Shaking the Apple Cart

When Chad Holtz lost his old belief in hell, he also lost his job. The pastor of a rural United Methodist church in North Carolina wrote a note on his Facebook page supporting a new book by Rob Bell, a prominent young evangelical pastor and critic of the traditional view of hell as a place of eternal torment for billions of damned souls. Two days later, Holtz was told complaints from church members prompted his dismissal from Marrow's Chapel in Henderson.

from the Yahoo News article:
Who's in Hell? Pastor's Book Sparks Eternal Debate

Update, March 25th: I ran across this very brief video where Rob Bell answers the question, What if you're wrong about hell?

A few days ago, I wrote the blog post Who Gets to Define Christianity, which was largely inspired by the debate in the Christian community over Rob Bell's book Love Wins (and I suppose it's ironic that all of the evangelical negative "buzz" about Love Wins will probably make Bell's book a bestseller). Now, it seems, that the controversy over what is "hell" and is it eternal, has made its way to the mainstream news outlets. I wasn't going to spend any more time on Bell's book and how the various aspects and denominations of the Christian world are responding to it, except that I find they're still responding in a very poor manner.

I spend a lot of time in the classes I teach, talking about our responsibility, as believers, to sanctify the Name of God. I describe this as living a lifestyle and generally behaving in a way that honors the Jewish Messiah we serve and that brings glory to the Name of God. As Christians, we have a choice we must make every day; are we going to sanctify His Name or desecrate it?

I've already briefly defined how we sanctify His Name, but the details have to do with our behavior. Whenever we encounter an ethical or moral decision point, what do we do? When we see someone who is hungry, do we feed him? When we know someone is in the hospital, do we visit her? When people see how we live, listen to how we talk, observe how we behave when we're under stress, do they see us actually operating out of the faith we are supposed to cherish? The opposite, desecrating the Name, means behaving in a manner that is inconsistent or opposed to our stated faith and values. It means flipping someone off when they cut us off in traffic. It means cussing someone out when they beat us to the last spot in a crowded parking lot. It means holding a grudge against our next door neighbor who borrowed our favorite power tool six months ago and still hasn't given it back. It might even mean wishing someone ill when they write a book that disagrees with our current understanding of hell.

Living a life that desecrates the Name of God means acting as if we have no faith in Christ at all.

So, how is the evangelical church behaving? I'm not convinced they're acting out of their faith or at least, they're not doing a very good job of expressing their faith (although I have no doubt they think they are). Was firing Chad Holtz out of hand the right thing to do when he started publicly questioning the assumptions the church makes about hell?

For all I know, it was the right decision. I'm only getting this through the news media and I have no illusions about the objectivity, or lack thereof, regarding information they publish. I don't have the inside story. Still, on the surface, it seems rather harsh. I have also heard it said that the church is the only army that shoots its own wounded, and it's quite possible this is a true assessment. More's the pity.

Apparently, a well-known (though I've never heard of the guy) evangelical pastor named John Piper used his twitter account to deliver a very succinct message that summarizes the evangelical opinion of Rob Bell and his book:

"Farewell, Rob Bell."

I wonder if that's the same thing as, "Go to hell, Rob Bell", but I digress.

Not all of the responses in the above-referenced news article were severe or unkind. Some people seemed to generate a more measured reaction and even some Christian concern:

"I just felt like on every page he's trying to say 'It's OK,'" said Southern Baptist Seminary President Albert Mohler at a forum last week on Bell's book held at the Louisville institution. "And there's a sense in which we desperately want to say that. But the question becomes, on what basis can we say that?"

Page Brooks, a professor at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, thinks Bell errs in a conception of a loving God that leaves out the divine attributes of justice and holiness. "It's love, but it's a just love," Brooks said. "God is love, but you have to understand you're a sinner and the only way to get around that is through Christ's sacrifice on the cross."

I think Bell has done the Christian community a tremendous favor. As people of faith, we need to evaluate, re-evaluate, and constantly challenge our theological beliefs and what we understand. That's how we grow. I created this blog last summer to chronicle my personal exploration into this realm and anyone who's been following me since the beginning knows that, at times, it's been very painful and distressing. Of course, it hasn't affected me to the point of losing my livelihood, as it did Reverend Holtz, but asking such questions takes a person's faith and strips it down, exposing the bone and nerves of what you know...and what you suddenly realize you don't know.

However, my experience with many other people of faith is that they never question their assumptions. Once they arrive at a basic theological understanding of God, faith, the Bible, and all of the details held dear by their church and their Pastor (hell, the rapture, Jews, and so on), they stop looking, learning, and developing in any significant manner.Oh sure, they go to Bible studies, but those are the sorts of experiences that have been canned and scripted with the conclusion already in mind, and it's a conclusion that completely agrees with the established doctrine of their church. What's there to learn?

Sometimes it helps if you shake up the apple cart, just to see what falls out.

Is Rob Bell right or wrong about hell? I can't say for certain. I do believe that, beyond a certain point, you don't get to come back to God. I believe there's a line you cross and once you've crossed it, you don't get to reverse your steps. How that all works though, in intimate detail, I don't know for sure. The Bible doesn't provide those details and, as no doubt you understand by now if you've been reading this blog, the Bible isn't the simple, straightforward document we all wish it was.

