Saviour of All Fellowship
March 2000
Dear Friends in Faith,
God Will Be All in All A new book edited by Richard Bauckham and published (in 1999) by T&T Clark of Edinburgh has the title: God Will Be All in All. If read, it might strike many who receive this newsletter that the title is the best part of the book. It is subtitled, “The Eschatology of Jurgen Moltmann,” who, indeed, clearly supports “the universalism of salvation in Christ” (p.151) and sees that “the universality of God’s grace is grounded on the theology of the cross” (p.47). But the book is too filled with academic, theological discussion and jargon for it to be of much help to most of us. A short section by Moltmann entitled “The Logic of Hell” (pages 43-47), however, is excellent, and should be required reading in seminaries and Bible schools. Moltmann correctly connects the “logic of hell” with the “logic of human free will,” and he finds such logic "not merely inhumane but also extremely atheistic." He asks, “Does God’s love preserve our free will, or does it free our enslaved will, which has become un-free through the power of sin?” “Dangerous” People We have been described as dangerous at times. But let’s look at the demographics of these “dangerous” people. Who are they? They are some of the wise of this world like Origen and the Gregory’s, and they are the poets and writers like George MacDonald. They are the offscouring of the earth and that which is not, like Dean and Tony and all the housewives, husbands, children and grandmothers and grandfathers out there trudging through life with a song in their heart. These are just a very few of the many many people who are “dangerous.” But why are they so dangerous? In my opinion it is because love is the most powerful force in the universe. Love has a much more powerful motivating force upon the object of that love to want to love back the Lover. Hate has the opposite effect as it tends to make its objects recoil away from the Hater. We dangerous people have a message that God not only loves humanity but He even likes all of us (Titus 3:4): “Yet when the kindness and fondness for humanity of our Saviour, God . . . .” The “normal” Christian preacher can only MAKE you love God through threats of damnation. It is a “love God or else” mentality. The “dangerous” universalist however presents a loving God which causes a loving response in the individual, not out of coercion but a natural response to love such a lovely loving God. Our monthly Fellowship for March will be held here in Almont, at the home of Tom and Joanne Hough, 7170 Hough Road, on the 18th. As usual we begin at 11:00 in the morning, with a pot-luck meal at noon, and continue with speakers and discussion until about 4:00. In His Grace and Peace Dean Hough and Tony Nungesser |