Background on “Christian”

Andy Stanley started an 8-part series a couple of months ago at North Point Community Church, called “Christian”.  The overarching premise is that “Christian” is a malleable word (a poor adjective) that can mean most anything these days.  It was a word given to Jesus-followers by outsiders, not the followers, themselves.  What the followers called themselves, and what Jesus called them, is much better defined: disciples.  As such, we, as followers of Christ, ought to try to live up to what Jesus expected us to be (disciples), not take the squishy road of “Christian”. [I highly recommend the entire series, FWIW.]

• Part 1: Brand Recognition – This is the basic premise of the entire series, relayed above, where Stanley lays out Christianity’s reputation, outside the church as “judgmental, homophobic moralists, who think they are the only ones going to heaven and secretly relish the fact that everyone else is going to hell”, and then goes on to describe the difference between “Christian” and “disciple”
• Part 2: Quitters – Picking up from Part 1, Andy tells the story of Anne Rice – leaving the church, rediscovering her faith, and then disavowing “Christians”, saying “Today I quit being a Christian.  I’m out.  I remain committed to Christ, as always, but to being ‘Christian’ or being part of ‘Christianity’.  It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group.“  Stanley then goes on to describe the defining characteristic given to disciples by Jesus (see 1 John 4:7-8), that should differentiate us from the world around us, so that we don’t settle for the brand “Christianity”.  Key quote: We give up our leverage in society when we opt for anything other than LOVE.
• Part 3: Insiders Outsiders – Andy follows the evolution of the early church – from a small, persecuted minority to a movement that toppled the Roman Empire.  He points to this event in time as a point where Christians stopped leveraging love as their distinguishing characteristic, and started leveraging other things – like political power – to impose their faith on others, by threat or force.  He examines how Christians should treat those outside the faith, and that we should not expect those who don’t follow Jesus to live as he commanded his followers to live.  (This sermon shared points with the incredibly good 1-sermon series last summer, The Separation of Church and Hate.)  Over time, though, Christians morphed the Great Commission into “Therefore, go and impose my teaching, values and worldview on all nations, threatening them with judgment and destruction if they don’t obey everything I have commanded you.“  The main point he comes to is that we are to judge disciples (who are acting against his commands), not outsiders (who never signed up to follow his commands).  [He uses Mark & Grace Driscoll's appearance on The View as an example of how to demonstrate this.]
• Part 4: Showing Up -  The Sunday before Easter, Andy preached this sermon on how disciples should live – as salt and light – in the world.  He traces this from the experience of the early persecuted church, up to how we ought to live now – where how we treat one another and how we treat those outside the church (by “showing up”) – is to be such examples of Christ that when people see us, they see what he is like.  This is messy, and is not always immediately (or ever) visible to us, but our good deeds should shine in such a way that others speak well of Christ from seeing how we act.  “The way we act may make them feel guilty, but it should not make them feel that we are condemning them.”  (i.e. it should be their conscience that convicts them, not our criticism.)
• Part 5: When Gracie Met Truthy – In a theme common here, Andy touches on the tension that exists between grace and truth.  His basic premise, spoken several times and several ways:  “A tension exists between grace and truth.  If we try to resolve that tension, in either direction, we lose something.”  He goes through multiple examples in Jesus’ ministries where Jesus, described by John as the perfect embodiment of grace and truth, gives both grace AND truth.  For example, in the woman who committed adultery and as brought before him, Jesus response was “I do not condemn you” (grace) and “go and live in sin no more” (truth).  As Brendt quoted this sermon, “… people may misunderstand your grace towards sinners as somehow condoning their sin, but that is not the case.“  This was a very good, but very difficult lesson (and the source of the controversy, covered below).
• Part 6: Angry Birds – This sermon covers similar territory the previous week – this time via Jesus’ teaching, whereas Week 5 dealt with Jesus’ actions.  It examined Jesus’ teaching to the disciples about how to treat sinners, followed by the story of the Two Lost Sons (sometimes called The Prodigal Son).  In the first part, he says that if Christians are doing what Jesus did and following what he taught, we, too, should end up attracting the “tax collectors, sinners and prostitutes”, which will likely result in the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law to mutter that we’re associating with the wrong sorts of people.  Even though we have more in common, and nearly identical theology, to the ‘Pharisees”, the way we live our belief – if we’re doing it right – will likely result in the sinners feeling welcome and the self-righteous feeling … self-righteous and put out.  Basically, as Stanley follows on, we should be modeling the role of the Father in the parable of the Prodigal Son.
• Part 7: Loopholes – This sermon continues on, examining how “Christians” (and, to some degree, non-Christians) try to use “loopholes” which allow our own sinful behavior, while condemning/damning the sins of those who are different than them.  He contrasts this with what Jesus taught – “Love God, and love your neighbor – all other laws flow from/are subservient to these”.  In the context of loopholes, Andy sums this up – to the Pharisees – as “Don’t you dare take a verse or a passage of Scripture and use it to unlove someone else, you hypocrites” and then continues: “Disciples don’t look for workarounds or loopholes – ‘Christians’ do that – Disciples ask ‘What does love require of me?’“  [I loved this particular bit, as well: "'Christians' use the Bible like a mace - 'Disciples' use the Bible like a mirror."]  If you only have time for one sermon in the series, I’d go here.  Very challenging stuff.  Stuff I often suck at.  Stuff that will make you uncomfortable.  Stuff that doesn’t require you to compromise, but requires you to love people who are not like you.
• Part 8: Working It Out – In the final sermon of the series, Andy picks up from the final question of Week 7:  What does love require of me? In it, he notes that the people who have shaped us the most are either a) those who really loved us; and b) those who really hurt/abused us.  Originally, Jesus gave us a new commandment: Love one another.  Our defining characteristic was to be how we love one another, but over time it has evolved from being more about how we behave to being almost completely about what we believe.  If we want to re-brand “Christian” to become synonymous with “Disciple”, we need to follow the new commandment he gave us.  “We represent the commander, not the commandments.”  He finishes up the series by talking how to prepare ourselves to live in love: 1) Don’t do anything that will hurt you; 2) Don’t do anything that will hurt someone else; and 3) Don’t be mastered by anything.
• All in all, this was an incredibly good series, and one that is challenging (for good reasons).  I encourage you to watch/download/listen to it all.  Twice.

