Rob Bell And The Existence Of Relationship

I am sitting in a room, currently identified as the living room, heated to about 83 degrees and flooded with the last light of an intensely sunny day. I am told that the sun will set in exactly 14 minutes and I hope each lasts 5 times as long. In the meantime, it has a caloric punch that brings solar gains reminiscent of a hot July day, lying out on the boat, glistening with sweat, just waiting until you can't take it anymore and fling yourself off into the impossibly clear water, holding your feet up even though you know that the rocks in the 20' deep water are only illusionally 5' away.

Outside the air is cold, only about 24 degrees. A day before we were going to get Jen's 190e off blocks and onto the road, we got hit with cold, almost 1' of wet, East wind driven snow. We left the truck at the top of the drive as there is no way we would have gotten out of our overdrifted drive. I walked the north edge of the drive this morning to mark for John's son to plow. I am both embarrassed and impressed with how exhausted I was after marching 1000' in knee high, quick sand snow. The car will wait another week or so.

I have recently been asked a number of times what I think about Rob Bell's new book, "Love Wins". Truthfully, I haven't read it and, for reasons made clear by the end, I am not likely to. However, that is slim reason for me not to have an opinion. As a matter of fact, I frequently find that it is easier to have strong opinions when you don't know enough about a subject to grasp its intricacies.

Having a working knowledge of the book and an understanding of what he might be arguing, I offer the following thoughts. First, it must suck being a book length author in a sound bite world. How can you boil an entire book down to a 5 minute interview much less an attention grabbing headline. If all he said was what is found in the headlines, people are paying way to much for the book.

Secondly, if he is arguing there is no hell, he’s got some fancy answering to do. I am not saying this from some sort of expertise, but merely as an observant observer of observations (alliteration and redundancy; awesome). 

The bible seems to make clear that hell is real, hell is separate from death, and hell is separate from heaven. A few quick references should suffice. Revelation 1:18 and 20:14 reference death and hell as separate things. Matthew 11:23 clearly identifies heaven and hell as separate entities. At this point I am going to stop since the separate existence of hell both proves it's existence and seems tautological in its purpose. Again, this is not supposed to be an exhaustive study but merely an opportunity to make clear that if Bell actually tries to argue that hell is just a state of mind or some subset of life or death or even heaven, I would find it impossible to agree with him.

By the way, if he argued that I would have another, more interesting problem. If there is no hell,  why did Christ die? If his death automatically saves everyone, thereby wiping out the need for hell, what happened to free will? The whole gospel hinges on a gift offered and a gift accepted or rejected. Any good attorney understands this. A gift must have certain qualities. It must be freely given. It must be given with a release of control. Finally, it must actually be received. Receipt requires conscious acceptance. Conscious acceptance is free will; you may accept or reject the gift. If all must accept the gift since all benefit from it and do not go to hell, there is no free will and the gift is not a gift.

Now, there is another option regarding Bell's arguments. From what I know, he might be mis-represented in the press (in fact, he probably is by both those for and against him (isn't marketing wonderful)). It is possible that what he is arguing is that the whole pre-occupation of hell is a waste of time. Hell is what it is. The bible doesn't tell us that much about it. I know enough to know that I am not that interested in a visit. That's all we really need to know.

The point is that there are far more important things to be focused on than the exact nature of hell. In addition, the threat of eternal damnation, especially in this post-psychoanalytic culture, is not likely to be a relationally attractive call for unbelievers. Christ recognized this too. The number of times he talked about doing the right thing for positive reasons far outweighs the times he stressed doing the right thing to avoid hell. The message of salvation is fundamentally joy filled not fear filled. Out time is limited. Spend it the joy of Christ, not the fear of hell and the angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin type arguments we can get into and which can divide us. If this is the argument of Bell's book, then I wholeheartedly agree with him. However, by agreeing with him here, or disagreeing with him before, I logically end with no reason to read him.

Again, it's all about relationship. Relationship is all about who is in your sphere right now and what you are going to do with those relationships. If you have the energy to spend arguing about hell, you should direct that energy into celebrating and building those relationships instead. The joy of the gospel message is of more dynamic import than the fear of hell.

I have argued myself into a corner. I seem to be spending my time in this post arguing about the existence of hell and, as such,  I am violating my own instruction. I better shut up and go do some relating.  I wonder where Jen is?