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Appendix A
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The Salvation Conspiracy: How Hell
Became Eternal |
by Dr. Ken
R. Vincent |
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1. Introduction |
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Universal Salvation is the
theological position that ALL people
will be saved. This concept, present
from the earliest days of
Christianity, is supported by
numerous verses in the Bible
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16]
[17]
[18]
[19]
[20], second
in number only to those advocating
Salvation by Good Works
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10].
Universalists do not reject the
undeniable fact that
Hell is in the
Bible but contend that the function
of Hell is for purification. Much
later in the Christian story, when
some claimed that Hell was a place
for everlasting punishment,
Universalists countered with their
conviction that God was too good to
condemn anyone to Eternal Hell!
Today's world news is saturated with
the tragedies resulting from
religions that insist on their own
"exclusive" path to God, and
Universalists are reasserting the
relevance of that loving doctrine
known to the earliest Christians --
Salvation for ALL.
In this
paper, I will attempt to make the
following points clear:
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a. |
For the first 500
years of
Christianity,
Christians and
Christian
theologians were
broadly
Universalist. |
b. |
Translation/Mistranslation
of the Scriptures
from Greek to Latin
contributed the
reinterpretation of
the nature of Hell. |
c. |
Merging of Church
and State fostered
the corruption of
Universalist
thought. |
d. |
Modern archeological
findings and
Biblical scholarship
confirm Universalist
thought among early
Christians. |
e. |
Contemporary
Christian scholars
find Universalist
theology most
authentic to Jesus. |
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To examine
Universal Salvation during the first
500 years of Christianity, the works
of three scholars are indisputably
the finest:
Hosea Ballou II's Ancient History of
Universalism (1842),
Edward Beecher's History of Opinions
on the Scriptural Doctrine of
Retribution (1878), and
John Wesley Hanson's Universalism,
the Prevailing Doctrine of the
Church for its First 500 Years
(1899). I have used all these
resources but have broadened
Universalist history to include 20th
Century discoveries and scholarship
pertinent to Universalist
Christianity.
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2. In The Beginning |
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At its beginning, Christianity
was a hopeful religion. In the words
of St. Paul:
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"There is no
longer Jew or Greek, there is no
longer slave or free, there is no
longer male or female; for all of
you are one in Christ Jesus"
(Galatians 3:28).
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Communal
meals, a culture of sharing and a
tradition of helping others were the
hallmarks of the
early church.
Despite a paternalistic culture,
women were Apostles (Luke 8:2-3) and
ministers (Romans 16:1).
One
of the best clues to early Christian
theology is in artwork discovered at
the
Catacombs in Rome. Graves of
common people were adorned with
drawings of Jesus as the Good
Shepherd -- beardless and virtually
indistinguishable from the
Greco-Roman savior figure
Orpheus.
Other popular images there were the
Last Supper and the Magi at the
birth of Jesus. Occasionally in
early Christian art, Jesus is shown
working miracles using a magic wand!
Significantly, the crucifix is
noticeably absent from early art, as
is any depiction of judgment scenes
or Hell.
As we move into the
middle of the
2nd Century, a shift
takes place from writing works
considered "Holy Scripture" to
interpretations of it. The first
writer on the theology on
Christian
Universalism whose works survive is
St. Clement of Alexandria (150 - 215
CE). He was the head of the
theology
school at Alexandria which, until it
closed at the end of the
4th
Century, was a bastion of
Universalist thought. His pupil,
Origen (185 - 254 CE), wrote the
first complete presentation of
Christianity as a system, and
Universalism was at its core. Origen
was the first to produce a parallel
Old Testament that included Hebrew,
a Greek transliteration of the
Hebrew, the
Septuagint, and three
other Greek translations. He was
also the first to recognize that
some parts of the Bible should be
taken literally and others
metaphorically. He wrote a defense
of Christianity in response to
a
pagan writer's denigration of it.
