Heaven, Hell, and Hope: A Biblical and Theological Exploration of Universal Salvation by Christ Kugler is an interesting, but ultimately disappointing, short book that seems confused as to the purpose or audience of such a work. Kugler begins his work by setting forth the presumption that theologies that maintain certainty about eternal damnation or annihilationism often stem from “overdetermined” readings of the biblical text while also ignoring or diminishing the role of reasoned theological inquiry (in Kugler’s work, this takes the form of an attempt to reconstruct early Christian metaphysics). He then uses this presumption as a framework to explore briefly the biblical text with a historical-critical methodology in brief conversation with early Christian adaptations of Platonism to determine if any of the usual case texts regarding “hell” or eternal damnation necessitate such a conclusion. His conclusions, although well-reasoned, come to a resounding maybe. From these conclusions, Kugler ultimately concludes in his work that there is a large lack of certainty as to whether Christians should or should not presume a universal salvation.
Ultimately, Kugler’s work is thoughtful but distracted and unfocused. In a book barely over one hundred pages, he attempts to accomplish both too much and too little. He often brings up case studies or theological inquiries only to later dismiss them when they deserved and needed further exploration. Although I do appreciate Kugler’s humility by leaving the answer as a maybe, instead of proposing a definite yes or no, this book promises much, but leaves little answered or provided. This leads to another problem for Kugler’s book. He often shrouds his conclusions in complicated philosophical and academic jargon that makes his work terse and frustrating to read. This becomes a problem when the conclusions he provides add little to academic conversations, but would be quite helpful for lay Christians to have access to. Heaven, Hell, and Hope could have been a rather meaningful volume that could have helped introduce lay Christians to the ideas of universal salvation in meaningful ways, but it is completely written beyond the grasp of the regular parishioner.
Kugler’s small book is helpful in some ways, but the deep frustrations I felt at his terse (and in my opinion, unnecessary) writing, coupled with his lack of definitiveness, leave this volume simply forgettable. This book if it had the space to breathe and fully explore the themes provided so it could provide meaningfully to the conversation, or if it were more accessible to be of use for the lay Christian I would recommend it, but as is, this is probably a book I do not feel the need to recommend.
I did receive a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, but all thoughts and opinions are my own.

The idea of Christian Universalism is an idea of great interest to me as a Christian and as Pastor. I have read other books on Christian concepts of the afterlife with include eternal conscious torment, conditionalism/annihilation, and Christian Universalism. I have rated this book a 3/5 and I will share positives and negatives from my perspective.
Some of the positives...
1. The author lays a solid foundation for the topic they will cover.
2 It is clear to me that the author wanted to provide solid support for their stances they were communicating.
3. I enjoyed especially in the second half of the book where the author would take time after going into deep topics to share the main points of what was shared or the goals that were shared.

Some of the negatives...
1. In the book it talks about the various ways this book could be used and one of them is small group discussions. From working in the church for many years I think the way the information was communicated would be over many lay people's heads. I think they would get lost in the terminology.
2 My first point leads into my second which is I felt like the author wasn't quite sure who he wanted to gear this book towards. At times it felt like an indepth scholarly resource and other times it seemed they were trying to provide a resource for clergy, and other times it seemed they wanted it to be a small group study.
3. The book is good but there are other recommendations that I would recommend before this one.

A careful analysis of a difficult biblical subject, with an acknowledgement of the uncertainties and gray areas

(I received a free digital copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review)