Got it?  OK – now for the controversy:

Gracie and Truthy

Part Five of the series, When Grace Met Truthy, landed on ODM radar because Andy, purposely or accidentally, broke an unspoken commandment in modern Evangelicalism:  If you mention homosexuality in a sermon or sermon illustration, you must also – as quickly as possible – make sure that everybody knows that it is a sin and it is not tolerated in your church.  If you fail to do so, it will be automatically assumed that you are condoning it.

Not only did he break this commandment once, but he did it twice in the same sermon.

First: Early in the sermon, about 5 minutes in, Stanley mentioned that he knew a number of LGBT folks who visited/attended North Point, having left the “predominantly gay” churches.  He said that they said, when asked why they had made the switch, that the gay churches spent a lot of time “affirming homosexuality”, but that North Point “teaches the Bible”.  The implication, being, that the two (”affirming homosexuality” vs. “teaching the Bible”) were opposed to one another.  \

As we have learned here, often over the past 6 years, if the ODM crowd is lacking in anything, it is a complete lack of recognition of nuance and subtlety.  It’s not that they don’t understand homosexual practice is a sin (they do, and we do).  It’s not that those who are outside the church don’t understand that the church teaches that homosexual practice is a sin (every single survey of non-Christians about Christians – see Barna – tells us that non-Christians understand this more than any other truth about the church), or that the ODM’s and self-proclaimed “watchdogs” don’t know this (because they do).  And it’s almost never some sort of altruistic desire to “protect” the flock that doesn’t realize what their church’s teaching is on homosexuality (because you can pretty much guarantee that they do, whichever way their church falls on the issue).  It really comes down to making sure that they (homosexuals, liberals, ‘outsiders’) know that they are wrong on this issue and we (the true church) are right about it.  [See week 7's message, above, "Loopholes".]

But that wasn’t enough.

