Other genealogical lines are straightforward. For instance, we have seen the direct link between Jane Lead’s mystical theology and the conversion of the Petersens to the cause of final restitution. We saw, too, that they took their modified version of Lead’s theology far and wide, influencing many Radical Pietists. Large numbers of those Pietists, in turn, migrated from Europe to the United States and preached their brands of Christianity there, in word and in print. Through their witness, some American colonists, such as Elhanan Winchester, became subscribers to and disseminators of the “everlasting gospel.” Winchester in particular had a relatively sizable impact in America and Britain, stamping a certain shape on the developing universalisms in both countries.
James Relly represents a very different family tree. His was an idiosyncratic Calvinistic universalism, though rather different from and unrelated to that of Peter Sterry and Jeremiah White in the seventeenth century. Relly’s theology was passed along, largely uncontaminated, by his disciple John Murray. And it was Murray who is credited with leading the first formal universalist church in America. Yet despite his tireless effort and a major input into the early Universalist denomination, he had little long-term impact when it came to the theology of the movement. The Pietist strand was always dominant.
Other lines of influence were somewhat messier. We have seen how, in nineteenth-century Britain, certain individuals were exploring a wider hope, and many of them knew each other well, or were at least acquainted with each other or with each other’s work. But it is somewhat harder to get a clear sense of the nature of the influence in these matters. Thomas Erskine was acknowledged by F. D. Maurice to be a major inspiration, and Edward Plumptre, F. W. Farrar, and George MacDonald (among others) became aware of Erskine and his work, holding him in high esteem. And F. D. Maurice himself was clearly a big influence on Farrar, Plumptre, and MacDonald. All of those characters in turn were read and respected by Andrew Jukes, Samuel Cox, and Thomas Allin. What complicates matters is that all of these men were reading multiple authors on these issues, including patristic sources. So while there were clear and acknowledged influences in the directions indicated, the overall importance of each of the diverse influences in the final landscape of the audiences’ own theologies is less clear. We simply do not know enough about the journeys of these people toward a wider hope and, consequently, we do not know whether they were already musing about such matters—perhaps even having their thoughts more or less in place—before coming across the work of others or whether that work was a trigger. George MacDonald, about whom we know more in this matter, was clearly moving in hopeful directions from his youth, long before he found likeminded theologians to engage. In his case, it seems that the work of Maurice and Erskine served to reinforce and clarify his existing theological dispositions. It would certainly not be correct to describe him as one in the Maurice family tree. All this said, it remains the case that those who were exploring these radical notions were guiding and inspiring each other in those explorations.
The Perennial “Heresy”
One striking aspect that stands out from our explorations in this volume is the way in which universalism seems to be spontaneously rediscovered over and over again. Of course, as just indicated, there are universalist genealogies, and it is not hard to find people who were converted to universalism directly through the preaching or the writing of another. Think, for instance, of the key role of Paul Siegvolk’s book in Elhanan Winchester’s conversion, or of James Relly’s writing and preaching in John Murray’s. Nevertheless, it is fascinating how many people seem to move into a belief in universal salvation seemingly without the influence of other Christians encouraging them to. One thinks, for instance, of Hans Denck (if he was a universalist), Gerrard Winstanley, Jeremiah White, Jane Lead, George de Benneville, George Stonehouse, James Relly, Charles Chauncy, Caleb Rich, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Johann Christoph Blumhardt, Thomas Erskine, George MacDonald, Andrew Jukes, and Hannah Whitall Smith. I am not suggesting that their diverse journeys into a belief in the final redemption of all were not influenced, indeed deeply influenced, by other Christians or by inherited Christian theological ideas. Of course they were—every one of them. My point, rather, is that each of these characters found their own way toward belief in universal salvation without the direct influence of other universalists. Their journeys were indeed pushed in such radical directions by other people and existing ideas, but those influential people and ideas were not themselves universalist. Rather, it was our lone travelers who took the baton and then ran with it into new and unanticipated territory. Subsequently, as we saw with Hannah Whitall Smith, the theology of other universalists can serve to refine and confirm that initial “insight,” but the insight itself was not taught them by another.
What is fascinating is that this deviancy, running off course with the baton, keeps on happening. Perhaps we might even dare to speak of universal salvation as the perennial “heresy,” echoing the way that some have spoken of Platonism as the perennial philosophy. (Of course, I use the term “heresy” with my tongue in my cheek, for I do not believe that universalism is a formal heresy; rather, it occupies a space between heresy and dogma.) It is a theological idea that refuses to go away and keeps on raising its ugly/beautiful (delete as appropriate) head over and over again, throughout the centuries. One may wonder why this is so. It is almost as if the baton itself had some “pull” of its own, drawing runners off the prescribed course. Might it be that the chief impulses behind the deviancy, in its many Christian versions, are integrally related to deep Christian convictions—about God’s love and goodness and justice, about the dignity of humans in God’s image, about the victory of Christ over sin and death, and so on. It seems to be those very convictions that raise doubts about hell as eternal torment and push in the direction of a larger hope. In other words, perhaps the seeds of this hope lie in the gospel itself. If that is the case, then as long as Christians continue to believe in such things, there will remain an inherent temptation to follow them toward conclusions that push beyond the mainstream tradition, off the prescribed course, in the pursuit of a wider hope.
