of them, who fails to make the cut, and why? What happens to them that is just in the sense of appropriate, fitting, as it should be?
(I mean, I'm tempted by universalism, but it's not without its problems...).
A Short Stay in Heaven makes the limitations of thinking in terms of duration clear, but nevertheless helps explore the issues at hand, notably the idea of a Purgatory, which we seem to be discussing somewhat here.
Assuming a putative 'Purgatory' is in some way experienced, which seems to be consistent with allowing conscious realisation and transformation, one needs some sort of dimension in which that consciousness can be experienced. Time seems like the closest possible approximation.
This seems an incongruous point to make against people arguing against the possibility of eternal punishment.
I have no problem using time as an analogue for whatever change occurs in in eternity.
I cannot conceive of God ever giving up on anyone or thing he has created. Especially when he by definition understands how we tick so well.
Hmm, that's a Deep Thought/Earth problem. You'd have to understand what the question means.
How?
Upthread the Sheep and the Goats (Mat 25) was mentioned in relation to whether there is a literal hell. Again I think this is just vivid imagery to make the radical point that there are sins of *omission* eg failing to feed or clothe the poor or care for those in prison. Of course we are not told how much caring for the poor we have to do to avoid ending up like the 'goats' with 'eternal punishment'. So a moral warning, not a piece of systematic theology.
While I was in Matthew I thought I'd have a look there at the Sermon on the Mount;
2 references to hell: 'Anyone who says 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell'. A call for reconciliation really. And 'It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell'. I don't think Christians have ever taught that fornicating men should emasculate themselves to avoid hell!
Also 'You are the salt of the earth' must have been the subject of a million sermons. Who's to say it doesn't mean that the 'elect' are 'saved' as gift-bearers (the gift being grace) for the whole of humanity who will ultimately be saved (I got this idea from the mission theology of the late Lesslie Newbegin).
And while we are in the Sermon on the Mount how about the Beatitudes:
To be called 'sons of God' 'all' we have to do is be peacemakers. And to be shown mercy 'all' you have to do is -be merciful! etc etc.
Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. It's more than doing the right stuff, it's being the believing people. Fruitfulness will only come through faithfulness.
Tough for all those people who desperately want to believe but can't.
If you can't trully believe, just try and follow the 2nd of Jesus's commandments
That does not turn one into a believer, which @ExclamationMark makes the requirement.
I hope that God appreciates the effort anyway
If doubt was admissible then, it surely is now; more than that, I think it's a healthy component of genuine faith, not a symptom of defective faith. It's not the same thing as the wilful unbelief of the soldiers and those they colluded with, who knew the truth and sought to cover it up because it was the truth, not because of any legitimate doubt.