Remembering the “Progessive Orthodoxy” of Horace Bushnell Part One

One thing I like to do here is point readers back to neglected theologians. As a historical theologian I find many “new” proposals in theology are not that new. Often they echo theological ideas of the past even as their promoters advance them as new. There’s some truth to the old sayings that there’s nothing new under the sun and that history repeats itself. In fact, sometimes it becomes downright wearisome to hear or read about an allegedly new idea or movement in theology that isn’t really new at all.

One theologian of America’s history many of whose ideas reappear in new forms (and perhaps they were not new with him, either) is Horace Bushnell (1802-1876). He was an original thinker in that he found ways to express older ideas that seemed to many to transcend the divides in American Protestantism.

Unfortunately, in spite of his tremendous influence on American Protestant theology, Bushnell has been largely forgotten as his books have gone out of print. (I believe only one of his books is still in print: Christian Nurture. Others may be printed by publishers who print runs for specific needs such as a class in a university or seminary.) I would say that America has only produced a few world class theologians who stood out as especially influential as somewhat original thinkers: Jonathan Edwards, Horace Bushnell, Walter Rauschenbusch, Reinhold Niebuhr, John Howard Yoder. (I don’t include Paul Tillich because Germany really “produced” him even though he wrote his Systematic Theology in America.)

Of course, each one of them stood on the shoulders of previous giants; none introduced totally new theological ideas. Each, however, produced theological proposals that seemed original and innovative enough to draw attention and gained broad followings because they seemed to solve some pressing problems, at least for a time.

Earlier here I questioned Edwards’ greatness. What I really meant to question was the unbelievable renaissance of Edwards as demonstrated in the new studies of his theology being published every year and in his popularity through his popularizers such as John Piper. I’m not at all sure Edwards deserves the attention he’s getting right now.

Just as great, in my estimation, and just as neglected as Edwards is remembered (both responses undeserved, in my opinion), is Bushnell. Relatively conservative, broadly evangelical Protestant Christians, theologians, pastors and students, could learn much and be enriched by rediscovering the New England theologian. I have begun that process, I hope, by including a chapter on him in my forthcoming book on modern theology.

I consider Bushnell to have been a “mediating theologian.” I think it’s unfortunate that he is usually categorized as liberal by both conservatives and liberals in theology. In my opinion, the best description of his theology, overall, is “progressive orthodoxy.” It’s a label attached to his theology by scholars of American Christianity and theology. I’m not sure who first labeled it so. I disagree with Gary Dorrien, renowned scholar of American liberal theology, who rightly calls Bushnell “America’s greatest nineteenth-century theologian” but wrongly (in my estimation) describes him as “the theological father of mainstream liberal Protestantism.” (The Making of American Liberal Theology: Imagining Progressive Religion 1805-1900, p. 111.) Now, if all Dorrien meant was that Bushnell was misunderstood by some of his followers (e.g., Theodore Munger) such that mainstream liberal Protestantism afterwards came to consider him their theological father, fine, I can agree with that. However, Dorrien treats Bushnell as a true liberal, even if somewhat inconsistent, and with that I disagree. He certainly displayed liberalizing tendencies, especially compared with the Old School Princeton theologians (e.g., Archibald Alexander and Charles Hodge), but his main target for correction was Unitarianism which was growing by leaps and bounds in New England (Bushnell’s territory) and the “Victorian liberalism” that was accommodating to it in order to counter movements of thousands of Congregationalists away from traditional churches to it.

Dorrien defines the essence of “liberal theology” as “the idea that Christian theology can be genuinely Christian without being based upon external authority.” (Ibid., p. xiii) Later, he describes the “liberal Victorian gospel” as “The good news of…the triumph of spirit over nature as mediated by the example and teaching of Jesus. Under the influence of Jesus, the perfectly God-conscious redeemer, human beings are liberated from the selfish impulses of their animal nature and transformed into persons in right relation with God. To be saved is to experience the fulfillment of one’s moral and spiritual personality through the triumph of the indwelling spirit of Christ over nature.” (p. 402)

I prefer historical theologian Claude Welch’s definition of liberal theology as “maximal accommodation to modernity.” However, I don’t think Bushnell himself, as opposed to some of his followers, fit any of those definitions. In fact, after reading Dorrien’s own discussion of Bushnell (almost 70 pages!), I don’t see how he can categorize Bushnell himself (as opposed to his followers who misinterpreted him) could treat Bushnell as truly liberal. Almost all scholars of Bushnell I consulted for writing my chapter on him agreed that his followers created the impression of him as liberal. Bushnell himself was far from liberal when stood alongside later liberal Protestants such as Harry Emerson Fosdick.

By no means do I agree with everything Bushnell advocated. For example, I disagree with his idea of “Christian nurture”—something he is usually remembered for, especially by those in the field of Christian education. Bushnell argued in his book by that title that normally children raised in Christian homes and churches simply grow up Christian, if they are spiritually formed correctly; they have no need of a dramatic conversion experience or radical decision of faith. He was opposed to viewing children of Christians in the church already as a mission field. I disagree with him about that, but that’s not directly relevant to my argument here—that Bushnell was no liberal theologian in either Dorrien’s or Welch’s sense of the word.

