I had first heard of Universalist Christianity about two days after watching this terrifying video "What every Catholic needs to know about hell". Personally, I thought it was the most blasphemous and depressing documentary I had seen. So, I had started doing some searches on the internet looking for hope that annihilation was a valid teaching, or at least most souls would go to purgatory. However, I had come across some website, maybe Jeromes Conspiracy? I had found a quote from Clement of Alexandria, speaking of his belief that no one should be eternally lost. However, I had still been under the curse of Catholic Dogma that stated Hell was eternal, plus I still believed that the bible spoke of Eternal Punishment, and Clement was not part of the Catholic Church. This would last a little less than a year. Before going into my final Anxiety Attack, I had been studying some hymns, and came across one known as "The Strife is O'er." It is an old latin Easter hymn. This song I found out was based on 1 Corinthians 15. At the time, I was still under the influence of the spirit, and not the letter of the law. As the story "Leaving the Institutionalized Fundamentalist Church." I had dropped all the rigid dogma I had felt like I had to accept in the Catholic Church or burn forever. Once I had become more open minded, I had not felt so terrified to do research on other religions, and read up on all religious theology. I had started making a hobby of seeking out proofs that this Fire and brimstone preaching was not healthy, and the only reason this kind of preaching was popular in the middle Ages, and still popular in Fundamentalist Churches was because of their ignorance in sciences, especially a vague science like Psychology.(I had dealt with an Anxiety disorder over this fire and brimstone stuff, and in anxiety disorders, you fear stuff that is not real). On one important occasion, I recalled reading about Clement of Alexandria, and did some research. I had found out that many early saints believed in Universalism. At that time, I had absolutely no interest in going back into religion, but more interested in some vague spirituality. I was still feeling like theres no way that any of those Christian denominations were better than all the other religions. So, I had started to develop some theories about eschachology, and at the same time reconciling all other faiths under one branch. I believed that after we die, we are judged, the righteous go to heaven, the ones who needed to be purged of sins, purgatory, and the wicked hell. I had believed that we had more than one universe, and everytime one world ended, a new one would rebuild, and the angels would go into hell, and rescue all the angels and unsaved, who were remorseful, and in torment would be allowed to leave, while the wicked ones who refused repentance there got to stay for another "Eternity". I believed that the souls who were rescued from hell would be reincarnated on a new planet, in order to love God all over again, and if they passed, they would be saved, and if they did not, back to hell for another age. Finally, at the end of the age of the last planet, those leftover too stubborn to repent would be annihilated, which would be very few. Then the planets would join one eternal universe, in something great no human could possibly imagine. After Christmas, I had come back in contact with the documentary "From Hell and Back", by Maurice Rawlings. Frankly, it disturbed me. It made claims of several atheists who had an unpleasant near death experience of being dragged to hell, and seeing the vast majority of humanity being plunged into this horrible place of torment forever. Why? because they were in the wrong religion. So, I had started an obsession of proving these NDE's to be a hoax, and something science could easily explain. I found some medical source that said people who go under Anesthesia have reported burning experiences, which is what I believed to be interpreted as hell. So, my quest for trying to find sources for proving this doctor wrong was not going so well, considering amazon users, youtube comments and some sources on City Data had given his documentary good reviews. One referred to his book as some fundamentalist rant of accept Jesus or burn for all eternity. But none of this was making any sense to me. Why should someone be burned for all eternity just because they were in the wrong religion? What if they never even heard of Jesus? How can one send themself to hell? But I had a very important sign come to me on both City Data and Amazon. While searching out bad reviews for Maurice Rawlings book, I got a recommendation for a book all about Christian Universalism. I decided to check it out, just to see how the reviews were. They had mostly been great, except for one, who ranted that it denotes the seriousness of sin. However, what had really caught me was one person was shocked that they could be a bible believer and be a Universalist at the same time. I was at the time more interested in the good reviews. I still was unpleased with the results, and found myself back on City Data again. One girl on the