Harmless Anarchist writes:
Re: 9Marks article. The advocacy by theological networks, coalitions, and all that rot, whether formal or informal, are 95% explicable as the expression of psychological and social needs and pressures of the particular religious society. Posts such as the one linked have a near ritual character and function. They build community identity. They are how a particular social species leverage technological means to construct their ecological niche. In this particular example, the species problematizes the Great Tradition; the species then resolves the problem and thereby competes effectively in their environment.
Last week JS linked the mesmerizing Bunyan chart. And John H asks “what accounts for the fervency of opposition to universalism within evangelicalism?” I think the Bunyan chart gives us a clue. Most monotheism is a fiction. What would salvation be on Bunyan’s scheme (or Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel and other depictions of the Last Judgment, for that matter) without the symmetry provided by evil? Each side has its minor deities (angels and demons) and human life and destiny is understood in terms of a Manichean cosmic process. If universalism is true, then one reason it might induce fear is the loss of this mathematical regularity and symmetry of polytheistic Christianity. Universalism is asymmetric and unstable.
