Rob Bell, Love Wins 5

One more post on chapter 1, looking again at complaints about Bell’s ‘orthodoxy.’ The chapter begins with a story that Bell told in the promotional video, and which has therefore become famous. An art exhibition at church included an exhibit with a quotation from Gandhi; someone attached a post-it note reading ‘Reality check: he’s in hell.’ Bell writes: Really? Gandhi’s in hell? He is? We have confirmation of this? Somebody knows this? Without any doubt? And his pre-publication detractors once again took him to task. And again, they were badly wrong – in my view, and in the view of (here) virtually the entire Christian tradition. Remember Johann Heidegger from a couple of posts back? He was the Reformed writer who held that the number of the saved would indeed be small. Shedd and Warfield condemn him for being far too conservative in his theology. Heidegger wrote about precisely this question, and said this: No one except those who sin unto death ought to or can determine anything certain before the end of life, concerning the eternal reprobation of himself or of others. Of others indeed we must have good hopes by the judgement of love, 1. Cor.13:7 (beareth, believeth, hopeth, endureth all things)…  (q. ET from Heppe, p. 188, with error silently corrected). Let’s do a kind of scale of theological conservatism here, shall we? Shedd and Warfield are conservative – I believe that will be generally granted. They reprove Heidegger for being far too conservative. That makes him, what? Ultra-conservative? Heidegger then rejects as far too conservative the position that we can know for certain that any other human being is damned. We’re somewhere off the scale now, in the company of those who think the Taliban are dangerously liberal. I have thought hard about anyone in the Christian tradition who held to this position, that we can know for certain that a particular person is in hell. There were, to be fair, some Landmarkian Baptists. And Dante, I suppose, although he might claim his allegory was not meant to be taken like that. Certainly, there are not many. And yet when Bell doesn’t even say that this is wrong, but merely questions whether it is right, we are told that he has committed an error so grave that he must be publicly castigated. I can’t quite decide whether this is simply brilliant debating work from Bell, enticing his opponents to defend a position so extreme that no one in their right mind would touch it, or whether his opponents really, genuinely, don’t realise just how far behind they have left anything resembling historic orthodoxy. This is not mere theological hair-splitting.  This point is pastorally vital. Bell’s other example concerns an atheist teenager, killed in a car crash. ‘There’s no hope, then,’ comes the comment, reflecting this ridiculously extreme position. All of us who are Christian pastors have performed funeral services for those with no visible faith, and have been offered care and counsel to those, actively Christian or not, who have lost an apparently-unbelieving family member or friend. The first rule of such pastoral engagement has always been not to speculate about the fate of the dead person. One speaks with confidence the promises of Jesus, proclaims the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of the dead, announces with utter conviction the defeat of death and sin and hell in the cross, and invites, implicitly or explicitly, the hearers to place their own faith and trust in these realities. The one who has died is in God’s hands, and it is not for us to judge. The gospel of Jesus is never, ever, ‘there’s no hope, then.’ This point is utterly vital, and Bell is simply...

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Rob Bell, Love Wins 4

Chapter 1 of the book is entitled ‘What about the flat tire? [sic…]’ It is an example of the  questioning methodology recommended in the preface: for twenty pages, Bell offers a stream-of-consciousness meander around questions concerning the accounts of how salvation is achieved, and what that says about God. The purpose of the chapter is unstated, and (to me) unclear; is Bell wanting to validate the questions he imagines his readers might come to the book with? Or is he wanting to disturb the reader who believes that she has all this sorted out on the basis of what she has learned of the historic Christian tradition? (Or perhaps both?) The first is a noble purpose: it is a service to your readers (or hearers) to say to them ‘it’s OK, you’re allowed to wonder that. It’s not a dumb question, it doesn’t mean you’re not saved – stick with me and we’ll see if we can find some answers together.’ But you have to make good on the promise, discuss the issues you’ve allowed them to formulate clearly and obviously. To say ‘great question – that’s a real problem, isn’t it?’ and then not to offer any further reflection by way of answer is no help to anyone. I suppose in doing this my approach would be more analytic than Bell’s; I’d want to tabulate the questions raised, say ‘we’re going to discuss these in chapter 2, these in chapter 4, and so on.’ The point of this would be to make sure that the questions were followed up on and (just as important) that the reader could find her way to where they were followed up on. My concern with Bell’s more discursive approach is that, on several issues, having invited the question, he offers nothing further in the book. This is simply unkind to a reader. The second purpose can also be appropriate. If the assumed orthodoxy is in fact wrong (and there is some of this in the chapter – see next post), then it needs to be gently and lovingly deconstructed and remade. Even if it is right, faith should be encouraged to think, and there are times when an unreflective acceptance of this or that should be challenged. If God’s people are to be effective in displaying and declaring the good news of Jesus to the world, they need to be able to give reasons for the hope they have within them. All that said, the wise pastor is careful in introducing questions people have not yet asked. Being ready to help them to explore more deeply is one thing; introducing them to problems they had never imagined and might not be able to cope with is another. The chapter begins with the tale of a Gandhi quotation in an art show in church that became famous through the promotional video. A written comment (anonymous – aren’t they always?) asserts that Gandhi is in hell. Bell queries the certainty of the comment; are we so sure that only a ‘select number’ will ‘make it to a better place’? (2). What kind of God would make that the deal? A similar story follows, about a teenager, a self-declared atheist, dying in  a car accident, prompting the comment ‘So there’s no hope then.’ Bell asks ‘No hope? Is that the Christian message?’ (3). (I’ll say more about this in the next post.) These two stories prompt him to articulate a series of questions about access to salvation. Who has hope, and why? He mocks, quite unpleasantly, the idea of an ‘age of accountability’ (p. 4; I don’t know I’ve ever met anyone who believed in an age of accountability; but maybe in the USA some do?), and wonders about what gets you to be a part of the ‘in-crowd’: luck, or upbringing, or baptism, or church membership? If, as some claim, it is saying a sinner’s prayer, then what about those who said it and didn’t understand it, or no longer believe it? All of this strikes me as profoundly unhelpful. Processes of Christian initiation are well-defined in all major Christian traditions, typically including (in some order) repentance of sin and personal profession of faith, catechesis, baptism, reception into church membership, ongoing sacramental participation, and continued practices of discipleship. Whilst there is a hypothetical question sometimes raised about the eternal destiny of someone whose participation in this process of initiation is incomplete or in some way imperfect, the question is usually left unanswered, with an appeal to the mercy and righteousness of God, and our inability to second-guess that. If Bell has a question about the appropriateness of a well-ordered...