The point for me, at least in the short run, isn't whether or not Bell is correct or incorrect (or whether he's going to hell or not...people haven't publicly said it in those terms, but I'm sure that's what some of them are thinking), but what the results are of his "apple cart shaking".

Some of the apples have popped out of the cart and frankly, they don't look so polished.

Dear evangelical Christianity. You have a choice to make today. You have a choice to make every day. It's the same choice I make every day, and it's the same choice all people of faith make, whether they're aware of it or not. Here's the choice. Are you going to sanctify God by your actions or desecrate Him? Before opening your mouth and uttering your answer, would you think about it...please?

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

Who Gets to Define Christianity?

God is retelling each of our stories in Jesus. All of the bad parts and the ugly parts and the parts we want to pretend never happened are redeemed. They seemed pointless and they were painful at the time, but God retells our story and they become the moments when God's grace is most on display. We find ourselves asking, am I really forgiven of that? The fact that we are loved and accepted and forgiven in spite of everything we have done is simply too good to be true. Our choice becomes this: We can trust his retelling of the story, or we can trust our telling of our story. It is a choice we make every day about the reality we are going to live in.

And this reality extends beyond this life.

Heaven is full of forgiven people.

Hell is full of forgiven people.

Heaven is full of people God loves whom Jesus died for.

Hell is full of forgiven people God loves, whom Jesus died for.

Rob Bell
Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith

Pastor Bell's description of the inhabitants of heaven and hell are probably a little different than what you've heard of before...unless you've read or heard about his latest book, Love Wins. Love Wins has generated a huge amount of controversy in Christian circles, including the Christian blogosphere, since Bell's presentation of hell is radically different than what we've been taught from the pulpit. But how radical is it?

I can't answer the question directly, since I've not read the book yet, but given Bell's familiarity with some aspects of Judaism and how Jewish thought can be applied to the Christian worship of the Jewish Messiah, maybe I can make a guess or two.

What do Jews believe about sin and hell?

First off, for those readers who may not know, in Judaism, there is a belief in the "afterlife", which is traditionally referred to as "life in the world to come". This isn't "heaven" so much as it is the "Messianic Age", when the Messiah comes and "fixes" the world so that there is universal peace, Israel, the nation and the people, are secure, and everyone worships the God of Jacob.

According to Orthodox Rabbi Shraga Simmons, here is what Jews believe about "hell":

When a person dies and goes to heaven, the judgment is not arbitrary and externally imposed. Rather, the soul is shown two videotapes. The first video is called "This is Your Life!" Every decision and every thought, all the good deeds, and the embarrassing things a person did in private is all replayed without any embellishments. It's fully bared for all to see. That's why the next world is called Olam HaEmet - "the World of Truth," because there we clearly recognize our personal strengths and shortcomings, and the true purpose of life. In short, Hell is not the Devil with a pitchfork stoking the fires.

The second video depicts how a person's life "could have been..." if the right choices had been made, if the opportunities were seized, if the potential was actualized. This video - the pain of squandered potential - is much more difficult to bear. But at the same time it purifies the soul as well. The pain creates regret which removes the barriers and enables the soul to completely connect to God.

Not all souls merit Gehenom. It is for people who have done good but need to be purified. A handful of people are too evil for Gehenom, and they are punished eternally. Pharaoh is one example.

I suppose the reference to "videotapes" is figurative, but look at what Rabbi Simmons is saying. His description of the Jewish view of "hell" or rather Gehenom, isn't that different from Bell's. For most people deserving "hell", what they get instead, is exposure to situations that cause them pain (such as looking at their video of how they screwed up their lives) with the goal not being punishment, but rather, purification. Only very, very few truly evil human beings are consigned to eternal punishment. Pharaoh is given as an example by Simmons, but it's a safe bet that Hitler is in the same fire pit.

What Rabbi Simmons describes, shows us that Bell didn't simply make up his understanding or belief regarding hell, but that he's relying heavily on Orthodox Jewish thought to form his opinion. The quote from his book Velvet Elvis, published in 2005, shows us that Bell's beliefs about hell aren't brand new and that he was thinking in this direction at least five or six years ago (and probably longer).

I think the worst you can say about Bell's opinions regarding hell (and again, I haven't read the book) is that they more line up with Orthodox Judaism than Orthodox Christianity. Going public with this belief would be a rather bold step for most Pastors, but Bell seems to have a track record of marching to a different drummer.

Collective Christianity and particularly the Evangelical world, has generated a major power surge of outrage in response to Bell's book. About a week ago, I read an amazingly lengthy (21 pages) review written by Pastor Kevin DeYoung of the University Reformed Church in East Lansing Michigan. I won't attempt to recount the review here (unlike DeYoung, I neither have the time nor the inclination to write 21 pages in blog form), and you can certainly read what he has to say at your leisure, but I did want to point out a few things DeYoung wrote:

At the very heart of this controversy, and one of the reasons the blogosphere exploded over this book, is that we really do have two different Gods. The stakes are that high. If Bell is right, then historic orthodoxy is toxic and terrible. But if the traditional view of heaven and hell are right, Bell is blaspheming. I do not use the word lightly, just like Bell probably chose “toxic” quite deliberately. Both sides cannot be right. As much as some voices in evangelicalism will suggest that we should all get along and learn from each other and listen for the Spirit speaking in our midst, the fact is we have two irreconcilable views of God.

