Time Magazine Examines Rob Bell

“…mainline liberal protestantism dressed up in 21st century hipster angst”.

Yep.

Add in a brow furrowed with with “wrestling with ambiguity”, and that about sums it up for me.

Father Steve,

I read your blog pretty regularly, and so I have of course caught a lot of news on Rob Bell from it. I actually read Dr. Mohler’s review of the book, the one in which he places Bell in the lineage of the Liberal Protestantism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, before I read the book itself. So once I did read the book, I reconsulted the review and have a few critiques to offer.

I think Rob Bell has been greatly misunderstood. I do not have much sympathy for this, because the runup and prepub furor all but promised an artsy universalist thesis. He is partly responsible for this. But not totally–and the repercussions should not be allowed to go unnoticed. For however unhealthily, Bell is giving air to legitimate theological and ecclesial problems within the evangelical movement.

Firstly, Bell is not a universalist–at least not in any robust sense. This is what baffles me about the reading Mohler is giving. As I stated earlier, Bell has had a hand in perpetrating this madness, but now that the book is out and has been read, I am amazed to see this continue. The doctrinal thesis of the book, if you will, is that God’s love wins, not by rescuing everybody willing or not, but by continuing to love sinners and grant the opportunity for repentance, post-mortem. This is no less controversial a doctrine, to be sure, but it is here that the discussions, reviews, and blog posts should focus if they are to discuss Bell’s theology honestly, either with him or with others.
Universalism is not just a doctrine of God but of man, for it assumes that granted enough time and revelation, all people will return to God. Bell’s theology seems to be agnostic on that point, as the conclusion to chapter 4 indicates, where it states that God gets what God wants by granting men what they want and denying none who come regardless of when. The book explicitly states the possibility that some would go on refusing; Bell calls that Hell. His suggestions are hopeful that eventually all would turn, but he is finally inconclusive on that point. What is sure is that whatever hell is left in such a case would be locked from the inside, not from without.

That is a very Lewisian view, and what is missing in Mohler’s reading is the amazing extent to which Bell’s view echoes that of CS. Lewis. If we are to throw Bell under the bus, we must throw Lewis under it with him. It is not perfectly clear whether Lewis believed as confidently as Bell does that the opportunity to repent would be granted. what is clear, however, is that Lewis’s God would never deny it if anyone would actually turn. Lewis’s hell, like Bell’s, locks God out, not the other way around. The Great Divorce reveals the character of men by showing that we all may be more godless than we think; but it contrasts it with the surety that there will never be a person locked out of heaven. Rather, we may be surprised at just who it is that refuses it. that surety rests in the character of God and the power of the “bleeding Charity.” It is a christocentric, hopeful view that Lewis held, and that Bell has learned from him probably more than from any other, as the book’s acknowledgments demonstrate.

Once the connection to Lewis is made, the burden is off to locate Bell in the Liberal Protestant context. And that is a relief, because he really doesn’t fit there at all. For starters, Bell’s high view of Scripture is almost completely absent in the UTS context Mohler adduces or in Schleiermacher, from whom they took their cues. Mohler would doubtless scoff at the suggestion that Bell has a high view of Scripture, but Bell’s laborious insistence on exegeting hell and his chapter 1 review of the many ways people were converted in the Biblical text reveal a need to root his views in the text itself. The UTS theologians came up with many clever ways to relegate the text to a lower status in theology; Bell is an exegete, whether a good or bad one. Mohler’s charge that Bell has no concern for the Scripture will do nothing to persuade those who see that what Bell is doing in revising a particular and revered interpretation is precisely demonstrating the falsity of that charge.

That a similar argument could be made against the now oft-repeated claim that Bell denies the reality of hell reveals that unfortunately, Evangelicalism may have divested itself of the resources with which to deal with Bell’s revision of the evangelical tradition. Evangelical Christianity, for all its rightful and correct insistence on God’s revelation as the source of truth has not often been as clear on how complicated a thing the Scriptures are, and how strange a thing it is to say “the Scriptures clearly teach x.” Luther’s doctrine of the clarity of Scripture itself depends, as Catholics have rightly criticized, on the existence of a reader that doesn’t exist–ie a reader with a clear vision of the place where any given text falls on the map of theology and redemptive history, to say nothing of being without sin or any internal resistance to the word of God. His belief that the Holy Spirit would shore up the difference against any odds is not helpful in addressing legitimate exegetical difference and leaves readers often talking merely about “what a given text says to me.”

The ancient fathers of the Church devised many ways of addressing the Scriptural text. One of the more helpful tools was the use of the rule of faith, and later the creeds, to define the limits of what would be considered as a faithful reading of Scripture. The wisdom in that move was replicated in canonizing the Nicene creed. But the evangelical weakness has been to confuse the creed with Scripture itself. To fail to recognize (and teach) that things like a rule of faith are not simply derived from Scripture–although arguably parts of the rule can be defended that way–leaves the Christian weaponless in the face of competing interpretations. The insistence that evangelical faith is the obvious teaching of a clear Scripture does not help to explain why a historical majority of faithful Christians have not understood (and most do not understand) Scripture in that way. Evangelicals with questions, then, about HOW Scripture says what it is claimed to say are often forced to seek answers elsewhere. Bell seems to be the best case scenario of such, with the worst being the likes of Bart Ehrman, who lost inerrancy and thought he lost Christianity in the process. I fear if evangelicals do not come up with a way of being more honest about the externality of Biblical hermeneutics to the text itself, we may see many more and much worse of this kind of thing. thankfully, there are signs within evangelical theology That this is happening. It cannot happen soon enough.

