A Fresh Perspective

Rob Bell has made a huge splash in the Christian world with his book, Love Wins . I have not yet read the book, but from what I can discern from the interviews I’ve heard is that he expounds a vision of Christianity that is very similar to the one I have been advocating in my blog and books. He apparently argues against the traditional idea of hell and the possibility of redemption after death. One can read my vision of an inclusive Christian gospel in A Faith Worth Living: The Dynamics of an Inclusive Gospel , published earlier this month. (Resource Publications, an imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers; click on picture at right to order) What Rev. Bell is proposing is, of course, nothing new. But it is the first time, as far as I know, a mega-church pastor, educated in and emerging from an evangelical tradition, has had the courage to publicly proclaim a more inclusive, holistic vision. A few other popular, influential Christian leaders are moving in that directi...

Biblical scholar Marcus Borg writes about sitting next to a passenger on a plane who told him, “I’m much more interested in Buddhism and Sufism that I am in Christianity.” When he asked why, she said, “Because they’re about a way of life, and Christianity is all about believing.” Unfortunately, this is the way Christianity is often perceived. Ask a friend what he or she thinks is meant by the phrase “true believer” and most likely your friend will say something about having the correct beliefs. What one believes about God, Jesus, and other teachings of Christian faith, however, is only one aspect of Christian faith. Borg suggests that this is a rather odd notion when you think about it—that God would care that much about the beliefs we have in our heads, as if believing the right things is what God is after. It seems much more likely that God would be vastly more interested in the life we actually live—how we love and care for one another and our planet—than the limited, flawed, in...

I believe that the living Christ (the one I call “Lord”) is more interested in our commitment to God’s covenant, than our veneration—a covenant that calls us to love God with the totality of our being and to love our neighbor (that includes the “enemy”) as ourselves. Jesus never encouraged his disciples to exalt him; he called them to follow him, to be his apprentices, to learn from him how to live in and for God’s kingdom, to trust “Abba” (the loving Father/Mother), and to embrace his cause and passion for justice and mercy, while living in humility. At one time, I had such an exalted view of Jesus and his divine status that it did me no earthly good. I could not touch or reach Jesus, because Jesus was so high and lifted up. (Sounds like a praise song doesn’t it?) I imagined Jesus as sinless, having never demonstrated a cultural bias, or acted in a selfish way, or entertained a single, lustful thought. He commanded the elements of nature, even walking on water. Well, I knew I couldn...

Wendell Berry’s novel, “A World Lost,” is the story about a family coping with the death of one of their own. In the final chapter, Berry reflects on the manner of man he was. This meditation gives way to a reflection on death as a pathway into the light of a more advanced spiritual realm. Berry writes, “I imagine the dead waking, dazed, into a shadowless light in which they know themselves altogether for the first time. It is a light that is merciless until they can accept its mercy; by it they are at once condemned and redeemed. It is Hell until it is Heaven. Seeing themselves in that light, if they are willing, they see how far they have failed the only justice of loving one another; it punishes them by their own judgment.” “And yet,” says Berry, “in suffering that light’s awful clarity, in seeing themselves within it, they see its forgiveness and its beauty, and are consoled. In it they are loved completely, even as they have been, so are changed into what they could not have bee...

The British atheist Malcom Muggeridge joined the Catholic Church at the age of 79. When he was asked to explain his conversion, he said that all the books and sermons he had read had little, if any, persuasive influence upon him. But when he saw Mother Teresa in Calcutta with the poor, he said, “If this is it, I’ve got to have it.” On the other hand, Swiss physician Paul Tournier tells about going back to his medical school to visit his favorite professor just after he had written his first book. As they sat in the gathering gloom of a Swiss winter afternoon, Tournier read from his new book. When he finished his reading, he looked up and there were tears in the old man’s eyes. “Oh Paul,” he said, “that’s a wonderful book. Everyone of us Christians should read that.” Tournier was surprised and exclaimed, “I didn’t know you were a Christian, professor. When did you become one?” “Just now,” he responded, “as you read your book.” I’m sure people of other religious traditions could tell...

How will God’s dream for the world (kingdom) be realized in the future? Will it come about by means of a dramatic, divine intervention? Most Christian interpreters assume that the early church believed Christ would return visibly and personally to judge evil and finally fulfill the promise of the future kingdom. It is difficult, however, to actually know how literally they understood the expectation of Christ’s “coming” ( parousia ). The basic meaning of the word is “presence.” Of course, if someone is absent and later becomes present, then that person has “come back” or “returned.” But in one sense Jesus never left. In the New Testament the Spirit functions as the equivalent to the living presence of Christ in the church and in the world. Understood in this light, Jesus’ “coming” is not an invasion from the outside, but an unveiling, manifesting, appearing from within as the central agent in the realization of God’s new world. New Testament scholar N. T. Wright has argued that the...

In Matthew’s Gospel the joy of the birth of Jesus is overshadowed and sent fleeing with the holy family’s flight into Egypt and the loud cries of lamentation from the parents of the children slaughtered in Bethlehem (Matt 2:16–18). Life is filled with interruptions of tragedy and tumult. The abundant life made available to us in Christ does not provide immunity against the discomfort and distresses of life. Any version of Christian faith that downplays suffering or attributes it to God’s displeasure needs to reinvent itself. The intricacies of the interplay between divine power, divine goodness, and human freedom will always be a mystery. Jesus believed that God loves the creation and is creatively engaged in its healing and redemption. Jesus taught that God knows the number of hairs on our heads, which is to say that God takes special interest in each one of us. Even the minor players of creation, according to Jesus, do not escape God’s attention, for God observes a little sparrow...