Prior to the
Roman Catholic
Church's
condemnation of all of
Universalist thought in the 6th
Century, Church authority had
already reached back in time to pick
out several of Origen's ideas they
deemed unacceptable. Some that found
disfavor were his insistence that
the Devil would be saved at the end
of time, the
pre-existence of human
souls, the reincarnation of the
wicked
[1]
[2], and his claim that the
purification of souls could go on
for many eons. Finally, he was
condemned by the Church because
his
concept of the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit did not agree with the
"official" Doctrine of the Trinity
formulated a century after his
death! After the 6th Century, much
of his work was destroyed;
fortunately, some of it survived.
According to
Edward Beecher, a
Congregationalist theologian, there
were six theology schools in
Christendom during its early years
-- four were Universalist
(Alexandria,
Caesarea,
Antioch, and
Edessa). One advocated annihilation
(Ephesus) and one advocated Eternal
Hell (the
Latin Church of North
Africa). Most of the Universalists
throughout Christendom followed the
teachings of Origen. Later,
Theodore
of Mopsuestia had a different
theological basis for Universal
Salvation, and his view continued in
the break-away
Church of the East
(Nestorian) where his Universalist
ideas still exist in its liturgy
today.
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3. "Harrowing of Hell" in Canon and
Apocrypha |
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One of the primary beliefs of
the early Christians was that Jesus
descended into Sheol /
Hades in order
to preach to the dead and rescue all
of those, as it clearly says in
1 Peter
3:20:
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This terminology is
familiar to anyone who has recited
the
Apostle's Creed which states
that Jesus descended to Hell after
his death, before his resurrection.
Known as the "Harrowing of Hell,"
this is a major theme in
Universalism because it underscores
the early belief that judgment at
the end of life is not final and
that all souls can be saved after
death. Interestingly, in the early
Church there were not only
prayers
for the dead, but St. Paul notes
there were also baptisms for the
dead (1 Corinthians 15:29).
In later times, the church attempted
to reinterpret the text to narrow
the categories of people saved from
Hell to the Jewish prophets and the
righteous pagans.
Marcus Borg and
John Dominic Crossan take this
approach in their latest book,
The
Last Week. (Curiously, they omit the
key verse "those who in former times
did not obey.") However, in his
earlier book,
The Cross That Spoke,
John Dominic Crossan is more
favorable to the Universalist view.
For example, he relates a story from
the non-canonical
Gospel of Peter in
which two angels come down from
Heaven to get Jesus out of the tomb
on Easter morning. As they are
carrying him out and are about to
ascend to Heaven, a voice from
Heaven asks them:
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"Hast thou
preached to them that sleep?"
The wooden cross that is somehow
following them out of the tomb
speaks and says, "Yes!"
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In
discussing Jesus' decent into Hell,
Crossan also sites another classic
Universalist text,
1 Peter 4:6 which
says:
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"For this is why the
Gospel was preached even to the
dead, that though they were judged
in flesh like men they might live in
the spirit like God." (1 Peter 4:6)
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He also notes that in
Colossians
2:15, Jesus:
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"... disarmed
the principalities and powers and
made a public example of them."
(Colossians 2:15)
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and in
Ephesians 4:8-9:
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"Therefore
it is said, 'When he ascended on
high, he made captivity itself a
captive; he gave gifts to his
people.' (When it says, 'He
ascended,' what does it mean but
that he also descended into the
lower parts of the earth? He who
descended is the same one who
ascended far above all heavens, so
that he might fill all things.'")
(Ephesians 4:8-9)
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Understanding the role of the
"Harrowing of Hell" has been
expanded by recent archeological
findings and modern Biblical
scholarship. Among the discoveries
over the past 100 years is the
Apocalypse of Peter, written about
135 C.E. (not to be confused with
the
Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter
discovered at
Nag Hammadi in 1947).
For a time, it was considered for
inclusion into the New Testament
instead of the Revelation to John.
