NT Wright - What Is Hell Like? Does It Even Exist?

Tom Wright has a very direct and succinct way of expressing the most difficult concepts in very elegant and personal terms. I find this with Rob Bell too who likewise would say the same thing as is heard here by Mr. Wright though many would construe Bell to be a universalist denying hell.

However, in truth, Bell is not a universalist but believes in libertarian free will which is just the opposite of universalism. Who preaches the enormity of our choices in this life - whether to proceed to a fuller and richer humanity in submission to the Creator God of grace, salvation and truth, or to proceed to a progressively de-humanizing state of non-humanity by the rejection of God, his love, salvation and truth. This is the nature of hell. Not its many vivid Christian descriptions and imageries.

For as Wright says herewith, hell is more than these things, and worse than these things, whom the NT writers have borne witness to. Far better is it to be part of God's plan of joining earth and heaven than it would be to reject any participation in this plan at all. We want to be part of this celebration, this cosmic party, this reunion and harmonizing of our soul to creation to the very divine itself. Not to stand outside of it mad and alone and willfully refusing joyous participation.

It makes no sense while it makes all the sense in the world. And so, judgement comes by our own "hands" if you well, by our own refusals to be a part of the salvation that is in Jesus, Lord of Heaven and Earth. And it is no party. It is exactly what we want and within it we will make no concessions but to a greater hardness. We will get all the hell we want and this is sad.

So fear then this enslavement, this hardness of heart and blindness to the truth. Haste to come to the living Lord God who daily seeks body and soul, heart and mind, spirit and will, in the greatest of freedoms and most wondrous of joys, life and love. Whatever the pain, the heartache, the guilt, the betrayal, the wrong or sin, repent and come to the Giver of Life, who is very Life himself.

- skinhead

http://100huntley.com/search.php?query=nt+wright

Transcript: " The word hell has had a checkered career in the history of the church. And it wasn't hugely important in the early days. It was important, but not nearly as important as it became in the middle ages. And the in the middle ages, you get this polarization of heaven over here and hell over there, and you have to go to one place or the other eventually. So you have the Sistine Chapel, with that great thing behind the altar. This enormous great judgment seat, with the souls going off into these different directions. Very interestingly, I was sitting in the Sistine chapel just a few weeks ago. I was sitting for a service, and I was sitting next to a Greek Orthodox...who said to me, looking at the pictures of Jesus on one wall. He said, these I can understand. The pictures of Moses on the other wall, he said, those I can understand. Then he pointed at the end wall of judgment, and said, that I cannot understand. That's how you in the West have talked about judgment and heaven and hell. He said, we have never done it that way before, because the bible doesn't do it that way. I thought, whoops. I think hes right actually. And whether you're Catholic or Protestant, that scenario which is etched into the consciousness of Western Christianity really has to be shaken about a bit. Because if heaven and earth are to join together. Its not a matter of leaving earth and going to heaven. Its heaven and earth joined together.

and hell is what happens when human beings say, the God in whose image they were made, we don't want to worship you. We don't want our human life to be shaped by you. We don't want who we are as humans to be transformed by the love of Jesus dying and rising for us. We don't want any of that. We want to stay as we are and do our own thing. And if you do that, what you re saying is, you want to stop being an image bearing human being within this good world that God has made. And you are colluding with your own progressive dehumanization. And that is such a shocking and horrible thing, so that its not surprising that the biblical writers and others have used very vivid and terrifying language about it. But, people have picked that up and said, this is a literal description of reality. Somewhere down there, there is a lake of fire, and its got worms in it and its got serpents and demons and there coming to get you. But I think actually, the reality is more sober and sad than that, which is this progressive shrinking of human life. And that happens during this life, but it seems to be that if someone resolutely says to God, I'm not going to worship you...its not just "I'll not come to church." Its a matter of deep down somewhere, there is a rejection of the good creator God, then that it is a choice humans may make. In other words, I think the human choices in this life really matter. Were not just playing a game of chess, where tomorrow morning God will put the pieces back on the board and say, Ok that was just a game. Now were doing something different. The choices we make here really do matter. There's part of me that would love to be a universalist, and say, it'll be alright. Everyone will get there in the end. I actually...the choices you make in the present are more important than that."

More videos can be found at www.100huntley.com and more of NT Wright's thoughts can be found in his book "Surprised by Hope":

http://www.amazon.com/Surprised-Hope-Rethinking-Resurrection-Mission/dp/0061551821

http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Surprised-Hope-N-T-Wright/?isbn=9780061551826

Book Description

For years Christians have been asking, "If you died tonight, do you know where you would go?" It turns out that many believers have been giving the wrong answer. It is not heaven.

Award-winning author N. T. Wright outlines the present confusion about a Christian's future hope and shows how it is deeply intertwined with how we live today. Wright, who is one of today's premier Bible scholars, asserts that Christianity's most distinctive idea is bodily resurrection. He provides a magisterial defense for a literal resurrection of Jesus and shows how this became the cornerstone for the Christian community's hope in the bodily resurrection of all people at the end of the age. Wright then explores our expectation of "new heavens and a new earth," revealing what happens to the dead until then and what will happen with the "second coming" of Jesus. For many, including many Christians, all this will come as a great surprise.

Wright convincingly argues that what we believe about life after death directly affects what we believe about life before death. For if God intends to renew the whole creation—and if this has already begun in Jesus's resurrection—the church cannot stop at "saving souls" but must anticipate the eventual renewal by working for God's kingdom in the wider world, bringing healing and hope in the present life.

Lively and accessible, this book will surprise and excite all who are interested in the meaning of life, not only after death but before it.

Rob Bell Is Not a Litmus Test

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/mayweb-only/robbelllitmustest.html

What one thinks about 'Love Wins' is no test of faith.

