I wrestled with the idea of hell and universalism this week along with the lectionary texts, and these four meditations are a compilation of my Instagram writing. You can read them daily over on my Insta, LauraJeanTruman.
Romans, Paul, and that “Adam and Christ” Comparison
Hell does not make any sense to me. It doesn’t make sense that sin traps all of us - that we’re all born into inescapable generational and systemic sins - but the “free gift of salvation in Jesus Christ” would 𝘯𝘰𝘵 be for all, but only free for people who purchase it at the price of an individual response to the particular way “Jesus” was explained to them by a particular religious community.
Forever punishment without chance of being saved - doesn’t feel theologically sound. I think Paul (PAUL!!) agrees.
Last Sunday’s lectionary text was Rom 5:12-19: “As one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.”
Paul draws a parallel between Adam & Christ: through Adam’s sin all are condemned, but through Christ’s gift all are saved.
Does all mean all? 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦??
The argument is there’s an asterisk by the second “all,” that the unwritten end of the sentence is “all 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘵𝘩.”
But this imbalances Paul’s comparison. Paul says everyone is condemned through Adam - but only some people are saved through Christ?
Adam’s sin is more powerful and reaches further than Christ’s redemption?
“But free will!” According to Paul, tho, we have no freedom NOT to be born into sin. We can’t opt out. And I agree. “Original sin” can be cycles of abuse we don’t have resources to break; greed born from scarcity; privilege creating narcissism; generational wealth blocking our empathy & reducing people to objects; how capitalism grips our imagination; how systemic racism corrupts our hearts. In the Christian story, sin entered the world through Adam, & that sin that affects us all.
And through Christ, redemption entered the world - redemption that affects us all.
I don’t think Paul would connect Adam & Christ if sin comes without choice, but redemption needs our assent.
If through Adam all are condemned, through Christ, all are saved.
Sin doesn’t get to win. Sin isn’t bigger than salvation. Sin can’t condemn more people than Christ can save.
This is a very Good News Easter story that’s worth walking through Lent towards.
*Postscript! This is an Instagram post, not a theology textbook! I have not covered every (or any!) “gotcha’s,” and I’m not even beginning to be an expert on this topic. (A few years ago I wrote a longer essay on universalism on my blog, linked in my linktree and story). If anyone is interested in arguments that are more theologically dense, I’ve enjoyed the (admittedly bombastic and theo-bro flavored) book That All Shall be Saved by David Bentley Hart - any other book recommendations always welcome! I think I’m going to spend the whole week thinking about universalism, and this is just a tiny piece of it - so many new good ways to see the Gospel outside of punitive theology!
More Romans, More Paul, and “Saved By Faith Not Works.”
We’re saved by faith, not by works, Paul says, and even faith is just a gift from God, “so that no one can boast.”
The way I learned about faith growing up made faith just like another work. Faith was the decision to accept Jesus Christ, so you went to heaven. People who did not accept Jesus Christ went to hell. I wasn’t sure (still am not sure!) how that doesn’t make faith a “work.” I’ve heard people say “It’s just accepting a free gift!” The decision to accept “the free gift,” though, is still a choice! It’s a hard choice, and it can require bravery, or lack of trauma, or conversely TONS of trauma, or willpower, or hitting rock bottom, or never hitting rock bottom. Or for goodness sake, it means not being raised in a healthy religious environment of an entirely different religion that you’re never tempted to leave, because it feels safe & whole & loving!*
A whole host of things outside our control determine who “𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 accepts the free gift!” and who doesn’t.
I’ve circled around this for twenty (twenty!!) years because I felt so, so strongly in high school that I was only interested in God so much because of some magic, some big grace, something pulling me outside of my control. I looked at people I loved, and some of them didn’t have that pull. It was hard to imagine that I was going to escape eternal punishment, and they were not, just because of this pull of grace that I wasn’t “choosing.” Paul resonated with me - it was a gift from God, so that no one could boast (this is why I was a brief and enthusiastic Calvinist my sophomore year!). I had so many open doors of mentors and holy places that were happy accidents, or big gifts, or grace.
It was really hard for me to imagine the kind of God who gives 𝘺𝘰𝘶 grace, but not your neighbor, who you love so much. And the consequences are forever.
I don’t think Jesus Christ is only the Savior for the people with no trauma around Christianity, who were securely attached as kids, or that God just saves people who have the resources to “choose God back.”
We have so many things that block us, in this life, from seeing God. I can’t imagine a good God who lets those things block us from Him forever.
