It wasn’t really apparent to me as a Christian in the 20th century that a couple of thousand years ago people that all called themselves Christian had a bunch of different beliefs, which were sometimes contradictory. To that end, in the first few centuries there were several ecumenical councils (i.e. Christian “conventions”) to try to arrive at a more consistent view on what it was to be Christian (The Council of Nicaea is the most well-known). I can see a conversation at one of the early ecumenical councils going like this:

Q: So what happens to people that don’t believe or that are really, really bad?

A: Dunno. The opposite of heaven? Eternal damnation? Hell? After all, we need people to sign-up to the Christianity thing.

Q: Uh… But if God is all-powerful…

A: Ya… Oooh! How about fire? Nobody will want to burn forever!

Q: And all loving…

A: Ya, ya. Get to the point!

Q: Why doesn’t he just get rid of Hell? He can’t be all-powerful if there’s some “opposite” all-powerful guy out there.

A: oh.

But that’s exactly what the Church decided, contrary to some early Christian theologians that thought the idea of eternal damnation was incompatible with the idea of a super-reality that is growth, creation, and love. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and Isaac of Nineveh were all early Christian Universalists who believed that all of humanity, every single one of us since the beginning of time, will be restored to God’s presence… eventually (more on that).

“But wait!” A fundamentalist Christian might say, “Jesus himself said, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’ If you don’t believe in Jesus, you’re wrong!” And to this I would say, how could someone that consistently talked about accepting the sinner, about loving those that don’t merit it, about not condemning people, condemn any part of creation? Faith is the possibility of truth, not an intellectual self-assurance. Faith is absolutely open to the acceptance of other truths. Love all things. Have faith in all things. Believe all things. The example set for us is of unqualified love and acceptance — That is the way, and the truth, and the life. No one is going to suffer for eternity.

But Christian Universalism begs an obvious question: “Why bother believing or doing good things? I don’t even need to make a deathbed conversion and I’m good!” Clement of Alexandria and Origen for example didn’t necessarily believe that there would never be consequences, just that the consequences wouldn’t last for eternity. More on that here.