I return once more from the hectic merry-go-round that is the University term, and find myself brimming with things that I really wish I had written about, but just never managed to. I missed out on the sale of the forests, the shape of the AV campaign, the seemingly endless reports of examples in the Tory-Lib Dem plans where the rich get off far lighter than those who can ill-afford it, and of course the fracas in north Africa. There is the upcoming TUC march to consider- and there have been many interesting things emerging from my sojourn in Oxford- I've met the architect of the Anglican Covenant, there was an interesting talk over the treatment of asylum seekers and the possibility of the borderless world, I have gained a community organizing internship in East London for the summer, run by the same guys who trained Barack Obama. Exciting things indeed and hopefully I will cover those things in the upcoming weeks. But what do I turn to first midst this array of topics?
However I'm going to start strangely enough, with what I've been studying, which is patristics. That's right, long dead theologians splitting hairs over how Jesus can exactly be 'God' and 'Man' or how the Spirit relates to the Father and Son. Seemingly trying to square their splendidly jewish scriptures with the subtleties of greek philosophy in order to appear intellectually credible- I can see many a protestant purist seeing this period as the one of decline and contamination of the 'pure gospel' with pagan thought, and indeed a great many more not solely walking in Luther's footsteps questioning just how relevant any of it is.
Apart from humbly suggesting that many, many Christians are forever trying to make sense of the figure of Christ through paradigms, ideas and analogies they are familiar with, which often includes assumptions drawn from the surrounding culture[1], that ultimately, it is the work of these men that give much of Christianity its distinctive shape, ideas and flavour; their conclusions (summarised in Councils like Nicaea, Chacedon, Alexandria) still remain the litmus-test of Christian Orthodoxy. Every baptised church member (apparently) affirms the views they set forth.
All very well and good one might say, but what possible relation can one find to these ancient thinkers to something happening today in order to blog about it (I think it's fair to label this blog as more current events 'table talk' than a reflective summa theologiae or Institutes- that is when I write at all, of course). However providence moves in funny ways and I have learnt that at the end of the month Rob Bell is publishing a new book- 'love wins'.
LOVE WINS. - Available March 15th from Rob Bell on Vimeo.
Just watch it, look at what he's saying- he's not implying [stage whisper] universalism, is he?
Well, one can imagine the absolute brouhaha that would result with such a suggestion from such an influential figure in the contemporary Christian world and it meets with strong rebuttal from (I imagine) all over the web, though I cite just one example. What intrigues me is how the argument often seems to be that this is somehow moving away from 'tradition' it's an INSIDIOUS. LIBERAL. TREND. Both new and the result of nothing more than the pressures of the culture, forcing silly old Rob to sell out on the TRUTH.
I hope you can see where this is now heading. The synchronicity of providence never ceases to amuse and amaze- for it is just the case that actually, through reading the Church Fathers, I too am beginning to inch towards the Universalist position myself. There may just be, the possibility that the gift of grace is really extended to all, that salvation is something that extends to all humans, so that God may be all in all (1 Cor 15.28), and that God '...desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of truth' (1 Tim 2.4) because through the work of Christ 'God was pleased to reconcile himself to all things, whether on earth or in heaven... (Col 1.20). And it is there, right in the early days of the Church- as it formulates an understanding of the person of Christ, the nature of God and so on and so forth, many of the ancient fathers also seemed to embrace the total and all-pervading victory of God over chaos and evil. And if we can accept that we owe rather more to the Church Fathers than we'd care to admit in formulating the orthodoxy we recite today (even though we frequently fail to understand their thought today[2]) then perhaps we should also be listening carefully to what they say on other matters? After all the Church is an entity that grows organically, rather than being constantly reinvented, the past is never (entirely) thrown out, so who knows where welcoming the past back into our church more fully in this instance may lead us?
Given the length of this post already, I shall outline how I have reached this conclusion very soon, thus much of this post appears to be little more than a book promotion and note of apology. Having said that of course, I am very sorry for my silence and I do think that this latest book is definitely going to be one worth reading. However there is one more aspect- my own contribution on this topic is going to be tiny, underwhelming and related simply to the church Fathers. I was going to write it today, but I found that the truly excellent Richard Beck is also blogging about universalism.
At the current day of posting, there are six entries, the first of which can be found RIGHT HERE that will deal far more fully and generally with the subject of universal salvation and part of the reason I am refraining from writing my twopence today is because I think it would be worth my time as well to read them all, so for now I will leave it in his capable hands.
Hopefully, the gap between this post and the subsequent will be distinctly less than the one that preceeded this post!
[1] I think it is a given that we can neither escape our 'history' or our 'location', which I am labeling as conditions of our participation in a certain intellectual and social climate which stems from our physical selves being dimensionally finite and bound by temporality- such is human nature. Our thought is even shaped by our language and how we understand particular words, it's a real minefield!
[2] Most modern theologians tend to be loose on these doctrinal questions, sometimes even rejecting the conclusions- here one could cite the favouring of divine passability - whilst in the pulpits and congregation there seems to be a strong tendency to veer between modalism and tritheism in describing God in the western church.
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