This Sunday, I’ll be preaching on P. T. Barnum, the great showman and circus empressario. Barnum was a Universalist, and later in his life he wrote a pamphlet titled “Why I Am a Universalist.” The pamphlet sold 30,000 copies in its first year, and over 100,000 copies within a few years of publication.<\/p>\n
I wanted to use some of Barnum’s words in a responsive reading in this week’s worship service. But some of Barnum’s sentiments sound a little dated to this 21st C. Universalist — and he’s a Restorationsist whereas I’m a Ultra-Universalist (or “Death-and-Glory” Universalist). So I picked out some his best phrases (avoiding gender-specific language), assembled them and edited them slightly, and cast them into a responsive reading. And to whet your apetite for the worship service this Sunday, here the’s completed reading.<\/p>\n
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Why I Am a Universalist<\/strong><\/p>\n I base my hopes for humanity on the Word of God speaking in the best heart and conscience of the race,<\/em><\/p>\n the Word heard in the best poems and songs, the best prayers and hopes of humanity.<\/p>\n It is rather absurd to suppose a heaven filled with saints and sinners shut up all together within four jeweled walls and playing on harps, whether they like it or not.<\/em><\/p>\n I have faint hopes that after another hundred years or so, it will begin to dawn on the minds of those to whom this idea is such a weight, that nobody with any sense holds this idea or ever did hold it.<\/p>\n To the Universalist, heaven in its essential nature is not a locality, but a moral and spiritual status, and salvation is not securing one place and avoiding another, but salvation is finding eternal life.<\/em><\/p>\n Eternal life has primarily no reference to time or place, but to a quality. Eternal life is right life, here, there, everywhere.<\/p>\n Conduct is three-fourths of life.<\/em><\/p>\n This present life is the great pressing concern.<\/p>\n — Phineas Taylor Barnum, recast by DH<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This Sunday, I’ll be preaching on P. T. Barnum, the great showman and circus empressario. Barnum was a Universalist, and later in his life he wrote a pamphlet titled “Why I Am a Universalist.” The pamphlet sold 30,000 copies in its first year, and over 100,000 copies within a few years of publication. I wanted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[247,183],"class_list":["post-244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engaging-worship","tag-p-t-barnum","tag-universalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}