Mark Galli
posted 5/05/2011

I've had a number of conversations lately where, not surprisingly, the topic shifts to Rob Bell's Love Wins. That's when a strange dynamic creeps into some conversations. If the person with whom I'm talking has read my review of the book, or knows I had some critical things to say, he's naturally hesitant to openly praise the book. The usual first move at that point is to say, "I don't agree with everything in the book, but …" And what follows is hardly unalloyed enthusiasm. It's usually a qualified, almost worried appreciation for this part or that. It's as if some people feel guilty for liking the book. Perhaps people who really like the book don't even bother to talk to me, but I suspect something else is going on.

That something else is related to what a Christian journalist friend told me: She feels she has to carefully craft anything she writes about Bell, lest she be suspected of really liking him—or disliking him. The atmosphere in some meetings where people are talking about Bell's book, well, it feels like some people have to apologize for reading the book. Or they seem concerned that if they like it, their theology will be questioned.

In short, it's starting to feel like Rob Bell is becoming a litmus test. If you like Bell, your orthodoxy may be suspect. And if you want to proclaim your orthodox [(evangelic)] credentials, you simply have to condemn Love Wins.

As far as this phenomenon is true, it is silly. That it is silly doesn't mean it is not a powerful current. But as far as it is true, it is a current we evangelicals must swim against.

First, Rob Bell loves Jesus. He wants to see lots of people come to believe in Jesus. He wants to see the world transformed in Jesus' name. He really thinks the Bible is a book through which Jesus speaks authoritatively. He believes in miracles. He believes Jesus is coming again. I could go on. The point is that Bell shares a number of values that are dear to evangelicals. He is, in short, a brother in Christ.

Naturally, because he's a brother doesn't mean one has to agree with everything he says. Brothers disagree, sometimes over important things. And sometimes the biggest blowups happen inside families! But they remain family—unless one party says he disowns the rest of the family.

Second, to make Bell's Love Wins a litmus test is a touch hypocritical. At any given time, there are always a few books on Christian bestseller lists that teach something odd, and we don't shriek in panic in the way many have over Love Wins. Probably the most controversial of late has been The Shack. There are a few theologically troubling ideas in that book, no doubt, but for the most part, evangelicals have "forgiven" Paul Young his theology at those points in favor of the book's larger theme of redemption in Christ. We recognize that an author trying to repeat the old, old story in fresh ways will sometimes overstep the bounds of traditional theology. But most of us do not judge another's orthodoxy based on their reaction to The Shack. We recognize that people read and react to The Shack for all types of reasons, and we are charitable about that.

Third, I believe we have no choice in this day but to listen to and respond charitably to ideas we had thought were settled long ago, ideas that make us feel uncomfortable, ideas that seem to threaten our faith. We've entered a new stage in church history, the Internet Age, in which all manner of beliefs are but a mouse click away. We are virtual neighbors to Catholics, Hindus, Muslims, atheists, Arians, Pelagians, Universalists, and so on and so forth. And their websites often present views that in small and large degrees differ from mainstream evangelicalism—and they express those views reasonably and compellingly. We can no longer get away with name calling—"Universalist!" "Arian!"—and think that is enough.

No, we live in a time when we must engage afresh all these permutations of orthodoxy, heterodoxy, heresy, paganism, and apostasy. I for one welcome the opportunity, and want to hear the best cases that can be made against historic Christian faith, and the best cases for alternate views. If the historic Christian faith cannot stand up to such arguments, we should abandon it as soon as we can. But this is hardly likely, because when it comes to doubts about this historic faith and alternatives to it, well, there is really nothing new under the sun. What we have now is a divinely ordained opportunity to clarify again what we believe in the midst of a highly pluralistic world. It isn't as if the church has never been here before: the world of the earliest church was the just as pluralistic as ours, and the church managed very well, thank you.

That means we're going to have to get used to some card carrying evangelicals experimenting with ideas that centrists, like me anyway, consider less than helpful. But if a writer tries to ground his argument in Scripture, and identifies himself as a member of the body of Christ, charity requires me first to humbly listen. Who knows what God might want to say to us in this moment? It also means I should listen not just to the argument, but also to the problem he is trying to solve. Very few people present a new way of conceiving a doctrine unless they are trying to solve a genuine problem in the church.

In Love Wins, Bell reinterprets some biblical themes (e.g., last judgment, atonement) because he believes the way we've traditionally talked about these themes is not faithful to the Bible and pushes people away from Jesus. I think he's right that the way we've talked about substitutionary atonement and hell have hardly been biblical much of the time, and thus these doctrines have caused more problems than they have solved. But as I said in my review, I believe his solution will actually undermine his desire to win people to Jesus. Furthermore, as I will argue in a forthcoming book, the main problem with Love Wins is that the Good News is even better—deeper, richer, more complex—than it lets on. That I champion the historic Christian view on these matters, and that Bell offers a decidedly minority view, doesn't make Bell a heretic, though he may be unbiblical at points. It does mean that the burden of proof rests on his shoulders. And more to the point here, the fact that so many resonate with Bell's concerns about these themes means we need to wrestle with them afresh.

And not because it's a good idea to dialogue ad infinitum. God forbid! I've been a part of two mainline Protestant denominations much of my life, both of which seem to think that dialogue is an end in itself. On many crucial issues, even after thirty years of dialogue, they are reluctant to let their yes be yes and their no be no. Certainly for individuals, and more so for churches and denominations, there comes a time to clarify and confirm exactly what they believe, for example, about the atonement and hell. But if a book comes out that demonstrates from the reaction to it that tens of thousands of believers are wrestling with these issues, we best first step back, listen hard to the doubts and concerns, and re-engage charitably.

We are wise to nurture an atmosphere in churches, and families, and websites where any question can be asked without fear of judgment, where theological ideas are addressed and not merely dismissed. We sometimes act as if Jesus said, "I might be the way and the truth and the life—unless a better idea comes along." No, we can have complete confidence in the face of any question because we know that whatever is true has its origins in God's truth in Jesus Christ, and that Jesus Christ really is the Truth that sets us free. This will require in many instances some sensitive listening and hard intellectual work. But who said love, even loving God with the mind, would not entail suffering?

