Answering Rob Bell #2

In my last post I noted that I had read quickly through Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins. I made some initial observations at that time which can be found at Answering Rob Bell #1. I have since taken a closer look and there is, as I remarked before, much more to say. What follows is my second installment.

I promised in my first response to identify my differences with Pastor Bell’s interpretation of Scripture. However, there is yet one general matter which I feel needs to be addressed. On pages 106 and 107 Bell says, "There are others who… insist that there must be some kind of ‘second chance’ for those who don’t believe in Jesus in this lifetime…. And then there are others who ask… why limit that chance to a one-off immediately after death?... At the heart of this [second chance] perspective is the belief that, given enough time, everybody will turn to God and find themselves in the joy and peace of God’s presence…. And so, beginning with the early church, there is a long tradition of those who believe that God will ultimately restore everything and everybody." To support this perspective, Bell quotes Jesus, Peter and Paul saying everything will be renewed, restored or reconciled (Matthew 19; Acts 3; Colossians 1.) This is not a correct application of these verses, and I will say more on that in my next post.

At this point, because this seems to me to be the central assertion of Bell’s position, I think it must be thoroughly examined. I note that Bell grounds his legitimacy on the opinions of “others.” I will grant that he mentions heavyweights like Clement, Origen and Augustine among the “others.” The precise position of these early church fathers is less clear than Bell asserts, but whatever they believed, they were quite human and therefore fallible. If one is to assail a long held, fundamental belief of the church, Scripture must be the basis for the attack, not the opinions of “others.” After all, many beliefs have followers today who trace their beginnings to the early church: the belief that Jesus is not God, or not man, or not co-eternal with the Father, and so on. One need not take a Dan Brown flight of fiction to find ancient heresy dressed in modern clothes.

Bell tips his hand a few pages later saying, “It’s important that we be honest about the fact that some stories are better than others…. everybody enjoying God’s good world together with no disgrace or shame… is a better story.” No argument here. However this ignores the fact that “stories” can be either true or false. The false stories are called fiction and have many worthy uses. The true stories are called history and must be carefully parsed to learn everything we can about the world we face both now and in ages to come. We ignore the uncomfortable true stories at great peril; they have as much to teach us as the “better stories.”

I would have hoped Pastor Bell could have made a better argument than he has. Saying that many others think this is true and that his version of the story sounds so much better than the old version does not therefore make it true. Sadly, I fear Rob Bell has fallen in with the postmodern philosophers who believe that the truth of what one says is less important than the attractiveness of what one says. The end of this line of thinking will be the abolition of sin altogether; that will make the story even better. It also obviates the need for the cross and cheapens grace immensely. Bonhoeffer would be horrified. I cannot go down that road, nor can I imagine I will be at Mars Hill anytime soon.

Answering Rob Bell #1

Last night I read quickly through Rob Bell’s little book with the big splash, Love Wins. As I posted immediately on Facebook, I beg to differ – not that love wins, but that I understand “winning” differently than Pastor Bell . Those of you who know me personally or read my blog with any regularity know that I cannot walk away from a worthy debate (okay, any debate.) As my title suggests, this is only the first of what may be several installments. Installments first because the quantity of specific differences I find would force a book-length blog on my readers; second because I read quickly the first time and will read again at a more discriminating pace to assure myself that I have not misapprehended Pastor Bell.

I must begin by saying that I do not, at this time, believe Bell’s errors rise to the level of consigning him to the orthodox version of the hell he openly disputes. There are many things in Scripture which are not, nor have ever been mutually agreed upon by theologians. Think about baptism, ecclesiology, eschatology, charismata, perseverance of the saints, and so on. These are not issues we should use to divide or condemn. None of us humans (save One) knows all. I believe that Bell and other mistaken Bible interpreters will end up surprised by what they see following the removal of the glass through which we all see more or less darkly in this present age. Doubtless I will be as surprised as they.

The first, perhaps the fundamental difference I have with Bell regards his hermaneutics. That means I disagree with how he interprets Scripture. We have all heard at one time or another that the meaning drawn from the Bible is just a matter of one’s interpretation. This is true as far as it goes; the many sects of Christianity and the cults which orbit the biblical perimeter declare this to be true. What this “truth” ignores is that some people interpret the Bible incorrectly. There are rules of interpretation (hermaneutics) which apply to all literature, not least to sacred writings. If we believe that God exists as an intelligent, moral, sentient being who wishes to communicate with his sentient creatures through the written word (as the Bible clearly proclaims,) then we must assume that there is a right way and a wrong way to interpret any particular passage or the essence of the whole.

