I Would Love To Be A Universalist

If it's true that everybody will one day make it to heaven—which would be very good news for very bad people—it would solve some knotty issues that have long vexed me. 

The hardest one, with the least-satisfying Biblical answers, is about people who lived in the years BC. Though Abel offered a better sacrifice than Cain, and is said to have acted in faith, we know nothing about the system of worship that prompted the brothers to offer sacrifices in the first place. Despite meeting righteous individuals like Enoch, Lot, Noah, Melchizedek and Abraham, we have no record of God providing any comprehensive revelation for the first 10,000 years of human existence. Why leave people in ignorance so long before sending the law? And even longer to send Jesus? 

The years AD, when God finally poured out his Spirit and spread the gospel quickly around the world are less problematic for me. At last the Creator was propelling salvation to all people. But even here God did not permit the missionary Paul to take the gospel east into Asia. That doesn't seem fair.

These awkward matters have largely remained behind the academic and clerical curtain, with preachers only rarely bringing them to the pulpit. In a possibly-related story, George Barna reported earlier this year that exactly one-quarter of self-described born again Americans believe everyone will eventually be saved. Apparently benign neglect bears unexpected fruit. 


Enter Rob Bell and his blockbuster book Love Wins—a maddeningly unbalanced book that didn't so much reconsider the subject as rip the band-aid off our most uncomfortable issue. Into the fray step two friends of mine with their own book, entitled  Is God Fair? What About Gandhi? Where Bell was coy, dancing around the issue and understating hard questions, my friends forthrightly make a case for Biblical Universal Salvation—addressing the hardest objections head-on. Disclaimer: the authors hired me to build their website and run their marketing campaign.

I know authors James William and Michael Riley to be men of deep Christian faith. I attended church with Jim and his dear wife, who've now been family friends for the better part of 20 years. And I've seen God's grace in Mike's life over the decade I've known him. Though I am not a Universalist, my reading and research in recent years have led me away from the traditional view of eternal-life-in-hell for the unsaved, to what is often called Conditional Immortality.


But I do mean what I say in the headline of this post. Universal Salvation has been described as a Wider Hope. And that hope can be seen in scripture: "...the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world"; "...when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself"; "...for I came not to judge the world, but to save it." How could that be anything other than Good News to anybody?


But there are other amazing insights in this book: like how often the New Testament mentions a just future reckoning for people famously destroyed in Old Testament times. Or the Scripture Chain detailing the sweep of God's redemptive intention from the beginning of creation. Or the case of the Apostle Paul being used as an example of undeserved mercy. Or the implications of the "ages to come." My favorite quote is the authors' contention about God's judgment for the wicked: "Nobody is getting away with anything." 


I must warn that this isn't light reading—the sections on faulty translating from Greek and Hebrew sometimes wander into the weeds. The chapter on Free Will—and, ironically, the one about the Sons Of Thunder—strike me as pedantic. But as a single-volume resource, Is God Fair? What About Gandhi? can fairly be called an encyclopedia of Universal Salvation. It is a worthy and sincere contribution to the understanding of God's strategy in human history.

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Is God Fair? What About Gandhi?

"For I came not to judge the world, but to save it." John 12:47

by Michael Riley and James William

Perfect Bound Softcover, 424 pages

ISBN-13: 978-145675709-0

(Also on eBook and Hardcover)

Published October, 2011 by AuthorHouse 

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I am on paid retainer with the authors of this book, as described above. 

They did not pay me to review their book on my blog, nor forbid me from criticizing it. I would not agree to any such restriction on my personal blog, where I only comment on books I have actually read and deem either important or useful to readers.

 I disclose this per the FTC’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”