We have to become radically Protestant again. At times like these, there arises a longing in Protestant breasts for the magisterium, for an authoritative body to pronounce a final verdict to deal with the troublemakers by edict. But that is not a Protestant theology of the church and the Holy Spirit. We believe that God is sovereign in his church, that the Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth, that through discussion and debate, a sifting process allows the truth of God in Christ to deepen and broaden. If Jesus is truly Lord of his church, his truth will make its way into the church's life, one way or another. Our job is to prayerfully read Scripture, talk with one another in the bonds of love, and, yes, when the time comes, make the tough calls. Again, a congregation or a denomination has the perfect right and responsibility to say, "This conversation is over for now. This is what we believe. Let us move forward in mission grounded in this article of faith." There are times to call a spade a spade, and to say clearly that someone is engaging in false teaching and it's damaging the health of the church. All this is part of the sifting process of the Holy Spirit in history. But we are wise not to end some conversations before they've even started, especially when it often seems that the Spirit may be starting the troubling conversation afresh in the first place.

I have enjoyed many conversations with people who have read Love Wins and my review of the book. I look forward to more such conversations. They have reinforced some of my prejudices and forced me to rethink others—there's that sifting process. When entered into freely and without fear, in love and not in judgment, they have been occasions to love God more deeply in the company of brothers and sisters in Christ. There are perhaps more urgent ways to love God and neighbor in a desperately hurting world, but this is certainly not an unimportant one.

Mark Galli is senior managing editor of Christianity Today, and author of the forthcoming Chaos and Grace: Discovering the Liberating Work of the Holy Spirit (Baker).

Rob Bell Is NOT A Universalist

The Promised Response to Bell’s Love Wins

http://rogereolson.com/2011/03/25/the-promised-response-to-bells-love-wins/

by Roger Olson
Posted March 25, 2011

Discussion of Bell’s Love Wins is now allowed here for those who can truthfully say they have read it. If you post a comment about Bell’s book be sure to say whether you have read it.

I finally received my copy yesterday. (Sometimes I think mail has to arrive in my city by Pony Express!) I read it last evening and this morning.

First, it is obvious to me that early critics of the book were wrong and they owe Bell an apology. Nowhere in the book does Bell affirm universalism. (Let’s not quibble about what “universalism” means; we all know what the critics meant–that Bell was saying everyone will eventually be saved, go to heaven, and leave hell empty. He nowhere says that.)

Bell does say it is okay to “long for” universal salvation. So did Pope John Paul II! I’m sure some critics who jumped the gun and attacked Bell for promoting universalism without reading the book will come back around and use that to support what they said. But they are not the same. To long for universal salvation is not to affirm it.

On page 114 Bell says “So will those who have said no to God’s love in this life continue to say no in the next? Love demands freedom, and freedom provides that possibility. People take that option now, and we can assume it will be taken in the future.” And nowhere else in the book does he say that eventually everyone will say yes to God’s love. His emphasis on freedom as necessary for love requires him not to say that. Can he hope for it? Who is to say he can’t?

The point is – universalism is the assertion that eventually all will be saved. Nowhere does Bell assert that.

Bell continues in that chapter to say that hell is getting what we want. This is simply another way of saying “Hell’s door is locked on the inside” – something I think C. S. Lewis said. (Or it may be someone’s summary of Lewis’ The Great Divorce.)

Chapter 6 is about what is usually called inclusivism – that salvation through Jesus Christ is not limited to those who hear his name. (I’ve discussed problems with restrictivism here before.) I find nothing in that chapter that Billy Graham has not said. (Go to youtube.com and look up Graham’s responses to questions from Robert Schuler.)

While reading Love Wins I kept thinking “This sounds like C. S. Lewis!” In his Acknowledgments Bell thanks someone for “suggesting when I was in high school that I read C. S. Lewis.”

One thing I disagree with in Love Wins (and I disagreed with it in The Shack) is Bell’s affirmation that God has already forgiven everyone through Jesus Christ. I believe God has provided everything for forgiveness, but forgiveness depends on acceptance of God’s provision. I don’t know how to reconcile universal forgiveness with Jesus’ statement that the Father will not forgive those who refuse to forgive. Of course, if “forgive” means “forgive everyone of the guilt of original sin,” then I can accept universal forgiveness (which is how I and most Arminians interpret Romans 5). But I don’t think that’s what Bell means.

Those who accused Bell of teaching universalism based on promotion of Love Wins jumped the gun and owe him an apology. I won’t hold my breath. Vilifying anyone based on what you think they are going to say is clear evidence of bad judgment; it breaks all the rules of civil discourse. It is part of what I mean by “evangelicals behaving badly” and illustrates what I call the fundamentalist ethos.


Perhaps the time has come for moderate and progressive evangelicals to say “Farewell neo-fundamentalists.” There’s no point in prolonging the long kiss goodbye. We are two movements now–fundamentalists and neo-fundamentalists, on the one hand, and moderate to progressive evangelicals on the other hand. This painful parting of the ways happened between the movement fundamentalists and the new evangelicals in the 1940s and 1950s. It is happening again (among people who call themselves “evangelicals”) and the time has come to acknowledge it as, for all practical purposes, done. It’s just a matter now of dividing the property.

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The videos below have been added to this blog post 
to reinforce Dr. Olson's assessment of Bell's position.

Rob Bell Responds to Charges of Universalism

before the release of his book, Love Wins

March 13, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg0mkooAqiU

Part 1: Rob addressing Mars Hill about his new book Love Wins before it is released.

[March 13, 2011] [Live Shadow-cast]

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Rob Bell Thanks Mars Hill for helping him write Love Wins

March 13, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk590SWE0pM

Part 2: Rob thanking Mars Hill for inspiring his new book Love Wins before it is released.

