Alternatively, why has Christian universalism never gone away?
The question's not discussed in churches and if it's mentioned at all it's usually only to denounce it as a heresy. And yet the belief in universal reconciliation (UR) has been a consistent strand throughout church history. Today, in terms of books sold and YouTube videos watched - the only type of metrics possible as there are hardly any universalist churches around to allow a meaningful count of posteriors on pews - the interest in UR is increasing while mainstream church attendance is declining, certainly in the UK anyway. It seems to me that CF also shows this trend in that threads on UR have considerably more comments and, more significantly, views than those on any other subject.
Could it possibly be that the reason belief in universal reconciliation has never gone away is because it's the truth that scripture points to?
And let's remember who we are and keep it civil folks (assuming anyone replies!).
Well if your a Christian I think the idea of a Universal world is a truth told in the Bible. But its not just a Biblical truth but really a truth for humankind. This is reflected in even secular society with examples like the Declaration of many nations and Univsersal Human Rights, and Dr Kings civil Rights movement back in the 60s ect.
Its the basis for upholding human dignity and worth. That no person can be denied certain natural Rights regardless of State intervention or subjective ideas about human value. That we are united and not judged by the colour of our skin.
That being said I think the opposite is happening where UR is being rejected in favor of identity politics even many Churches supporting this. Over the years as society has moved away from God and Christianity a new kind of religion is taking its place where individualism is the utmost truth to worship.
Its now about society being divided into identity groups which is very divisive. We have Christians, Muslims, political groups like Marxist, Liberals, Conservatives, Left, Right, Blacks, Whites, Males, Females, Trans, growing gender identities, ethnicity Race the list goes on.
This idea of individual liberalism stems from Enlightenment but I don't think they envisioned the type of society we have ended up with today. IMO it makes sense that taking God out of the picture has caused this. At least taking the idea of some independent entity or source beyond humans themsleves has led us inwards. Now all meaning in life is with us, our existence, our identity and experiences over all else.
We are the gods of our own life so the ideas we come up with are our ideas. But we are fallible humans who have an evil side as well as a goode side and left to our own devices I think we tend to mess things up by our history especially in the 20th century.
We are not becoming universal but a divided world. Theres no common belief and truth as a nation and it seems the world is going that way as well. We need something, anything but ourselevs to base truth on to bring about a united world. Something untouchable and good to unite us.
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