In the theological work that I do with a non-profit organization, the accusation of “universalism” has sometimes come up.
If you have not been part of an evangelical church or a religious studies department, you might not be familiar with the term. Universalism, improperly understood, as it often is when it is used as an accusation, is the supposedly terrible concept that everyone will be “saved.”
As part of the identity of our non-profit, we often say that we reject the accusation, but we are grateful for it. We would rather be accused of having a concept of faith that is loving to all, than a concept of faith says that most people who have ever lived are damned to hell for eternity.
A quick question - is damnation of others required as part of your salvation? If so, you may be suffering from zero-sum thinking. This is the idea that your blessing can only exist alongside others being cursed or rejected.
On the recommendation of a friend, I have just started reading a book called The Sum of Us. Heather McGhee writes about zero-sum thinking in relation to race and social policy in the United States. One of McGhee’s main considerations is that black Americans largely have assumed that improving life for all people, including white people, is a good thing. At the same time, many white Americans have assumed that improvement of life for black people is somehow automatically detrimental to white people. She offers many examples.
I’ll summarize one:
In the early part of the 20th century, there was a boom in the building of community centres and public swimming pools in the United States. In some jurisdictions, there were policies, official, and or social against “inter-racial swimming.” There were examples where these policies were challenged and defeated. In Montgomery, Alabama a grand pool was built. It was called the Oak Park Pool and it was for whites only.
When this restriction was defeated white and black children could swim and play in the pool together. Soon after the policy of segregation was deemed unconstitutional by a federal court, the local government in Montgomery, rather than abide by the ruling, did away with the entire Parks Department. This happened on January 1, 1959.
McGhee continues:
“The council decided to drain the pool rather than to share it with their black neighbors. Of course, the decision meant that white families lost a public resource as well. White children cried as the city contractors poured dirt into the pool, paved it over and seeded it with grass that was green by the time summer came along. To defy desegregation, Montgomery would go on to close every single public park and padlock the doors of the community center. The entire public park system would stay closed for over a decade. Even after it reopened, they never rebuilt the pool.”
Such actions seem insane to us now, but apparently they were thought of as rational by a lot of people in Montgomery at the time. I am proposing that there might be a parallel between this and the zero-sum way in which many evangelicals have been taught about faith and salvation. This teaching, and it is not as clear in the Bible as many people would have you believe, is that there are the saved (that’s the evangelicals themselves) and there are the damned (that’s just about everyone else). Many evangelicals have practically and relationally moved away from such thinking in their actual lives, but they feel that it is what they are supposed to believe if they are truly faithful.
I think that there is a better way. Seeing the world in terms of saved and damned does not help you to come to a truly meaningful, life-giving concept of Christian faith.
The way that we put it often in our non-profit is to say that, “If it is not good news for everyone, then it is not good news for me.”
Perhaps it’s time for more and more people who have been part of (and may remain part of) evangelicalism to reject theological frameworks that are basically versions of the Oak Park Pool. We have come to accept an anemic, brutal, and juvenile form of faith that has us missing out on what could have been a blessing for all people.
Spiritual maturity demands better.
Damn good piece again Todd. Thank you
I cringe from the word 'blessing' in much the same way.