the parish

Salvation, Part Three: Whither Hell?

The words "eternal, conscious torment" are not biblical. They are an extrapolation from Jesus' metaphorical use of Gehenna (the valley where trash was burned), from burn and fire vocabulary in some of the parables, and from "eternal fire" and "lake of fire" references in Jude and Revelation. Somehow the belief that hell is a place of eternal, conscious torment has become a litmus test for orthodoxy in evangelical circles. Very few pastors and theologians have had the courage to question the doctrine, most notably John Stott late in his life. (He became an annihilationist.)

McLaren does a wonderful job of tracing the historical development of the concept of hell in The Last Word and the Word After That. Many evangelicals will probably be relieved by much of what he says. Hell is not a notion that most Christians embrace willingly. They are pushed to the position by pastors and teachers who insist it is part of the package. What if it's not?

Lewis was apparently not comfortable with traditional teaching about it either. At the end of The Last Battle, the dwarves are in the stable, sitting in a circle grumbling about their fate. "The dwarves are for the dwarves," is their refrain in the midst of Armageddon. When judgment comes, they are left to their own ruminations. The feast (wedding supper of the Lamb) that Aslan has provided looks like straw to the dwarves. They are unable to see with eyes that have been conditioned to recognize the kingdom. Their kingdom is narcissistic and self-created. It is the antithesis of agape. Aslan leaves them in the stable, swathed in self-pity and self-indulgence, to spin off into eternity. That may be as good a picture of hell as we have.

The end of the story isn't neat. Nor are McLaren's conclusions. He deconstructs traditional notions of hell, but he only hints at alternatives. Agnosticism is warranted at this point. We simply don't know what will happen. However, the idea of God as the kind of being who would sentence men and women to eternal, conscious torment seems to militate against everything that Jesus represents. Yes, I believe he will judge, but that doesn't mean hell as traditionally conceived is part of the equation. Seventy years of unmitigated evil do not warrant an eternity in a George Foreman grill. It's simply a perverse notion.

There are alternatives. Hell really is a place of fire, but it's temporary, and the fire is for purification, which would imply that even those in the fire can eventually be "saved." Those who choose not to follow God's story can simply be snuffed out at judgment. Perhaps they are not even resurrected. Perhaps the fire destroys them—fire is of course metaphorical here again. Universalism, conditional exclusivism, annihilationism—there are alternatives. We need to hear that.

Next time, judgment.

Theology on Tap: The Resurrection

We've had some interest lately in starting Theology on Tap again. Three of us can commit weekly. We can do it less often. We'd meet at Tapwerks in Bricktown. Probably on a weeknight. If you're in the OKC Metro and you're interested, email me at expastor(nospam)@gmail.com.

Two Unrelated Thoughts, I Think

Had a three-beer lunch with Scott and Tim today. Scott said something that sort of stuck with me.

"You don't have to read Moltmann or any of the serious theologians. If a person just read the Narnia Chronicles, they'd have a better theology than 95% of Christians."

Oh, how true that is. Using the metaphor of substitutionary atonement, which I abhor, Lewis still manages to arrive at inclusivism. And his eschatology in The Last Battle is one of the best in print.

The second thought was about trolls. I read about 20 blogs, some daily, some weekly. Most are having a conversation similar to the one we're having here, which is to say it's predominantly outchurched, emergent, and disenfranchised Christians. I never (NEVER) lurk on conservative blogs and try to convert them. What is it about evangelicals and fundies that possesses them to hang out on moderate or liberal blogs and try to save us? Shouldn't they be going after the pagans, atheists, satanists, and heathens? (Sorry, RA. I'm not wishing them on you; just trying to understand their motivation.) What possible good can it do to hang out on a blog like this and peddle that tired, old, useless evangelical theology? No one here is buying, as far as I know.

Back for the installment on hell tomorrow. If you're curious, and I know Meland is, my beer selection today was: Paulaner Salvator, Hoegaarden White (an excellent beer), and Fuller's 1845 (complex, but not to my taste).

