Into the Wardrobe

I should point out that what I suppose i may now call 'my universalism' (being a novice of about a day) is scripture based, and while like Lara I believe in second chances, I would take the anglo-catholic position and say that those are offered in purgatory.

There is also some very sound argument from scripture in the link i posted (i think it includes the chapter Lara mentioned.)

Sometimes i use 'calvinism' in quite a vague way to mean a certain atmosphere of gloominess and intolerance which has always attended it in my experience and which i certainly see in its teaching. But even if I was to use the term in its stricter sense, I am still at odds with it.

True, the mechanics of predestination (as understood by reformed theologians) don't rule out universal salvation but Calvin himself believed-and probably taught though I haven't studied him enough to know for sure-that not everyone is part of God's 'elect'. I realise that this belief is based on scripture, but then so is Calvin's understanding of predestination itself, so the two things can't be separated. Of course I believe he interpreted scripture wrongly.

Christ's teaching about the narrow way is not one I had yet thought of in terms of its bearing on universalism. Certainly the 'narrow way' part poses no difficulty as far as i can see, since it simply describes the difficulty of following him. As for 'few entering in', I'm not sure. I wonder whether it might mean 'enter in directly?' That is just speculation since I am very new to entertaining the idea of purgatory (used to be firmly reformed in that sense!) and haven't looked at the verse in context or traced it to the original greek. One thing that universalist link showed me was that i had unwittingly been fed a party line by many verses supposed to disprove their standpoint.

Equally, I could say that it IS gloomy in Scotland because gloominess is a corollary of belief in Calvinist doctrines. I also wonder, going back to nomad's point, whether even members of those denominations in america whose official 'line' is Calvinist really ever think much about predestination (or even know what their church's teaching is) and if not, whether that might be the reason they're not depressed