3/27/11

Does this seem familiar to you?

I found this here, after seeing it in the USA Today this weekend. I thought this cartoon was at once funny, sad, and true. Sometimes I feel that opinion polls and 24-hour news cycles have combined forces to remove all sober and reasoned debate from our political discourse. Note the scrolling messages at the bottom of each news cast. I have my theory, what is yours: Why do you think our first impulse when something bad happens is to assign blame?


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3/16/11

USA Today on the Rob Bell controversy

In case you missed it, USA Today ran a nice article yesterday on the controversy that has erupted in the Christian blogosphere regarding "rock-star pastor" Rob Bell's upcoming book Love Wins and the video used to promote it online. The video (you can watch in the page linked above) has Bell describing a version (an over-simplified caricature, it seems to me) of traditional evangelicalism and asks a number of probing questions that strongly suggest that Bell teaches Christian Universalism, which is generally viewed as heretical, or at least very questionable.

Yet is Bell really a Universalist? The article says that, according to Bell, "Heaven and hell are choices we make and live with right now. 'God gives us what we want,' including the freedom to live apart from God (hell) or turn God's way (heaven)."
If you take that same logic and extend it into the age to come, you have something very close to what I believe (which I hope and believe is basically orthodox). Whether Bell does believe that this spiritual state of affairs between us and God extends into eternity or rather only exists "right now" in this age is something I couldn't say without reading the book.

And of course reading the book is precisely what many of his critics have not done (though some have, as the article above indicates). Yet the video has certainly been available for viewing and is fair game for criticism, but there is only so much that can be said about it, since, far from making theological assertions, it mostly asks provocative questions that will (presumably) be addressed in detail in the book. The article also says that Bell believes in the possibility of repentence after death, suggesting a scenario similar to that in C.S. Lewis' fictional work, The Great Divorce (which Lewis clearly says was not intended to depict what actually happens after death). I don't know where in Scripture Bell will find any support at all for this position, though that might be worth exploring further.

It may be that Bell is, as Richard Mouw (professor at the well-respected evangelical Fuller Theological Seminary), well within the bounds of orthodox evangelical Christian faith. It may be that Bell is being provocative (and perhaps a bit 'fast and loose' with the Bible) to generate sales for his new book. It may be that Bell really believes his approach is a more Biblical alternative to traditional evangelicalism. And it may be that Bell (like so many others) has fallen into error, allowing what he wishes to be true of God and of the age to come to overshadow what the Bible actually reveals, when faithfully interpreted by the church across the ages.

My ministry has greatly benefited from Rob Bell's Nooma series and I certainly hope (and pray) that we will have plenty of thought-provoking and orthodox resources available from his ministry in the future. If nothing else, perhaps this whole episode presents us with an opportunity to think long and hard not only about the relative merits and problems of the doctrine of universal salvation (not to be confused with the Wesley-approved and Biblical doctrine of universal or unlimited atonement) but also about how we, as Christians online, dialogue and debate; and how we can conduct ourselves in a manner "worthy of the calling with which we have been called."

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3/14/11

Wright on the Sacraments

I know I've been quite infrequent in blogging lately. Hopefully soon I'll have both something good to say and time to say it at the same time. Until then, I hope you enjoy this excellent video selection of NT Wright talking about Sacramental Theology. I actually listened to the entire "Space, Time, and Sacraments" lectures when I was in seminary, and found it excellent food for thought.



A thought on his final point about balancing Word and Sacrament. We really do need a strong encounter with both. In some churches, this will mean more in depth preaching of the Word. In The United Methodist Church there is a movement afoot to reclaim our Wesleyan (and Anglican) practice of a weekly celebration of holy communion. Even where I live (in the deep South, where I assume Methodism has been most influenced by the strong Baptist presence) several of the UM churches/ministries in town do offer a weekly service of Word and Table and follow the church's liturgy in so doing.

While some may worry about this movement as making us "too Catholic" (meaning "Roman Catholic"), it is actually thoroughly Wesleyan. John Wesley himself encouraged the Methodists in America to use his revision of The Book of Common Prayer and to celebrate the holy sacrament each and every Sunday:

"I have prepared a Liturgy little differing from that of the Church of England (I think, the best constituted National Church in the world), which I advise all the traveling preachers to use on the Lord's Day in all the congregations...I also advise the elders to administer the Supper of the Lord on every Lord's Day."
-Wesley's Letter to the American Methodists, Sept. 1784

It will take courage, patience, and good teaching to move congregations in this direction who are accustomed to only a monthly celebration, or who are accustomed to a poor use of the liturgy; but in the end I believe it will strengthen the church's spiritual life while simultaneously moving our practice closer to our Wesleyan roots AND closer to the ecumenical consensus (of today and of the early centuries).

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