A key to this significant paradigm shift has been a reconsideration of the provocative text in the second half of 2 Peter 3:10. As the King James Version has it, “The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” One common way to understand this text is that the earth and sky (heaven) will be completely annihilated, then later replaced with a brand new heaven and earth.

However, another possibility—and the one that some of the more contemporary translations use—is that the earth and everything on it will be disclosed or laid bare. That is to say, the fire will not annihilate the entire earth, but will refine it by burning away everything that is unworthy (Malachi 3:2-3). This newer translation seems to fit the context better, as the author had just made a parallel reference to the destruction of the Flood, which wreaked havoc on creation but didn’t annihilate everything.

We’ve talked about and argued about this with each other and our readers in the past. We’ve all been up in arms over various doctrines that we are passionate about. And while I believe that our doctrine shapes and defines how we live our lives, I have a hard time believing that we’ve got it all together. Or that those of us who have argued for a refiners fire have let that belief shape us enough. We look at the evil around us with sadness but do nothing to participate in God’s redeeming work. Well, I don’t really think that. I’m sure you do something to that end, but when I see stories like this -

I wonder about the work that the church is participating in. I live an hour away from Indianapolis. Sex trafficking has been on my radar as a problem the church in the U.S. needs to be aware of and working on. We’ve done nothing. 11 Catholic churches worked on this effort. A lot of our churches are invested in a lot of good and Godly work around this world and in their communities. I get that. I encourage that. But this isn’t another tax seminar, or specialized conference, or study series, or the latest book that can be ignored because there is something better to do with our time. This is mercy for the hurting, justice for the abused, humility for the proud.

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it

Slavery is also not just something that happened in the past…. or something from third world countries.

Click to go to their website and read details on each report of human trafficking.

Yes, that’s Richmond, IN with a report. As well as Cincinnati, Dayton, and Indianapolis. Think of all the occurrences that haven’t been reported on that website. I recommend checking out NotForSaleCampaign.org as they have some powerful stories of human trafficking in the U.S. (and around the world).

I love this question from Bird’s post I linked above, “So what the smurf did you do after church last Sunday? Go out to a restaurant for lunch, went home for a nap, did some light shopping, or mounted a rescue mission for slaves?”

It was dark in the shed. “I come to the garden alone…” was being sung by pastors all over. I had prayed 30 minutes before that I needed some confirmation from God about the direction I thought He was taking me. I knew there were dark nights ahead. My soul lanquished inside of me. Raw wounds stung my heart and bled all over the place.

My wife and I had been at our current church for 18 months. They had lied to us throughout the process until we moved there. My wife was hurting. My bloody soul was literally in shock. I felt used, abused and betrayed by the church, Christ’s bride. Now, I was going to move my family to Michigan without a job? And I was going to have to tell people that we moved because God told me to do it? To say, I didn’t trust the church would be an understatement (and this was before I knew about angry “christian” bloggers).

So I prayed, “Dear God, I’m going to do what I believe you are telling me to do one way or another but I need a sign. I know it’s weak to ask for a sign but I need one. I need one for the cold, dark nights of doubt that I am sure are coming. I need one because my faith will be tested. If You would, I’d like to ask…I mean, I was hoping…Here’s the thing God, I’m going to go up on that stage and I’m going to pray right at the foot of that cross. I’m going to pray and if I really am hearing You, would you have someone from staff here touch me? I don’t care if it’s a preacher, or a janitor. I just need a ‘I asked the LORD and He answered me’ moment, if you know what I mean God.”

Then I went and prayed.

As I was getting ready to get up and call it a day. I felt a hand on me. I looked up and it was Rob sitting there just offering me comfort. God moved in my soul at that moment. That was January. We moved to Michigan in April. It has been the best decision we ever made. We’ve since left Mars Hill so that our family could worship in the community in which we actually live. We want to give our kids roots and Mars is about 40 minutes away.

But man, the things I learned while I was there! The healing that occurred in my life. I am not sure I can do it justice. God used Rob and Mars to bring healing to my life, and that of my family. He Rob and Mars to help me get over my hurt with the church. Rob taught me the best way to answer your accusers because he did exactly what Jesus did and ignored them. Rob taught me that Love Wins. Rob preached three of the best messages I have ever heard on forgiveness.

Sure, he preached things I didn’t agree with all the time. He said things that made me stop and scratch my head once in a while. He also taught me that it’s OK for people to disagree. We can disagree and still be brothers and sisters in Christ. Being creative doesn’t mean you hit a home run every time. You know you have really good material when the stuff you’re cutting out and leaving on the floor is really good.

