"Membership in the family of God is neither inconsequential or something to be casually ignored. The church is God's agenda for the world. Jesus said, "I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it." The church is indestructable and will exist for eternity. It will outlive this universe, and so will your role in it."
- Rick Warren
Thursday, March 10, 2011
By "train wreck" I do not refer to the recent rhetorical explosions in some sections of the blogosphere over Bell's upcoming book Love Wins, but to the book itself. And of course I should say "alleged train wreck," because someone will inevitably point out that We Cannot Trust Anybody who criticizes Bell's work, so second-hand appraisals are (theoretically) rubbish. Still, I'm a gullible sort, so when somebody generally trustworthy has read the book and shows me examples of its train-wreckness, I am duped into believing them. Kinda like when I see video of a train wreck on the news I think to myself "Man, what an awful train wreck," and not "I don't believe it because I wasn't in it."
If this is all news to you, a little lowdown before a couple of helpful link-snippets:
Rob Bell's newest book Love Wins proposes to reeducate the masses on God's eternal plan for all of mankind. Turns out that what we've heard from isn't may not be true-ish. In Bell's customary way, he provokes, questions, nudges, acts coy, and does that I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin' kind of thing. Allegedly. The response before the book has officially released involved much hand-wringing about Bell's hinting at universalism/inclusivism. Bell's defenders kinda-sorta said, "How dare you accuse Bell of heresy without reading the book! And what's wrong with a little heresy anyway?!" The hand-wringing was met by bet-hedging.
Well, the problem is that smart people have now read the book. And it turns out that when smart people see an arrow flying through the air they can in a somewhat reliable way estimate where it will land.
Tim Challies and Aaron Armstrong offer a strong review, which you should read. They quote Bell:What Jesus does is declare that he, and he alone, is saving everybody . . .
Challies and Armstrong write: "That is what we know as universalism. And it is cause for mourning."
And then he leaves the door way, way open. Creating all sorts of possibilities. He is as narrow as himself and as wide as the universe. People come to Jesus in all sorts of ways . . . Sometimes people use his name; other times they don’t . . . Some people have so much baggage with regard to the name “Jesus” that when they encounter the mystery present in all of creation—grace, peace, love, acceptance, healing, forgiveness—the last thing they are inclined to name it is “Jesus" . . . What we see Jesus doing again and again—in the midst of constant reminders about the seriousness of following him living like him, and trusting him—is widening the scope and expanse of his saving work.
Challies and Armstrong, as well as others now getting their hands on the book, demonstrate Bell's lackadaisical use of Scripture and his flippant manner with doctrines hard-won for centuries.
Carl Trueman demonstrates Bell's outright deception:On page 108 of his book (to be precise, an advance reader copy), Bell makes the following statement:
So Luther's letter is a clear denial of the idea that God will save faithless people after they die, but Bell quotes one or two lines to argue that Luther believes the opposite. At best this is sloppy; at worst, it is deceptive. I believe the worst.
And then there are others who can live with two destinations, two realities after death, but insist that there must be some kind of "second chance" for those who don't believe in Jesus in this lifetime. In a letter Martin Luther, one of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation, wrote to Hans von Rechenberg in 1522 he considered the possibility that people could turn to God after death, asking: "Who would doubt God's ability to do that?"
When the text is consulted, the context in which this statement occurs is absolutely vital to understanding what exactly Luther is saying at this point. I quote here the Fortress edition, which seems to be an accurate rendering of the German. I have highlighted the phrase Bell is citing, while also reproducing the important wider context:
Again, a good question.
And so space is created in this "who would doubt God's ability to do that?" perspective for all kinds of people--fifteen-year-old atheists, people from other religions, and people who rejected Jesus because the only Jesus they ever saw was an oppressive figure who did anything but show God's love.If God were to save anyone without faith, he would be acting contrary to his own words and would give himself the lie; yes, he would deny himself. And that is impossible for, as St. Paul declares, God cannot deny himself [II Tim. 2:13]. It is as impossible for God to save without faith as it is impossible for divine truth to lie. That is clear, obvious, and easily understood, no matter how reluctant the old wineskin is to hold this wine--yes, is unable to hold and contain it.
