Crucified on a Boogie Board

John Pavlovitz has written a blog post that has been reprinted by Relevant, and because of that it has been given a great deal of visibility. In the article Pavlovitz proposes to extract from the “crucifixion” of Rob Bell some sort of lesson about modern Christianity. When he begins with the words “It’s often been said that we Christians eat our own,” you know that his argument is definitely going to involve playing the meanie card. You can almost write his conclusion for him.

Lots of bands have a way of manipulating the audience into demanding that they come back for an encore. One of my favorite recordings is of one of U2’s live shows where Bono just says, “Let’s cut out all of the encore stuff where we leave and then you cheer for us to return and instead, we’ll just play the rest of our set.” I love it. So refreshing, honest, and respectful of the listeners' time.


I want to do something similar. There’s a script I’m supposed to follow in order to establish with the reader that I’m winsome, friendly, a nice guy. If I don’t, then anyone who reads this will just say that I’m another hater and that my opinion can be written off (hopefully not — this is the same crowd that supposedly loves dialogues, after all). I’m sorry, I sort of want to do the whole thing where I apologize for all the “mean” people in Evangelicalism (God knows they’re out there!) and where I say some of the good things that Bell has done and talk about how Oprah’s not so bad. However, before this post is over, you and I know that I will, of course, end up doing the predictable thing where I say, “But…” and then disagree. Let’s skip all that. I’m a nice guy, it’s true… yada yada yada… Please love me!

Okay, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get down to what I really want to say: If there has been a “crucifixion” of Rob Bell (and I’m not exactly sure that his new TV show, nice beach house, boogie board, and nights sitting barefooted with Jack Johnson around the fire pit really feel all that much like being crucified —I wouldn’t know because I’ve never been crucified before. Maybe it’s not so bad.), what it says about modern evangelicalism is not that evangelicals are big meanies who punish those who go against “the script” as Pavlovitz puts it. Rather, the supposed "crucifixion" of Rob Bell shows that theology does still matter to large segments of the church, and that leaders within evangelicalism believe, by and large, that some subjects are still worth contending for. Now that seem like the more charitable conclusion to be drawn here.

Over and over again throughout the article, Pavlovitz dodges the substantive problems that people have been bringing up with regard to Bell's two-plus year old book. For instance, when he discusses the Love Wins episode, his conclusion is not that Hell (sans post-mortem salvation) is evidently something that most evangelicals today believe is taught in Scripture but Rob Bell denied that important belief. Such a conclusion would be far too accommodating and wouldn’t fit Pavlovitz’ goal of trying to shame Bell’s dissenters and lift up Bell as some sort of martyr dying upon the altar of questions and confusion.

Instead, he concludes that Bell’s error was that “he didn’t stick to the script” (ah yes, so many blog posts and books talked about how “off-script” Bell had gotten…). Or as he puts it elsewhere, “He only asked people, to ask the questions.” It’s such a cliche. And I don’t even think that the emergent crowd really can possibly believe its own press at this point, either. Do Bell’s readers really think he was “only” asking questions? I read the book numerous times over. The book is filled with propositional statements intended to inform the reader and to persuade of his position that post-mortem salvation is a live possibility. He quotes church fathers and does word studies — all in order to dislodge from his readers the historic orthodox (such a dirty word!) position. Bell had a case to make and he did his best to make it. As did the best of those who responded to him (Kevin DeYoung, for instance).

In another place Pavlovitz reductively states that “[Bell] simply reached conclusions that he isn’t supposed to reach, and that really pisses off Church people.” (Wait, Bell reached “conclusions” in his book? I thought he was just asking questions…) I can only speak for myself and those immediately around me, but the whole Bell situation never "pissed" me off; rather, it was a doctrinal error to be addressed that morphed more recently into a sad cautionary tale.

In addition, Pavlovitz' statement ignores the fact that the best people who wanted to engage with Rob Bell did so with references to the issues at hand, not with regard to the narrative that he wasn’t in line with. Let me give you an example: When Francis Chan wrote Erasing Hell, his argument was not, “But Rob Bell isn’t saying what he’s supposed to say!” (in fact, I’m not even sure he mentions Bell by name). Instead, the argument was, “Here’s what Scripture says, and here’s why the denial of this thing that Scripture says is detrimental to the faith.” Will Pavlovitz allow someone to disagree with the substance of what Bell has to say without taking personal pot-shots and calling him a “venom-peddler”? If he is a magnanimous Jesus person who wants to occupy the moral high ground here without slipping into obvious and radical hypocrisy, he really ought to give Bell’s dissenters the benefit of the doubt.