Now, I’m going to stop here for now and post a follow up message soon about Bushnell’s theology. What I want to warn about now and here, however, is that I will not post comments arguing that Bushnell was “liberal” JUST BECAUSE he didn’t believe in the penal substitution theory of the atonement or JUST BECAUSE he didn’t take Genesis 1-11 literally or JUST BECAUSE he didn’t believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, etc., etc. I’m well aware that some of my valued readers are very conservative theologically and will inevitably consider Bushnell liberal just for those reasons (as they will consider anyone liberal just for those reasons). When I deny that Bushnell was truly liberal I mean in the classical sense as defined by Schleiermacher and Ritschl, the two leading 19^th century liberal Protestant theologians, and especially as defined by Dorrien and Welch above. Without any doubt Bushnell, like almost everyone in his time, was accommodating, rightly or wrongly, to some aspects of modernity. I argue in my forthcoming book that even Hodge was doing that. But the question is whether Bushnell truly deserves his reputation as the “father” of American mainstream liberal theology. Can a straight line be drawn, for example, from him to Fosdick? I say no. And he does not belong in the same category as the real liberals of his time such as William Ellery Channing and Henry Ward Beecher and later real liberals such as Washington Gladden and Harry Emerson Fosdick.

My argument will be that Bushnell was a mediating theologian—attempting creatively but faithfully (to the gospel) to bridge the divide between orthodoxy and progressivism in American religion. And I will argue that what we need today is a new Bushnell, a new mediator between true liberal theology (e.g., process theology) and neo-fundamentalism (e.g., conservative evangelical theology that requires belief in inerrancy, penal substitution, etc.).

So What’s Wrong with Panentheism?

Recently I suggested that Jonathan Edwards may have been guilty of panentheism. I won’t explain why again here; if you’re interested please go back and read that post. At least one commenter asked why that’s a problem in light of Paul’s quotation in Athens of a Greek poet. He referred to God as the one “in whom we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28) Was Paul affirming panentheism? What’s wrong with panentheism?

Confession that one is a panentheist is, rightly or wrongly, the kiss of death when it comes to being hired to teach theology at most evangelical institutions of higher education. A few years ago an acquaintance who was a candidate to teach theology at an evangelical seminary was rejected by its president because, during his interview, he admitted he is a panentheist.

“Panentheism” is a somewhat flexible and evolving concept. When someone says “panentheism” or “panentheist” I ask what they mean. The term has no definite, universally agreed on definition. I no longer take it for granted.

Panentheism is a relatively recent term, if not concept, in Christian theology and philosophy of religion. Scholars agree that it was coined by German philosophical theologian Karl Friedrich Krause (1781-1832) who invented the German word Allingottlehre which literally means “the doctrine that all is in God.” Of course, Krause was not the first person to promote the idea. (See John W. Cooper, Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers [Baker, 2006], 121-122.)

Krause meant more than merely that “all is in God, however.” That can be interpreted in multiple ways and might even fit Paul’s statement in Athens. According to John Cooper, Krause believed “the distinction between God and the world is that of whole and part.” (122) Exactly what Krause meant by panentheism is debatable, but the concept took on a life of its own, apart from whatever Krause meant, in philosophers such as G. W. F. Hegel who famously asserted that “Without the world God is not God.”

Hegel is usually thought to have been the paradigmatic panentheist of the 19^th century, but Alfred North Whitehead is usually considered that of the 20^th century. Whitehead, of course, was the philosopher-mathematician who is the inspiration behind process theology. Whitehead said that “It is as true to say that God creates the world as that the world creates God.”

A consensus used to exist that panentheism is any view of the God-world relationship that portrays God and the world as essentially interdependent although God’s essence is not contributed by the world. One of the first whole books exploring the concept was Philosophers Speak of God by Charles Hartshorne and William Reese (University of Chicago Press, 1953). They defined panentheism as any view in which “To be himself [God] does not this universe, but only a universe.” (22) They asserted that, at the very least, panentheism denies creation ex nihilo (23).

So, traditional, classical panentheism distinguishes between God’s essence, his eternal being, and his experience. God’s essence, his thatness and whatness are his independent of the world, but his actual experience is given to him by the world. Many panentheists have used the body-soul or body-mind analogy to describe the God-world relationship in traditional, classical panentheism. The world (universe, cosmos) is God’s body.

I came to think that what distinguishes panentheism, in its German idealist (Hegelian) form and in its process (Whiteheadian) form, from traditional Christian theism (in its broadest form) is the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. In other words, I have no problem believing that God actually experiences the world such that there is a sense in which the world is “in” God. That’s how I interpret Paul’s statement in Athens. Also, I believe Paul meant that the world is dependent on God for its existence from moment to moment.

The crucial difference between traditional, classical panentheism and Christian theism, broadly interpreted (i.e., not necessarily as defined by Augustine or Anselm or Aquinas), is God’s dependence on the world. Panentheism traditionally affirms it; all forms of classical Christian theism deny it. Creation ex nihilo is the crucial doctrine that protects Christian theism from making God essentially dependent on the world.

