First post

[Stumbler]

Hello everyone!

To provide a bit of an introduction, I was not raised in the church (though I did attend church with my mother for the first eight or so years of my life), but was always very aware of God's existence and sought him from an early age.  Looking back on it, I believe I was "Saved" at the age of nine.  I had been reading a collection of short biographies of the Saints which had left me terribly discouraged, as I knew I would never be able to live up to that sort of example.  I recall praying, "I do not know if I can love you as you deserve to be loved, but I really want to be your friend.".  I would continue to seek God through various means for years, only fully entering into a typical christian life in my late teens and early twenties, spending a number of years in the Vineyard movement.

After a number of years a variety of life circumstances and some deliberate choices on my part found me drifting away from involvement in organized church life, though never from the faith, a situation that continues to be the case.

I arrived at this site as part of a longer journey into reexamining a lot of things I had taken for granted about the Christian faith.  This partially started as a result of studying the writings of William D. Campbell, though I'd always favored some of the more compassionate mainstream Christian writers (Manning, Bell, Lewis).  I was watching a documentary about him in which it was commented that he was a universalist and that lead me to start seeking information on the topic of Christian Universalism. 

For many years I've been an annihilationist, not based on anything that I've been taught, but on my own reasoning from the scriptures and my own attempts to reconcile a God who is perfect in both compassion and justice (the idea of eternal punishment with no hope of redemption always seemed more Lovecraftian than Christian to me) and to account for free will (which I've always taken as a given).  I would much rather believe Universalism, if I find it to be true (what sane person with an ounce of compassion wouldn't?), and I now need to start the work of doing the necessary study to make that determination as legitimately as I can. 

Unfortunately, that seems to indicate that I'm going to have to learn ancient Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew, unless someone can point me to a reliable English translation that wasn't authored with the motive of either promoting or disproving Universalism?

Thanks for reading my ramblings if you managed to make it through all that!  I'm excited to be here!

[RonnyTX]

Hello Stumbler and welcome! :-)

[Lazarus Short]

WELCOME!

You don't need to become proficient in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek to be a Universalist - I certainly am not.   :sigh:  The whole Hell construct is really not very difficult to reduce to a 404.    :Chinscratch:  You must become aware of the abuse of only a few words:

sheol  :doh:
hades  :doh:
gehenna  :doh:
tartarus  :doh:

and the words having to do with long periods of time, usually rendered as "eternity" or "eternal."  You may also notice that words such as "condemnation" and "damnation" have been ramped up from less frightful words such as "judgment."  :punish:

Be aware also that eternal conscious torment in fire depends on the concept of the Immortality of the Soul, which comes down to us from Greek Philosophy.  The word and concept of "Hell" comes to us from languages and mythology of the ancient, pagan world of northern Europe.  When you have stripped off the made-to-order-for-the-sake-of-church-doctrine mis-translation, and seen past the Church terminology, God and His Word are quite silent on the subject of Hell.  :declare:

:welcome: :newb:

[Shev]

Welcome Stumbler!

[eaglesway]

Welcome Stumbler!

Yours is a beautiful testimony of a seeker of God. I hope you will find fellowship in the light here. Peace!