It would have been more honest for Pavlovitz to simply say, “Look, Bell took a chance and told us what he really thought of the possibility of salvation after death, and his view clearly hasn’t caught on.” That, at least would be a simple but fair reading of the situation. Instead, he characterizes Bell’s dissenters as “venom-peddlers” (a “venomous” phrase if there ever was one) and calls them “unforgiving” (has Rob Bell even asked for forgiveness? Pavlovitz states quite clearly that he has not).

This narrative coming from whatever wing of evangelicalism Pavlovitz, Rachel Held Evans, Rob Bell, etc. think they speak for is unsustainable. The only way to have a whole movement centralized around questions without answers, the sound of one hand clapping, and books written like haikus is to have a prior, assumed orthodoxy to leech off of. Evangelicalism as it currently exists has sustained itself on the remnants of an orthodoxy that has been its lifeblood for all of its existence. Eventually, if this crowd has its way, and all the meanies go home and stop caring about doctrinal health in their churches, well there won’t be an orthodoxy left to feed on. It will just be history to study and reminisce about. At that point, what will their movement be? I can’t answer that question completely (I might suggest they start by looking at the mainline denoms), but the words “healthy,” “sustainable,” and “robust” are hardly what come to mind.

This Just In: Everybody's Christian!

I've made a decision. It's a big one (and it's also sarcastic, so don't take it too seriously). Everyone who claims to be a Christian is now a Christian. As long as you use the specific word "Christian," and say that Jesus is important to you, you're in. At least that's what some would like us to think.

A few weeks ago, Rachel Held Evans lamented that she shouldn't have to keep defending her Christian credentials just because she has liberal theological tendencies.

But the problem is that after ten years, I’m getting tired of trying to convince fellow Christians that I am, in fact, a Christian, even though I may vote a little differently than they vote, interpret the Bible differently than they interpret it, engage with science a little differently than they engage with it, and understand sovereignty and choice a little differently than they understand those things.

And I think a lot of other young evangelicals are growing weary of those arguments too. We’re ready to rebuild in communities where a commitment to love and follow Jesus Christ is enough common ground from which to start.

Once again, she laments:

I haven’t lost hope in the future of evangelicalism, but I’ve lost the desire to fight for my place in it. I’m tired of trying to convince other Christians that I am a Christian.

There is a need on the part of Bell's supporters to - not defend themselves - but to remove the need to defend themselves. Rachel Held Evans is understandably tired - exhausted at the thought that she might need to "contend for the faith," as she sees it. Fellow critics like John MacArthur can't possibly be making it easier for her. In his more recent blog posts, MacArthur has been arguing quite vigorously that Bell is not a fellow sheep, but rather, a wolf within the fold.

I've been asking myself a lot of questions after I read Evans' blog entry a few weeks ago, but perhaps the one that seems the most unfair - and at the same time relevant is this one (and it is a bit off topic, but I have to chase this rabbit for a moment): is there something about Arminianism that makes Arminians just more comfortable dancing/flirting with heretical doctrines? I don't mean this glibly or rhetorically. I mean this honestly. But I also mean it very generally, since I can think of many I would call Arminian whom this criticism does not apply to. However, in general, Calvinists tend to fall on the more conservative, old-school side of theological debates. To quote Spurgeon, "Calvinism has in it a conservative force which helps to hold men to vital truth."

But why is it that Bell's defenders themselves see this battle really falling along the old lines of the debate over Calvinism/Arminianism (Evans says it's between the New Calvinists and New Evangelicals, but it's really the same old debate). Read my review of Love Wins. See if I have had any interest in making this about election or predestination in my critique of the book. And yet Rachel Held Evans and many others see the whole debate as - ultimately - falling along the age-old lines of the evangelical debate over election and predestination. How interesting.

