If you were a lucky Universalists sitting in your pews on a Sunday morning 175 years ago you might have been listening to the great itinerant preacher Hosea Ballou, who preached all over New England trying to convince his congregations of that very thing.- yes, every person. Some of the arguments you might hear today on the Family Life network, were not so different from the arguments Ballou answered in his day- like the argument that people would never be good if there were no hell. So in 1832, Ballou used the example of a famous murder that was scandalizing folks far and wide. In 1832, a pregnant mill worker was found hanged, and the investigation implicated a prominent Methodist minister Ephraim Kingsbury Avery. [i] Here was a Fire and Brimstone preacher accused but acquitted of the murder of a young woman who may have been pregnant with his child. As we know still happens in our time, the powers that be, both the industrialists of Fall River and the New England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church exerted their political influence, and Avery was acquitted.[ii] Tempers were hot all over New England when he was released.
Now here was a man who preached fire and brimstone every Sunday- surely if fear of future punishment in the fires of hell was going to deter anyone from committing a crime, surely it would be such a person. Ballou writes “… if he was guilty, neither the fear of future punishment, nor the fear of temporal punishment, was of any avail.” Ballou argued, along with many other early Universalists, that not only was the threat of hell ineffective, but might sometimes have the reverse effect. Ballou wrote:
"… they have exercised, toward their fellow creatures, a spirit of enmity, which but too well corresponds with the relentless cruelty of their doctrine, and the wrath which they have imagined to exist in our heavenly Father. By having such an example constantly before their eyes, they have become so transformed into its image, that, whenever they have had the power, they have actually executed a vengeance on men and women, which evinced that the cruelty of their doctrine had overcome the native kindness and compassion of the human heart."[iii]Let me translate. Ballou is saying that when people imagine a “wrathful heavenly father” in aspiring to be more godly they themselves become vengeful and cruel. Ballou believes that the image of an infinitely loving and compassionate God brings out the kindness and compassion already in our hearts. By remembering the love that surrounds and will never let us go, by daring to believe that the spirit of life is in its nature loving, we ourselves become more kind, more compassionate, more loving. As it says in our hymnal “That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshiping we are becoming.”[iv]
So not only is a doctrine of hell ineffective, argues Ballou, but he along with most of the early Universalists argued that it is not in the character of an all loving and all powerful God would not create souls doomed to hell right from the start. Surely all people had a chance to be saved from the eternal torment with which preachers of the day loved to fill their Sunday mornings. Ballou held that “to argue for endless punishment would be to argue for a permanent, eternal division in the fabric of the cosmos, a dualism so monstrous that it would rout any claims of the omnipotence of God.” [Robinson p. 65] Historian Thomas Whittemore, one of the earliest historians of Universalism[v], described Universalists as those who believed in “the eventual holiness and happiness of all the human race” [Robinson p. 71]
One of the fundamental questions here is about God’s capacity to forgive. Does God hold a grudge like we do? If God is all powerful does that mean the divine power to forgive is greater than ours, or is it God’s power to hold grudges that is great? The Universalists put their faith in God’s infinite capacity to love. As the Rev. Linda Stowell tells the story, one time ”Ballou was riding the circuit again when he stopped for the night at a New England farmhouse. The farmer was upset. He confided to Ballou that his son was a terror who got drunk in the village every night and who fooled around with women. The farmer was afraid the son would go to hell. "All right," said Ballou with a serious face. "We'll find a place on the path where your son will be coming home drunk, and we'll build a big fire, and when he comes home, we'll grab him and throw him into it." The farmer was shocked: "That's my son and I love him!” Ballou said, "If you, a human and imperfect father, love your son so much that you wouldn’t throw him in the fire, then how can you possibly believe that God, the perfect father, would do so!"[vi]
Hossa Ballou challenged not only the orthodoxy of the Calvinists, but the orthodoxy of the first generation of Universalists like John Murray asking: “Is God the unreconciled or dissatisfied party, or is man?” [Robinson p. 64] For Ballou, God’s love for us never wavered, but it was we who are dissatisfied, we who need to atone and be reconciled, to renew our love for God.
