Tag Archives: love

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Seeing the Big Picture: A Review of Rob Bell’s Love Wins

It's a nice corner, though, right?

Years ago, when I would discuss certain issues with my father, at some point he would accuse me of “not seeing the big picture.” Typically, what he meant by this was that in the process of arguing my side or seeking to understand the purpose of doing some specific thing or considering some concept in a specific way, I had lost sight of the inherent reason for, or reality of, the situation. “You’re focusing on only a tiny little corner of the painting, son. You’re not seeing the big picture.”

I hated it when he would say that, mainly because he was right. It was a true assessment. I had lost sight of the big picture in order to defend or explain one small detail. It was like trying to put together a puzzle one piece at a time, but with no thought to the picture on the box – the end result. The goal.

I was continually reminded of this while reading Rob Bell’s newest book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. Most folks are aware that before this book even hit shelves last spring, the Internet was ablaze with Christians – some well-known, many unknown – attacking what they believed to be an intriguingly disguised case for Christian Universalism, which, on a basic level, is the belief that all human beings will ultimately be reconciled to God and be saved from hell. Of course, the book has had its defenders, but what I found so unsettling was how quick some folks were ready to pass judgment on the book before they even read it! The spark that lit the fire was the video promo for the book, which many people believed was evidence enough that Bell had slid too far down the slope of heresy. Take a look for yourself…

There you have it. Rob Bell practically says it all right in the promo. No need to read the book – the guy leaves room in heaven for Gandhi! Can you believe it? Who’s next? Che Guevara? Hitler? bin Laden?

Hide yo' kids!

There are two problems with this assumption that Bell is a universalist and that Love Wins is merely a faulty manifesto of non-biblical ideas from the fringes of “emergent” psuedo-Christianity.

See? They won't even let them into the store to buy Bell's book!

First, to assume that because Bell is not ready to count Mahatma Gandhi as one of the damned he must be a universalist is like assuming that because I sympathize with the plight of Palestinians in the West Bank I must therefore be an anti-Semite. The conclusion requires a jump that would shatter all Olympic records. Sure, if you take the two-minute sound-bite as the whole argument, it is easy to discredit Bell. However, as he points out at more length in his book, whether or not Gandhi is in hell is not the point. The real point is how quick Christians are willing to stand in place of God when it comes to matters of who gets in to heaven and who doesn’t. Time and again in the scriptures we are reminded that it is Jesus Christ who will be the final, ultimate judge of this world. Christians are not the judge, and despite the way in which some people speak and conduct themselves, neither do they sit on the jury.

The second problem, that which concerns the outright rejection of the book, is that what Bell has written in Love Wins is not an argument for the non-existence of hell at all; however, the only way to know this is to… wait for it… read the actual book! Those that do read despite the forewarnings of becoming corrupted by a contagion of heresy (I finished the book a few days ago and, so far, I’m feeling fine) may be surprised to discover that only one of the eight chapters is concerned with hell, and at no point does Bell reject the existence or concept of hell. Instead, they will find that Bell is not offering universal reconciliation as the “right” way to understand God’s will. Instead, all he seems to be encouraging is for Christians to consider why it is they believe what they believe, and what those particular beliefs reveal about their concept of who God is. In other words, Bell is not arguing one little corner of the picture, but trying to get his readers to step back and take in the whole thing. If anything, he wants us to remember that believing in God means starting with the big picture – that God does indeed love us. All of us. Even with all our confusion and misdeeds and mistakes and dark secrets, he loves us. Not despite our imperfection, but rather in light of it.

Peer into the face of demonic heresy!

Make no mistake, Love Wins is concerned with theology. It is a challenging book, and it does offer a paradigm shift when it comes to how we think about God and our relationship with him. But if there is any reason to read the book, it is not so we can have answers for people wondering why God lets some people into heaven but sends others to hell. As Bell continually reminds his readers, God is so much bigger than these concerns, and his love is much, much greater than the way in which so many Christians have grown up thinking about it. What is most important, and the reason I believe people should read this book, is it forces us to consider the world – our friends, our enemies, our ancestors, our children, our children’s children – no longer from our limited, human perspective, but from God’s eternal perspective. It is a point of view that can be hard to fathom, but this is nothing new. God once spoke through Isaiah the prophet, saying, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways.”