Allow me to use Bell as an example of the encroaching problem I see. Bell's only ground in claiming orthodoxy and historical pedigree for his views is words. He uses the same words that the old creeds do, and even that the Bible uses. These are words which he has clearly, blatantly, undeniably redefined from the way that they were previously understood through most of Christian history. His dissenters (including Ben Witherington, who is certainly not a Calvinist) have recognized this, while his supporters appear indifferent as to preserving the use of words. For Bell's supporters to remain supporters (and here I include Richard Mouw - a Calvinist), they must be indifferent as to whether historical words are used consistently from one generation to the next. And many of them are, to be sure. They argue that the meaning of words do change from one generation to the next. Certainly. But if someone bites their thumb at you, you won't be offended until you discover what this Shakespearean gesture actually means. The same is true of Biblical words. Hell sounds very unpleasant until you discover what Rob Bell means by it. Suddenly, it becomes a rosier destination for all of God's enemies.

So here we come back around full circle to Evans' complaint, once again. Look carefully at what she says near the end of the quote:

We’re ready to rebuild in communities where a commitment to love and follow Jesus Christ is enough common ground from which to start.

Now here is where we really must protest against Evans. She has requested that the lines be drawn so broadly that there is now room within the church for any and every cult/group out there. Who could argue that the Branch Dividians loved Jesus? Who can deny that Jehovah's Witnesses love Jesus? Who can deny that Mormons love and follow Jesus? If Evans had her way, they would be in the circle. Or look at it another way. If she wants to draw the circle that broadly, then consider what brought her to that place. The Jesus and Bible of Rob Bell and of the Emergents is so ill-defined that the cults now do have a legitimate place at the table. In opening the door wide enough for her own orthodoxy not to be called into question, she has flung open the doors and is letting the flies and the wolves, in.

An Atheist Faces God

Rob Bell seems to think that in the afterlife, human suffering will eventually devolve into soft-hearted acquiescence on the part of suffering (and in Bell's case, he would use the word "suffering" very sparingly) unbelievers. To such sentiments, I present exhibit Z: "What every atheist should say to god... if judgment day actually happens!" This post by an unbeliever pretty well sums up what I imagine the sentiments of a condemned immortal to be:

You know, even if almost everything had been perfect, a world free from pain and death where everyone would freely choose to spend an eternity with you – except for one person, and yet you made him anyways… then you would still be infinitely more evil than all the worst of humanity combined. You’re going to judge me? On behalf of all that’s good and decent in your creation, I judge you. I may have been a willful child, but you were a terrible father.

I can’t say I’m really inclined to beg for my soul now, given what I said about you knowing me perfectly. Even so, supposing mercy’s still an option (and that last rant didn’t kill my chances), I guess it’s worth a shot. I can’t pretend I have any love for you, but no principle is worth being damned over if it can be helped. What shall I say in my defense?

It gets worse. But I'll let you read it for yourselves. It does say something about Bell's view of human nature that he seems to see some scenario where someone's free will would just lift them out of hell someday when, in reality, hell (real hell, mind you) will produce nothing but hatred of God and hard-heartedness.

PS: This is just an add-on to the post, but here is a post written by a universalist on how he categorizes Bell's view. To save you the click, he calls Bell's view "hopeful universalism."

The Unprofessional Book Review: Love Wins by Rob Bell (Part 3 of 3)

PART 3: SCHOLARSHIP?

You may notice, in the past two parts of my review, that I have been constantly and consistently giving page numbers, citations, showing where my quotes come from. I don't know if Rob Bell just thought nobody would be interested in where he got his quotes from or if he was purposely trying to make life harder for guys like me who really want to know where he gets his assertions from, but it is somewhere between annoying and (uh-oh) unconscionable (there's that word again!) that he would say things about the Greek word aion and yet give us no idea from which scholarly literature we might find aion translated as "intensity of experience that transcends time." You certainly won't find this interpretation in BDAG's Greek lexicon. I guess we'll just have to take Bell's word for it?

On top of this, his writing style is horrible. My English teacher from High School would never give writing like this a pass. We've already seen how he breaks up standard prose into lines so that it looks like poetry (which, once again, I chalk up to helping the book limp across the 190 page threshold). The book is full of three-word sentences. Now, I do things similar to that on the blog, but then again, it's a blog. But I understand - it's a popular level of writing. I just can't help but wonder if in ten years our theological discourse might not consist of books that look like they were written on somebody's phone. LRN 2 RITE. CIT UR SRCES ROB.

