Real Live Preacher has finished posting the results of his survey on what the Bible has to say about hell, in the form of a four-part video series. No doubt his conclusions will displease a lot of conservative Christians, but his commitment to sticking to what the biblical record actually says places the burden of proof back on them.
I highly recommend taking the time to listen to all four parts, especially for those who have been steeped in any Christian tradition that uses fear of hell as a bludgeon to motivate proper belief and/or behavior.
Part 1 - Introductory thoughts
Part 2 - A survey of relevant New Testament verses
Part 3 - RLP's beliefs about hell
Part 4 - What really matters
In (very brief) summary:
-The Bible gives few details about what happens after the end of this life.
-Whenever Jesus talks about hell, it is always religious believers who lack compassion who get sent there, not unbelievers.
-Nowhere in the Gospels or Acts do we find Jesus or the Apostles worrying about the eternal destiny of the people they ministered to.
In other words, whether the evidence leads one to a universalistic position or some strain of inclusivism, it's clear that our primary mission as followers of Christ is to spread God's love by building relationships with others and giving sacrificially, not to obsess over who's going to end up where in the next life.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
Doomsaying
Win or lose, the Prop 8 battle in California has accomplished one thing, namely exposing just how weak a foundation opponents of gay marriage have to base their arguments on. Sure, it was easy enough for them to sound authoritative when most people still agreed with them out of reflex, but now that the majority is starting to shift in the other direction it's becoming increasingly clear that reason was never truly on their side.
This blogger's encounter with a pair of Prop 8 supporters sums it up pretty well. And given the increasingly irrational tone of the Yes on 8 campaign, both sides seem to realize which side has the better arguments. Box Turtle Bulletin has been working overtime to keep up with all of the lies and scare tactics coming out of that campaign.
Even Focus on the Family, which usually tries to project a veneer of respectability, has pulled out all the stops with its dystopian Letter From 2012. But then, if anyone on the religious right is in a position to gain from a Prop 8 loss, it's Focus. As the religious right shifts into a bunker mentality, Focus' Love Won Out conferences will no doubt continue to draw crowds from conservative Christians looking for hope in the midst of what they see as the end of the world.
On an unrelated note, here's another take on the most recent partisan update of the story of the ant and the grasshopper.
This blogger's encounter with a pair of Prop 8 supporters sums it up pretty well. And given the increasingly irrational tone of the Yes on 8 campaign, both sides seem to realize which side has the better arguments. Box Turtle Bulletin has been working overtime to keep up with all of the lies and scare tactics coming out of that campaign.
Even Focus on the Family, which usually tries to project a veneer of respectability, has pulled out all the stops with its dystopian Letter From 2012. But then, if anyone on the religious right is in a position to gain from a Prop 8 loss, it's Focus. As the religious right shifts into a bunker mentality, Focus' Love Won Out conferences will no doubt continue to draw crowds from conservative Christians looking for hope in the midst of what they see as the end of the world.
On an unrelated note, here's another take on the most recent partisan update of the story of the ant and the grasshopper.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Afterlife II
Contrary to appearances, I've been meaning to get back to wrapping up my series on Jacques' Ellul's The Subversion of Christianity. Although I still haven't gotten myself into gear to do so, I did just come across this interesting essay, taken from another of his books (What I Believe).
Ellul is a universalist (a fact that he touches on in Subversion), and in the linked post he makes a well-reasoned case for his position. I'm not quite there myself; I see salvation for all as an outcome to be hoped for, but I'm not fully convinced of it. The bits and pieces that we find in the Bible regarding what happens after this life just don't give us a complete picture of what to expect.
The thrust of Ellul's logic goes like this:
Of course, Ellul's appeal here to human reasoning runs contrary to his arguments in other cases that human reasoning is insufficient to the task of understanding God, but in my experience virtually every theological position (including my own) runs aground on that contradiction at some point. Those that don't either reduce God to an overpowered human or spiral off into irrationality. To his credit, Ellul is careful in this essay to clarify that he does not assert his belief as dogma.
Ellul also argues against the idea that an individual's free will extends to the ability to reject salvation. I find his arguments on this point less convincing - which may be a sign of my own biases, since I still lean strongly toward the idea that love and free will are deeply intertwined.
Along the way he does, however, reinforce the point that rejection of the church is not necessarily rejection of God:
I don't have the time or energy right now to examine the essay point by point; it's there for anyone interested in digging into it themselves. Regardless of whether eternal separation from God is a possible outcome for some, there is one thing I'm convinced of, and I suspect that Ellul would agree with me on this:
God did not intend for us to live our lives in a state of fear. Any church that uses fear of damnation to motivate its congregation - ever - has missed the point of the gospel.
Ellul is a universalist (a fact that he touches on in Subversion), and in the linked post he makes a well-reasoned case for his position. I'm not quite there myself; I see salvation for all as an outcome to be hoped for, but I'm not fully convinced of it. The bits and pieces that we find in the Bible regarding what happens after this life just don't give us a complete picture of what to expect.
