A couple of book reviews about books about hell

Our local denominational pastor cluster decided to read a book and discuss it together. Somebody suggested reading Love Wins, Rob Bell's recent book about hell and eternity. Somebody else suggested we read Francis Chan's Erasing Hell, which was written as a response to Bell, too; the idea being it would be interesting to get both points of view before having the discussion. And so we did.

Quickly. . .

Rob Bell asks good questions. He asks the questions many Christians are afraid to ask. He challenges long-held beliefs, but in a gentle, winsome, inviting way. He invites people into the discussion in a friendly, folksy way. And he makes you think.

He also tends to shy away from direct answers, which leaves some people feeling irritated. Bell pushes the conversation in certain directions that lead to certain conclusions, but he never flat out says "here's the answer." He leaves it up to the reader to decide.

Still, he challenges the traditional understanding of hell and eternity, making the case that it is both untenable and unbiblical, the idea that the God we worship would torture people in hell for all of eternity simply because they never found Christ in the short time they had on earth. And yes, he does deal with the biblical texts, this isn't just Bell opining on his personal opinions. If you want to listen and stretch, you might find yourself agreeing with much of what he says.

Then again, there's this.

Francis Chan supports a much more traditional understanding of hell. While not agreeing with Dante's vision of flaming dungeons and devils with pitchforks, Chan peruses scripture and sees truth in the common doctrine of hell as eternal, conscious punishment for those who don't receive Christ in this lifetime. He responds to Bell and other non-traditionalists, dismantling their arguments against hell. And he makes it quite personal, as he wrestles with his own seeming lack of passion to share Christ while believing so many are destined for eternal torment.

So here's my take: Reading Bell is fascinating and interesting, in that it requires some thinking to understand where he's heading; it's new territory, which at least keeps things intriguing. And, unless one simply reads Love Wins in order to attack Bell, it does force the reader to rethink their own beliefs on both the scriptural texts and the nature of the God we worship. On the other hand, Bell doesn't deal so well with the larger corpus of theological understandings of hell. He makes it clear that nobody could ever talk of God's glory and hell in the same sentence, when, in fact, our Reformed brothers and sisters do that very thing. A fact which Bell seems to ignore or forget.

On the other hand, reading Chan is like retaking a class in Bible College 101. He simply rehashes the common understandings of the texts and seems incredulous that anybody might interpret them differently. For a subject so important, the book reads like "Hell for Dummies," a quick overview that never really wrestles with possible alternate understandings or readings.

I realized while reading these books that it became a nice example of my last book review, Clark Pinnock's The Scripture Principle. Because in the end, while it appears these two are arguing scripture, it's really a hermeneutical argument. Bell is beginning big picture, trying to understand God and then read scripture in light of who God is. Chan is beginning in the minutia of individual verses and working outward to try to understand what God must be like. Both views have some validity; without saying I agree with the outcome, I will say I appreciated Bell's approach more.

In the end, there are better books on the subject, although these two might be the most accessible. If you've never given much thought to the theology of hell, and would like a quick introduction, these books would be a good place to start. If you really want to be challenged to think through the subject, there are many books that are much more comprehensive.

Hell?

A few weeks ago I did a Q&A sermon. One of the questions was about hell. I spent some time discussing the scant biblical evidence for the traditional view, and riffed a bit on some of the other alternative readings of the doctrine of hell (see: annihilationism, apocatastasis). Suddenly, the internet is alive with the biggest hell debate we've seen in generations. I had no idea I was so influential.

Oh, wait. It's not me. It's just my gift of timing. The true story is that Rob Bell's new book is about to come out, and rumor has it he's making the claim that in the end Love Wins and everybody is saved. The heresy hunters are coming unglued and unhinged. Rob Bell has finally left the camp, they're claiming, and joining the ranks of all those heretics who deny the 'biblical' understanding of hell as a place of eternal torment with flames and devils and burning sulpher.

