Hi Roofus,
Yes, I would qualify as an evangelical by just about any standard I can think of. My theological training and ministry experience has all been in the evangelical tradition, more specifically the Wesleyan tradition, although I came to Christ outside of any denomination, more through my own personal experience of God (and my grandmother) than through any church. I think one result of that is that I’m pretty open to considering ideas that a lot of evangelicals would consider heretical. Even though I’m very much theologically and philosophically minded, I realized long ago that we aren’t saved by our doctrinal statements! Sometimes I think that a lot of evangelicals really believe that “salvation by faith” means “salvation by correct dogma” and that the unpardonable sin is having an error in your doctrinal statement. But that’s another issue altogether. So I already hold some views that many people would probably think disqualify me as an evangelical. But I hold firmly to the bodily, historical Resurrection of Jesus, the authority of Scripture and the necessity of faith AND repentance for salvation. With a lot of evangelicals I don’t think the Resurrection has a central place in their thinking, and repentance is often relegated to an optional thing after conversion.
I don’t want to bore you with my whole theological system. But I’ve realized in the last week or so that UR just really fits a lot better with the rest of my beliefs than ECT. I think it makes for a much more coherent and robust theology than the traditional view. At the moment I consider myself a hopeful evangelical universalist, but I could easily see myself ending up as a dogmatic evangelical universalist! Actually, I’ve never really believed in ECT. I’ve had a vague C.S. Lewis view of damnation even though it’s been years since I read the Great Divorce and there’s a lot about Lewis’s thinking I don’t know. It’s interesting that he was influenced by George MacDonald so much, whom I’ve never read but evidently was a universalist.
But when you speak of experience, it’s interesting to me that in the last week I’ve read several people say that when they came to accept UR, it gave them a greater sense of God’s love, made them more loving towards others, gave them more peace, and so forth. I’ve had the exact same experience. It didn’t at all make me think, “well if everyone goes to heaven it doesn’t matter what I do.” On the contrary, I’ve had a much closer sense of God’s presence than I have for years, and it makes me want to be as pure and holy as I possibly can so I can abide in his love. It’s given me more of the fruit of the Spirit, especially love, peace, and patience. Even my wife has commented on it. I often have a bit of a short fuse, and can get to shouting at the kids and things like that pretty easily. I’ve just had noticeably less of that in the last few days as I’ve been going through all of this. When I first experienced God it was as a presence of pure warmth, light, and love just like the Bible says. Most of my experience of God in the church has been very dry by comparison. But lately I feel that same warmth, light and love that I’ve had only occasionally in my Christian life. I’m a good enough Wesleyan to believe that experience counts for a lot as long as it doesn’t violate Scripture. I guess a lot of people might say that this DOES violate Scripture, but that’s not at all clear to me, and I feel like my eyes have been opened to a substantial number of places where Scripture seems to very clearly teach UR.
Although actually, when I started working out my view of hell (about a week or so ago I guess) I had an overwhelming sense of dread that sort of hung over me for a few days. I didn’t really know what was happening with that, except that as I thought about whether there really is a hell of never-ending conscious torment I was repulsed. I even had something like nightmares about it after reading one book that vividly and graphically presents ECT as a sort of foundational belief for Christians that we should base our lives on in the here-and-now. I don’t know how to say it, but the idea actually seems possibly demonic to me now. In fact it’s occurred to me that some sort of belief in hell may be universal in all cultures and religions, and that belief is what keeps people in bondage to false gods and idolatry, hoping to stay out of hell. Jesus came to free us from that fear and dread. But according to the traditional view, most people still end up in hell. So how can that free anyone from fear of hell if you don’t find out until you die whether you made it or not? You still have to live with the possibility that you might blow it altogether. Even if you’re into eternal security (which I never have been), there’s still the possibility that you’re deceived about your own salvation, so I’ve never understood how people thought that to be a comforting doctrine. It’s only comforting if it’s true AND if you infallibly know that you are among the elect. But it seems like the latter knowledge may be impossible to have. How could you ever know that your belief in your own election is infallibly true? You could HOPE it’s true, but you could never KNOW it’s true infallibly.
Actually, as I write this it occurs to me that UR could make sense out of the seemingly contradictory statements in Scripture that seem to teach eternal security on the one hand and that warn against falling away on the other. This would make sense if it were the case that your final salvation is secure even if you fall away, but that falling away means passing through painful judgment and discipline. It might even help to make sense of predestination and free will. That would be a kicker, wouldn’t it? Maybe the big problem on both sides is the underlying assumption that not all are ultimately saved. I’ll have to do some more thinking about that. I don’t know what I’m going to do if I conclude that this doctrine solves otherwise irresolvable theological difficulties. I’d have a hard time keeping that to myself. But I’m not really prepared to go public in the foreseeable future. I can sympathize with Gregory MacDonald wanting to keep his identity secret. I don’t think most evangelicals are prepared to handle this idea. But maybe God is doing a new thing. There does seem to be a sea change among evangelicals in general these days, though not all of it is good in my opinion. But I think a lot of younger evangelicals would be more than happy to get rid of ECT. If they could see a way to do that while still holding to the same high view of Scripture and without being a demotivation to either evangelism or obedience to God, many of them would probably jump at it. The rest would excommunicate the heretics!
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