This one core point sets it apart from most other Christian religions or denominations, which believe that some people will be reunited with God (saved, redeemed, go to heaven), and those not so will be separated from God(lost, unredeemed, go to Hell) forever.
With this exception, Inclusionists are by and large in agreement with the other doctrinal beliefs of mainstream Christianity.
With this exception, Inclusionists are not in disagreement with the other doctrinal beliefs of mainstream Christianity.
To define Inclusion as “everybody goes to heaven” or “they don’t believe in Hell” is a gross oversimplification of the doctrine, in the same sense that the Southern Baptist Denomination is more than “once saved, always saved".
Inclusion is (at least at this point) not a religion or a denomination, but a doctrine. Since Inclusion is a doctrine, rather than a religion or denomination, it is not directly tied to other points of doctrine. A person who believes in Inclusion may or may not believe in, say, immersion baptism. The two aren’t necessarily connected.
Inclusion is not a new idea. It did not originate with Bishop Carlton Pearson. Inclusion is the name Pearson has given to what has in the past sometimes been called “universalism” referring to the universal salvation of mankind. Universalism shouldn’t be confused with Unitarianism, which is a significantly different denomination that is outside of this discussion. Perhaps a more descriptive term for the doctrine would be “Universal Reconciliation”. There is considerable evidence this doctrine was the original viewpoint of the early Christian church for several centuries after Pentecost. This doctrine was the doctrine of the Eastern Church for about 500 years .
To try to present this information is some sort of logical progression I have arranged it in sort of a tree format:
The root:
Inclusion believes that everyone will be reunited with God. To say this
in a slightly different, more accurate way, Inclusion believes that ultimately,
God will reunite everyone with him. This root seems to naturally, spontaneously
sprout from two truths.
One; The essence, or nature, of God is love.
Two; God is all powerful.
Evidence of this first truth comes
from personal encounters with God, what we know of him through tradition, through
the example provided in our physical, biological fathers, and through direct
and indirect statements appearing in the Bible; such as I John’s "God is
Love" and in Jesus teachings of the greatest commandments; Love God with
all your heart, soul and might, and Love your neighbor as yourself,
and many others.
Evidence of the second truth can be seen in the physical universe, and also
through direct and indirect statements appearing in the Bible.
But there isn’t much point talking about this, because I think most people reading this would probably agree with each of these statements.
I think it would be safe to say that most Christians would agree with this, regardless of their denomination.
Pretty much all Evangelicals, Catholics, and Greek Orthodox Christians believe God is love and God is all powerful. Interestingly enough, so do pretty much all Jews, Muslims, and many other world religions. Most of the human race believes; intrinsically believes; God is Love and God is all powerful.
Okay. If we are reasonably in agreement on these, then statement two--that God is all powerful-- implies that God has to win; that God’s purposes--when the day is done, when the battle is over--God’s purposes have to be achieved. Anything less would prove God to not be all powerful.
So the inclusionist take on these two statements would be this:
Since God is Love he loves every
soul and desires every soul to be in fellowship or have a relationship with
him.
Since God is all powerful,
he will get what he wants.
To these two statements we have to add a third: not every soul is in fellowship with God at this time.
Obviously, from the immediate evidence of the state of humanity, not every soul is fellowship with God.
These three statements then bring us to the root of inclusion; God, ultimately, must bring every soul into a relationship with him. Inclusion usually says this as God will ultimately reunite everyone with him, because we believe everyone, "all souls", originated from God.
We don’t think there are souls in the world that weren’t created by God, or souls that were created by the devil, or people without souls, or that souls originate from human propagation without God’s input.
Inclusion believes that every human being is a creation originating with God, that at some point every human being, all of creation’s fellowship with God was broken, and that God’s work throughout the ages is the restoration of his creation-- every human being-- back to him; redemption.
Inclusion believes God will succeed.
If this then is the root of Inclusion, then here is the trunk;
The trunk:
Jesus Christ is the means with
which God will reunite every person with him. "No man comes to the father
but by me." and "There is no other name under Heaven by which men must
be saved".
But Inclusion sees this differently than most mainstream evangelical Christianity.
Salvation from the Evangelical
standpoint.
Please understand that I am
speaking in generalizations but nonetheless,
Evangelical Christianity usually sees redemption or salvation as the soul separated from God, being reunited with God by that individual confessing or accepting Jesus as savior.
After the above statement, Evangelical Christianity divides into two camps. Free Will and Election.
Free Will conceives of this as a transaction that occurs between Jesus and the sinner, initiated by the sinner.
Election sees this as a transaction initiated by Jesus ( or the Holy Spirit).
While the two camps of Evangelical Christianity divide over whether who initiates the transaction...the two camps join in agreement over the next statement. Both belive that whether initiated by the sinner or by God, the transaction itself must occur within this lifetime.
