New publication--chapter in "All Shall Be Well": Explorations in Universal Salvation and Christian Theology, from Origen to Moltmann

"All Shall Be Well": Explorations in Universal Salvation and Christian Theology, from Origen to Moltmann, ed. Gregory MacDonald (Cascade Books, 2010), to which I contributed the chapter on Gregory of Nyssa, is now available for order (click on hyperlinked title). The publisher's description of the book and table of contents follow.

"All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."--Lady Julian of Norwich

Universalism runs like a slender thread through the history of Christian theology. It has always been a minority report and has often been regarded as heresy, but it has proven to be a surprisingly resilient "idea." Over the centuries Christian universalism, in one form or another, has been reinvented time and time again.

In this book an international team of scholars explore the diverse universalisms of Christian thinkers from the Origen to Moltmann. In the introduction Gregory MacDonald argues that theologies of universal salvation occupy a space between heresy and dogma. Therefore disagreements about whether all will be saved should not be thought of as debates between "the orthodox" and "heretics" but rather as "in-house" debates between Christians.

The studies that follow aim, in the first instance, to hear, understand, and explain the eschatological claims of a range of Christians from the third to the twenty-first centuries. They also offer some constructive, critical engagement with those claims.

1. Introduction: Between Heresy and Dogma—Gregory MacDonald

I. Third to Fifteenth Centuries

2. Apokatastasis: Particularist Universalism in Origen (c.185–c.254)—Tom Greggs

3. The Subjection of All Things in Christ: The Christocentric Universalism of Gregory of Nyssa (331/340–c.395)—Steven R. Harmon

4. Sin Has Its Place, but All Shall Be Well: The Universalism of Hope in Julian of Norwich (c.1342–c.1416)—Robert Sweetman

II. Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries

5. L ove Is all and God Is Love: Universalism in Peter Sterry (1613–1672) and Jeremiah White (1630–1707)—Louise Hickman

6. Union with Christ: The Calvinist Universalism of James Relly (1722–1778)—Wayne K. Clymer

7. Between Calvinism and Arminianism: The Evangelical Universalism of Elhanan Winchester (1751–1797)—Robin Parry

8. Salvation-in-Community: The Tentative Universalism of Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834)—Murray Rae

9. Postmortem Education: Universal Salvation in Thomas Erskine (1788–1870)—Don Horrocks

10. The Just Mercy of God: Universal Salvation in George MacDonald (1824–1905)—Thomas Talbott

III. Twentieth Century

11. The Final Sanity is Complete Sanctity: Universal Holiness in the Soteriology of P. T. Forsyth (1848–1921)—Jason A. Goroncy

12. The Judgment of Love: The Ontological Universalism of Sergius Bulgakov (1871–1944)—Paul Gavrilyuk

13. I do teach it, but I also do not teach it: The Universalism of Karl Barth (1886–1968)—Oliver D. Crisp

14. The Totality of Condemnation Fell on Christ: Universal Salvation in Jaques Ellul (1912–1994)—Andrew Goddard

15. In the End, God...: The Christian Universalism of J. A. T. Robinson (1919–1983)—Trevor Hart

16. Christ’s Descent into Hell: The Hopeful Universalism of Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–1988)—Edward T. Oakes, SJ

17. Hell and the God of Love: Universalism in the Philosophy of John Hick (1922–)—Lindsay Hall

18. The Annihilation of Hell and the Perfection of Freedom: Universal Salvation in the Theology of Jürgen Moltmann (1926–)—Nik Ansell