He also taught me that we can have real live humans that we look up to. Before Rob, I used to say that my heroes were all dead, that way they couldn’t let me down.

Rob taught me that you can be a flawed human, with a wealth of insecurities and still change the world.

Man, I’ve debated writing this post because I am sure that people are going to read it and want to attack him. There are going to be people who say that God didn’t really talk to me that day. I may actually lose business over this post. I’ve decided I don’t care. If it were not for Rob’s influence in my life, I might not be in church today. God used him in my life in a might way.

So like John Piper once famously (or infamously said), “Farewell Rob Bell.” I would add, “I and my family will miss you.”

Many things have changed since I last posted here or there or anywhere. I have had a lot of time to think about a lot of things and I hope to explore some of it as I slowly begin to work my way back into writing about things like church and people like Jesus and books like the Bible. In some ways many of my thoughts on such matters haven’t changed a bit, but in other ways my thoughts, and perhaps more importantly, my actions, have changed drastically. There might be time to share thoughts on such matters later.

One thing that I hope to write about is how the Episcopal Church confiscated the building and property of the congregation we have worshiped with for the last nearly 3 years. They did so after a rather lengthy court battle which saw a judge scarcely even hear the argument before deciding against us and for them. (I hate using ‘us’ and ‘them’. It sounds so archaic and anti-everything Jesus came for.) They did so because we decided that the Episcopal Church is theologically wrong on certain issues. (They believe we are wrong too; a judge agreed with them.) Unfortunately, ‘they’ have more money than we do.

Another thing I hope to write about is my evolving relationship with Jesus–yes, that Jesus, the one who has been particularly and conspicuously quiet in my life for a while now. And yet, too, periodically, he has made such loud statements in the life of my family that I have had to run for cover for fear that it might be an archangel blasting his trumpet announcing the end of days. I still love Jesus, but it’s a different kind of love we have now. I’m not even sure I have words for whatever it has become.

Still further, I might tell you about my former church which has, for all intents and purposes, lost its identity. I amazed that so many of those who were confident the Lord had told them to remove me from the pulpit have, now, themselves, left the church. It’s a very strange irony and one that perplexes me greatly. There are a lot of things that perplex me these days not least of which is what it really means to be a christian and what it really means to belong to the church.

Church is a strange thing, a strange creature. It has been a funny thing doing church from the other side of the pulpit. If my relationship with Jesus has evolved, my relationship with the church has gone through two or three evolutionary cycles as my wife and I have tried to come to grips with the fact that we are, for all intents and purposes, orphans. (We love the Anglican church we worship with, but we also know that we are passing through there for a little while and that we really miss ‘our’ church.)

One thing I do know is this: when I start writing again on a more regular basis, I will be writing as someone who has embraced a career outside of the church. I will also be writing as someone who has been crushed by the church, hurt in ways that I wish I couldn’t describe, abandoned by a denomination that had little use for me and my family. My relationship with the church has changed drastically. This might be a good thing; it might be a bad thing. I’m not sure what sort of thing it is. All I know, at this point in my life, is that I’d like to think I am a gracious enough person to forgive the church and embrace the church, but I realize, truthfully, that the bottom line is that I am more blessed that the church continues to forgive and embrace me.

It seems to me that is what makes a church church.

But come on, the guy moved his entire family and a core team to a city he didn’t know and planted a church because he believed that God called him to do it. And it appears that God is moving there.

Now, I don’t know anyone who would actually pay 30 bucks to watch it but hey, what do I know?

Click here for the link. (You have to pay after this weekend)

Enter Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle and their book Erasing Hell. I had heard this book was coming out not long after reading Love Wins. Chan is somewhat of a rising star in evangelical circles. He’s about Bell’s age, and he’s written a number of books that have sold well – Crazy Love and Forgotten God. I have not read Chan prior to reading Erasing Hell, and my only experience with him was when he led our “small” group at one of the Passion conferences a few years ago (small being around 600 or 700 people). Given Chan’s ties to Passion and some of the neo-Reformed movement folks, I’m not surprised to see that he has a problem with Love Wins.

