Universalist Friends
The Journal of the
Quaker Universalist Fellowship
Number 45
February 2007
In This Issue
The Quaker Universalist Fellowship is an informal
gathering of persons who cherish the spirit of universality that has always
been intrinsic to the Quaker faith. We acknowledge and respect the
diverse spiritual experience of those within our own meetings as well as of
the human family worldwide; we are enriched by our conversation
with all who search sincerely. Our mission includes publishing and
providing speakers and opportunities for fellowship at regional and
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From the Editor
This issue of the Universalist Friends provides a feast. I am overjoyed to be able to print a letter from John Linton, now aged 95, founder of the Quaker Universalist Group of Britain and initiator our Quaker Universalist Fellowship here in North America. In a follow-up letter (I asked him to check my spelling of names), he emphasizes his pleasure in meeting so many wonderful people during his trip here.
Last February, we published an article by Eric Thompson on the beginning of universalism in the Hebrew Scriptures. In this issue, Stephen Finlan provides a follow-up. His article begins with the prophets and progresses to present Jesus as a universalizing figure. The early Quakers were, of course, great readers of, and believers in, the Bible. I plan an article on this for the forthcoming issue.
My meeting Stephen is a fine example of the joys of professional scholarship. My Doing without Adam and Eve has a chapter on the atonement; Stephen wrote a book titled Problems with Atonement and sent me a copy because he knew of my interest in the subject. I read his book with pleasure and appreciation. In it he notes, “The true direction of the Gospel . . . is toward universalism.” “Aha!” I said to myself, and wrote back in praise of his book and, at the end, solicited an article for Universalist Friends, which he gladly provided. Scholarship offers the pleasure of these sorts of friendly exchanges, of meeting new people, if only by smail and email. My thanks to Stephen!
Delightfully, letters arrived from nontheists about the God each does not believe in, as I had requested in my last two editorials. I think I have Os Cresson to thank, for I think he posted a notice to the nontheist website. In any case, I read them with great pleasure and have published them here. They seem to fall into two categories, roughly speaking: those who do not want to believe in an evil God, and those who do not want to believe in a false God.
Susan Rose is to be credited with a correspondence with Os that elicited a shorter letter than the one originally sent. It is published here. It reminds us that some nontheists seem never to have had a concept of God to reject. Clearly, my question will leave these nontheists cold.
My sympathies are probably about equally divided between concern about belief in an evil God and a false God. As a little girl, I decided that, if I were to believe in God, it would be a good God. I’ve never changed my mind. Yet, the Bible draws many portraits of God, some silly to us, some jealous, some violent, some resembling a generous parent. Many people brought up in the country discovered in their teens that they believed in two Gods, the good one of nature and the bad one of the church. Indeed, many of us learned about the evil God in church. So much for Christian education!
As for false Gods, no one believes in the true God, if there is one. We can’t, for we cannot know God, as every theology worth its salt and all the mystics inform us. We are stuck with our false, often anthropomorphic, images, our idols. Certainly, David Boulton’s “mercy, pity, peace and love” (from the great British mystic, William Blake, as I recall) are more than most of us can manage and sufficient for a life of goodness. My own experience is that they are certainly more than I can manage. But, if I remember to pray for help, I am answered, helped, by something that seems to me to be not-me. That I call God. (A pamphlet detailing central episodes my own spiritual journey is available on our website.)
No sooner had the letters from nontheists begun to arrive than Friends Journal published an article by Gil Johnston titled “Thinking Again about God.” I received permission to republish it here. I think it will speak to many of us.
Os’s original letter expressed concern about our getting into arguments and being rejected if we express our beliefs or non-beliefs about God. Let’s hope not! As editor, I offer two promises: I will not edit your letters without your express permission, except, perhaps, for grammar and spelling, and I will not publish negative, argumentative, rebuking letters. But if members of the Religious Society of Friends—and especially we universalists—cannot discuss God peaceably among ourselves, we are in trouble.
So, please, let us continue the dialogue begun here. I am interested, especially, in hearing from those whose God failed to grow up with them (so they gave up on God) as David Boulton comments elsewhere, his God did. Then, also, from those whose God did grow up (so they have a God they can believe in). I think this could be a fascinating discussion that could help us all increase in understanding of each other and (dare I say it?) in mercy, pity, peace and love.
Patricia A. Williams
The mission of The Quaker Universalist
Fellowship is to foster the under-standing that within everyone is a directly accessible spiritual light that can lead people to equality, simplicity, justice,
compassion and peace.