Salvation, Part Two Point One: Excursus on Wesley

This is actually from my thesis, but it fits with the comments that have been coming in about me and Orthodoxy. The editorial comment was not part of the thesis.

The Western Church, since at least Augustine, has taught that humans were created “perfect” as opposed to the Bible’s language of “good” or “very good.” The assumption has been that God created something good, therefore it meant without flaw. Here again is the danger of not paying attention to how words are actually used.

The Eastern Church taught that humans were created “good” but not complete. We were created in God’s image, which is to say that we had the potential to be holy, righteous, and loving, but we were not created in God’s likeness. The process of life would push, twist, press, mold, and form us into God’s likeness—likeness here meaning God’s moral attributes. The Eastern perspective was very dynamic. People yielded to God’s character formation and worked through life in order to become more godly.

What was lost in the Fall is another area of dispute between East and West. According to the Western Church humans died spiritually; the image of God was so defaced that the potential to grow into God’s likeness was no longer available. Total depravity is the phrase that described the West’s view of mankind. Because of total depravity, man, on his own, was devoid of saving grace, or the ability to respond to God’s gracious offer of salvation. It is a view that Wesley shared, in word, if not in fact, although he modified it somewhat with the notion of prevenient grace.

The East had three particular teachings regarding the results of the Fall. They did not believe that people inherited Adam’s guilt; rather they believed that people became guilty when they participated in sin. Second, they believed that the Fall introduced death and disease into the world, and this corruption weakened mankind. Lastly, they believed that though man was weakened by the overall corruption brought on by the Fall to the point that we could not achieve God’s likeness, they did not believe that man was totally devoid of all grace.

These three statements add up to a heterodox or heretical position in the Western Church. However, these three views certainly shaped Wesley’s theology due to the influence of the Cappadocian Fathers, including Macarius and Gregory of Nyssa, but especially Irenaeus. (I happen to like 'em a lot myself.)

Wesley shows a strong attraction to the East’s dynamic spirituality when he discusses the need for humans to become habituated to certain behaviors and disciplines. There has long been a disconnect between the West’s views on justification and sanctification and any need to “grow in grace.” Where is the need under a system that imputes Christ’s righteousness to the believer? At this point one would almost have to admit that the Moravians are correct: why try to substitute our meager attempts at righteousness for the robust, whole, complete righteousness God has provided in Christ?

Salvation, Part Two

The Gospel is not the Gospel of individual salvation. This is a relatively recent fiction. The Gospel is the declaration that the kingdom of God is accessible now. Jesus proclaims the drawing near of the kingdom during his earthly ministry. The resurrection inaugurates the kingdom of God on earth. It's open, now, to us. That's the Gospel. The good news is that the shalom of the kingdom is now available to us. The good news is that all are welcome. The good news is that prostitutes and tax collectors get in before religious folk. The Gospel is that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, so any real notion of salvation takes into account the entire creation, not just souls, whatever those are.

Here's the idea that McLaren flirts with in The Last Word and the Word After That. Salvation is by grace, which means it's for everyone, and judgment is by works, which means it's for everyone. In a very Barthian/Moltmannian sense, he's dancing on the edge of universalism, but not the "everyone gets in without a scratch" sort of universalism. Nope. This is universalism that involves judgment. And what if through your whole life you lived contrary to the kingdom? If we're supposed to be becoming Christ-like, so that as Hubmaier said "when the heavenly city is finally let down, we will be the kind of people who can dwell in it," what will it mean if we've been selfish, lustful, bitter, judgmental, profligate (I love that word.), and just plain evil? It will mean there won't be enough of me left after judgment to move on with the rest of the story. This is what I'm going to call modified exclusivism. Because of what Jesus does, we're all in, so to speak, but we can't all get in because we don't spend time becoming.

Lewis flirts with this idea in The Great Divorce. The characters are gray, spectral, and nebulous, while the kingdom of God is bright, clear, and hard-edged. I wrote quite a while back that I think churches are doing their people a disservice because they are leading them to believe that glorification is this process whereby all that is ugly in them will be wiped away so we can be with God forever. I'm afraid that's a fiction too. That process is called sanctification, and we're supposed to be working on it now. No pill. No magic wand. We're either the kind of folk who can live in the kingdom, or we're not, and then there isn't enough left of us to move forward.

