{"id":9727,"date":"2026-04-19T21:41:42","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T01:41:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/?p=9727"},"modified":"2026-04-19T21:41:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T01:41:42","slug":"everybody-is-invited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/?p=9727","title":{"rendered":"Everybody Is Invited."},"content":{"rendered":"

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Salvation is not about choosing the right theological beliefs to avoid hell. It’s about recognizing the goodness and divinity in the despised “other” and joining in on the party God is throwing, where everybody is invited. Jesus never tells people they need to change their doctrine or convert to another religion in order to be saved from hell. Jesus doesn’t defend theology<\/em>, he defends humanity<\/em> of the vulnerable and the marginal. Jesus doesn’t explain the one correct statement of faith to his disciples; he meets real human needs, while calling out religious leaders for the hypocrisy of caring more about dogma than justice and mercy.<\/p>\n

Hell is not a good Christian doctrine because it makes it impossible to show up in relationships with others like Jesus did. The spirituality of hell excludes and others people; Jesus includes the “other” and shows us that we are all more similar than we thought. We are connected, whether we are aware of it or not. Refusing to see this – that is hell. The true hell is exclusion and denying our shared belovedness. It is living in the delusion of superiority and separation. It is refusing to join the banquet where everyone is invited.<\/em><\/p>\n

— Brian Recker, Hell Bent<\/a><\/em>, p. 58-59<\/p>\n

Photo: Tulips, Burnside Farms, Nokesville, Virginia, April 7, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Salvation is not about choosing the right theological beliefs to avoid hell. It’s about recognizing the goodness and divinity in the despised “other” and joining in on the party God is throwing, where everybody is invited. Jesus never tells people they need to change their doctrine or convert to another religion in order to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,56,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-compassion","category-jesus","category-universalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9727"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9729,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9727\/revisions\/9729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}