Why is it important to deny God’s dependence on the world? Traditionally Christian theologians have said “to protect the transcendence of God.” Fine. But why? The bedrock reason is, as I have stated and argued here before, that “whatever is of nature cannot be of grace.” Christianity is not a philosophy; it is a message of grace. If God’s creation and redemption of the world is not free, then it is not of grace. Only that which is freely done is truly gracious. That’s a bedrock principle of theology. When someone disputes it, I frankly don’t know what they mean by “grace.”

Notice that in Acts 17, during his speech in Athens, Paul not only quotes the Greek poet but also asserts that “God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.” (vs. 24, 25) That has to be kept in balance with “in whom we live and move and have our being.”

So, the problem with traditional, classical panentheism, as expressed in the philosophies of Hegel and Whitehead (and their many followers), is that it seriously blurs the line between God and the world with the result that God’s creation and redemption of the world are not free and gracious acts but necessities for God. In saving the world God is somehow saving himself. And concepts like “create” and “save” don’t even mean the same in traditional, classical panentheism as in classical theism (broadly defined).

Having said all that, I must admit that the term “panentheism” is undergoing change in contemporary theology. Like all theological concepts, over time it is being stretched to cover much more than it meant under the influences of Hegel and Whitehead (et al.).

A relatively recent study of panentheism illustrates this: In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God’s Presence in a Scientific World  edited by Philip Clayton (we studied together under Pannenberg in the 1980s) and Arthur Peacocke (Eerdmans, 2004). Especially helpful is the chapter “Three Varieties of Panentheism” by Niels Henrik Gregersen (19-35).

I won’t go into the details here, now. I have submitted an article about this change in the meaning of panentheism to a theological journal. If it is published I will alert my blog readers to it.

Essentially, what is happening, is that some Christian theologians are adopting the term “panentheism” and adapting it to a more classical theistic view of the God-world relationship. Gregersen talks about “Christian panentheism” by which he means a view in which God’s experience is contributed at least partly by the world and what happens in it while God is himself not essentially dependent on the world. In other words, God freely chooses to include the world in his life. A good example is Juergen Moltmann who explicitly labels his theology panentheistic in several of his writings (“trinitarian panentheism,” “eschatological panentheism”). Many other relatively conservative Christian theologians, including some evangelicals, are calling their theologies panentheistic, but they don’t mean in the Krause, Hegel or Whitehead sense. They seem to mean only that the God-world relationship is ontologically real, not merely external to God. God freely (he could have done otherwise) creates the world and experiences it such that he is not the same with the world as he was or would be without it. And yet he does not literally “need” it to be who and what he is.

The analogy of parenthood comes to mind. In this panentheism, God is like a parent who freely chooses to have a child but, once the child is born or adopted, the child is part of his or her life. The parent is not the same as before. And yet, should the child die, the parent would still be the person he or she was even if changed. (This is only an analogy, of course, so please don’t pick it to death because it’s not perfect.)

My concern is whether this is stretching “panentheism” too far. It seems to me to lose all shape, so to speak, unless it is kept closely tied to the rejection of creation ex nihilo and affirmation of the idea of God’s essential dependence on at least some world. I fear that, like many theological concepts, panentheism is losing meaning. In light of this broadening of its meaning to cover new ideas not traditionally meant by it, I suspect the candidate for the position teaching theology who was rejected by the evangelical president may have been treated unfairly. He may have only meant what Gregersen means by “Christian panentheism” which is compatible with creation ex nihilo.

I personally do not consider any theology that affirms creation ex nihilo panentheistic. That doesn’t mean affirming it makes everything correct; a person might affirm creation ex nihilo and be profoundly wrong about something else in his or her doctrine of God. But, it seems to me that creation ex nihilo is minimally necessary for a robust biblically and theologically sound doctrine of God. Traditionally, classically, it is one major factor dividing Christian theism from panentheism (or even pantheism).

Grace Works

Philippians 2:12-13

Roger E. Olson

No two verses in the Bible have been discussed and debated more than these together. Throughout Christian history, these two verses, this passage, has provided comfort and affliction to numerous Bible readers. Among the many biblical scholars, theologians and church leaders who have struggled with the passage and commented on it are St. Augustine, Martin Luther, John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Scottish theologian Donald M. Baillie labeled the truth communicated here “the paradox of grace.”

The whole gospel is expressed in these two verses—in a nutshell. But for many Christians it has been and remains a tough nut to crack. That’s because of its paradoxical nature—two truths that seem to conflict with each other and yet are inseparable.

Here’s the paradox of this passage: salvation is both gift and task. For those of you who have taken the Rosetta Stone course in German, there’s a play on words in that language’s theological interpretation of this passage: salvation is both Gabe (gift) and Aufgabe (task).

But we are all familiar with this paradox if we’ve studied our Bibles carefully. Ephesians 2:8-9 says that “For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of works; it is a gift of God.” On the other hand James 2:18 says “Show me your faith without works and I will show you my faith by my works.

Probably no truth of the New Testament is as difficult to grasp as this. It seems contradictory. On the one hand, salvation is all of God, a sheer gift that cannot be earned. On the other hand, salvation is something we work at, we have a role to play in it.