[March 13, 2011] [Live Shadow-cast]

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Rob Bell "What I Believe" after the release of his book, Love Wins
March 27, 2011

~ both videos are similar but each begin and end differently and together
give a fuller presentation of Rob's Introduction to the Churches of Revelation ~



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7JSwVxYxtQ&feature=player_embedded#!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRNudF2emT4

Rob addressing Mars Hill about his new book 'Love Wins' after it was released.
[March 27, 2011] [Live Audio]

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Rob Bell Defends Himself and his church Mars Hill, pt.1
April 22, 2011



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIKkvmSNUCY



Rob Bell Defends Himself and his church Mars Hill, pt.2
April 22, 2011



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8U9jto2D00&feature=fvwrel



Rob Bell Defends Himself and his church Mars Hill, pt.3
April 22, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJLqyWAtpvE

What "Love Wins" Tells Us About Christians

by Scott McKnight
Monday, 09 May 2011 



10 things we can learn from one of Christianity's biggest controversies.

Everyone knew in advance that Rob Bell’s next book, Love Wins, would surely raise eyebrows and create some debate. But no one, including the author and his agent, expected what did happen. From the moment Justin Taylor uttered that opening warning and John Piper tweeted “Farewell Rob Bell” until many of us had a week or two to read it, Rob Bell’s book was at the forefront of American Christianity’s sensational tabloids. I’ve never seen anything like it, and it may well be a one-of-a-kind brouhaha for the next generation or two.

But what can we learn from what happened? I want to suggest we can learn 10 lessons.

First, social media is where controversial ideas will be both explored and judged. We no longer read books patiently, type out letters to denominational offices, find common agreements and then summon the Christian leader behind closed doors to ask questions and sort out concerns. It’s all public, it’s all immediate and everyone weighs in because social media is about as radical a form of democracy as exists. To be sure, this means the uninformed heavy-handed can weigh in as easily as the patient, careful, critical and balanced reader. But social media is not going away, so we should realize what we are getting into before we walk into the room.

Second, megachurch pastors are being watched closely. “Who says what” has always mattered. But because of social media, the who-says-what takes on new significance: megachurch pastors—and this applies to Bill Hybels, Rick Warren, John Piper, Mark Driscoll, Andy Stanley and Rob Bell—are being watched, and their critics only need one off-line comment to stir into action. John Piper has been hammered for some of his comments, Bill Hybels has weathered criticism and Rob Bell is in the same world. Robin Parry, a skilled and careful scholar, wrote a book called The Evangelical Universalist. He was an editor at an evangelical publishing house. His book barely drew attention, but when Rob Bell said even less than Parry, Bell was scorched by many.

Third, tribalism pervades the American religious scene. On my blog we went through Love Wins patiently chapter by chapter, and daily I observed both in the comments and in private email exchanges (and telephone interviews) that some thought everything Bell said was wrong while others wouldn’t admit he had said one thing worth worrying over. Call it groupthink or call it tribalism, but such divisions will emerge especially over controversial ideas said by well-known leaders. Tribalism produces imbalanced and fuzzy thinking. I was (probably not) surprised by how few noticed it was an eternity of further chances that really separated Bell from the thinking of others in the history of the Church, and I was also surprised by how few really know what universalism means or what Rob Bell’s commitment to “libertarian free will” means for universalism. If humans can both choose God and not choose God, and if universalism ultimately says God will win over everyone, then it makes little sense to call Bell a universalist—since he’s so committed to that sense of libertarian free will.

Fourth, hell remains a central Christian conviction and concern. There are some topics that are either taboo or almost taboo, and hell is one of those. Defending traditional views that are almost taboo is a game few want to play because the defender senses he or she is about to be called a bigot. Which illustrates why hell is one of those taboo topics that lurks behind many corners and simmers just below the surface of major theological topics. If Bell’s book does anything, it drives the issue of hell to the front of some serious theological topics. Teaching college students for 15 years has shown me time and time again they care about this topic and want to talk about it, but they want some clear-headed thinking and not fuzzy hopes.

Fifth, Christian views of hell are both incomplete and in need of serious examination. The problem for many today can be seen in what Mike Huckabee said about the world’s leading terrorist: “Welcome to hell, bin Laden.” Fair enough, I can’t think of many traditional Christians who think eternity will be paradisal for bin Laden. But then just saying that can both make many feel uncomfortable and ask the question, “Who do you think you are to judge someone?” or, “We really don’t know what he thought in the moments he was dying.” But all of this drives us back to what we think about hell, and what we think about it—and many suppress the thoughts—deserves careful exploration of what the Bible says and what the Church has taught, and we need to do both very carefully and patiently, and we need to present our conclusions both sensitively and faithfully.

Sixth, pressing questions require serious thinking. I said above that Bell’s not a universalist, but I want to nuance this by saying Bell’s prose is not always clear. He thinks he can get off the hook of precise thinking by saying he’s not a theologian but a pastor, and I’ll come right back and say: “You may be, but you wrote about the topic and this topic has generated fierce discussion and fine distinctions for more than 1,700 years. Anyone who enters this discussion needs to know the lay of the land before uttering a published word.” I want to cut to the chase here: universalism and hell are extraordinarily important issues for the Church today, but to write about these topics requires years of Bible study, theological reading and public discussion. Rob Bell’s book left too many questions unanswered about too many topics to carry the discussion forward.

Seventh, missiology remains the center of gospeling in our world. You can talk all you want about eschatology and about atonement theory and about evangelism and about worship, but the moment you cross a line others perceive to be too far in the wrong directions, you will be called out on it. The essential line in Christianity is the Gospel, and all theology is measured by its fidelity to the Gospel or its denial of the Gospel. Why? Because the Church’s message is one about salvation and how we get saved and who gets saved and what one has to do to get saved. The Gospel is more than salvation, but anything that softens salvation or hardens salvation is in for immediate debate. Frankly, Rob Bell’s book called into question the Gospel essence evangelicalism has defended since the Reformation. That is the fundamental reason why this book caused such a storm.

