In a time when many are walking away from church, when fear-based religion has left wounds, and when love is too often preached with an asterisk listing terms and conditions, I believe we need a new understanding of the Gospel – one that is actually good news for everyone.

Not good news for the right group.

Not good news for those who prayed the right prayer.

Not good news for those born in the right place or time.

Truly Good News. For all.

Seeing Through Stained-Glass Lenses

As a glasses-wearer, I’m used to looking at the world through lenses. But all of us, whether in contacts or glasses, blindfolds or shades, see the world through metaphorical lenses. It’s a part of being human. No one of us has a perfect, unfiltered view of the life we live, much less what lies beyond this life. Instead, we perceive the world (and the divine!) through the lenses we’ve inherited and shaped – our experiences, traditions, hopes, fears, and imaginations.

It’s like we’re all small creatures looking through a HUGE stained glass window. We spend our whole lives moving around, thinking we see the other side clearly – but our view is limited to only the few colors we have access to. Most of us spend our lives looking through only one or two colors – the stained glass is that big! It’s only in talking with each other that we can hope to see what’s on the other side clearly. By listening deeply, sharing earnestly, and comparing and contrasting what we see with what others see, we begin to catch a glimpse of something greater, something more than anything any one of us can imagine.

My primary lens[1] is from the Reformed Christian tradition, shaped by scripture, grace, love, and covenant, and expressed through the Presbyterian Church (USA). It has taught me that God is sovereign, that salvation is by grace alone, and that we do not earn God’s love – ever! That lens has helped me navigate the waters of my faith, and it’s the one I’ll mostly speak through in this book. I should also note that I am a straight, white man, and that also influences my perspective. I’ve been a Presbyterian Pastor for ten years, serving churches in New Mexico and Oklahoma, and I’m married to a wonderful preacher, theologian, and scholar, with whom I happily serve as co-pastor. (She’s gracefully allowed me to borrow this corner of her website for posting my material – thanks, Elana!)

Yet, I recognize and love the lenses I’ve encountered throughout my life in conversation and reading! I’ve thrilled to participate in worship of other denominations and religions, from an Easter service at a Byzantine Orthodox monastery in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, to the pageantry and order of a Megachurch in Louisville, to the Pentecostal joy of singing in three languages in the Lutheran church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, Israel. I’ve prayed in Buddhist temples, on pristine beaches of white, black, and green sand, and joined in Māori and Polynesian celebrations in New Zealand and Hawaii.  Music has transported me, both spiritually and physically, as I have sung secularly and religiously in London and Edinburgh, Paris, Prague, and Munich,  Xi’an, Shanghai, and Beijing, and throughout the USA.

I love the lenses of social justice, liberation theology, mysticism and secular humanism. And speculative fiction has offered me a unique lens for identifying struggles today through the magnified effects of those struggles in possible futures and alternative pasts – but that’s for later in the book.

This Book is an Invitation

Christian Universalism is often misunderstood. It’s not the idea that anything goes or that all paths are equal. It’s the belief that God’s redeeming love will ultimately reconcile all people to God through Christ. No one is beyond the reach of God’s grace: not now, not ever. No one is forgotten. No one is lost forever. God’s “yes” is the final word. This isn’t a fringe idea, but a hope, rooted in scripture, whispered in the early church, rediscovered across history, and still alive today.

These writings explore that hope – not with dogmatic certainty, but with trust in the character of God, revealed in Jesus Christ. It draws from scripture, from tradition, from ancient voices and contemporary explorations. It seeks to take the Bible and human experience seriously. It’s not an argument for superiority – it’s an invitation into joyful humility, into living as if grace really is that good!

My work is not an academic treatise, although it draws from deep wells of theology. It’s not a polemic or a point-by-point argument. And it’s not an attempt to disprove hell or dismantle doctrines of salvation.

Instead, it’s a witness – to the belief that God’s grace is bigger than we have allowed ourselves to imagine. That love, not punishment, is what defines God’s justice. That salvation is not a limited-time offer, but the eternal outpouring of divine mercy.

A Family Story

I have been formed by my family’s legacy of love transcending differences. My great-grandfather, Rev. Charles John Keppel (or CJ, as he’s called in family lore) was a minister in the Evangelical Synod of North America.[2] CJ was a thoughtful, faithful preacher, who was friends with the Niebuhr brothers, and often discussed theology and history with them. Those discussions brought him to a realization: people of other denominations go to heaven, too. In his day, that was a radical statement! Despite the E&R denomination beginning as a union in its own right of German Protestant sects, CJ was asked to leave the denomination.

But CJ didn’t stop preaching, and didn’t let the culture of the time tell him to stop spreading good news, of a God who was bigger than denominational boundaries. He founded a church in Detroit, the First United Community Church, where his vision of an inclusive church was embraced by others.

CJ used to describe the journey of faith like a ship’s wheel. At the center – the hub – is God. Each of us, he said, move along one of the spokes. We may be on completely opposite paths from others. But the closer we draw to the center, the closer we draw to one another. And if we find ourselves moving toward others, we find that we are also moving toward God.[3] Despite our differences, we find ourselves connected in a sacred convergence.

That model has stayed with me. It describes what I believe about faith and salvation. It’s not a contest; it’s certainly not a limited resource;  but it’s freely available for all in God’s grace: A movement toward the center, with Christ at the hub, as the source and the goal.

In time, CJ’s son (my grandfather), Rev. Lucian Theodore Keppel[4] took up preaching at First United, and he was the one who baptized me, welcoming me to my family of body and family of faith long before I could affirm any theology of my own. But I was welcome, I was part of the great ship’s wheel, and God’s love, grace, and faith were with me, regardless of what I was able to understand. That is a miracle of grace.

A Word Against Supersessionism

Because my work is grounded in Christian scripture and theology, I want to be clear: I do not believe that Christianity replaces or supersedes the covenants between God and the Jewish people. These covenants are enduring and holy.

To write about Christian Universalism faithfully means also affirming that God’s promises are not revoked, and that salvation is not a zero-sum game. The hope I write about is not of conquest, but of reconciliation – and never at the expense of anyone’s dignity or faith. Rather than supersessionism, this book affirms the boundless faithfulness of God – to the Jewish people, to the Church, to all Creation.

I also want to name, explicitly, my deep respect for Islam. While Christian Universalism is rooted in the person of Jesus Christ, it does not presume that people of other faiths are without God. In the early-to-mid 1990s, I lived in Jakarta, Indonesia, surrounded by the faithfulness, hospitality, and devotion of Muslim neighbors and friends. I saw there – again and again – that God’s presence is not confined to Christian spaces.

Similarly, when I returned to the United States after my time abroad, I maintained friendships and had wonderful theological discussions with people of many faiths (and people of no faiths at all!). Christian Universalism, to me, means we do not have to fear or dismiss the faith of others in order to trust the love of God made known in Christ.

[1] What the academic world would call my “hermeneutic.” Which is fun word, but not helpful at parties. Well, except the parties at seminary, but that’s another story entirely.

[2] The Evangelical Synod of North America became first the Evangelical and Reformed (E&R) denomination, and then found the United Church of Christ (UCC).

[3] “Moving toward others” in the sense of care, compassion, and curiosity. “Groupish” behavior can pull a cluster away from the center, but that’s not what is meant by this.

[4] It is from Lucian and my other grandfather, Paulus John Keppel, that my first name is derived – LUC-ian and paul-US. Paulus was a “tent-maker” and lay preacher, like his Biblical namesake, though his work involved selling used cars in rural Ohio, on the West Virginia border.