U2 played a concert in Nashville on Saturday night. I was tired of hearing about it before the concert even occurred. Now, a week has gone by, and people still won't stop talking about it. Folks are still posting pictures, talking about the blind guy who played with the band at the end, and generally gushing. One friend remarked on Facebook that she had actually made eye contact with members of the band. Be still, my beating heart.
I find all of this very annoying, and not because I don't like U2. I think "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and "Pride" are profoundly good songs. And I appreciate Bono lending his voice to the struggle against poverty in Africa. But come on. They're a rock band, and not a particularly talented one. Many of their songs sound an awful lot alike. None of the musicians ever do anything all that impressive. They are heavily dependent on electronic effects. I suspect we will never hear a stripped-down U2, but if we did, I don't think it would be much to listen to.
But more than just annoying, I find this near-worship of U2 pretty troubling, and it's because of the language people use to describe them and their concerts. People talk about U2 using theologically-loaded words, such as grace. I heard a young man refer to the concert by saying something to the effect that it's not just one moment, it's a thousand moments, and the band is inviting the audience to catch a glimpse of God's kingdom, of what God is doing in the world.
Just to be clear, I'm not really picking on U2. I would be equally uncomfortable applying kingdom of God language to any other human institution, regardless of whether we were discussing Ford Motor Company, my alma mater Lipscomb University, the San Diego Chargers, the Tennessee Supreme Court, CNN, or even the Methodist Church. I contend that we must be careful when we talk in such ways about human institutions, particularly in this case when we are describing a highly successful, flashy, indulgent arena rock band.
On a certain level, some of the things that have been said are true, of course. Many of the lyrics to U2's songs are inspiring. That's one of the functions of good music. It should wake people up a bit. We need to be mindful of the future, to hope for a better day of peace and unity and love. And I am convinced that part of God's dream for the world involves Africans being lifted out of poverty. But I wonder whether some fans of the band are employing such language without practicing any kind of discernment whatsoever. There are, in fact, aspects of the U2 experience that I would argue are very much not in line with the work of God in the world.
For example, I learned from friends who attended the concert that everyone in attendance looked pretty much the same: upper middle-class white people that were middle-aged and younger. One friend reported seeing not one African-American in a crowd of 50,000. Such homogeneity is alarming at a U2 concert, where Bono dreams of all people being One, and where the plight of Africans is so often referred to. And it is frankly difficult for me to stomach a lecture about poverty from a multi-millionaire rock star who is standing on a $25 million stage. It's like eating steak at a fundraising dinner for starving children. Such over-the-top self-indulgence seems very much in opposition to the kingdom of God. After all, how many children could have been fed with the money that was spent on the stage alone? How much gasoline is used by the 120 trucks required to carry the three concert sets to different venues? A little introspection never hurt anybody.
Perhaps most importantly, I am reluctant to use divine language to describe a U2 concert experience because attending a concert is too damn easy. It requires almost nothing of those in attendance. The concert-goers may have felt hip and socially-conscious, but they were obligated to do nothing more than enjoy the show. I could have gone to the concert, listened to the sounds, felt goosebumps from the lyrics or the music or a combination of the two, and then left to return to my life, otherwise undisturbed.