No doubt, Rob Bell writes as a pastor who wants to care for people struggling with the doctrine of hell. I too write as a pastor. And as a pastor I know that Love Wins means God’s people lose. In the world of Love Wins, my congregation should not sing “In Christ Alone” because they cannot not believe, “There on the cross where Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.” They would not belt out “Bearing shame and scoffing rude, in my place condemned he stood.” No place for “Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted” with its confession, “the deepest stroke that pierced him was the stroke that Justice gave.” The jubilation of “No condemnation now I dread; Jesus, and all in him, is mine!” is muted in Love Wins. The bad news of our wrath-deserving wretchedness is so absent that the good news of God’s wrath-bearing Substitute cannot sing in our hearts. When God is shrunk down to fit our cultural constraints, the cross is diminished. And whenever the cross is diminished we pain the hearts of God’s people and rob them of their joy.

I tried to pick out some of the sections in DeYoung's review that, for me, encapsulated why he had enough of an issue with Bell's book, that he found it necessary, as a busy Senior Pastor (at this point, I have to admit, that I prefer my "senior" Pastors to have at least a few gray hairs on their head, and both Bell and DeYoung seem a little young for an older, "gray hair" like me) of a rather large church, to write a detailed analysis of Love Wins. What is most dismaying about what DeYoung writes isn't that he disagrees with Bell, which is just fine and dandy, but that he disagrees with Bell because Bell does not present the view of hell that is espoused by Evangelical Christianity. Further, DeYoung offers Evangelical Christianity (of all of the "Christianities" available in the early 21st century) as the normative Christian expression on the planet (in other words, none of the other Christian denominations are "true" Christians). From DeYoung's perspective, only Evangelical Christianity has the corner market on defining and presenting God, Jesus, Heaven, and Hell.

Yeah, that last sentence seems kind of heavy handed, even to me, but that's certainly the flavor I came away with after reading DeYoung's review.

Yesterday, I wrote a blog post called Seeing Jesus Through Different Windows in which I tried to summarize my investigation up to this point, on what I've learned about Jesus the Jewish Messiah and how to understand his mission, message, and identity. As you can see from that blog post and previous book reviews I've written, there is more than one way to understand Jesus and more than one way to interpret his message. Pastor DeYoung and Evangelical Christianity may be a voice in the world of "Christiandom" but they are not, as DeYoung seems to believe, the only voice.

When I reviewed Bowman's and Komoszewski's book Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ, Robert Bowman wrote a comment on the blog post of my review stating that "We do assume that the New Testament is the proper source of Christian doctrine." and "Your review amounts to saying that your real problem with our book is that you lack confidence in the reliability of the NT writings."

I have to disagree with Bowman in that modern Christian doctrine is or should be the only lens by which we can view the Jewish Messiah and in fact, I think that artificially imposing a modern Evangelical understanding on the Jewish Messiah as he lived among men in the 1st Century C.E. in ancient Israel, automatically introduces many barriers to our getting at what the Messiah was teaching. Further, isolating Jesus the Jewish Messiah from the Old Testament (Tanakh) and every act of God that came before Matthew 1:1, makes it almost impossible to truly grasp what the author of the Christian faith was and is really trying to tell us. While Bowman told me that the "book does not presuppose the inerrancy of Scripture", in fact, if the book doesn't depend upon the inerrancy of the NT scriptures, how can it say that the NT writings unequivocally support the book's conclusions?

I know it seems like I'm picking on Evangelicals, but in some sense, both Bowman's and DeYoung's comments amount to a throwing down of the gauntlet. It's one thing for an Evangelical Pastor to preach what he believes and base his opinion on Christian doctrine, but it's another thing entirely to say that his viewpoint is the only way to see the Bible and Jesus in an absolute manner.

At whatever point I get around to reading Bell's latest book, I may conclude that I don't agree with him either, but that doesn't automatically make me right and Bell wrong. The best I can say is that we have a difference of opinion and to state my rationale for why I disagree with him. The readers can make up their own minds.

OK, I can accept that people like Bowman and DeYoung aren't injecting their perspectives into the world just because they need the exercise, and I am willing to believe they are sincerely concerned about the faithful being lead down a path to heresy and apostasy. If they really believe that Bell's book and my review (and I'm sure I'm small potatoes to guys like these...Bell, on the other hand, has a more far-reaching "voice") are dangerous to Christians, then they have a duty to speak out. I get that.

My big issue is with them acting like their perspective is the only perspective, is that they behave as if God had given only Evangelical Christians the secret password to the cryptic knowledge of the Bible and that we, the uninformed of the world, must believe them, rather than studying, looking at different understandings of our faith, praying, and coming to a more Berean-like conclusion.

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.