Eighth, low church, non-denominational evangelicalism, of which Rob Bell is an exceptional representative, carries its own dangers. As I was reading Love Wins the first time, one thought kept coming back to me: This book could not have been written by a traditional Presbyterian or Methodist or Lutheran or Southern Baptist … or by anyone who is accountable to a stable and long-standing theological tradition. Rob Bell is a stand-alone pastor, and Mars Hill is a stand-alone church. While it may have some responsibility to its mother church, it is more or less on its own. When pastors are celebrity and charismatic and competent communicators, as Rob Bell clearly is, they can take risks (and I applaud that at times) and they can also easily wander from the great tradition of the Church. This book makes me rethink what mechanisms need to be put in place to manage the potential zaniness that stand-alone pastors in stand-alone churches can produce. Some publishers will put the stop to some ideas, but others won’t. We need to think about this.

Ninth, we are still asking a big question: What is the Gospel? Time and time again Bell mentions the Gospel, and it appears to me that Bell defines the Gospel as God’s utter love for us. How odd, I muse at times, that so many claim “gospel” for what they think but at the same time don’t recognize that the word “gospel” seems to be a contested term and category that demands careful words and definitions. I believe reducing Gospel to God’s utter love for us is inadequate, however true. One group wants to define Gospel through the lens of a kind of Reformed theology, another group wants to define it through the lens of the term "kingdom," while yet another—Rob Bell included—through the gracious, unstoppable love of God for us. Well, which is it?

Tenth, what is evangelicalism and what is orthodoxy? I heard Rob Bell say in an interview that he is evangelical and orthodox to the bone. What do these terms mean? I have a stake in both terms because I’m a professor and I’ve studied these terms, and think the former [term] refers to a group that emerges from the Reformation through the American revivals and is now connected to the historic reshaping of American religious life in the career of Billy Graham. Essentially, evangelicalism is a movement that believes in the necessity of personal salvation and personal conversion now in order to inherit eternal life after death. Rob Bell, to put it mildly, shows little tolerance for that way of framing salvation and one has to ask what he means by the term “evangelical” and whether he fits the term as defined by the best thinking on this term in our world. And what does “orthodoxy” mean? Ask the best church historians and theologians and they will point you to the classic creeds, from Nicea on, and that means orthodoxy defines and articulates the Trinity. An orthodox person is someone who believes those creedal formulations. But I’m encountering a generation of young thinkers who really don’t care what these terms mean.

What we have learned from the heated debates and conversation about Love Wins should not be ignored. The vitality of our movement and the need for goodwill are at stake in these sorts of debates. When the next controversial book comes out, I hope we pause long enough to read the book, ask the author for clarifications and only then go public with our concerns and criticisms. What we can learn to do is model how to listen, how to disagree and how to express dismay with one another—before the watching world. If we choose to repeat what happened with Love Wins, we will [continue to] damage the Body of Christ.

Scot McKnight is the Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University and author of One.Life: Jesus Calls, We Follow.

Let's Continue to March for Dis-Unity

Here's a little bit of tongue-in-cheek cynism that I hope drives home the point that the house of God, the family of Jesus, his Church and Bridegroom, should show love and unity to one another over everything else that would get in the way. Many thanks to Rachel Held Evans and the many others who have participated in this campaign of "LOVE WINS". Who have taken a stand over the ridiculousness we can get ourselves into when "fighting for the faith" rather than "loving one another" as we dialogue about our faith. Who strive to live the Jesus-life before a lost world as a loving community of God's children seeking to serve and to share God's love.

skinhead

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http://rachelheldevans.com/rally-to-restore-unity-day-5

Why Rob Bell Wins

I picked several running commentaries from the HomeBrewed boys to give a flavor of what is currently running on the "other side" of evangelicalism. The stuff the major conservative Christian medias aren't talking as excitedly about in reviews of Rob Bell's Love Wins book. These guys take offence at Bell being called liberal and tell why they are willing to make a defence for moderation in place of crying "heresy".

skinhead

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://homebrewedchristianity.com/2011/03/16/rob-bell-wins/

Rob Bell Wins

By Deacon Bo

Mar 16th, 2011

Category: bible stuff, engaging, media, thinking

Tagged as: eschatology, Rob Bell, universalism

I watched the live- webcast of the Rob Bell interview about his new book “Love Wins” and blogged a couple of thoughts on it at an Everyday Theology. It got a good response so I thought I would post it here.

In case you had not seen the webcast, you can watch the video of the event here.

Here are my two quick thoughts on it:

1. We are not having this conversation in a vacuum

2. Rob Bell is up to something

We are not in a vacuum and the context of this conversation is post-enlightenment / post-christendom. That means a couple of things:

a) everyone has their own bible

b) most people can read it

c) evangelicals do not have Popes or councils to make decisions on this kind of stuff

d) for Reformed folks (Piper, Driscol, Keller, etc) the bible just doesn’t say what they need it to say

for this thing to be air tight.

SO – we have a couple of issues!

The biggest issue is that we take passages like Matthew 7 (which one of the white women in Rob’s audience asked about) where Jesus says “wide is the road that leads to destruction” and we THINK that it is about Hell. It is not. We have been taught to read the Bible wrong. We trade one word for another all the time. I wrote about that here.

Then – some one like Rob comes along and calls that into question (he is up to something) and people FREAK out.

Matthew 7 isn’t about hell. But we got so comfortable thinking that it was … now we are uncomfortable with how comfortable we were.

I’ll give you another example: Paul never mentions hell. In any of sermons (Acts) or letters. It is not there. I wrote about its absence here.

Here is another one: Revelation – which is not to be read literally – teaches (even to those who DO think it is literal) that hell is not eternal. Even in that scenario hell is temporary and is emptied into the lake of fire. They are not the same place or for the same purpose. read Revelation 20:14-15.

But since many don’t know that… we end up asking “wait! if there is no hell … then why are we even doing evangelism or missions“. The answer is that we were doing them for the wrong reason. Some of it was colonial … some of it was worse.

We should do evangelism and we should do mission – but not because of this understanding of hell.

