christian universalism

Just over a year ago Michael Wittmer wrote of Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christianity:

It’s not clear whether Brian sees the afterlife as a series of chances to repent until everyone comes around or whether everyone immediately endures a fiery judgment which burns away their bad stuff and preserves whatever remains. Either way, what’s left of us is ultimately reconciled, or perhaps absorbed into God ...

This error is not new. Christian Universalism has been around for a long time. The phase was popularize in the 1700's. Central beliefs setting Christian Universalism apart from mainstream Christianity is universal reconciliation (all will eventually be reconciled to God without exception, the penalty for sin is not everlasting, i.e. doctrines of everlasting damnation to hell and annihilationismare rejected) and theosis (all souls will ultimately be conformed to the image of divine perfection in Christ).

I find this error rooted in a definition of love not found in Scripture followed by redefining or subordinating God's other attributes.

From Michael Horton:

That basic scheme goes like this: God’s only attribute is love; his holiness, righteousness, and justice have to be adjusted to this central dogma. Human beings are not deserving of God’s wrath, but only of his encouragement and empowerment to improve. Jesus Christ is primarily a moral teacher, who invites us to share in his vision of creating “a kingdom of ethical righteousness” (Ritschl’s phrase, basically from Immanuel Kant). Since there is no divine justice to satisfy or wrath to propitiate, the cross cannot be represented as a vicarious substitution of “the Lamb of God” for sinners. Since there is no objective condemnation, there can be no objective justification. Since everyone is a child of God, there can be no adoption. The church is merely the community of volunteers for the kingdom-building enterprise. Heaven and hell are as subjective as sin and redemption: it all depends on what you make of your life right now. Yale’s H.Richard Niebuhr captured the essence of liberal religion in this fine description: “A God without wrath brought people without sin into a kingdom without judgment through a Christ without a cross.”