QUF Steering Committee, November 2005
UPCOMING
The Elizabeth Ann Bogert Memorial Fund for the Study or Practice
of Christian Mysticism, administered by Friends World Committee
for Consultation, is offering a grant of up to $1,000 for proposals.
The deadline is March 1. Grants are given annually. Email queries
to muccidem@verizon.net. A brochure is available from Friends
Center, 1506 Race Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102.
SUBMISSIONS
We are seeking articles from 500 to 3,000 words. These may be
essays on personal experience of arrival or maturation in Quaker
universalism or of worship or they may be scholarly works focused on
Quaker universalism, history, biography, sociology, scripture, and
theology, both Christian and non-Christian. We also welcome book
reviews, poetry, personal essays, and letters. Use inclusive language.
Please send your submissions by U.S. mail on diskette or CD in WORD
to Patricia Williams, P.O. Box 69, Covesville, VA 22931 or as
WORD attachments to email to theologyauthor@aol.com. Please put UF
in the subject line. We do not accept anonymous submissions
without very good reason. We may request that you edit your
contribution before publication. Deadline for next issue: June
15.
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A Letter to the editor of the Universalist
Friends
By John Linton
Dear Friend,
I thought you might be interested in my memories of
the founding of the Quaker Universalist Fellowship. As you
perhaps know, I founded both the QUG [Quaker Universalist
Group] and the QUF. The QUG was founded in London in
1977 following a talk I gave to the Seekers entitled `Quakerism
as Forerunner'. In 1982, Judith Arness, an American
Friend, invited me to come and publicise the universalist message
in the States. She {laid on} an {extensive} tour starting in
Boston, then traveling via Chicago to the west coast, down to
Los Angeles, across to the east coast and ending in Philadelphia.
I was of course already familiar with America, having
been employed, with my wife Erica, by both British and
American Friends for six years as QIAR [Quaker International
Affairs Representative] in Delhi.
I only vaguely remember the Meeting Friends laid on
for me in Chicago. I stayed in the University Hotel, and
attended a concert given by the Symphony Orchestra in the open,
and it {rained}! I found the museum showing how Chicago
came into being of great interest. In Seattle I stayed with Jewish
friends I had met in Oxford. Both my wives were Jewish. The
first, Zoye, was Russian Jewish, and the second, Erica, was
German Jewish by origin. So I have always been happy with
Jewish culture, though not with their religion.
In San Francisco, I gave my talk in the Meeting
House, which has a view of the Golden Gate Bridge. I was
surprised, and pleased, to see a statue of Gandhi in the city,
com-memorating his visit. In Claremont, I stayed with Leonard
and Martha {Dart}. They, like me, had done a stint in India, so
we had that in common. I am still in touch with Martha. In
Los Angeles I stayed with a Friend who had a New York Jewish
background, and who objected to Christian Friends trying
to convert her!
On my way to the east coast I stayed at Denver,
Colorado, the `mile-high city', where it was snowing in March.
My memories of the east coast are disappointingly vague, though
I clearly recall stays in Atlanta, Georgia, and High Point,
North Carolina. In the latter my host was Mel Zuck, which made
me realize for the first time that I was in a foreign country!
My talk `Quakerism as Forerunner' was never
published in the British `Friend'. But it was published, with
beautiful illustrations, in your `Friends Journal,' issue dated October
15, 1979. [It also appears in the Quaker Universalist Reader Number
1.]
Your Friend sincerely (now aged 95!)
John Linton
Letters from Non-theists
God is absent from Os Cresson
My religion centers on life as we see, feel and hear it, as
a naturalist describes it. Events known through the senses
are glorious, mystifying and sufficient, for me! I proceed
without levels we never observe and without religious words such
as God, theism and spirituality, and psychological words such
as mind, consciousness, self and will. These can be translated
into physical terms, or simply omitted. God is absent for me
whether as a personality, or a nonphysical power that influences
physical events, or a metaphor which I find unnecessary and
easily misunderstood.
In freshman Chemistry at Earlham College 45 years
ago we were each given a black box with something in it and
told to try every physical test imaginable and then to describe
a model that would function like the contents of the box,
but not to open it. I felt like one of the slaves chained in
Plato's cave, staring at shadows on the wall created by people
and objects in the sunlight behind their heads. I knew that
most Quakers agreed with the point of the venerable,
2500-year-old allegory. For instance, Howard Brinton wrote
(Friends for 350 Years, p. 37): "As Truth and Substance, (the Light)
shines down from a world higher than our world of Deceit and
Shadow, and guides us up toward itself."
