Pick up and read

UPDATE: a pre-pub version of Rob's article is now available online, here.

Last year Michael McClymond published a learned and exhaustive contribution to debates surrounding Christian universalism, The Devil's Redemption. (Also, check out McClymond's impressive CV on his faculty page, containing a remarkable list of publications)

But do check out Roberto De La Noval's extremely incisive critical review of McClymond's book, here. Mark my words: Rob is one of the very brightest theological stars on the horizon. But you all need to know that I knew him before he was famous :-)

Universalism is a hot subject at the moment, what with the release of David Bentley Hart's That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation, which argues that "if Christianity taken as a whole is indeed an entirely coherent and credible system of belief, then the universalist understanding of its message is the only one possible" (3). Typical DBH! I'm reading it at the mo, so will reserve judgement. But Douglas Farrow set my corner of the internet on fire by publishing his critical review of DBH's argument here.

But there is more, for the massively learned Ilaria Ramelli also published A Larger Hope?, Volume 1
Universal Salvation from Christian Beginnings to Julian of Norwich. She argues that Christian theology was the first to proclaim the salvation of all, and, contra McClymond, that the reasons for doing so were deeply christological.