God Bless Humanity

Today Gryphem presents a guest commentary from a little-known theologian of the 19th century, Theodore Parker, a Unitarian minister.

This is a daring statement by a minister who spoke the truth as he saw it, in spite of great opposition. His moral courage deserves your respect, and his words deserve your consideration.

Gryphem
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“If it were true that one human soul was immortal and yet was to be eternally damned, getting only more clotted with crime and deeper bit by agony as the ages went slowly by, then Immortality were a curse, not to that man only, but to all Mankind” for no amount of happiness, merited or underserved, could ever atone or make up for the horrid wrong done to that one miserable man.

"I say the thought of one such man would fill even Heaven with misery, and the best man of men would scorn the joys of everlasting bliss, would spurn all heaven and say, “Give me my brother’s place” for me there is no Heaven while he is there!

"Now it has been popularly taught that not one man alone but the vast majority of all Mankind are thus to be condemned; immortal, only to be everlastingly wretched. This is the popular doctrine now in this land. It has been taught in the Christian churches these sixteen centuries and more, taught in the name of Christ!

"Such an immortality would be a curse to man, to every man; as much so to the “saved” as to the “lost,” for who would willingly stay in Heaven, and on such terms? Surely not Jesus, He who wept with weeping men!"
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With thanks to http://livinghour.org/blog/progressive_christianity/justice-the-long-arc-of-the-moral-universe/