If I were chained in such a cave I would try looking
over my shoulder and studying what is there, expecting to find
the same sensible substance as the wall and shadows and me.
What I couldn't see, still being somewhat chained, would show
itself through its effects or would not be known at all. This is
enough for me. I behave as Quakers do even though there is nothing of
the Other in my personal religious life. Brinton did not like
this approach (p. 32): "The world of appearance and the world
of reality . . . are different. Deceit arises when appearance
takes the place of reality instead of being a genuine and
sincere expression of it." Happily, the Quakers in the three meetings
I have belonged to as an adult haven't cared about all this.
We have sought and found a love that overcomes these differences.
The Gods I don't believe in from David Boulton
The gods I don't believe in are the gods supposed to
exist independently of the human creative imagination, the
gods supposed to be facts rather than instrumental fictions. The
gods I believe in and trust are those understood as
imagined projections of mercy, pity, peace and (above all) love.
These gods, of course, are atheists
Anthropomorphic Gods from Rosemary K. Coffey
In the play Inherit the
Wind (about the trial of Tennessee public school teacher Scopes for teaching about evolution),
the Clarence Darrow character says something like this:
"They've got it all wrong. It's not that God created man in his own
image. It's the other way around."
No wonder our usual concept of God incorporates
such human qualities! They may be good (kindness,
pity, forgiveness) or bad (vengefulness, assigning people to eternal
damnation, returning evil for evil), but for millennia the Supreme
Being has basically been a "super" human being.
We have quite enough on our plate dealing with
other humans. I see no need to bring a "super" human into
the equation.
The God I don't believe in is definitely a father-figure from David Nicholls
I left him behind, or so I thought, more than thirty years ago.
It didn't seem hard to do: I recall neither a sense of great loss
nor of liberation, just another part of growing up, and not by
far the most troublesome. I guess I must have just
been acknowledging something that had really happened
already. The guy in the sky was surely a childish thing, and I had
to move on.
I didn't think I was committing myself to a lifetime
of unbelief, more that I hadn't yet understood what those
grown-ups that I admired and had faith believed in. No hard
feelings, then, an amicable separation. I'd leave him alone and he,
me. I'd be free to find other, grown-up gods, or none, as my
journey took me.
So who broke the settlement? I'm not sure really. I
admit I seemed to have to go back now and then to give him a
kick. And he still bellowed his jealous commandment. I should
have been able to treat all gods, and goddesses, as equals now,
but somehow couldn't. And all the
anthropomorphizations, grounds-of-being, ultimate-concerns, infinite personhoods
and reasonable hypotheses? Idols! of the intellect if not of
wood and stone. Anyway, how could you love a
reasonable hypothesis? It wasn't God, whatever it was.
So I went back and tried to make it up with him. I'd
grown up (a bit) and he would have to. I tried to persuade him:
a functional fiction's a fine thing to be! But it wouldn't
wash. That's a different god, the go-with-a-story, not the same
one grown up.
The only way to be true to the God I don't believe
in (and somehow I have to be) is to reject them all. Men
and gods are not different kinds of being: there are men and
women; there are no gods and goddesses.
The good news is, just because God isn't real it
doesn't mean that nothing else is. The daisies are, and love can be.
My God is a God of justice (and mercy) from Bowen Alpern
The crux is this: is the universe just? Is it in fact true that
"the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward
justice"? Are the righteous rewarded and the unrighteous punished?
This need not require that individual villains be tormented
without end. After all, my God is a God of love as well as justice.
But, if the jackboots of the powerful are going to stamp on the
faces of the powerless forever, then any "God" that might exist
is not the God of Jesus and the prophets, is not the God I
was taught not to have any other "God's before.
Now, I would like as much as anyone to believe in a
just universe. I would like to believe the little child dying
of leukemia will experience happiness in another world. I
would like to believe that Kate Winslet will be reunited in death
with Leonardo DiCaprio. I would like to believe that my friend
who was incarcerated for 28 years for a crime he did not
commit will be reincarnated into a being who could enjoy
a compensating amount of pleasure. I would like to believe
a president who starts a war for short-term political
advantage will experience pain commensurate with the pain he caused.
I would like to be confident that one day the world would
reach a point where human beings will not willfully ignore,
avoid, chastise, abuse, exploit, maim, kill, torture each other.