In this letter, Luther is answering the question, raised by von Rechenberg, as to whether any can be saved without faith. Luther's answer is a clear 'no.' In fact, the letter is specifically aimed at refuting any notion that anyone can be saved by anything other than faith as Luther defines it.
It would be quite a different question whether God can impart faith to some in the hour of death or after death so that these people could be saved through faith. Who would doubt God's ability to do that? No one, however, can prove that he does do this. For all that we read is that he has already raised people from the dead and thus granted them faith. But whether he gives faith or not, it is impossible for anyone to be saved without faith. Otherwise every sermon, the gospel, and faith would be vain, false, and deceptive, since the entire gospel makes faith necessary. (Works, 43, ed. and trans. G. Wienke and H. T. Lehmann [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1968], 53-54; WA 10.ii, 324.25-325.11)
There's much more emerging (no pun intended) as more people read Love Wins. Don't be tempted by the smug "I told you so"'s likely to come from some of the stronger critiques to dismiss the obvious problems with Bell's thinking and methodology. This is important stuff.
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Comments on "Rob Bell and The Train Wreck":
2. Karl
- 03/10/2011 10:24 am CST
If Challies and Armstrong really read the quote you've excerpted and then write: "That is what we know as universalism" then they are embarrassingly wrong. They've jumped right over inclusivism to an accusation of universalism. Let's at least get our terms right.
So far I haven't seen anything from Bell on this topic that I don't also see in C.S. Lewis. Both Bell and Lewis may be wrong, and the debate may be one worth having. I just wish some people would extend more grace to Bell, the way they do toward C.S. Lewis. Let alone George MacDonald, who Lewis called his greatest teacher and whose words comprise a significant portion of Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost for His Highest" but who was in addition to many other things, also a universalist.
4. Karl
- 03/10/2011 10:35 am CST
I'd like to see what came before that quotation and what is after the ellipses, and to know which statement of Jesus from the gospels Bell is speaking of. I'm not saying Bell is right. I'm saying we treat George MacDonald and C.S. Lewis a lot differently in spite of their saying some pretty similar things.
5. Karl
- 03/10/2011 11:10 am CST
If we're speaking of what "Bell declares he [Jesus] declared" Lewis has the George MacDonald Character in The Great Divorce say: say, "St. Paul talked as if all men would be saved" and neither the angel-guide nor any other character in the novel clearly gainsays MacDonald’s declaration regarding how St. Paul - that is, how holy scripture - talks about who will be saved.
MacDonald was an avowed universalist and wrote a moving book (Lilith) about it, and he is revered as Lewis's teacher and thousands of people (mostly unknowingly) read him for their daily devotions when they read Oswald Chambers.
MacDonald aside, I just don't see a huge difference between what has so far been attributed to Bell on the topic of hell, and quotes like these:
There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it. For example, a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy and to leave in the background (though he might still say he believed) the Buddhist teaching on certain other points. – (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)
“We do know that no person can be saved except through Christ; we do not know that only those who know Him can be saved by Him." – Lewis, Mere Christianity
I know the enemy disapproves many of these causes. But that is where He is so unfair. He often makes prizes of humans who have given their lives for causes He thinks bad on the monstrously sophistical ground that the humans thought them good and were following the best they knew. (Lewis, Screwtape Letters, 23).
Meanwhile, what gentle heart can leave the topic without a prayer that this lonely ancient king, crank and doctrinaire though perhaps he was, has long seen and now enjoys the truth which so far transcends his own glimpse of it (Lewis, commenting on Akhenaten, an Egyptian Pharaoh who tried to introduce a form of monotheism in Egypt, Reflections on the Psalms, 89).
For we can pray with good hope that they [certain people who did not consciously accept Christ before death] now know and have long since welcomed the truth (Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, 108).
"Alas, Lord, I am no son of thine but servant of Tash." He answered, "Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service to me" (Lewis, The Last Battle).
"I have never been able to conjure up (as some great Evangelical missionaries have) the appalling vision of the millions who are not only perishing but will inevitably perish. On the other hand… I am not and cannot be a universalist. Between these extremes I cherish and hope that the majority of the human race will be saved. And I have a solid biblical basis for this belief.” - John Stott
6. Jared
- 03/10/2011 1:01 pm CST
Karl, I always think it is problematic to conclude Lewis's theology from his fiction. Infer perhaps, but not conclude.