As far as the book, Chan (and Sprinkle – it’s not always clear who is actually writing) begins the introduction by stating how important it is that we get the doctrine of hell correct. He says multiple times that it’s something that we can’t get wrong. Getting it wrong puts us at risk of sending others to hell or even puts us at risk. To his credit, he also states that we can’t let tradition or our feelings dictate what is right as far as what Scripture says about hell. Personally, I find fear-based or slippery-slope framed arguments to be inherently weak. Yes, there is an element of pragmatism that guides the formulation of doctrine, but it simply doesn’t seem to me to be a fair statement that a Christian’s walk or zeal to evangelize is ultimately driven by what they think of hell. If it is, then I think there are other bigger issues that need to be flushed out.

Chapter 1 is entitled “Does Everyone Go To Heaven”. From the get-go I have issues with this chapter. First off, the simple fact that Chan boils down the Christian walk to the phrase going to heaven seem like a misstep to me. Did Jesus or the Apostle Paul ever use the term “going to heaven” as the goal of our faith? Not to my knowledge. There is a real dearth of good teaching on eschatology in Christian circles, and Chan doesn’t even attempt to talk about it all here.

Continuing in Chapter 1, Chan quotes several passages from Bell’s book. And this is perhaps my biggest complaint about the book. The way Chan interacts with Love Wins is simply dishonest. Now, I would like to give him the benefit of doubt here and think it’s not a matter of him being purposely dishonest, but nonetheless, the quotes he gives are out of context, and they don’t fully portray Bell’s thoughts. It is actually pretty easy to find paragraphs in Love Wins that make Bell sound like a universalist. The thing is that if one doesn’t read carefully or follow Bell’s train of thought to the end, they end up missing his point. For instance, Chan states, “Bell suggests that every single person will embrace Jesus – if not in this life, then certainly in the next.” Chan does add an end note on this saying that Bell says this actually isn’t what he believes (which raises the question of why Chan states it as a fact in the body of the text in the first place), but he also says in the same note that “it would be hard to say that he’s not advocating it”. Now, to me, it was clear after reading Love Wins that Bell isn’t advocating universalism, and in interviews he has repeatedly said he’s not a universalist. That is enough for me to take him at his word. Apparently Chan knows what Bell believes better than Bell!

Throughout the rest of Chapter 1, the book goes on to refute Bell’s supposed universalism. They mention some specific passages in Matthew and Revelation, and, needless to say, the interpretations offered are different than what Bell puts forth. For instance the open gates to the New Jerusalem in Revelation. Chan doesn’t really offer an answer to why they are said to be open. He just states that the fact that they’re open doesn’t mean people on the outside will have a chance to get in. Fair enough, I suppose.

Chapters 2 and 3 are Chan’s attempts to answer the question of what the typical first century Jewish belief was about hell. Apparently, Preston Sprinkle has a PhD in early Judaism, so I had high hopes for this chapter. They soon fell flat, though. In order to prove the case that hell indeed is a place of torment and torture, and may be an eternal place, several verses from the apocryphal books Maccabees and the book of Enoch are cited. The argument goes something like – Jesus used similar language when speaking of judgment as these books do, and Jesus didn’t go against what these books are saying, therefore He affirmed this views. This is problematic for a number of reasons. First, I have a hard time believing that there was one unified view among Jews of what happens to the wicked when they die in the first century. Like now there were different theological camps in Judaism, and these things were things that were debated back and forth then as they are now. Certainly knowing some context is undoubtedly important, but the way they present the context here is so simplified that it comes across as a little too convenient for their argument. Also, the one thing that Chan fails to mention here (although he touches on it in future chapters) is that Jesus did contradict many of the commonly held paradigms about judgment while He was on earth. Namely, He says that those who most at risk of judgment are those who were thought to be God’s chosen people. Jesus never lets us get to comfortable with thinking that judgment of the wicked is something we can keep at arm’s length. One thing worth noting here is that Chan does admit that the Biblical narrative isn’t entirely clear as to the duration of hell and punishment. He does leave the door open for annihilationism. This is a bit of a departure from a typical neo-Reformed view.

Chapter 4 is a brief discussion on what the Apostle Paul and other New Testament writers had to say about hell. Chan has to stretch a bit here, as he equates every mention of destruction or death by Paul to mean hell or post-mortem punishment. He also spends time describing what equates to a typical Calvinist view of the wrath of God – we are awaiting the wrath of God unless we repent. He makes it clear that he believes the wrath Paul is talking about is retributive, not simply corrective. Chan also think that many people in the church simply don’t like this idea, so they choose not to talk about it. That may be true of some people, I suppose, I though it does not take a long time online to find people relishing in the idea of God’s wrath. There are a lot of books and commentaries written about what the wrath of God is, how it functions, the purpose, etc., and the view that it is retributive punishment is not a universal view. For instance, a good case can be made that wrath is simply God letting people experience the outcomes of their sinful desires. It’s something that is built into the way the universe works. The case isn’t as cut and dry as Chan makes it seem.

