chat

As most of you know, I don't attend a church, because none of them I know about have universalist doctrines. As a result, none of them preach the gospel in my opinion and instead deliver the bad news instead, i.e. that God is going to torment most people in hell for ever.

Some of you don't feel strongly enough about universalism to leave your existing churches and prefer to try to change things quietly from within, e.g. by talking to sympathetic people behind the scenes. I know some of you believe that opinion is gradually shifting towards universalist among lay members, but there is clearly quite a tension here as the official teaching of these churches remains damnationist in nature.

The firm convictions of universalist are diametrically opposed to these teachings, of course, and there seems to be a risk that universalists will have to keep pretty quiet about their beliefs in this environment or risk expulsion. As a result there is a serious risk that the gospel will never be preached in these believing communities. It is also not easy to see how meaningful fellowship can occur with damnationists - what fellowship hath light with darkness?

The USA has clearly recognised these challenges and has had the strength in numbers to build a thriving Universalist Church in America. It feels like we will need to do this here at some stage, but it's hard to see how this could ever happen if universalists in the UK stay in their existing churches and keep (fairly) quiet about their beliefs.

I appreciate this is a polemical subject, but now seems to be a good time to raise it, as we hope to launch this site by the end of next week, God willing.