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Rob Bell, Love Wins 3

(2500 words, and I’m not past the three-page preface. This could be a long series.) ‘Many have these questions…’ (p. ix) The last couple of pages of the preface discuss what in academic terms is called methodology. Bell is concerned to allow, even encourage, questions about central matters of faith. He criticises those communities which shut questioning down, asserting that ‘I believe that discussion itself is divine.’ (p. ix) pointing to Job and other Biblical examples. There is no doubt that restless and urgent questioning is an authentic part of Biblical spirituality. If something seems wrong or unfair to us, we do well, Biblically, to speak openly about our doubts and questions, to refuse to be told to simply accept a received orthodoxy (Job…), to take our questions to God in prayer (see the psalms!). There is also no doubt also that asking provoking questions is a good teaching technique, sometimes – Bell points to Jesus, appropriately; within the world of education we more often reference Socrates. But… Biblical spirituality is honest and open about doubt and questions, but never celebrates them. Job wants answers, he wants to understand, he doesn’t just want a good discussion with no resolution. And (as any teacher knows) all the skill in education is asking the right questions. Rather too many of Bell’s questions through the book are unhappily loaded, of the ‘have you stopped beating your wife yet?’ variety. Others implciitly invite us to assume that caricatures are accurate portraits. Bell, who in his previous work has always come across as laid-back and amiable, is out to bait people here. That seems a great shame. The graciousness and generosity of God should be defended in a gracious and generous...

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Rob Bell, Love Wins 2

The ‘Preface,’ entitled ‘Millions of Us’ contains one of the passages that has already become notorious – entirely wrongly, in my view. I’ll get to that. Bell begins with the comment ‘I believe that Jesus’s story is first and foremost about the love of God for every single one of us.’ (p. vii) I struggle to have a problem with that. He rapidly moves on to the claim that ‘…Jesus’s story has been hijacked by a number of other stories…’ (p. vii) and states that the book is written ‘for all those, everywhere, who have heard some version of the Jesus story that caused their pulse rate to rise, their stomach to churn, and their heart to utter those resolute words, “I would never be a part of that.”‘ (p. viii). OK again – most of us have heard presentations of the gospel that were so distorted as to be offensive. The blue touch paper gets lit in the next assertion, offering an example of one of these distorted gospels. In Bell’s own, already endlessly-quoted, words: 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 … This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’s message (p. viii) This is a full-frontal attack on historic orthodoxy, isn’t it? Bell must be opposed, denounced, corrected, and bid farewell, because he has ceased to believe the gospel found in Scripture and taught by the church down the ages, and this paragraph is sufficient proof of that, surely? This proves that Bell is a heretic, right? Wrong. This is going to be a long discussion, because some historical detail is necessary. So let me state a conclusion as briefly and bluntly as I can: in saying this, Bell is saying nothing that has not been held by the vast majority of Christian theologians down the ages, taught explicitly by many of them, and repeatedly defended as Biblical by the most conservative scholars. What is Bell actually saying, first? If we read the passage carefully, the core claim is about proportion: the offence is in the ‘select few’ who are saved – not the nature of heaven, nor the nature of hell, but in their relative populations. The message of God’s love demands that we hold that God saves many, or most, or all – that the gift of grace is not given parsimoniously. And this is not about the nature of hell, but about who God is – the claim of the book is that love wins. The question of the relative populations of heaven and hell come the eschaton was asked quite frequently in the Reformed tradition. B.B. Warfield published an essay under the title ‘Are they few that be Saved?’ His argument was exegetical; his answer a resounding negative. In closing, he paused to point to others who held that the number of the saved would far outnumber the lost: R.L. Dabney; Charles Hodge; W.G.T. Shedd. I could add A.A. Hodge and Jonathan Edwards. This is not a catalogue of woolly-minded liberals. This was the united witness of Old Princeton, a position taken by at least two of the writers of The Fundamentals. These names are the very definition of Calvinist orthodoxy. These are the people whose respect for Scripture was such that they developed and defined the doctrine of inerrancy. These are the people with whom Bell is agreeing. And when you burrow in to what they actually said, the point becomes more striking still. Charles Hodge calls the number of the lost ‘very inconsiderable’ on the last page of his Systematic Theology. Shedd actually suggests that the error of believing that only a few are saved is equal and opposite to the error of universalism. That’s Shedd, the Calvinist’s Calvinist, asserting that the point Bell writes to oppose is a grave heresy – albeit one that seems presently to be being vigorously defended by all manner of men (they do all seem to be men…) whose zeal, unfortunately, apparently far outweighs their knowledge. (Warfield does point to one Reformed writer who holds that the number of the saved will be few, Johann Heidegger. Remember that name; I’ll come back to him in the next post. He also mentions a couple of Lutherans, including Quenstedt, so the doctrine was held by at least one theologian whose fame and intellect are both of the first order. I have done a quick search through those Reformed sources I have...

