Current Events

Christians Fight Over Heavenly Monopoly

by CHARLES LEWIS

 

 

This is a peculiar place for a former water-skiing instructor and rock band member to find himself.

Rob Bell, 40-year-old father of three, author, mega-church pastor who sports skinny jeans and designer glasses, is in the midst of shaking the world of American Protestant Christian orthodoxy to its core - even as he insists he is not sure why.

He is asking tough questions about salvation, upending traditional Christian takes on heaven, hell and who gets saved: "What happens to sinners? What happens to non-Christians? What happens to someone like Gandhi?"

In his new book, Love Wins, quickly a New York Times bestseller, the popular preacher has turned away from the evangelical certainty that heaven is only possible through Jesus Christ. He has suggested that at the end of time, God may chase down everyone who has ever lived and make sure they enter his kingdom - hence the title, Love Wins.

Famed American evangelical John Piper summed up his feelings about Love Wins in a cold, three-word tweet: "Farewell Rob Bell."

Richard Land, one of the most influential Baptists in the United States, was equally blunt in his assessment.

"I do think he is a heretic," the Tennessee native said in a phone interview. "I think when you deny that is an eternal judgment and you intimate there are other ways to salvation other than Jesus Christ you have crossed the boundaries into heresy."

For many of the faithful, Rev. Bell has stepped so far out of bounds that he is essentially lost.

They look to the New Testament, read what Jesus said, and see clarity.

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life," Jesus says in the Gospel of John. "No one comes to the Father except through me."

The title "heretic" is at least one thing that Rev. Bell and his many critics can agree upon.

"‘Heretic' means being able to choose, to question," said Rev. Bell, in a phone interview while in the midst of a U.S. book tour before heading to Europe.

Not all the responses have been critical.

Chicago-based evangelical writer Jimmy Spencer sees Rev. Bell responding to a fundamental split in Protestant evangelicalism.

"Five hundred years ago, Martin Luther said Christians had the right to read the Bible for themselves and define it for themselves. What you're seeing in Rob is the use of the same motif. I don't know if Rob Bell is a new Martin Luther, but at the time of the Reformation Martin Luther wasn't Martin Luther.

"There is an erosion that has taken place within evangelical communities today and Rob Bell strikes at the heart of that divide between whether you think God is inclusive or exclusive."

Rev. Bell thinks of himself as an orthodox Christian who believes that all should follow Jesus and march through him to heaven. He believes in the Christian creeds, and accepts fully the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus.

As he describes in Love Wins, it was an incident at a church function that got him thinking about many Christian assumptions.

At his Mars Hill Bible Church in Michigan, where 10,000 regularly attend Sunday services, there was an art show. Included in one piece was a quote from Mahatma Gandhi. Most everyone found the words compelling.

"But not everyone," Rev. Bell wrote. "Someone attached a piece of paper to it.

"On the piece of paper was written: ‘Reality check. He's in hell.'"

To which Rev. Bell asked his readers:

"Really?

"Gandhi's in hell?

"He is?

"We have confirmation of this?"

From this incident he raised more fundamental questions.

How is it so few will be saved and billions will burn? Did those who did not understand Christ's message hijack Christianity?

And then he began to wonder about all those people who do good through their own faith, or no faith. And what about the natives in some remote village that the pastor never reaches?

"What if the missionary gets a flat tire?" he writes.

Is it really fair, he wonders, that all in the village go to hell because a nail punctures a tire and there is no spare in the trunk?

"The subject of heaven and hell is the most important because it reflects what kind of God we believe in," he said. "Why did our understanding of heaven and hell become so black and white?"

It is an eternal and universal question, this wondering about life after death. Even atheists contemplate what it means to be extinguished. And the most orthodox Christian wonders on a sleepless night what lies beyond.

For Mark Galli, senior managing editor of Christianity Today, what concerns him about Love Wins is what he calls Rob Bell's failure to behave like a real pastor.

"He leaves readers with more questions because he hasn't really done his job as a teacher, which is what a minister is supposed to be. Instead, he has become a provocateur.

"You walk away thinking this is what Rob Bell teaches, not what the Bible teaches."

Rev. Bell insists he is not improvising. He sees the resurrection of Jesus as proof that death does not have the last word. He then looks at what is written in the Gospel of Matthew, in Acts and in Colossians and sees "all things" will be restored - meaning every person will be brought to glory by God.

"They say ‘all things.' They could have used a different phrase. But they chose a big, wide, shockingly inclusive phrase. They use it again and again and again and again. And, in Timothy, it says God wants all to be saved, not some. It's right there in the story."

 

[Courtesy: National Post]

April 24, 2011

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