I would like to, but I cannot. I refuse to be reassured.
I will try as hard as I can to stare into the face of an
amoral universe.
What little justice there is in the world was created
by people like you and me. If the Kingdom of God is to be
built, we will have to build it without Him.
The God I don't believe in from William B. Lindley
As a subscriber to the Nontheist Friends email list, I accept
the invitation to discuss the subject above. I am not a Quaker,
but my grandfather Lindley was (until he married a
Presbyterian), and the family as a Quaker family dates back at least to
1653, where Isaac Lindley is mentioned in The Sufferings of the
People Called Quakers. I live across the street from the La Jolla
Friends Meeting and sometimes attend there.
An atheist friend of mine, when asked whether he
believed in God, would reply: "Which God?" Since there are many
God-models and ideas on how the word should be used, I
consider this a good question indeed. I shall make a short list of some
of the Gods I don't believe in, models that in traditional
Christian theology are accepted as aspects of the one and only God
whom Christians worship.
1. The fellow who showed Moses his backside on the
top of Mt. Sinai (Exodus 33:23). This may be the most
humorous of all and may be called "The Moon over Mt. Sinai" as an
echo of the song "The Moon over Miami". Prudish people may
insist that the areas below God's waist were cloud-covered, but
the Bible is silent on this question. The King James Version
has "
thou shalt see my back parts", which sounds pretty
inclusive. (George W. Foote, an English freethinker, published
during the 1880s a cartoon depicting this verse. He ended up in
prison.) A question for theologians of the Biblical inerrancy
persuasion: given Moses' request in verse 18, Did God show Moses his
glory or not?
2. The fellow who ordered His Chosen People to
murder babies at their mother's breast. If this sounds like hyperbole
to you, I recommend that you give I Samuel 15:3 a good look.
If you read the chapter as a whole, you will find that some
of King Saul's soldiers disobeyed God, not in refusing to
murder babies, but rather in sparing some of the livestock (v. 9). God
punished King Saul for this (v. 23). Dennis McKinsey,
author of Biblical Errancy, once debated a fundamentalist preacher
on radio. He asked the preacher: "If you were in King Saul's
army that day, would you obey the command of verse 3?" After
some angry hesitation, he said (on the air), "Yes, I would." He
refused ever to debate McKinsey again.
3. The God of Deuteronomy 28. As in I Samuel
15, obedience to the Lord was considered a much higher
virtue than good deeds. Verses 1-14 describe the blessings that
will be conferred if one is strictly obedient; if one is otherwise,
verses 15-68 (end of chapter) provide a long series of "curses,"
or horrible things that God will personally bestow on
the disobedient one. One of the more touching items
is dingleberries and Kaposi's Sarcoma (or something much
like it) in one verse (v. 27). If God is love (I John 4:8), then
we might call Deuteronomy 28:15-68 "tough love". Tougher
than that of any parent I know or have ever heard of.
The three above are taken from the God of the Bible,
and many liberal or moderate Christians reject this God.
Those who want to accept the authority of the Bible work hard not
to read or know about the verses above. Those who reject
the Bible's authority here are far too quiet about it. Too bad.
This leaves the biblical inerrantists free to affirm this God,
warts and all, and try to impose Him [editor: see section 4]
on America. I'm happy to see that this effort is failing, at least
at the Congressional level. The struggle isn't over yet, though.
I offer two oxymoronic models of God, widely believed, I
think, among Christians. These models claim that God has
certain properties that in fact contradict one another.
4. The male person who invented gender. God
is commonly accepted as a male person (for Trinitarians,
three male persons); at the same time, these same people
believe that He created everything, and in creating people and
(other) animals, He must have invented gender. How can you be
the same yesterday, today, and forever (male) and at the same
time invent the concept of male and female as a way of
dividing organic life for sexual reproduction?
5. The omnipotent and omnibenevolent creator of
this universe. This incoherence is known among theologians as
"the problem of evil". An ancient Greek philosopher called
attention to it. The fact that theologians are still working on it is a
pretty fair indication that it is insoluble (oxymorons usually are,
but you have to recognize them as such before you give up).
Well, that's it for starters. I haven't addressed the
various interesting ways that the word "God" has been used in
more recent times: Alflred North Whitehead and his process
theology, pantheists (God is everything), panentheists (God is
everything and then some), and so forth. Also there is the charming
claim of Tillich that God is the ground of being. It appears that
Tillich has removed God from the province of the astronomers
and turned Him over to the geologists. There are many
God-models out there that are also worthy of not being believed in.
