Hell's Bell -- Sightings

For the past week or so we've been talking a lot about hell and Rob Bell's still unrevealed views on the subject.  There are many assumptions and presumptions, but until the book arrives in our hands, we'll not know for sure!  What we can comment on is the conversation that has been engendered by the publicity releases for the book.  In yesterday's Sightings post, which I'm posting today, so I could post Bruce Epperly's piece yesterday, Martin Marty takes a look at the gap that is emerging within evangelicalism between those who feel it incumbent upon them to preach hell while a growing number of others simply don't find it compelling any longer.  I'll invite your reading and further comments.

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Sightings 3/7/2011

Hell’s Bell

-- Martin E. Marty

Americans may have thought that cracks in the façade and framework of evangelicalism would show up most visibly when serious evangelicals argued whether Sarah Palin or Mike Huckabee would be the better presidential candidate. But now we have a chance to see that other divisive issues among evangelicals beg for attention. When one of these, a theological argument, no less, makes its way to the New York Times and other papers plus many blogs, it’s time to pay attention. Bystanders who think they have nothing at stake in the non-political arguments, and who have never heard of Pastor Rob Bell of Grand Rapids, Michigan, or his critic, neo-Calvinist John Piper, may stand by in fascination, but they are likely to be reached this time. The topic? Hell, and a punishing God’s use thereof.

Bell, featured in the Times story, is a star of the emergent middle among evangelicals. He is seen by his enemies as baiting those to his right by writing too kindly about God and the many mortals destined for hell, and they insist that softness has to stop. Pastor Bell is soon to publish Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. His publisher and others have tantalized the public with clips from the book, but the critics did not need to have read it and do not need to know more than that Bell is not so sure that a God of love will condemn those billions who never heard of Jesus Christ, or those millions who have heard but did not recognize him as their Savior, in order for them to fire up their own condemnations of Bell.

The Michigan pastor-author is not alone; Bell’s hell is paralleled in treatments of a whole wing of evangelicals. Some of this group "out” themselves, while others are in a kind of purgatory of inference that they are not quite orthodox on the subject. What this second wing keeps pondering and sometimes proclaiming is that there are ways to witness to the fact that God is holy and just, other than saying that he takes delight in punishing those ignorant of the stakes or those who are players of other salvation games. It is one thing to agree with sophisticated evangelical theologians and their artful articulators who semi-dodge the issue by saying that no one is ever sent to hell and suggesting that she or he chooses to go there.

Publics, including those serious about the Bible, doctrine, and church tradition, have not found ways to accept the teaching which they cannot square with witness to the God of love, so Bell and company would witness positively to them. Formal theologians in the evangelical camp are bemused by the consistent polls in which only a small percent of the clergy are ready to affirm and preach doctrines and threats of hell and the large percent of their followers who are not. They know of the gap, and feel they must close it. Otherwise orthodoxy will disappear and relativism or universalism will win. The evangelical parents whose teenage “good kid” son who has not made a formal profession of faith in Christ and thus will be condemned to hell if he dies, need better reasoning than the dogmatic professors of hell give them.

Otherwise this latest fissure in evangelicalism will grow, and arguments will distract preachers of hell from their tasks and opportunities to win people from its brink, thus swelling its population in the interest of saying the right thing about this form of a holy and just God’s mode of everlasting punishment. Why are they writing editorials and condemnations and attending conferences on hell when they could be out on the street corners, passing tracts and witnessing to hell—and divine love? Bell asks for answers.

References

Erik Eckholm, "Pastor Stirs Wrath With His Views on Old Question," New York Times, March 4, 2011.

Martin E. Marty's biography, current projects, publications, and contact information can be found at http://www.illuminos.com/.

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This month’s Religion and Culture Web Forum is written by D. Max Moerman and entitled “The Death of the Dharma: Buddhist Sutra Burials in Early Medieval Japan.” In eleventh-century Japan, Buddhists fearing the arrival of the "Final Dharma"--an age of religious decline--began to bury sutras in sometimes-elaborate reliquaries. Why entomb a text, making it impossible for anyone to see or read it? And what do such practices teach us about the meaning and purpose of texts in Buddhism and other religions? Max Moerman of Barnard College takes up these questions with responses from Jeff Wilson (Renison University College), James W. Watts (Syracuse University) and Vincent Wimbush (Claremont Graduate University). Visit the RCWF at: http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/webforum/

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Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Why so much concern about Hell?

