Heavy Bell Weather: Universalism, Hell, Judgment

A few observations on Universalism, hell, and judgment.  These are provoked by The Evangelical Universalist and Rob Bell's new book (and the ensuing kerfuffle):

1.) Christianity's vision of judgment is a hope, not a system. That might seem obvious to some and heretical to others: but it's totally essential to get that. It was the hope of an oppressed and downtrodden (when they weren't treading down) people called the Jews that their God would grant them respite from their enemies and bring the cycles of their oppression to a close. It was the hope of a Jewish preacher that he was the messianic spearhead, harbinger, and adjudicator of that hope. It was the hope (and claim) of his followers that his death did not end his claim. None of this is founded on irrefutable fact, nor are the scriptures a uniform magnifying glass into the opaque future. They are (at very best) a darkened mirror; but never (for us anyway) do they rise above a "hope."

2.) Consequently, any attempt to make a systematic claim about the future, or judgment, trespasses into the realms of prognostication. What few statements we have are shrouded in qualification, couched in poetry, and very often pointed directly at concerns local to the first century... and it's very, very tricky to extrapolate a universal vision out of that, just as difficult as it would be to extrapolate a national American vision from "Beowulf."

3.) All attempts to systematize a vision of the future therefore ultimately say a great deal about us, and very little about the future.

4.) Two helpful points through which one might draw a line are the Hebrew prophets and their nationalistic vision of the end of history's cycles of oppression of the Jews and Jesus' appropriation of that vision. But that ultimately takes you to the triumph of the Jews (or the Church?) and its replacement of Roman hostility and idolatry. Which is not terribly helpful unless you just really get off on Constantinian Christianity. Which some do: knock yourself out.

5.) It's extraordinarily helpful to mentally let slip the idea of "hell," and go with the more biblical language of "judgment." In that event, it's pretty clear that the Old Testament prophets AND Jesus (who followed them, at least in the synoptic gospels) had things to say about judgment falling on people. Deal. That was his tradition, that was his world.

6.) The more Gentile / Roman friendly gospel of John (which goes out of its way to exculpate Pilate and indict the Jews) has some more generous things to say: namely, that anybody who is judged has really judged themselves, but that the World (in John a metaphor for those outside the spiritual influence of God's logos) is loved by God and so has free access through faithful obedience (NOT faith or obedience) to God.

7.) Paul uses the language of "reconciliation" with God, and has (in Romans and 2 Corinthians) strongly universalist language, but also highly judgmental language. Rather than trying to harmonize these rhetorical extremes into a system, it's probably best to consider his position as a hellenized Pharisee who understood both his own scriptures (which insisted on judgment for intransigent Gentiles and Jews alike) and the implications of the Gentile reception by the Holy Spirit. He sees himself as announcing reconciliation with the Jewish god for all people, which was a major theme of his scriptures; and the continued possibility of intransigence from within those who receive that by faith as well as those who do not. He claims he judges not the world, which is "judged by God," but the Church, implying that he sees the Church in terms of the Israel of his scriptures: chosen but capable of intransigence and subject to the penalties laid out by Jesus and his scriptures.

This might or might not be helpful. Just a few reflections, for what they're worth.