Throughout Christian history, and still today, this paradox has given rise to two opposite and equally mistaken interpretations. The pendulum swings between two extremes.

During Christianity’s early days in Rome a monk named Pelagius taught that we must earn our salvation; salvation is our responsibility. It is all “task.” Church father Augustine opposed Pelagius and taught that salvation is all God’s doing; we really don’t contribute anything. God chooses whom he will save and saves them without any cooperation or contribution on their parts.

During the Protestant Reformation Martin Luther and the Catholic Church fell into bitter dispute over this. Luther insisted that people being saved don’t even have free will. Man, he argued, is like a horse ridden either by God or the devil and God decides who the rider will be. The Catholic Church, however, insisted that good works play a role in maintaining salvation.

During the Great Awakening in Britain and America John Wesley and revivalist George Whitefield fell into disagreement and, for a while, ended their friendship over this issue of God’s role and ours in salvation. Wesley taught that we have a role to play; Whitefield attributed everything to God’s electing grace and denied any human cooperation in salvation.

And on and on the argument has gone. Today it’s once again dividing equally God-fearing, Jesus-loving, Bible-believing Christians. Something called “the new Calvinism” or “young, restless, Reformed” movement led by Christian teachers like John Piper is again denying any human role in salvation; it’s all God’s doing and none of ours.

Many of these people, maybe like many of us, have wrongly divided verses 12 and 13 of Philippians 2 and pitted them against each other—emphasizing one to the neglect of the other. Either verse 12 is underscored with human beings contributing to our salvation with good works or verse 13 is highlighted with God doing everything himself.

What many don’t see is that Philippians 2:12-13 isn’t about initial salvation—conversion. It’s about the Christian life after conversion—about maintaining a healthy relationship with God as a converted believer.

As Baptists, like many evangelical Christians, we tend to specialize in initial salvation—conversion. We know all about that: we are forgiven by God on account of our simple, unadorned faith or trust in Jesus Christ. Good works play no role in conversion. But we aren’t always so sure about what comes after that. We get confused about the roles of grace and good works in living a life pleasing to God—maintaining a healthy relationship with God our savior.

To put it plainly: how do we stay in God’s good favor after we are saved? Is maintaining a right relationship with God and growing in God’s grace our doing or God’s? What must we do to enjoy the benefits of salvation throughout life? What does God to maintain that relationship?

That’s where Philippians 2:12-13 comes into play. It answers that crucial question in a paradox but not a contradiction.

A clue to why the message is not a contradiction lies in the Greek words translated “work” in English Bibles. “Work out your own salvation,” it says, “for God is at work in you….” The secret is that in the original language, these are two different words, not one. We just don’t have two different English words to translate the two Greek words, so most English translations simply use “work.” But that’s confusing because it makes the passage sound like it’s contradicting itself—verse 13 sounds like it’s contradicting verse 12. But it’s not.

The Greek word translated “work” in verse 12 is one that means “continue a task; carry it out to completion.” The Greek word translated “work” in verse 13 is one that means “provides the ability and means, the energy.”

So let’s read the passage with the Greek in mind: “Carry out, continue your task of salvation with fear and trembling, for God is providing all the ability, means and energy….”

Now the light is dawning. The passage’s meaning is clearer. When it comes to maintaining a healthy relationship with God, we do something and God does something.

I want to suggest that these two verses together express the Christian life, our relationship with God, as unconditional good news. We are not puppets, being micromanaged by God. We are responsible people in a personal relationship with a personal God. But, on the other hand, we are weak and God gives us everything we need to maintain a strong, healthy relationship with him.

I have three points to make about this good news, this paradox of grace, these two verses and the truth they tell about God and us in relationship.

1. Grace is Free!

Put another way, there are no “grace boosters.” Nothing we can do can increase God’s grace toward us, for us, on our behalf. Everything we need to be and remain in God’s favor is provided by God himself. And it doesn’t cost us anything.

The problem is that, in our human weakness and ignorance, we often want to think there is something we must do to buy or boost God’s grace. Either from fear or pride, we create grace boosters—acts that we think will merit God’s favor and shore up our relationship with him.

Some churches have formal, official grace boosters. They’re called sacraments. As a Baptist, I don’t believe in them. But we Baptists have our own grace boosters—good works we think are necessary to somehow guarantee God’s favor and blessings: tithing, volunteering, attending, witnessing…whatever.

When these good works are thought of as grace boosters, they become like the pillars famed architect Christopher Wren added to the Town Hall of Windsor, England in 1689. The city fathers wanted a beautiful new town hall with a large meeting room above and an open space for a farmer’s market below. They commissioned Wren, the architect of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, to design it. Wren used a new construction method to support the meeting room above the open-air market on the hall’s first floor. When the city fathers viewed the building, they were alarmed. The farmer’s market below the meeting room was without pillars except around the periphery. In the middle there were no pillars to support the ceiling, the floor of their meeting room above. They asked Wren to add four pillars in the middle of the open air market space to keep them from falling down into the first floor below when they met in their new meeting room. Wren refused, pointing out how beautiful the open space was without pillars in its middle. But the city fathers insisted, so finally a bitter Wren added the pillars. Years later the ceiling of the market space needed repairs. The workmen built their scaffolds around the pillars, climbed up to repair the ceiling and found something shocking. The four added pillars did not reach all the way to the ceiling. Wren’s pillars were deceptive; they didn’t support anything.