website provided a link to the website "what-the-hell-is-hell.com". Out of curiosity, I checked it out. On that website, I had found a picture of the modern valley of Gehenna, a testimony of someone who had been intoxicated with the everlasting Hell doctrine(It was similar to what I had dealt with, dealing with anxiety), and The Hell Test. I had been introduced to Scriptures, and saw them in a whole different way, along with ones I had forgotten about, solid philosophical arguments, and solid historical points, dealing with the Early Church. It was sure an eye opener after hearing a real guilt inducing sermon in church that morning. It was a claim that saints had made that Jesus had died, because of a broken heart due to all those who rejected him. I was beginning to notice that Catholicism could be pretty guilt inducing, and not so fear inducing. During my first week of hearing about Universal Salvation, I was still kind of stuck in the whole traditionalist mindset I had been cursed into over a year ago. I was constantly reading up on Christian Universalism, and at times, it did seem a bit too good to be true, and was still mentally under the impression that this was just an "Itching of ears", or the possibility that Universalist Christianity was not historical, but a bias made by Universalist by expanding on such sources from Alexandria, and ignoring any sources that speak of everlasting torment. Not to mention, all the intrusive thoughts I had dealt with, remembering such events from Fatima, Maurice Rawling, the Hellhole hoax(I knew it was a hoax), St. Faustina, St. Theresa Avila, Bill Weise in 23 minutes in hell, and every other claim. I was still having intrusive thoughts, like what if I did not accept the correct doctrine? What if Im in the wrong Church? What if I don't get to confession before I die? What if I have not had the born again experience? What if most of my family is currently suffering in hell without end? What if Jesus is a rigid Dogamtist? Plus, watching so many youtube video's traditionalists would come and attack the people making these video's, bringing up the itching of ears, false prophets, those people being uneducated, not to mention, not taking sin seriously. These people could be extremely rude, and I started to fear that they were right, cause these people were not attacked so much. But someone pointed out that they start flipping out when anyone disagrees with their theology. What does that say? Lack of confidence in their theology to the extent of namecalling. One Thursday, while in class, I had felt a sense of peace with my beliefs. I did do a search on Medjudgorge, since I still had an unhealthy attachment to that shrine. I was still disturbed by those secrets which looked to have given a roadmap of all these horrible punishments leading up to the day of Judgment when the righteous would go to heaven, while the wicked would go off into hell. Even the Catholic Church had strong doubts about the messages of this place. I had found out at the same time I had a sense of peace, my dads cousin had passed on due to cancer. The next day, my Grandpa told us that before dying, he was speaking to my Grandma and passed on very peacefully. I still was psychologically having some difficulties with intrusive thoughts of most of humanity burning forever. On that Saturday, I had been new to tentmaker, and found a link to Jeromes Conspiracy. I had read the book, which was a very fascinating book. It kind of reminded me of the DaVinci code. But I thought the parable was true at first. But it seemed to have opened my eyes to much of the Churches of our day and age had become so corrupted with many imported lies from medieval theologians. The book was only a sample. I was a bit disappointed in the reviews some people made, due to their close minded nastiness towards the whole idea that they could be wrong for so long. At that same time, I had finally left my unhealthy attachment towards Medjudgorge. Once I had thought about it, I realized that this shrine had only given me trouble. First off, three years previous, I just heard about this one day and was asked to go see the presentation. I was told it was life changing. No, it wasn't just some guy who spoke, but had to have a translator, since he couldn't speak English. I went to another one a year later, did nothing for me. It had been an all day trip to Ohio, and I had felt like I was in sort of a cult. Then, another year later, I had not learned my lesson, and gone to another one. That last one was torture. I had spent six hours at this gymnasium listening to people talk all about Medjudgorge, like it was some new holy land. Not to mention all the holy cloths, tears of our lady, Chaplets of Divine Mercy and some idea that only on the week after Easter could someone eliminate all their time in Purgatory.