Maybe I can get to a few of them before December 15.
Two Gods at least from James Riemermann
If I am to speak of God at all, even metaphorically, I find
I must speak of two gods. This may be the reason I tend not
to speak of God. Both gods speak to me as metaphors, but I
have difficulty calling them by the same name.
I am not saying that the world is two, nor that the truth
is. The world is what it is, and cares nothing for our
distinctions. It is often paradoxical, but it is not dual.
Rather, I find that any theology centrally concerned
with values must split the world in two, though theologians
typically go to great lengths to deny that any split has taken place.
This is what they call the "problem of evil."
Firstand needing to be named firstis the god
of creation, of Genesis, of the Book of Job, of the all-creating and
all-destroying cosmic dance of Shiva. This god,
hereafter referred to as God(1), can rightly be described as
creative, powerful, generous, and also horrifying, indifferent at best
and brutal at worst. Out of God(1) emerged life, which can
only continue as long as it devours itself, literally. Violence,
death, disease and suffering are not occasional flukes when life
gets out of balance, but central aspects of the way life
works, particularly in its most highly evolved forms.
God(1), the first god to be portrayed in the Bible, is
a personification of the way the world presents itself to us, in
all its fierceness and glory. It is not nice; in fact I would not go
so far as to say it is good, though it might be said to contain
niceness and goodness. As Job learned, it is not wise to conceive
of God(1) as just, as such a god has bigger fish to fry. Job's story
is not a morality tale, but a wisdom tale, in which the hero
(Job, not God) learns to accept willingly the world as it is, and not
as his human sense of justice tells him it should be. Justice is
real and important, even more so are love and compassion,
but none are qualities of concern to God(1). I make this claim
out of my life's experience in the world.
God(1) serves magnificently as a metaphor for the
natural world as relating to our incessant but ultimately
insufficient efforts to understand it. As a model for how to treat one
another, however, it falls seriously short. To treat my fellow creatures
as God(1) treats me would not be living up to the light
within me. That lightcall it Christ, Buddha, love, compassion,
the living presenceis not God(1). Enter God(2).
Confusing these two gods is not just a harmless
theological technicality, but also a serious and fundamental error in
most theology, providing justifications for great cruelty
and insensitivity to suffering in the world and in religious practice.
In the liberal Christian tradition we are taught that
God is love, that God is good, and that God is the ground of
all being. The logical conclusion is that everything is good
and lovely. This is false. We are also taught that there is sin, which
is the result of human error, and is the cause of our
suffering. This is also false, at least as a blanket statement. Only
some suffering is the result of human error. A person dying of
cancer, or afflicted with a severe disability, or starving because
they were born in famine, suffers at the hand of God(1), and if
we seek to relieve this suffering, it will have to be in the name
of God(2), not God(1). Which is to say, we must respond
with the best of our flawed human selves. That of God(2) must
seek to overcome that of God(1), even though the irresistible
power of God(1) means we will often, and ultimately, fail.
In a sense, I must admit, all of this is false. God(2)
exists within God(1), cannot exist outside of it. There is a grand
and complete unity at the deepest level of existence, but that
unity is not consonant with goodness. When we fail to
distinguish between truth (that which is the case) and goodness (hard
to define, but a good start would be, active compassion for
all living creatures), we cannot rightly discern either.
Thinking Again About God
by Gil Johnston
(from Friends Journal, August 2006. ©2006 Friends
Publishing Corporation. Reprinted with permission.)
Near the beginning of meeting one morning a Friend
spoke, saying that despite continuing efforts, she was still not able
to come to a clear understanding of God. It seemed this
question could not go unanswered, so toward the end of the meeting
I gathered my thoughts together and tried to say
something, though I confess to feeling very awed by the task. Here is
a summary of what was said, plus a few other
thingsperhaps more important thingsthat weren't.
Quakers, unlike many others who believe in and
worship God as something external to themselves, have always
pointed inward and found God as an inner reality. This is not to
say that Quakers have always agreed on how best to
understand this inner reality. Frequently, we talk about God as a
Light Within, or as an Inner Voice, or as a Spirit. Of these words,
the one that comes most naturally to me is Spirit, and yet
even Spiritwith its suggestion of disembodied, ghostlike
beingsdoes not quite fill the need. When I try to understand
what God means to me as an inner reality, I generally find it
necessary to resort to images and metaphors. Paul, in writing to
the Corinthians, did the same thing when he told them, "You
are God's field, God's building." "You are God's temple."