It is referred to in the
Muratorian
Canon of the early Church, as well
as in the writings of
St. Clement of
Alexandria. (It should be noted that
the Universalist passage from the
Apocalypse of Peter is found in the
Ethiopian text but is not part of
the fragment text found at Akhmim,
Egypt.) In the Ethiopic copy, Peter
asks Jesus to have pity on the
people in Hell, and Jesus says they
will eventually all be saved. Later,
Peter (who is writing to Clement)
says to keep that knowledge a secret
so that foolish men may not see it.
This same theme is repeated in the
Second Book of the
Sibylline Oracles
in which the saved behold the
sinners in Hell and ask that mercy
be shown them. Here, the sinners are
saved by the prayers of the
righteous.
Another 2nd
Century work,
The Epistle of the
Apostles, also states that our
prayers for the dead can affect
their forgiveness by God. The 2nd
Century
Odes of Solomon, which was
discovered in the early 20th
Century, was for a time considered
to be Jewish, then Gnostic, and more
recently, early Christian. Its theme
is that Jesus saves the dead when
they come to him in Hell and cry
out:
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In the
4th/6th Century Syriac
Book of the Cave of Treasures,
Jesus:
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"... preached the resurrection
to those who were lying in the dust"
and "pardoned those who had sinned
against the Law." (Book
of the Cave of Treasures)
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In the
Gospel of Nicodemus (a.k.a. Acts of
Pilate), a 4th /5th Century
apocryphal gospel, Jesus saves
everyone in the Greek version but
rescues only the righteous
pre-Christians in the Latin
translation. In
What is Gnosticism?,
Karen King identifies the Nag
Hammadi
Gospel of Truth as teaching
Universal Salvation; she states that
The Apocryphon of John (a.k.a. The
Secret Book of John) declares all
will be saved except apostates. In
the Coptic
Book of the Resurrection,
all but Satan and his ministers are
pardoned.
Interestingly,
belief in the "Harrowing of Hell"
has had
some validation by modern
day near-death experiencers (people
who have been resuscitated following
a period of clinical death). While
most near-death experiencers report
a "heavenly" experience of Light and
overwhelming love, many of those
whose experience begins in "hellish"
turmoil and darkness say that their
descent was reversed when they
called out to God or Jesus.
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4. The Church-State Conundrum |
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Many think that Christianity was
at its best during its first 300
years -- a time of immense diversity
of opinion, creativity, and
expectation. Although the official
sanction of governments provided the
Church with some very critical
benefits (like not feeding
Christians to lions!), some of the
vitality of the young Church was
inevitably compromised. Its
legitimization in the
4th Century,
first by the
king of Armenia, then
by
Constantine of Rome, and finally
by the
king of Ethiopia, led to a
new era for Christianity.
Constantine, being a military man,
wanted standardization in all
things. The Emperor called the
Council of Nicea because at the
time, the
Bishop of Rome was not yet
Pope (in the way we think of him
today). According to Roman Catholic
scholar
Jean-Guy Vaillancourt, the
Pope did not become the head of the
Roman Church until 752 CE. At that
time,
Charlemagne recognized the
Bishop of Rome as the singular Pope,
and
Pope Leo III reciprocated by
legitimizing Charlemagne as the Holy
Roman Emperor. It should be noted
that the
6th Century Emperor
Justinian -- NOT the Bishop of Rome
-- called the Church council where
Universalism was condemned.