Among the Universalists the question arose, “what about people who do something genuinely harmful, something one might call evil?” Back when UUCAS was called The Universalist Society of Sheshequin, and we had not yet built our historic meeting house, this question caused a great debate almost tore Universalism apart.
On the one side were the Restorationists who believe that the soul would be disciplined or educated in a period following death, and eventually the soul would be ready for eternal holiness and happiness. For these Universalists, Hell did exist for the unrepentant and “It’s very purpose was to cause repentance” [Robinson p. 66] “Those who believed in free will reasoned that a soul could not be fully restored until it wanted to be saved and, as souls can be very stubborn, a change of heart could require a lot of time, perhaps a hundred thousand years.”[vii]
On the other side were the Ultra-Universalists or Death and Glory Universalists, lead by Ballou. As Rev. Victoria Weinstein tells the story, Ballou was preaching in a town somewhere and staying with a family, when he walked into the kitchen to find the lady of the house mopping the floor. "Well, Mr. Ballou," his hostess said. "I hear that you preach universal salvation for all." He replied that he did. "Do you believe, sir, that all men are going to be saved, such creatures just as they are?" she asked. Hosea Ballou saw that she did not understand the doctrine of universal salvation. "Sister," he said, "What is that you have in your hand?" "Why, it' s my mop," she replied. "I always mop my kitchen floor on Saturday afternoons." Ballou asked, "Do you intend to mop that floor just as it is?" "Why, of course," she said, "I mop it to clean it." "Yes," said Ballou. "You don' t expect the floor to be made clean before you consent to mop it. And so it is with salvation. God saves men to purify them. That is what salvation is designed for. God does not require us to be pure in order that he may save us." [viii]
Whereas early Universalists, and the more orthodox Universalists of Ballou’s time believed in a literal fire-and-brimstone hell, Ballou believe “Hell is not merely a place of punishment but a state of rebellion against God and against the unity of humans and God. Heaven is the accomplishment of that unity.” [Robinson p. 65] So when Ballou claims that the soul would experience immediate salvation upon death, he is not imagining the soul entering the orthodox heaven of pearly gates and streets paved with gold, but the reunion of the soul with God. Hosea Ballou believed that sin was its own punishment, so there was no need for punishment after death. “Since the dead can no longer sin, it would make no sense for a rational God to punish them in the afterlife”.[ix]
The controversy started amiably enough. Ballou and his friend and fellow Universalist minister Edward Turner debated the issue in their correspondence. At first Ballou’s position was not that different from his friend’s but by 1817, when the debate was published in the Universalist magazine Gospel Visitant Ballou was a confirmed “Ultra-Universalist” – that is to say he believed there was no “future punishment” at all.
The debate grew more heated. Letters of increasing sharpness on both sides of the issue appeared in the Universalist Magazine until late 1820s . Ballou’s great-nephew Hosea Ballou 2nd and Thomas Whittemore took the side of Ultra-Universalism. And on the other side, Charles Hudson, a minster from Westminster MASS, wrote in 1827. . Armed with your system, might not the robber go forth with composure, and say to himself, I am sinning, it is true, but if I succeed I shall obtain a fortune; and if I lose my life in the attempt, I shall go in an instant to the enjoyment of heaven? In either case I shall be a gainer, he might very naturally say, therefore I will embark immediately in this bold adventure*[x]
To Ballou, the punishment for sin was sin itself. [It will ] be asked why I should fear sin? Answer; because it will make me miserable if I commit it. There is no priest that I can apply to, who can prevent my suffering, if I am a sinner. If I fear a prison or a gallows, or a punishment in the future world, I may flatter myself that some way may be provided, by which I may escape them; but if I fear sin itself, I know, if I am a sinner, I must endure that evil. [ p. 33] Going back to that example Methodist Minister Ephraim Kingsbury Avery, who was not deterred by fear of hell, but if he had feared the sin itself, “had that man been half as fearful of committing that crime as he was of being found out, and punished according to the law, the poor girl, whose sad fate we deplore, would not have lost her life by his hands. “ [Of Future Retribution. 35]
Also on the side of the Restorations were Paul Dean (who succeeded John Murray at First Church) and Jacob Wood “an erratic young minister.” Wood wanted to make future punishment an official part of the doctrine of Universalism and was willing to push the denomination to Schism over it. And so Universalism split in two. A group of Restorationists led by Adin Ballou and Paul Dean split off from the main body of Universalism and in 1831-1841 this faction formed the Massachusetts Association of Universal Restorationists. The rest of the Universalists stayed with the denomination even though most were restorationists. By 1841 the break-off group had folded- even within the group there were too many different opinions, and energy soon faded to base identity on this one theological point, the cause of abolition had a much stronger pull.