"God's spirit dwells in you." I sometimes like to use the metaphor of
a house, that is, my body as a house, my own consciousness as
a special kind of space. I am not content to think of God as
an occasional visitor who occupies the guestroom on
Sunday. Instead, God becomes the spirit inhabiting this space.
What does it feel like, then, to discover God within
this personal space? I can only answer this question against
the backdrop of images of those deprived of such a spacethe
victims of a hurricane, the refugees in the wake of
an earthquake, the stranded survivors of a tsunami, the
homeless man on a park bench. I am blessed in a way that must not
be taken for granted in having a door to open, a roof over
my head, windows to let in the light, a space to call homea
space, that is, where I feel safe, protected, and grounded, a space
where I can simply feel free to be who I am. This is a feeling
not unlike that which one has upon entering a meetinghouse.
What I'm saying is that such a feeling as this is an intangible
something that is more than bricks and mortar. I may call it the spirit
of the place, but the word "spirit" hardly does it justice. In a
sense, this feeling of well-being can be seen as a gift of grace,
something we didn't create, but have received over and above our
own deserving.
Then, we move from the metaphor of the house,
the meetinghouse, or the temple, and speak more directly of
the inner space that is one's own consciousness. I have a
similar feeling in this case, a feeling of discovering something
larger than myself. Words fail me as I try to say how best to speak
of it. A still, small voice? An inner light? A spirit? A
presence? None of these is quite right, but the reality is there
nevertheless. It's as though my body and my mind, my consciousness,
and my unconscious self as wellall these together do not add
up to all there is inside. They don't account for the sense of
being inwardly cared for, upheld, guided, sometimes even
driven, corrected, grounded, and set at peace. If God is the name
for whatever it is that makes these gifts available, then so be
it. For me this is the way that the word God comes to refer
to something manifestly real. I refer to a reality that will never
be easily understood or put into words in theologies, creeds,
or philosophies. And even though children may know
instinctively what all of this means, it may take us a whole lifetime to
learn how to find the right words to describe it. [Note: Friends
Journal website can be found at www.friendsjournal.org]
Universalism In The Bible
by Stephen Finlan
"Universalism" can refer either to the concept of the
extension of salvation to all ethnic groups, or to the notion that each
and every individual person (even the rebel angels) will
eventually be saved. The former meaning involves a breakthrough in
social vision, seeing salvation extending much further than one's
own group. The latter meaning embodies an eschatological
vision wherein God will eventually succeed in reaching and
saving every individual. ("Eschatology" has to do with "end
things," with God's final ordering of all things on this world and
the next.) Of course, both ideas have social, spiritual,
and eschatological significance. This paper will focus on
the emergence of universalism within the biblical
tradition, especially in the Hebrew prophets. This involves the
first ("social") concept, but certainly has eschatological
implications as well.
The idea that the knowledge of God could be
extended to all ethnic groups emerges with particular force in Isaiah
40-66, which scholars refer to as Second Isaiah (chapters
40-55) and Third Isaiah (chapters 56-66). It takes on even
deeper (yet more concrete) significance in the New
Testament. Prophetic universalism is expanded by Jesus and the apostles.
The Prophetic Ideals
Universalism is a logical development from the
prophetic ideals. Early prophets like Amos and Hosea teach that
God values honest loyalty and just behavior more highly than
ethnic identity or ritual fastidiousness. "I desire steadfast love and
not sacrifice" (Hosea 6:6; I use NRSV unless otherwise noted).
In fact, ethical values are fundamental to the Israelite
religion, which is founded in the concept of a covenant (agreement)
with Yahweh, the God of Israel. The covenant principles
involve not just loyalty to Yahweh, but personal embodiment of
justice, truth, kindness (Isa. 5:7; 58:6; Jer. 7:6; 22:16), and
knowledge of God (Isa. 11:9; Hosea 4:1-8). "Show kindness and mercy
to one another; do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the
alien, or the poor" (Zech. 7:9-10).
Heightened ethical awareness goes hand in hand with
an internalizing of the covenant: God will establish a
"new covenant" written on the heart (Jer. 31:31-33), and will
replace hard-heartedness with tender-heartedness (Ezek. 36:26).
