Hell's Bells!

Several years ago I had the supreme misfortune of reading Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith. I do the best I can to remain a critical, neutral reader of everything I read. I prefer to test everything and hold onto the good without being too sore about the chaff I rubbed off. This one was different. Maybe it has to do with the circumstances surrounding my first run-through of the book. Maybe it was because I watched that first Nooma video four times in one summer at youth service ("We're gonna make it, buddy! Daddy knows the way!" Ugh...) Maybe I was just a little puffed up after my freshman year of college.



Or maybe the way he writes like this.



All the time.



And how a guy who wants to appear environmentally-sensitive wastes huge swaths of the page to appear profound while dooming hundreds of innocent trees to the slaughter. That with every.



Drawn-out.



Thought.



Ultimately it's probably Bell's trendy, artsy way of carrying himself and churning out videos that makes him more popular than I'll ever be. Or how he never seems particularly cranky, unlike me. In the end, I may be unable to stand him because I'll never be that cool.

Anyway you slice it, one thing I hated about Velvet Elvis was that I suspected that Bell was way more theologically liberal than he would have us believe. Yet the more I would raise these concerns, the more people around we would say that I was probably over-reacting. Some would hear what I said and reply, "I don't think that's what he meant." When I asked them why then Bell had said it that way, folks would reply, "He's just trying to be thought-provoking." I would then cite sermons he had preached and footnotes he'd left. I even attacked him for the teaching method he used, craving shock factor over solid Truth. Some around me still seemed eager to grant him the benefit of the doubt, maintaining that I must have misread him. Maybe they were right. I bet Rob Bell meant the total opposite of that stuff he wrote, had edited, finalized, then publicly defended against criticism.

I forgot about the issue for a while. Four years later, I logged onto facebook to find a friend had posted a link. I had not long before essentially figured that the Bell bandwagon had run out of steam. After all, by now most people I knew talked about the much-superior Mark Driscoll's Mars Hill over Rob Bell's. Seemingly out of the blue, here was Bell marketing his new book as a "questioning" of the doctrine of Hell. "Is Hell real? Will Ghandi really burn there forever? Does God intend for Jesus to save us from Himself?" he asks during the video. Before I could fully react, it looked as though the entire Reformed blogosphere had already been lit ablaze with criticism of a book which had yet to be released. I was briefly comforted to see that teachers I deeply respected could finally call this false teacher for who he was. Bell had slipped up and overplayed his trendy little hands. Now no one could deny what I had seen all along.

Yet the more I thought about it, the more I realized I may be far guiltier than Rob Bell ever will be. True, I haven't denied a fundamental teaching of the Christian church. (I am a Calvinist though, and to freewill folks that is almost the same.) No, I have affirmed all the right doctrines and could probably explain them better than most. I could probably be really entertaining about it too.

A rare opportunity to please both Yahweh AND Dionysus!

Rob Bell (might) deny Hell by the words in his forthcoming book. I'm afraid that I deny Hell by the way I live everyday. I have to ask if I live as though Hell is a conscious, eternal torment for the unrepentant. Do I evangelize share the gospel as though people will writhe in God's just fury forever? Do I serve as though those who see me might catch a glimpse of the Savior who can deliver them from Hell? I fear that the answer is no.

I wish John Piper, Kevin DeYoung, Justin Taylor, and others had waited for Rob Bell's book to come out before crying heresy. That said, it honestly does look like Bell will crossover into heresy--probably in the unassuming, falsely-humble way he does everything else. Still, I ought to hold my tongue for I fear I have denied Hell in a far more significant way than Bell has. He might (or might not) be misleading people with his trendy videos and falsely-humble questioning. I might be misleading people with the life I live, tacitly watching their ignorant blustering into the flames.

Forgive Us Our Debts

Roughly one month ago, a reader known only as Anonymous posted on my Why I Am Reformed entry. Mr. Nymous posted, "quick question - Matt. 18:23-25". I immediately shifted into the mindset of the critical historian, puzzling over the scrawling like an archeologist over a piece of papyrus. I carefully noted the lack of capitalization on all but the Scripture. I cataloged the oddly-placed hyphen. But most obvious to the critical reader is this fact--this was not a question. Written questions in English usually begin with interrogative pronouns or helping verbs and end with a mark something like this: "?".