Eugene Cho talks about it here.
Jesus Needs New PR tells us how to survive the book release here.
The NakedPastor offers up his opinion cartoon-style here.
Out of Ur gets into the discussion here.
And in perhaps my favorite piece on the subject, the Slacktivist deftly covers the issue front to back here. 

Good timing, all of this, since I preached on it last week. And not everybody appreciated it.

One interesting observation here: Hell seems to be right up there with the divinity of Christ and the Virgin Birth as the most important Christian doctrines.

Which is sad, because, as I said in my sermon, the biblical basis for the traditional view of hell is sketchy at best. In fact, it's almost nonexistent. Nowhere is it found in the Hebrew scriptures. Nowhere is it found in the epistles of Paul. Hell as torment only shows up a few times in the gospels, and each time the context pushes us away from a literal reading. The Lake of Fire shows up in Revelation, but so do dragons and seas turning to blood and stars falling from the sky, and nobody takes those as literal descriptions.

To be clear: The Bible does teach there is judgment on sin, that there is a price both here and in eternity for rejecting Christ, for living lives of unrighteousness, for neglecting the poor and needy and homeless and alien and orphan and prisoner and widow and marginalized. And there is reward for choosing to live in Christ, for accepting his offer of salvation, for choosing to live justly and righteously.

The question comes down to the nature of hell (about which the Bible isn't clear), and the timing of hell. Is it eternal? Is it temporary? Or, to be more accurate, the timespan spent in hell by those who go there. Is hell a place of eternal torment for those who reject Christ, or a holding place that eventually releases its inhabitants? Do people in hell suffer torture for all eternity? Or are they consumed in the fire, annihilated?

Here's the truth: you can build a biblical case that hell is a place of ongoing, eternal torment. But you can also build a case that those who are judged as unrighteous truly die in every sense - they cease to exist. And, you can also build a case that in the end every person who has ever lived will spend eternity in the loving presence of God.

Which, by the way, is not the same as Universalism. That's a cheap shot that denies the intricacies of the theology at play. Universalism states that it doesn't matter what you do, everybody gets a free pass to heaven. Some do believe that, but it's not a biblical position. What people like Rob Bell, Brian McLaren, and my friend Randy Klassen are saying is that nobody gets a free pass into Heaven. All are saved in the atoning work of Jesus on the cross. It's just that some receive that salvation in this earthly life, while others finally own up to their sin, and receive God's grace, after suffering the torments of judgment (yes, it sort of sounds like Purgatory. . .but it's not).

(you know, even C.S. Lewis postulated that people could take the bus out of hell, if they would so choose).

The problem, to me, is that we're too invested in this Dante-an vision of hell, and can't really read the texts as they are. And we're too afraid of new ideas. Thus, whether it's Pastor Dan simply stating there are alternatives, or Rob Bell staking the claim that The Alternative is actually correct, people react instead of respond. Anger and rage come flying out, rather than healthy discussion. Accusations are made, rather than the robust work of theological debate.

And, truly finally. . .I'm not saying I agree with Rob Bell (how could I? I haven't read the book yet) or Brian McLaren (I stopped reading him before he got to his Hell book). I do, however, think there is a nugget of truth in this idea that our idea of hell is wrong. Mostly because, as Bell points out in the promo video, I think it both comes from, and paints, the wrong view of God. God IS love. God HAS wrath as a temporary response to sin. If hell is eternal, than wrath becomes an eternal quality of God. But that's not biblical. His anger is but for a moment, his love for a lifetime. His anger passes, his love endures. And if that be true, than hell cannot endure.

(Oh, and this - I know I left the exegesis off the table for this discussion. Some of the links above lead to some more theological discussions, but that wasn't really the purpose of this post today.)

Hell for Advent

Throughout Advent, I've been reading a book on Hell. Four Views On Hell, to be exact. If you scroll down and look at the book list on the right, you should see it there (unless you are reading this a long time after I wrote it. . .)

