Hi Steve,
Good to hear from you. You mention "evangelical" universalists; I may be mistaken, but aren't they a rather recent category of universalists? I thought they originated (or the designation, at least) with the publication of "The Evangelical Universalist" by Robin Parry? I am fairly well read but never heard the term before hearing it at this forum.
What I think I had in mind was a comment by Richard Bauckham, and perhaps similar statements by others:
Universalism also appears at the end of the seventeenth century among some of the German Pietists, and was again popularized in eighteenth-century England especially by the devotional writer William Law.
One very strong objection to universalism in these centuries was the deep-rooted belief that the threat of eternal torment was a necessary deterrent from immorality during this life. So weighty was this objection felt to be, that some who believed in universal salvation (or even in annihilation) held that this belief must retain an esoteric, secret doctrine for the few, while hell must continue to be preached as a deterrent for the masses. Even in the nineteenth century, where such esotericism was seen to be indefensible, universalists found it necessary to meet the objection by emphasizing as much as possible the severity and length of the torments which the wicked must endure before their eventual salvation.
Perhaps you have noticed some comments here by universalists that outdo anything you hear from most evangelicals regarding the severity of hell.
You wrote:
I haven't found their writings, either in the early church, nor in the more modern movement.
I did not realize there were "evangelical" universalists in the early church. Do you consider Origen an evangelical? He held some pretty wild ideas, or speculations. Perhaps I do not understand the term in the same way you do.