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5. Jesus Seminar "Endorses"
Christian Universalism |
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Of all modern Biblical scholars,
none have gained so much publicity
and been so readily accessible to
the lay reader than a group called
the
Jesus Seminar. Over 150 Biblical
scholars pooled their knowledge for
the express purpose of analyzing the
Gospels to determine which words and
deeds were authentic to Jesus. Their
resulting "Scholars' Editions" of
the Gospels were remarkable for the
few passages that were thought to be
original to Jesus. For
Universalists, the most significant
result of the Seminar's scrutiny was
their inadvertent highlighting of
many Universalist passages. By far,
verses advocating Universal
Salvation received the most
endorsement from the Jesus Seminar
as authentic to Jesus. While they
rejected some of the "zingers"
(e.g.,
John 12:32), virtually
all
Jesus' classic parables that have
been interpreted as Universalist
since the beginning of Christian
theology were judged by the Jesus
Seminar to be genuine to him,
including: The
Parable of the Lost
Sheep (Matthew 18:12-13;
Luke
15:4-6), The
Workers in the Vineyard
(Matthew 20:1-15), The
Parable of
the Lost Coin (Luke 15:8-9), and the
Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke
15:11-32). Also, the verses relating
to the fact that Hell is not
permanent and used only for
rehabilitation/purification were
determined authentic by the Jesus
Seminar. They are:
Settle with Your
Opponent (Matthew 5:25-26;
Luke
12:58-59) and the
Parable of the
Wicked Servant (Matthew 18:23-34).
Finally, although it was mutilated
in part by the Jesus Seminar
scholars, Jesus' teaching to be like
God and love our enemies as God is
good to the just and the unjust
(Matthew 5:44-46) was voted genuine
to Jesus.
It is noteworthy
that the Seminar rejected all of the
verses relating to the "Jesus Saves"
theology as original to Jesus. John
Calvin's
Predestination fared only
slightly better with only two verses
seen as original to Jesus (Matthew
6:10,
Matthew 10:29). Some classic
sayings of Jesus on Good Works were
deemed authentic, such as
Parable of
the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-35),
Jesus on forgiveness (Matthew 6:12),
and the
Parable of the Sower (Mark
4:3-8;
Matthew 13:3-8;
Luke 8:5-8).
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6. Mistranslations and Misanthropes |
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One of the essential tenants of
Universalism is that all punishment
in Hell is remedial, curative, and
purifying. As long as
Western
Christianity was mainly Greek -- the
language of the New Testament -- it
was Universalist.
Interestingly, NONE of the
Greek-speaking Universalists ever
felt the need to explain Greek words
such as "aion" and "aionion." In
Greek, an aion (in English, usually
spelled "eon") is an indefinite
period of time, usually of long
duration. When it was translated
into Latin
Vulgate, "aion" became
"aeternam" which means "eternal."
These translation errors were the
basis for much of what was written
about Eternal Hell.
The first
person to write about Eternal Hell
was the Latin North African
Tertullian who is considered the
Father of the Latin Church. As most
people reason, Hell is a place for
people you don't like to go!
Tertullian fantasized that not only
the wicked would be in Hell but also
every philosopher and theologian who
ever argued with him! He envisioned
a time when he would look down from
Heaven at those people in Hell and
laugh with glee!
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By far, the
main person responsible for making
Hell eternal in the Western Church
was
St. Augustine (354-430 CE).
Augustine's Christian mother did not
kick him out of her house for not
marrying the girlfriend he got
pregnant, but she did oust him when
he became a
Manichean Gnostic.
Later, he renounced Manichaeism and
returned to the Roman Church where
he was made Bishop of Hippo in North
Africa. He did not know Greek, had
tried to study it, but stated that
he hated it. Sadly, it is his
misunderstanding of Greek that
cemented the concept of Eternal Hell
in the Western Church. Augustine not
only said that Hell was eternal for
the wicked but also for
anyone who
wasn't a Christian. So complete was
his concept of God's exclusion of
non-Christians that he considered
un-baptized babies as damned; when
these babies died, Augustine
softened slightly to declare that
they would be sent to the "upper
level" of Hell. Augustine is also
the inventor the concept of "Hell
Lite", a.k.a.
Purgatory, which he
developed to accommodate some of the
Universalist verses in the Bible.
Augustine acknowledged the
Universalists whom he called
"tender-hearted," and curiously,
included them among the "orthodox."
