Universalism

Universalism was founded as its own church....awhile ago, but has recently joined congregations mostly with the Unitarian church. Universalism has some striking differences between itself and much of mainstream Christianity, the most notable of these differences is that Universalism holds that there is no Hell, and that all who die will enter a sort of Purgatory place whether they were born again or not. The most common claim for this is that because God is so merciful, that they believe He cannot punish sin with infinite justice. Many universalists steadfastly oppose the act of teaching that there is a Hell.

Universalist beliefs
As before, one of their most striking beliefs is that there is no Hell, because God is supposedly so loving that He would not judge anybody with infinite justice. Universalism can also sometimes be associated with a more pluralistic outlook on other religions, even going so far as to say that no religion is much better than another. 1 Universalism is often associated with the beliefs of Unitarianism since their congregations combined, but are not necessarily identical.

I kinda get the feeling there might be more to put here.....

Common Universalist arguments against Hell
Universalists generally use a few different arguments for their belief that there is no hell. The Hebrew word for "grave" (Sheol I think) in the Old Testament can mean several things, and although the context of many verses in which the word is used seems to symbolize Hell or other similar ideas of punishment, (Might want to quote a few here) many Universalists hold that it never refers to anything close to Hell. Therefore, some universalists may claim that God never created Hell in the Old Testament, since they believe it never referred to it since they choose definitions of the word only when it does not refer to a hell-like place.

Universalists also hold that when Jesus spoke of punishment for those who would not believe in Him, (Someone please insert the "weeping and gnashing of teeth" verse and some verse referring to Jesus talking about those who were not born again) that the greek word of "eternal" in this instance did not mean eternal, but since that word is synonimous with a non-eternal definition, that Jesus did not really mean eternal punishment. This is very difficult to resolve when the same word is used to describe God as eternal, and even more difficult to resolve when some instances of Jesus referring to Hell or a hell-related place did not use the word "eternal" at all.

Im pretty sure Universalists have more to say than this though, there's probably some more arguments out there.

Objections to Universalism
Many Christians may feel that Universalism is somewhat dangerous for several reasons. For instance, if there is no Hell, there is no good reason to fulfill the Great Commission, even if one was sent to purgatory or whatever for not fulfilling it, one would end up in heaven anyway after a relatively short time. There would also be no reason to urgently request someone to be born again, as the other person may not see dodging a bit of time in purgatory as worth giving themselves up to Christ. The point of Jesus even coming in the first place also becomes suspect under Universalist thought, as we would not of needed a savior in the first place if there was nothing really awful to be saved from. The list of objections is probably longer however.

Other links

 * CARM site on universalism
 * more specific on reason for objections.
 * Might as well throw another one down here