A Fresh Perspective

The late Ken Chafin, who was a Baptist minister and professor and something of a statesman, tells about a friend in college who use to preach a lot in some of the small country churches not far from campus. Chafin would get a card from his friend saying something like: 35 saved in rival at the Mossy Bottom Baptist Church. Chafin thought that was pretty good since they only had about 25 members. This pricked his curiosity a little bit, so one evening he drove out to hear him preach. It was a Friday night and his friend’s sermon that evening was on the Great White Throne Judgment. His text came out of the book of Revelation. The preacher was in a white suit, white tie, white shirt, white belt, and even white shoes. He thundered from the pulpit that if you didn’t become white as snow through the blood of the lamb you would find yourself literally in one hell of a predicament, a hell of fire and brimstone. Chafin said that he didn’t think he was going to get home that night until the pre...

These two commands on which hang all the law and the prophets are inseparably connected. In fact, to love one’s neighbor as one’s self is to love God, because God is in the neighbor. We are all God’s offspring. We all bear God’s image, no matter how imperfect or marred that image in us is, and we all are alive because God’s Spirit gives us life. Imagine how it grieves God when God suffers God’s children hating and devouring one another. The writer of 1 John puts it this way, “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.” So we cannot sever these two commands. They go hand-in-hand. The power of love is the power of God. It is the power of the Holy Spirit. And there is no greater transforming power in the universe. I love that scene in the mov...

Once a month I visit with my mother who lives a couple of hours away. Typically, we talk for a couple of hours, I take her out to eat and we run some errands. Though I am a minister, spiritual teacher, and a writer, we rarely talk about religion. There is a reason for this. On a recent visit, I took her a copy of my book, Being a Progressive Christian (is not) for Dummies (nor for know-it-alls): An Evolution of Faith. I did this, as I have done with all my books, because she is my mother. And because I am her son, she reads them. She doesn’t read them quickly or easily, but she reads them. She told me, “They’re deep.” What she really meant was, “How the hell did my son come to believe such nonsense?” She would never admit this. She would severely object to the way I just used “hell,” in her view a perfectly sound biblical teaching. I am joking, of course . . . kind of. Our conversation turned toward the state of the world. Such a state signals for many conservative Chris...

The real tragedy in this story (Luke 16:19-31) is not simply that the rich man finds himself in misery. We all find ourselves in misery at some stage or at various stages in our lives.    I don’t believe hell is one particular place. I think it is many places, conditions, and experiences that we all have to live through in order to grow, to learn, to become more than what we are. We all have our “hells” to live through. As the Apostles Creed says, Jesus “descended into hell.” We all descend into hell. What is more tragic is living through these “hells” and failing to learn and grow. Now that is tragic. This story talks about a chasm that is fixed, where one can’t pass from one sphere to the other, but one can see across it. It’s important to see where we are, where we have been, and where we are going. Taking a good honest look at our past, our present, and where we are headed into the future is very important to real transformation and moral development.  ...

It seems to me a huge waste of time when religious people get caught up in the game of determining who goes where, when, and how, of separating the world into the chosen and the un-chosen, the lost and the saved, those going to heaven and those not. I don’t want to suggest that those who believe such things are bad people. What I am saying is that it just seems to me to be an immense waste of energy and time. I am confident that all our futures are in the hands of a merciful, gracious God, who is far more generous, forgiving, compassionate, patient, kind, and good than the best person any of us know. This God, who I see beautifully embodied and made visible in the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, will never abandon any of us, even in our worst moments—even when such moments makeup a lifetime. It seems to me that our time could be more wisely invested in opening our lives to this gracious God right now. The Spirit wants to teach us how to love well, how to nu...

In a recent interview by Kim Lawton of PBS Religion and Ethics , author and columnist Lisa Miller, Pastor Rob Bell, author of Love Wins , and Mary Vanden Berg, Assistant Professor of Christian Theology at Calvin Theological Seminary, raise some important issues about where Rob Bell stands in relation to evangelical Christianity. Miller notes that what upset people most about Rob Bell was that he calls himself a conservative evangelical Christian. If he called himself an Episcopalian, she observes, nobody would have batted an eye. Miller, of course, is right. This is what sent Bell’s book, Love Wins , ringing throughout the land (pun intended). As Miller comments, Bell’s position on heaven, hell, and the possible salvation of every person, “is a radical upheaval of that entire worldview.” This is why popular conservative pastor, John Piper, tweeted, “So long Bell,” when he first heard of Bell’s position (even before he read the book). He was talking about Bell’s departure from t...

One of the ways many traditional Christians have avoided real change/conversion has been to make the gospel of Jesus primarily about going to heaven and avoiding hell. I think this is particularly true for many of us who have made “heaven” the reward for believing the right things. We use all sorts of language for this: accepting Christ into one’s heart, making a decision for Christ, having a born again experience, trusting Christ as personal Savior, etc. (all these expressions mean different things to different people). The problem is that many Christians who feel they have made this “decision” think that they are guaranteed heaven and see no real need to change now. With the promise of heaven secured, one’s ego can easily pad and protect itself in ways that avoid dealing with the pride, negativity, and greed that resides there. When whole groups of people (evangelical Christians?) are committed to ego protection and defense, real personal or communal transformation rarely happens. ...

Bell begins his discussion by noting that there is no “hell” in the Old Testament. There is a sheol —“a dark, mysterious, murky place people go when they die” (p. 65)—but nothing equivalent to hell. Beliefs about the afterlife in Hebrew culture were not “very articulated or defined” (p. 67). Bell notes that the word translated “hell” in the New Testament is actually gehenna , referring originally to an actual valley on the west side of Jerusalem used as a garbage dumb; a place where the fire was burning constantly to consume the trash. Bell emphasizes the metaphorical use of this word in the sayings of Jesus. The “volatile mixture of images, pictures, and metaphors” that Jesus uses “describe the very real experiences and consequences of rejecting our God-given goodness and humanity” (p.73). I agree with Bell that Jesus employed the term in hyperbole and symbol. What Bell does not tell the reader, however, is that one metaphorical meaning of “hell” during the time of Jesus was tha...