That is not how God's kingdom works. Such a musical proclamation is not tantamount to the gospel because it is not incarnational. Sure, it is possible that a concert attendee will, as a result of what she heard, change her lifestyle in order to give to the poor, visit the imprisoned, etc. But the gospel does not just leave open the possibility. The gospel is not a mere suggestion. It is a demand. It requires the bearing of a cross, not merely the signing of the ONE petition. And upon hearing the gospel, many rich young white people will likely walk away sad because they will not give up on their materialistic dreams of great comfort, or perhaps, if they are especially lucky, even the kind of luxury that characterizes the daily existence of the members of U2. In contrast to the sadness of the rich young ruler, who had been confronted with the cost of participating in the kingdom announced by Jesus, many of the concert-goers left very happy, singing tunes like "All I Want Is You," because nothing was demanded of them except for the money they paid for their tickets.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
What You Win Them With Is What You Win Them To
The phrase that serves as the title for the post was coined by Randy Harris. He was explaining that there are "cruise ship churches" and "battleship churches." A cruise ship church's top priority is the satisfaction of the members. Therefore, the emphasis is on programs and activities that benefit and entertain the members, who are not unlike customers in the business that is institutional religion. I suspect most megachurches, with their seemingly endless self-focesed ministries, events, camps, cookouts, worship services, building programs, etc., fall into this category. A battleship church, on the other hand, focuses on what is happening outside its walls, on serving people that do not attend its services. In my experience, these are few and far between. These churches exist for the sake of the world, not for the entertainment and convenience of their own members. The priority then is not on keeping the members of the congregation satisfied, but on equipping them as disciples of Jesus to go do what Jesus commanded us to do, which is love, forgive, expose injustice, suffer alongside those who suffer, visit prisoners, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the sick and dying, and show hospitality to everyone that the religious establishment would label unworthy, immoral, or sinner.
I suspect a quick review of any church's budget will give you a good idea of what kind of church it is. And Randy Harris contends that it is virtually impossible to convert a cruise ship church into a battleship church, so do not bother trying. Having attended what I consider to be a cruise ship church for about nine years now, Randy's word of pessimism strikes me as very bad news because I would love to see my church become a battleship church where members are trained and expected and led to go into the dark places of the world and proclaim good news to the poor, release to the imprisoned, etc. But Randy says it's all but impossible to change.
The reason that a cruise ship church cannot be converted into a battleship church may be summed up with a simple, memorable phrase: "What you win them with is what you win them to." Therefore, if what attracts people to the church is its upbeat, entertaining worship services, or its fun-filled activity-a-week youth ministry, then the people will not be willing to do anything more than consume the services offered by the church. You can't attract people with good music and then expect them to sign up for difficult ministries. All they'll be willing to do is enjoy the music because that's why they showed up in the first place.
The problem here is that if you win people with entertaining worship, the novelty of that wears off pretty quick, and the members will be tempted to look elsewhere for an even more entertaining worship experience, which in my opinion is why so many folks have left the confines of denominational churches for the more free worship experiences offered by nondenominational churches. And if that's why people are leaving one church for another, you can't expect them to do any real work.
The solution? Randy Harris says you need to plant new churches that from their genesis have a battleship mentality. I am convinced that such churches will look nothing like traditional congregations in several respects, but one springs immediately to mind. There will be no building. As soon as a church invests in a building, it is responsible for something that must be paid for, cared for, and preserved. Much of the congregation's energy is directed toward its property. Plus, all of the sudden there are serious bills to pay. The church needs members to give money to pay those bills. Therefore, nothing should be done or said at the church that might lead to anyone leaving the pews and taking their money elsewhere. It becomes very important for everyone to feel comfortable. A church that meets in a building sacrifices a great deal of freedom. Thus, as soon as a battleship church gets into the building business, it has already taken a significant step toward being a cruise ship church.
So where will the church members gather? Apartments, bars, under bridges, and my personal favorite, in prisons. Churches that meet in such places retain a great deal of freedom to be what God calls them to be at any given moment. The church can boldly speak truth without worrying that people may get offended and leave. There may be 15 people or 150 present. The church is not dependent on filling pews. The church is free to exist for the good of the world, without worrying about perpetuating the life of the institution. It seems to me that this is church as it was intended to be.
I suspect a quick review of any church's budget will give you a good idea of what kind of church it is. And Randy Harris contends that it is virtually impossible to convert a cruise ship church into a battleship church, so do not bother trying. Having attended what I consider to be a cruise ship church for about nine years now, Randy's word of pessimism strikes me as very bad news because I would love to see my church become a battleship church where members are trained and expected and led to go into the dark places of the world and proclaim good news to the poor, release to the imprisoned, etc. But Randy says it's all but impossible to change.
The reason that a cruise ship church cannot be converted into a battleship church may be summed up with a simple, memorable phrase: "What you win them with is what you win them to." Therefore, if what attracts people to the church is its upbeat, entertaining worship services, or its fun-filled activity-a-week youth ministry, then the people will not be willing to do anything more than consume the services offered by the church. You can't attract people with good music and then expect them to sign up for difficult ministries. All they'll be willing to do is enjoy the music because that's why they showed up in the first place.
