Arminian priorities

Glancing through the more prominent Arminian blogs in the wake of the Rob Bell controversy, I notice that except for Brennan Hartshorn’s blog, Arminians would rather attack Calvinists who attack universalism than attack universalism themselves.

That’s very revealing. After all, nothing hinders them from attacking both Calvinism and universalism. And even if they think it’s premature to pounce on Bell, they could still use the occasion to critique universalism. But they don’t. They only use the occasion to attack Calvinism, while leaving universalism untouched.

This suggests two things:

i) Arminians are defined by what they oppose (chiefly Calvinism) rather than what they are.

ii) Arminians go easy on universalism because they have so much in common.