05.10.05 Hell Raiser

Brian D. McLaren, an “emergent church” guru/speaker/author/pastor, has written A trilogy about becoming a new kind of Christian.  The third book in the series, called “The Last Word and The Word After That: A Tale of Faith, Doubt, and a New Kind of Christianity”, uses dialogue to examine how our changing view of hell impacts our view of God and then life itself.

One character in the book says, “Millions of people, young and old, have given up on Christianity because our way of talking about hell sounds absolutely wacky. ‘God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life,’ we say, ‘and he’ll fry your butt in hell forever unless you do or believe the right thing’… No wonder Christianity—or that version of it—is a dying religion in so many places in the world.”

We once talked a great deal about hell:

“The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire.” (Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, 1741.)

But now it’s a word I’ve dropped from my vocabulary altogether and until today, when reading excerpts from this book, I never even noticed.  And according to McLaren I’m not alone.  In his opinion it’s not a word or place more than a few pastors and Christians care to talk about.  As he quotes Martin Marty, “Hell has disappeared and no one noticed."( U.S. News and World Report, January 31, 2000, p 44.) And this, he says, shapes the way we live out our faith, how we view God.

Most of us avoid Hell talk because we don’t like the judgmental killjoy God who would allow such a pit of despair to exist.  So, running from an overly maniacal view of God we run the risk of swinging the other way, towards a Buddy Jesus, an elderly doting smiley grandfather figure who’s day and eternity revolves around making us happy.

Which is He?  Some of both?  All of one?  The question of who God is, what He’s like, matters.  William Temple once said that if your concept of God is radically false, the more devoted you are, the worse off you will be.  So what is the right concept of God? I’m reading this book to hear one man’s answer to that question, but if this is a typical McClaren book, instead of answers to our questions we’ll probably just walk away with better questions.