I've yet to go to Hell and back -- Hell, Michigan that is!   

With that bit of humor I thought I'd weigh into the big debate surrounding hell and universal salvation that has been stirred up by Rob Bell's yet to be released book entitled Love Wins (Harper One, 2011).  I've yet to read the book, so all I can go on is the video, which I've already posted, and the Harper publicity efforts that promise a provocative read (one thing people need to understand about the publishing industry is that if they hope to sell books in this day and age, then publishers have to get provocative). 

With that said, I'd like to ask a question:  Why are people making such a big deal about Hell (not the village in Michigan this time)?  Why do some people think that without a doctrine of Hell the Christian faith crumbles?   

    

If you read the New Testament closely you'll notice that they give at least some attention to an afterlife.  Resurrection is an important doctrine in early Christianity.  The promise of union with God in the heavenly realm figures prominently in the gospel proclamation.  If heaven is part of the equation, so is judgment. 

From the earliest days of Christianity there have been differences of view regarding God's ultimate purpose for humanity.  Some voices seem to hold out the promise of a universal reconciliation (e.g. Rom. 5:18), while others believe that at the very least those who do not believe in Christ will cease to exist (annihilation) if not eternal torment in hell.  I won't go into details here about the nature of all these positions, lets just all agree that there are texts in Scripture that promise judgment and punishment (whatever that may entail).  I will only add that the picture that is in the minds of many as to what this eternal punishment owes more to Dante's Inferno than to Scripture. 

I understand that there are texts that seem to promise eternal punishment and that theologians have taught it down through the ages.   I've been part of the conservative evangelical community.  But, having that said this, I want to ask the question:  why all the fuss about Hell? 

The answer most will give has to do with God's justice or God's honor.  Some might even ask why Jesus even needed to come to earth if there is no hell to rescue people from.  When I was teaching this to college students years ago, one of the responses was simply -- if there's no hell then why bother being a Christian?  I mean if there is no threat of punishment why bother with religion?

I'll confess here and now that I don't believe in hell and I've not believed in hell for close to 30 years.  I abandoned this belief a long time ago (back when I was studying at an evangelical seminary) for several reasons, one of which was that I didn't find the idea of an immortal soul present in Scripture.  Therefore, if one experiences judgment, and then fire, then shouldn't you cease to exist?  But ultimately there was another reason why I could no longer abide the idea that God consigned human beings to eternal punishment in hell.  I could not square this belief with the confession that God is Love.   

So, although I've not read the book, I'm in agreement with the title of Rob Bell's book -- Love Wins.   Think about it for a moment.  Jesus tells us to love not just our neighbors but our enemies (Matt. 5:38-48).  If God expects us to love our enemies and do good to them and for them, then should we expect less of God?  If we believe that a parent's love should be unconditional (yes there's room for discipline, but discipline is designed to restore not exclude) then should we expect less of God?  I simply cannot fathom the idea God's sense of honor or justice is somehow enhanced by the eternal punishment of someone for simply because they either didn't hear the gospel or didn't find it compelling (because of our lives and presentations of it).  If Jesus rejects the "proportionate justice" of an "eye for an eye" then what manner of evil does it take on our part to deserve eternal punishment in a place called Hell?  How does this enhance God's majesty or glory or honor?   If this is heresy, then so be it? 

In closing, let me put it this way:  The argument for universal salvation ultimately rests not on a specific set of biblical texts, but rather it rests upon one’s definition of God’s nature.  If it is assumed that God is love, then is it possible that God would, in the end, discard anyone?  To put it another way, if God is portrayed as a loving parent, can we truly believe that God would reject one’s own child – no matter what they had done?

Love Wins!

