Ah, hell…

Posted on March 5, 2011 by me

It seems everyone’s talking about hell, since the news of Rob Bell’s upcoming book, Love Wins, hit the Reformed crowd. And, it seems that’s like you-know-what hitting the you-know-what. I even wrote about it this morning. (Was there this much hoopla when The Great Divorce came out?)

Apparently hell hasn’t been a very popular subject throughout church history. My neighbor, Randy, is doing research for a book he’s writing about hell at the request of Randy Alcorn, who wrote Heaven. Apparently only 40-some books have ever been written on hell, and that list includes Dante, Lewis’ The Great Divorce, and NT Wright’s recent Surprised by Hope.

I have to admit, hell has never been one of my favorite topics, either—but then neither has Heaven. The problem is, while both are certainly discussed in the Bible, none of the verses are really clear and it’s easy to get confused. As NT Wright pointed out, we assume that Heaven is where we’ll go when we die, and where we’ll live for eternity. But then, what about the New Earth? And where’s Abraham’s bosom? And if Paul visited the 3rd heaven, what about the rest?

And, if the gates of hell can’t prevail against the church, doesn’t that imply that the church will be victorious over it? Why, then, will it be eternal?

Why no one knows…

The reason no one agrees on eschatology is because it’s really not that clear.

Then, when we’re talking about hell, we get confused because along with the little that the Bible actually tells us, we mix in Greek mythology and Dante’s imagery. Most of us really don’t know what the Bible really teaches on the subject.

And, most of us don’t realize that the oldest Christian belief about hell and heaven is that they are both in God’s presence; for those who refuse God’s grace, his grace and light are eternal torment. This is not that far from CS Lewis’ proposal that the gates of hell are locked from the inside—meaning that those in hell are only there because they choose to be.

NT Wright suggests that a lot of Jesus’ references to Gehenna were talking of the immediate future of Jerusalem, which he spoke of in a few places, although he does believe in a place of eternal torment.

And, then there are all those verses which do hint to some sort of universalism, speaking of God “reconciling all creation to himself in Christ,” Christ dying for the sins of the world, and so on.

It’s not clear at all.

You get what you need

I don’t know that any of us can be completely certain about what happens when we die, and I have to admit, it does make me nervous. I mean, I don’t like surprises. When I go somewhere, I like to know what it’ll be like when I get there—for one thing, it helps me pack.

All I know is that if there are two places to go, I won’t be going to the bad place. That much I’m sure of. However, I’d still like to know how I’m gonna get there, and who should I look for when I get there? This made me nervous as a young boy, and to this day, no one’s been able to answer this sufficiently. As the man sang, “you can’t always get what you want.”

Meanwhile, there are many opinions about how the afterlife works. It isn’t clear. I think that the only way someone can claim to have it all figured out is to have left out some of the verses or bring in extra-Biblical concepts. I do have some thoughts, though, and someday I’d like the time to really study the subject further. But, after seeing the many contradictory conclusions reached by those who have studied the subject, I’m not holding on to much hope of every really figuring it out.

But as the saying goes, “I don’t know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.”

Posted in Theological Musings | 2 Comments

“Bell” rhymes with “hell”

Posted on March 5, 2011 by me

Everybody probably knows that Rob Bell has a new book coming out. It will probably outsell all of his previous books (and probably sell better than it deserves), because it’s had the best marketing campaign imaginable—controversy. Bell put out a video trailer for the book in which he comments that he doesn’t believe Ghandhi will spend eternity in hell, suggesting that perhaps he’s a universalist (holding the belief that everyone will be saved, whether they are Christians or not).

Everybody seems to care a lot about what Mr. Bell thinks about hell. Justin Taylor (who??) does. (I’m wondering if Mr. Taylor would review my book…)  John Piper apparently does. Many people who should know better have also labelled Bell a universalist—and none of them have read the book. (The only article I’ve read from someone who’s actually read the book says that he’s not a universalist.)

And, everyone and their cat has jumped into the fray with their own opinions of Mr. Bell’s beliefs, all without reading the book.

My opinion of Rob Bell’s theology

I don’t care.

Seriously—I don’t care. I read a blog post this morning that explained why we should care, and how “countless lives” are at stake (seriously?), and I still don’t care.

On a certain level, of course, I do care whether or not he’s a heretic, for the sake of those people in his church and the dozens of youth groups who watch his videos without any supplemental teaching by their own pastors. But, whether or not he believes non-Christians will spend eternity in hell is perhaps not as important as his view of grace, which, by the way, I know nothing about. I’ve never read his books or listened to his videos. By the way, throughout the history of the Church there have been—and still are—many views of hell, and so far the gates of hell haven’t prevailed against the church.

Rob Bell is a trend, and possibly a short-term trend, just like Brian McLaren (who’s probably a heretic) and the whole “emergent ” thing. Yes, it’s dead—though they may not know it yet.  A few decades from now, I doubt many people will remember Bell or McLaren, but they’ll still read CS Lewis, and probably folks like NT Wright, JI Packer, and John Stott.

What does concern me

What does concern me are the people who jump to judgment about what people may or may not believe about things that don’t really change anything.

I do get concerned about people teaching other gospels, and I’ve always thought that hell was a terrible motivator for evangelism.

All I know

All I know about Rob Bell is that Bell rhymes with hell. And, that’s good enough for me.

