Infinitely Better

February 28, 2011

there has been a bit of an uproar (surprise, surprise) in the Christian blogosphere since the release five days ago of a trailer for Rob Bell’s new book, Love Wins.  a close friend of mine posted the video to Facebook, and i’ve spent the last few hours thinking about it and gradually writing down my thoughts.

i suppose if i’m going to blog for the first time in more than three weeks, i may as well spend approximately 3.5 hours doing it.

anyway, here’s the video, followed by my thoughts:

first, i want to read the book before drawing any conclusions.  i don’t think we can assume, based on this video (or frankly, anything else he’s ever written or said), that he’s going to argue against the existence of hell, or against our creedal commitment to who goes there.

on the other hand, Bell does tend to ask questions without always giving explicit answers.  i don’t think that’s a problem, because he DOES know the answers.

(seriously.  the guy has an M. Div. from Fuller, and in Velvet Elvis he says it pretty clearly: “I am a part of the tradition that affirms the Trinity, Virgin Birth, Resurrection, etc. [paraphrased, but that’s the gist]… I follow Jesus because he leads to ultimate reality… In affirming the Bible as inspired, I also have to affirm the Spirit who I believe was inspiring those people [at the closing of the canon] to choose those books”)

the point, then, is not that we should tell people the answers outright.  the point is admitting that the Christian doctrine of hell is a damn (haha!  a pun.) tough pill to swallow, regardless of whether you’re a Christian or not.  i certainly struggle with it.

think of it this way.

what do you know with more certainty: that which you’ve heard, or that which you’ve experienced?  for some of us who grew up in the church and have experienced God, there’s really no difference.  though we may struggle with particular parts of Christian faith (hell in this case, but it could be anything), we stay more or less committed to them because we’ve experienced God’s confirmation of what we’ve heard.  this is the category into which you and i and Rob Bell fall.

for others, however, this is not the case.  anyone who has been injured by the church would be INCREDIBLY offended by that note (“reality check: Ghandi’s in hell.”).  their already hard hearts would grow even harder.  anyone within the church who is struggling with their faith would fall further from the truth (regardless of whether Ghandi is actually in hell).  this is the opposite of what we want.

evangelism in a cultural context that is increasingly anti-Christianity means repainting the Christian faith (funny, that’s the subtitle for Velvet Elvis) and actually interacting with the questions that culture is asking.  yes, there will still be hardened hearts—in fact, they’ll still be the majority.  what Bell is trying to do, i think, is to point some of them toward the Light.  such an approach requires wrestling with the doctrine of hell, because it will inevitably be an issue.

ok.  but shouldn’t that wrestling lead somewhere?

yes.  it should lead to an understanding and experience of who God really is.  and God really is a God of love.  the entire story arc of God’s relationship with humanity is full of grace and love, right?  that is what we believe as Christians.  but if that is the case, then evangelism should never start with a message of doom for those who do not believe in Jesus.  eternal damnation only makes sense in the context of the entirety of God’s story. and the entirety of God’s story is much, much larger than the existence of hell.  (if you don’t believe me, count the number of times it’s mentioned in the Nicene Creed.)  disconnected from that crucial, unifying metanarrative (Bell deals with metanarrative themes regularly), the doctrine of hell alienates those who might otherwise be receptive.

some final thoughts.

all that said, the question still remains: is Rob Bell going to deny traditional Christian doctrine of hell in his upcoming book?  and the only answer is: wait until you’ve read the book.

my hunch is that he will attack the issue from a metanarrative angle.  whether or not he ends at an outright affirmation of hell (and he really might not, but that doesn’t mean he denies it), he certainly won’t start there.  and because of that, the atheist who picks up his book might actually finish it, and come to a better understanding of what the Christian story is really about.

so before assuming that Bell is going to deny a part of traditional Christian doctrine, remember what Christianity is really about—and that it really is “so surprising, unexpected and beautiful that whatever you’ve been told or taught, the good news is actually better.”  isn’t that a crazy idea?  no matter what you’ve been told about the Gospel, it is in reality better.

infinitely better.