Hey folks - this is an old post that I've reworked to post to my church blog here in Vegas. I hope you enjoy the edits. Love ya.
I read a book about a year ago by
Rob Bell called Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every
Person Who Ever Lived. Boy, oh, boy is this book controversial.
Thoughts of this read, combined with Sunday’s sermon (stressing how scary hell
is to a baby Christian) and my own winding path to the cross I wanted us to
take a moment to tackle one of the scarier issues of the faith: heaven and
hell. And I wanted to show a glimpse of my journey so far to hopefully give you
the courage to share yours.
As you may or may not be aware, folks in the evangelical community are all up in arms because the perception was that Bell was taking a pluralist position on the afterlife. For those unaware, the church has been fighting back and forth for centuries about the nature of the afterlife (i.e., who goes to heaven, who goes to hell; what exactly is heaven, what exactly is hell). For at least the recent past, three positions have been articulated clearly: exclusivism (i.e. only Christians get in to heaven, everybody else goes to hell), inclusivism (i.e., Christians and some other people get in to heaven) and pluralism (i.e., everybody gets into heaven). Now, I am totally uneducated about who has held the majority position over the course of church history, but I do know two things: (1) the loudest group of Christians presently endorse an exclusivist perspective (I was gonna say majority of Christians, but I am not sure if that is true) and (2) there are amazing, committed, Godly people in all three camps.
Now I am not sure what the predominant belief is here is at the Gathering, but my sense is that, as a group, exclusivists have taken a lot of heat from the world. I think the basic assumption is that exclusivists are callous hearted and superior, while inclusivists and pluralists are more warm and relatable. I tend to get a little bent about this perspective, as I am confident that most folks who hold an exclusivist perspective do so not because they really like the idea of lots of people going to hell, but because they authentically believe that is what the Bible teaches. From an exclusivist’s view, inclusivism and pluralism are attempts to compromise the gospel to make it more palatable to the world. They take very seriously the warnings across the New Testament about false prophets and manipulation of gospel. Warnings like 2 Timothy 4:3
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
And I will tell you something true, Mr. Bell's book did scratch my itchy ear. You see for a very, very long time I could not stomach Christianity. I could not stomach it because it seemed very much like a country club with ridiculous entrance standards and outrageous consequences for declining membership; specifically, like what we like, dress how we dress, think how we think or burn in hell for all eternity. Of course this invitation was wrapped in words about love and acceptance but I saw through that to the purple kool-aid. And let me tell you what, I was not about to drink it.
So from that place, the place where I saw hell as a tool to make me afraid and manipulate me into agreeing to doctrines that made no sense, I needed a path to get to God, to get to the cross, around it. And from my perspective, God used pluralism and authors like Mr. Bell to create it.
As you may or may not be aware, folks in the evangelical community are all up in arms because the perception was that Bell was taking a pluralist position on the afterlife. For those unaware, the church has been fighting back and forth for centuries about the nature of the afterlife (i.e., who goes to heaven, who goes to hell; what exactly is heaven, what exactly is hell). For at least the recent past, three positions have been articulated clearly: exclusivism (i.e. only Christians get in to heaven, everybody else goes to hell), inclusivism (i.e., Christians and some other people get in to heaven) and pluralism (i.e., everybody gets into heaven). Now, I am totally uneducated about who has held the majority position over the course of church history, but I do know two things: (1) the loudest group of Christians presently endorse an exclusivist perspective (I was gonna say majority of Christians, but I am not sure if that is true) and (2) there are amazing, committed, Godly people in all three camps.
Now I am not sure what the predominant belief is here is at the Gathering, but my sense is that, as a group, exclusivists have taken a lot of heat from the world. I think the basic assumption is that exclusivists are callous hearted and superior, while inclusivists and pluralists are more warm and relatable. I tend to get a little bent about this perspective, as I am confident that most folks who hold an exclusivist perspective do so not because they really like the idea of lots of people going to hell, but because they authentically believe that is what the Bible teaches. From an exclusivist’s view, inclusivism and pluralism are attempts to compromise the gospel to make it more palatable to the world. They take very seriously the warnings across the New Testament about false prophets and manipulation of gospel. Warnings like 2 Timothy 4:3
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
And I will tell you something true, Mr. Bell's book did scratch my itchy ear. You see for a very, very long time I could not stomach Christianity. I could not stomach it because it seemed very much like a country club with ridiculous entrance standards and outrageous consequences for declining membership; specifically, like what we like, dress how we dress, think how we think or burn in hell for all eternity. Of course this invitation was wrapped in words about love and acceptance but I saw through that to the purple kool-aid. And let me tell you what, I was not about to drink it.
