15 July 2004

Hell revisited When I checked my referral list this afternoon, I was rather surprised to see the traffic coming through my blog was about three times its normal rate. And most of it seemed to be coming from one of two or three Internet sites. It appears (to my delight, of course) that the self-avowed Internet Monk Michael Spencer has been reading my comments about hell. At his online community, Boar's Head Tavern, this thoroughly lovely chap calls my piece a "must-read". *Shucks* You can read his thoughts about it on his blog. Already a few folks have chimed in with their responses. One reader comments: Those who truly believe in hell tend to pretty quickly get tagged as practitioners of "Wretched Urgency." In fact, that is the answer given by Wretchedly Urgent people: But these lost people are going to HELL! If hell is everything John Piper [the American Reformed theologian, who gets a mention in Spencer's article] believes it to be, then he is right in saying, "Don't waste your life!" And you and I are wrong in trying to find a comfortable way to live in America peacably and quietly without bothering our neighbors, and in focusing so much of our attention on things here below. I'm willing to believe that Piper is right and I'm a loser. It would be far from the first time. I'd like Piper to be wrong, so that I can continue in my laziness. Oops, sorry, that's some "Wretched Honesty". Another writes: I get to talk about Hell? I studied fairly intently, even wrote on the subject, and found that "it sucks". Hell is not a nice place. It's where those who hate God go. My friend is going to Hell. At the moment she is outside of Christ, living w/ her boyfriend only five blocks from me (just found this out after no contact for a year). It hurts to consider the real Hell. I commented to my buddy that I am "becoming a Universalist" so I can sleep at night. God might say "That sin thing? I was just kidding. Oh, and Judgment? That was just for some people, you know, to get them to convert, and those who hate me? Why, they'll just change their mind when I show up". With (Isaiah 66:24) Jesus refers to Hell, when we can look upon those in Hell and say "How dare you insult my God" at the same time knowing we have been shown grace so not to be one of "them" it boggles the mind that we will hate sin like God does. Jesus wept over the loss. We need more of that. Others were equally unconvinced: On the subject of hell I must say that the article did resonate with me. There were some hints of wretched urgency at the end of the article, especially the bit about dragging his neighbor out of bed and evangelizing him. Nonetheless, I think that the doctrine of hell is not something people like to talk about, period, and for that reason I think it is all the more real. It's kind of like sex: people feel awkward talking about sex, or sometimes never talk about it at all, but it's still their in the background, trumpeting like a pink elephant. Hell only seems incompatible with a loving and merciful God when we misconstrue what the love and mercy of God are. God is not sentimental and He isn't "nice." God's attributes and moral perfections are never separated from one another: His love is His justice and vice versa. Hell also gets thrown into sharper relief when we see the depth of human corruption. This especially applies to the essay writer's point about human intuition. If we really take seriously what the Reformers taught about man, we would understand that human intuition is not exempt from Adam's sin. Besides, for some people, pedophilia and related perversions come somewhat naturally; these wicked acts are intuitive to their nature. So I feel that one ought not trust his intuition on helping him decide on matters of doctrine. I am open to a Scriptural case for an alternative to hell, however, but having read Pinnock's thoughts on the subject, I am not impressed. Nice to see my blog is getting a wider audience. I shall add Michael to the blogroll, not least because I now discover he is a fellow Robert Farrar Capon fan! Dave 10:00:29 PM    Join the conversation [] Now I remember why I pay for my blogspace... [Edit: I just discovered this is old news -- June 15th, to be exact, which I misread as July 15th.] Blogging pioneer Dave Winer has apparently shut without warning his free weblog-hosting service Weblogs.com according to Wired.com. Thousands of bloggers are left homeless. Now I remember why I decided to pay Salon.com forty bucks a year for this blog. 8:55:55 PM    Join the conversation [] It don't mean a thing without that Trinity swing As much as I aspire to be a heretic, I just can't shake off this trinitarian thing. In fact, the Trinity means more to me now than it ever did. At one time it was a dogma that had to be defended at all costs, the ultimate test of orthodoxy, the sine qua non of genuine Christianity. But that's about all it was. Whether it really meant anything in the grand scheme of things was a minor point. The main thing was that it was true, and we had to fight to preserve this essential doctrine. Books I read about it reinforced this strange way of handling the Trinity. They were all about gathering up the prooftexts, "proving" that the Trinity was true and using Bible verses as ammunition with which to refute the vile heresies of unchristian folk like the Mormons. They were litanies of soundbites from Scripture, catalogues of ostensibly irrefutable arguments showing why God was Three-in-One and warning us not ever to forsake this established truth. But if you were looking for any indication why it really mattered (other than to keep those demonic Mormons and JWs out), you would search in vain. I'm not so worried now about throwing together the prooftexts. What matters is what the Trinity means, and here's what I think is the overwhelming significance of the Trinity: It says to us that since before the beginning God has existed in community. It means that loving relationship is at the very heart, the very root of what it means for God to be God. It means that Father, Son and Holy Spirit have always been in loving fellowship with one another. Theologians call that fellowship, that trinitarian interaction, perichoresis. It's kind of a divine dance going on, a heavenly swing. That's important for us because it makes sense of what we're saying when we affirm that "God is love". Love becomes the most fundamental thing to who God is, because it's what's going on in his very nature eternally. And that in turn makes sense of the whole story of the world: God creates out of love in order to invite us into the circle of fellowship; in Jesus the Trinity steps into humanity in order to bring humanity into the Trinity. No longer the disjointed vision of my evangelical youth: God creates; man messes up; God has to think up an alternative; Jesus comes as Plan B. In a trinitarian vision of God, Jesus is no Plan B, but Plan A, God fulfilling his eternal purpose to adopt us as sons and daughters, the fulfilment of God's original creation plan to have us join the Circle of Life. And all that stems from the core of who God is, from the Trinity. It's hard to put into words how things suddenly fell into place when the Trinity began making sense for me, but that was an attempt. Dave 10:42:36 AM    Join the conversation []

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