The Primitive Baptist Universalists (or PBUs) are Christian Universalist church based primarily in the central Appalachian region of the United States. They are popularly known as "No-Hellers" due to their belief (unlike most other Christian denominations) that there is no Hell

Hell

In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...

 per se, but that Hell is actually experienced in this life.

Although they did not split as a denomination away from other Primitive Baptist

Primitive Baptist

Primitive Baptists, also known as Hard Shell Baptists or Anti-Mission Baptists, are conservative, Calvinist Baptists adhering to beliefs that formed out of the controversy among Baptists in the early 1800’s over the appropriateness of mission boards, bible tract societies, and temperance...

s until 1924, they have been theologically distinct as Universalists

Universalism

Universalism in its primary meaning refers to religious, theological, and philosophical concepts with universal application or applicability...

 since at least 1907, when the minutes of the Washington District Primitive Baptist Association record a reproval:

Resolved, that whereas, we have been troubled with the doctrine of universalism that we advise the churches that if they have any elders preaching such heresies, or members arguing it, that they admonish them to quit preaching it or talking it, and if they fail to hear them to withdraw fellowship from such, and especially we admonish Hale Creek church to admonish Elder M. L. Compton to refrain from such doctrine.

Summary of theology

• Universal reconciliation
  Universal reconciliation
  In Christian theology, universal reconciliation is the doctrine that all sinful and alienated human souls—because of divine love and mercy—will ultimately be reconciled to God.Universal salvation may be related to the perception of a problem of Hell, standing opposed to ideas...
  
  : Christ's atonement was for all humanity, and at Resurrection all humanity will be reunited with Christ for an eternity in Heaven
  Heaven
  Heaven, the Heavens or Seven Heavens, is a common religious cosmological or metaphysical term for the physical or transcendent place from which heavenly beings originate, are enthroned or inhabit...
  
  .
• Hell is a factor of the temporal world, where temporal sins will be punished by an increased separation from God.
• Satan
  Satan
  Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
  
   is an entity solely of the temporal world, existing only as "natural man" warring against "spiritual man."
• Sin
  Sin
  In religion, sin is the violation or deviation of an eternal divine law or standard. The term sin may also refer to the state of having committed such a violation. Christians believe the moral code of conduct is decreed by God In religion, sin (also called peccancy) is the violation or deviation...
  
  , punishment, and death are factors only of the temporal world, thus ceasing to exist after Resurrection, and sin is punished in the temporal world by a separation from God.
• The joy of righteousness
  Righteousness
  Righteousness is an important theological concept in Zoroastrianism, Hinduism , Judaism, Christianity and Islam...
  
  is its own reward, so retribution and reward are needed only for the here and now.

External links

• In the Hands of a Happy God at The University of Tennessee Press