At this point, it should be
noted that many in the
early Church
who were Universalist
cautioned
others to be careful whom they told
about Universalism, as it might
cause some of the weaker ones to
sin. This has always been a
criticism of Universalism by those
who think that people will sin with
abandon if there is no threat of
eternal punishment. In fact, modern
psychology has affirmed that love is
a much more powerful motivator than
fear, and knowing that God loves
each and every person on the planet
as much as God loves you does not
promote delinquency. Conversely, it
is
Christian exclusivity that leads
to the marginalization of other
human beings and the thinking that
war and cruelty to the "other" are
justified since they're going to
Hell anyway! This kind of twisted
thinking led to the
persecution of
the pagans, the
witch hunts, the
Inquisition, and
the Holocaust.
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7. Universalism in the East and
Zoroastrian Roots |
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A slightly different type of
Universalist theology was taught in
the Aramaic speaking
Church of the
East (Nestorian). Virtually all of
the Greek-speaking Universalists
built on
Origen's system that
emphasizes free will. Origen saw an
endless round of purification and
relapse, but that in the end, God's
love would draw all back to God.
According to
Dr. Beecher, Theodore
of Mopsuestia (350-428 CE) saw:
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"... sin as an unavoidable part
of the development and education of
man; that some carry it to a greater
extent than others, but that God
will finally overrule it for their
final establishment in good."
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Theodore of Mopsuestia was known
in the Nestorian Church as "The
Interpreter." The
5th Century with
its ongoing feuding councils saw
major splits in the Christian
Church. The
Coptic Church of Egypt
and
Ethiopia
split in 451CE; the
Armenian Church left about the same
time; the
Church of the East
(Nestorian) left in 486 CE. At the
time of the split, the Nestorian
Church was larger in numbers than
the Roman Church. It included the
all of the Sasanian Persian Empire
(which stretched from the Euphrates
to India), along the
Silk Road
through modern Kazakhstan,
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, through
Tibet, Mongolia, and into China.
Additionally, it had established
Christian churches in the south of
India by the end of the 2nd Century.
While it suffered under
Moslem
invasion in the
7th Century, it
continued to grow in the Far East
until being virtually annihilated by
Tamerlane in the
14th Century.
Today, only a quarter-million
remain. The Nestorian Church
continued to be Universalist for
most of its history, and a
Universalist liturgy written by
Theodore of Mopsuestia is still in
use today. Also, the
Book of the Bee
written in the 13th Century by
Bishop Solomon of Basra includes the
Universalist teachings of Isaac,
Diodorus, and Theodore in Chapter
60. We know from
Martin Palmer in
the Jesus Sutras that the Nestorians
who proselytized in China in the
early days had only two Christian
books: the Gospel of Matthew and an
early Christian prayer book known as
the
Didache or The Teachings of the
Twelve Apostles. The appeal of
Christianity in the Far East was
that Jesus could save you and take
you to Paradise, avoiding the risk
of an undesired reincarnation.
Christopher Buck notes in his
article, "The Universality of the
Church of the East: How Persian Was
Persian Christianity?" that the
success of Christian conversions in
the East may have been the affinity
of Christianity with
Zoroastrianism.
Unlike
Manichaeism and other
Gnostic
Christianity, Zoroastrianism (like
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam)
maintains that the world was created
good and was corrupted by evil. In
Zoroastrianism, the basic tenants
are:
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God-Satan, Good-Evil,
Light-Darkness, Angels-Demons,
Death-Judgment, Heaven-Hell, and at
the end of time, the resurrection of
the body and life everlasting.
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Zoroaster was a Universalist, as
he says in his
Hymns to God:
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"If you understand these laws of
happiness and pain which God has
ordained, O Mortals, there is a long
period of punishment for the wicked
and reward for the pious, but
thereafter eternal joy shall
rein forever." (Y 30:11 emphasis added).
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In Zoroastrianism, while God is
wholly good, there is no doctrine of
forgiveness; your good deeds must
always outnumber your bad deeds in
order to avoid purification in Hell.