I've not seen the book yet, so I really can't say much about what's inside Rob Bell's new book entitled Love Wins:  A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever lived (Harper One, 2011).   But, apparently, according to all the buzz, especially on Twitter (where he was trending yesterday), the Grand Rapids-area pastor has become a heretic.   Yes, because he believes that God's love wins, then he must be a universalist who doesn't believe in hell.   As I've said, I've not read the book, but likely the critics haven't either.  All we do know is that there is a video and the video, according to the critics, carries a dangerous message.

Now, being that I'm post-evangelical and don't believe in hell either, so it should come as no surprise that I enjoyed the video and found its message compelling.  In fact, I find it to be a very powerful statement about the good news we have come to know in and through the person of Jesus.  He makes the statement that "the good news is that love wins."  Why should that be controversial? 

So, for now, until I have a chance to read the book, I'll just post the video, let you watch it, and then let you comment. 

LOVE WINS. from Rob Bell on Vimeo.

The Law of Love -- 4th Sermon on the Sermon on the Mount

Matthew 5:38-48

This morning we return to our journey through Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. One of the basic premises of this sermon is that if we want to be disciples of Jesus, then our righteousness, our sense of justice, and our character must exceed that of the Scribes and the Pharisees (Matthew 5:17). In our last installment we heard Jesus push on our understanding of the Law, by calling on the people of God to internalize God’s teachings so that not only will we live right, but our hearts will be transformed. This morning we continue what we began in the last sermon of this series by listening to Jesus’ call for us to embrace the “law of love.”

As we saw in the last leg of the journey, Jesus says to the people: “You’ve heard it said . . . But I say to you . . .” In this morning’s text Jesus does this two more times. First he speaks to retaliation and then he speaks to loving our enemies. If you look closely, you see that these are two sides of the same coin.

1. Beyond the Law of Retaliation

Let’s begin with the law of retaliation, which in Latin goes by the name Lex Talionis. It’s a principle that goes back at least as far as Hammurabi, the great lawgiver of the ancient world. When you hear the words “eye for an eye” you might think this is a bit barbaric, but the Law of Retaliation was designed to make our responses proportionate to the offense.

As I was thinking about the relationship between retaliation and loving one’s enemy, I began to think about one of the movies that is nominated for this year’s Best Picture Oscar, which is to be given tonight. If you haven’t seen the new version of True Grit, maybe you’ve seen the earlier John Wayne version.

In the new version, the movie begins with a verse of scripture that summarizes quite well the plot of the movie:

The wicked flee when no man pursueth (Prov. 28:1a).

This is a movie about the wicked fleeing and the righteous pursuing. In the movie the wicked are represented by Tom Chaney, a ranch hand who murders his employer. The righteous one, on the other hand, is fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross, who embodies the second half of this verse from Proverbs, for she is “as bold as a lion” in her righteousness and in her pursuit of justice for her father. Although she hires Marshal Rooster Cogburn, who is known for his “true grit, but not his personal righteousness, to help her pursue her enemy, Marshal Cogburn and a Texas Ranger named LeBeouf, stay in hot pursuit of the wicked because they are driven by the righteous anger of a teenage girl.

Although it’s hard not to sympathize with Mattie’s quest, Jesus calls us to move beyond mere proportionate justice. If someone slaps your cheek, give them the other. If they sue you and take your coat, give the person your cloak as well. And if someone forces you to carry their burden for one mile, volunteer to go another mile. Finally, if someone begs or borrows from you, don’t turn them down, but instead give what is asked, without expecting repayment.

To live in such a way is difficult, perhaps even impossible. If we give away our cloak as well as our coat – in that age at least – we will end up naked. None of this makes much sense, and yet Jesus says that if we live like this then we will be perfect even as God is perfect. Although this sounds like a Gandhi-esque directive to engage in nonviolent resistance, there’s nothing really practical about this word from Jesus. He’s not teaching the people how to make friends with the Romans so they’ll give them freedom. Instead, this call to abandon the Law of Retaliation is an introduction to the “Law of Love.”

