Showing posts with label Universalism. Show all posts

Image by feyip via FlickrAhh...the conversation about Rob Bell and Universalism.  The conversation continued yesterday in Sunday School with "Hey, did you hear about Rob Bell?"  It was a question asked in a soft tone with a head shake. 

Implied in that question and head shake was a whole lot.  What was really asked was, "Did you hear about Rob Bell, the one whose videos we used and loved, and how he's a heretical teacher and we really need to pray for his salvation and wash our hands of all that we heard from him?  It's just too bad.  He seemed like such a nice guy."

You know, I really need to read the book, the Love Wins book at the heart of the controversy.  I've been asked too many questions to keep prefacing any discussion with "I didn't actually read the book yet.  I've only read reaction to it." 

Sunday School was on a different topic and it was hard to address this bombshell with any depth.  One of the problems is that asking the question about whether hell will be full or empty is a deeply theological one.  It's not as simple as "good people" go to heaven and "bad people" go to hell.  And it's a conversation that talks about extremes in order to make points.  If love wins, is Hitler in heaven?  If one must be a Christian to go to heaven, is Gandhi in hell?  I don't think that part of the discussion is particularly helpful.

Anyway, as I was once again thrust into the discussion, I found a blog post I had started on over a month ago and thought I'd finish it up here.  It's more information for the debate discussion. 

Chris LaTondresse over at Sojourners has a blog post about Rob Bell and universalism that gets at a lot of stuff.  Chris puts out a few principles to guide the debate that I think are helpful.  Here's a snippet of each.  Please check out the original post for more.

1. Christians should hope that all people can be (and will be) saved.
Those who believe God modeled the ultimate example of true love in the person of Jesus — and who, therefore, aspire to love their fellow humans as they love themselves — should also believe that, in the end, God’s love will win the day. So is it really that radical to suggest that this belief should accompany the earnest hope that it is actually within the scope of God’s sovereign power and unrelenting grace to reconcile all things to himself?

He includes two great quotes from Richard John Newhaus from 2001:

The hope that all will be saved is precisely that, a hope. It is not a doctrine, never mind a dogma. But some respond that we cannot even hold the hope, since it clearly contradicts the revealed truth that many, if not most, will be eternally damned. A different and much more troubling objection is that it makes no sense to be a Christian if, in fact, one can be saved without being a Christian. In this view, the damnation of others, maybe of most others, is essentially related to the reason for being a Christian. The joy of our salvation is contingent upon the misery of their damnation. If it is possible that all will be saved, it is asked, why not eat, drink, and be merry?

Such a perverse view is also more than a little like that of the laborers in the vineyard who complained that those who came at the last hour received the same reward as those who had worked all day. The master replies, “Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity? So the last will be first, and the first last” (Matthew 20). Some of the critics of the hope for universal salvation do indeed seem to begrudge the generosity of God entailed in that outcome. Theirs is a position of resentment dressed up as a claim of justice. “What was the point of my working so hard and so long if God is going to let in the riffraff on equal terms? It’s unfair!” The eschatological upsetting of such attitudes (the last will be first and first last) is a constant in the teaching of Jesus.

Then on to the other two points:

2. Jesus draws dividing lines, but his lines are different than our own.
Anyone reading the gospels will see that Jesus not only responds to the “lines” drawn by the religious leaders of his day; he draws lines of his own. But Jesus’ lines are almost always different than the lines drawn by the religious leaders, and even more startlingly, his lines are different than the lines Christians draw today.

We pick our favorite biblical passage, where Jesus’ vision for “who’s in” includes people like us, and excludes people who aren’t, meanwhile, we ignore other passages that redraw the boundaries that would force us to change in order to be included in Jesus’ “in-group.”

3. Millennials don’t resonate with the stupid battles Christians fight.
For a generation harboring increasingly negative perceptions about (and is distancing itself from) Christianity, there’s no question that controversies like these have played a big role in making these trends worse. When asked to describe present-day Christianity, the second most reported description of young people (ages 16 to 29) was that it is “too-judgmental”, with 87 percent of young non-churchgoers and 52 percent of churchgoers holding this view

....people in the real world who are struggling to negotiate their relationship with God in light of the brokenness of the world (and too often the brokenness within Christianity) are put-off by these debates. That’s not necessarily a reason not to debate, but we can’t ignore basic virtues like love, charity and empathy in the process — at least not while following the biblical call to be salt-and-light and ministers of reconciliation.

Image via WikipediaOK, I admit.  I've not read Rob Bell's book.   I don't find the topic of universalism all that threatening to me or my faith...not that I'm a universalist.  But...if God were to choose to save everybody or nobody at all, I really leave that up to God.  But I've been fascinated by the discussions about Rob Bell and his book Love Wins.  I've read stuff on the left and right of the issue and I've sort of found a home somewhere in the middle.  And I'm sure that's either weak or upsetting to some folks.  But, alas, that's where I am.  I'll let God be God and trust in his grace and mercy and the sacrifice of his Son, Jesus, whose death and resurrection we remember this week.

But, again, it's the discussion about this issue that's kept me fascinated.  Is Rob Bell a false prophet?  Can God save those outside of the Christian faith?  What is hell like?  Where is it?  Who will be there?  What is the proper Christian response to false teaching...or to diverse belief?  How much diversity can we have within the faith and still keep the faith?  THIS I find interesting. 

Perhaps the big issue is not Rob Bell, but about Christianity as a whole.

Jason Boyett, who writes over at "O Me Of Little Faith" has a nice post addressing the latter issue...diversity within the church, within the faith.