(Medjudgorge had been merged with devotions to St. Faustina). This definitely felt like some hardcore cult. Not to mention, I had gotten some "Revelation" at this Medjudgorge program, to apply at Chuck E. Cheese, got the interview, and they sounded like they had really wanted me. Then I got into some Catholic visions of Hell, and then found out I had not gotten the job. I still was a bit attached to this shrine for a while, which I should have known it would be nothing but trouble. Having finally left behind all that dogma, I came to some very important realizations. First off, I had only come to Medjudgorge, because "Mary" told the children that "Most souls go to purgatory, then the second most to hell, and the least straight to heaven", "all religions are dear to Jesus, but are not equal, because they pervert the commandments," and "The souls in hell get used to it and become one with hell", and "Live a simple life, but Catholics are expected of much more than the rest". This was a lot different than what the theologians of the Medieval to modern era were saying, which was more like Only catholics are saved, all these horrible punishments for all eternity, most souls going to hell, along with full obedience to their rules. The only reason I had in the first place become attached to the Catholic Church, because they didn't take the bible so literally, which was the problem I had been having with these Fundamentalist Christians, who would go out an pick scriptures out, and use them to make these legalistic claims. I had then realized that Fundamentalist Protestant Churches were only reading into the letter of the Law, so I no longer needed to follow Strict Catholicism anymore, since they could be just as bad about the letter of the law, with extra letters from Popes and bishops. Now that I had been in the spirit, I no longer needed Medjudgorge. The next week, I had read the book "Hope beyond hell", which reminded me of what I had believed for the most part before I had gotten involved with extreme Catholic and Protestant Legalism. I was still involved in the Tentmaker forum, constantly seeking out information on real bible teachings, and realized that Rome had turned Christianity into some new Legalistic Church ran on fear, and those legalistic traditions got passed on down to the new Protestant Churches, which got into an even bigger mess. The fearful and disturbing thoughts I had about eternal hell soon enough turned into anger. It really was making me angry that people could be so negative and judgmental, when the bible clearly taught a whole story of love. But I was finally free from the clutches of any manmade Christian religion.
Proof that preaching the GOOD NEWS is worthwhile.
Quote from: Universalist Catholic on February 27, 2010, 10:40:19 PM
I had first heard of Universalist Christianity about two days after watching this terrifying video "What every Catholic needs to know about hell". Personally, I thought it was the most blasphemous and depressing documentary I had seen. So, I had started doing some searches on the internet looking for hope that annihilation was a valid teaching, or at least most souls would go to purgatory. However, I had come across some website, maybe Jeromes Conspiracy? I had found a quote from Clement of Alexandria, speaking of his belief that no one should be eternally lost. However, I had still been under the curse of Catholic Dogma that stated Hell was eternal, plus I still believed that the bible spoke of Eternal Punishment, and Clement was not part of the Catholic Church. This would last a little less than a year. Before going into my final Anxiety Attack, I had been studying some hymns, and came across one known as "The Strife is O'er." It is an old latin Easter hymn. This song I found out was based on 1 Corinthians 15. At the time, I was still under the influence of the spirit, and not the letter of the law. As the story "Leaving the Institutionalized Fundamentalist Church." I had dropped all the rigid dogma I had felt like I had to accept in the Catholic Church or burn forever. Once I had become more open minded, I had not felt so terrified to do research on other religions, and read up on all religious theology. I had started making a hobby of seeking out proofs that this Fire and brimstone preaching was not healthy, and the only reason this kind of preaching was popular in the middle Ages, and still popular in Fundamentalist Churches was because of their ignorance in sciences, especially a vague science like Psychology.(I had dealt with an Anxiety disorder over this fire and brimstone stuff, and in anxiety disorders, you fear stuff that is not real). On one important occasion, I recalled reading about Clement of Alexandria, and did some research. I had found out that many early saints believed in Universalism. At that time, I had absolutely no interest in going back into religion, but more interested in some vague spirituality. I was still feeling like theres no way that any of those Christian denominations were better than all the other religions. So, I had started to develop some theories about eschachology, and at the same time reconciling all other faiths under one branch. I believed that after we die, we are judged, the righteous go to heaven, the ones who needed to be purged of sins, purgatory, and the wicked hell. I had believed that we had more than one universe, and everytime one world ended, a new one would rebuild, and