Along with a deepening of the covenant goes the expansion of
its social scope. If ethics matter more than ritual practice or
ethnic identity, it is a logical next step to say that God will
honor these values whenever Gentiles manifest them. Amos
had suggested that Ethiopians, Arameans, and Israelites were
all the same to God (9:7), but this was more a provocative
remark than a proposal for action.
But everything changed after 587 B.C.E., when
the Babylonian Exile began. That is the year in which Babylon
re-conquered Judah, destroyed Solomon's Temple, and
deported Judah's upper classes to Babylon. For several generations
in Babylon, the Jews found themselves living in
intimate association with Gentiles, and it became a real possibility
to teach their neighbors about the one Godto act "as a light
to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of
the earth" (Isa. 49:6). This is the centerpiece of Second
Isaiah's message. If the Jews could become real servants and
mouthpieces of the Almighty, then "kings shall see and stand up," and
God "shall startle many nations" (49:7; 52:15).
These notions are expanded after the return to Judah
from exile, for instance in Zechariah: "Many nations shall
join themselves to the LORD on that day, and shall be my
people" (2:11); "Many peoples and strong nations shall come to
seek the LORD of hosts" (8:22); and in Third Isaiah: "Nations
shall come to your light" (60:3). God promises: "I am coming to
gather all nations and tongues" (Isa. 66:18). God will
even take some of these foreigners "as priests and as Levites"
(Isa. 66:21). A more cautious and conservative editor of Isaiah
66 felt the need to "correct" these statements with
nationalistic statements; Israel will receive the loot of nations (66:20),
and "your race and your name (shall) endure" (66:22, the
NAB translation). It is important to note that both viewpoints,
the universalizing and the more nationalistic, are allowed to
stand in the text. There is no harmonization, just a co-existence,
of the two views. The nationalistic viewpoint has surrounded
the universalizing viewpoint, but not deleted it.
One aspect of nationalism in the ancient world is a
strong affirmation of cult, including sacrificial cult, so it is not
surprising to see that universalism sometimes goes along with an
anti-cultic message. Some sayings reduce the importance of the
ritual system: "to obey is better than sacrifice" (1 Sam. 15:22).
Others attack the system; witness the anti-sacrificial barb in Isa.
66:3: "Whoever slaughters an ox is like one who kills a human
being; whoever sacrifices a lamb, like one who breaks a dog's
neck." Some openly mock sacrifice; a psalmist has God saying "If
I were hungry, I would not tell you" (Ps. 50:12; cf. Mic.
6:6-7). Rituals have a boundary-forming function, shutting
out outsiders, so the critique of cult is also a way of
criticizing tribalism. Spiritualizing attitudes toward cult, then, have
both an ethical and a social dimension.
Progress in religious conceptualization moves in
an ethicizing and universalizing direction. Spiritual
loyalties become deeper (ethically and personally) and
broader (extending across social boundaries).
Progressive Revelation
A universalizing impulse has always been present in
the advancing revelation of truth in the biblical tradition.
This should lead us to respect our spiritual heritage and to affirm it,
even as we seek to continue advancing. We
grow from our past, as well as growing
away from it. Neglect of either half of
this truth leads to imbalance, to alienation from one's own
history, or to narrow-minded slavery to convention. We
must remember "the rock from which you were hewn" (Isa.
51:1)our spiritual heritagebut also recognize that God will
use human agents to proclaim new revelation: "new things I
now declare" (Isa. 42:9).
Are believers ready to hear the new things? "I am doing
a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?"
(Isa. 43:19 RSV). Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Second Isaiah re-shape
the covenant in terms of people receiving a new heart or a
new spirit (Jer. 24:7; Ezek. 11:19; 36:26; 39:29; Isa. 44:3;
59:21), even calling it a "new covenant" (Jer. 31:31-34) or an
"eternal covenant" (Jer. 32:39-40), reaching to "the ends of the
earth" (Isa. 49:6; 52:10). The New Testament expands upon
these concepts; in fact, "new testament"
means new covenant (2 Cor. 3:6; Heb. 10:16). It was marked with the outpouring of a
new spirit, and its goal is "to gather into one the dispersed
children of God" (John 11:52).
The Bible affirms that new truth will be revealed, and
we need to be ready for expanded revelation. We saw that there
is a link between the deepening of ethical insight and
the expanding of the concept of the availability of salvation.
So also is there a link between universalizing and anticipation
of new revelation. Breadth and depth go together. The
sincere search for God is always rewarded: "When you search for
me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart" (Jer.
29:13). Though often subject to setbacks and to cruel
reversals, advancing truth will eventually triumph: "the glory of the
LORD shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together"
(Isa. 40:5).