Christianity brought Jesus' message
that God forgives sins for the
asking! Also, one doesn't need a
priest as an intercessor or a
sacrifice to obtain God's grace.
This affinity is best illustrated in
a
13th Century Christmas liturgy of
the Nestorian Church which states
that:
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"The Magi (Zoroastrian
priests) came … they opened their
treasures and offered him (Jesus)
their offerings as they were
commanded by their teacher Zoroaster
who prophesized to them."
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What is implicit in the Gospel of
Matthew is explicit in this
Nestorian liturgy. Zoroaster had
predicted the coming of future
saviors "from the nations" (e.g.,
countries other than Persia). If you
wanted to make converts in a
Zoroastrian world, the story of the
Magi at the birth of Jesus was your
entree.
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8. Universalism Officially Condemned
in the West |
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Although the
Roman Church had
condemned some of
Origen's other
ideas, his Universalism was never
questioned, nor were the writings of
any other Universalist. There were
even Universalists among the
Gnostics; although
Gnosticism had
been condemned heartily by the
Church, Universalism had never been
listed among their errors. If
Universal Salvation were heretical,
how could the Church explain all
those avowed Universalists who had
already been made Saints (St.
Clement of Alexandria,
St. Macrina
the Younger and her brother,
St.
Gregory of Nyssa, and others)? As
mentioned earlier, it was the
Emperor Justinian who initiated the
deed.
Universalism had never
been officially condemned prior to
Justinian's convening the
Council of
Constantinople in 553CE, but this
momentous decision was made against
a background of
turmoil in the
Church and Western civilization.
Latin-speaking Christians in the
Church began to overshadow the
Greek-speakers, and the
Nestorian
Church of the East had recently
split from the Catholic West. (In
all fairness, the
Latin Church was
doing well to have anyone who could
read Latin -- much less Greek.) Less
than eighty years earlier, the
Western Roman Empire had fallen to
pagan barbarians. The Roman Church
had long before become the
handmaiden of the State. What could
be better for control in an age of
superstition and fear than to make
Hell eternal and Salvation possible
only through the Church? Less than a
century later, all of Christianity
(Latin,
Greek,
Armenian,
Coptic, as
well as the Nestorian Church of the
East) would be either partially or
totally overrun by
Moslem
conquerors.
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9. Conclusion |
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Compare the hopeful,
positive
art of the early Church in the
Catacombs with the
scenes of Hell
and damnation on the wall of almost
every Medieval Catholic Cathedral.
These scenes were made even more
terrifying by the Latin
mistranslation of Jesus'
Parable of
the Sheep and Goats (Matthew
25:31-46). In the West, Augustine
trumped Origen, and what was an
"eon" in the original Greek
became
"eternal" in Latin.
While
Universalism continued in the Church
of the East, in the West from the
6th Century forward, it was
relegated to the
realm of mystics
until the
Reformation when the idea
of
Universal Salvation was
resurrected. Universalism continues
today as a theological position
among a fair number of Christians in
a variety of denominations. It is
ripe for revival.
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10. References
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•
Ballou, H. (1842).
Ancient history of
Universalism: From the time
of the apostles to the Fifth
General Council.
Forgotten Books. (Original
work published in 1878).
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•
Beecher, E. (2007).
History of opinions on the
scriptural doctrine of
retribution. Kessinger
Publishing, LLC.
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•
Borg, M. & Crossan. J.D.
(2006).
The last week: What the
gospels really teach about
Jesus' final days in
Jerusalem. HarperOne.
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•
Buck, C. (1996).
The universality of the
Church of the East: How
Persian was Persian
Christianity?
Journal of the Assyrian
Academic Society.
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•
Crossan, J.D. (2008).
The cross that spoke: The
origins of the passion
narrative. Wipf & Stock
Pub.
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•
Hanson, J.W. (2012).
Universalism, the prevailing
doctrine of the Church for
its first 500 years with
authorities and extracts.
Forgotten Books. (Original
work published in 1899).
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•
King, K. (2005).
What is Gnosticism?