the angels would go into hell, and rescue all the angels and unsaved, who were remorseful, and in torment would be allowed to leave, while the wicked ones who refused repentance there got to stay for another "Eternity". I believed that the souls who were rescued from hell would be reincarnated on a new planet, in order to love God all over again, and if they passed, they would be saved, and if they did not, back to hell for another age. Finally, at the end of the age of the last planet, those leftover too stubborn to repent would be annihilated, which would be very few. Then the planets would join one eternal universe, in something great no human could possibly imagine. After Christmas, I had come back in contact with the documentary "From Hell and Back", by Maurice Rawlings. Frankly, it disturbed me. It made claims of several atheists who had an unpleasant near death experience of being dragged to hell, and seeing the vast majority of humanity being plunged into this horrible place of torment forever. Why? because they were in the wrong religion. So, I had started an obsession of proving these NDE's to be a hoax, and something science could easily explain. I found some medical source that said people who go under Anesthesia have reported burning experiences, which is what I believed to be interpreted as hell. So, my quest for trying to find sources for proving this doctor wrong was not going so well, considering amazon users, youtube comments and some sources on City Data had given his documentary good reviews. One referred to his book as some fundamentalist rant of accept Jesus or burn for all eternity. But none of this was making any sense to me. Why should someone be burned for all eternity just because they were in the wrong religion? What if they never even heard of Jesus? How can one send themself to hell? But I had a very important sign come to me on both City Data and Amazon. While searching out bad reviews for Maurice Rawlings book, I got a recommendation for a book all about Christian Universalism. I decided to check it out, just to see how the reviews were. They had mostly been great, except for one, who ranted that it denotes the seriousness of sin. However, what had really caught me was one person was shocked that they could be a bible believer and be a Universalist at the same time. I was at the time more interested in the good reviews. I still was unpleased with the results, and found myself back on City Data again. One girl on the website provided a link to the website "what-the-hell-is-hell.com". Out of curiosity, I checked it out. On that website, I had found a picture of the modern valley of Gehenna, a testimony of someone who had been intoxicated with the everlasting Hell doctrine(It was similar to what I had dealt with, dealing with anxiety), and The Hell Test. I had been introduced to Scriptures, and saw them in a whole different way, along with ones I had forgotten about, solid philosophical arguments, and solid historical points, dealing with the Early Church. It was sure an eye opener after hearing a real guilt inducing sermon in church that morning. It was a claim that saints had made that Jesus had died, because of a broken heart due to all those who rejected him. I was beginning to notice that Catholicism could be pretty guilt inducing, and not so fear inducing. During my first week of hearing about Universal Salvation, I was still kind of stuck in the whole traditionalist mindset I had been cursed into over a year ago. I was constantly reading up on Christian Universalism, and at times, it did seem a bit too good to be true, and was still mentally under the impression that this was just an "Itching of ears", or the possibility that Universalist Christianity was not historical, but a bias made by Universalist by expanding on such sources from Alexandria, and ignoring any sources that speak of everlasting torment. Not to mention, all the intrusive thoughts I had dealt with, remembering such events from Fatima, Maurice Rawling, the Hellhole hoax(I knew it was a hoax), St. Faustina, St. Theresa Avila, Bill Weise in 23 minutes in hell, and every other claim. I was still having intrusive thoughts, like what if I did not accept the correct doctrine? What if Im in the wrong Church? What if I don't get to confession before I die? What if I have not had the born again experience? What if most of my family is currently suffering in hell without end? What if Jesus is a rigid Dogamtist? Plus, watching so many youtube video's traditionalists would come and attack the people making these video's, bringing up the itching of ears, false prophets, those people being uneducated, not to mention, not taking sin seriously. These people could be extremely rude, and I started to fear that they were right, cause these people were not attacked so much. But someone pointed out that they start flipping out when anyone disagrees with their theology. What does that say? Lack of confidence in their theology to the extent of namecalling. One Thursday, while in class, I had felt a sense of peace with my beliefs. I did do a search on Medjudgorge, since I still had an