Secondly, (around the 25-minute mark) Stanley relayed an illustration that began 5 years ago.  In it, there was a married couple with a daughter.  The man left the woman to be with another man.  The woman kicked the husband out of North Point, immediately.  The man and his partner later attended another North Point campus (Buckhead church), and their first Sunday, volunteered to be part of the “Host Team” (a group that parks cars, opens doors, passes out programs, or leads first-time guests to classrooms, etc.).  The wife approached Andy to let him know that the partner’s divorce was not finalized and that the relationship was still adulterous.  Andy stepped in, met with the ex-husband and partner, and told them they could not serve while they were living in overt sin (adultery).  The two left the church, very upset.  Over time (the point of the illustration), the wife began showing grace to her ex-husband and his partner, and became much less bitter toward them.  Last year, she invited them to come sit with her at the Christmas services at North Point.  Andy quipped that, looking at them, it reminded him of Modern Family (the TV show).

The end.

Right after I heard that particular illustration, I knew that the ODM’s – if they heard the illustration – would go bonkers.  Why?  Because in the story, Andy had focused on the adultery and said nothing about the homosexual issue (see above for ODM capabilities in understanding nuance and subtlety).  In Culture War Evangelicalism, when one speaks on homosexuality without a neon sign (”<<<—THIS IS A SIN”), silence is considered acceptance, and to not condemn is assumed to condone.

It doesn’t matter that, after the illustration, Pastor Stanley said “… people may misunderstand your grace towards sinners as somehow condoning their sin, but that is not the case.“  Andy had an open shot on goal and passed up the shot.  He had a wide-open receiver in the end zone and took a sack.  He had a two-foot putt for par and took a double-bogey.  Insert your own sports/war metaphor here.

My first comment, when the sermon was over, was “the folks that complain about this will be the same folks that, in doing so, will demonstrate they didn’t listen to the message.”

Over the coming weeks, I was (almost) pleasantly surprised.

Along Came Al

A couple of weeks went by, with only a few rumblings in ODM-land [links intentionally not provided].  Andy Stanley rarely makes their radar, so most of them don’t dissect him on a weekly basis.  He rarely gives media interviews (see here for his excellent reasons why not), his dad is respected by some of the ODM’s (and their canaries-in-a-coal-mine at the Gospel Coalition), and he rarely says things that are all that controversial.

At the same time, there is a bit of jealousy in the SBC that North Point is purposely non-denominational, even though Andy’s dad is, and that it has done so well (25,000 attenders across 7 Atlanta campuses each Sunday).  Also, it is a megachurch that operates as a “church for the unchurched”.  So it has only been a matter of time before someone at the SBC would toss a grenade at it in public.

And along came Al Mohler, the president of the SBC.  Fretting if megachurches will all go the way of liberalism, Mohler wrote an article complaining about Stanley’s sermon, and requesting/requiring an answer from Pastor Stanley as to his church’s “stance” on homosexuality.  (To which, Rick Warren got in a brief Twitter spat with Mohler over the tar-and-feathering of megachurches over one perceived slight.)  Andy Stanley’s response to Dr. Mohler was that he didn’t find interviews and press releases to be all that helpful, but that Dr. Mohler ought to listen to the seven online sermons and the final sermon, Part 8, on Sunday.

A brilliant response.  [I'd have likely replied with something snarky, and less gracious or brilliant.  Which is why I'm an engineer, not a pastor.]

And that is all the response that has been given (and I hope will ever be given).

The Fallout

Since then, the regular ODM’s and their (predominantly Calvinist) ilk have gleefully demonstrated what Anne Rice meant with her public comments, just in case anyone was confused as to what she meant by ‘Christians’ as a “quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group”. [And no, no linky goodness for them.]

Even so, there have been some very good responses to the mess.  Probably the best two are from Scot McKnight (unsurprisingly) and Out of Ur.  As comments go, one of the briefest and best to sum it up, on a site that was critical of Stanley’s message, was this:

I don’t understand why everyone needs clarification of this topic when it was not the subject of the message. This sermon was not about SIN, it was about how we treat SINNERS. I think Andy answered that question quite eloquently. Additionally, the brilliance of the message was that I think he intentionally chose this very applicable story to point out that the “Christian” community doesn’t treat all sinners equally, and from judging the uproar that resulted, his point was well proven.