When the dust cleared, the Restorationist position was dominant in 19th century Universalism. The whole controversy faded with time, but these ideas are just as challenging today as they were in Ballou’s time. I was teaching a class on our UU principles many years ago and we began to discuss the question “which of our principles do you like the best, and which gives you the most trouble” this first principle was the top answer to both questions. Consider, even, the murderer of that young woman in Fall River almost 200 years ago. I’m not asking you to condone the act, but to ask yourself the difficult theological question “did that murderer start out his life somehow marked, somehow a different kind of being than you and I?” and then we have to ask ourselves “Is he still like you and me, or is he now less than human because he committed that act? Does he still have free will to choose good over evil in any given moment?” And if we believe he is still human, and still has free will to choose good, to choose life, then his life has worth.
As “small u” universalist Richard Rohr wrote in our time “Forgiveness has nothing to do with logic. It is the final breakdown of logic. It is a mystical recognition that human evil is something we are all trapped by, suffering form, and participating in.” Standing in the Universalist tradition, we must wrestle with the illogical idea that even acknowledging our human capacity to do evil, still we are all somehow one, still we all somehow have inherent worth, we can all still be held in love.
Like the mother in our children’s story today, God loves us even when we are slimy and smelly, stinky and scary. Our task is not to convince God to love us, because God’s love for us never ceases. Our job is to simply be open to love. It’s not logical, it’s a mystery we will never fully understand. How are we separated from love, and how can we return to it? Is love right there, ready to embrace us whenever we turn to it, or have some folks gotten so far away from goodness and from God that their journey home may be a long one?
Today we are atheists, and theists and agnostics. Not all of us believe in God, but that Universalist impulse is still there in our first UU principles, “The inherent worth and dignity of all people” It takes the old Universalist idea that God loves each and every one of us, and reframes it as a humanist idea -- without exception every person has worth. Whether we are atheists or theists, we don’t believe the world is divided into 2 camps- worthy and unworthy, but that we are all one.
It suggests an alternative to the popular idea some of us deserve a live of comfort and others deserve their suffering. Since every single one of us has worth, we work for the dignity of all- even that neighbor who parks us in, even the politician that says those maddening things. Even you, even me, even when we feel the least worthy. The Spirit of Life flows through every one of us, and calls us always to atonement, reconciliation, and a renewal of love.
End notes
[i] http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/1005.html
[ii] http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/1005.html
[iii] Hosea Ballou Casara p. 154
Pasted from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosea_Ballou>
[iv] -Attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson
Debate about source: http://danielharper.org/yauu/2011/09/not-emerson/
[v] http://uudb.org/articles/thomaswhittemore.html
[vi] http://www.uuworld.org/articles/stories-universalist-history
[vii] http://uudb.org/articles/restorationist.html
[viii] (Ernest Cassara, Hosea Ballou: The Challenge To Orthodoxy, adap. http://www.firstparishnorwell.org/sermons/inherent.html)
[ix] http://uudb.org/articles/restorationist.html
[x] https://archive.org/stream/aserieslettersa01hudsgoog/aserieslettersa01hudsgoog_djvu.txt
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