Allow me to present a brief example. Shakespeare had Lady Macbeth say, “Out, damned spot! Out I say.” Because of my deep knowledge of the Bard and the culture of the 16th century, I can interpret that to mean that the Lady was disgusted with her pet Spaniel, Spot, and wished him to leave the premises. She no doubt considered the poor beast to be a hound from hell which had affected her mind with distressing, murderous thoughts. Prove me wrong; summon all the evidence that she is referring to a spot of imaginary blood, not a dog. I say it is a matter of interpretation. We cannot ask Shakespeare; the only clues to be found are in the text and are revealed by the proper application of the rules of sound interpretive practice.

We also have tradition. I know this is a dangerous word among Protestants. History has often consigned well-received traditions to the garbage heap. Remember the flap over the non-geocentric universe: church leaders killed people for proclaiming that the earth moves around the sun and not vice versa. Those church leaders obviously had their hermaneutics wrong. Even with this caution, I believe we must look very carefully at anyone who offers a new (or recycled, in Bell’s case) interpretation of Scripture which diametrically opposes the accepted wisdom of millennia.

Nor should we be fooled by Bell’s assertion that his soteriology (universal salvation)has been embraced from the beginning. So was Arianism, Manicheism, Pelagianism, etc. These were all tried and found wanting by sincere men of faith, some repeatedly. Even if Clement, Origen and Augustine did embrace universalism as Bell implies (an assertion I tend to doubt,) they too were human and subject to the same errors as we all are.

I will close where I began: I love Rob Bell with the agape of Christ, but respectfully disagree with his conclusions. If I am wrong and he is right, God will make it clear to me (Philippians 3:15.) Should I not hear from on high, I will present more detailed rebuttals in future installments. Or, I will start attending Mars Hill.

Apologies to Rahm Emanuel

I am beginning to think that I may have been too quick to heap scorn on Rahm Emanuel for his advice to make good use of a crisis. It’s not that I am suddenly in favor of political opportunism, but I do see how this attitude may be helpful when assessing those days into which a little rain does fall.

The damage done to the Fukushima nuclear reactor might give some insight to anyone thinking of building a nuclear power plant near an active fault line.

The promises made by the Fukushima plant’s builder, Tesco, should give pause to the folks in Texas considering the same company for a nuclear plant near Houston.

The flooding in New Orleans after Katrina should teach the Army Corps of Engineers some humility regarding their ability to harness Mother Nature.

The unfettered development in the Mississippi delta with its resulting degradation of the marshes should make planners think twice before proposing another commercial/industrial project in those delicate areas.

The shooting in Tuscon or Virginia Tech or Columbine or wherever should make everyone who knows a troubled person less concerned about offending him and more concerned for those he might offend.

The sight of houses being washed into a raging flood which once ran peacefully might be a warning against putting settlements on the banks of rivers that flood occasionally.

The recent unrest in Egypt, Libya, Syria and etc. should assure doubters that freedom really is the heart’s desire of all people everywhere, even in the Middle East where many scoffed at Bush’s efforts to bring some.

The gentle wind of fiscal doubt that collapsed the world economy in 2008 should prove to anybody paying attention that we live in a house of [credit] cards.

The parade of earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, floods, mudslides, drought, civil unrest, war, genocide, famine and fiscal ruin should convince the most carefree among us that bad things frequently happen. The question then becomes what to make of them. Without fail, someone will wail into the readily offered CNN microphone, “Why would God do this?” The atheist has no problem answering: there is no god and bad things just represent nature taking its course. The believer, however, must come up with an answer.

I do not consider the issue in a vacuum. My wife lost two children to miscarriages. My oldest sister lost her nine-year-old daughter in a house explosion, then her husband to a brain tumor. Another sister’s life was taken by cancer at thirty-three with four surviving children under ten. My father was stolen away from us by a sudden aneurysm. I experienced personal financial disaster due to the collapse in 2008. I could go on, but this is not about me. Into every life a little (or a lot of) rain must fall. Inquiring minds want to know where the umbrellas are kept.