Routes into Universalism
A third concluding observation that arises from these stories concerns the diversity of the journeys that different people took on their way into embracing universal restoration. We observe in all those journeys a complex and varied relationship between Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. And while for certain individuals one or two elements in that quadrilateral may loom large, all four will be playing some role because they all interconnect and mutually inform one another. Consider, for instance, George de Benneville. Clearly his religious experiences were the primary explosive motivation in his conversion to universalism, but they are experiences that are clearly informed and shaped by Scripture and traditional Christian theological categories. They did not occur ex nihilo. And those experiences in turn shaped the way in which de Benneville subsequently interpreted Scripture and traditional Christian theology.
We could picture the relationship as in the diagram below. A little explanation is in order. I do not think that “reason” should be thought of as a separate element in the quadrilateral so much as the way in which the other elements are reflected upon and related to each other. So in the diagram below, think of reason as a part of what makes up the arrows. Thus, when one reads a philosopher or a theologian making out arguments for or against hell, he or she is using reason, but is reasoning about the teaching of Scripture, of tradition, and about our human experiences. Reason does not have its own content.
Of course, it is also true that the other three components cannot really be conceived adequately apart from each other. Scripture itself arose within the tradition of the community of Israel and of the church. Its component parts were written and edited by people shaped by that tradition, and those texts in turn reflected and preserved that tradition. Furthermore, the community itself selected—or, perhaps
better, discerned under the guidance of God’s Spirit—the books that were to be acknowledged as inspired Scripture. Without the community and its traditions, there would not be a canon of Scripture. The tradition then preserved the text and honored it as inspired and authoritative and passed on patterns for its use and interpretation. Scripture arose from and exists within the community, for the community. But the tradition, when it has been true to itself, has never considered itself somehow above the Bible. Rather, it has seen itself as accountable to biblical teaching and always under the divine authority mediated by scriptural teaching. So renewal movements usually take the form of calling the church back to being true to its inspired text.
This interpenetration is also true of experience, which cannot be sealed off from Scripture and tradition. The Bible itself reflects the experiences of the community and individuals within it as they journey with God. It also shows the role that experience can play in theological reflection. Consider, for instance, the way that Job’s experience runs on a collision course with the neat prepackaged theology of his comforters. And the book vindicates Job for taking his experience seriously. Similarly, previously revealed texts can shape the contours of profound charismatic encounters with God. The book of Revelation illustrates this: its visions, which we have good reason to believe were actual visionary experiences rather than simple literary constructions, are overflowing with allusions to earlier prophetic texts, such as those of Isaiah and Zechariah. John, the author of Revelation, was deeply shaped by biblical texts from earlier generations, and his own encounters in the Spirit reflect that input. In these visions we see tradition, Scripture, and experience merged in one of their many possible combinations. And it should go without saying that the way in which the faithful hear God through the text of Scripture is strongly shaped by their experience.
All of this is simply to say that all of these factors will play a part in the story of an individual’s conversion to belief in universal salvation, that they cannot be disentangled in a tidy way. Nevertheless, the dominant trigger-element will vary from one person to another.
The role of experiences
Everyday experiences can play a role in a Christian’s reflections on hell and salvation. Think, for instance, of experiences of the horrors of suffering, of love for those one believes will be damned, of the kindness of unbelievers, of human empathy. This kind of experience-influenced thinking was a recurring motif among all those we have considered who began as Calvinists and found themselves struggling and repelled by the vision of a God who chooses to torment unbelievers in hell forever when he could just as easily have chosen to love and deliver them. Everything in their human experience of love rebelled against that theology. Or, somewhat differently, think of George de Benneville’s experience of meeting pious Muslims and the way in which it made him realize the shallowness of his own faith. Consider too Hannah Whitall Smith’s experience as a mother with her children and how that shaped the way she came to think about God.
