Simon Henning - Self described part-time heretic & universalist

On Fear

Just before the 7 AM and 8 AM news on weekdays the BBC invites contributors to speak for two and a half minutes to give a Thought for the Day during Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster programme. Simon Henning the Presbyterian minister of Ballyblack Presbyterian Church near Newtownards is an occasional contributor.

Partial screenshot from Ballyblack Presbyterian

On 23 July, 2014 he took the Thought for the Day once again and as part of that broadcast he mentioned travelling through Coleraine and the traffic came to a stop outside a Coleraine church. An excerpt of the latter part of that broadcast in Simon Henning's own words are recorded below.

"I just happened to stop outside a small church in the town. Alongside the information about service times and events through the week was a bible verse framed and placed in a prominent position. It read "And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire" [Revelation 20:15 KJV].I wonder how many extra seats they have to put out on a Sunday morning!
In matters of faith or religion are we driven by fear or drawn by love? Did the thought of a fiery lake inspire dread or peace within you? For some religion is the carrot and stick approach. The carrot is the reward and the stick the punishment but carrots and sticks are better suited to donkeys .
Do you remember those communist parades where wave after wave of people would be walking along, all smiling as if their lives depended on it? The sad truth is they probably did. Some were smiling because they thought it would bring promotion within the party. Others were smiling because they thought it would spare them a prolonged stay in the gulag. Nobody's smile ever truly reached their eyes.
The writer of the first letter of John said: "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love." [1 John 4:18 NRSV] And so I sat in my car, looking at that church sign and thinking how fear continually looks over its shoulder whereas love looks ahead. The traffic moved on and so did I."

Before I comment on this I'd like to give you a flavour of Simon Henning's world view. Simon Henning's own Twitter profile describes him as a "Progressive and emergent 'tinker'" It is not altogether clear whether he uses the word "tinker" in the sense of a purveyor of progressive and emergent ideas or whether he means it in the mischievous child sense. His views have been expressed in the following excerpts.

On Evolution

"Indeed we have seen how he has used his broadcast slot over the years to promote theistic evolution with this statement: "We should be thankful to Charles Darwin. His pioneering work, coupled with the later evidence of DNA, shows not that we were planted on the Earth, but that we come from the earth. We're chemically related to the rocks, and we're biologically related to plants and animals. We're not separate from creation; we're part of it.""

Source: Thought for the Day, BBC Radio Ulster Wed 16 February 2011 cited on http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/legacy/ni/2011/02/we_should_be_thankful_to_charl.html

On Scripture and being Born Again

"On a blog post on John 3:1-9 he states "This is part of the New Testament that is oft quoted on Gospel tracts and Billboards – “you must be born again” we are told. Now…..my beef with this passage is not that we shouldn’t be ‘born again’ – I’m strongly with Marcus Borg on this in that I think we should be born again everyday. No. My gripe is that this encounter, by which so much hangs for Conservative Christians, probably never happened."

Source: http://confessionsofasceptic.wordpress.com/2011/03/20/is-being-saved-all-that-it-seems/

It may prove helpful to explain who Marcus Borg is. Borg was a member of the Jesus Seminar that tried to work its way through Scripture to authenticate Jesus' sayings. They used coloured beads to vote to determine the words of Jesus.

red = Jesus definitely said this
pink = Jesus probably said this or something like it
grey = Jesus probably didn’t say this
black = Jesus definitely didn’t say this

Source: http://exploringthefaith.com/2012/11/30/gospels-reliable/ 

On Same Sex Marriage 

@shenning 8:31 PM - 29 Apr 2013 I'm so disappointed at the vote in the NI Assembly today. Disappointed but not surprised. Equality takes yet another knock #equalmarriage 

Source: https://twitter.com/shenning/status/328954592727543808

On Rob Bell's Love Wins book

"The thing that stands out is that Rob Bell is prepared to put his head above the parapet. He has courageously taken the opportunity to articulate what I believe many Christians are thinking about, but are too afraid to talk about openly. In his book he highlights not only the theological difficulties with Selective Salvation but also the emotional difficulties that eternal conscious torment in Hell generates within sensitive and thinking people of Faith."
"I know that some truths are hard, and that many Conservatives will say that the heresy of Universalism is just one of those hard truths. But sometimes, truths that are presented as being hard to swallow, turn out to be not true at all. I think, I’d rather error on the side of generosity with regards to God’s grace than be too mean-spirited and miserly when it comes to defining exactly who God loves.
Rob Bell didn’t need to convince me about Universalism. With his Evangelical background, maybe he’s been trying to convince himself."