First I think we must understand that crisis is not an anomaly. Jesus said it; Buddha said it; most wise men have figured it out: in this world, there will be tribulation. Think it not strange that we encounter it. Second, I suggest we should not ask why, but what: what can we learn from this crisis? If you believe as I do that God is in control, and that He acts entirely for the believer’s good, then every crisis is an opportunity. Maybe I was too hard on Rahm Emanuel. Maybe he was right all along.

Irony Wears a Gown

Life is full of irony. I dislike people who overuse hospitalization insurance with petty maladies. I dislike hospitals in general. I dislike the situation which forces medical professionals to overuse tests because of the fear of litigation. I dislike the character, Dr. House, played by Hugh Laurie on television.

If you have never seen the TV show House you may not understand the irony of the situation I am about to relate. I just returned from the hospital after experiencing what felt like the filming of the next episode. My wife drove me to the emergency room last night at about 9 p.m. because the flinching caused by the pain in my upper back made her uncomfortable. Macho me would have stayed home to see if it got any worse. I deferred.

The only way I can describe what I experienced is to say it was like a knife was repeatedly thrust just below my scapula, drawing my attention away from sensation of pressure about my rib cage. Stop. I know the pressure sign re. heart attack. There was also a strange all-over quivering like the shakes from a fever, but my temp was 97.7. My heart rate was hovering around 90, which is moderately high for me. Finally, the back pain had begun two days earlier in very moderate form.

You should know, dear reader and fellow armchair diagnostician, that I have a history of localizing intense stress in my gastro intestinal system. Almost thirty years ago I raced to the emergency room late one night to learn that my heart attack symptoms were a “near ulcer.” Since that episode, I have had a dozen or more recurrences. Some fewer years ago, I experienced several losses of consciousness due allegedly to intense pain in the iliac region. I had several of these “white-out” experiences over the course of a couple years.

Returning to last night, I apparently frightened the ER staff in the same manner as my wife. They strapped me to an EKG, gave me nitro-glycerin, morphine, aspirin, Tylenol, an intravenous acid reducer and probably other things I have forgotten. I received a CAT scan and delivered numerous vials of blood to the lab for testing. Naturally I was connected to a machine which monitored my heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, blood oxygen level and which screamed a warning every time I relaxed enough to fall into my frequent resting apnea behavior.

The ER attending physician determined that I should be admitted for further tests, so he passed me to the on-call internist who peppered me with 20x100 questions. You know the list: have you ever had cancer, diabetes, stroke, heart problems, surgeries, or fallen over Niagara in a barrel. I may have failed to mention that I frequently lose consciousness and sometimes writhe with gastric pain for hours on end. But she did not ask about that. She was concerned that I rode my bicycle eight miles around Bear Lake last Saturday, four days before the onset of my mysterious presenting pain.

By 2 a.m. her best guess was something muscular-skeletal, but she insisted that I be admitted for a stress test. If I passed that and a series of blood enzyme tests, I was told I could leave the hospital. I have always been pretty good at tests, so I sailed through everything they threw at me. By noon I was thoroughly exhausted from twenty-eight hours of being mostly awake and more than tired of frequent pokes, pills and blood pressure tests, and I was eager to break my mandated fast, now approaching sixteen hours.

If you are still reading this, you must be bored; I know I was by this point in the adventure. Thank goodness they had cable in the little TV that swung on an articulated arm over my automatic pressure adjusting air mattress equipped hospital bed. They also had earphones to give the other patient in the room so his blaringly mindless wee hours TV could be muted. By 11 a.m. they had run out of things to test, so I was told I could leave as soon as the doctor read the results of my second set of “pictures” post stress test. By 2:30 I was finally wheeled to the door where my wife retraced our steps from last night.

I haven’t seen the bill for my nineteen hour stay, but if it does not reach five figures, I will be surprised. I am thankful for my wife’s hospitalization insurance in a more tangible way than I was yesterday. Ironically, all that money has not bought an answer to what caused my pain. Ironically I am still of the opinion that hospitalization insurance is a luxury item only the rich are entitled to. I also believe firmly that when the Lord calls you home, the Blue Cross is not the one you should be counting on.

As I write this I am feeling about the same level of pain as I was thirty-six hours ago. I left the hospital without telling them it had returned. If it intensifies, I will roll over and wait for it to pass if my wife will let me. Or not. There may be additional irony in this situation for those of you who think I bear a strong physical resemblance to Laurie/House and an even stronger character likeness. Or not.