So – I am not saying that Rob Bell is right. I am not saying that everyone will be saved. But the reality is that many have not taken these passage seriously. Passages such as:

Colossians 1:20 “and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”

Romans 5:10 “For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!”

2 Corinthians 5:18 “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation”

That’s my 2 cents. What did you think?

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Your First Steps into Biblical Universalism…

http://homebrewedchristianity.com/2011/03/21/your-first-steps-into-biblical-universalism/

By Tripp Fuller • Mar 21st, 2011 • Category: books, engaging, media

So the number of permanent residents in hell is on your mind? I’m gonna guess it wasn’t a few weeks ago until Rob Bell solicited a few twitter-bombs from some conservative dogma police. Since then it has been really popular to blast Bell for being un-biblical, heterodox, and all other sorts of bad stuff. That’s cool if you are interested in getting into someone’s head, supplying their intentions, and making judgments on behalf of the truth (which these individuals apparently have undiluted access to!!).

BUT if the conversation has got you thinking…is ‘love wins’ really a dramatic deviation from the church’s tradition and just some sexy packaging for liberal theology I would like to introduce you to a few Early Church Fathers who could introduce you to a ‘love wins’ way to read the Bible: Clement of Alexandria (ca. 160-215 C.E.), Origen (ca. 185-ca. 251 C.E.), and Gregory of Nyssa (331/340-ca. 395 C.E.)

These fellas are not just minor voices who should be ignored but essential for the develop of the doctrine of the Trinity (ps…it’s a big deal doctrine). I will avoid a discussion of the Trinity and their brilliant philosophical modification of Platonism to simply say that the nature of divine love articulated in the Trinity led them toward affirming God’s universalism.

(1) But more than the Trinity it was the Bible that got’em! Don’t believe me? Then try it out! Remember these three things and read some Bible to see if Biblical universalism is jiving with you. Here are some of these three fellas favorite Bible passages…John 12:32; Acts 3:21; Romans 5:18-21, 11:25-26a, 32; 1 Corinthians 3:12-15; 15:22-28; 2 Corinthians 5:19; Ephesians 1:10; Philippians 2:9-11; Colossians 1:20; 1 Timothy 2:4; Titus 2:11; 2 Peter 3:9; 1 John 2:2. (For serious play-by-play through these Church Fathers’ readings of the Bible see Steve Harmon‘s book Every Knee Should Bow: Biblical Rationales for Universal Salvation in Early Christian Thought.)

(2) But before you read them check out these three features of Biblical Universalism and see if they help frame your Bible reading:

a) God is Love….this means that there is nothing about God, in God, or comes from God that is not love. Love is not something God occasionally does or engages in but is the very essence of God. To say ‘God is Love’ is to say that the great mystery of God is a mystery in which every depth that is yet to be understood or revealed is another depth of love. God is love. Love known and unknown by nothing but love.

b) Love requires freedom…..this means that God’s actual goal for creation, to bring it to fruition within the divine love (Paul’s ‘all-in-all’), requires creation to have genuine freedom. Even Calvinists pretend its true in their daily lives. For example, when two lovers consummate their marriage in a passionate act of sweet love making, freedom, vulnerability, and risk is what made the actual act – intercourse – making love and not rape. The freedom to give oneself to another and to receive the other as other is not a human contaminant to love but essential. Because the God who is Love desires to love the whole world and genuine love involves freedom, the creatures of the Creator have received the gift of freedom to love God as a result of God’s own free decision to create and love.

c) Love Wins….God’s love wins. Why? Because the God who is Love is the one and only true God. The infinite Creator of all the universe who is love, is infinitely committed to loving and living in love with the world. This finite world and every finite person within it will remain for all eternity an object of the pure divine love. So both the Creator and creature’s freedom can never be compromised for premature victory. This means a). No one can or ever will be forced into loving God for the very love God desires requires freedom & b) Nothing, including one’s death or present state of response, can force the infinite God of Love to quit pursuing any and every part of God’s creation.

I hope you can see how this is NOT universalism of the blank check variety. The only thing universal here is the scope and reservoir of God’s love. The eschatological optimism is not about anyone, anything, or any action other than the God revealed in the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It is precisely that very particular vision of God that can lead one to be optimistic, hopeful, and excited about the future. Why? because the world’s future is God.

Select Comments

1. Tripp Fuller on March 22nd, 2011 at 1:45 am:

Rob Bell’s eschatological optimism is NOT liberalism. Why?

- it still affirms Hell’s existence (liberals tend to demythologize all ‘other-worldly’ talk)

- only God’s redemptive work in Christ redeems (a liberal would call this a subtle & gentle form of Christian exclusivity)

- Love wins (this one is more for postmodern liberals…..A winner brings a loser! Love winning clearly creates a binary between Love and hate\evil\? and we all know that binaries are the one great Evil!)

2. Deacon Hall on March 22nd, 2011 at 9:34 am:

You got it, buddy. The affirmation of Love and the fact that it wins is an affirmation of the Triune God’s grace and freedom. Universal salvation is no demand we can make of God, but one that I’m willing to posit God freely makes for us.

3. Tripp Fuller on March 22nd, 2011 at 9:44 am:

Deacon Hall comes out of his dissertation? I believe this is one topic we actually agree on!

5. Bill on March 22nd, 2011 at 11:04 am:

Really good post and comments – another good book is “The Evangelical Universalist” by pseudo-Gregory MacDonald (borrowing the names from Gregory of Nyssa and George MacDonald). And the point about Rob Bell differing from Liberalism can’t be emphasized enough (he has a high christology, affirms miracles, the Trinity, etc. – all unnecessary for liberals). It’s amazing how much you’ll see that accusation floating around without any basis (see Mohler’s blog or Christianity Today, unfortunately). But if you want a solidly plausible defense of Protestant Liberalism, as Tripp shared yesterday, see McLaren’s latest post about all this.