The thrust of Ellul's logic goes like this:
If God is, he is all in all. There is no more place for nothingness. The word is an empty one. For Christians it is just as empty as what it is supposed to denote. Philosophers speak in vain about something that they can only imagine or use as a building block, but which has no reality of any kind.
The second and equally essential factor is that after Jesus Christ we know that God is love. This is the central revelation. How can we conceive of him who is love ceasing to love one of his creatures? How can we think that God can cease to love the creation that he has made in his own image? This would be a contradiction in terms. God cannot cease to be love.
If we combine the two theses we see at once that nothing can exist outside God’s love, for God is all in all. It is unthinkable that there should exist a place of suffering, of torment, of the domination of evil, of beings that merely hate since their only function is to torture. It is astounding that Christian theology should not have seen at a glance how impossible this idea is. Being love, God cannot send to hell the creation which he so loved that he gave his only Son for it. He cannot reject it because it is his creation. This would be to cut off himself.
Of course, Ellul's appeal here to human reasoning runs contrary to his arguments in other cases that human reasoning is insufficient to the task of understanding God, but in my experience virtually every theological position (including my own) runs aground on that contradiction at some point. Those that don't either reduce God to an overpowered human or spiral off into irrationality. To his credit, Ellul is careful in this essay to clarify that he does not assert his belief as dogma.
Ellul also argues against the idea that an individual's free will extends to the ability to reject salvation. I find his arguments on this point less convincing - which may be a sign of my own biases, since I still lean strongly toward the idea that love and free will are deeply intertwined.
Along the way he does, however, reinforce the point that rejection of the church is not necessarily rejection of God:
Without question we all know of innumerable cases in which people reject revelation. Swarms are doing so today. But have they any real knowledge of revelation? If I look at countless presentations of the Word of God by the churches, I can say that the churches have presented many ideas and commandments that have nothing whatever to do with God’s revelation. Rejecting these things, human commandments, is not the same as rejecting the truth.
I don't have the time or energy right now to examine the essay point by point; it's there for anyone interested in digging into it themselves. Regardless of whether eternal separation from God is a possible outcome for some, there is one thing I'm convinced of, and I suspect that Ellul would agree with me on this:
God did not intend for us to live our lives in a state of fear. Any church that uses fear of damnation to motivate its congregation - ever - has missed the point of the gospel.
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Life Soundtrack 10
Rain Song, by Day of Fire
I don't get into praise music as much as I once did, but every now and then a song still comes along that strikes a chord with me. I don't know if this one gets sung in many churches or not, but it sure beats a lot of what does...
Friday, October 03, 2008
Some Links
A few items of interest around the blogosphere...
1. A clever ad that uses 1 Cor. 13 as a statement against Proposition 8.
2. The rather obvious and extremely relevant question nobody seems to be asking about the bailout plan.
3. Peterson's on the radio again. How much longer must we wait before he's finally crowned King (or should that be Queen) of all Media?
4. Finally, don't forget to pick sides in the great debate of our time...
1. A clever ad that uses 1 Cor. 13 as a statement against Proposition 8.
2. The rather obvious and extremely relevant question nobody seems to be asking about the bailout plan.
3. Peterson's on the radio again. How much longer must we wait before he's finally crowned King (or should that be Queen) of all Media?
4. Finally, don't forget to pick sides in the great debate of our time...
Friday, September 26, 2008
Impasse
An irreconcilable rift exists in American society today. It's commonly seen as a clash between opposing value systems, though underneath there is also a fundamental difference in how each side perceives the very nature of reality. That much is common knowledge.
It's also no secret that conservative Christians are seen by much of the rest of the world (including other Christians) as exceedingly arrogant and prideful, with their claims to have the only correct answers to everything (or at least everything of importance). From their own vantage point, however, it would be arrogant for them to claim otherwise, since in their minds they are merely conveying the words and ideas of God himself.
That conflation of personal and divine perspective is hardly unique to conservative Christianity; every belief system has its fundamentalists who believe that what seems obvious to them must be the sole valid definition of reality. To an individual with a Stage Three faith, everything in life can (and must) be boiled down into black and white terms, and only someone trying to rationalize evil behavior would dare to claim that any other colors exist.
Attempting to dialogue with such individuals can be a frustrating endeavor, to say the least. It would be easy to write them off as narrow-minded and unreasonable, but the simple fact is that they cannot conceive of the complexities that Stage Four and Stage Five individuals have come to take for granted. There's no way to state that without sounding at least slightly condescending, but it is not an issue of superiority, merely one of growth.
At the same time it can be a challenge to not look down on Stage Three individuals, when one looks at the mess so many of them have made of the world. How many wars have been fought because one group of people took offense at another group's refusal to acknowledge their 'superior' beliefs? How many inquisitions and purges and witch hunts have whipped entire nations into violent frenzies? We may have a more civilized way of disagreeing at this point of time in the Western world, but that same hostility toward those who refuse to see things our way still burns just as intensely below the surface. Just look at the flame wars that rage across internet discussion boards on a daily basis.