unhealthy attachment to that shrine. I was still disturbed by those secrets which looked to have given a roadmap of all these horrible punishments leading up to the day of Judgment when the righteous would go to heaven, while the wicked would go off into hell. Even the Catholic Church had strong doubts about the messages of this place. I had found out at the same time I had a sense of peace, my dads cousin had passed on due to cancer. The next day, my Grandpa told us that before dying, he was speaking to my Grandma and passed on very peacefully. I still was psychologically having some difficulties with intrusive thoughts of most of humanity burning forever. On that Saturday, I had been new to tentmaker, and found a link to Jeromes Conspiracy. I had read the book, which was a very fascinating book. It kind of reminded me of the DaVinci code. But I thought the parable was true at first. But it seemed to have opened my eyes to much of the Churches of our day and age had become so corrupted with many imported lies from medieval theologians. The book was only a sample. I was a bit disappointed in the reviews some people made, due to their close minded nastiness towards the whole idea that they could be wrong for so long. At that same time, I had finally left my unhealthy attachment towards Medjudgorge. Once I had thought about it, I realized that this shrine had only given me trouble. First off, three years previous, I just heard about this one day and was asked to go see the presentation. I was told it was life changing. No, it wasn't just some guy who spoke, but had to have a translator, since he couldn't speak English. I went to another one a year later, did nothing for me. It had been an all day trip to Ohio, and I had felt like I was in sort of a cult. Then, another year later, I had not learned my lesson, and gone to another one. That last one was torture. I had spent six hours at this gymnasium listening to people talk all about Medjudgorge, like it was some new holy land. Not to mention all the holy cloths, tears of our lady, Chaplets of Divine Mercy and some idea that only on the week after Easter could someone eliminate all their time in Purgatory.(Medjudgorge had been merged with devotions to St. Faustina). This definitely felt like some hardcore cult. Not to mention, I had gotten some "Revelation" at this Medjudgorge program, to apply at Chuck E. Cheese, got the interview, and they sounded like they had really wanted me. Then I got into some Catholic visions of Hell, and then found out I had not gotten the job. I still was a bit attached to this shrine for a while, which I should have known it would be nothing but trouble. Having finally left behind all that dogma, I came to some very important realizations. First off, I had only come to Medjudgorge, because "Mary" told the children that "Most souls go to purgatory, then the second most to hell, and the least straight to heaven", "all religions are dear to Jesus, but are not equal, because they pervert the commandments," and "The souls in hell get used to it and become one with hell", and "Live a simple life, but Catholics are expected of much more than the rest". This was a lot different than what the theologians of the Medieval to modern era were saying, which was more like Only catholics are saved, all these horrible punishments for all eternity, most souls going to hell, along with full obedience to their rules. The only reason I had in the first place become attached to the Catholic Church, because they didn't take the bible so literally, which was the problem I had been having with these Fundamentalist Christians, who would go out an pick scriptures out, and use them to make these legalistic claims. I had then realized that Fundamentalist Protestant Churches were only reading into the letter of the Law, so I no longer needed to follow Strict Catholicism anymore, since they could be just as bad about the letter of the law, with extra letters from Popes and bishops. Now that I had been in the spirit, I no longer needed Medjudgorge. The next week, I had read the book "Hope beyond hell", which reminded me of what I had believed for the most part before I had gotten involved with extreme Catholic and Protestant Legalism. I was still involved in the Tentmaker forum, constantly seeking out information on real bible teachings, and realized that Rome had turned Christianity into some new Legalistic Church ran on fear, and those legalistic traditions got passed on down to the new Protestant Churches, which got into an even bigger mess. The fearful and disturbing thoughts I had about eternal hell soon enough turned into anger. It really was making me angry that people could be so negative and judgmental, when the bible clearly taught a whole story of love. But I was finally free from the clutches of any manmade Christian religion.
Wow...that was a really awesome man. Your testimony reminds me a lot of my own personal journey.
Interesting. Sounds like a rough trip. In all that journey, would you share what you have come to believe about Jesus? Where do you see Him in the "original gospel of Universalism"? Thanks, James.
