Universalism as subversive liberator, another take.

Calvinism had a concept that Universalism absolutely subverted, and the Unitarians liberalized.  Calvin argued that one could not know who was chosen and who was not, but one could make a good estimate. If God had rewarded that person with wealth, with a noble profession, with talents, then they were probably among the elect. The poor, the addicted, the laborers, the slaves were not favored and were probably damned. €¨€¨The Universalists by proclaiming God's salvation for all were also saying "God loves you just as you are, and we humans have an obligation to each other to overcome poverty and illiteracy. The Universalist preachers went to the poor, went to the frontier, not out of noblesse oblige, but because God's love compelled them to reach everyone.€¨€¨The Unitarians on the other hand saw potential in every one, but believed with Calvin that wealth was a blessing bestowed on those further along on the road to salvation, "salvation by character of course."  Since each individual Unitarian self cultivated the soul through vocation, and learning, the Unitarians ended up being elitists, and the Universalists ended up being democrats. (Voting patterns indicate differences along class politics between the two relgious movements.) €¨€¨Of course that was in the first decades, the Universalists helped enough poor people to become stable and self reliant to become a middle class organization in their own right.  I surveyed the history of the one Universalist church that I served from frontier radicalism, to becoming the oh so polite church of the town gentry. €¨