So because this wasn't actually a question, I will answer the question I think the commenter was asking, "What is your take on Matthew 18:23-25?" I read it. Since again no actual question was left, I must guess at what the controversial nature of the text was. I assume that it isn't that the Kingdom of Heaven is a monarchy as opposed to a democracy. I assume it isn't that the king lent money, though there was a time when usury was thought un-Christian. It could even be assumed that Mr. Nymous is objecting to the use of political similes for theological concepts. However, I think that the objection must be thus: the Kingdom of Heaven is compared to a king who orders a debtor and his entire family sold into slavery.

(The reader may think I am being altogether dismissive of Mr. Nymous by introducing all the possible objections one may have to these three verses. Rather, I am trying to prove that any of these could be considered offensive to various observers. Slavery is uniquely offensive to a twenty-first century American; the fifteenth century Reformer or the fourth century Roman would not have regarded this.)

This might be a fair complaint had my charitable reader been as charitable to the Scripture as he has been to me. However, I think he has not been fair. In context, we see a much different story. Peter has asked Jesus how many times he must forgive those who transgress against him, offering the number seven. The Lord responds seventy times seven. Those fools who suppose themselves clever shall take this to mean the may keep a running ledger of offenses and cease to grant mercy at the 490th infraction. The humble reader will see Jesus' point for the hyperbole it is--forgiveness must be unlimited. After all, Peter thinks he is being generous because in ancient Hebrew culture three was the number of times a person was supposed to forgive. Jesus denies this, saying that forgiveness is as abundant as grace.

Then the Lord tells a story to emphasize His point. He tells of a king who has servant owing him a great sum. According to the ESV Study Bible, the sum in today's dollars would be somewhere around $6 billion (ten thousand talents was about twenty years' wages). The king prepares to sell the servant and his family into slavery. This was a common way to pay off debt in the ancient world. I can prove it without a textbook. Instead he forgives the servant his debt. The servant then goes to another servant who owes him about $12,000 in modern money (again according to the ESV Study Bible) and throws him into prison until he pays it. The king, upon hearing this, has that first servant also imprisoned for his wickedness.

We often read the Bible to find endorsements for our twenty-first century Western notions of equality and freedom and social justice. The truth is that the Bible stands outside of and above all cultures and human philosophy. This does not mean that the Bible contradicts everything about our society. It means that some of the things we find really offensive are not offensive unto the Lord. Much more humbling should be the fact that many things we don't find offensive--like being unmerciful to a debtor--inflame the wrath of the Lord. So how is the kingdom of Heaven like a king who threatens to sell a servant into slavery? Because we Christians have been forgiven of a far greater debt than $12,000 or even $6,000,000,000. We have been forgiven the penalty of Hell by the death of Jesus Christ--God Himself--on the Cross. Love keeps no record of wrongs, nor should the Christian.

Pessimism

"What is the matter with the pessimist? [...] I think it can be stated, without undue bitterness, by saying that he is the candid friend. And what is the matter with the candid friend? [...] I venture to say that what is bad in the candid friend is simply that he is not candid. He is keeping something back -- his own gloomy pleasure in saying unpleasant things. [...] [H]e is the uncandid candid friend; the man who says, 'I am sorry to say we are ruined,' and is not sorry at all." -G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

I recently read a book passed on to me by a wise friend concerning the topic of intrinsic motivation. The thesis was that the typical "carrot-and-stick" method of discipline was rather soul-crushing. The author instead advocated granting a level of ownership and freedom to employees or students and letting their natural creativity take hold. The basic conclusion was that rewarding and punitive motivators for rudimentary tasks such as assembling fast food or stacking papers was effective. For tasks requiring more originality or flair, they became a dismal failure. The take-home for me as an educator was that children are intrinsically motivated to learn. They really do want to learn. Therefore, do not lord over them with deadlines, tests, or projects. Give them as much ownership of the material as possible and they will astound you. It all sounds like the premise for a made-for-TV movie about some Teacher of the Year in a drastically under-performing school.