:cloud9: Thanks for the testimony UC. Glad you made it here.... :thumbsup:
I came to it after praying for a certain girl's salvation every day, multiple times a day, for three years straight...and after reading the book Phantastes by George MacDonald.
A good friend of mine (who is alas, a Hell believer) had sent me a book; Phantastes by George MacDonald, and I read in the preface about his beliefs...and Universalism came up. I researched it, and that is where I found Hope Beyond Hell. It was Phantastes that introduced me to the term Universalism...but I didn't apply it, or research it until after an event, which I will now describe.
My deep walk with God began three years ago after I became so concerned over a certain girl's Salvation, that I began to pray ceaselessly in intercession, and in order that my prayer would be heard, in order that the prayers of a righteous man would avail much, and that my petitions would be answered; I began to give every aspect of my life to God, so that I would become righteous, and so that she would not see Hell. Of course, I didn't know so much about Grace on a practical level back then.
But over time, my walk with God became more than philosophical study, and analyzing texts for my arguments with Atheists, and pagans. God began to turn it into an applied lifestyle, and I began to grow more and more. God began to show me things I'd never seen before, and he became My God, because I did not just acknowledge him in my head, but began to walk with him in the garden of my heart.
I don't remember the specifics of exactly what lead me up to Universal Reconciliation specifically...But I remember what lead me to it in a general sense.
I am an avid fan of Joyce Meyer, and I had (seemingly at the time) brought a girl (not the girl I was praying for, a different girl) to Christ, and was looking for a video of Joyce's to equip this new Christian, because I always found that her practical teaching, and the sense of being able to relate as a teacher was amiable, and I thought it would be good for her.
So...I got on youtube, and began to search - and I came across a video (which was really a boring, bad quality recording where someone had put a camera to the tv set) of an interview where Joyce had Joel Osteen on her show. It was boring...so I made my first mistake - I looked at the youtube comments...
I was appalled. I became filled with a righteous anger at all the Religious-caste legalistic, pharisaic, bad-mouthing, destructive posts that where pouring out of these self-righteous hypocrites...who were tearing Joyce Meyer apart with every full volley they could fling out of the Spirit of Condemnation, saying that she, and everyone who was paying attention to her was going straight to Hell, because she's a woman preacher...
I became so angry, I immediately set to work on writing an article which I was going to put on my facebook, to defend Joyce Meyer, a woman preacher, and challenge the Spirit of Condemnation that had riddled the tradition filled synagogue of pharisees that the church had become.
That defense of Joyce turned into an article on tearing apart the religious-caste, throwing away religion, and getting back to the Grace-filled relationship with God...But then I was met with a wall...
I couldn't continue my article...Hell had raised its head; I remembered all those prayers for that one girl that I had prayed, and it brought to mind all those who had died without Jesus, who was always talking about Grace, Love, and Joy...even while Hell yet yawned beneath Him...I needed an answer, how could I write an article about getting back to Grace-filled Salvation, and relationship with God, over the legalistic stuff that riddles the church that I was trying to tear through? The traditions, the legal code, the doctrines, the theological systems, they where all so overwhelming like the slough of despond! And Hell gaped before me, taunting me, its maw held wide open...Hell, the epitome of this legalistic theology, the Hell that all of these condemning Pharisaical Christians where damning mankind into every single day; I could go no further...
Then Universalism came to my remembrance...
So I started researching, and somehow by the grace of God, I came across Hope Beyond Hell, and read it - and here I am today.
My three year prayer was answered, God revealed his grace, love, and beauty, and the power of Legalism - Fear...was revealed as broken.
I never did finish that article. And I don't think I really need to. :)
It is my belief, that God showed me something that made me so angry, that I'd be driven to write an article to break it...and that through a faerie tale he pointed me to the direction of his answers.
I believe He used my love of a girl (which has alas...been broken), my love of good Christians, and my love of good fantasy - to bring me to the source of it all; Love himself.
Uplifting testimony Lefein!
:icon_king:
Awesome testimonies! It's so nice to come to a place like this and see that none of us are alone in our struggles with the ET line of thinking.