The problem here is that if you win people with entertaining worship, the novelty of that wears off pretty quick, and the members will be tempted to look elsewhere for an even more entertaining worship experience, which in my opinion is why so many folks have left the confines of denominational churches for the more free worship experiences offered by nondenominational churches. And if that's why people are leaving one church for another, you can't expect them to do any real work.
The solution? Randy Harris says you need to plant new churches that from their genesis have a battleship mentality. I am convinced that such churches will look nothing like traditional congregations in several respects, but one springs immediately to mind. There will be no building. As soon as a church invests in a building, it is responsible for something that must be paid for, cared for, and preserved. Much of the congregation's energy is directed toward its property. Plus, all of the sudden there are serious bills to pay. The church needs members to give money to pay those bills. Therefore, nothing should be done or said at the church that might lead to anyone leaving the pews and taking their money elsewhere. It becomes very important for everyone to feel comfortable. A church that meets in a building sacrifices a great deal of freedom. Thus, as soon as a battleship church gets into the building business, it has already taken a significant step toward being a cruise ship church.
So where will the church members gather? Apartments, bars, under bridges, and my personal favorite, in prisons. Churches that meet in such places retain a great deal of freedom to be what God calls them to be at any given moment. The church can boldly speak truth without worrying that people may get offended and leave. There may be 15 people or 150 present. The church is not dependent on filling pews. The church is free to exist for the good of the world, without worrying about perpetuating the life of the institution. It seems to me that this is church as it was intended to be.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Believing in the Resurrection
There are times when I struggle to believe in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Resurrection contradicts all of my experience about the nature of life and death.
My first brush with death came in 1987, when I was ten years old and my grandfather, Joe Harwell, died of cancer. Granddaddy was very kind to me. He used to draw pictures of buses for me while I sat on his lap, and he would wind his cuckoo clock to make the bird come out and announce the hour. He was good with his hands. In 1985, when I was an eight-year-old obsessed with the coolness that was Miami Vice, he fashioned for me a shoulder holster for one of my toy pistols by tearing strips from an old pair of Grandma’s leather knee-high boots and weaving and stapling them together.
I don’t remember a whole lot about Granddaddy’s sickness and death. I remember he lost his hair from the chemotherapy. I remember it was a sad time for my family. And looking back over the past twenty-four years, I wish that he could have been around. But that’s not how death works. He died, and that’s the end of it. Resurrection was not a part of the story.
Many people that I have known and cared about have died since then, and in each case, death has been the end. No one I have known has ever been raised from the dead. It just doesn’t happen in real life, one might say.
And I look around, not simply at my own experience, but at the workings of the world in general, and it seems death, not resurrection, is the ultimate reality. I see a devastating earthquake in Haiti, a cataclysmal tsunami in Japan, and disastrous tornados in Alabama. In each instance, many people lost their lives in mere moments. If television programming is any indication, ours is a culture obsessed with death. Popular crime dramas revolve around death. Our mass media overrepresents violent crime, compared with official statistics. And only a few days ago, jubilant crowds gathered in the streets to worship the idols of violence and death, celebrating the demise of a person who was loved by God with as little mindfulness and sobriety as they would if their team had won a sporting event.
Every dollar spent on the insatiable military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned against in his farewell address constitutes an offering to death. War, it seems, has become a way of life, and there is alarmingly little resistance to the notion that war is the way to peace. The annual military budget, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is about $725 billion. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. warned that, “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” Sometimes I wonder whether we are already there.
Social forms of death, such as racism, addiction, homelessness, generational poverty, loneliness, and abuse continue to plague our world. Economics based on greed and exploitation of other people seem to be the norm. Interfaith dialogue is too often characterized by ignorance, fear, and hatred. A lifestyle of limitless consumption is wreaking tremendous ecological damage. Meanwhile 30,000 children die every day from malnutrition, lack of access to clean water, and preventable diseases.
