Abstract
If you love theology, you will enjoy this book. The editor (Gregory MacDonald, a pseudonym for Robin Parry who also has a chapter here) sets out in his introduction to provide a means of understanding the different threads of universalism in Christianity, rather than a defence of them (although in other works Parry makes a case for universalism in the Evangelical stable). Because of this nuanced approach, the various chapters (fifteen in total, gathered under the categories ‘Third to Fifteenth Centuries’, ‘Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries’, and ‘Twentieth to Twenty First Century’) provide a wonderfully comprehensive picture of universalist theologies, of both the fully committed kind, as well as those that might be described as ‘hopefully universalist’, looking to Christ’s sacrifice for the world as the event which might, by his good graces, be the event which ultimately overcomes all divisions and saves every soul.
Whatever your position on universalism (which largely has been viewed as unorthodox), the book, precisely because it does not set out to reject or defend it, makes it increasingly obvious why the stakes are very high. The question as to whether all will be saved has a significant outcome depending on the answer, one that locates many people permanently in either heaven or hell. If we take seriously Christ’s call to conversion and the command to proclaim the Gospel to the ends of the earth, this question matters quite a great deal. The contributors’ biographies themselves indicate something of this by the fact that they are both academically accomplished as well as showing real commitment to various traditions of the Church—ordained and lay, teachers and ministers to students and seminarians as well as leaders of different ecclesial communities. For these writers, theological questions are also pastoral questions.
What is shown particularly clearly is the overlooked reality as to how influential many universalist-minded thinkers have been on other writers who have profoundly shaped their generation and beyond. Of note are the chapters on Origen (c.185–c.253) by Tom Greggs, George MacDonald (1824–1905) by Thomas Talbott, and Hans Urs von Balthasar by Edward T. Oakes, SJ (a prolifically ecumenical Balthasarian interpreter sadly now departed).
In fact, every chapter here is written with an enthusiastic authority for its subject and each writer is commended. For any student of Christian theology reading these chapters, there will be tendencies to cheer with elation or despair at the wrong turns in historic Christianity, because the book wrestles honestly with the rich complexities of the various strands of Christian theology on a theme that gets overlooked too often. This book achieves something rare in theology, a work that is riveting, occasionally exciting, challenging, and ultimately encouraging for those of us who cannot sit still with dogma, but must engage it, learn it, and endure the joys of its provocation.