Weep Now

Thousands upon thousands are dead following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Thousands more will die from related injuries, disease or radiation poisoning. Watching the video images of walls of mud and debris sweep entire communities from their foundations made my soul shiver. Pardon a Star Wars analogy, but I remember the reaction of Obiwan Kenobi when the Imperial Death Star destroyed the planet Alderaan. He said he felt a disturbance in the Force as if thousands of lives had been ended. I felt like that.

I wonder if God felt like that. Many thousands of his creatures lived in a town called Minami Sanriku in northern Japan. The tsunami bowled through the streets taking everything with it as it swept through town and headed inland. Large tracts of homes where children once did their homework and mothers cooked supper have given way to a newly formed ocean inlet. Dinner has been postponed; homework will not be handed in.

I wonder if God weeps over things like that. My theology tells me that tragedy like this is not what God originally had planned. I believe the doctrine that says humanity is doomed because our first parents made a choice to disregard their Maker’s instructions and to forge their own way in the world. I believe this act of human independence had cosmic consequences. To this day we reap the whirlwind sown in Eden’s soft breeze.

I wonder if God has I-told-you-so in His vocabulary. He did warn us that things would get ugly if His rules were not obeyed. Yet we still build small cities in coastal regions prone to earthquakes and tsunamis. We plant large cities in river deltas below sea level where hurricanes frequently blow. We build in flood plains all along the Mississippi River. Then we act surprised and blame God when stuff happens.

Or we turn our backs on Him by tossing the Bible and prayer out of schools and filling our kid’s heads with “value free” education then watch in dismay as the crime rate, teen pregnancy rate, and the divorce rate all climb like bottle rockets. We criminalize corporal punishment at home and at school then complain because there is no controlling our young people. We turn a blind eye to a politician’s private moral failures then act surprised when his public practices and policies turn out to be equally shady.

I despise the actions of people who would seek to gain by other’s tragedy; I remember Rahm Emanuel’s admonition not to waste a good crisis. Still I would like to take to my soapbox and make some use of the mood sensitive people acquire during tragic aftermaths. This is a good time to remind our neighbors that there is sound theology in the bumper sticker that says, “Sh** Happens.” We live in a fallen world. It is not just people who bear the consequences of sin; all of creation groans under its effects. Weep with those who weep for Minami Sanriku. Then tell them that a day of no more tears is coming. Share the hope.

Blaise-ing the Trail

As I read John Eldridge's book, Desire, recently, I was struck by his frequent quotes of Blaise Pascal, the seventeenth century philosopher and mathematician. I have always wanted to read Pascal's Pensees, so I borrowed it from the library and am enthralled. The translation I am reading seems to be quite old, the language being somewhat obscure. In spite of this difficulty, I find it very interesting. This blog is my paraphrase from Chapter 4, “On the Unhappiness of Man.” I present it without further comment for your reading pleasure.

Nothing can give us better insight into the misery of people than to examine the true cause of the constant agitation which accompanies their lives. The human soul is sent into a body to live for a short time. The soul recognizes that the period of embodiment is limited and mostly consumed by tending to the natural needs of the body, leaving little time for reflection. Even this little time for reflection causes so much distress and confusion that the soul tends to avoid it.

To live with itself and to think of itself is unbearably painful for the soul. Therefore its main effort is to blind itself to its own needs and allow time to slip away without reflection. This is the origin of all the busy pastimes of mankind and all the things referred to as diversions. In these, people’s real goal is to thoughtlessly while away the time and remain oblivious to the bitterness and disgust they would feel if they sat and thought about their true condition. The soul sees nothing internally which brings contentment; every inward though brings only pain. For this reason, the soul looks outside itself to external objects as a distraction. Its only satisfaction is in losing awareness of itself lest it be forced be alone in contemplation and to see how miserable it is.

We are trained from childhood to be concerned primarily with our reputation and status. We force everyone to go to school, to get a job, to work diligently at creating wealth and achieving a good position in life. We tell them that if they fail at this, they will be miserable. So we all end up working at things which for the most part are frustrating and tedious. What a strange formula for making people happy. Truly, would there be any better way to make a person unhappy? Actually, yes. If we relieve a person of all these tedious cares, and leave them with nothing to do but think about themselves, their lives would be unbearably sad. Knowing this, we fill even our leisure time with pursuits which will engross our attention and save us from having to reflect on our true condition.