Our good works, meant to sustain and even increase God’s favor, are like Wren’s deceptive pillars. They be beautiful and give a false sense of security, but they contribute nothing to grace.

The practical point is that our relationship with God is supported from God’s side; everything we need to have a good relationship with him is provided by him. That’s the point of verse 13.

2. Grace is costly!

Wait! Doesn’t this contradict point 1—“grace is free?” Not really.

Grace is free to us, but not to God.

A popular definition of “grace” is “God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.” What are God’s riches? God’s favor, adoption into his family, peace, joy, confidence that our future is secure in him.

The Bible calls this “life abundant” and “eternal life”—not just something future but available now. All can be ours, now. But only because God himself lowered himself to our level and took on our shame and guilt and died an innocent death of capital punishment on a cruel cross.

God’s grace is free to us, but not to God. It cost him much.

This is what German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer meant when he condemned “cheap grace” and promoted “costly grace”—not that grace costs us something, but that it cost God much and we cheapen it by being ungrateful, by living lives of lazy spirituality or by sinning so that grace may abound.

This explains why we do good works. They are not “grace boosters,” but acts of gratitude for the price God paid to save us and draw us into relationship with him so that he can share his riches with us.

3. Grace is relational.

Yes, grace is free; it costs us nothing—nothing even to maintain a healthy relationship with God and enjoy the benefits and blessings of his favor.

However, our Christian life is a relationship; it’s not a condition. It requires maintenance and that means both parties have something to do—as in any personal relationship.

God’s doesn’t impose his favor, his blessings on us. He invites us to enjoy them and offers to provide everything we need to have them.

Then why do we so often not enjoy the blessings of God’s favor? Why is our relationship with God often so weak and stagnant, even almost non-existent?

Earlier I said there are no grace boosters. So it’s not due to lack of grace boosters, good works. God is not waiting to see us perform for him before he blesses us. His grace is always already full and free and offered to us.

There are no grace booster, but there are “grace blockers.” This is the answer to What does Paul mean in verse 12—to “work out your own salvation?” It doesn’t mean “built more pillars” that don’t even reach the ceiling. It doesn’t mean “do more good works so that grace will be increased.”

Let me illustrate what Paul does mean with another illustration. I have a common frustrating experience during these hot Texas summers. I have a large yard with many trees and decorative bushes, but the house has only two outdoor faucets. So I see one of my bushes needs water; it’s wilting in the blistering sun and above one hundred degree temperatures. I connect my one hundred foot hose to the faucet on the wall of the house and turn on the faucet. Then I drag the hose away from the house, around the corner and way, way out to the poor thirsty bush. I stand there and aim the spray nozzle at the bush and pull the trigger. Nothing happens. I go back to make sure the faucet is really turned on so that the water is flowing into the hose. It is. I go back and pick up the nozzle and point it again and pull the trigger. Again, nothing. What’s wrong?

Ah, I finally realize it—somewhere in the length of that hose there’s a kink that’s stopping the flow of the water. The fault isn’t with the water pressure; the water is pushing to come out and drench the thirsty bush. So I go back the length of the hose and find the one or more kinks and work them out. Then the water that’s already there is free to flow.

Like the water in the hose, the grace of God is not lacking. It doesn’t need to be boosted. It’s already “turned on” by God’s love and mercy and our repentance and faith. But often it can’t flow in our life because we have put grace blockers in its way or allowed them to happen in our lives.

What are “grace blockers?” Wrong attitudes, dispositions, habits, neglect of spiritual disciplines…

When Paul says “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling…” he means “identify those grace blockers that are stopping the flow of God’s grace in your life and remove them with the Holy Spirit’s help.” He does not mean “work harder at pleasing God with good works so that God’s grace in your life will increase.”

And when Paul says “for God is at work in you…” he doesn’t mean “God does everything and you do nothing,” he means “God will provide you with all the ability, all the energy, all the means to remove the grace blockers from your life so your relationship with him will be whole again.”

So what are the grace blockers in your life that are hindering the flow of God’s grace?

Part 5 of Response to The Gospel as Center, Chapter 5: “Sin and the Fall” by Reddit Andrews III

Reddit Andrews is a Presbyterian pastor (PCA). This is a brief chapter—only ten pages—and covers the basics of a doctrine of sin from a Calvinist perspective. Andrews quotes Jonathan Edwards, Blaise Pascal, Herman Bavinck, John Murray and R. L. Dabney (among others). Also, of course, The Westminster Confession of Faith.

For me this chapter raises to an intense pitch the question I have been asking about The Gospel Coalition all along. To what extent is Calvinism part and parcel of “the gospel?” Put another way, to what extent can a non-Calvinist be considered (by them) authentically “evangelical?”

The reason this question becomes especially crucial, and unanswered except perhaps implicitly, in this chapter is its treatment of “Evil and the Will of God.” (pp. 80-81) Many non-Calvinists will agree with most of the rest of the chapter. With the exception of these two pages it is a fairly standard treatment of conservative evangelical theology of sin and evil.

