A Seat at the Table: An Appeal for Dialogue and Fellowship - Chris Date

I'm in L.A. at the Rethinking Hell Conference and so far we've had one plenary session with Chris Date. I had the pleasure of going for dinner afterward with several people including Chris and he's a great guy. We discovered a common love for 'Lost' and 'Survivor' so we got to geek out on something other than the fate of every human being who has ever lived.  Theologians don't agree on everything, but it is a fact that the best characters of 'Lost' are Locke, Faraday, and Desmond (And to those who deny this, let them be anathema).

As it turns out, Chris' talk was right along the same lines as the one I'll be giving. Here are some of his talking points (Based on my notes):

He issued a three pronged challenge to Traditionalists:

1. To interact honestly with the actual arguments of the other positions. Traditionalists, for the most part, simply do not deal with the exegesis and arguments that Conditionalists and Universalists are making (For example, evangelical universalists are not liberal pluralists). For people who are convinced of the other views based on the arguments they actually hold, the Traditionalist approach thus far is of little use or help. If traditionalists actually care about changing the minds of the people who hold the other views then they haven't tried hard to do so. Traditionalists are actually pushing people further into the other views and even unwittingly giving support to Universalism through their definition of words such as 'destruction'.

2. To allow conditional immortality a place at the table in order to pull Universalists to a view that aligns with their concept of the beatific vision of the afterlife. They think that in the end there will be no sin or pain or evil or suffering. That there won't be some place on the earth or some corner of the universe where evil sinners writhe in torment. This view is shared by conditionalists, except they think this will be achieve by the destruction of evil.

3. To seek unity for the sake of fellowship and ministry. Even Christian Universalists should be included even if one strongly disagrees with them. We disagree on many issues like atonement, eschatology, the age of the earth, etc. yet keep fellowship. Why is this so different when all  universalists are saying is that the atonement is for everyone, salvation by grace through faith is something that everyone will choose, and that when Jesus searches for the lost sheep he never stops looking until he was found every last one.

He ended challenging conditionalists and universalists to exemplify the same charity and unity in their church context.

It's been a good start to the conference. I'll be posting more summaries over the next week including some of my talking points, which pick up right where Chris left off.