The silly thing about all of this is that North Point’s “stance” on homosexual practice (that they believe the Bible declares it to be a sin) is well-documented over the past 15 years, and – for the folks who have called them and asked if NPCC allows practicing homosexuals to serve in the church – their volunteer applications list multiple sexual sins (all homo-sexual sin and all extramarital heterosexual sin, including “shacking up”) as reasons for individuals to not volunteer for service, for their own good, as well as the church’s.

In this particular instance, I expect a) the hubub over this sermon will soon die down; b) more juicy targets will come along for the “Christian” bottom-feeders to attack and devour;  c) North Point will now be monitored much more closely for perceived heresy (all in the sanctimonious garb of “protecting the flock”, of course); d) member of NPCC and those who listen to Andy Stanley will better represent Christ in the world; and e) if they do a good job of representing Christ, they can expect to be shot in the back with much more frequency and intensity in the future.

Where We’ve Been

I’m not going to spend a lot of time here, but we have covered this particular topic several times before.

• We do agree that the Bible says that homosexual practice (the act) is a sin, as defined in the Bible.
• We also agree that the church in the past several decades, in particular, have handled this sin incredibly poorly.  So much so, that many/most homosexuals do not feel that they would be accepted into a relationship with Christ.  To say that again: The church has become a place that sinners do not feel they would be accepted, because they are sinners.  The church of the past few decades have singled this sin out (since most in it are not tempted by it) as a “special” sin, worthy of particular note and scorn.
• We also have seen that some churches (and some commenters, like our ex-pastor friend Chad)  “square this circle” by searching for loopholes to affirm this lifestyle as OK.  (With all of the accompanying weasel-words around “loving, monogamous, etc.” to try and avoid calling sin sin.)  This is just as bad as declaring it a “special sin”.
• As we’ve noted before, there has to be somewhere between these poles – Andy Stanley refers to it as a “tension” – where we must act as a church.

The truth is, most of us – unless we have close family/friends dealing with this sin – have no true empathy or sympathy for what these folks are dealing with.  When we tell them to “go and sin no more” (and constantly bring up 1 Cor 5, which we only reserve for the “really bad” sins like this one), what we fail to realize is that we’re also saying “Your only choices in life are to live single and alone, or to marry someone whom you have no – or little – attraction.”  And that’s if they are not already in a relationship.

And if they have kids, that’s even messier.

How callous is it to flippantly demand someone “quit sinning” before God will accept them, when “quit sinning”, in our definition, may entail breaking off a relationship and making arrangements for a child?

Sin is horribly messy, and it’s awfully arrogant for us to try and take over for the Holy Spirit, when it comes to convicting someone of sin and how they need to deal with it.

I think of a friend of mine who works with Masai people in Africa.  Many of the Masai men are married to multiple wives.  When they become Christians, the missionaries do not demand that they leave their polygamous relationships – which would often leave women and/or children destitute.  With young, unmarried men the missionaries teach “one and done”, but for those already entangled in polygamy, there is no such easy answer.

This is why one of the best churches I’m familiar with, in dealing with the sin of homosexual practice, makes absolutely no public statement about homosexuality (though they consider it to be defined as sin in the Bible).  When people come to them/call them and ask what their “stance” is on homosexuality, they first ask if the caller or a loved one is struggling with it.  If so, they ask them to come in and meet, and then they counsel them as best fits their situation.  If they or a loved one do not struggle with that particular sin, then their answer is “What is it to you?”

And this is brilliant.

Because the church has responded so poorly to this in the past, and the public perception of its treatment of it as a “special sin” (while comparatively ignoring rampant sins like divorce and adultery in the church) is so close to truth, the proper response of the church very well may be such an approach, to take the lightning out of the lightning-rod issue.

Oh, And the World

Most of the Stanley/Mohler kerfuffle has fallen completely beneath the radar of normal people, which is fine and good.

