Exposing Universalism

Book excerpt: In recent decades universal reconciliation (UR) has sharpened its attack on evangelical faith. By their fiction and nonfiction, and by film (The Shack), universalists such as Paul Young, Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, and others are propagating the idea that the love of God trumps all other attributes of God including his holiness and justice. From this starting point universalists believe that all people are born as children of God, that all are going to heaven, that all must embrace God’s love. Those who reject God in this life will repent after death and escape hell. Even the devil and his angels will repent from hell and go to heaven. Universalism is an old idea. Christians have confronted UR since the third century and refuted it as heresy—heresy because UR believes that faith in Jesus is unnecessary. Thus, the death of Jesus Christ as an atonement for sin becomes unnecessary. Through his acquaintance with Paul Young, De Young is increasingly concerned that Young and other universalists are misleading many. In this book De Young challenges all the arguments that universalists make—their appeals to the Bible, to logic and reason, and to church history—and shows that they are unconvincing.