*Another postscript! This all assumes the evangelical assumption that there is no way to know God except via Jesus. This post argues from that, because that’s the theology I grew up with? And the arguments that flow from that - that faith is all that’s required to “get to Heaven” when faith seems like a tall order sometimes - still stick with me and I still want to wrestle with them. But I don’t hold that theology that God is not accessible from other faiths today, and there are plenty of orthodox Christian theologians who have agreed with this over the last 2000 years (most notably, the evangelicals favorite, C.S. Lewis!) But that’s a post for another time! Instagram doesn’t have enough characters and this is not a whole book!
SO THEN WHAT IS THE POINT?!??!
If maybe, there is no hell, and maybe, other religions can also show us God, then what is even the point, why are we even here, why do this Christian thing if we’re not going to get in trouble if we don’t??
It feels like a hard and sad thing to get no joy or meaning out of your religious practice, except the comfort of not being punished. That feels like a hard way to follow Jesus - more like being trapped, and less like leaping out of a boat in your underwear because you saw the One your soul loves on the shore.
Maybe being with Jesus is a beautiful thing to pursue for its own sake, and when we find Him we rejoice as one who has found a pearl of great price and sold everything to have it.
Maybe walking with Jesus isn’t a goal oriented task or checklist, but is valuable because, like being in love or creating art, it’s kind of useless - except that it gives us so much joy.
If the only reason it feels worthwhile to be a Christian is “we’ll get in trouble if we aren’t,” that is a hard place to find ourselves getting up in the morning to walk with God.
I don’t mean that everyone who believes in hell is a Christian out of fear! Not even a little! There are compelling theological arguments for hell, especially ones that wrestle with justice/oppression are most compelling to me. But any *primary* argument for hell that boils down to, “well, why even be a Christian at all then!” - that feels like a sad way to walk with Jesus.
My favorite camp song when I was a preteen was “All I Once Held Dear” - extremely cheesy, extremely earnest. I still kind of love those old goofy earnest happy-clappy songs, though, that say that knowing Jesus is all and enough. However we rediscover Jesus after our theologies crumble and then are rebuilt (just to crumble again, probably), it is a beautiful thing - worthwhile in and of itself - to be found in Him and known as His.
It’s already a hard journey, doing justice and loving mercy and walking humbly. It’s a lot harder if we’re doing it because we feel trapped, not from joy. This yoke is easy and burden is light when we’ve “found the One whom our soul loves,” and know that it is so lovely just to be here.
Evening Prayer for a Week of Big Questions
God of open doors and wide open spaces - make us as brave as Nicodemus, who just kept asking questions when he didn’t understand.
When we feel stupid, help us laugh instead of tightening up. Teach us not to panic and run, but to keep digging into whatever odd idea we can’t wrap our mind around.
When we’re scared because the newness is too much, or because we don’t want to follow an idea to the end, remind us that “perfect Love casts out fear,” and You are perfect Love, and You’ll never let us travel outside that Love. Even if we feel lost in our own heads.
Protect us from an ego that holds very tightly to our old theologies because we hate the idea of being wrong. Teach us to drop what we think we know to explore a new idea - just because it’s brand new, and unexplored, and because we trust that God meets us even more in our curiosity than our certainty. Even and especially if we end up being wrong.
And protect us from an ego that refuses to drop a new idea to go back to an old one, because sometimes the old one was true after all.
Jesus of mystical poems and cryptic answers, we’re tempted to codify Your oddness, while making fun of earnest Nicodemus who, at least, acknowledged that what he was hearing was weird. Help us be like Nicodemus - instead of pretending we understand, may we be comfortable with confusion when You sound absurd. Remind us that we don’t need to protect You from sounding strange. You’re a strange God. That’s OK
Help us see You laughing more often, especially when You come like a “great Iconoclast,” delightedly scattering our old ideas about You (Lewis). Help us not be scared - to know it’s just our ego shattering, not our soul.
Jesus, teach us how to sit in a paradox. Remind us that we’re a paradox, too. Teach us to hold our questions seriously & our answers lightly.
Remind us that no matter how we wrestle, and doubt, and explore - there’s never ever fear in Love, “because fear has to do with punishment” 1 John 4), and You aren’t a God who traffics in punishment to bring us into redemption.
May Your love make us brave, and make us light, and help us hold ourselves and our answers with open hands.
Amen.
The full lectionary readings can be found at the Vanderbilt Revised Common Lectionary page, year A, 2022-2023. I spent a lot time in passages from Romans from last week and this week, as well as the story of Jesus and Nicodemus, tomorrow morning’s Gospel text.
I love me some David Bentley Hart as well, but I do have to admit that “theo-bro” is a reasonably approximate description of an identifiable element of his voice. (And I further have to admit that I have more than once read such passages in Hart as fit that description to others with no small amount of glee.)