Arcane criminal justice policies promote death, both literal and social. More people are serving longer sentences for victimless crimes, such as drug possession. In the United States, 2.5 million people are incarcerated. That’s about the population of the city of Houston. They are dehumanized and warehoused away from their spouses, children, parents, and friends. If and when they are released, they will forever be stigmatized, as they cannot vote, do not qualify for public housing, and must check “felon” on every job application they ever fill out, even though they have technically paid their debt to society. And although the death penalty has been shown to cost more than a life sentence while not functioning well as a deterrent, we stubbornly persist in giving our government the power to kill its own citizens. Death is the final moral and practical sanction of the State, which we might say holds a monopoly on dolling out death, under a guise of legitimacy. Death is, as Lee Camp has suggested, the biggest weapon in the arsenal of the fallen powers.
Given the ubiquitous power of death at work in the world, the passage from Micah about people streaming to God’s holy mountain to learn His ways, of refashioning weapons of warfare into gardening tools, of everyone having enough and living without fear, just seems unrealistic, like a fairy tale, an opiate of the naïve masses, perhaps, but not something that can reasonably be believed in.
So I struggle at times to believe in resurrection. Thankfully, I am not alone in my struggle. The gospel reading indicates that the disciples, standing in the presence of the risen Lord, were frightened and had doubts. Death was as real for them as it was for us, and they had seen Jesus crushed by the power of death, wielded, as usual, by the State. To help them believe, Jesus showed them his flesh and his bones, his hands and feet. He invited them to touch his body. But the disciples, though joyful, were still wondering and disbelieving. So he offers them an unlikely sign of resurrection. He takes a piece of broiled fish and eats it in their presence. And Luke to help with our disbelief, records for us this token of the resurrection, a keepsake, as it were. The risen Lord ate a piece of broiled fish.
That piece of fish isn’t exactly definitive proof that Jesus was raised from the dead. I don’t recall the piece of fish being mentioned in my Christian Evidences class during my junior year at Lipscomb. I doubt it would convince someone who understands the resurrection to be a metaphor, a parable told by the early church. But for me, it is a precious keepsake that death is not the ultimate moral reality in the universe.
Perhaps, as important as it is for the church to perceive the power of death at work where others see only success or progress or business as usual, it is even more important for the church to discern the keepsakes of resurrection, the remarkable signs of resurrection that appear in unlikely places.
I think about the peaceful end of apartheid in South Africa and the release of Nelson Mandela from prison. I think about Ken, whom we all met a few weeks ago, of the years he spent alone on the streets, and of his terminal cancer. But the love, acceptance, and dignity he has received from Lindsey and Scott and others speak to me of the reality of resurrection. I think about the Confessing Church in Germany that bravely resisted the power of death incarnate in Nazi totalitarianism. I think about the women of Magdalene House, who joined us last week. The lives of these women had been dominated by death. Yet like weeds breaking through cracked pavement, new life has broken forth. Keepsakes such as these remind me that new life is possible, that another world is possible, is coming, and is among us, that, as William Stringfellow might say, it is possible to live humanly in the midst of fallen Creation.
In the reading from Acts, we see Peter, who not long before stood in disbelief while Jesus at that piece of fish, boldly proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus from the dead to the rulers, elders, scribes, and high-priestly family that had him and John arrested. In the face of death, he proclaimed the One who confronted and was given authority over death. In the middle of chaos, he celebrated the Word of God. Amidst babel, he acted humanly; he told the truth.
And so I believe in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It follows that I believe that death was not the end of my grandfather. I believe that God’s will for love, justice, and peace can be and is being done on earth as it is in heaven. I believe that the powers of violence and death, in all their forms, can be resisted because when Jesus was raised, they were overcome. And when my doubts return, there is a piece of broiled fish, a compelling prophetic vision, an impassioned apostolic speech to the religious elite, and countless other keepsakes of resurrection to strengthen my imperfect belief. In the words of Henri Nouwen, “While many question whether the resurrection really took place, I wonder if it doesn’t take place every day if we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear.”