Also, he only gives chapters when he makes his occasional Scripture references. Instead of saying, "Jeremiah 37:32," he just writes Jeremiah chapter 32 and makes me search through 50 verses so I can find the verse he just cited. Again, after my 30th time searching for a verse, I began to assume that Rob Bell just hates me and wanted to make my life a living hell (literally, Rob Bell's kind of hell!) as I tried to find some context for his atrocious exegesis.

Another example of the awful scholarship involved in this book is the way that he tries to bring Luther to his side of things. Carl Trueman has shown the horror of what Bell does here, but I just wanted to mention in passing that when I originally read page 106, I was upset. But once I read the actual letter as a whole that Bell quotes Luther from, I almost turned over the card table and stormed out of the room (I'm that dramatic). The very idea that Bell could transform Luther from a defender of the absolute necessity of personally receiving Christ for salvation into someone who toys with the possibility of post-mortem salvation is (here comes the word again) unconscionable. What was the big idea not telling us where we could find the letter in Luther's writings? No citation. I guess I was just suppose to know that this quote came from Vol. 43, Page 51 of the English edition of Luther's Works.

There is so much horrible exegesis that is barely even sustained by actual careful argument that I can't possibly think to get into it all. I won't get into it all, mainly because I feel like Kevin DeYoung did a wonderful job overviewing the Scriptural problems in his own (now famous) review of the book. I will turn my attention to probably the most violent perversion of any text, however, which is his treatment of the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man from Luke 16:19-31 (aka Luke 16).

So Bell is especially interested in the rich man's attitude in the afterlife. He finds it noteworthy that the rich man, even in the afterlife, still wants to be served by Lazarus. "The rich man still sees himself as above Lazarus. It's no wonder Abraham says there's a chasm that can't be crossed. The chasm is the rich man's heart! (75)"

What an awful perversion of what Jesus was really saying. In fact, the real point was not that the rich man was keeping himself on the wrong side of the chasm, but that the chasm was objective, fixed, and that it could not be crossed! Even though Bell is right that the rich man is still selfish and thinks himself worthy of Lazarus' services, the truth is still precisely the opposite message which Bell is attempting to squeeze from the text.

Speaking of perversion, listen to why Bell says we take communion:

When we take the Eucharist, or Communion,
we dip bread into a cup,
enacting and remembering Jesus' gift of himself.
His body,
his blood,
for the life of the world.
Our bodies, our lives,
for the life of the world.

These rituals are true for us,
because they're true for everybody.
They unite us, because they unite everybody (157).

In this three-part review, I have tried to deal with the bigger picture of Bell's arguments and not to just offer sound bites or nit-pick. Doing this, of course, forced us to review the book backwards from his views of sin back to his view of heaven and hell that he explores early on in the book. The entire first half of the book as he complained about the "meanie hell" as I'm calling it, I kept wondering, how does he handle God's holiness, his hatred of sin, and his justice? He has all of these assumptions that really ought to be laid out in the beginning instead of at the end. But that wouldn't make for exciting reading, I suppose. I share many of his sentiments in the book (especially his criticisms of the mentality of many in the church who think that the bare minimum goal in life is getting to heaven), but the places where I agree with Bell are so few and far between that all I am left with after reading the book is an overwhelming conviction that the cure shouldn't be in the poison.

I could write more about this troubling book, but I have a feeling that now that Love Wins has been released, I will not be the only one offering criticisms of this book. Unfortunately, I know that the mind of evangelicalism is so wide at this point that many will let anything and everything float in and out, so long as it comes from somebody like Bell whom they feel has earned credibility in the past in their own eyes. It is my hope, for the sake of evangelicalism as a whole, however, that this book is roundly rejected as unbiblical, damaging to missions, damaging to the Gospel, and damaging to the church. If what Rob Bell is saying in this book is really acceptable to evangelicals, then it might be argued that the transformation of evangelicalism into full-fledged liberalism (ala Schliermacher) is truly complete. Now that Liberalism's foot is firmly in the dor, it's just a matter of leaning against the door. Lets hope there's some push-back.