Would that it were true.

The unfortunate reality both in the classroom and in life is that there are genuinely people who crave failure, not success. I most eagerly believe that at some point everyone was intrinsically motivated to success and not failure. I also grant that most likely at some point a soul-crushing instructor or an over-bearing employer or a cruel coach quenched any lingering thirst for achievement. Perhaps they learn to anticipate failure and find it a twisted form of success to assure all listeners of a disappointing performance and bend over backwards to deliver. Diagnose as you please; the honest observer must admit that there are people in the world who really do relish failure.

They are those truly toxic people in the world. They predict heinous outcomes to all ventures. Should the endeavor prove fruitful, they shall shrug and chalk it up to the Law of Averages while already yearning for the next triumph of the Law of Murphy. The very next iniquitous try (no matter how far separated from their last failed dire prediction) is a private triumph. In layman's terms, I think the optimist's favorite phrase is, "It's not so bad." The pessimist's is, "I told you so."

It will always be true that there are small men who enlarge themselves in their own minds by casting the first stones. I find the modern sophisticated, urbanite, twenty-something to be the best example of the classic pessimist. They live lives chock full of irony. They make snarky remarks about Bush and Obama on the same issue in the same breath. There are only a few movies they enjoy, mostly the ones by nihilistic or European directors with an equally jaded outlook as theirs. No book is as good as Catcher in the Rye or some nonsense by Foucault. They believe in Nothing. It's not that they don't believe in anything, it's that they put their stock in Nothing. They love the Nothing. They stared into the Abyss and found something wonderful in all the horror. And the more movies and politicians and songs and ideas and heartfelt yearnings they can reduce to Nothing, the happier they will be.

In the end, the pessimist sees all too well that misery loves company. Nevertheless, he is blind to the fact that company can hardly stand him.

You Only Think I'm Kidding Chapter 3

RUNNING IS THE WORST DRUG FOR YOU

I would have thought this kind of thing went without saying, but it appears that more and more people have been suckered in by the innocuous rhetoric of this peculiar hobby. Try as I might to persuade people of the danger, no one seems to acknowledge it. Wit ye well, noble readers, I have glimpsed the unnatural contortions of mind and soul wreaked upon otherwise reasonable individuals. There are millions across the world who have surrendered themselves ignorantly into the clutches of a dastardly slaver. With Dionysus as my witness, I make my final appeal against this fiefdom of blackest night from the podium of Artery Bloggage. Know now and forevermore that people you love are even now becoming runners. Yes and even you, reader, are but a few quickened steps away from being a cardio-addict.

Some deny that running is a drug at all, much less that it is bad. Perhaps a hypothetical would be helpful. Let's assume that you have two friends. One is named Randy. Randy is a true runner; he runs somewhere around ten miles a day. He is very enthusiastic about fitness and his favored sport. The other friend is a crack head. He can't remember his real name, yet he swears the angel Gabriel has dubbed him Antonio Jones, the Prophet of Funk. "A.J." is very enthusiastic about crack and his favored forms of it. A.J. is a true addict; he smokes around for around ten hours a day. You will begin to notice some similarities between these two as we move forward.

Have you ever been on a long car ride with a guy like A.J.? Say, a two-day car ride out to Texas from your hometown in Virginia. Part way through day 1, Randy grows restless. He really wants to stretch his legs at your first stop for gas. He starts talking about how bored he's getting. By nightfall, he's begun to talk about how slow the trip seems to be going. He mentions a burning, a yearning, a churning craving he can't control. He really missed his "special time" today. By day 2 at lunch time, he's begging for any chance to get it in. He's starting to feel a little depressed because he didn't have any endorphins pumping yesterday or today. He begs for any opportunity for them. You notice by nightfall that he is about to twitch himself out of the seat from sheer restlessness. He claws at the seat belt frantically like a squirrel duct-taped to a car bumper. Must. Have. A. Fix.

Oh, my bad. That was supposed to be Randy. In real life, the crack head is much more subtle.