 

 

Posted in Theological Musings | 2 Comments

Alister McGrath—Faith and the Prison of Mere Rationality

Posted on March 2, 2011 by me

The New Atheism makes rationality one of its core defining characteristics, and emphatically and aggressively asserts the irrationality of belief in God. For Richard Dawkins, faith in God counts as some kind of mental illness. Atheism is the only option for rational people.

…

But why should reason be able to tell us anything about God? Or anything else of significance, for that matter – such as what is good, or what is right?

From Faith and the Prison of Mere Rationality by Alister McGrath. He goes on to say:

The problem here is that this defence of the authority of human reason is ultimately circular and parasitical. It assumes and depends upon its conclusion. This philosophical defence of the validity of reason by reason is thus intrinsically self-referential. It cannot be sustained.

The rational defence of reason itself may amount to a demonstration of its internal consistency and coherence – but not of its truth. There is no reason why a flawed rationality will show up its own flaws. We are using a tool to judge its own reliability. We have convened a court, in which the accused and the judge are one and the same.

McGrath is right on in this article. Read the whole article here.

Posted in Faith, Science & Doubt | 3 Comments

Book review: Unconditional?

Posted on February 23, 2011 by me

I just finished reading Brian Zahnd’s new book, Unconditional?: The call of Jesus to radical forgiveness. Overall, it’s pretty awesome. If I were to come up with a “Top Ten” list of Christian books, this would definitely be included.

The topic of forgiveness is one that I’ve thought about a lot over the last 30 or so years; my fascination, if you will, with forgiveness began when I realized that “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us” actually puts our forgiving others first. It’s not, “because we’ve been forgiven, we’ll try to forgive others.” Shocking, I know. So, when I heard this book was coming out, I was quite excited (as I was when I saw it on the New Releases shelf at the local Borders; yes, I actually bought it from a brick-and-mortar store, although I did have a coupon…).

Zahnd lays out his thesis on page 2:

If we enter the Christian life to find forgiveness, we must continue in the faith to become forgiving people, because to be an authentic follower of Christ we must embrace the centrality of forgiveness.

Grace?

There are those who may question how this mandate to forgive correlates to grace; Zahnd does a pretty good job of doing that. Within a few pages he hits this question head-on, explaining that (in my words) forgiveness is grace in action. The work of Christ on the cross was one of grace and forgiveness, and we are called to take up our cross daily and do the same thing:

But Christians are not just recipients of forgiving grace; we are also called to be those who extend the grace of forgiveness to others.

Overall, I thought he kept his discussion within the realm of grace, although I know some will feel that he steps over into works. But, if we accuse Zahnd of crossing over into works, I think we’d have to accuse Paul of the same thing. Essentially, Zahnd is saying, “Have the same mindset of Jesus…” (Phil 2:5). Living a life of grace is living a life of forgiveness; if we fail to extend grace to others, it shows we simply don’t believe in grace.

Zahnd explains quite well how unforgiveness is a trap which keeps people in bondage, and prevents them from experiencing grace and their own forgiveness. If we want to truly be free, we must decide to forgive those who have wronged us.

Ken Blue and I deal with this topic ourselves in The Gospel Uncensored:

Unforgiveness places us in a prison of our own making. When we fail to forgive, we do not just withhold forgiveness from others; we prevent ourselves from experiencing forgiveness ourselves.

Prose and cons

(No, I didn’t misspell “pros.”)

Unconditional? is a fairly short (220 pages), very easy to read book. In it, Zahnd discusses the concept of forgiveness in several different contexts, such as how forgiveness impacts justice and the way of forgiveness being the way through the Narrow Gate. He will perhaps shock some with his idea that true forgiveness does not necessarily forget. Overall, he brings out many good points and challenges many American attitudes, not that they are necessarily limited to Americans.

Throughout the book I saw many hints of NT Wright, which is not a bad thing. But, I often thought I was reading a rewrite of some of Wright’s thoughts from works like Evil and the Justice of God and Simply Christian (again, not a bad thing, I just noticed it). For those who haven’t read Wright, Unconditional? will present some new thoughts.

I was impressed that while he addresses politics and world affairs, he doesn’t go off topic with discussions of pacifism and the like, which seem to be in vogue these days. Some, of course, will wish that he had gone further in these directions—but I think he does well to raise issues while staying on course.

I had a few complaints about the book, though not with the message. For one, in my opinion he tended to beat his examples to death and seemed to repeat himself unnecessarily. Just when you thought he had moved on, he’d resurrect an analogy.  In a sermon context, repetition is good and necessary; in a book, it’s not. However, I realize that some will love this about the book.

And, I thought the last couple of chapters were tangential at best, perhaps an attempt to extend the book past 200 pages. What he had to say wasn’t bad, I just thought he drifted too far off topic. Again, others will, no doubt, disagree with me.

My main disappointment with the book was that he didn’t deal more in depth with the issue I mentioned earlier, that our own forgiveness seems tied to our choice to forgive others. While he touches on the topic, he doesn’t really give it the attention I would have liked to have seen.

I highly recommend this book

In spite of the few issues I had, I would still list this in my current Top Ten list of books. Many, many people are held captive by their own unforgiveness of others, and I think this is one of the major barriers keeping people from experiencing their own grace and forgiveness. I hope this book does well, and finds its way into the hands of those who need it.

Forgiveness is healing; as Zahnd says, it changes everything.

Posted in Good News, Reviews | 1 Comment