My first brush with death came in 1987, when I was ten years old and my grandfather, Joe Harwell, died of cancer. Granddaddy was very kind to me. He used to draw pictures of buses for me while I sat on his lap, and he would wind his cuckoo clock to make the bird come out and announce the hour. He was good with his hands. In 1985, when I was an eight-year-old obsessed with the coolness that was Miami Vice, he fashioned for me a shoulder holster for one of my toy pistols by tearing strips from an old pair of Grandma’s leather knee-high boots and weaving and stapling them together.
I don’t remember a whole lot about Granddaddy’s sickness and death. I remember he lost his hair from the chemotherapy. I remember it was a sad time for my family. And looking back over the past twenty-four years, I wish that he could have been around. But that’s not how death works. He died, and that’s the end of it. Resurrection was not a part of the story.
Many people that I have known and cared about have died since then, and in each case, death has been the end. No one I have known has ever been raised from the dead. It just doesn’t happen in real life, one might say.
And I look around, not simply at my own experience, but at the workings of the world in general, and it seems death, not resurrection, is the ultimate reality. I see a devastating earthquake in Haiti, a cataclysmal tsunami in Japan, and disastrous tornados in Alabama. In each instance, many people lost their lives in mere moments. If television programming is any indication, ours is a culture obsessed with death. Popular crime dramas revolve around death. Our mass media overrepresents violent crime, compared with official statistics. And only a few days ago, jubilant crowds gathered in the streets to worship the idols of violence and death, celebrating the demise of a person who was loved by God with as little mindfulness and sobriety as they would if their team had won a sporting event.
Every dollar spent on the insatiable military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned against in his farewell address constitutes an offering to death. War, it seems, has become a way of life, and there is alarmingly little resistance to the notion that war is the way to peace. The annual military budget, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is about $725 billion. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. warned that, “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” Sometimes I wonder whether we are already there.
Social forms of death, such as racism, addiction, homelessness, generational poverty, loneliness, and abuse continue to plague our world. Economics based on greed and exploitation of other people seem to be the norm. Interfaith dialogue is too often characterized by ignorance, fear, and hatred. A lifestyle of limitless consumption is wreaking tremendous ecological damage. Meanwhile 30,000 children die every day from malnutrition, lack of access to clean water, and preventable diseases.
Arcane criminal justice policies promote death, both literal and social. More people are serving longer sentences for victimless crimes, such as drug possession. In the United States, 2.5 million people are incarcerated. That’s about the population of the city of Houston. They are dehumanized and warehoused away from their spouses, children, parents, and friends. If and when they are released, they will forever be stigmatized, as they cannot vote, do not qualify for public housing, and must check “felon” on every job application they ever fill out, even though they have technically paid their debt to society. And although the death penalty has been shown to cost more than a life sentence while not functioning well as a deterrent, we stubbornly persist in giving our government the power to kill its own citizens. Death is the final moral and practical sanction of the State, which we might say holds a monopoly on dolling out death, under a guise of legitimacy. Death is, as Lee Camp has suggested, the biggest weapon in the arsenal of the fallen powers.
Given the ubiquitous power of death at work in the world, the passage from Micah about people streaming to God’s holy mountain to learn His ways, of refashioning weapons of warfare into gardening tools, of everyone having enough and living without fear, just seems unrealistic, like a fairy tale, an opiate of the naïve masses, perhaps, but not something that can reasonably be believed in.
So I struggle at times to believe in resurrection. Thankfully, I am not alone in my struggle. The gospel reading indicates that the disciples, standing in the presence of the risen Lord, were frightened and had doubts. Death was as real for them as it was for us, and they had seen Jesus crushed by the power of death, wielded, as usual, by the State. To help them believe, Jesus showed them his flesh and his bones, his hands and feet. He invited them to touch his body. But the disciples, though joyful, were still wondering and disbelieving. So he offers them an unlikely sign of resurrection. He takes a piece of broiled fish and eats it in their presence. And Luke to help with our disbelief, records for us this token of the resurrection, a keepsake, as it were. The risen Lord ate a piece of broiled fish.