Rob Bell’s view belongs on the spectrum of evangelical debate. It has, after all, arrived in the wake of his reading and privileging of the Scriptures, through which evangelicals believe as he does and has said: “God has spoken. The rest is commentary.” Like most Christians historically, Rob Bell believes in hell. Like most Christians historically, he disagrees with many as to its nature and purpose. His view has merits, such as the sense it makes of the punish-to-purge narrative of the Old Testament. It also has many demerits, such as the unconvincing argument on the nature of the word “eternal,” and his lack of veneration in argument of a tradition that not only nurtured him, but for all its faults gave him the very tools with which to read the Scriptures afresh as he does. It is my hope that the Bell phenomenon will give us in the evangelical tradition pause, and that it will compel us to reflect on how it is we can read the Scriptures better, both more openly and more discerningly, as we seek to know the great God whose story they tell.

Father Steve,

I have listened to Dr. Carson’s talk, and I was planning to respond as soon as time permits; that is, assuming this is a discussion you’re even interested in having. This blog is, after all, your house. But before I respond, I wanted to ask whether it is possible actually to listen to the panel discussion. I was only able to find the talk. Thanks and God bless.

@William:

Hey- don’t I know you from somewher?

The audio for the panel discussion can be found here:http://tgc-audio.s3.amazonaws.com/2011-conference/sessionpanel_lovewins.mp3
A written synopsis of the panel discussion is here:http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/god-abounding-in-love-punishing-the-guilty

In Carson’s talk, “God: Abounding in Love, Punishing the Guilty” he recommends an essay by Richard Bauckham (of “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses” fame) called “Universalism: a historical survey”. Full text of this essay can be found here: http://www.theologicalstudies.org.uk/article_universalism_bauckham.html

Also by Bauckham and of relevance to this topic is a very brief essay called “Hell” on his personal website: http://richardbauckham.co.uk/uploads/Accessible/Hell.pdf

Here are a few items of historical interest that should be useful to any attempt to place Rob Bell inside or outside the genealogy of liberal universalism:

The first is a little gem from the Harvard Library, “A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future LIfe: With a Complete Bibliography of the Subject”, compiled by William Rounseville Alger and Ezra Abbot and published in 1864. Alger was a Unitarian minister of the sort that Harvard routinely churned out in the first half of the 19th century, and Abbot was the Assistant Librarian of Harvard College at the time of the books publication, later going on to become Bussey Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation in the Harvard Divinity School. Alger and Abbot are wonderfully unabashed about what they understand themselves to be doing and where they understand themselves to be located in reference to those that they disagree with. The most useful part of the book for genealogical research is in Abbot’s bibliographic catalogue in the back, particularly the “Duration of Future Punishment Section” that begins on page 832: http://books.google.com/books?id=8pQ2GLZbwzAC&pg=PA832#v=onepage&q=Richardson&f=false .

Several of the references are to a 17th century pamphlet war. Samuel Richardson, an Anabaptist, published a 1658 pamphlet called “Of the Torments of Hell: the Foundation and Pillars thereof discover’d, search’d, shaken and remov’d. With Infallible Proofs, that there is not to be a Punishment after this Life, for any to endure, that shall never end.” Nicholas Chewney, a Church of England man (ejected from his parish in 1661 for nonconformity) who spent much of his time writing against Socinianism, replied to Richardson in 1660 with “Hells Everlasting Torments Asserted. Richardson’s pamphlet was still getting enough airtime in in the late 1670s. In 1675, Richard Burthogge, an English physician, published Causa Dei: or an apology for God, in the perpetuity of infernal torments”. In 1678 Church of England minister, John Brandon, saw fit to reply in a lengthy tract: ‘Το πύρ το αίώνιον, or Everlasting Fire no Fancy; being an answer to a late Pamphlet entit. “The Foundations of Hell-Torments shaken and removed”. Richardson’s pamphlet can be found easily today on Google, and Chewney, Burthogge, and Brandon’s replies can be found in some academic libraries. If you can get your hands on a copy, D.P. Walker’s 1964 “The Decline of Hell: Seventeenth Century Discussion of Eternal Torment” is still a good resource on this period, as is Philip Almond’s 1994 “Heaven and Hell in Enlightenment England”.

Fast forward to 1833, when Thomas Whittemore, Universalism’s most influential 19th century editor and historian, republished Richardson’s pamphlet, combining it with pieces by 18th century Swiss theological writer Marie Huber and 18th century English physician, David Hartley. Whittemore was attempting to preserve works of historical importance to Universalism. http://books.google.com/books?id=dQ0RAAAAYAAJ&dq=Samuel%20Richardson%20Hell&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q=miscellany&f=false . Whittemore is also known for his 1840 “The Plain Guide to Universalism: designed to lead inquirers to the belief of that doctrine, and believers to the practice of it”, http://books.google.com/books?id=2paVydO_q9EC&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false, and his 1860 “The Modern History of Universalism” http://books.google.com/books?id=-KQ8AAAAYAAJ&pg=PR1#v=onepage&q&f=false

Also of interest in the 19th century is Thomas Allin’s 1891 “Universalism Asserted: as the hope of the Gospel on the authority of reason” http://books.google.com/books?id=Pdl660LxVMsC&ots=WD8Jvf1mt9&dq=%22thomas%20allin%22&pg=PP9#v=onepage&q&f=false . Google Books has scanned a good bit of Harvard’s library, meaning that there’s a wealth of 19th century Universalist journals available to browse, The Universalist being a good place to start.