For many years, I was guilty of considering salvation from a very limited, corner-of-the-painting perspective. My understanding of salvation in Christ was akin to a business deal. Sure, most of the work is done for me, but, at some point, I have to close the deal lest the relationship never be officially forged and the benefits rendered null and void. I think a lot of us have viewed “coming to Christ” or “getting saved” or being “born again” in this way, where some form of the Sinner’s Prayer constitutes our signature on the contract that is drawn up and offered freely by Jesus H. Christ, Esq. Heaven becomes that primo retirement plan waiting on us after we slogged our way through this labor-intensive life. As for hell, well, maybe if those folks had just worked a little harder. After all, it’s not as if they weren’t warned that they could be downsized at any moment, and, c’mon, who wouldn’t want a pension this valuable?

Available now wherever books are burned...

What a joyless, impotent way of thinking about my relationship with a holy God, the creator of all things. There were years when I walked church aisles time and again because, in essence, I was afraid my signature had been too illegible.

Whether you’re a Christian who thinks you’ve got a pretty good handle on who God is, or a person who has rejected belief in a God because the people who profess him seem so small-minded, I think we all need to step back and consider the bigger picture. God is so much bigger than the pundit preacher they’re interviewing on CNN or Fox News. He is so much greater than the moral absolute at the heart of a candidate’s political platform. He is so far beyond the scrawled opinions of the picket signs.

And we can know him. We can know this God. All it takes is a willingness to look past our own limited views of him. We’ll find him waiting there for us with open arms. We’ll find him here. We’ll find him now.

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Should Christians Celebrate Bin Laden’s Death?

What’s a Christian to do with the news that Osama Bin Laden – the world’s most wanted man – was killed in a firefight with American soldiers in Pakistan less than twenty-four hours ago? Smattered across the cable news networks and websites are pictures of people who, immediately upon hearing the news, took to the streets brandishing American flags and signs extolling the greatness of the occasion. Every major newspaper in America, as well as most others across the globe, featured block-letter headlines, some with the terrorist’s picture, and most including shots of the excitement and celebration had upon the news of his demise. In some places, it looked like New Year’s Eve festivities minus the earmuffs and confetti.

President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the operation that ended in Bin Laden’s death a “victory” and a significant milestone in the war against terrorism and Al Qaeda. News commentators, radio hosts and pundits alike have hailed the man’s death as wonderful tidings for family members of the victims of the 9/11 attacks , not to mention those who have suffered losses from the embassy bombings in Africa, the U.S.S. Cole attack, and the various terrorist acts committed across Europe in the past few years.

Among members of the American Church, there has no doubt been rejoicing. The question is, should we be rejoicing?

Let’s move beyond mere consideration of the concepts of punishment or vengeance, despite the fact that these seem to be the unspoken synonyms of justice in the minds of many people today. I’m not interested in whether or not we should value punishment and vengeance, even when such a thing seems fair and just and righteous. On the contrary, I’m concerned with the heart of the matter – that of celebrating the death of a person, even if that person is our worst enemy.

“You’ve heard it said,” Jesus is recorded to have taught, “love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of the Father who is in heaven.” Why are we to love our enemies? Why are we to pray for them (and, just to be clear, this does not mean to pray for them to die)? So that we may be sons of God – that our identity might be recognized in union with the kingdom of God. As Americans, we long for justice to come to those who have attacked us, but, as Christians, there is an allegiance that supersedes even the healthiest of patriotic passion. Jesus references that there was an older way to view our enemies. A more human way. In short, a more normal way. However, he was very clear that it was not his way. Not at all. We are meant to be “sons of the Father,” children of the kingdom of Almighty God. Thus, we are to celebrate only those things that glorify the kingdom. Hatred for our enemies is not one of them. Death to evildoers is not one of them. Certainly God is just, but his kingdom is one marked by unconditional love and abounding grace. There is no room in the kingdom of God for revelry at a person’s death, even if that person has vehemently rejected this God we serve.

There is only one death that we celebrate, and every year on Good Friday we do so humbly, with awe and reverence and thankfulness beyond words. This is the only death that truly glorifies the kingdom. It is the very thing on which this kingdom is built. It is the only death that matters, because it is the only one that didn’t last.

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Filling the Blanks: A Belated Thank-you

My wife is making brownies – the smell has reached us in the office, and I’m excited because she makes brownies (and most other baked goods) much better than I do. I don’t know what it is about baking a mixture of milk, eggs, flour, oil, butter, sugar, etc. but I just can’t seem to get the hang of it. I’m thankful I have a wife who loves it and is good at it. She fills that blank in my life.