6. xxxx xxxxxx on March 22nd, 2011 at 12:44 pm:

Thank you for reminding us that the material in Love Wins is nothing new; it is only repackaged.

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Romans 10 in the Spirit of Universalism (not Exclusivism)

http://homebrewedchristianity.com/2011/03/29/romans-10-in-the-spirit-of-universalism-not-exclusivism/

By Bill • Mar 29th, 2011 • Category: bible stuff, thinking

It’s worth reiterating the importance of what was said in Deacon Hall’s post about not making demands on God. Only a universalism with this conditioning could be ”biblical.” Indeed, concerning these things, “Do not be arrogant, but tremble” (Rom 11:20).

And to stress God’s absolute freedom, doesn’t Paul warn that God could have made us, like clay in the potter’s hands, “objects for his wrath” (Rom 9:22)? But as recipients of “the good news that’s better than that,”[i] we choose to believe and humbly confess: this isn’t the last word. The love and character of God revealed in Christ says otherwise.

The voices of condemnation and heresy hunting have been too loud lately. They leave their traces everywhere on the blogosphere. Normally, we can ignore them, or at least drown them out with a more generous orthodoxy, not laying claim to any one interpretation absolutely. But instead of running for the hills when we hear red flag phrases like “biblical Christianity” thrown around, it might be better to answer this time.

In light of this, after Tripp and Deacon Hall’s posts, and in the spirit of “continuing the conversation” Rob Bell has started into the “next inning” (McLaren), I thought it might be constructive to look at a common exclusivist proof text from Romans 10:14-15 (see recent examples here and here), by which certain sects try to justify the belief that the vast majority of humanity in history must be consigned to hell – whatever hell is exactly (see a great post by Ben Witherington at Patheos about this here). I think that challenging this narrow and restrictive viewpoint, successfully or not, was Rob Bell’s chief concern in Love Wins.

14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

Roman 9-11 as a whole is concerned with the tension between Israel’s disobedience and election.

Chapter 10 in particular addresses the gospel – the “Word of or about Christ/messiah/God” – as that which Israel indeed has “heard” before and should know. Paul references Isaiah 53:1, and the aorist (past) tense of the Greek word for “obey” in this case clearly makes reference to an announcement already received, having prepared the way as a condition for the present preaching of Christ by “missionaries.”[ii] Paul is saying that the Hebrews should have recognized Jesus as a “suffering servant” like the figure depicted in Isaiah’s song.

The correlations between the latter part of Isaiah and Romans are striking:

Isaiah 49:18 (see Rom 14:11), 50:8 (see Rom 8:33), 51:1 (see Rom 9:31), 51:8 (see Rom 1:17), 52:5 (see Rom 2:24), 52:7 (see Rom 10:15), 54:16 (see Rom 9:22), 59:7 (see Rom 3:15-17), 59:20 (see Rom 11:26)

But concerning v. 14 most explicitly, which is where the attention must be focused:

“To explain ou ouk ekousan as meaning ‘about whom they have not heard’ is not really feasible; for the use of akouein with the simple genitive of the person meaning ‘to hear about (someone)’ would be very unusual.”[iii] In other words, Paul is not condemning those who have not heard yet. Calvin’s commentary, which is otherwise still useful, awkwardly takes these questions to be referencing the Gentiles, but this makes little sense in view of Paul’s on-going mission, seeking of funds, and intention to travel all the way to Spain. He’s clearly just talking about Israel here (10.1) since he answers his own question in the affirmative (10.18 – “did they not hear? Of course they did”).

Furthermore, the “beautiful feet” of v. 15 would be merely “decoration” if this verse were meant to exclude those who haven’t heard a priori, but instead it forms the next step in the argument and draws our attention to Isaiah 52:7, showing that that prophetic message had indeed been fulfilled, and the apostolic proclamation commissioned. This runs quite contrary to interpretations by those like Thomas Schreiner who insist on an exclusivist reading, as he even laments the inclusivist leanings of C.S. Lewis and Billy Graham![iv]

So what about the Gentiles? When referenced (which is not as often here), the context is quite optimistic, and meant to contrast their acceptance of the Gospel with the rejection on the part of the Jews. Then comes the Deuteronomy quote:

“I will make you jealous of one that is not a nation, and with a foolish nation I will provoke you” – v. 19.

And even Isaiah anticipates this. Israel’s rejection of the prophets had been seen before:

“All day long, I stretched out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people” (Isaiah 65:2).

Jesus echoes this in Luke 13:34:

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.”

Ok, great, so God loves the Gentiles . . .But does God abandon Israel? No, God remains faithful to the covenant – something Paul has in mind throughout the letter, just as was promised to Abraham:[v]

“I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means!” (Rom 11:1)

There is some harsh language in this passage, so we must be careful and not take our “inclusion” for granted, but before the closing doxology, “Paul’s [final] emphasis is on the positive rather than the negative: this remnant people is being formed on the basis of God’s gift in Christ Jesus (5:16; 6:23).”[vi]

30Just as you who [Gentiles] were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, 31 so they [Israel] too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you. For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all (Rom 11:30-32).

Sounds like a good promise! Is Paul contradicting himself? No, for the people of Israel are still representative of God’s chosen people whom he is saving, and this judgment at present is penultimate,[vii] but the justification of the ungodly by faith on account of God’s righteousness (perhaps the major theme of Romans), which is also the resurrection from the dead, is the only hope both of the world in general and also of Israel.[viii]

Let us be awed by the depths of the riches and the mercies and purposes of God! (11:33-36)

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[i] See Rob Bell, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived (HarperOne, 2011).

[ii] Luke Timothy Johnson, Reading Romans: a literary and theological commentary (Smyth & Helwys Publishing, Inc., 2008), 173.

[iii] C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans (T&T Clark Int’l, 2004), 534.

[iv] See Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans (Baker Books, 1998).

[v] Johnson, Reading Romans, 177.

[vi] N. T. Wright, Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision (IVP Academic, 2009), 180.

[vii] Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation, A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics, 1st ed. (HarperOne, 1996), 415.