Source: http://confessionsofasceptic.wordpress.com/2011/03/22/universalism-is-not-universal/

On Universalism

The point of this blog is to try to develop a 'fairer' theology to deal with life beyond THIS life. I should probably point out that for the last 14 months [prior to April 2006] I've been an unapologetic Christian Universalist and have been trying to read all that I can to support my new found theology. There's actually a lot of it about, especially on the Net.
I will leave you at this point with this thought: if you, with the simple push of a button, could end all suffering. Would you do it? If you had the power to cure all disease with the utterance of a single word, would you say it? If you could bring about peace and harmony by only raising your hands, would you lift them? I imagine the answer would be "yes". We don't have that power, unfortunately, but as Christians we believe that God does. Why then does the Church teach that the majority of people will not go to Heaven, but to Hell to be tortured for all eternity? Why doesn't the Church teach that God loves all people and as a consequence will save all people?

Source: http://simonhenning.blogspot.co.uk/2006/04/recently-i-have-been-getting-into-what.html

On Panentheism

Before I post Simon Hennings remarks I'll explain that I'm talking about panentheism rather than pantheism. Rather than re-invent the wheel I'll use an explanation James Anderson's Why I am not a Panentheist

James Anderson - Why I am not a Panentheism

"There are many reasons why I reject panentheism, but in this post I want to mention just one. Panentheism comes from the Greek words for ‘all’, ‘in’, and ‘God’ — literally, “all-in-God-ism”. On this view, God is neither fully distinct from the universe (as in classical theism) nor identical with the universe (as in pantheism). Instead, the universe exists ‘in’ or ‘within’ God. The prepositions ‘in’ and ‘within’ are obviously not meant in a spatial sense (as in “Bob is in the kitchen”). Rather, they’re meant to capture the idea of ontological containment. God pervades and encompasses the universe in such an intimate fashion that there is an overlap or intersection between the being of God and the being of the universe. While God is more than the universe, there is no clear ontological distinction between God and the universe (which includes us, of course).

 

It’s not difficult to see the attractions of a panentheistic view of God. Who wouldn’t like to imagine that they’re within God — that their soul participates in the divine? Who wouldn’t like to think that — to put it somewhat crudely — they’re part of God? Such a view can do wonders for your self-esteem! (On the other hand, if you already have high self-esteem, panentheism nicely validates it.) Likewise, panentheism is convenient for legitimizing your lifestyle choices, whatever they happen to be. If it’s good enough for God, it’s good enough for me — and since it’s good enough for me, it must be good enough for God!"

Simon Henning on his attraction to Panentheism

"For a number of years I have been struggling with my faith and the apparent spiritual obligation to square it with Creationism. I suppose that over time I have gently rejected the 6 Day approach in favour of a Theistic Evolution, but more recently I have become interested in Panentheism (not to be confused with Pantheism) which states God's immanence as well as his separation from the Universe - if I've understood it correctly. This would allow for Evolution that would be Godly without have the necessity for God to have guided it at specific points throughout time.
Panentheism is still something that intrigues me, but it's something that I need to research more. So long as it allows the inclusion of Universalism I don't care!"

Source: http://simonhenning.blogspot.co.uk/2007/04/for-number-of-years-i-have-been.html

Conclusions

What was sad about Simon Henning's remarks on the Thought for the Day broadcast on 23 July 2014 was the rejection of a scriptural warning about the Lake of Fire by the apostle John. He then quoted another verse by the very same apostle as a better verse to use as it seems to promote love rather than fear. However before we quote a verse as a response to a matter we should consider the context.

Before we look at 1 John 4:18 (KJV) "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love." then we need to determine who is referred to here. Here's a fuller flow of the passage:

15 Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.
16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
17 Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.
18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
19 We love him, because he first loved us.

From verse 15 & 19 we can determine it is the Christian who confesses and loves the Lord Jesus Christ. When Christ loves us with a perfect love we have no fear of eternal torment. However those that have no Saviour will have such a fear. What Simon Henning was saying was almost the equivalent to use a poor analogy of talking about a good cliff top walk but refusing to warn of the nearby cliffs lest anyone should refuse to undertake it

It should not be surprising that someone who plays fast and loose with Scripture can reject any doctrine they don't like. It is unclear if Simon has become a panentheist or not. What is the case is that the congregation of Ballyblack Presbyterian Church near Newtownards have an unregenerate man pastoring them as has been the case for Stormont Presbyterian and the Kinghan Mission for the Deaf in Belfast. What is sad that the Presbyterian Church in Ireland has taken no action against the man who describes himself as "Part-time heretic and soul searcher who is increasingly attracted to the Emerging Church." Source: http://confessionsofasceptic.wordpress.com/about/

God can save such men, so let us pray for him. Let us pray that PCI will take their responsibility before God to accurately expound the Scriptures seriously and that they will deal with this matter.