Chapter 5 is a chapter I mentioned earlier. In the chapter, Chan tries to deal with the fact that the vast majority of instances where the New Testament speaks of judgment it is in the context of believers. In fact, Chan says of Revelation, “This isn’t an evangelistic tract written for unbelievers – the hell passages here weren’t designed to make converts and scare people into the Kingdom. They were designed to warn believers to keep the faith in the midst of adversity”. And, actually it’s hard to find a lot to disagree with in this chapter. I would say a lot of the same things. The warnings of judgment that Jesus, Paul, and the other NT authors give aren’t for unbelievers – they are to the church. I find this fact simply hard to square with what Chan says elsewhere in the book, though. Elsewhere, Chan makes a point to say that it is unbelievers who risk facing the fires of hell.

In Chapter 6, Chan attempts to offer something of a theodicy (an answer to why bad things happen or why there is evil in the world). He starts with Romans 9:

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory?

It isn’t surprising that Chan takes the Calvinist view of this passage – God creates some people to be damned and some people to be saved, and we are in no place to question Him. Now, getting in depth in this passage is more than I want to do in this review, but there are other ways to interpret this. The view that God creates some people destining them for hell is simply not a view held by all theologians. I would say that at present it’s held be a minority of them, but I suppose it depends who you ask. Again, I don’t want to get too sidetracked with this, other than to say, I think Chan is wrong here. I believe God desires all to be saved, and I believe He loves all people.

Chan continues in this chapter to cite various Old Testament passages – Job, Ezekiel, Lamentations – talking about how we cannot hope to understand God’s ways. Now obviously there is some truth in this. God is God, and we are not. God runs the universe, and we don’t. However, I think the line of reasoning that Chan is taking is flawed. The Christian view of God and his ways can be somewhat informed by these OT passages, but our primary source of revelation about the Father is Christ. Christ supersedes all our previous notion of what God is like. Christ assures us that the Father isn’t unknowable. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Jesus said that if we have seen Him, we have seen the Father. We needn’t be afraid that God is erratic and arbitrary.

In closing, Chan assures his readers that although he has talked about some things that can be quite terrifying, they have no reason to fear. If we repent, we can avoid hell. Again, point taken, but it makes the point he makes in Chapter 5 a bit puzzling. One the one hand we are to fear warning, but on the other have assurance that God has mercy for us now. Now, I will agree that there is always some amount of tension between justice and mercy, but the road that Chan goes down to have these two hold hands is simply incomprehensible to me. And that’s my general perception of the book. Chan has written a book that on the surface seems to be an attempt to give reader clear answers about heaven and hell. At the root, though, it leaves a lot of unanswered questions. Is God truly knowable? Is my salvation really secure? These are not little questions.

Comparing Erasing Hell to Love Wins, which is sort of what we’re asked to do, I’d have to say that Love Wins is a much more compelling book. It all comes down to this – what do we believe God is like, and what is the story that we find ourselves in. Bell gives readers answers to these questions – whether you agree with him or not. He enables people to have vision of a salvation this is bigger than hell avoidance. He paints a picture of Christ who is making all things new, who isn’t abandoning His creation, and who dealt with sin once and for all on the cross. I find the story that Chan presents in Erasing Hell much harder to grab onto, and I have a hard time seeing it as inspiring or compelling.

As Keller spoke, he mentioned, near the end, a definition of salvation and what the ultimate purpose of salvation is. I wrote it down because it was so powerful and compelling:

“The ultimate purpose of salvation is a new heavens and a new earth. This world is not a theater, temporary theater, for the salvation of individual souls who get converted and then leave. Our individual salvation is a means to an end. The world is not the means and our salvation the end. Our salvation is the means and a brand new material world is an end where music is perfect, where farming is perfect, where there is no disease, where there is no death.”

This is just wonderful.

I also took my daughters horseback riding at a farm where a little five year old boy lives. He’s dying. There’s a good chance he won’t see the end of next month.

Last night I found out another little baby boy died. He was still born. His parents have been trying to have kids for years. They buried him on his due date.

Life is hard. I’ve had my share of hard times. Compared to kids dying though, they seem like nothing.