It came about because of a discussion I was in a few months ago. A particular person attempted to make the case that to be "for Jesus," one must also accept the traditional view of Hell as eternal conscious torment. I tried to point out that there were, in fact, good Christians who differed on their interpretations of the doctrine of Hell. I was instantly labeled a heretic, and found myself defending positions of which I was only vaguely aware. Hence the book.

And this is how I like theology. Four authors give the basis for their particular understanding of the issue. Each author then responds to the works of the others, leading to a broad conversation covering the outlines of the topic, which allows the reader to see the strengths and weaknesses of each position and come to their own conclusion as to which rings truer than the others.

From my perspective, the real treasure is not so much the conclusion as it is learning about how people do theology, to see the author's various hermeneutics at play. You learn as much about how people interpret the Bible as you learn about the actual topic. You see how people think, you see their blind spots and their moments of genius, and with all that, you can decide who truly is speaking doctrine that fits the Biblical message.

And so we have:
- John Walvoord (1910-2002), former professor and president of Dallas Theological Seminary, presenting the Literal (traditional) view
- William Crocket, Professor of NT at Alliance Theological Seminary, presenting the Metaphorical view
- Zachary Hayes, Teacher of theology at Catholic Theological Union, presenting the Purgatorial view,
- Clark Pinnock, Professor of Christian Interpretation at McMaster Divinity College, presenting the Conditional (annihilationist) view

And you get this:
Walvoord, true to his Dallas roots, can't get beyond the word Inerrancy, claiming that any interpretation other than a literal one denies inerrancy, thus denying the Truth of the Word. There is no room for nuance or historical interpretation or theological extrapolation. God said it, I believe it, and that's good enough for me. And I'll ignore any evidence to the contrary.

Crockett begins to develop some interesting lines, being (in my opinion) truer to the intent of the text, getting away from wooden literalistic interpretations, recognizing the reality of metaphor in eternal language; in addition, he sees (unlike Walvoord) that the texts themselves are somewhat contradictory, here saying "fire" and there saying "darkness." In the end, though, for Crockett whatever hell is like, all the metaphors say it's pretty horrible.

Hayes, for whatever reason, goes off-topic and speaks instead to the issue of purgatory. His is perhaps the most frustrating chapter simply because it's not Biblical. It relies completely on tradition and philosophy and a few apocryphal writings. Even Hayes admits that there's really no proof for purgatory in the Bible. But being a good teacher in the Catholic Church, none of that matters, because Tradition teaches purgatory, and that's all that matters. Obviously, to non-Catholics, that is an extremely weak argument.

Finally, the Pinnock chapter. This is the real reason I bought the book, in that I'd been intrigued with annihilationism ever since I read about it in Randy Klassen's What Does the Bible Really Say About Hell? Pinnock has become a spokesperson for this viewpoint (as well as for Openness Theology, both of which have made him persona non grata with the Evangelical Theological Society). And I found myself somewhat frustrated, because Pinnock spends very little time laying out the biblical case for annihilation. Instead, he spends most of his pages working at undermining the more traditional position and those who hold to it. Pinnock has been savagely attacked for holding to a few non-orthodox positions, and it comes through clearly as he continually speaks of those who reject his own views as heretical. His pleas for open discussion and review of doctrinal positions is to be lauded, but I wish in the end he had simply laid out a stronger biblical framework and let that speak for him. To be honest, the 3-4 pages in which he actually did work on the scriptures are powerful and show how the annihilationist view should at least be considered, but they didn't make a strong enough case.

That's not to say I've been won by any of the other positions. I still think there is something to the annihilationist viewpoint; I was just hoping that Pinnock would build a stronger case (because there is a stronger case to be made) instead of taking potshots at his accusers.

However, I would recommend the book to anybody who wants to read more on the issue, who wants to read about other options, or who simply wants to see how theologians do theology.