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I stumbled on Eric Stetson's web site [Christian-Universalism.com] just a few days ago, and by extension, to the entire online Christian Universalist community - Tentmaker, GFT, and so on. I knew instantly that I'd found a spiritual home. I'd been raised a Roman Catholic, but nevertheless was a committed atheist and then agnostic until a few months ago. At that time, I decided (for whatever reason) that the odds are that God really exists, and that He probably has spoken to us somehow... but in what manner I wasn't sure. So I went searching. The Eastern religions I always thought to be too abstract, to the point of meaninglessness. But I never felt good about whitebread Christianity. I refused to believe that a just God would sentence anybody to hell for eternity, and this excluded every variety of Christianity I knew of... at the time. So I began investigating the Mormons. I was attracted to their progressive vision of the afterlife (a variant of universalism) and exciting history. But quickly I was turned off by their backward views about women, among other things (secret temple rituals, deification, etc.) After that, I was lost. I next turned to the Baha'i... I set up a dinner date with a local member, and was swept up by their glorious vision of a united religious plurality proclaimed on various websites. But after a bit more snooping I stumbled upon Eric's Baha'i site [Bahai-Faith.com], which clearly exposed them as a theocratic cult. The more I read on that site, the more I was devastated... what was left for me to consider? But then at the bottom there was a link... to www.christian-universalism.com. I immediately knew this was what I believed in. I had been diligently reading the New Testament day after day, and had come to fiercely love this man called Jesus, and the reconciliation with God that he taught. I learned that universalism was a competing philosophy in the early days of Christianity, taught by thinkers such as Origen, but mercilessly stamped out by the sixth century. It was hid under the rug for the next 1200 years or so by the soul-deadening Roman Catholics and the fire-breathing Protestants, who just exchanged one set of chains for another. And to top it off, the Unitarian Universalists in the latter half of the 1900's had subsumed a burgeoning American Christian Universalist movement and suffocated it with the pillows of atheism, secular humanism, and rigid liberal politics. I had grown up hearing of UUs and had even visited their web site, and knew nothing about Christian Universalism at all! But Eric's website and others flipped on the light. I learned that the scriptures really could be interpreted in a much more liberal manner than what we've been told, and the text even demands it in places. That one must actually go back to the Greek to free the Scriptures of the scandalous mistranslations of words like 'aionian' that have been used to justify the existence of a torturing God. (I've actually resolved to learn biblical Greek so I can better argue this point, and have ordered the necessary texts from Amazon).
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Christian Universalist Testimonies -- Christians Transformed "From Hell to Hope"
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Heavenly Father, please bless this ministry, lead multitudes to this website, and help them see the truth of Your love and forgiveness for all people through the power of Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of the whole world. Open their eyes to Your true nature, take away their fears, and fill their hearts with the Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. |