Tthere can be no "change of status" after death. Or as some phrase it: no "post-mortum conversion".
But neither election nor freewill supposes that all will be saved.
Election does not believe God will choose to draw every sinner to him.
Freewill does not believe that every sinner will choose God.
Both paths envision only partial redemption of a fallen race.
Inclusion rejects this.
Inclusion sees the doctrine of election as God’s failure to choose all of his children, which contradicts our previously accepted statement that the essence of God is love.
Inclusion sees the doctrine of freewill as God’s purpose defeated by man’s will, which contradicts our previously accepted statement that God is all powerful.
Salvation from the Inclusion standpoint
Inclusion also sees redemption or salvation as the soul separated from God,
being reunited with God, by Jesus Christ as savior. At least to this point,
Inclusion is in agreement with mainstream evangelical Christianity.
But Inclusion sees this not as a transaction occurring between Jesus and the sinner, but between Jesus and God.
Since the transaction is between Jesus and God, whether or not the sinner "accepts" this truth during their lifetime or after this lifetime, doesn’t really have any eternal relevance.
Of course this will have a lot of relevance to how the sinner lives their life in this world, how they relate to God and their fellow man, etc.
To say it another way, when I first came to the realization (more of a confrontation, actually) of who God really is and who I was in relationship to God….I, very naturally and of my own "freewill" accepted him.
Inclusion says that everyone will come to that realization.
For some this realization will occur over here; this side of death. For others, it will occur on the other side. This theology would seem to be a better explanation of the three passages that state; "every knee shall bow, every tongue confess…".
This brings us to the point that we can introduce the next part of this inclusion tree trunk; Hell.
Hell.
Some people will come to this
realization of who God is --in this life-- without going through Hell.
Others will, so to speak, put themselves through Hell in this life, and in that Hell of their own making, come to realize God before they die.
But others won’t come to that realization in this life. God may have to put these people through an after-this-life Hell before they will come to realize who God is.
In this inclusion view of Hell, Hell is remedial, or corrective. Hell is not punishment for punishment’s sake.
God will have to send some people to hell, but he will not leave them there.
Another way to say this.
Most of evangelical Christianity sees Hell as a destination; at the end of a one-way dead end street.
Inclusion sees Hell as a detour; a long-way-round road some people must take before they will reach God.
Yet another way to say this; When my children were young, sometimes I spoke to them this way: " Boys, you have to do what I’ve told you to do. The choice of whether you do it the hard way or the easy way is yours, but either way you choose, before you go to bed tonight, you will have to do what I’ve told you to do."
This is, of course, completely opposite from the traditional way of seeing Hell as a place of eternal damnation, eternal punishment, no return, no escape, total and complete separation from God for eternity.
Many people coming to Inclusion started their journey with the rejection of this classical teaching of Hell. Many of them have looked at this doctrine, listen to this preached, read their Bibles and were struck with the nagging notion; This can’t be right. There has to be something wrong here.
While this may be the gut feeling, the mental dialog comes out something like this;
This contradicts my belief that the nature of God is love (statement number 1). What possible purpose would eternal punishment serve God? Revenge? Amusement? This seems unjust; a brief lifetime of sin punished by an eternity of torment?
While this is typically the first thinking, further consideration comes to this conclusion: If what we said earlier about God being all powerful and that God’s purposes would be accomplished is true…then a Hell filled with souls lost for eternity would have to stand as proof positive that God is not all powerful (he couldn’t save those souls) and that God’s efforts in redemption failed to achieve it’s purpose.
It would appear, from the viewpoint of Evangelical Christianity, that for the souls lost forever in Hell, Jesus died in vain.
Freewill
You have probably realized that Inclusion does not put much stock in the concept
of Man’s Freewill. You would be correct in that conclusion.
Going back to the three points we discussed earlier: 1) God is all powerful, 2) God is Love, and 3) humankind is out of relationship with God.
Historically Freewill reconciles these three points in this way; God is all powerful, and God is love, but humankind is out of fellowship with God because God has given us the power or capacity to choose and we have not chosen him.
Freewill is also a way to reconcile scriptures such as the rich man and Lazarus, (God wanted to save both the rich man and Lazarus, but of his own freewill Lazarus chose God, while the rich man of his own freewill did not and therefore God was able to save Lazarus but was forced to send the rich man to Hell for eternity) and also the 22 chapter of Revelations, where all those whose name is not found written in the Lamb’s Book of Life (those who did not of their own freewill accepted God’s offer of salvation) are cast into the Lake of Fire to be tormented, day and night, forever and ever.
Freewill says that while God offers salvation to all, it is the individual’s responsibility to accept (or reject) God’s offer.
In regards to a individual’s eternal destiny, Inclusion rejects freewill.
Inclusion, of course, believes that God has given individuals the capacity to make many choices regarding their life, the degree with which their life conforms to God’s ideal for them, etc.: but in regard to eternal matters, we feel God has not entrusted these choices to us.