Eternal Life and a Not-So Eternal Punishment

The following quote from Michael Horton's The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way is addressed directly to the question of Annihilationism. However, the comments he shares in this particular quote are quite applicable to several of the arguments which Rob Bell made in his newest book, Love Wins.

Jesus' teaching concerning the final separation of the saved and the lost seems to treat punishment and life as equally eternal: "And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life" (Mt. 25:46). If it is generally assumed that "eternal life" means unending, conscious joy, then it would seem that annihilationists bear the burden of proof in treating "eternal punishment" as otherwise in duration. Regardless of how one finally interprets these passages, it cannot be decided on the basis of our fallen moral judgment of God and his ways and our consequent emotional revulsion at the admittedly difficult idea of conscious punishment forever... The only decisive question is whether Scripture teaches it (Page 983-984).

The Unprofessional Book Review: Love Wins by Rob Bell (Part 2 of 3)

PART 2: UNIVERSALISM?

So on to the question of universalism. I'm actually going to step out and say that it's hard to tell if Rob Bell is a universalist in any traditional sense (that is not to say that his views are in any sense traditional or orthodox). He is so dogmatic that God never fails and that he wants to save everyone. He is also clear that there are second, third, and so on chances after death. And yet he is also dogmatic that the human will has the power to resist God forever if it so chooses. I will say that his doctrine of post-mortem salvation ought to be controversial enough in an of itself, questions of universalism being almost beside the point.

Sometimes he talks like a classic universalist. For example, in his chapter titled "Does God Get What God Wants?" he makes this argument (a lot less structured, of course).

1. God wants everyone to be saved (cue the many verses where "all" is always supposed to mean "all.")
2. God always gets what God wants (cue the infinite number of verses that say God's will cannot be thwarted, and no one can stay his hand).
3. Therefore... (he leaves you to fill in the blank.)

It's so strange. One minute, he sounds like Charles Finney or Origen, then literally in the next paragraph, he sounds like John Calvin:

This insistence that God will be united and reconciled with all people is a theme the writers and prophets return to again and again...

In the book of Job the question arises: "Who can oppose God? He does whatever he pleases" (chap. 23). And then later it's affirmed when Job says of God, "I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted" (chap. 42). (Pg. 100)

He completely mocks the God of Arminian orthodoxy by heckling that their God is a failure if he doesn't save all, calling their God "not totally great. Sort of great. A little great" (98). I have done a little heckling like this, myself. Of course, my solution was that we understand God's power to be absolute, but His purposes to be different than the Arminian understands it. Bell combines the Arminian notion of God's intention with the Calvinistic (I use the word loosely here) notion of God's success in all His endeavors. Bell's Arminian readers will have to make a decision, if they want to deny the charge that their God is a failure. Either God is going to save all, or else he never intended, ultimately, to save all. The third option is that God is in fact, a failure, which most will want to deny; Bell certainly does.

There is an intentionality in Bell's words when he says, "The God that Jesus teaches us about doesn't give up until everything that was lost is found. This God simply doesn't give up. Ever" (101). If Bell is so insistent that "all" always means "all," then I don't think we should underestimate his words, here. Bell really means that God never gives up. God never fails to save, when He wants to save.

In this sense, we ought to see that Bell is teaching universalism. He believes that God will keep pursuing people, post-mortem, through all eternity. But at the same time he says that His God isn't a failure or a loser, he seems to ascribe so much power to the mystical notion of "freedom" that it may thwart God's plan through all eternity. He seems to suggest at times that some human wills may potentially never be reconciled to God.

The Bruce Almighty Doctrine
This is where we introduce what I call the Bruce Almighty doctrine. If you haven't seen the movie, then you won't get the joke.

Although God is powerful and mighty, when it comes to the human heart God has to play by the same rules we do. God has to respect our freedom to choose to the very end, even at the risk of the relationship itself. If at any point, God overrides, co-opts, or hijacks the human heart, robbing us of our freedom to choose, then God has violated the fundamental essence of what love even is (103-104).

It reminds me of the scene in Bruce Almighty where he keeps looking at Jennifer Aniston's character and screaming, "LOVE me!" Then Morgan Freeman gives him a lecture on how God can do a lot of things, but he can't change the human heart. Yup, Rob Bell has Hollywood's view of human freedom. And yet this crucial doctrine for Rob Bell is NOWHERE hinted at in Scripture. Not even a little. It is a philosophical assumption that most freedom-loving Americans take as a given. But throughout the book, Bell shows that he doesn't really mind leaving his most central arguments unsubstantiated.