Some say the worst thing of all is the evangelistic fervor with which the runner proclaims his favorite practice. Running is so good for you, he says. Sure, it's tough at first. Nobody really likes it to begin with, but stick through and I promise you'll love it. It's the best. The runner speaks often about how he can't really imagine how people can live without it.

Others say the worst thing of all is the way it alters your brain. We all have had friends sucked into this mindset. Slowly but surely, they too became runners just like the circuit-riding runner who brought the running revival to them. It soon consumes all their thoughts. The idea of being cooped up in a car for even three hours becomes inconceivable. "But how will I stretch my legs?" they plead. "How will I those calories burned?" These are questions they never asked before. Now, because of running, they can't stop. And they want you to come too. Right now. "Join us in a marathon. Join us. Join us," chants the chorus. "If you'll only eschew the sedentary road trip, the lazy movie, all the droning conversation and debate and embrace the warm burn of the jog at sunrise." They aren't your friends anymore. They're runners now.

I disagree with all that; I think the worst thing about this abominable addiction is the swagger which grows in alongside it. Everyone knows that exercise is good for you. Nevertheless, it's no reason to get all self-righteous about it. Yes, we get that it's your hobby. Yes, we get that you're addicted. But that's the thing about running--many runners reach that awful place where they know they're better than us "normies". Unlike the crack head, who seems perfectly content to hog the crack cocaine for himself and feels mostly shame, the runner will begin to snub you if you don't cave into his social pressuring. Some will say so aloud. Others will say so by gesturing Vanna-White-style to a trendy 26.1 sticker on their rear windshield. Still more will ask you if you're eager to move yet after three hours of Seinfeld marathon. Maybe you're better than me, runner, but you're not better than Cosmo Kramer.

I mean it, America. Runners' high is still a high.

Because I Wasn't Always: Why I Am Reformed Part 2

My first experience with Lutheran/Calvinist soteriology (beliefs about salvation) came when I was fifteen. I was on a mission trip to New Orleans to work on a week-long project at the Baptist seminary there. (This was before the hurricane.) I was getting awfully bored on the drive so I picked up an issue of Breakaway, a Focus on the Family magazine for teen boys. They were going through a series where they compared and contrasted different Christian denominations. There they laid out in a very simple diagram the five points of Calvinism and Arminianism. This first taste of Reformed theology was not particularly positive.

Upon comparing the two charts, I found that I agreed with four out of five Arminian points. I believed that people could do good apart from Christ. After all, wasn't it good when people who didn't know Jesus fought for justice and freedom? I believed that only those who made the conscious, adult, free choice to follow Jesus were truly saved. I believed that Jesus died on the cross for all people, but that not all choose to follow Him. He couldn't force them to follow Him or else it wouldn't be willing. Thus, those who went to Hell went because they wanted to be there. I believed God would never force someone to go to Heaven who didn't wholeheartedly want to.

In fact the only thing the Calvinists seemed to get right was the issue of eternal security or perseverance of the saints. Classical Arminian theology teaches that people can lose their salvation through habitual sin or choosing to leave Christ. I have quite frankly always been convicted that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. I don't need to look very far to find justification for that conviction. The notion that Jesus' sacrifice does not cover over sin once and for all is so offensive to me that I don't know that I can actually hold a conversation at once civil and serious on that point. "Jesus saves you, but your good behavior keeps your ticket to Heaven valid!" Revolting.

So I was what I called a "Baptist Arminian". I said "Baptist" versus "Classical" because I had never met a Baptist who denied eternal security. This was an opinion that I not only found to be very self-consistent and easy, I also found it to be the majority opinion of adults I knew. Most folks my age were not particularly conversant on the subject. Thus, I found a lot of grown-ups who affirmed my conclusion. In fact, I found none to dispute it.

At the root of it all, I thought that a love wasn't love unless you were free to choose it. A free choice is one which is based wholly on free will. Therefore, God can't force people into anything; they have to freely choose. We're not robots, after all. How could a loving God overwhelm our freedom?

Some of these opinions I would hold, some I would shed, but most I would simply modify when I switched teams a few years later...