This isn't legalism and it's not salvation by works. Salvation is by grace. Legalism offers a list of things that must/must not be done that have nothing to do with what must/must not be done, much like fundamentalism. I'm saying that salvation is the process whereby Jesus overcomes the principalities and powers, ushers us into the kingdom of God, and we practice the virtues and sacraments and works that make us into the people of God, and through our sacramental presence and work, help bring salvation to the entire creation. All of this so that when we reach the eschaton, unlike Lewis's characters, we won't be stranded on the edge of the kingdom; we'll go higher up and farther in.

Next installment. Hell, or not.

Beer Update

No salvation stuff today. I'm taking a day off from thinking. But here's my progress so far in the quest to drink all 108 beers Tapwerks has on tap:

1. Hacker-Pschorr Weisse
2. Hacker-Pschorr Dunkle Weisse
3. Harp—If you're used to crappy American beers, start here. It'll free you.
4. Bass—or here...
5. Moosehead
6. Chimay Triple (White)
7. Foster's Lager
8. Heineken
9. Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat
10. Lindeman's Framboise
11. Monty Python Holy Grail
12. Boulevard Pale
13. Killian's Irish Red
14. Paulaner Salvator Dopplebock—Yummy just doesn't do it.
15. Spaten Optimator—Mmmmmm, sweet, spicy goodness in a glass.
16. Beamish Stout
17. Guinness—Praise the Lord and bless the Irish.
18. Murphy's Irish Stout
19. Rogue Shakespeare Stout
20. Anchor Porter
21. Boulevard Dry Stout
22. Shiner Bock

I was farther along than I thought. They actuall have Bud, Bud Light, Coor's Light, Michelob Ultra, and Miller Lite on tap to satisfy the beer philistines, but I'm not counting those. I suppose that means they only have 103 on tap that I'm going to try, although I have had all those American near-frozen gnat-piss beers (I think that's John Cleese's term) on tap at one time in my life.

Salvation, Part One

Salvation is a contextual idea in Scripture. I'm convinced of this. So why is it that evangelicals have reduced it to meaning a state of guilt before God? I'm guilty if I haven't assented to Christ's redeeming work (unsaved); not guilty if I have (saved). (And they pretend that "Christ's redeeming work" doesn't need to be parsed as well.) Jon brought up some good questions in his responses to the last post. One has to do with soteriology. Luther is allegedly following the Apostle Paul when he interprets Habakkuk 2:4 to mean that we are justified by faith. I think I want to dispute that. It's obvious in context that Habakkuk isn't talking about justification. He says "the righteous shall live by his faith." Okay, so the state of righteousness (not guilty) has already been established. So what does it mean that he will live by his faith?

I think it means that irrespective of the chaos and turmoil that judgment brings on the nation, and irrespective of the fact that the unrighteous seem to prosper, God will uphold the righteous. Now, I'm not saying I agree with that statement; I'm just saying that's what the oracle is alluding to.

In McLaren's new book, The Last Word and the Word After That, he does a good job of deconstructing evangelical soteriology, especially as it relates to Romans. The issue isn't what must I do to be saved, as the common evangelical interpretation of Romans 1:16 holds. The traditional interpretation is that the verse is an introduction to Paul's extended explanation of the mechanics of salvation. McLaren says that the second part of the verse is equally important: "...to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." The question Romans is answering is not "what must I do to be saved;" rather, it is answering "how can Jews and Greeks both be saved."

First me: The soteriological solution has already been provided for the Jews. YHWH extends covenant faithfulness based upon YHWH's grace; the Jews agree to live according to Torah as a sign of their reciprocal covenant faithfulness (the difference between living according to Torah and legalism will be parsed next installment). The Greeks are saved the same way. That means the demonstration of salvation is a new "form of life" that testifies to genuine metanoia (repentance). Now McLaren: he introduces the idea that's going to get him in trouble with a bunch of denominations: salvation is by grace; judgment is according to works. I still think McLaren is ignoring the contextual nature of salvation here, but he's getting closer than the evangelical church to providing an answer that might alleviate the tension between two positions I want to look at next time: Christian universalism and modified exclusivism.

