A new book came out this week by Rob Bell, mega-church pastor who has produced the very popular and quite good NOOMA video series. Love Wins has generated a lot of interest, earned a great deal of praise, and also produced some angry attacks on Bell's "heretical" views. What seems to be causing all the fuss is Bell's questioning whether or not there actually is a hell, along with questioning the traditional Church view that the opportunity to respond to God's love expires at the moment of death.
I have not had the chance to read the book yet (I have ordered it), but I have heard Bell speak about the book, and I know that I agree with one of his challenges to traditional Christian beliefs. A lot of Christian thinking proclaims a "gospel of evacuation." In essence this states, "If you believe in Jesus, you will get rescued from this earth when you die and go somewhere a lot better. Don't fret if your life stinks now, because it will be grand then." As accepted as such ideas are, Bell and many others point out that Jesus never talks about us going to heaven. Instead he speaks of the Kingdom, of God's reign coming to earth. Jesus even teaches us to pray for this day saying, "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." In other words, heaven isn't a place we're suppose to escape to, earth is supposed to become like heaven. But many in the Church find such an idea startling.
One of the big hazards for religious institutions is that we very easily presume that our religious assumptions are gospel truth. Because we've always heard that Jesus came and died so that we could go to heaven when we die, then it has to be so, and anyone who says otherwise is obviously a troublemaker, a heretic, or worse. And we don't even need to check the Bible on this. We feel comfortable going with our gut. Hey, we've always "known" this, so it must be true.
That seems to be Nicodemus' problem when he slips out in the dark of night to visit Jesus. He's clearly enthralled by Jesus, can see that there is something special about him that cannot be explained without God at work in him in some way. But Nicodemus cannot fit Jesus into his religious boxes and containers. Even when Jesus tries to explain, Nicodemus can only say, "How can these things be?" (There is a word play going here that cannot be rendered in English. Jesus speaks a word that can mean either "again" or "from above." Nicodemus hears Jesus say "born again" while Jesus means "born from above," i.e. by the Spirit, but we have no comparable word and so our translations remove the source of Nicodemus' confusion.)
But give Nicodemus credit. At least he goes to Jesus and tries to figure things out. Most of us prefer to hold onto our assumptions. And we have the advantage of having Jesus locked up in our largely unopened Bibles. We're free to construct an image of Jesus and of God that fits perfectly with our religious assumptions, and if someone like Rob Bell challenges them, we can always dismiss him as a heretic, a religious nut, etc.
Yesterday's daily devotion from Richard Rohr ended with this line. "Most Christians seem to have experienced just enough Christianity to forever inoculate themselves from the real power of the real thing." I don't know if Rohr is talking about the same thing that I am, but I do think we often settle for just a little Christianity, just a little faith, enough that it solves some problem, makes us feel better, gives us hope, but not so much that it calls us to become something radically new in Jesus.
But God seems remarkably patient with us. God keeps coming to us in Jesus. After all, as Rob Bell says, in the end Love Wins.
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