Unfortunately there's no way to force a Stage Three individual to "grow up". If you do manage to convert one to your side, he will simply take up his new cause with the same simplistic fervor he applied to his old set of beliefs. And those of us in Stage Four are often still too disillusioned with whatever system we came out of to serve as bridge builders.
Not that those who do make it all the way to Stage Five are automatic candidates for sainthood. But true humility can only take root when one begins to understand just how large and complex the universe really is, and just how little one can genuinely be certain of in this lifetime. With more of such individuals the world just might eventually become a slightly more peaceful place; without them, we can be certain that it never will.
How do we raise up such people? I wish I knew; I'm still trying to get there myself. Such cultivation isn't happening in very many places. Our political system actively cultivates an "us vs. them" mentality, and unfortunately many of our churches do as well. Even so, there's always room for hope.
It's also no secret that conservative Christians are seen by much of the rest of the world (including other Christians) as exceedingly arrogant and prideful, with their claims to have the only correct answers to everything (or at least everything of importance). From their own vantage point, however, it would be arrogant for them to claim otherwise, since in their minds they are merely conveying the words and ideas of God himself.
That conflation of personal and divine perspective is hardly unique to conservative Christianity; every belief system has its fundamentalists who believe that what seems obvious to them must be the sole valid definition of reality. To an individual with a Stage Three faith, everything in life can (and must) be boiled down into black and white terms, and only someone trying to rationalize evil behavior would dare to claim that any other colors exist.
Attempting to dialogue with such individuals can be a frustrating endeavor, to say the least. It would be easy to write them off as narrow-minded and unreasonable, but the simple fact is that they cannot conceive of the complexities that Stage Four and Stage Five individuals have come to take for granted. There's no way to state that without sounding at least slightly condescending, but it is not an issue of superiority, merely one of growth.
At the same time it can be a challenge to not look down on Stage Three individuals, when one looks at the mess so many of them have made of the world. How many wars have been fought because one group of people took offense at another group's refusal to acknowledge their 'superior' beliefs? How many inquisitions and purges and witch hunts have whipped entire nations into violent frenzies? We may have a more civilized way of disagreeing at this point of time in the Western world, but that same hostility toward those who refuse to see things our way still burns just as intensely below the surface. Just look at the flame wars that rage across internet discussion boards on a daily basis.
Unfortunately there's no way to force a Stage Three individual to "grow up". If you do manage to convert one to your side, he will simply take up his new cause with the same simplistic fervor he applied to his old set of beliefs. And those of us in Stage Four are often still too disillusioned with whatever system we came out of to serve as bridge builders.
Not that those who do make it all the way to Stage Five are automatic candidates for sainthood. But true humility can only take root when one begins to understand just how large and complex the universe really is, and just how little one can genuinely be certain of in this lifetime. With more of such individuals the world just might eventually become a slightly more peaceful place; without them, we can be certain that it never will.
How do we raise up such people? I wish I knew; I'm still trying to get there myself. Such cultivation isn't happening in very many places. Our political system actively cultivates an "us vs. them" mentality, and unfortunately many of our churches do as well. Even so, there's always room for hope.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Perspective
"Do you ever read the Sunday comics? ... Well, when I was a little kid, I use to put my nose right up to them. And I was just amazed because it looked like this mass of dots, and none of it made sense until I pulled back. Life looks like that mass of dots to me sometimes. None of it makes any sense, but I like to think that, from God's perspective, life, everything - even this - make sense. It's not just dots. Instead we're all connected, and it's beautiful and funny and good. This close we can't expect it to make sense, not right now."
-Aaron Davis (Steve Sandvoss), Latter Days
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Doom
Will the world end in 2012? That, of course, is the last year in the Mayan calendar, as anyone who watched the X-Files ought to remember.
Until recently I hadn't realized just how much hype there is these days about 2012 - everything from polar shifts to aliens landing to comet strikes and other various catastrophes have been predicted; it sounds like we're in for a very busy year.
Fortunately, cooler minds have examined all the claims. So just in case you are losing sleep over our impending doom, here's some info to put your mind at ease.
Having said that, the world could end in 2012. But then, it could end tomorrow, or next month, or in April of 31673. We simply don't know - and if by some chance the Mayans did, it's not like any of them are still around to say "I told you so"...
Until recently I hadn't realized just how much hype there is these days about 2012 - everything from polar shifts to aliens landing to comet strikes and other various catastrophes have been predicted; it sounds like we're in for a very busy year.
Fortunately, cooler minds have examined all the claims. So just in case you are losing sleep over our impending doom, here's some info to put your mind at ease.
Having said that, the world could end in 2012. But then, it could end tomorrow, or next month, or in April of 31673. We simply don't know - and if by some chance the Mayans did, it's not like any of them are still around to say "I told you so"...
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