That piece of fish isn’t exactly definitive proof that Jesus was raised from the dead. I don’t recall the piece of fish being mentioned in my Christian Evidences class during my junior year at Lipscomb. I doubt it would convince someone who understands the resurrection to be a metaphor, a parable told by the early church. But for me, it is a precious keepsake that death is not the ultimate moral reality in the universe.
Perhaps, as important as it is for the church to perceive the power of death at work where others see only success or progress or business as usual, it is even more important for the church to discern the keepsakes of resurrection, the remarkable signs of resurrection that appear in unlikely places.
I think about the peaceful end of apartheid in South Africa and the release of Nelson Mandela from prison. I think about Ken, whom we all met a few weeks ago, of the years he spent alone on the streets, and of his terminal cancer. But the love, acceptance, and dignity he has received from Lindsey and Scott and others speak to me of the reality of resurrection. I think about the Confessing Church in Germany that bravely resisted the power of death incarnate in Nazi totalitarianism. I think about the women of Magdalene House, who joined us last week. The lives of these women had been dominated by death. Yet like weeds breaking through cracked pavement, new life has broken forth. Keepsakes such as these remind me that new life is possible, that another world is possible, is coming, and is among us, that, as William Stringfellow might say, it is possible to live humanly in the midst of fallen Creation.
In the reading from Acts, we see Peter, who not long before stood in disbelief while Jesus at that piece of fish, boldly proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus from the dead to the rulers, elders, scribes, and high-priestly family that had him and John arrested. In the face of death, he proclaimed the One who confronted and was given authority over death. In the middle of chaos, he celebrated the Word of God. Amidst babel, he acted humanly; he told the truth.
And so I believe in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It follows that I believe that death was not the end of my grandfather. I believe that God’s will for love, justice, and peace can be and is being done on earth as it is in heaven. I believe that the powers of violence and death, in all their forms, can be resisted because when Jesus was raised, they were overcome. And when my doubts return, there is a piece of broiled fish, a compelling prophetic vision, an impassioned apostolic speech to the religious elite, and countless other keepsakes of resurrection to strengthen my imperfect belief. In the words of Henri Nouwen, “While many question whether the resurrection really took place, I wonder if it doesn’t take place every day if we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear.”
Monday, April 4, 2011
On Universalism
Rob Bell's latest book, Love Wins, was stirring up controversy before it even hit the shelves. Now that it's been out for about three weeks, more and more folks are weighing in on the discussion. I've not read the book and probably won't. My reading list is too long already. But I have listened to some of Bell's sermons and watched some of his videos. Based on what critics of his new book are saying, it seems that he is suggesting that at the end of time, all will be redeemed and that God will not torture people in hell for all eternity. That is, Christians are up in arms because they perceive Bell to be preaching universalism.
The criticism aimed at Bell by folks who would probably consider themselves conservative Christians has ranged from simply "unorthodox" and "liberal" to much more intense, accusatorial, judgmental, and in my opinion, dangerous. Well-meaning people have claimed that Bell is guilty of blasphemy and heresy. It has been alleged that he is betraying the gospel. A few days ago, I read a comment by an educator at a Christian high school that Bell was a false prophet being used by Satan himself to deceive otherwise faithful believers, and this educator had not even read Bell's book! How foolish and irresponsible!
It strikes me as somewhat prideful to presume to know what is orthodox, particularly when one's beliefs are so dependent upon the family to which she was born and the geography in which she was raised. How much more is it arrogant, self-righteous, prideful, and, as I said, dangerous, to pass judgment by labeling another follower of Jesus a false prophet, a blasphemer, and an agent of the devil? Great care must be given to the language we employ when evaluating the beliefs of others, and such reckless and irresponsible condemnation of Bell based on his alleged views on hell speaks more to the character of the accuser than to the validity of Bell's beliefs.
Assuming that Bell does in fact argue that there is no hell, that God will redeem everyone, that all shall be made well, it troubles me that Christians are offended by such a position, going so far as to say it is antithetical to the gospel. If it turns out that God's love, grace, forgiveness, hospitality, and compassion for the errors of men is that expansive and inclusive, is that not good news? Do I desire God to forgive my sins but not those of my neighbor? Is my thirst for vengeance so great that I am offended by the notion that God would save people who are not like me, who have not been taught as I have, who do not believe as I do, as though my belief system is something I constructed on my own and for which I merit a reward? Surely a true disciple of Jesus cannot harbor in his heart such a desire to see others, any others, suffer. No, the thought of a God who is Love Itself and will redeem all of humanity is good news indeed, not a betrayal of good news.