It seems that it’s always a matter of perspective. I mean, have you ever just asked yourself, “Who Cares? Who cares about this whole stupid mess?” Certainly the Psalmist did time and again.

Then of course there is the issue of Theology. There’s the issue of people who have no idea what to say, feeling like they have to say something. There is the issue of what is said usually being not all that helpful.

I’m convinced all of our stories were meant to be told together. We need each other.

And yet people hurt us.

There’s so much hurt and anger in this world of ours. So much about life that doesn’t make sense. Can I be honest with you? I think one of the biggest problems we have with God is that there is a lot to Him that we can’t understand. Oh we want to. We rail and scream against our lack of control but at the end of the day we simply cannot wrap our brains around this Divinity.

I think that’s the problem. We refuse to admit there is some ambiguity. We want certainty where God demands faith and obedience. One of my friends lamented to me that there is just sometimes where God doesn’t make sense. I couldn’t agree enough. We can’t see God. We cant’ touch God. I think that’s why God tells us we need each other.

Sometimes, we simply have to trust in God’s character, not our ability to explain Him. More often than we do currently we need to make room for disagreements. We need to make room for people to experience Grace. We need to remember that Jesus came so we can have life

together.

The apostles didn’t all share the same ideology. They did all share a relationship with Jesus. May we all be able to say the same.

But that is not all. Heaven also includes us. We are a part of what Morse calls the ‘commonwealth.’ Paul the apostle announced that our ‘citizenship is in heaven.’ Here’s what he writes:

Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. (Philippians 3:19-21, my emphasis)

Is Paul saying that we have already gone to heaven? Do we already live there? Well, yes and no. I do think there is more to come, but in the meantime we have tasted. Morse goes on to offer salient comments relevant to this passage of Scripture. His comments are pointed and get to the heart of what the church seems to have missed in her longing for better days in some mystical heavenly place where float on clouds and play harps.

“For example, the announcement that ‘our commonwealth is in heaven’ sounds as if God’s dwelling, or, so to speak, God’s whereabouts, is not in isolation but with a blessed company of creaturely wellbeing whom God chooses not to be without. This is similar to the communal note of the Old Testament texts that tell of a heavenly host. In this instance, moreover, what is added is that those addressed by Paul’s announcement are told that they themselves, at least in some respect, presently belong to this heavenly commonwealth. Furthermore, the announcement that ‘our citizenship is in heaven’ extends the metaphorical import of this reference to include news of where the current rights and responsibilities of the hearers in their earthly situations now come from. The hearers’ right to exist on earth, the legitimacy of their being who they are and where they are as God’s creation upon the earth, is said not to derive from any earthly authority but from an authority coming from heaven. A somewhat similar note also occurs in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, where those faithful to the Gospel are told that their true freedom currently derives, not from any authority exercised, or status conferred, by the present, earthly Jerusalem, but from ‘the Jerusalem above.’ This community of a heavenly Jerusalem that, like Sarah, is said to engender and legitimate a faithful following of God’s promise now on earth is in this second instance referred to by Paul as ‘our mother’ (Gal. 4.26). One may conclude that any listeners, then or now, struggling for survival, whose legitimate right to exist is being denied or seriously questioned by the principalities and powers of the present age, might receive this announcement as good news. (18-19, my emphasis)

It’s a long quote, yes, but it is so important in helping us understand the why and how and what of our lives. Our citizenship is in heaven and that is good news. God himself has something to say about our lives and our safety and our purpose and our very right to live and breath and have our being. Our rights are guaranteed not by force of political action or by the might of military power or by the force of human rhetoric. Nor can they be taken away by such either. Our legitimate right to exist comes from a heaven–that one place in this created order that no man–no matter how powerful or wealthy–will ever corrupt or defile or consume.

And I do believe this is news that we should proclaim loudly–especially among those whose right to exist has been denied or questioned by the principalities and powers of this present age. I suspect there are many folks for whom such a life is a daily existence. It’s not wonder then that Jesus spend so much time on the periphery, the edges. I think Barbara Brown Taylor’s complaint is justified:

If I developed a complaint during my time in the wilderness, it was that Mother Church lavished so much more attention on those at the center than on those at the edge. (Leaving Church, 175)

The offer of the Gospel is the offer of a citizenship in a new kingdom–a kingdom of justice and love; a kingdom, again, uncorrupted by the principalities and powers of this world. And those on the edges are the very ones who are likely to be most receptive to the announcement of a citizenship whose legitimate rights cannot be co-opted, corrupted, or defiled.

