Sightings 3/7/2011

Hell ¢â‚¬â„¢s Bell

— Martin E. Marty

Americans may have thought that cracks in the fa ƒ §ade and framework of
evangelicalism would show up most visibly when serious evangelicals argued
whether Sarah Palin or Mike Huckabee would be the better presidential
candidate. But now we have a chance to see that other divisive issues among
evangelicals beg for attention. When one of these, a theological argument,
no less, makes its way to the New York Times and other papers plus many
blogs, it ¢â‚¬â„¢s time to pay attention. Bystanders who think they have nothing at
stake in the non-political arguments, and who have never heard of Pastor Bob
Bell of Grand Rapids, Michigan, or his critic, neo-Calvinist John Piper, may
stand by in fascination, but they are likely to be reached this time. The
topic? Hell, and a punishing God ¢â‚¬â„¢s use thereof.

Bell, featured in the Times story, is a star of the emergent middle among
evangelicals. He is seen by his enemies as baiting those to his right by
writing too kindly about God and the many mortals destined for hell, and
they insist that softness has to stop. Pastor Bell is soon to publish Love
Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.

His publisher and others have tantalized the public with clips from the
book, but the critics did not need to have read it and do not need to know
more than that Bell is not so sure that a God of love will condemn those
billions who never heard of Jesus Christ, or those millions who have heard
but did not recognize him as their Savior, in order for them to fire up
their own condemnations of Bell.

The Michigan pastor-author is not alone; Bell ¢â‚¬â„¢s hell is paralleled in
treatments of a whole wing of evangelicals. Some of this group “out ¢â‚¬ 
themselves, while others are in a kind of purgatory of inference that they
are not quite orthodox on the subject. What this second wing keeps pondering
and sometimes proclaiming is that there are ways to witness to the fact that
God is holy and just, other than saying that he takes delight in punishing
those ignorant of the stakes or those who are players of other salvation
games. It is one thing to agree with sophisticated evangelical theologians
and their artful articulators who semi-dodge the issue by saying that no one
is ever sent to hell and suggesting that she or he chooses to go there.

Publics, including those serious about the Bible, doctrine, and church
tradition, have not found ways to accept the teaching which they cannot
square with witness to the God of love, so Bell and company would witness
positively to them. Formal theologians in the evangelical camp are bemused
by the consistent polls in which only a small percent of the clergy are
ready to affirm and preach doctrines and threats of hell and the large
percent of their followers who are not. They know of the gap, and feel they
must close it. Otherwise orthodoxy will disappear and relativism or
universalism will win. The evangelical parents whose teenage  ¢â‚¬Å“good kid ¢â‚¬  son
who has not made a formal profession of faith in Christ and thus will be
condemned to hell if he dies, need better reasoning than the dogmatic
professors of hell give them.

Otherwise this latest fissure in evangelicalism will grow, and arguments
will distract preachers of hell from their tasks and opportunities to win
people from its brink, thus swelling its population in the interest of
saying the right thing about this form of a holy and just God ¢â‚¬â„¢s mode of
everlasting punishment. Why are they writing editorials and condemnations
and attending conferences on hell when they could be out on the street
corners, passing tracts and witnessing to hell ¢â‚¬”and divine love? Bell asks
for answers.

References

* *

Erik Eckholm, “Pastor Stirs Wrath With His Views on Old
Question”

New York Times, March 4, 2011.

Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Attribution

Columns may be quoted or republished in full, with attribution to the author
of the column, Sightings, and the Martin Marty Center at the University of
Chicago Divinity School.