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Rob Bell, Love Wins

Was ever a book so eagerly awaited? Well, yes, actually, quite a few. And most of the problem with this one is there was not much awaiting visible before people formed, and published, their views of it. So much easier to judge – in either direction – if you don’t have any facts to get in the way, after all. My copy arrived yesterday. I’ve read it all, now, and intend to re-read it, slowly, and post some reflections here. It is powerfully and winsomely written, but you knew that. (‘Why can’t I communicate like Rob Bell?’ The book’s acknowledgments contain a revealing reference to the multitudinous drafts an editor worked through; perhaps with sufficient work, you could…) No book is wholly good, save those contained in the canon of Scripture, or wholly bad. This one is no exception. It contains some good ideas; some arresting images; some interesting speculations; it contains some ideas I judge to be poor; some unhelpful caricatures of opposing positions; and some speculations that are hackneyed. There are a few historical reflections in the book, some that are helpful, some that are misinformed. There are many references to Scripture, and some extended readings: some are penetrating; some rather forced. None of this is unusual; I could say the much the same about almost every book on my office shelves. Is it a good book? That depends. How does one judge the worth of a book? It seems to me that there are two possible criteria: first, on the whole, is this worth reading? Second, despite the deficiencies, is there something so significant in this book that it needs to be read? The first is easier: do the strengths outweigh the weaknesses? On the whole, despite misrepresentations or problems, does the reader come away with a better appreciation (perhaps emotionally as well as intellectually) of the issue(s) the book is intending to address? A good textbook is good on this level. It is generally authoritative; there may be mistakes, but they are few and minor. The books rarely break new ground, but almost always provide a useful and accurate map of the old ground. For the second, within the theological tradition, consider Aulen’s Christus Victor. The book had huge flaws, which beset us to this day, 80 years after the publication. Aulen’s historical claims ranged from the tendentious to the absurd; his Biblical exegesis was generally at the top end of that scale, but rarely much better. Yet he opened a question that is still driving thoughtful and worthwhile work today. The book could have been so much better – but the world, the world of academic theology, at least – would be much worse off without the book. If Bell’s book is good, and my initial – if somewhat hesitant – impression is that it is, it is good in the second sense. This is not a good guide to eschatology and atonement (the two topics focused on in most of the book), or even to theology proper (the real subject of the book). There are too many errors of interpretation, too many misrepresentations, to make it a good textbook. But it advances a thesis that is not new, and that may not even be right, but that is important and perceptive enough to be worth hearing. The thesis is something like this: our accounts of atonement and eschatology determine our  theology proper, and some recently-popular accounts lead to an unacceptable – unbiblical – doctrine of God. What about the big question? Well, here goes: I can reveal that it is true: the UK cover is much less attractive than the US one. The other big question? First, the book is not primarily about the populatedness of hell, although the subject is addressed. Second, it seems clear to me from the text that Bell does not, in fact, espouse any form of dogmatic universalism. Bell asserts very clearly that every human being is presented with a choice, and that that choice is decisive for our final fate (pp.116-17). I imagine his position could be characterised as ‘hopeful universalism’: I suppose that he would be prepared to hope and pray that all human beings do in fact make the right choice, and to resist any assertion that this is not possible. He will, not, however, assert that all human beings will be saved. This conclusion seems inescapable from the text to me, but I draw it hesitantly, since I am aware that others who have read the text have come to a different interpretation. Let me offer my evidence. Bell says: …we get what we want. God is that loving....

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