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I had the privilege of taking a class with Jason Clark on the theology of church. The class was killer. It has helped to reinforce my hope for the church and my desire to work with it. The class covered such topics as consumerism, deep church, emergent church, bricolage and so much more. Which I will post on if there is any interest, or if I have time.
While checking out Jason’s blog I came across a conversation on universalism. For those who need clarification and what universalism is (as I did) I have provided a brief definition.
1. EXCLUSIVISM: Those who live and die without receiving christ will go to Hell, whether or not they heard the Gospel. This is a postion Calvin took in the reformation, developing Augustine’s dislike of broad salvation. Sometimes this is known as ‘restictivism’, where by the majority of mankind will not be saved. This view was not that of the early church, but after the reformation can be traced as a dominant view in fundamentalist churches, and more generally in evangelical churches, asserting that unless people accept christ personally, they won’t be saved. However even most evangelicals make exceptions for mentally ill people, and children, which leads us to the next version.
2. INCLUSIVISM: This asserts that anyone saved will only be so through Jesus, and in no other way. But it allows God’s grace and salvation to extend to others who have had an imperfect knowledge of him, i.e have not had the chance to know who he is and chose or reject him. People are saved on the basis of what they have know not on what they haven’t. This allows for people before the time of Christ, i.e Israel in the OT, children, mentally ill people, but opens up the possibility of adults of other religions or none to be saved (see The Last Battle by C S Lewsi for an example of this!).
3. PLURALISM: The idea here is that all relgions point and lead to God. It does not assert that everyone will be saved though, and allows for some people to not be saved, ie Hitler etc.
4. UNIVERSALISM: This goes further than pluralism, in that you don’t need any religion to be saved. Everyone regardless of what they believe, or have done, is saved, unlike pluralism which allows for the idea that some people won’t be saved.
So, where would you place yourself on the topic? What are you out of these four and why? Or are you something not named here, and if so what is that and how do you define it.