My Wonderstuffs

Across from me is her desk, where all her craft supplies and scrap booking materials are scattered. There are also colorful petal pushers, jars full of zippers and buttons and string. But all these things are pushed back and in the center of the desk are Thank You cards – she is writing thank you notes to some of our supporters. No matter how strongly I recognize my indebtedness to the people who make this missionary life possible, actually writing thank you notes often slips the mind of this writer. I’m thankful that she remembers how important this is. She fills that blank in my life.

She tells me often of all the structuring and scheduling she is doing for our daughter – how much Katy Jo eats and when, how much she should be eating a month from now (solid foods and mother’s milk), and a month after that, and after that. She talks out loud and throws in a rhetorical “right?” at the end of her sentences; I have learned that it is not my opinion she is seeking, but simply an affirmation that – “Yes, that’s exactly right.” And she is right. She does so much planning and concerning herself with our future, which is great because not only do I not consider the future very often, but I can hardly be found in the present or the past either. Most of the time I’m somewhere else entirely make-believe. I’m thankful she shoulders a double load of concerns for the little things that have to be thought out. She fills that blank in my life.

She sometimes takes hold of my shoulders or my face to make sure I am looking at her, and she asks me if I know how much she loves me. I say that I do, but truthfully, I don’t think I have more than a vague idea. She loves me so much more than I know, and while I could say the same thing about her, it is not my love for her that amazes me, but her love for me. It is this love that carries her through those moments when I am utterly infuriating, and this love that bears forth so effortlessly day after day. I am thankful that she loves me, because, if she didn’t, I really wonder if I’d actually be the person I am at all. She fills that blank in my life.

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Friday Films: The Village

Today’s film:

Say what you want about M. Night Shyamalan (and almost every well-rounded moviegoer has his or her opinion), but I reject any critical reviews that pan this film. I truly believe that some of Shyamalan’s best work is found in The Village, as well as in the subsequent Lady in the Water. The reason for Shyamalan’s shrinking audience (which began around the time of his third major film, Signs) is that after Best Picture-nominee The Sixth Sense, he tried to take his storytelling in one direction despite having unwittingly defined himself on the basis of suspense and twist endings. That’s what the majority of moviegoers wanted, and to hell with substance. Sadly, it seems he has bowed to such outcry in recent years, sending up terrible specimens such as The Happening (which marked the death of his attempt at merging substance and brainless thrill), The Last Airbender and Devil. But I hold on to the beauty and depth of The Village; it is not for the crowd-pleasing twist or creep-out that I cherish this film, but for its creative examination of themes such as conformity, isolation, blind faith, fear and sacrificial love. What I appreciate most about this film is Shyamalan’s exploration of living in fear vs. embracing the world’s brokenness. The village patriarchs and matriarchs in the film have fled “the towns” because of the violence and evil that caused them pain. However, they find themselves unable to maintain a place free of this darkness, despite even the most drastic efforts. In the end, it takes a blind girl – who, at times, very literally walks by faith rather than by sight – to show them that hiding from the world’s darkness is impossible. The capacity for evil exists within all of us… but so does the capacity for love.

This is one of three films I believe everyone who participates in a community of faith – that is, the Church – should watch and study closely. There are too many churches today that are pulling back from society, building picket fences around their property and their image, frightened about what might happen if they openly associate with the secular world in all its infidelity and unpredictability. The world is a beautiful place, in need of a love that knows no boundaries. As the leader of the community, Edward Walker, tries to explain to the rest of the elders, “The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.”

Here are five more reasons to take a look (or a second look) at The Village:

#1

#2 – The entire cast. Shyamalan assembled a wonderful ensemble (including William Hurt, Joaquin Phoenix, Adrien Brody, Brendan Gleeson, Judy Greer, Sigourney Weaver) and each actor does his or her part to add authenticity to the setting, the overall morose atmosphere, and the story itself.

#3 – The atmosphere. The twist might have left some feeling betrayed, but separatism never looked so beautiful.

#4 – The music. James Newton Howard was nominated for his score which featured the most memorable arrangement of stringed instruments since Psycho (but with a completely different feel, of course).

#5 – The suspense. Shyamalan knows how to build tension, and he also knows that the less you see the monster, the scarier it becomes. I’ve watched this film almost a dozen times now, and the creatures still give me the creeps.

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The Sin of Christianity

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Give us your Christ and keep your Christianity.” For those who loyally consider themselves “Christians,” this is a frustrating statement. For those who not only loyally consider themselves Christians but also view the assimilation of all non-Christians as the primary goal of the Church, this is an insidiously heretical statement. In my opinion, because the majority of active Christians in America are composed of these two kinds, the Church therefore finds itself caught in a tangling net of sin, one created by both omission and commission.