For this reason, once I decided to investigate the various things that agitate people and the dangers and troubles they encounter at work or in their leisure, things which cause so many quarrels, arouse such deep passion, I came to the conclusion that people’s miseries arise from not knowing how to be comfortable in their own skin. A person who has met the basic needs for life would not find it necessary to occupy himself with troublesome distractions if he was satisfied with his inner condition.

Upon close examination I have found that there is only one reason why people try so hard to avoid relaxation and self-examination: they are not satisfied with their frail and mortal condition. To think clearly about the condition of the human soul makes people feel depressed and inconsolable.

Since death, trouble and ignorance are inescapable, most people have determined not to think of these things at all in the hope that the absence of consideration will make them happy. But this is actually no help at all, since avoiding troublesome thoughts merely conceals their presence for a time, and by concealing them, prevents people from attempting to find true relief.

Please note, however, that I am describing the state of only those persons who look for answers within themselves, without having felt the power of religion. One of the astonishing facts of the Christian religion is that it reconciles man to himself while reconciling him to God. This makes it possible for a person to be comfortable with himself and therefore to find more pleasure in solitude and reflection than in the various activities of life. And it is not by directing people to focus inwardly that this satisfaction results. Rather these pleasant effects are produced by leading a person to consider God’s care for him and the promise of a better future free from life’s miseries.

It's Not Fair

I upset a student the other day; she accused me of being unfair. I agreed with her. I tried to make it one of those teachable moments by pointing out that quite often life is not fair, so she should learn to deal with it. She was not impressed with my pedagogical technique. As she left the room angrily, I asked her to please make an appointment with my dean so we three could work something out.

I do not commonly have students leave my presence in such a disturbed state, but I am very familiar with the attitude that life owes everyone a fair shake. When someone complains about the lack of fairness in a situation I usually respond that life is not fair. It is not fair that a family is expecting a fatally deformed child which will die almost as soon as it is born. It is not fair that six people were shot dead in Tucson recently. It is not fair that thousands of children are missing a parent who made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq or Afghanistan. It is not fair that millions of Americans are out of work because of an economic bubble that burst. (Was that Chinese eco-terrorism?)

There are countless examples of life’s unfairness. What irks me is the people who want to gain some benefit from achieving what they call fairness. Megan Kelly had a guest on her Fox News program this afternoon who decried the unfairness of our current income tax system. She said, naively, that if only the top one percent of people – the really rich people – would pay their fair share our economic woes would be over. First of all, she is just misinformed (or she is misrepresenting.) The last time I saw the figures, the richest five percent of taxpayers pay over fifty percent of all taxes. The poorest forty percent pay almost no taxes at all. If there is unfairness here, it is that the rich pay such a disproportionately large amount.

Regardless of her complete misrepresentation of the facts, it remains a fact that she believes rich people owe the rest of us something; she believes in the redistribution of wealth. She is not alone; most of the progressive Democrat politicians in the US believe in redistribution. President Obama said during his campaign for office that he does. What is national health care but a plan to make people who have money pay for the medical costs of those who cannot afford it. The thinking is that it is not fair that some people can afford insurance and some cannot, or that some can afford medical care and some cannot.

Either way, the underlying assumption is that everyone is owed medical care as a right. I have argued against that in this space before. All I will say about it now is that I cannot find health care anywhere in the US Constitution. Nor can I find unemployment benefits, or low cost housing, or food stamps or farm subsidies or corporate welfare or any of the hundreds of other government redistribution programs with which we are saddled. The fact is our founding fathers would be aghast at what the federal government is undertaking, this vast wealth redistribution scheme.

Read William Bradford if you dare. He describes an attempt by the early settlers in Plymouth to function as a wealth equalized system, otherwise known as socialism or communism. The community almost starved to death before they converted to a capitalistic system where individual effort was rewarded proportionately. “If a man will not work, let him not eat,” sounds cruel, but those words were spoken by the Apostle Paul to believers.

From the Genesis creation mandate to “dress, till and keep the earth,” down through the so-called Protestant work ethic, Christianity preaches one message. It also tells us that there will always be poor among us. Poor is a relative term implying that others will be rich. It is a fact of life – an unfair fact to be sure. But where is it written that life will be fair? Our founders declared that all men had the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We are not being true to either the Scripture or the Constitution when we try to say all men have the right to equal outcomes – equal opportunities yes – equal outcomes no.