At the same time, the North Carolina Constitutional Amendment last week, coupled with Zero’s “evolved” (but not really changed) position on same-sex marriage, will likely keep this topic close to the top of the headlines for the next six months.  It is my hope that most Christians will avoid the stereotype – balancing both grace and truth – and stay out of those headlines, and that we will find a way to make “tax collectors, sinners and prostitutes” far more comfortable with us than the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law, and that it will be because we are emulating Jesus.

[Edit: I changed my characterization of the blog whose comment I quoted above, upon reviewing more of the posts at that particular blog.]

Here’s the thing: Parenting isn’t about the parents. I know this post is going to get me in trouble. I know it’s going to have people angry with me at this point, let alone after they read what’s coming. I know people are going to de-friend me and gnash their teeth at me. I even know that some people are going to decide to not come see me as a counselor, which will cost me money.I do not care. This is too important.Parenting is about the kids. It is about what is best for the kids. It’s not about the parents happiness. It’s not about the parents social life, or how fulfilled they feel. It doesn’t matter that most of our life someone has lied to us and told us a lie that we can do whatever we want and that having a kid greatly limits that.Now hear me out, please. It is important that parents take care of themselves. It is important that parents be well developed and emotionally mature people. So that they can model that for their children.

You can read the rest here.

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.”

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.

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.

Finally this past week, I figured it was going to end.  I was actually happy. I figured I’d be able to stop hearing about it.  Then came the acquittal.

Then came the facebook status updates blowing up…

Some languished at the lack of justice for the poor murdered little girl.

Some cried out about the injustice in the world.

Some wondered openly if there was such a thing as justice.

Some just went too far.

“Someday the jury will have to answer for what they did.”

“ I hope that God decides to take a loved one from the jury.”

“Someday that evil woman will get what she deserves. The coals of Hell will be heated for her forever!!!”

And they went on.  Many of my Christian friends were excitedly pointing to the day that this woman would end up in hell.

This post is not about her guilt or if there is a Hell.
This post is about Christians that miss the point of the gospel. This post is about God being in the redemption business.

Moses, David, Paul are all guilty of murder. They all killed people. It would be hard to argue that Paul didn’t  kill babies younger than this little girl in Florida.  They never got the justice “they had coming to them.”

God redeemed them. I have to say I didn’t see a lot of posts by Christians saying they hoped that would happen for this woman.

You see embedded in those posts was honest anger. I get that. But I also think there was a little bit of “I’m better than HER, because I would never do THAT!!!”

Yet, James says, if you break one part of the law you break it all.

So we’re all guilty and God is in the business of offering us all redemption, even child killers.  My desire for justice rails against that. My desire to love my own skin is thankful for it.

I don’t know if this woman is guilty or not. I imagine she probably is and yet the evidence wasn’t enough.

I know that wherever she is, and whatever she’s done Jesus died and rose again so she could have eternal life and be freed from the guilt of her actions. Jesus paid it all. All to him we all owe.

I was reading an article about how good news no one talks about is out there. One of those was about the gulf’s recovery from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. It made this point:

“What we will talk about is how no one expected fish, crab and shrimp catches to be average compared to past years or that oil chomping microbes would go to town feeding on our disaster. And more importantly, the Loop Current that was on track to carry the oil to the Florida Keys just broke. As in, it broke off into a big swirly hilariously named Franklin Eddy, which unexpectedly contained the oil in a tidy circle of cool. We’d like to think of Franklin as a bongo-playing beat poet who doesn’t have to play by your current rules, maaan.

Had it not been for Franklin, the oil would have hit the Keys and made its way up the East Coast, and there wouldn’t have been a whole lot we could have done to stop it. Thanks to Franklin, which no longer exists, much of the Florida coast was spared from the oil altogether.”

I don’t really have much of a point except to say maybe the hand of God is was in this. Its nice to remember this when life fights dirty.”

I found this profound for a couple of reasons: First off, it is a demonstration of how God is such an awesome engineer (says the professional engineer), who has contingency plans within contingency plans within contingency plans for when we make things go awry. Secondly, it just reminded me how negative I sometimes feel when I listen to too much news – because bad news sells, so we rarely hear good news (or Good News) from the news media.