[viii] Ernst Kasemann, New Testament Questions of Today (SCM Press, 1969), 187.

The Enigma That Is Rob Bell

http://www.patheos.com/community/philosophicalfragments/author/TimD/

What Launched the Bell Battle?
Part 1: Rob Bell is No C.S. Lewis
By Timothy Dalrymple
March 30, 2011

A guest post at Scot McKnight’s Jesus Creed, from philosopher/author Jeff Cook, suggests that “the debate over Love Wins is not actually a fight only about doctrine. It is about angst caused by different cultures and philosophical precommitments.” The anger directed at Bell is partly because he “intimidates some because he is part of [an urban, postmodern] culture they do not understand and cannot control,” and because of “envy and resentment of a very talented man” and (to paraphrase) a sense of creeping cultural irrelevance on the part of modernist conservatives. Thus, “the issues at hand” are “about culture and control” and “the continuing fight between postmodern and modern expressions of Christianity.” Professor Cook’s primary evidence for this is that C. S. Lewis, he says, advocated more or less the same ontology of hell as Rob Bell does, and yet he evokes none of the ire Bell has. Indeed, Lewis is widely admired.

I do not entirely disagree with this argument (although I disagree with the claim that some are intimidated by Bell; I don’t sense that at all). The response to Bell is not “all about” anything. It has multiple layers to it, and it’s important that careful writers and teachers who care about the future of the church differentiate those layers and deal with each properly. But I think Cook gets Lewis wrong, and fails to see what really differentiates Lewis and Bell.

There certainly are — and I think this comes through most clearly in the comment sections on both sides — deep aesthetic and cultural antipathies that form, beneath the disagreements, undercurrents of dislike and distrust between the pro-Bell and anti-Bell camps. The detractors see the “hipster Christian” chic of Rob Bell, the black-rimmed glasses and the trendy outfits and the overuse of secular buzzwords, and it fairly screams “cultural conformity” in their minds. Bell is automatically associated with progressive politics, with the self-absorption of the fashionable young urbanite, with coffee-house snobbery against conservative Christians, and with a desperation that is willing to abandon core theological commitments in order to be liked. All of this happens before the book is opened. And on the other hand, when an evangelical (even a moderate like our own historian Thomas Kidd) posts something mildly critical of Bell, he is accused of being a fundamentalist who hates science and probably would have opposed interracial marriage and supported slavery. The critic (in this case Kidd) has never mentioned science, or politics, or social issues, and yet the commenter already has a full profile of him in mind. This shows the power of these subterranean cultural battles in the current debate.

And there may also be personal antipathies, a resentment based in the feeling that Bell does not really deserve all the attention he receives. Detractors likely feel that Bell receives an awful lot of attention not only because he’s talented — there are many folks out there with extraordinary teaching talents — but because he says fashionable things, things the secular media love. Bell is the kind of Christian that non-Christians want us to be. He’s the kind of Christian that non-Christians would want to have a beer with. So he is lavished with attention; he’s called a “rock star” and “the next Billy Graham” and “the most exciting voice in religion today.” There may well be resentment that other pastors/writers/speakers also toil away, and with great talent, yet receive no such accolades and no New York Times bestseller status because their claims are not as trendy.

These cultural and interpersonal reasons for the antipathy between the Bell supporters and detractors are just the natural consequences of human sinfulness. There is nothing nefarious at work, except for good old-fashioned sin. And it runs both ways. Most of the comments we’ve seen at Patheos have been from Bell supporters, and they’re responded pretty nastily to those who make criticisms of Bell, however mild those criticisms might be.

Now, let me lay my cards on the table. (I am now free to do so.) I found “Love Wins” deeply frustrating. Not because it advocates something close to universalism. Not because of its inclusivism (if not outright pluralism) and eternalism (I explain here). I’ve always been surrounded by people — even Christians — who believe things very, very different from myself. And I actually think the biblical witness on the afterlife is fuzzier than some on the conservative side of this debate will admit. I find the hopeful (yet ultimately agnostic on the matter) attitudes of Karl Barth and C. S. Lewis profoundly attractive. All of which to say: while the fact of Bell’s influence concerns me, I don’t particularly care that Rob Bell is something close to a universalist.

Rather, I found the book frustrating because (1) of the way it treated scripture and (2) the way it treated what has traditionally been considered the orthodox teaching of the western church. I do not blame Bell for being a universalist. Actually it’s almost boringly predictable. But I do blame him for the way he treats God’s word and the way he treats the majority report of the church. This — apart from some subtle but important theological differences (more on that later) — is what separates a Rob Bell from a C. S. Lewis. Even when C. S. Lewis wrote something that might depart from traditional orthodoxy on some matter, Lewis did not caricature or mock what the church has taught as “toxic,” “psychologically crushing” or irrational and backwards.

I believe that this is responsible in large measure for the very strong negative reaction that has flowed toward Love Wins from certain quarters of American Christendom. Again, there is no one thing the Bell Battle is all about. But I do believe this was one of the factors that provoked such acrimony. Bell’s book, to many, feels like an attack. An attack upon orthodoxy, an attack upon a traditional interpretation of scripture, an attack on what they have been taught throughout their lives. Lewis’ books never felt like an attack on orthodox Christian belief; they felt like an eloquent defense and a careful, biblical, theological and literary rendering of that belief. Yes, it’s a matter of philosophical pre-commitments. But it’s also, simply, that Bell caricatures and condemns traditional Christian teaching while Lewis represents it thoughtfully and charitably, even when he wants to suggest the possibility of a different view.

So I am going to publish three more posts (this being the first) on Bell’s book in the days to come. SECOND, what does Bell — in my view — get right? It’s important to begin here, to represent one another honestly and charitably. (I will include here a comment on the most important theological matter Bell gets wrong, which is his understanding of the person and work of Christ.) THIRD, how does he interpret the scriptures? And FOURTH, how does he treat what the majority of the church throughout its history has taught?