So, because of the Bruce Almighty Doctrine, Bell has it both ways. Love wins precisely because freedom wins. As long as God doesn't control or coerce us, then love wins, regardless of where we all end up. In my mind, this seems to cheapen what we think of when we hear the phrase "love wins." I got the strong impression that the many pieces of Bell's system do not fit together well at all. Which is it? Bruce Almighty, or God gets what God wants? Bell is clearly happy leaving aspects of his system in this sort of tension. If it were me, it would drive me crazy, like a house with a door that's too small for the frame that it's in.

But then again, remember that for Bell, where we end up is just a question of degrees of sadness or happiness. We're not talking about punishment or agony of any sort, because he is clear that those things don't bring glory to God in any sense.

To reject God's grace,
to turn from God's love,
to resist God's telling,
will lead to misery.
It is a punishment, all on its own (176).

I sarcastically commented in the margins, "Oh yeah, it sure sounds truly horrifying."

So I say that he is also not a universalist. Because of the Bruce Almighty Doctrine, who knows what will really happen in the afterlife?

So will those who have said no to God's love in this life continue to say no in the next? Love demands freedom, and freedom provides that possibility. People take that option now, and we can assume it will be taken in the future (114).

Will everybody be saved,
or will some perish apart from God forever because of their choices?

Those are questions, or more accurately, those are tensions we are free to leave fully intact (115).

The question which I really want to ask Rob Bell is this: is it possible that those who are in heaven after death will pass back into hell? If not, then why? After all, what is preventing their powerful wills from overwhelming the grace of God as they descend back into sorrow and madness? I thought at some point before the end of the book he might address this important and (in my opinion) devastating criticism, but alas, he does not. Did he not see such a possibility at all, when he was writing this book?

I had hoped I might see him discuss Hebrews 9:27 (He would call it Hebrews 9) which reads, "It is appointed unto man once to do, and after that comes judgment." To my mind, this is a very definitive refutation of the "second chance" doctrine that Bell is absolutely dependent on.

Tomorrow in our final installment of this review, we will look at questions of Bell's scholarship and I'll wrap up my review. Part 3

The Bell is Out of the Bag

Earlier, I suggested that we ought to measure our responses to Rob Bell and wait until the book is out so that we can ensure we aren't participating in a bait and switch of some sort. Now that Kevin DeYoung has posted his highly detailed, unreservedly pastoral review of Bell's book Love Wins, I just want to say that the cat is out of the bag, and he is, in fact, teaching Universal Reconciliation. I want to commend with the highest possible accolades, DeYoung's review. It is essential reading for church leaders. Not that we shouldn't read Bell's book ourselves, but not everyone has time to read Herman Bavinck, Geerhardus Vos, AND Rob Bell on top of it all.

I am grateful that God has raised up servants for the church like Kevin DeYoung. God is good. And holy. And just. And angry at sin. ... Just read the review, already.

Why Christians Should Love Hell

Earlier today, I read a blog post by Tom from Being the Body who is a fan of Rob Bell and claims to have read all of his new book Love Wins. This blogger seems quite adamant that Bell does not promote universalism in the book, and quotes a couple of nebulous and vague statements from the book to prove his point. Personally, it's going to take more than that to clear things up for me. By I digress; that is not the point of this post.

In the comments section, there was a fellow whose handle was "DaviGoss." DaviGoss said something which I considered at once ignorant and at the same time very representative of what many in the evangelical world are thinking regarding the strong response which we Calvinists have had towards suggestions that someone might be teaching universalism:

Why do some people want a God who would "sentence souls to eternal suffering"? - Does this say more about them than about God? What the God who is love? - God's love is infinite; God's patience is eternal.

You get to pick your shoes each morning. You get to pick between sandals or army boots. You don't get to just pick the nature of reality. Now, if I am going to just believe what I want to believe based on my own random ideas and inclinations, I choose New Age. But if we believe what we believe based on revelation, then it gets more complicated than simply what we feel like believing. When it comes to believing in Hell, there is the boilerplate answer that we could give: "we don't want that; it's awful; hell is terrible; we hate Hell!" Let me suggest something a bit more radical. Christians are to love Hell, because Hell is an echo of the glory of God.