Before I get into discussing “Evil and the Will of God,” I must mention, by way of background, the author’s treatment of “Sin is Universal.” (pp. 82-83) There Andrews mentions that “Christians disagree on the manner in which Adam’s guilt and corruption were transmitted to humans.” He mentions two options: an organic connection and a legal one (Adam as “federal representative”).

What’s interesting there is that, insofar as this chapter represents the thinking of The Gospel Coalition, the “gospel” does not require a particular view of the link between Adam and his posterity. Why not? Apparently the gospel requires very specific beliefs about so much else.

My point is that there seems to be intentionality in some of the chapters as they point out areas of freedom to disagree about the implications of the gospel. So, The Gospel Coalition IS intending to speak for a relatively diverse group. These chapters are not just their authors’ opinions. Andrews, for example, identifies his opinion that Adam’s sin was imputed to all his physical posterity. (p. 83) But he doesn’t think everyone must believe that to be gospel-centered.

Notice the phrase “Christians disagree.” (p. 83) That is NOT said about anything else in the chapter. And it does not say “Calvinists disagree” (about the means of transmission of Adam’s sin to his posterity). It says “Christians disagree.” This language indicates that The Gospel Coalition thinks “Christians” DO NOT DISAGREE about the rest. Otherwise such would be indicated. But, then, that means ONLY THOSE WHO AGREE are truly, authentically Christian. At least that is a reasonable inference.

Back to “Evil and the Will of God.” Andrews says “God sovereignly decreed that sin would enter the world, and Adam was responsible for freely sinning.” (p. 80) And “God, who is holy and not the author of evil, did not merely ‘permit’ evil. It is not as though God did not ordain evil but allowed it to occur.” (p. 81) Is this what “all Christians” believe? If not, why not say so—as Andrews says two pages later with regard to transmission of Adam’s sin? Surely Andrews knows this view, that God sovereignly decreed sin and evil, is not shared by all evangelical Christians (to say nothing of non-evangelical Christians such as Catholics). The clear implication is that, for him and The Gospel Coalition, Calvinism is part and parcel of the gospel so that anyone who denies this (viz., that God sovereignly decreed sin and did not merely permit it) is not authentically Christians. What else is a reader to think?

Also, of course, this view, that God sovereignly decreed sin and did not merely permit it cannot escape making God the author of sin and evil. God could not have “sovereignly decreed” sin without rendering it certain. Why does Andrews not address HOW God rendered sin (i.e., the fall) certain? Virtually every Calvinist theologian I have read explains that God withdrew or withheld the grace he knew Adam and Eve would have needed not to sin. How else could God have guaranteed what he decreed would come to pass without actually forcing them to sin? And yet, non-Calvinists ask, how is that not tantamount to causing them to sin? And if sinning is what they naturally would do apart from a supernatural gift of grace, how was their nature “good?”

Then, of course, the biggest problem with Andrews’ (and most Calvinists’ view) of God’s sovereign ordaining of sin and evil is that sin and evil are no longer really bad. Andrews quotes Bavinck that God “willed it [i.e., sin and evil] so that in it and against it He might bring to light His divine attributes.” (p. 81) Really. Please. If that’s the case, then there is no getting around it that sin and evil are good because without them God’s glory could not be fully revealed. It’s only a baby step from there to “Those suffering in the flames of hell for eternity can at least take comfort in the fact they are there for the greater glory of God.” But it’s not even a baby step to belief that sin and evil are really good.

Of course, one traditional Calvinist way of getting around that is to say that the evil of a sinful act lies in the intention with which it is done. But, within a Calvinist doctrine of meticulous providence, even the “evil” intention had to be ordained and rendered certain by God. Then it, too, is not really evil but good.

I truly do not see how Calvinists like Andrews can cope with this conundrum. If this is true, then why not celebrate sin and evil and hell? They are God’s will and bring him glory. Why don’t Calvinists smile over them as God does (referring to Cowper’s hymn “God Moves In A Mysterious Way”—“behind a frowning providence he [God] hides a smiling face”).

This is a guest post written by one of my students–Austin Fischer.  As you can see, he’s particularly bright (and not just because he agrees with me about most things!) and articulate.  I think he makes some very good points about the controversy surrounding Love Wins here.  However, just because I post a guest essay here does not mean I agree with everything in it (the standard disclaimer!)

Love Wins? God Wins? 

#LoveWins

            As has been duly noted at this point, Love Wins has sparked a firestorm in the evangelical world because it has exposed some deep fissures. These fissures have been around as long as evangelicals have but certainly seem to be growing. In a lecture on universalism, Scot McKnight suggested that evangelicals have reacted with such vitriol towards the book because it threatens the very heart of the evangelical ethos, which (according to McKnight) is the belief that people need to be converted. As such, Rob Bell’s flirtation with universalism has threatened the importance of conversion and thus incurred the wrath of evangelicalism.

            Yet McKnight’s contention seems to make two questionable assumptions. First, it assumes there is a blanket evangelical rejection of the ideas in Love Wins. Second, it assumes that those evangelicals who are rejecting Love Wins are rejecting it for the same reasons.