In MC, I believe he is wrong, but he is not making unequivocal statements; he is assailing his own sense of certainty. "We don't know." Again, I think he's wrong about that -- we do know -- but that is not the same thing as saying "God saves people who reject Christ."
Also: I have enjoyed MacDonald's writings and profited from many of them. I have most of his books and his "Unspoken Sermons" is in my office. But I also think he was a heretic. At least, by the standards of historical orthodoxy.
7. nhe
- 03/10/2011 1:10 pm CST
Like Karl - I thought that universalism was a leap based on the passage sited. I have struggled with the notion of "inclusivism" for a while, as I find the argument intriguing, but a little too man-centered. I find Bell WAY TOO man-centered in his approach to theology.
He means well, but I've always thought they he is pre-supposing that Orthodox Christianity as a whole is "unfair" to the lost........which is a man-centered notion.
9. Jared
- 03/10/2011 1:46 pm CST
Ah, yes, I should've noted that: For space's sake, I replaced Challies's break notations with ellipses and mashed the text up into paragraphs. Those breaks may indeed indicate text present between the lines quoted, but my assumption was that they represented the space in Bell's odd way of writing. I don't have the book to check, but if you've seen any of his other print work, you know what I mean.
He writes
Sentences on the page of a book
Like this to create emphasis.
12. Karl
- 03/10/2011 3:26 pm CST
Jared, when Lewis was working on an idea he would write about it in different genres. There are few themes in Lewis that you can't find treated via fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, as well as mentioned in his letters.
If what Lewis said in The Last Battle and Screwtape was inconsistent with what he wrote in his letters, in Mere Christianity and in Reflections on the Psalms, then I might give the fiction works less weight. I agree the works of fiction weren't intended as theological treatises. Lewis would say none of his nonfiction works were, either. But I don't think there's any question when you read the corpus of his works including his letters and his nonfiction, that CSL was anything other than a strong and consistent inclusivist who believed that it was not only possible but highly likely, that many who did not knowingly and overtly profess faith in Jesus Christ during life - and indeed many who knowingly but based upon wrong information denied Jesus Christ - would nonetheless be saved by the work of Christ. He didn't make it a key point of his teaching because he didn't find inclusivism vs. exclusivism vs. even universalism (of G. MacDonald's sort as opposed to the mushy universalism of religious pluralism or unitarianism) to be core to "Mere Christianity" i.e. not a salvific issue but rather a disputable matter about which sincere Christians who respect the authority of scripture may disagree.
Lewis may be wrong. But at least *on this issue* I would still place him and Bell in roughly the same spot on the continuum. And if we extend grace to Lewis on the issue, then maybe we should do the same for Bell rather than talk about train wrecks and tweet flippant things like "farewell, Rob Bell." How if the same person had tweeted "Farewell, Clive?"
13. Deb W
- 03/10/2011 7:00 pm CST
Steve, if you're interested, I actually wrote a post linking Charlie Sheen and Rob Bell. It's called: WHO's Winning?
14. Evan
- 03/10/2011 8:18 pm CST
I think C.S. Lewis' most explicit writing on this subject comes in his chapter simply called 'Hell' in The Problem of Pain. A passage:
Some will not be redeemed. There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and, specifically, of Our Lord's own words; it has always been held by Christendom; and it has the support of reason.
I think that Karl is fair when he says that Lewis theology might be labeled inclusivism. And on that point, I would at least mildly disagree with Lewis. But he clearly rejected universalism. Hopefully, Bell will do the same.
15. Raindream
- 03/10/2011 8:47 pm CST
My impression of Bell's defenders is that they dislike confident assertions with which they disagree. Maybe they want to live in questions for most things or at least those things that smack of traditional thinking.
16. GinH
- 03/10/2011 10:59 pm CST
Isn't one of Bell's biggest "problems" with traditional Christianity fundamentally lacking in understanding of "eternity" anyway? He sees it as forever - the way we do here and now, one day after another, one year after another - when God is the Creator of time and space and is therefore outside of time. So for Him there is no day after day of endless days. It's somehow a constant present - which I'm sure we can't totally wrap our minds around but can fundamentally try to grasp on some level.
