Quick on the heels on my last entry, here's Part 2. Let's get right down to it.
In the previous entry, I introduced the controversy around Rob Bell's new book, Love Wins, (which, again, I have yet to read - I'm merely working off of others' feedback at this point) and the response to the book by voices in the "evangelical" movement (see parenthetical asides in the last entry as to why I put "evangelicals" in quotation marks unless I'm talking about Lutherans). In a nutshell: Bell pushes the envelope and flirts with universalism, which entails some revisioning of more conservative doctrines about hell and salvation. Some "evangelicals" object. I gave my thoughts, as a former "evangelical," on why I think that is, and lifted up some strong points in the "evangelical" argument against Bell, albeit with my rather orthodoxly Lutheran criticisms in hot pursuit. So now, let's take a look at what it seems as if Bell is saying, at least as it is filtered through the mostly "evangelical" sources that I have heard discussing things.
Bell, in his book (again, keep in mind I'm getting this through other sources), questions the notion that a loving God would condemn anyone to an eternal torment. It's antithetical to the stated purpose of Christ's life, death, and resurrection (see John 3:16-17). If God's desire is that all should be saved, then God's pretty much a failure if that doesn't happen. Christ's sacrifice, and the grace opened up for humanity in that act, is sufficient to cover all of humanity's sins. Salvation, then, (I'm extrapolating) has to do more with the here-and-now than with pie-in-the-sky. Choosing to follow Christ impels believers to do the work of the Kingdom in this world, working to create peace and justice in the hope of God's eventual restoration of all creation.
With that comes a re-keying of the idea of hell. If salvation has to do more with restoration to God's original creation, then hell is all that which defies that vision - it manifests itself in the abundant evil we see in this world. Hell is what I personally saw in West Africa, when I looked into the empty eyes of starving children, begging me for "un cadeau" so they could eat that day...for example. Since God's ultimate plan is salvation and restoration, it follows that hell will crushed by God, and since it wasn't a place/destination to begin with, nobody's going to be spending eternity there.
Again, keeping in mind that I'm probably putting words in Bell's mouth, that's my approximation of what he has to say. Maybe. Let's pretend it is, for the sake of argument. So...what do we have here worth lifting up?
First off, Bell expresses a (maybe admirable, maybe not) willingness to strip away preconceived notions about hell and salvation, most of which have their origins in scriptural interpretations offered up principally by the medieval Roman Catholic Church and the Anabaptist traditions and the theological traditions which follow that train of thought. Keeping the New Testament off the table for a second, Bell's notion of salvation and heaven/hell frankly sounds a lot more like the Jewish understanding of these things. There is no hell in the Old Testament; what we have is sheol, which simply means "the grave." It's where we all go, because we all die. Salvation is typically presented in images of a messianic future in which God directly rules all of humanity from Zion, in a glorious age in which nobody wants for anything, everyone lives in peace with their swords beaten into plowshares, and all nations give homage to God and go up to Zion for instruction. Sounds a lot like (my read on) Bell's argument to me.
The sticky wicket, biblically speaking, is in the New Testament, which is MUCH more inclined toward exclusive salvation for those who believe in Christ. Leaving aside Jesus' parables (which are perennial sources of debate as to what they're ultimately trying to say), there's still plenty of material to run with to shore up exclusivism. 2 Thessalonians has no shortage, and the General Epistles don't shy away from the language of condemnation, either. John's Gospel is both sweepingly universalistic AND sweepingly exclusivist...and we won't even touch Revelation (do NOT put an S on the end of that, please!), mostly because "how 'evangelicals' misread Revelation based off of faulty theological and exegetical premises" is a subject for another blog entry. Suffice it to say it's pretty exclusivist in its tone. Of course, Revelation's image of what "heaven" will be like is quite consistent with the Old Testament; the notion of good people hanging out in the clouds with God (possibly while playing harps) is pretty off-base.
So...what's all of this mean? Well, from where I'm sitting, it means that Rob Bell and the "evangelical" movement have both succeeded, and failed, at modeling their beliefs on the biblical witness. They've both succeeded in that they both find in scripture a core group of texts that, even without being pulled out of context or manipulated, support their views. They've both failed in that their views are inconsistent with other scriptures. I say that tentatively with Bell because, like I've said, I haven't read his book and so I can't speak to how he specifically addresses certain heavy duty exclusivist texts.
Now, don't read this as more of a condemnation of either Bell or more mainstream "evangelicals" than it really is. I mean, hey, I'm about as Lutheran as they come, and I will be the first to admit that not even my beloved Lutheran theological perspective is without its flaws or shortcomings...when it comes to human theological expressions, we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. If anything, this conundrum merely points to the fact that scripture says an awful lot, and some of it does not always easily jive with other parts. Welcome to mature Christianity, in which we have to drop our pretense of easy answers to absolutely every question, and of always being right on the money when it comes to understanding God.
Where do we go from here, though? Is there any sort of position in between the lake of fire and the peaceable kingdom? Stay tuned for Part 3!
No comments:
Post a Comment