The second article, 7 “Ancient” Forms of Mysticism That are Recent Inventions, made me laugh even more:

Yoga as we know it today — a set of postures (asanas) combined with breathing techniques — dates back to around the grand old year of 1960. In other words, yoga is as old as Bono.

So all of the Yoga wars that have been fought “for God” by Johnny Mac an others are all just pretty much (as previously noted) bunk.

So, maybe quoting Cracked.com from time to time is a little bit like quoting Cretin poets.

One of the common issues that I deal with in couples counseling is related to the aftermath of mistakes.

A spouse cheats

A spouse uses painful words like a scalpel to cut as deeply as possible.

An angry outbursts scares the bejezus out of a spouse

A secret offense is brought to light.

The list is quite long, and I am sure you could probably add two or two hundred things that you have experienced or heard of happening.

Invariably, the question posed to me is, “Why can’t she get over it?” or “Why can’t he just move on? I said, I was sorry. I feel bad about it.”

Often this comes across as defensive to the offended spouse and even to me as a counselor. The following are some steps that I believe are helpful in repairing broken relationships.

1. Leave all the but’s in the barn.

You’ve heard this one before, “I am sorry, I feel bad that I did that, but….” Invariably, an accusation or degradation for the spouse follows that but. Here’s the problem, when you say I’m sorry but___________, it sounds like you aren’t really all that sorry. It sounds like you’re wanting to make sure that your spouse gets some of the blame too.  It sounds like your saying the adult equivalent of the four year old, “She did it too” defense. It’s silly. It’s shallow. And it is not helpful. If you messed up, own that. Don’t try to deflect blame. Don’t try to pass it off to your spouse. Just admit that what you did was wrong. No one made you do it. We control our own actions. What is interesting to me is that when someone commits to this idea of actually owning their own mistakes, their spouse will often start admitting their own errors.

2. Double down on your patience level

If you have done something that has damaged trust in the relationship there is absolutely nothing you can do that will “fix it.” You may have to answer a lot of questions. You may have to answer the same questions more than once. You may have to answer questions that don’t seem relevant to you but matter immensely to your spouse.

3. Check your ego at the door.

Click here to continue reading this post at my own blog.

At any particular point in time, there is a range of “acceptable” views on any particular subject.  This “window” of views can be “opened” or “shifted” through the serious suggestion of a view significantly outside the mainstream.  In doing so, even if the “radical” suggestion is not adopted as mainstream, the window of “acceptable” views will be increased.

Opening the Overton Window can be a good or a bad thing, depending on the subject at hand.  Additionally, the attempt may utterly fail if the person trying to open it does not have the perceived gravitas to do so, or if the window of “acceptability” has sufficient rigidity in its foundation.  As I have read Love Wins, read its critiques – from positive to negative and all spots in between – and listened to Rob Bell’s responses to questions/criticism surrounding it, I’ve come to the conclusion that, strategically, the goal of Love Wins was not to promote a particular view of hell as superior to another, but rather to open the Overton Window on the doctrine of hell in order that the Gospel might be better seen as independent from it.

The Thesis is the Thesis

As I have read numerous reviews of Love Wins, I have been struck by an odd correlation.   The way the reviewer interpreted Bell’s thesis paragraph (page vii) almost always predetermined how they would review the entire book.  Here is the thesis paragraph:

This love compels us to question some of the dominant stories that are being told as the Jesus story. A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better. It’s been clearly communicated to many that this belief is a central truth of the Christian faith and that to reject it is, in essence, to reject Jesus. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’ message of love, peace, forgiveness, and joy that our world desperately needs to hear.

Reviewers have tended to interpret this two ways:

Option One: Bell is saying that the practice of equating the rejection of hell as eternal conscious torment as a rejection of Jesus is “misguided and toxic”.

Option Two: Bell is saying that the doctrine of hell as eternal conscious torment is “misguided and toxic”.

