John Wesley Hanson

John Wesley Hanson (1823-1901), born in Boston, was a Universalist minister, editor, and one of the denomination's most productive writers. He held pastorates in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, Iowa, and Chicago, edited the Gospel Banner in Maine and later the Chicago-based New Covenant, served as a Civil War chaplain with the 6th Massachusetts regiment, and also ministered for a time to a Universalist congregation in Glasgow, Scotland. His many books defended universal salvation on linguistic, biblical, and historical grounds, among them Aion-Aionios, Bible Proofs of Universal Salvation, and Universalism, the Prevailing Doctrine of the Christian Church During Its First Five Hundred Years, and he received a D.D. from Buchtel College in 1876.

Young Hanson's first anthology: passages from distinguished authors — poets, divines, philosophers — testifying to the doctrines of Universalism. A quarter-century later he would repeat the formula at greater scale in A Cloud of Witnesses (also in this collection); this is the youthful original.

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A hymn and tune book 'for the congregation and the home' compiled and published by the indefatigable J. W. Hanson — scriptural controversialist, translator, historian, and here hymnal editor as well. Issued from Chicago, it served western congregations and rounds out the portrait of the most versatile Universalist author of his generation, seven of whose works are in this collection.

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An anthology of testimonies to the larger hope: selections from poets, scholars, and divines — many outside the denomination — whom Hanson marshals as witnesses that the best minds of every age have leaned toward universal restoration. A Universalist's commonplace book of the wider-hope tradition this collection's final section documents at first hand.

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A philological monograph on the two Greek words — aion and aionios — that English Bibles render 'everlasting' and 'eternal.' Surveying classical authors, the Septuagint, and the New Testament, Hanson argues the words denote an age or indefinite duration, not endlessness, and that the doctrine of endless punishment therefore rests on a mistranslation. The argument over these words was central to the Universalist controversy, and this little book is its fullest popular statement.

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Hanson's pocket treatment of the four words rendered 'hell' — sheol, hadees, tartarus, and gehenna — boiling Balfour's massive Inquiry of 1824 (also in this collection) down to a tract anyone could read in an evening. Among the most reprinted of all Universalist controversial works, and still circulating among universalists today.

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Twelve discourses on the Lord's Prayer from Hanson's Chicago ministry — the same series-length treatment Chapin had given the prayer a generation earlier (his Discourses on the Lord's Prayer are also in this collection), now in the plainer voice of the western controversialist turned pastor.

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A Universalist translation of the New Testament. Hanson renders the text afresh from the Greek with critical and explanatory notes, correcting the renderings on which, he argued, the doctrine of endless punishment depended — most famously translating aionios as 'aeonian' or age-lasting rather than 'everlasting.' Whatever its scholarly standing, it is a remarkable artifact: a denomination confident enough in its reading of scripture to publish its own Testament.

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The larger hope in giftbook form: a birthday book with a Universalist selection for every day of the year, compiled by the indefatigable Hanson. Victorian families kept such books on the parlor table to record birthdays against edifying quotations — and this one made sure the quotations taught universal salvation. The tenth Hanson title in this collection.

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A compact positive case for Universalism from scripture. Hanson gathers the principal passages he holds to teach the final salvation of all people — from the promises to Abraham through Paul's declaration that God will be 'all in all' — and comments on each. Designed as a handbook a layperson could carry into argument, it is the companion volume to his 'Bible Threatenings Explained,' which handles the opposing proof-texts.

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The defensive half of Hanson's scriptural project: a passage-by-passage examination of the texts most often quoted to prove endless punishment — the unquenchable fire, the worm that dieth not, the sin against the Holy Ghost, the rich man and Lazarus. In each case Hanson argues the language, read in its original context, describes judgments and consequences of limited duration. A staple reference work for nineteenth-century Universalist ministers and debaters.

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The second volume of Hanson's annotated translation of the New Testament — Acts, the Epistles, and Revelation — completing the work whose first volume (the Gospels) is also in this collection: the whole New Testament rendered with a Universalist's notes.

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A dictionary of the faith small enough for a coat pocket: religious terms from 'Atonement' to 'Worm that dieth not,' each briefly explained 'as understood by Universalists.' Hanson — whose scriptural handbooks, Greek word-study, New Testament translation, hymnal, and daily devotional are all in this collection — here compresses a lifetime of controversy into alphabetical order, producing the handiest single reference to what the denomination meant by its words.

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A book of family and private devotion from the denomination's most prolific author: brief scripture lessons and prayers for every day, designed to bring the practice of daily worship into Universalist homes. Hanson — whose scriptural handbooks, Greek word-study, and New Testament translation are all in this collection — here turns from controversy to devotion, distilling the faith he spent a lifetime defending into morning-and-evening portions of 'manna.'

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Hanson's most ambitious historical work argues that for the church's first five centuries universal salvation was not a heresy but the mainstream hope of Christian teachers. Marshalling extracts from Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and the great catechetical schools, he contends that endless punishment only triumphed as the church absorbed pagan Roman ideas and Augustine's theology. A sourcebook of patristic quotations still cited in discussions of the history of universalism.

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