Belknap Press of Harvard
University Press.
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•
Miller, R. J. (1995).
The complete gospels:
Annotated scholar's version.
Polebridge Press.
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•
Palmer, M. (2001).
The Jesus sutras:
Rediscovering the lost
scrolls of Taoist
Christianity.
Wellspring/Ballantine.
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•
Vaillancourt, J. (1980).
Papal power: A study of
Vatican control over lay
Catholic Elites. Univ of
California Pr.
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•
Vincent, K. R. (2006).
The salvation conspiracy:
How hell became eternal.
The Universalist Herald.
Retrieved from:
www.christianuniversalist.org |
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11. About Dr. Ken R. Vincent |
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Dr.
Ken R. Vincent received
his doctorate in Counseling
Psychology from the University of
Northern Colorado in 1973. He is
currently retired
from teaching Psychology and
the Psychology of Religious
Experience at Houston Community
College. He is a member of the
Alister Hardy Society for the Study
of Spiritual Experience and the
International Association of
Near-Death Studies (IANDS). Dr.
Vincent served as a founding Board
member of the
Christian Universalist Association
and is the former webmaster of
The Universalist Herald website. His writings
all contain a strong undercurrent of
Universalist thought. In his book
The Magi: From Zoroaster to the
Three Wise Men, he compares the
religion of the Magi
(Zoroastrianism) to Christianity and
shows the parallels of Universal
Restoration in both faiths. In
Visions of God from the Near-Death
Experience, the wisdom of the
prophets and sages of the world's
religions is superimposed upon the
accounts of modern-day near-death
experiencers to illustrate the
similarities between them. Dr.
Vincent‘s book
The Golden Thread: God's Promise of
Universal Salvation documents
the solid support for Universal
Salvation in the Bible as well as
research into NDEs and Mystical/Religious/Spiritual Experiences.
This online book is entitled
God Is With Us: What Near-Death and
Other Spiritually Transformative
Experiences Teach Us About God and
Afterlife. Correspondence
regarding this online book should be
sent to
this email address:
professorvincent@yahoo.com.
This article
is an updated version of a paper
presented at the 2006 conference of
the
IANDS at The University of Texas
M. D. Anderson Cancer Center,
Houston, Texas.
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12. Books by Dr. Ken R. Vincent |
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Visions
of God from the Near
Death Experience
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by Dr.
Ken R. Vincent |
Many of
our most inspiring and
straightforward visions of God,
afterlife, and values for living
have come through near-death
experiences. In gathering
together the spiritual
highlights of many such
experiences, Dr. Vincent does a
real service for readers who
need quick access to "the good
stuff." The result is an
inspirational book that gently
reminds us how much we have
always known deep inside. A
HARDBACK edition of the book
is also available.
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The Golden Thread:
God's Promise of Universal
Salvation |
by Dr.
Ken R. Vincent |
In our
modern pluralistic world, the
barriers imposed by the old
doctrine of religious
exclusivity are confronted every
day by individuals, families,
and nations. Now more than ever,
the inspirational message of
God's Universal and eternal love
for all humanity needs to be
retold. By reacquainting readers
with the God who is too good to
condemn anyone to Eternal Hell,
this book offers a Biblical
interpretation present in
Christianity from the earliest
Jesus-Followers to the 21st
Century.
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The Magi:
From Zoroaster to
the "Three
Wise Men" |
by Dr.
Ken R. Vincent |
Do you
know why Zoroastrian priests are
on your Christmas cards? In The
Magi, Dr. Ken Vincent shines
light on a topic previously
known mainly to scholars; he
provides the layperson searching
for Christian origins an
extremely readable but thorough
exploration of a religion which
predates Christianity by
hundreds of years. This
easy-to-read introduction
highlights the parallels between
Zoroaster and both the Hebrew
Bible and the New Testament and
shows the use of Zoroastrian
imagery in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
An appendix includes an English
translation of the complete
hymns of Zoroaster.
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