Sam Harris’s assessment of modern-world religion probably unnerves as many people as it encourages. It probably angers as many as it gladdens, perhaps more. However, his thoughts are not new. Philosophers, doctors, professors, writers, politicians, scientists, lawyers, counselors, councilmen, and teachers have been arguing similar points for years. So have stay-at-home mothers, gas station attendants, bookstore clerks, movie stars, factory workers, automobile mechanics and short-order cooks. It does not take a Ph.D. to recognize that the majority of religious talk, especially in America, has become centered on issues that, when most people stop to think about it, don’t seem to matter quite as much as others. Gay marriage vs. the Sudanese genocide? School prayer vs. the crisis of education? “Family values” vs. poverty?  It is not that the formers do not warrant debate, but there are a lot less lives on the line in them than in the latters.

Dr. Harris states very clearly at one point, “We have a world that has been shattered by these competing certainties,” referring specifically to the theological differences between Christianity and Islam. While one course of action for a Christian is to disagree with him and brush aside his statements as the ignorant drivel of an enemy of God, I find myself halted by such a statement. I do not think his use of the term “shattered” is meant as hyperbole. But whether or not he is exaggerating, the very fact that he finds such a statement necessary is heartbreaking. I am troubled by his views, but I am also disconcerted with the state of the modern Church. As a whole, the ordained Body of Christ exists in sin. What particular sin does it exist in? That of failing to truly love our modern world (omission), or, equally as severe, treating the world as if it is gradually morphing into Hell (commission). In other words, the manner in which the Church (that is, the collective body of believers scattered across geographies, theologies, denominations and practices) engages the world today reveals so prevalent an infection of negligence that it has become an abscess, one that the entire Church must unite to treat and heal if it ever desires to function in full health ever again.

There are “Christians” who spend more time reading and forwarding e-mails about conservative or liberal legislation, the evils of Islam, the deception of evolution, or how the President’s administration (be it Clinton, Bush or Obama) is destroying America. They have chosen a news network that they believe speaks the truth about the state of affairs domestically and globally, but they ignore the obvious pain and suffering reported on day after day, at home and abroad. Is it any wonder why Dr. Harris believes that religion has no answers for, as he puts it, “real problems.” He gazes out at the landscape of religious expression in America and does not see anyone working toward true justice. Some of us might say that he simply ought to look harder, but should he have to? Should the work of the Church toward global justice, poverty, quality education, nuclear proliferation and so on be work that happens in the shadow of debates over the definition of marriage or conflicts over who’s a Republican and who’s a Democrat?

Some of us might listen to Dr. Harris’s words and say, “What else should we expect from an atheist and a secularist?” We might shrug our shoulders and remind ourselves that there is just no reaching – and no pleasing – some people.

This, however, is not the belief of the Church. There is reaching all people. But a Church full of Christians who react as if there isn’t may be, frighteningly, the beginning of the end. The message, work and hope of the Church is wrapped up in a two-fold idea: that the reconciling work of God through humanity and divinity of Jesus compels every person on earth to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with the Holy Other; and, two, that the world can be made a glorious place.

Fundamentalists, Left Behind-lovers, and people who take James 2:15-17 literally will most likely disagree completely with this post. Their theology is one in which sides must be drawn, where the sooner you can distinguish the sheep from the goats, the sooner the sheep can separate themselves and condemn the goats for being the goats. Meanwhile, the Stable that was built to house them both becomes a place no self-respecting goat will ever again step hoof in. And Dr. Harris, and so many more like him, will gaze upon this world of cold separation and assume that the Church cares nothing for the world – for making it a better place, for easing the suffering, for arguing for justice, for striving after hope – and he will determine that the only way to do justice and love mercy is to do so outside of faith in the God of all justice and mercy.

If such a prospect does not shake the Christian to his or her very core, then the Christianity in which he or she functions is terminal. Does not the term “Christian” mean “little Christ?” Does not Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth read, “We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. … Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God” (II Cor. 4:10, 15, emphases mine)? Even if my church or your church is living this out, how do we stand by while others down the street are not?

I do not fault Dr. Harris for his viewpoint. I cannot fault him, for the same reason that I cannot blame a dark living room for being dark, or a neglected child for resenting his parents. All I can do is hope and pray that the Church, which today progresses down a road paved with insensitivity while striving to maintain the standard of morality, will come to long for the days when it was built on a foundation of hospitality and served as the standard of compassion. In other words, “Give us your Christ because of your Christianity.” Relativism and secularism will never be disproved by logic or shamed by morality; it can only be transformed by love.