With our own children, we give them freewill and allow them to experience the consequences of their choices, up to a point. You wouldn’t give your five-year old the freewill choice to play or not to play in heavy traffic. You would circumvent the child's freewill choice in this matter for three reasons: you love the child, the consequences are too great and the child doesn’t understand what traffic means.
The child isn’t particularly disobedient, he is just ignorant of what the word traffic implies.
Inclusion believes that a wise heavenly father has given his children freewill, up to a point. God does not entrust us with the choice of eternal destination for three reasons; he loves his children, the consequences are too great and most of his children don’t understand what eternity means.
Further more, we reject freewill because the will of human beings is not free; we are by our very nature prone to sin.
For an individual to be held responsible for their choice, the choice would have to be up to them.
But for an individual to be held responsible for making a choice they were already prejudiced to make seems more like a setup than freewill.
As an example; To put me in a barroom, then hold me responsible for choosing or not choosing to drink would seem fair, but I am not prone to alcohol addiction; I can take it or leave it.
But to put a known alcoholic in a barroom and hold them to that same standard would seem like entrapment.
For God to put people who are sinners by nature in a sin-filled world, then punish them for choosing sin…doesn’t seem like much of a plan.
To create a dog, then beat the dog for barking seems, well, unfair to the dog and cruel on the part of the person doing the beating.
We also think Freewill seems like an unlikely way for God to deal with man for cultural reasons.
Listen to just how ludicrous this statement sounds;
Hindus will go to Hell because of their own freewill they made a choice to reject something they never heard of.
To claim that of your own freewill you chose to be a Christian seems a little presumptuious. Now really, in your heart of hearts, how much of your choice to become a Christian came from your free will and how much of it came from the situation you found your self in at the time?
To say it another way; It wouldn’t seem fair or right or really accurate for me to make the statement that of my own freewill I choose to speak English.
Of course I speak, English; I live in an English speaking country, I grew up in a home where English was the only language anybody could speak and the majority of the people around me speak English. That’s not really a matter of choice; it’s a consequence.
Now think about a person born in China, to Chinese parents growing up in a Chinese home; to fault this person for making a choice to not speak English is absurd.
Now let’s look at this from the perspective of religion; It wouldn’t seem fair or right or really accurate for me to make the statement that of my own freewill I choose Christianity. Of course I choose Christianity; I live in a Christian country, grew up in a Christian home.
However the person born in China, must go to Hell because they made the freewill choice to not accept Christianity.
Inclusion rejects freewill as God's plan for redemption.
Election
Inclusion also rejects Election as God’s method for dealing with humanity.
To say that a just, loving God has elected to save some, is to also say that a just, loving God has has also elected to condemn most. To accept that God has chosen to save some, one is forced to accept the that God has also chosen to reject most.
For God to create people, eternal souls, that he had no interest in, other than to punish them for not being elected by him....seems ludicrous. This seems like a terrilbe thing to say about God. I am very cautious as I write this, but to me, to make the statement election makes, then call God merciful and to say that God is love, to say that God is good....how is God merciful? How is that love? Where is there any goodness in that?
It would be slightly more tolerable if we thought God had elected... most of the human race to save and chose to punish a minority. But by Evangelical Christianity's definition of who God has elected...God has elected to save a very small percentage of the human race. God has created billions of people for the sole purpose of condeming them to Hell for eternity.
I'm not arguing with you. But is this really what you beleive. Does this jive with what you know and have experienced about God?
Inclusion rejects election as God's plan for redemption.
Concerning the Bible.
Most people who believe in Inclusion, believe the Bible to be the inspired word
of God, but do not believe in a literal interpretation of the current translations.
We agree and accept that there are verses in the Bible that in the translations we have appear to speak directly to in favor of Election and other verses that appear to speak directly in favor of Freewill. And there are also verses that appear to speak directly in favor of Inclusion or Universalism.
To put it bluntly, all three views can't be right, yet verses supporting all three are found in the Bible. If we have to chose which verses we believe to most accurately reflect the heart of God...the Inclusionist choose to beleive in a God that choses all his children.
I realize that this next statement will be open to attack, but it’s the best way I can think of to say it. Inclusion is more concerned with what the Bible means…than what it specifically says. We seek to find the spirit of the law, rather than the letter. Yes, the Bible does say that women should not pray with their head uncovered, yet we don’t require women to wear hats in church. We understand that a woman with her head uncovered in Bible times was a harlot. But that's not what it means today, and forcing women to hear hats serves no purpose.
There is much more to say, but this is simply as far as I have gotten as of Dec, 2005. Do feel free to email me (doug@douglashenderson.com)with specific questions, comments or objections to what has been said here, and I will try to get back to you soon. I am deeply grateful that you have chosen to read this far. May God bless you.
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