In addition to these mundane experiences, there are the more extraordinary spiritual experiences that play a role in some universalist conversions. The best known are the shewings of Julian of Norwich (see chapter 10 of the first volume of this series), but we have also seen the transformative role of the purported revelations given Jane Lead through her visions of divine Sophia, the impact of Johanna Petersen’s dream about the end-time conversion of the Jews, the life-changing revelation of divine love in George de Benneville’s Evangelical conversion experience and his subsequent near-death visionary journeys to heaven and hell, and Caleb Rich’s angelic visitor, who proclaimed “the everlasting gospel” of the salvation of all Adam’s descendants in Christ. Hannah Whitall Smith’s revelation on the tram in Philadelphia that Jesus would see the travail of his soul and be satisfied was a moment of deep clarity for her on the issue, one from which she never looked back. Furthermore, sometimes earlier religious experiences can be seen in a new, universal perspective, after starting down apokatastasis road. Here one might ponder Elhanan Winchester as he looked back on his Evangelical conversion experience and saw universalist impulses in it that he felt he had wrongly suppressed in order to conform to his Calvinist context.
These experiences, both mundane and more exceptional, play differing roles in the journey of an individual toward embracing ultimate restoration. Some, like de Benneville’s conversion experience or Jane Lead’s visions, lead directly to an embracing of universalism. This tends to be the case with the more unusual religious experiences. They carry a sense of conviction and revelation with them that more mundane experiences do not. Other experiences prompt further reflection on Scripture and doctrine, which in its turn leads to universalism. One can track Elhanan Winchester’s slow journey over at least two years in which various encounters and events played the role of provoking further reflection. A person’s experience can also reinforce their existing universalist belief, as, for instance, de Benneville’s near-death visions of heaven and hell did both for him and for those who heard them or read them.
Religious experience was much more prominent in seventeenth and eighteenth-century universalism than in the nineteenth century. The Universalist denomination, as it embraced the Enlightenment valuation of the centrality of a certain mode of rationality, actively distanced itself from the emotional excesses of revivalism, which they felt could bring the cause into disrepute. Similar suspicion of dreams, visions, and revivalist “emotionalism” can also be found in eighteenth-century universalists like Charles Chauncy and John Murray. In a similar way, some of the hopeful universalists in the nineteenth-century mainstream denominations were concerned with respectability and were not given to visionary religion. But for the most part, it would seem to be true that many universalists were open to the charismatic dimensions of Christian experience, and allowed them a place in the life of faith.
The role of Scripture
For some converts, intense study of the Bible was the key factor that led to their change in perspective. They may not have even been looking into the issue, but the issue came looking for them. Charles Chauncy claims that it was in his work on 1 Corinthians 15 that he became persuaded of universal salvation. And as he carefully explored the rest of the Bible, he found this unexpected view reinforced. George Stonehouse too appears to have come to the view from Bible study. Others may have been prompted by hearing the arguments or experiences of others to look again at the Bible. Johann Petersen, on reading of Jane Lead’s visions, went to the Bible and found himself both persuaded of its central message, but also needing to offer some corrections to aspects of Lead’s theology. This illustrates the way in which the Bible was seen to be an authority to which experiences were accountable and by which they could be assessed. Elhanan Winchester’s conversion involved a range of factors, but the decisive key was his own diligent searching of Scripture and testing out of the various views against it. It was this that, in the end, was the main factor in persuading him to be an unwavering universalist. But the situation could run the other way: one’s reading of the Bible could be opened up in fresh ways in the light of experience. That was Hannah Whitall Smith’s story after her revelation on the tram—she went back to the Bible and suddenly found the wider hope all over the place. It felt like her eyes had been blind to it, but now she could see. Whenever it comes into the frame, Scripture traditionally played a fundamental role that every Christian universalist had to take seriously.
Tradition
In some ways, given the dominance of eternal conscious torment in the tradition, it would seem that a certain sitting loose to tradition would be a requirement for exploring the possibility of universal salvation. There is some truth in this suspicion. The Reformation, with its sola Scriptura and its rejection of certain traditions in the church, created the potential space within Protestant communities for imagining non-traditional possibilities regarding hell. One can see that many of the Protestant universalists were overt in dismissing
traditional views in the name of fidelity to what they saw as the true teaching of the Bible. Many gloried in their rejection of tradition, finding great pleasure in mocking it, and boasting of their elevation of the Bible in opposition to tradition. Of course, it is also true that there was a certain amount of self-deception here because these believers were simultaneously profoundly indebted to the very tradition they thought they were rejecting in their theology. It shaped their faith at deeper levels than they realized. They thought they were Bible-only believers, but there is no such thing.
The place of tradition in our tale, however, is more complex. For some, it was the recovery of a sidelined part of the tradition, the teaching of Origen and his theological heirs, that opened the door to hope. This was the case with George Rust and some others influenced by the Cambridge Platonists. And we have witnessed in our tale the recovery of some Origenist interpretations of certain biblical texts and the role that these readings played in the rise of universalism in this period. Even those who may not have read Origen’s work seem to have become at least indirectly influenced by its recovery. We suggested that this was the case with Jane Lead, and it was likely the case with numerous others. It is certainly not hard to find lots of parallels with Origenian theology in the writings of many of those discussed in this book. I avoided pointing them out en route simply to minimize tedium.
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