Hannah Hurnard (1905-1990):Evangelical Pioneer of Universal Salvation and Palestinian Dove
Hannah Hurnard was a much appreciated and admired writer in the 20th century within the evangelical tribe—her insights on the mystical journey as articulated in an allegorical way have birthed an impressive vision in her many published books. There has been a tendency within the evangelical clan to be hitched to Calvinism and confessional theology but such an approach often misses a more thought through reflection on the nuanced nature of the inner life and faith journey.
The publication of Hannah Hurnard’s first book in 1954, Hind’s Feet on High Places, positioned her well as a sensitive writer on the seasons and nature of the interior journey as lived forth in the material world. Hind’s Feet on High Places was followed a few years later with her sequel, Mountains of Spices—yet again, she spoke to a generation of evangelicals who had a thirst for the deeper pilgrimage.
Hurnard was neither as austere as Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Process nor as intellectually demanding as Lewis’ Pilgrim’s Regress—she did write, though, with disarming simplicity about the nature of the devotional way in a manner that resonated well with how many experienced and interpreted their faith journey.
In many ways, Hannah Hurnard became the Amma to many evangelicals throughout the 1950s-1970s. The fact that Hannah Hurnard was so immersed and part of the larger evangelical family for a few decades meant that she did not disturb, in any significant way, the Calvinist theology that often underwrote and shaped, created boundaries and defined what it meant to be an evangelical.
The equally important fact that much of Hannah Hurnard’s writings emerged from her life in Palestine (pre-post 1948 Israel) gave her a certain Biblical cache few had at the time. Most of Hurnard’s life was spent in Palestine working with Jews and Arabs and many of the Biblical images she evokes in her writings (to be applied at a personal level) shuttle back and forth between the Promised Land of the Bible and the reality of Palestine in the 20thy century. In short, both Hurnard’s lush use of the Bible (applied and interpreted in an allegorical and personal manner) and her life in Palestine meant she, when few did, integrated ways of being evangelical that were rare at the time.
The faith journey of Hurnard did in time, though, raise questions from some within the evangelical Sanhedrin. The publication of Eagles’ Wings to the Higher Places in 1981 hinted at the possibilities that Hurnard was questioning, in her allegorical manner, some of the bedrock foundation stones that few evangelicals dared not do.
Aletheia (Greek for lover of Truth) treks to the higher places, sees as eagles do, and the sights seen are not as simple, clean and clear as many evangelicals proclaimed. Eagles’ Wings to the Higher Places sent out signals to some that Hurnard, although Orthodox in her earlier writings, might be becoming wayward and not advisable to read.
But, it was Unveiled Glory that spelled out, in the clearest and unequivocal terms, Hurnard’s position on universal salvation. The final Appendix (“Answers to some Objections”) and “Passages emphasising that God will save all men” made it abundantly clear what Hurnard (the eagle) saw from such higher places when God’s full glory was spaciously unveiled. Hurnard pondered in Unveiled Glory ten objections to universal salvation and answered each one of them from both the Bible and Church history.
Needless to say, Hurnard, in the final decade of her life, was also deeply ecumenical. After many decades of Hurnard being an evangelical Amma, her 1980s writings made her suspect to many, her earlier books still sold, her later books put on the Index of sorts, the will left by Hurnard a mixed one from many who once admired her life and writings.
I mentioned above that Hannah Hurnard spent much of her life in pre-post Palestine-Israel. When she was 80, she penned her autobiography, Thou Shalt Remember: Lessons of a Lifetime—the book was published in 1988 (a couple of years before Hurnard died). There is something sweet and tender, a simple and childlike faith at work, in the autobiography. Most of the book reflects on Hurnard’s life in Palestine and Israel, doing the best she could to be a bridge and dove of sorts to Jews and Palestinians—the missive is a quick read but well worth it.
Hurnard could certainly not be accused of being a Christian Zionist—she was much more the healing dove, the eagle who saw what needed to be seen. There can be no doubt that Hannah Hurnard played a substantive role in the 20th-century evangelical ethos—she was a pioneer of universal salvation, ecumenist and dove of sorts in Palestine-Israel. She definitely pointed the way to being a catholic evangelical—many are slowly seeing the sense and sensibility of such a position as they turn to the deeper wells of the faith inheritance.
– Ron Dart