Perhaps it is just human nature to draw lines. After all, it seems logical to say that there is no "in" without an "out." And drawing lines can be a source of a great sense of security, for as long as I'm the one drawing the lines, I'm always in, always on the safe side, always right or "orthodox.". It's the others who are out, lost, wrong. Are we so addicted to drawing lines that we cannot abide the thought of a God who does not, who welcomes all "in?" Would we rather attack Rob Bell than even stop to consider his point of view?
No one knows for sure what will happen at the eschaton. However, when I was last at the Abbey of Gethsemani monastery in Kentucky, a monk told me in passing that he believes that God will save us all, period. Coming from a man who has abandoned everything that passes for normal in this idolatrous world in order to devote his entire life to prayer, to studying the scriptures, to being silent in the presence of God, those words should carry some weight. Before I cry "liberal!" or "unorthodox!", much less "false prophet!" or "Satan!", I should probably take time to consider that he just might be right, and that this would be a remarkably good thing.
The criticism aimed at Bell by folks who would probably consider themselves conservative Christians has ranged from simply "unorthodox" and "liberal" to much more intense, accusatorial, judgmental, and in my opinion, dangerous. Well-meaning people have claimed that Bell is guilty of blasphemy and heresy. It has been alleged that he is betraying the gospel. A few days ago, I read a comment by an educator at a Christian high school that Bell was a false prophet being used by Satan himself to deceive otherwise faithful believers, and this educator had not even read Bell's book! How foolish and irresponsible!
It strikes me as somewhat prideful to presume to know what is orthodox, particularly when one's beliefs are so dependent upon the family to which she was born and the geography in which she was raised. How much more is it arrogant, self-righteous, prideful, and, as I said, dangerous, to pass judgment by labeling another follower of Jesus a false prophet, a blasphemer, and an agent of the devil? Great care must be given to the language we employ when evaluating the beliefs of others, and such reckless and irresponsible condemnation of Bell based on his alleged views on hell speaks more to the character of the accuser than to the validity of Bell's beliefs.
Assuming that Bell does in fact argue that there is no hell, that God will redeem everyone, that all shall be made well, it troubles me that Christians are offended by such a position, going so far as to say it is antithetical to the gospel. If it turns out that God's love, grace, forgiveness, hospitality, and compassion for the errors of men is that expansive and inclusive, is that not good news? Do I desire God to forgive my sins but not those of my neighbor? Is my thirst for vengeance so great that I am offended by the notion that God would save people who are not like me, who have not been taught as I have, who do not believe as I do, as though my belief system is something I constructed on my own and for which I merit a reward? Surely a true disciple of Jesus cannot harbor in his heart such a desire to see others, any others, suffer. No, the thought of a God who is Love Itself and will redeem all of humanity is good news indeed, not a betrayal of good news.
Perhaps it is just human nature to draw lines. After all, it seems logical to say that there is no "in" without an "out." And drawing lines can be a source of a great sense of security, for as long as I'm the one drawing the lines, I'm always in, always on the safe side, always right or "orthodox.". It's the others who are out, lost, wrong. Are we so addicted to drawing lines that we cannot abide the thought of a God who does not, who welcomes all "in?" Would we rather attack Rob Bell than even stop to consider his point of view?
No one knows for sure what will happen at the eschaton. However, when I was last at the Abbey of Gethsemani monastery in Kentucky, a monk told me in passing that he believes that God will save us all, period. Coming from a man who has abandoned everything that passes for normal in this idolatrous world in order to devote his entire life to prayer, to studying the scriptures, to being silent in the presence of God, those words should carry some weight. Before I cry "liberal!" or "unorthodox!", much less "false prophet!" or "Satan!", I should probably take time to consider that he just might be right, and that this would be a remarkably good thing.
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