Edited to add: thanks, Cole!
So, having introduced the book, why did I invite Joe to this forum for an interview (aside from wanting to help a friend of course)?
The question of mystical experiences worldwide throughout history (and its related topic in near-death experiences, though that isn’t the topic of this book), has been broached several times here on the forum in past years. Joe knows the limits of how far to argue for what the evidence he discusses suggests about the existence and characteristics of God, but the evidence as such does strongly suggest God acts in a wide and largely religion-neutral fashion toward saving sinners of many kinds from sin, even if not immediately into what we as Christian universalists (of various sorts) would regard as doctrinal accuracy or even immediately into whatever we would regard as moral propriety. Not everything in a person’s life is immediately fixed (by whatever standard we ourselves may regard as being fixed), but people’s lives and their relationships with other people are demonstrably improved on a regular basis.
That’s hardly evidence solely in favor of some kind of Christian universalism (or even solely in favor of a loosely pluralistic non-Christian ‘universalism’ promoted by groups like the so-called Unitarian Universalists); Joe himself is an Arminianistic annihilationist along the lines of C. S. Lewis, but a Calvinist could say such results are indicative of the special election of those people, and obviously the extra-religious inclusivism suggested by such results doesn’t preclude other people being tormented forever (by God or otherwise) or eventually annihilated completely out of existence (by God or ditto). But it does at least suggest a pre-religious inclusivism along the lines accepted by, for example, Lewis. And that fits Christian universalism, too, as far as it goes, and certainly doesn’t count against us!
Another interesting and useful aspect of Joe’s book, that I think readers here will appreciate, is his exposition on Kuhn’s theory of paradigm shifts – though of course any minority belief would appreciate that section. (I’m hoping Chris Date ([tag]theopologetics[/tag]) and his friends at the anni journal Rethinking Hell will find Joe’s work worth commenting on and interviewing, too.) But I’ll let Joe talk more about that himself below as part of the interview.
This interview thread is open to any comments and questions as I go along. Since Joe is a guest (and particularly my guest – and since I have just not-incidentally tagged a Calv anni friend of mine, too, for attention), I will be more picky about emotional misbehaviors here than I usually am. So play nice; challenges are one thing (though keep in mind Joe isn’t here to debate or even discuss Christian universalism, presumably ditto Chris if he shows up), name-calling is another. TEST ME ON THIS AT YOUR PERIL!