Optimism

"What is the evil of the man commonly called an optimist? Obviously, it is felt that the optimist, wishing to defend the honour of this world, will defend the indefensible. He is the jingo of the universe; he will say, "My cosmos, right or wrong." He will be less inclined to the reform of things; more inclined to a sort of front-bench official answer to all attacks, soothing every one with assurances. He will not wash the world, but whitewash the world." -G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Some friends often accuse me of being something of a cynic. I assume they do so because I occasionally have sardonic sense of humor. I have never been shy about mocking those things which have proven huge disappointments. A long time ago I found this to be a very effective coping mechanism. If your college promises that Spring Formal is the most magical night of your life and the sound system shorts out, is it really so cynical to loudly wonder if a wizard has hexed your dance? (Okay, maybe if you then say that the senior class president who made the comment is an evil wizard setting us all up for failure.)* But I long ago realized that there are times in life when you have to laugh to keep from crying.

We tend to view optimism as a character asset. In fact, we consider pessimism and optimism to be an opposing pair of virtue and vice much as we do Courage and Cowardice or Love and Hate.

Or Bacon and Vegetables

But I wonder if there isn't something to what Chesterton is saying. Having been through a fair share of grief and frustration, I found that the most unhelpful advice came from people simply telling me to buck up and look on the bright side. Most of them were probably at a loss as to what to say. I know their intention was nothing but helpful and noble. I retrospectively appreciate their expression of support though I find their words far from truly supportive.

I think that oftentimes the best thing to do when addressing problems and evil in life is not to downplay them but to accept them in all their dreadful gravity. We might want pithy statements about silver linings when the car won't start or I have a fight with my sister. I don't want to hear about how "things always work out for the best" when my life crumbles under the crushing weight of disease, loneliness, hopelessness, or death. I need someone to tell me that the world sucks and its ruined and broken and the only hope for man exists altogether outside it. The world should be acknowledged by any serious and honest observer as more than merely unjust occasionally; it is an unjust place by nature. But this is the sin of the optimist for he whitewashes the world.

I, like Chesterton, would never consider pessimism to be a virtue either. I will address the issue of pessimism in the coming weeks and the ultimate alternative to both foolish extremes. Still, I want to leave the reader with the very serious possibility that an optimistic view of life is hardly the best. I think it very unlikely that the world can be saved from within. Man has had thousands of years of recorded history to fix injustice and suffering. Maybe progress has been made. After all, we got rid of slavery, right? Why then are people more morose, listless, and suicidal than ever? (Ecclesiastes, anyone?) Maybe they just aren't being optimistic enough... but I think it more likely that they have been sold a falsely positive view of the world and can't cope with the reality. All those cynics are disappointed romantics.

*This was not a true story. It was a hypothetical. I always liked the senior class president.

The Jelly Minds

"And [Jesus] said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'"-Matt. 22:37 (ESV)

I remember my very first college class was Intro to Psychology at 11 AM every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday on the third floor of the Cook Building. It was the class where I sharpened my academic teeth, took my first college exam, got my first C on a test, and learned that college isn't like in the movies where glorious adventures and wild stories await around every corner. The adventures are what you remember, the main thing is the work. This class paled in comparison to work loads I would have later, yet it was uniquely draining since it was a class over which I had expected to more or less gush. Unfulfilled expectations can really punch a hole in motivation.

One concept which always bothered me was the Nature/Nurture debate. It wasn't because I was very strongly in the biological/cognitive or behavioral camp. Rather, it stemmed from how the debate was framed. After all, we had been told on the second day of class that psychology came from the Greek meaning "study of the soul". It was also supposed to be the fusion of philosophy and science. However, the discipline quickly shed any such "pretensions" to the soul or philosophy because the soul is not scientifically demonstrable. Therefore, the only legitimate realm of discussion within psychology was between those two positions. Had there existed a branch of psychology dubbed "philosophical psychology" as there do "cognitive psychology" and "behavioral psychology", perhaps I would not have been so perturbed. After all, what if people aren't just a product of their society nor of their genes? Could not some fundamentally immaterial thing remain which is the true source of what man is? As Aristotle said, "The whole is more than the sum of the parts." "Maybe so," answers the academic psychologist, "but that question is not appropriate for scientific discourse. And what is psychology but a science?"