2. The Law of Love

As we’ve been taught, there are two great commands: Love God with all your being, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. In these two commandments all the law and the prophets are summed up. This is a good principle to live by, but Jesus expands the definition. Remember in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, which appears in Luke’s Gospel, but not in Matthew’s, Jesus uses the parable to answer the question asked by the righteous man: But who is my neighbor? In this passage of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus answers that same question. In defining the Law of Love, Jesus makes it clear that our distinctions between neighbor and enemy don’t count with God. Having essentially defined the Law of Retaliation out of existence, Jesus now tells us that while we’ve heard it said to that we should love our neighbors and hate our enemies, he says to us: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. This is what Jesus expects of his disciples.

Again, we do this not because when all is said and done we’ll get what we want from our enemies – which is the rationale for nonviolent resistance – but because in doing this we imitate God. As Jesus points out, God pours out blessings on the righteous and the unrighteous without distinction. In loving our enemies and praying for those who persecute us, we imitate God, and by doing this, the disciple distinguishes himself or herself from the world. That is, we have been called by Jesus to be perfect, even as the heavenly Father is perfect.

To get a sense of what this means, we might look to Leviticus 19, where God says to the people through Moses, the first lawgiver: “You shall be Holy, for I the Lord your God am Holy” (Lev. 19:1-2). This holiness that the Lawgiver describes is defined in Leviticus 19 by the way we live together as neighbors. The one who is holy doesn’t steal, doesn’t deal falsely with others, doesn’t put up obstacles in the way of the blind, and judges one’s neighbors justly and impartially. Indeed, Leviticus commands that we not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the people, but instead, we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

Because this word is so hard to receive, we often try to find loopholes so that we can live out the “spirit” of the command even if we don’t follow the letter of the command. But maybe. In doing this we don’t Jesus’ call to discipleship very seriously. Perhaps it’s better simply to let these words hit us with all their force and then move forward in the grace and the love of the God who is holy and just and perfect. Rather than evade the message, we move toward fulfilling the call to live fully into God’s realm. And again, it would be helpful to remember that Jesus doesn’t specifically address this sermon to individuals but to a community. There is a word from Ecclesiastes that might be helpful:

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help. . . . And though one might prevail against another, two will withstand one. A threefold cord is not quickly broken. (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12)

Even as Simon of Cyrene carried Jesus’ cross for him, we can carry each other’s crosses as we seek to follow Jesus’ command to love not just our neighbors and friends, but our enemies as well.

3. Defining Love

Having heard this call to love our enemies and not just our friends and neighbors, ti might be helpful to define what we mean by love. Theologian Tom Oord provides a helpful set of definitions that distinguish between the three forms of love present in Greek thought: Agape, eros, and philia. In his set of definitions, he speaks of agape as “in spite of love,” Eros as “because of love,” and philia is “alongside of love.” Each of these forms of love is present in Jesus’ command to love our enemy as well as our neighbor, but I think that his definition of agape is the most helpful in understanding this command. He defines agape as “acting intentionally, in response to God and others, to promote overall well-being in response to that which produces ill-being." [Thomas Oord, The Nature of Love, (Chalice Press, 2010), p. 56].

According to Oord, whatever form love takes, it must be intentional and aimed at “promoting overall well-being.” That is, when we love, we are offering blessings to others, with the goal being the promotion of shalom, which is peace or abundant life. Another way of saying this is that the purpose of love is promoting the common good of all creation.

When it comes to agape, Oord suggests that love takes us another step further in promoting well-being. With agape, we not only seek the well-being of the other, but we intentionally seek the well-being of the one who intends to do us evil. Instead of seeking retaliation or revenge, even if it seems to be the right thing to do, love calls us to embrace, redeem, and restore to right relationship the one who means us harm. That is the message of the cross, after all. Jesus seeks to reconcile all who would do him harm by overwhelming evil with good. If we follow in Jesus’ footsteps then we are imitating God, who is perfect and holy.

Ultimately, however, this is about the Law of Love. I heard a quote from Rob Bell, a pastor from Grand Rapids, who declares that the “Good News is that Love Wins.” Whatever else we might say about our calling to be disciples, the ultimate calling is to love not just our neighbors but even our enemies. Because, in the end, the “good news is that love wins.”

 

 

Preached by:

Dr. Robert D. Cornwall

Pastor, Central Woodward Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Troy, Michigan

8th Sunday after Pentecost

February 27, 2011