Why Can’t We Agree On What Love Wins Is Saying?

            The first assumption is problematic on a couple of levels. First off, it seems implausible to say there is a blanket rejection of the ideas in Love Wins because there has been little consensus as to what exactly Love Wins is saying. There is an interesting dynamic at work here, because—to speak candidly—Love Wins is not a complex book. It’s not hard to follow and it doesn’t use big words. Bell doesn’t write sentences longer than six words. He writes. Like. This. So why can’t we come to a consensus on what Love Wins is saying? How can some people think the book teaches universalism and some think it doesn’t?

The answer is exceedingly simple: we’re not good readers. And the fact that we’re not good readers has nothing to do with inadequate education or IQ. It has everything to do with a growing trend in evangelical (and perhaps wider) culture towards sectarianism and the loss of moderation. Lots could be said here, but suffice to say there are fewer and fewer people trying to be in the center anymore. The center is seen as a weak place, a place lacking conviction, a place where the cowards huddle together and try not to offend anyone.

Not too long ago I was talking with a pastor about being a “moderate” Christian and he rebuked the very existence of such a thing: “When it comes down to it, I don’t think there are any moderates.” Hmm. When I asked him to substantiate the claim, his answer was telling: “Because even moderates are passionate about some things.” Apparently, a moderate is a person who isn’t passionate about anything…except everybody being happy. This moderate caricature is as pervasive as it is inaccurate. And while I don’t care to offer a full-blown definition of what it means to be a Christian moderate, I think it is helpful to say that to be moderate is to be passionately committed to meaningful conversations in pursuit of the truth. To be a moderate means you check the impulse to caricature, distort, talk over, and assume you know what someone else is saying. As such you can be a conservative moderate or a liberal moderate, a Calvinist moderate or an Open Theist moderate. Whatever.

We’re not good readers because we’re not good at being moderate. We don’t really want to listen to opposing ideas and we don’t want a real conversation. We think “we” have the truth and “they” don’t, so why have a conversation? Bluntly, if we find it difficult to have an actual conversation then it’s probably because we’re arrogant and ignorant, not informed.

So why can’t we come to a consensus on what Love Wins is saying? Because we don’t want to hear what it is saying. We just want to use it as a springboard into a monologue about why we’re right.

What Is Love Wins Saying?

This said, what is Love Wins saying? Like I said, it’s simple and really not that much different from what people such as C.S. Lewis, Moltmann, and Hans Urs von Balthasar have said; namely, in the end we can’t say anything too firm about the destiny of human beings other than the fact that God will do what God wants with us. Bell speculates over what God does indeed plan to do with us (i.e. giving us all eternity to allow God to save us…a flirtation with universalism) and that speculation is certainly fair grounds for conversation and criticism. Indeed a moderate would encourage such! But the fact that so few grasp this clear, simple thesis of the book is a sad indictment of the current evangelical climate. Like I said, we’re not good readers.

The second problem with the assumption is that there simply hasn’t been a blanket evangelical rejection of Love Wins. Some evangelicals agree with most, if not all, the book. This leads us to an examination of the second assumption: Are all evangelicals rebuking Love Wins for the same reasons?

Why is Love Wins Rejected?

            The second assumption—that all evangelicals are rebuking Love Wins because it questions the need for conversion—is problematic because evangelicals are so diverse. The primary example of this is seen in the variously labeled neo-Puritan/neo-Calvinist branch of evangelicalism, characterized by the theology of Jonathan Edwards (especially as articulated by John Piper), the preaching of Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler, Francis Chan, Tim Keller, and the influence of Al Mohler and company. To state the obvious, this branch of evangelicalism holds as fundamental numerous beliefs that stand in direct antithesis to any “free-will” branch of evangelicalism. As such, it should come as no surprise that while free-will and Calvinist evangelicals might both rebuke Love Wins, they don’t do it for the same reasons.

            My contention is that neo-Calvinist evangelicalism doesn’t rebuke Love Wins because it undermines conversion (I mean what could undermine conversion more than unconditional election!?), but because it doesn’t teach Calvinism. To put it another way, they are not rejecting Love Wins so much as they are rejecting anything that is not Calvinism.

            This is blatantly obvious if you’ve read any of the numerous books written in response to Love Wins, many of which are written by neo-Calvinists. Now to be clear, I’m not criticizing them for writing a response. That’s the moderate way! But what they and many others fail to perceive is that most of the ideas they critique in Love Wins are not critiques of universalism but of any sort of free-will theism. They are not criticizing universalism but basic free-will theism.

God Wins: A Case Study

            An excerpt from God Wins by Mark Galli[1] is helpful: “What is assumed in…Love Wins is that the human will is free, autonomous, and able to choose between alternatives. [Love Wins] assumes that the will is not fallen, that it needs no salvation, that it doesn’t even need help” (71). A number of things jump out. First, where does Love Wins assume that the human will is not fallen and does not need help? This is a massive indictment and if it were true then I would assume all free-will theists would join in the indictment. But where is it? Page number? Nope. See the above section on being bad readers.