So Bell's idea that it's "unfair" to send people to hell forever and ever - besides the fact that it's unbiblical - is just not even acknowledging the fact that God is the author of time.
Plus it completely ignores the idea that God is not forcing people that decide not to spend "eternity" with Him are getting exactly what they want. God removing Himself from their eternity. I know that choice stuff won't fly with the Calvinists here, but I happen to agree with the idea that Lewis had about non-believers getting exactly as the choose. No God. I'm not as good at some of you guys around here at giving direct quotes though :)
17. jen
- 03/12/2011 4:00 am CST
What I keep coming back to is Jesus' own words. We can look at what other theologians have said, but where is Jesus in it? Can God choose to save everyone? Of course. Will he? Not according to Jesus. He warned time and again about the final judgment and hell. How can anyone ignore that?
18. dave
- 03/12/2011 2:26 pm CST
There was this video posted recently by a controversial pastor that got a lot of reactions from different people. It really made people think. But a few people wrote responses to this video that suggested the pastor might be a bit off base. Which makes me wonder: What if we all made cryptic videos, full of suggestions and unanswered questions that say without really saying (because they are questions, not answers) that everything you've ever been taught falls short of the truth? And then, what if our peeps get upset with other people for getting upset with us about making these kinds of cryptic videos that are designed to stir up controversy in order to sell books? How should we respond to the responses to the responses? After all, isn't it true that you shouldn't judge a book by it's promotional video? Won't the world be confused by this because it's just not nice to judge? And what if we all released books that stirred up a lot of controversy, without really answering a lot of questions, and instead we used our books to pose a lot of really thoughtful questions that are essentially rooted in doubt about traditional ideas that don't fit too well with modern sensibilities? What if we use doubt to drive most of our questions? What if we simply build layer after layer of questions, sprinkled with a lot of quotes from history and such? (After all, if Martin Luther or C.S. Lewis believed something, it may not be true, but it's at least smart, right?) And what if all of this serves to help us understand that the truth is really, what? A question, I suppose? --- Hey. What was this post about? I forget.
20. damien
- 03/12/2011 10:51 pm CST
the god of scripture is obviously not a concoction of man's imagination. rob bell demonstrates clearly where man's imagination naturally leads...in spite of the fact that all the biblical attributes of god are demonstrated in the present world...some stuff we really like, and lots of stuff we don't like at all. the reality we're faced with right now is not addressed, or explained, in the view of god that doesn't allow for our worst fears, and his holy wrath. and yes, what we need saving from...is god. thank you lord for our one and only savior, jesus christ.
22. Quaid
- 03/16/2011 8:44 am CDT
(Orthodox?) Evangelicals get an assist from . . . MSNBC?
While I disagree with some of the interviewer's "tactics," seeing Rob Bell forced to answer a question he poses and then deal with the ramifications of the answer is more than interesting.
Contrast that with the interview that George Stephanopoulos gave (someone I preferred much more on This Week). George seems ill-prepared for the interview and Rob Bell skates through without addressing much of any of the major concerns with the book.
23. MzEllen
- 03/17/2011 6:28 pm CDT
Shoot...I work with a woman who attends Bell's church. I linked to one of the stories on my facebook page and she wants my ear to hear how wonderful he is...
It's going to be a long ride.
24. dave
- 03/18/2011 1:33 am CDT
Thanks Quaid for those links. Very interesting. I kind of feel sorry for Rob in that he seems to have bitten off a lot more than he can chew with all of this. He seems like the kind of guy you'd love to watch a great movie with and then talk about it afterwords. You can't help but kind of like the guy on a personal level. But his discussion of God and the Bible is very confusing and hodge podge. He's clearly a mystic. One can't help but notice how many times Rob says, "I begin with..." and then he says several different things. It's like he's declaring presuppositions in order to avoid explaining the logic behind his statements. -- He seems like a really kind, nice guy who is in way over his head.
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Dead serious, I had to check this post cause I thought "train wreck" might have been you linking Rob Bell to Charlie Sheen. Then it just became this boring rant against a great man of God. :) Ah, kidding.
Good thoughts on the Luther quote. I didn't see Trueman on this.