Why Not Just Give Up?

I had lunch with a pastor today. He's a good man. Been through the ministry wringer in ways many of us haven't. Raised five good kids. Been married to the same woman for nearly 30 years. Without reproach in many ways.

He's tired and a bit disheartened. How do I compete with Wal-Mart, he asked. Wal-Mart is the hydra-headed churches in Warr Acres and Edmond. He's only a few blocks from the Warr Acres cult of personality. I don't use the word Wal-Mart loosely. The pastor (bishop) of the Edmond cult of personality uses it to refer to why he does business the way he does. Let's follow the metaphor, shall we. Why do people choose Wal-Mart? Quality? Uhm...no. Personal relationships? Nope. Sense of helping the community? Uh-uh. Best prices? Only on about 200 items. (But the advertising implies otherwise. Let that one sink in.) They choose Wal-Mart for the same reasons I do: it's quick, perceived to be inexpensive, and convenient.

There you have it folks. The underlying philosophy behind OKC's two hydra-headed megachurches: they're more like Wal-Mart than the church the pastor I lunched with today pastors. Americans aren't the brightest folks in the world. Wal-Mart claims to have great products. They package them well, advertise well, sell us a brand, and we go along with the lie that they have great products. So, take a bland message that doesn't begin to engage what Jesus taught; make it about some day-to-day subject with which most of us struggle...hmm...pick a topic...sexual purity; add a neat-o video introduction; steal an idea from pop culture (seX Files: get it?); stick a wrap-around mic on the pastor's face; put some "cutting edge" props on the stage; illustrate using graphics, titles, and the best technology available;  provide the simple-minded with easy answers to difficult questions; and voila—you have megachurch America. Don't forget rock music and smoke.

Now I know this sounds elitist, judgmental, and a bunch of other bad things of me. But I don't care. The megachurch movement is destroying the church. Sound apocalyptic, eh? But I believe it. It's creating a generation of consumers who believe church should be cool, and not a damn one of them can define what cool is. I believe I've said this before, but if you're using a word with a tenuous definition to describe your church, get the hell out. It's teaching people that worship is entertainment and Christianity is consumer-oriented. God help us.

I'm feeling the pastor's discouragement. How does a good man or woman compete with Wal-Mart when Americans want Wal-Mart? Here's what I told him. Don't compete. Go out and get people who aren't spoiled, selfish, simple, and convinced that what they want is what matters in church. Go out and get the previously unconverted. Build a community that witnesses to the power of the Gospel and the reality of the kingdom of God. Be willing to be small. Don't be afraid of Wal-Mart. The masses will always go for Wal-Mart. Build the kingdom; don't build Wal-Mart. And don't be discouraged..the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed...

Allow Me to Ask a Naive Question

Why do churches feel like they have to grow to monstrous proportions rather than just plant new churches? In the wake of the Zach Kincaid/Immanuel Baptist fiasco, I've read a dozen arguments to the effect that Immanuel was out of space in their old facility and "had to move." Uh, no. You could take a chunk of those people and plant a new church in different locations. Here in OKC, the hydra-headed megachurch is satellite broadcasting to four additional campuses, and I understand they are planning a couple more (those are the ones people know about—I'm sure the actual unspoken plan is related to world domination). Why not just plant churches with a real pastor? Silly me. I'm obviously missing something here. Help me, someone.

I Hope RA Forgives Me For This

RA has a great post at his site entitled Why I Am Not Christian. I'll respond to him eventually because his points invite discussion. If you're a Christian, you really need to read what he says. The self-examination and cultural critique is worth it. If you're not one of us, in the sense that you read this blog and think it's important to convert everyone you meet to some form of evangelical or fundamentalist Christianity, please don't wander over to RA's site to try to convert him. You'll feel a bit like a dunderhead in short order, although he'll be nice about making you feel that way.