He says

Right now, Christian theology is broader and more diverse than most Christians are comfortable with. In fact, over two thousand years of biblical interpretation, the Christian religion has proved to be ridiculously flexible, able to tolerate significant theological and practical differences without, you know, us having to say “farewell” to people who land on a different interpretation. Consider:

There are Christians who believe they are saved exclusively through grace, period, full stop … and Christians who believe some manner of works are involved (those “works” may be as basic as an acknowledgment of Christ’s lordship or as complex as to what extent we cared for the “least of these”).

Some Christians believe salvation is eternal. Others believe it can be lost or cast aside.

Some Christians believe the elect are predetermined by God, chosen for either salvation and damnation. Others believe God gives mankind real freedom to make his or her own choice.

Some believe salvation occurs at the moment of baptism. Others believe baptism to be an important, public confession of salvation — but only symbolic.

And he goes on, with some pretty stark differences, diversity we can find within the Christian Church.  I know, every time I lead a talk at the Walk to Emmaus spiritual retreat or even preach on Sunday morning, that there are people who are going to disagree.  Maybe they come from a different background.  Maybe they think it's unbiblical that I practice infant baptism.  Maybe they question my interpretation of Scripture.  Maybe they're offended that I talk about my female (gasp) clergy friends.

So, how do we still manage to come to the one table to eat and drink Christ's body and blood together?  How do we work together as the Body of Christ in the world?  How do we act in love, welcoming and not excluding the other?

Girdwood Chapel has been a great model of this for me because we have such great diversity in our midst.  When we stand together in a circle at the end of worship singing "On Eagle's Wings" I see it as a foretaste of heaven, when the walls that divide us come down.

We need to approach these discussions with, probably, more humility than we want to.  Jason Boyett closes his post wonderfully...with such humility...and a lot of perspective.

Though we base our beliefs on the same source (the Bible and the last couple thousand years of tradition), we Christians are a fantastically diverse people. Some of our core beliefs are not just very different from another, but frequently at odds with one another.

Most of us think we’re right. But we can’t all be right about everything.

Which is to say: almost all of us are wrong about something. Regardless of what we believe, there are Christians somewhere in the world who think you are dead wrong. Dangerously wrong. Maybe even a heretic. Why? Because you are on the wrong side of what they consider a core belief.

For all our talk about narrow roads, Christianity has become a broad, gushing stream. Acknowledging that, with humility, ought to give us pause before we start all the in-fighting and name-calling. I need to remember that the next time I decide Rob Bell is wrong…or John Piper is wrong…or I am right.

Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/omeoflittlefaith/2011/04/flexibility-heretics-and-love-wins.html#ixzz1JovRLsYd

I couldn't seem to get the video embed code.

Here's the Source and more critiques of Bell

Thanks to Naked Pastor, whose cartoons always make me think.

Well, this morning I sat down to go over my RSS feeds, using Feedly (which taps into Google Reader).  And, LO AND BEHOLD I FIND ROB BELL.  Not just a little Rob Bell, but A LOT of Rob Bell.  Rob Bell, for those who don't know, is the Pastor at Mars Hill Church in Michigan and behind the very popular Nooma videos (which we've used at Girdwood Chapel) and the Velvet Elvis Book (which I really enjoyed).

Well, he has a new book out called Love Wins and it's causing quite a stir as it appears that Rob either enters in to UNIVERSALISM or at least touches on it, perhaps saying that God's love is so big that hell is an empty place.  Let's be clear.  I've not read the book.  I'll probably read it after it's out next month.  So, all I'm doing now is reading reviews--by people who have not even read the book but all have their opinions.

But, I've been known to get my toes up to the line of universalism, but never able to cross over.  I want hell to be a small place because the grace of Christ is so big but I put my trust in God to make the final designation, knowing it will be good and just.  The words of one of my professors, Geoffrey Wainwright, still rings in my ears:

It may or may not be Christian to be universalist.  It is definitely NOT Christian to not want to be one.

There's a lot going on here.  Is universalism heretical?  What does our understanding of hell tell us about God?  Are Jews who were killed by Hitler, now with Hitler in hell?  Does God's holiness demand that hell is a big place and heaven for a select few?  Are those who believe in universalism damned to eternal fire? 

Hey, these are big questions.

So, it is with great anticipation that I saw all of these links today.

First, the cartoon above from Naked Pastor.

Second, an account of how the media has spread this from Challies.

Third, a post from Hacking Christianity which reflects on an anti-condemnation book getting condemned.

Fourth, Rachel Held Evans says Bell is asking some good questions that people are already asking:

Will only a few select people make it into heaven?

How does one become one of these few?

Are people like Ghandi and Anne Frank really in hell, along with millions and millions of other people?

Do we need a loving Jesus to rescue us from a hateful God?   Is this what the gospel is all about?

Is the gospel good news or bad news?

What is the essence of God's character?

Fifth, over at Connexions in Wales, one comment on a post says:

The early church seemed eager to excommunicate people over such matters as having the wrong tonsure. You’d think we might have learned something since then. Apparently not. Pharisaic Orthodoxy is so much easier to try than Christian love and grace, it appears.

Sixth, a more critical (and theological one) from Trevin Wax.  Read the comments to see how it shakes up.

And, lastly, from Justin Taylor and The Gospel Coalition, another critical look at Rob Bell's potential universalism.

Look, all of this is before the book has been released.

But I think we have here the classic debate between holiness and hospitality.  They are both good.  And I sometimes find it hard to camp out in the middle.

We'll find out more after the book release on March 29th.