While basic English syntax should clearly indicate Option One is Bell’s intention*, those who have been the most scathingly critical (or commented on the book without reading it) have chosen Option Two as their interpretation of Bell’s thesis. In doing so, it is no wonder a number of them found the rest of Bell’s narrative confusing or contradictory (looking at you, Justin Taylor).

By failing to understand the thesis of the book, many of the reviewers, critics and re-posters (90% of whom haven’t actually read the book) end up dueling straw men or heading down tangents that are not even the focus of the book.  Additionally, a number of the critics (John MacArthur, John Piper, Kevin DeYoung, John Chisham and the rest of the hyper-Calvinistic wing of neo-Reformed theology) ironically end up proving Bell’s thesis (Option One) correct in doggedly refuting Option Two, as if it were what Bell was arguing.

Bravo.  Yay team.  Let’s all hold hands and sing:

And they’ll know we are Christians by our certain and doctrinally pure view of hell and the wrath of God…**

Following the Actual Thesis

If we follow Bell’s actual thesis, which is a call to epistemic humility (allowing for doubt or the possibility of equally possible interpretations of the same set of Scriptures) over epistemic closure (disallowing any doubt as to the “correct” interpretation of a set of Scriptures) when it comes to issues of pareschatology, eschatology, the mechanics of soteriology, the book is not at all confusing.

Because one of Bell’s purposes is to refute the epistemically closed view that a denial of eternal, conscious torment in hell is a denial of Jesus, he provides multiple views of both heaven and hell from historic Christianity.  This includes the Eastern Orthodox view of the afterlife, the Hebrew view of the Kingdom of Heaven (as supported by NT Wright), annihilationism,  Universal Reconciliation, and several points in between.

He also tackles the question of “who’s in and who’s out” of hell, by laying out the exclusivist and inclusivist views, and all points in between, with the most emphasis given to the “exclusive inclusivist” view (also espoused by C.S. Lewis and Billy Graham).

In terms of soteriology, he describes six or seven views, including Penal Substitution, the Ransom View (held by C.S. Lewis) and Christus Victor.

In each of these cases, Bell’s purpose is not to pick any one as the “correct view”, but rather to examine that there are multiple views within orthodox Christianity, and to examine how allowing the mystery in the actual workings of God to exist as a mystery rather than as a certainty might actually allow us to live the Gospel as Jesus taught it, with the emphases he gave it.

Love wins, according to Bell, regardless of whether hell is empty or if it is populated for eternity.  Our desire should be identical to God’s – that no man should perish.  If this means that God saves everyone in the end, that would be awesome.  Our desire should also be that God is, indeed, love – which requires that man have free will to either choose or to reject Him without coercion.  If this means that man’s choice to reject God leaves him apart from God for eternity, Love still wins.

The Danger

In talking to a highly-trusted friend of mine about Love Wins, I was reminded that one of the dangers of this discussion would be if one came away believing that if everyone will be saved in the end, there is no need to ever choose to follow Jesus in this life.

I agree, and I’m pretty sure (as he’s said in multiple interviews) Rob would agree, as well.

Bell makes the point that the time to decide is urgent, and that time only moves forward for us, and that Jesus’ admonition is to choose now, today, and that there are serious, possibly permanent, consequences to rejecting him today.

Just because we are not completely certain about eschatology, pareschatology and the mechanism of soteriology does not mean that we have not been given clear glimpses of their vectors.  As such, the mode and method of hell is unimportant, and the call of the Gospel to live in the Kingdom of God/Heaven is relevant today, for today, for tomorrow and for eternity.

Bell’s purpose in opening the Overton Window that has been held shut by the white-knuckled neo-Reformed churches surrounding his hometown – as someone with the gravitas to do so, and with the historical orthodoxy to back him – was simply to allow room for the church to breathe.  To accept mystery where it ought to exist, rather than force certainty and a false gospel of evacuation.

Shalom

* – As much as my eighth grade English teacher drove me to distraction with her (literal) communist sympathies, the few useful things she taught me were sentence diagramming and basic written logic. Despite her political proclivities, I continue to find myself wishing some folks (looking at you, Kevin “I’m Not Dennis” DeYoung) had Mrs. Waggoner for English, as well.

** – Just doesn’t have the same ring as the original song…