If hell is temporal, then God's anger at sin is temporal. If punishment is not eternal, then affronts to the glory of God deserve only a finite response - a slap on the wrist. The reason why Christians ought to scream at the thought of universalism is that nothing less than the glory of God is at stake. This is not about Calvinists enjoying the thought of the eternal suffering of Hell - it is horrifying to think about. But it is about something far more horrifying - a God who is not angry that his name has been besmirched to the degree that his name is glorious and infinitely worthy of honor. In the same way, universalism faces the same problem - the universe is filled with people who have besmirched the name of God, and who have not been united to Jesus Christ by faith.

At one point in Rob Bell's "Love Wins" video, he talks about the fact that many teach that Jesus rescues us from God, and then he asks, "What kind of a God is it that we would need to be rescued from this God?" I just wanted to immediately raise my hand and say, "A HOLY GOD who hates sin!"

We are convinced of the importance of Hell because it is inextricably united to the glory of God. Hell exists because God is glorious and will in no way acquit the guilty. Therefore, as believers, we are to love Hell, even if we are to fear that anyone should go there. So when you see us mean-spirited Calvinists passionately defending the biblical doctrine of Hell, remember that we're not masochists or hatemongers. On the contrary - we love God and will fight to defend His glory.

Shedd on Knowledge in the Afterlife

I spent the afternoon reading a sermon by American Presbyterian theologian W.G.T. Shedd (1820-1894) titled "The Future State a Self-Conscious State." This was taken from his volume Sermons to the Natural Man. In the sermon, Shedd argues that our quality of knowledge in the afterlife will differ significantly from what we enjoy here. Specifically, Shedd is focused on the knowledge which natural men - who do not know God - will enjoy in the afterlife.

Shedd's sermon is based on 1 Cor. 13:12, which reads, "Now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."

The three broad points which Shedd's sermon is laying forth are as follows:

I. "The human mind, in eternity, will have a distinct and unvarying perception of the character of God." Shedd - nearly quoting Lewis (anachronistically), says the following: "The future state of every man is to be an open and unavoidable vision of God. If he delights in the view, he will be blessed; if he loathes it, he will be miserable. This is the substance of heaven and hell. This is the key to the eternal destiny of every human soul. If a man love God, he shall gaze at him and adore; if he hate God, he shall gaze at him and gnaw his tongue for pain."

II. "He will know himself even as he is known by God." This is so dreadful, says Shedd, because man spends so much time hiding behind willful self-deception, which will no longer protect man once he knows himself as God knows him.

III. He will have "a clear understanding of the nature and wants of the soul." Connected to this point, he says the following: "Man has that in his constitution, which needs God, and which cannot be at rest except in God. A state of sin is a state of alienation and separation from the Creator. It is, consequently, in its intrinsic nature, a state of restlessness and dissatisfaction."

In the beginning, Shedd argues that "a false theory of the future state will not protect a man from future misery." He then argues, on top of this, that "indifference and carelessness respecting the future life will not protect the soul from future misery." (This point seems especially relevant in our own day of shallow thinking, frequent distraction, and naively optimistic indifference.)

In his conclusion to part one of the sermon, Shedd concludes that "only faith in Christ and a new heart can protect the soul from future misery." He goes on:

You must love this holiness without which no man can see the Lord. You may approve of it, you may praise it in other men, but if there is no affectionate going out of your own heart toward, the holy God, you are not in right relations to Him.

I just shared the cliff's notes version of the sermon, but it is almost a shameful summary, because it is one of the most glorious and tremendously insightful sermons I have read in recent memory. In conclusion, I want to recommend Shedd's volume of 20 sermons in Sermons to the Natural Man. You can get this volume for free in various formats from Project Gutenberg by clicking here.

The Pittsburg Gym Shooter's Theology

What I'm about to do is unfair. No doubt about it. But I'm going to do it anyway, because it's something that I've said for a very long time - for years, actually. I have long claimed that proclaiming a view of the atonement which says that Jesus died for each and every sin of every single person is destructive. Now, I have proof, plain as day.