So from that place, the place where I saw hell as a tool to make me afraid and manipulate me into agreeing to doctrines that made no sense, I needed a path to get to God, to get to the cross, around it. And from my perspective, God used pluralism and authors like Mr. Bell to create it.
But coming to God via a path that
may or may not be sound doctrine begs the question: Am I actually drawing
closer to the real God? The Creator of the Universe? Or am I drawing closer to
a god that I am fashioning from concepts I already like? Can I "put up
with sound doctrine" or am I "gathering teachers" to scratch my
itchy ears?
And here is my take (as it presently
stands). At the center of the Bible is a tension - a tension between who God is
and what He wants and the apparent outcome. Specifically, on the one hand you
have an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God, Creator of the Universe, who
is love and wants every person who ever lived to return to Him. On the other
hand, you have mention of hell, judgement, wheat and chaff, and weeping and
gnashing of teeth. These two things are very, very difficult to reconcile. If
you reconcile them by saying - "Oh well, God is all powerful, his love is
unending, he will pursue people until he gets them even into the afterlife"
you are over looking some very explicit warnings about how you live this life,
the image of judgment and the clear picture that not all will come to the
party. If you reconcile them by saying - "Clearly, I can tell you that ‘those
people’ who didn't do or say this or that thing, in this or that way are lost
and going to burn" you are over looking who God is and minimizing Him into
a genie or mechanism that delivers certain things when rubbed the right way. I
think we ought to realize that if God says He wants something, there is a good
chance He is going to get it.
So what I think is that the itch we all have, or at least the itch that I have, is for the resolution of that tension. I don't want to sit with the dissonance - I want some preacher or some book or some philosophy or some approach to resolve it.
So I am trying, very hard, to make space in my psyche for this dissonance. I am trying to live within the tension – let it build and challenge me. I want to be unsettled for the lost. I want to be disturbed that there are some real and lasting consequences for the choice of not knowing and/or rejecting Jesus. I want to move and reach and speak and pull and love… But I flat out refuse to script what God means when he talks about salvation and the exact intricacies of who is in, and who is out.
So what I think is that the itch we all have, or at least the itch that I have, is for the resolution of that tension. I don't want to sit with the dissonance - I want some preacher or some book or some philosophy or some approach to resolve it.
So I am trying, very hard, to make space in my psyche for this dissonance. I am trying to live within the tension – let it build and challenge me. I want to be unsettled for the lost. I want to be disturbed that there are some real and lasting consequences for the choice of not knowing and/or rejecting Jesus. I want to move and reach and speak and pull and love… But I flat out refuse to script what God means when he talks about salvation and the exact intricacies of who is in, and who is out.
And when I am stuck… when I am
scared that someone I love is lost (which happens often)… or feel the need to
resolve the tension for my own satisfaction or to be right in an argument… I
find great comfort in a passage from Exodus. Moses has asked God to reveal His
glory to him, as a reassurance of His presence with the Israelites. And He says
this:
I
will cause my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name,
the LORD in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I
will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
You see God does make one thing very clear – He has it covered. He is not interested in our determinations about who is in and who is out; He will have compassion on whom He will have compassion. And I so trust Him to get it right.
You see God does make one thing very clear – He has it covered. He is not interested in our determinations about who is in and who is out; He will have compassion on whom He will have compassion. And I so trust Him to get it right.
Dearest
Abba,
Thank
you for being so full of love and wisdom and grace that I do not ever need to
worry about anything. That I can relax in your perfect will. May this will also
compel me, may my own compassion push me to share just how great You are with
each and every person I encounter. Please let my life draw people ever toward You.
I
love you too. Amen.
(1) Own it. So I confessed my itchy ear – I
really, really don’t want there to be a hell… Ooo.. and I want everything to be
tied up in a nice, neat package…. Where do your ears itch? How are you tempted
to fashion your own god?
(2) Wrestle it. Where are you at about heaven,
hell and salvation? Why? Now ladies, there are likely going to be people in
this group who see things quite differently from you. And you may feel tempted
to ‘set them straight.’ I want this to be a safe place for them to express
their unedited thoughts… so that means you are free to express differences of
opinion (i.e., I hear what you are saying, here are my thoughts…) but it is not
ok to squash one another. Let’s practice extending respect and grace toward one
another.
(3) Live it. Regardless of your position on
heaven, hell and salvation it is clear that we are called into action. That we
are called to spread the good news to all people (i.e., the Great Commission).
In what way do you see your position hindering and/or helping you to move
forward toward this aim?
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