{"id":428,"date":"2008-01-19T19:59:14","date_gmt":"2008-01-19T19:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/?p=428"},"modified":"2009-11-28T10:50:18","modified_gmt":"2009-11-28T10:50:18","slug":"the-sacrifical-god-a-case-for-universalim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/?p=428","title":{"rendered":"The Sacrifical God &#8211; a case for Universalim?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>James Henley one of the students on CYM had a great reflection as we sat around the dinner table so I  asked if he would put it together as a guest post. James blogs <a href=\"http:\/\/jameshenley.typepad.co.uk.\" onClick=\"popWin=open('http:\/\/jameshenley.typepad.co.uk.','myWin',''); popWin.focus(); return false\">here<\/a> <em style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"http:\/\/satellitephonesinfo.com\/?monster_in_law\">Monster-in-Law move<\/a><\/em>  if you want to check it out. <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I had some interesting thoughts (mainly questions) during a conversation over lunch at CYM about heaven and hell, and in particular to do with universalism. Although I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not completely sold on the concept of universalism, I also equally think that our conventional reasoning around heaven and hell needs to be thought out more thoroughly. So here are some of my thoughts\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 <\/p>\n<p>The conventional Christian understanding of the end times is that God is so perfect that he can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have sin \u00e2\u20ac\u201c evil, bad stuff, imperfection \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in his presence. So by accepting him and the cross we are purified of this sin and so as perfect, complete people, we can enter his presence. <\/p>\n<p>But if the major theme across the whole gospel is self-sacrifice \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the sacrifice of God sending His son to be confined to a human body, and then the self-sacrifice of Jesus dying on the cross for us \u00e2\u20ac\u201c then why would the same God not make the sacrifice of allowing sin into His presence? Surely, that wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be one sacrifice too far? If we believe in an omnipresent God whose presence is all around us in the world \u00e2\u20ac\u201c then surely He is already in the presence of sin in the interactions he has with us. Even if God isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t \u00e2\u20ac\u0153walking amongst us\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as he did in the garden, in order to be with us \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in everything \u00e2\u20ac\u201c he also must have to be in the presence of all the bad stuff in the world?<br \/>\nJames<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.segd.org\/?the_good_night\">The Good Night on dvd<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>James Henley one of the students on CYM had a great reflection as we sat around the dinner table so I asked if he would put it together as a guest post. James blogs here Monster-in-Law move if you want &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/?p=428\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=428"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2432,"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428\/revisions\/2432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}