I was so bothered by this that I remember bringing it up with a young psychology major a couple of years later. She was a believer and I thought maybe she could shed light on the deplorable lies of her favored discipline. It was a casual conversation and perhaps I was expecting too much, yet I was even more disappointed by her response than by the original dilemma. She replied that she hadn't much thought about it; she simply disagreed, took the notes, and passed the next test.

The troubling thing about this response is not that she didn't freak out and remember it for years to come like I did. The bothersome fact is that she never dealt seriously with the argument presented to her. Rather than dealing with a potential challenge to her faith, she just ignored it. She blew off all the credibility of her instructor and his ideas--whether or not she agreed with him--simply because she found it unpalatable. It wasn't that she had a reason to disagree; it simply made her faith in Christ uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, a lot of Christians are guilty of having jelly minds. Like a jellyfish, when they encounter some kind of intellectual opposition or challenge, they just drift right past it like no obstruction were there at all. If an answer or resolution to the problem is not immediately forthcoming, they forget about it and drift on with the currents of shallow faith. They don't take it home and wrestle with it. They don't meditate on what a critical impact this might have on their lives as followers of Jesus. They just drift on with their feel-good spirituality. Oddly enough, this isn't how Jesus was.

Jesus found opposition coming from men who had years more experience mastering a subject than He did. In Luke 20:27-40, the Sadducees come to Jesus and try to lay a theological trap. These are men who don't believe the whole Bible, only the Five Books of the Law (Genesis-Deuteronomy). Jesus takes the whole Old Testament (Genesis-Malachi). This means that He disagrees with them on a fundamental level. Particularly in the book of Daniel, there are sections which overtly talk about the afterlife--something the Pharisees didn't believe in at all. Yet Jesus, with little formal education compared to theirs, bests them.

Some will immediately say, "Yeah, but He wrote the thing. And He's God! Of course He knows it better than them. But I'm not God, so how can I be expected to tango with people who know their stuff better?" They're wrong. Jesus is our Christus Exemplar, Latin for "Christ the example" (more or less). That means we're supposed to be like Him. There's huge sections of a decent-sized book of the Bible talking about it (Hebrews). My point is that Jesus didn't do something that we can't do without the Holy Spirit.

So what did Jesus do? First, He met those guys on their level. Rather than quote from Daniel or Psalms or Job or some other book the Sadducees wouldn't agree with, He reasoned from a portion of Scripture that they did believe (that is, Exodus). This is why Christians are wasting plenty of good oxygen by simply pointing at the Bible and saying, "Read this! It has all the answers you need!" If I'm the naturalist arguing that man is just an animal, I'm thinking, "Thanks for ignoring my point. I guess you want me to take and read a book I don't really care about to further convince me how ignorant you are." So don't do that.

Second, He took their charge seriously. He didn't say He'd get to it later. He didn't say that He didn't care. He didn't even say, "Oh well, agree to disagree," without explaining Himself. Instead, He challenged their ideas in a very open-minded yet succinct way. Jesus heard the Sadducees out and then explained why they were wrong. Even though their motives were sinful (since Jesus denounces them just after this), He still addressed their ideas as legitimate.

Finally, Truth can stand up to scrutiny. If you believe that Scripture, right philosophy, and/or just plain common sense teach that man has an eternal soul, then don't retreat! Don't brush aside challenges you shall face in the classroom or in difficult books or from jerkwads on the street with more degrees than intelligence. Because no matter how smart or sophisticated or all-encompassing any explanation of life apart from Truth is, it will fail if it isn't true. Anything that cannot withstand the critical eye isn't Truth at all. Sift through it all and keep what's good.

Like I said when Artery Bloggage started, Truth is personal: the Person Jesus Christ is Truth. A Christian's faith in Him should be steadfast for He shall save us. So don't worry if you're challenged. You might find that you were wrong about something all along. That's what makes learning such a humbling experience and why teachers CRAVE teachable spirits. Be like Jesus; be humbly teachable and eternally dedicated to seeking Truth.