By Rudy Barnes, Jr., August 10, 2024
In Christian universalism there is no exclusivist belief needed for salvation. The teachings of Jesus in the Gospels are God’s common word for people of all faiths. While the church limits salvation to believers of exclusivist Christian doctrines that condemn unbelievers to hell, the teachings of Jesus in the Gospel accounts assert universal, simple and selfless truths.
Jesus was a 1st century Palestinian Jew who never advocated a new religion, only reforms in Judaism. His teachings are summarized in the greatest commandment to love God and our neighbors of other races and religions as we love ourselves. It’s a common word of faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, but ignored by most church doctrines and creeds.
Christianity has long been the world’s largest religion, but it’s now declining because of pervasive church creeds and doctrines that have limited salvation to those professing exclusivist Christian beliefs that were never taught by Jesus. Reform is not likely since exclusivist beliefs have sustained the institutional inertia of the church.
Thomas Jefferson considered the teachings of Jesus “the most sublime moral code ever designed by man,” and his Jefferson Bible affirms universalism as God’s will. Jefferson’s views have been praised by theologians in the Jesus Seminar; but exclusivist Christian doctrines continue to divide Christians from those in other religions.
In the 1830’s Alexis DeTocqueville observed that moral values are needed to sustain a healthy democracy, and he asserted that religion is the source of moral values. The Civil War disproved any moral unity in America on slavery, and the reconciling universal moral values of Jesus have remained corrupted by materialism, hedonism and polarized partisan politics.
Since 2016 most white Christians have ignored the reconciling universal moral values of Jesus and supported Donald Trump’s divisive radical right partisan politics. The Christian religion has become the handmaiden of the Republican Party, even though Trump promotes demagoguery in democracy as the divisive antithesis of the moral teachings of Jesus.
There are doctrinal differences in the wide variety of churches in America, but all share exclusivist Christian beliefs as the only means of salvation. In a world of increasing religious diversity, religious reconciliation requires eliminating exclusivist doctrines of salvation; but given the prevalence of exclusivist Christian doctrine in America, that seems highly unlikely.
There was a universalist denomination in Christianity until 1964 when it merged with the Unitarian Universalists. The UU does not emphasize any religion or give prominence to the teachings of Jesus as the universal word of God; and since 1964 the dominance of exclusivist Christian doctrine has continued unabated in the church. Can a minority of Christians restore universalism as a common word of faith, or must that change come from outside the church?
Notes:
On the Greatest Commandment as a Common Word of Faith, see
http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2015/01/the-greatest-commandment-common-word-of.html.
The Teachings of Jesus on Morality and Law is an interfaith study guide based on the teachings of Jesus taken from the Jefferson Bible. It’s posted in its entirety in the Resources at https://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com.
Thomas Jefferson considered “the teachings of Jesus as the most sublime moral code ever designed by man,” and also detested exclusivist church doctrines. The Teachings of Jesus on Morality and Law is an interfaith study guide based on the teachings of Jesus taken from The Jefferson Bible. It’s posted in its entirety in the Resources at https://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com.
In 1831 Alexis de Tocqueville toured America and observed that its many Christian sects shared a “Christian morality” that produced common standards of legitimacy that defined what is right, and imbued American politics with its moral authority. On the views of Thomas Jefferson and Alexis deTocqueville on the moral values of religion in American politics, see Religion, Moral Authority and Conflicting Concepts of Legitimacy (July 1, 2017) at http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/07/religion-moral-authority-and.html. See also Musings of a Maverick Methodist on a Universal and Altruistic Jesus, August 19, 2023, at http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2023/08/musings-of-maverick-methodist-on.html.
Universalism can reconcile progressive Christians, Jews and Muslims. While universalists are a minority among Jews, Christians and Muslims, they can be a reconciling voice promoting a common word of faith in those competing religions. On universalism, see Universalism: A theology for the 21st century, by Forrest Church, November 5, 2001, at Universalism: A theology for the 21st century | UU World Magazine.
On the few remaining universalist Christians, see https://christianuniversalist.org/.
Carl Krieg has distinguished between The Political [exclusivist] Jesus and The Real [universal] Jesus at https://progressivechristianity.org/resource/the-political-jesus-and-the-real-jesus/.
Robin Meyers is the author of Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus (HarperCollins Publishers, 2009), and the title of his book says it all. Meyers spoke at the Barnes Symposium at the University of South Carolina on April 12, 2019 on From Galilean Sage to Supernatural Savior (or, How I Became a Heretic with Help from Jesus). While Meyers is critical of the church, he was pastor of Mayflower Church, a large UCC congregation in Oklahoma City, for over 30 years.
On the belief that God saves only Christians and condemns all unbelievers to hell, see Hell No! at http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/07/hell-no.html.
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