The news, whether we may view it as credible or not, becomes that our help is in the name of the One who does make any situation we face on earth, however threatening or devastating, to be without the overarching forthcoming of an unimpeded dominion of love and freedom. (Morse, 17).

Citizenship indeed. Jesus has the power that enables him to bring everything under his control. And here is where I will let Morse have the last word because what his writes is not without power and beauty and should challenge every idea we have that heaven is simply a place we go at some point later in life or death. Heaven is too important to wait, its power too massive to control, its concern for justice too overwhelming to wait for us:

Running through all these varied references to heaven as a community is a recurring not heaven’s proximity to what is currently happening on earth. This should not go undetected. Contrary to more conventional projects of a ’sweet by and by’ reserved for later, it sounds as if a company of heaven is somehow involved, even indispensably involved, in what is actually taking place here and now. (Morse, 20)

Kind of gives new meaning to the prayer we are to pray: On earth as it is in heaven.

Seriously, what progress are we making in world missions with all of the conversation about heaven and hell and who is and who is not saved? Do I really need Seven Reasons not to believe in Hell in order to be a good decent Christian? And if not, do I need to know another person’s reasons? What progress are we making for the Kingdom of God by continually engaging in conversations seemingly only meant to prove one side is right or that the other side is wrong? Are most of the conversations even necessary? Would these conversations even be happening if the blogosphere didn’t exist? For example, does contending for a ‘biblical’ view of gender (a term traditionally applied to nouns) have much to do with contending for the faith? Do conversations about whether or not we (as Christians) should or should not watch Harry Potter films or read the books help feed a starving child in our neighborhood? (I know, it’s an illogical, false comparison.)

How are we supposed to have any idea what we are to believe? How are we supposed to have any idea what to say to others who ask us about our faith (1 Peter)? How are we to contend for the faith that has been delivered (Jude 3) when there are so many ideas floating around? It is some sort of Cornucopia Christianity and everything must change. How can there be one body, one faith, when there are so many clinging tenaciously to things other than Jesus (Ephesians 4:3-6)–like opinions, ideas, politics, and so on and so forth.

(I’m guilty too since I cling tenaciously to the idea that Scripture is not as vague as some think it is. But I do wonder, seriously, about the effects these conversations have on people who are not part of our tribe. That is, many of these internal conversations that end up external seem to me to raise more doubts than they do faith. They do this among the church too. Frankly, there are days when I simply have no idea who is telling the truth, who to believe, or who is really a wolf in sheep’s clothing.)

Maybe when I go out I can tell people about God’s love. Maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe I can mention hell, maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe I should speak of a creation made by God in six days–as a foundational element of Gospel proclamation, maybe if I do I will be laughed at or ridiculed by other Christians. Maybe I can make my arguments from Scripture, maybe I should not (see in particular comments 14-17 in the comment thread). Maybe I should talk about Jesus, maybe I should talk about other Christians who talk about Jesus. Maybe holiness matters, maybe the journey does, maybe both.

Maybe the problem is that we have set up too many dichotomies in our conversations.

I’m not saying any of these conversations are necessarily wrong. What I am doing is asking a question: Are they helpful? Are they vital to the cause of Christ or are they culturally mandated and distracting and beside the point? Are they producing fruit in keeping with repentance or are they educated (or uneducated, as the case may be), lengthy ways of asking ‘Did God Really Say?’ Are they keeping our eyes off of the greater purpose for our existence which is, it seems to me, to know God and love him? Or are they helping us forward as we slouch closer and closer to Gomorrah?

I fully realize that what I am writing here will not be enjoyed by all because it will seem I am missing the point of the conversations, stereotyping others, that I am hopelessly naive, or that I am playing a significant role in helping perpetuate the very dichotomies I am so opposed to. I’m OK with that as long as someone in the world helps me get to the bottom of this problem. Accuse away! But please, help me understand what point we are trying to make and if we are saying things that, in whatever ‘end’ we may conceive, God will say, “Well said good and faithful blogger. Enter into the joy of Technorati Authority ratings.”

Maybe it is seriously time for Christians to stop fruitless conversation (1 Timothy 1:5-6) an ask the following questions: Is this conversation helpful? Am I helping the cause of Christ? Is my work advancing the Kingdom of God in a thoughtful, forward direction?

Or am I just trying to be right and out-shout the other person for whom Jesus died?