Earlier this week, George Sodini fulfilled a year-long plan by shooting up an aerobics class and killing 4 women, plus himself. This was a horrible event. One disturbing aspect is the blogs that he left behind, detailing his mental state and even his plan of what he was going to do. The blog is a disturbing read because it is seemingly that of a rational (at least seemingly) man who lived a purposeless existence and knew it. Throughout his writings, one finds many of his self-justifying reasons for what he is about to do. At one point early on, he mentions that at his church they teach that God will forgive any and all sins - even mass-murder. A few months later, days before carrying out this despicable act, Sodini writes the following:

Maybe soon, I will see God and Jesus. At least that is what I was told. Eternal life does NOT depend on works. If it did, we will all be in hell. Christ paid for EVERY sin, so how can I or you be judged BY GOD for a sin when the penalty was ALREADY paid. People judge but that does not matter. I was reading the Bible and The Integrity of God beginning yesterday, because soon I will see them.

I would say that the problem is that he never had the lordship of Jesus Christ preached to him, but he may have. The important part, which he latched onto was the proclaimation which he repeatedly received that Jesus died for all of his sins. When you tell people that all of their sins are forgiven, when you tell them that Jesus died for their sins, and you evangelize them based on the fact that Jesus died for their sins and that person decides not to respond to the message of the gospel, you stand a chance of them remembering someday that Jesus already died for their sins. The proclamation that Jesus covers your sins before they even respond to the gospel is, in my opinion, dangerous. Now, it's not the fault of the Hypothetical Universalists that George Sodini was a psychopath, I just found it profoundly interesting that he remembered Jesus' universal atoning sacrifice days before killing 5 people and then taking comfort in that. Let the hate-mail begin.

The Unspeakable Horror Of Sin: A Question for Annihilationists

I was led to question the traditional belief in everlasting conscious torment because of moral revulsion and broader theological considerations, not first of all on scriptural grounds. It just does not make any sense to say that a God of love will torture people forever for sins done in the context of a finite life . . . It's time for evangelicals to come out and say that the biblical and morally appropriate doctrine of hell is annihilation, not everlasting torment.
-Clark Pinnock

Emotionally, I find the concept [of eternal conscious torment] intolerable and do not understand how people can live with it without either cauterizing their feelings or cracking under the strain . . . Scripture points in the direction of annihilation.
-John Stott

Sin manifests itself in a lot of horrifying ways in our world. Every time that a bomb drops, a police siren sounds, or a door locks behind someone, we are reminded that we live in a fallen world full of depraved people just like ourselves. I consider myself a pessimist in the short term and an optimist in the long-term (because God's glory is the ultimate reason for all of this), but even I am occasionally surprised by the wicked things that my fellow humans are capable of (and I try to expect everything from them).

Read this news story, if you can bear it. Personally, since I have a 2 year old, this story stirs something within me I never knew until fatherhood. I was just thinking that someone like this can never be treated as badly as he deserves. What can men do to him that would right the wrong which he has done to this poor innocent (albeit fallen) child? My answer is, nothing. "Do not fear those who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear. Fear him who, after he has killed has the power to cast into hell" (Luke 12:4–5). For Jesus, the suffering which men can cause to the body is nothing compared to what the infinite God is capable of. Temporal suffering will always end, one way or another. But, Jesus says, there is another kind of suffering which will literally never have a termination point.

The thought of it is too much to bear for some, as you see with the quotes from Pinnock and Stott, above. But would Stott and Pinnock still tremble when reflecting upon the suffering of those in Hell and individuals such as Sergio Aguiar (the man mentioned in the above story)? This is a man who mercilessly and savagely stomped his 2 year old son's tiny body until it was beyond recognition; the justice for something like that will literally never be filled up. I charge that those who deny the eternity of Hell minimize a) God's hatred of sin and b) the heinousness of sin. To devalue these two things is the only way to make a temporal hell make any sense (not even allowing for the overwhelming Biblical testimony which others are better equipped to deal with).

So which is it, annihilationists? Is Aguiar's crime not nearly as bad as I say it is, or am I simply not being understanding enough? In Heaven, I will not shed any tears for Aguiar, but I wish I could muster up some today, while my feet are still on the ground. They simply aren't coming.