God always seeks to deepen and expand the revelation
of truth, but we humans (including the biblical authors)
only perceive a part of the message. We adapt and domesticate new
ideas to old and familiar ways of thinking. We always pour
new wine into old wineskins, but the new wine expands and
bursts open our containers (Mark 2:22), our old ways of
thinking. And so we must seek the assistance of the "Spirit of truth
[who] will guide you into all the truth" (John 16:13); "his
anointing teaches you about all things" (1 John 2:27). This brings us
to the message of Jesus.
Universalism of the Gospel
First we must notice how Jesus shows openness to Gentiles
(Luke 7:2-9; 10:33; Matt. 15:22, 28; Mark 3:8). Next we must
note that Jesus resists the nationalistic Messianism that his
apostles try to apply to him, refusing an effort to make him a king
(John 6:15; cf. 18:36), and attacking the nationalistic idea of
the Messiah as son of David. The Messiah cannot be David's
son, he says, because no father would call his son "lord," and
David calls the Messiah "lord" in Ps. 110:1 (Matt. 22:45; Mark
12:37). If we have a hard time following this very Middle-Eastern
logic, we should recall what his real purpose is: he wants people
to think of the Messiah in a non-nationalistic way. However,
even when he makes this point in a purely religious way, it
evokes outrage from nationalistically minded people. He points
out to his fellow townsmen in Nazareth that the only people
who were healed in the narratives of their favorite prophets,
Elijah and Elishah, were foreigners (a Phoenician and a Syrian),
and he is attacked for this (Luke 4:26-29).
Instead of the nationalistic concepts of a royal
Messiah crushing Judaea's enemies, or a priestly Messiah enforcing
purity rules and keeping a sharp separation between Jews and
Gentiles (the Messiah concepts found in the Dead Sea Scrolls),
Jesus affirms a prophetic ideal, "proclaim[ing] release to the
captives" (Luke 4:18, where he quotes Isa. 61:1 in order to announce
his own mission). Like a prophet, Jesus' whole purpose is to proclaim
truth: "For this I was born, and for this I came into the
world, to testify to the truth" (John 18:37).
Jesus sounds like a prophet when he says that
covenant ethics are the real proof of loyalty to God. One has made
a fatal mistake to have focused on ritual minutiae "and
have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and
mercy and faith" (Matt. 23:23; echoing Mic. 6:8). Jesus always
builds upon the Old Testament. Each covenant grows out of,
and expands upon, the previous one.
Jesus heightens prophetic ideas, especially
trusting God. If a father would not give a snake to his son who asked for a
fish, neither would God: "how much more will your Father in
heaven give good things to those who ask him!" (Matt. 7:10-11).
We stand in the light of God's love: "Do not be afraid, little
flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the
kingdom" (Luke 12:32). There is no need to bargain with God, "for
the Father himself loves you" (John 16:27). Sincerity is the
secret of access to God: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they
will see God" (Matt. 5:8). "They shall all be taught by God"
(John 6:45; Jesus is quoting Isa. 54:13).
In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus' "kingdom of God"
message centers on honesty and faith, not on his own person, yet
he does say "if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out
demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you" (Matt. 12:28).
In the Gospel of John, the person and the spirit of Jesus are
central to the message. God draws people to Jesus: "No one can
come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me" (John
6:44). The scriptures "bear witness to me" (John 5:39 RSV), but
this point had already been made in Luke 24:27, 44, so it
would not be correct completely to detach the message from
its proclaimer.
Thus, Christology should not be pitted against
uni-versalism. In fact, the New Testament message is that Christ
is the only hope for unification of the human race. If it is
through Christ that God "created the worlds" (Heb. 1:2), if "all things
came into being through him" (John 1:3), then the Lordship
of Jesus is the actual cosmic basis for unification of the
human race, his human race.
Thus we see that Jesus is the focalization of
the universalizing message: "God did not send the Son into
the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world
might be saved through him" (John 3:17). We should not
surrender verses like this to the fundamentalists. Such sayings have
nothing to do with dogmatism, but with God's saving designs for
this struggling human race. If we are children of God, then let
us "grow up in every way into him who is the head, into
Christ" (Eph. 4:15).
Although most Christians only preserve two or three
of the following, there is an essential and indissoluble link
between ethics, depth of religious feeling, critical thinking,
spiritual progress, universalizing, and the concept of the cosmic Christ.
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