I don’t think there is any comparison between the Christian Universalist Association and previous attempts to create a Universalist group outside the UUA. Our group is truly ecumenical, already including Pentecostals, Evangelicals, Mainline Protestants, UU Christians, non-denominational Christians, and even Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. As far as I can tell, a Universalist organization like that has not been created before. If I am wrong about that, please let me know when another organization was created that was like the CUA. The closest that anyone has come to the CUA that I know of is the Universalist Christians Association, and one of their leaders (Cecil Bohanon) is now on the CUA board of directors. Even that group was nowhere near as ecumenical as we are, because it never attracted significant numbers of Pentecostal/Charismatic and Evangelical Christians (who are currently the largest group of Universalists out there).

What, specifically, would the CUA have to do to gain your support? You say you would be happy to join if it “does anything.” However, what we have already done, in a few short months, is more than past attempts to create an independent Universalist organization. We have assembled a board of directors that is very multi-denominational and full of people with ministerial experience, authors of books, website owners, etc. We publish a newsletter, and we will soon begin offering CDs and DVDs of Christian Universalist ministers from diverse traditions. Beginning in 2008 we will start holding our own annual conferences. One of our board members, Rick Spencer, already holds annual conferences that attract about 200 people per year and awesome speakers. This year, the CUA’s main project is to send out nearly 100,000 emails to ministers from major denominations across America to invite them to learn about Christian Universalism and the CUA. We expect to find a few hundred ministers and churches that will want to support us.

All we need is for people to join and help support what we are doing, financially and through volunteering their time. Please don’t be a skeptic; consider what we have already accomplished and the likelihood of the CUA achieving great things for the spread of Christian Universalism, based on our auspicious beginning and the excellent people from various denominational backgrounds who are leading this new organization.

Our board of directors: http://www.christianuniversalist.org/faq.html#board

God bless,
Eric

Eric Stetson
Executive Director,
The Christian Universalist Association
http://www.christianuniversalist.org

http://tinyurl.com/2rew43