            A second thing that jumps out is the lack of an acknowledgement of a mediating position; namely, that while the human will is naturally “turned in on itself” with a propensity towards evil, the grace (prevenient) of God heals our fallen will so that we can actually choose for God or against God. This idea—that prevenient grace heals our fallen will to the point that we can indeed make a decision for or against God—is not universalism. It is classical free-will theism, the predominant Christian understanding of the relationship between human will and divine grace for two thousand years (see Against Calvinism by Dr. Roger Olson for substantiation of this claim).

Does God Give Us What We Want?

            Related to this is Galli’s critique of Bell’s central assertion in Love Wins: in the end, God gives us what we want. In The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis suggests that the doors of hell are locked from the inside. That is, those who end up in hell are there because they wanted hell and not because God was keeping them out of heaven. God has forgiven everyone (or made forgiveness possible for everyone) through the cross so that salvation, redemption, and reconciliation are possible for every last person and thing in the cosmos. In my view, all Bell does is pick up this line of thought. It’s not universalism. Lewis was clearly not a Universalist and believed many would indeed choose hell (especially the theologians!). It is, I think, a fair and plausible explanation of what Scripture tells us about God and his purposes for the world.

            But according to Galli, the idea that God gives us what we want would be “very bad news” (because he mistakenly dismisses the notion of prevenient grace wherein our wills can be healed so that we can indeed want God), and on top of that it’s unbiblical. He tries to substantiate his claim by citing all the texts that talk about how we’re slaves to sin, insinuating they prove God doesn’t give us what we want because all we would want is sin. In doing so he makes the glaring mistake of failing to acknowledge the basic free-will explanation of such passages. At the risk of monotony, free-will theism holds that we are indeed enslaved by sin but by God’s grace our will is healed so that we can indeed make a decision for God. In other words, according to free-will theism, God does indeed give us what we want, granting us the grace so that we can make a decision for or against God.

            Along these lines, to say that the idea that God gives us what we want is unbiblical is, to a free-will theist, itself unbiblical. I would argue that every single time Scripture admonishes us to repent or perish, to do evil or good, to obey God or disobey, to follow or not to follow Jesus, it is telling us that God gives us what we want. And to put it mildly, there are a lot more verses in the Bible about this than there are about our will being fallen, though both are true and easily reconciled by free-will theism.

Seen in this light, I think God giving us what we want is one of the most foundational and often-revealed truths in the Bible. It doesn’t necessitate some mushy sentimentalism in which God exists to serve our every need and wouldn’t criticize Hitler for beating the Virgin Mary. Nope. It just means that our God’s peculiar way of dealing with his creation is not to give it what it deserves. Rather it is for him to take what we deserve upon himself, up to the cross and down into the grave to ensure that none of us have to get what we deserve. We can get what we deserve if we so choose, but we don’t have to. And God doesn’t do this because he has to. He does it because he wants to, which is the great mystery we call love. Love wins? Yep. God wins? Yep.

Conclusions

            So what does Love Wins say? I think it says that in the end the only thing we can be sure of is that God will do whatever he wants with us, and that Jesus and the Bible teach us that what God wants to do with us is let us have what we want. In other words, in the end God lets us choose between heaven and hell. That sounds pretty orthodox to me. Now to be sure, Bell does flirt with universalism, so fire away with criticism at that. But the problem is that lots of the “evangelical” criticism isn’t that Bell teaches universalism: it’s that he doesn’t teach Calvinism.

            So if the problem with Love Wins is it teaches that God graciously gives us the chance to choose between heaven and hell, then I think evangelicals should have a problem with those who have a problem with Love Wins. In the end, God does give us what we want. I can’t think of anything more evangelical…or biblical.

In the Al Mohler article I previously discussed in The Southern Seminary Magazine Mohler argues that hell is part of the gospel.  I disagree.

NOW, before someone goes off on a disinformation campaign to smear me (and by extension my denomination and the institution where I teach) let me be crystal clear: I DO BELIEVE IN HELL.

Contrary to many (notice I said “many”) fundamentalists and neo-fundamentalists, not everything revealed in Scripture or believed and taught by Christians throughout the ages is part of the gospel.  I am using “gospel” here in the traditional sense of the message of good news about Jesus Christ and salvation by grace alone.  I do not agree with those who think or claim that “the gospel” is another word for “what authentic Christianity teaches.”  Authentic Christianity teaches many things that are not part of the gospel itself–such as the Trinity.

Emil Brunner rightly argued in his Dogmatics that the Trinity is a defensive formula and not part of the kerygma–the gospel.  That does not make the Trinity unimportant; as a defensive doctrine it is necessary to protect the deity of Jesus Christ and the unity of God (monotheism)–two higher order revealed truths.  But the Trinity itself–as a doctrine–is nowhere spelled out in Scripture or revealed there; it is a doctrine worked out by early Christians in conflicts with denials of either monotheism or the deity of Jesus Christ (or the distinction between Jesus Christ and God the Father).

So what is “the gospel?”  Well, to find out again I read all the sermons recorded in Acts–by Peter, by Stephen, by Paul.  Not one directly refers to hell.  (I believe one mentions hades but not in a way that equates it with hell as “gehenna” or the lake of fire.)  Do I think the apostles didn’t believe in hell?  Not at all.  I’m sure they did.  BUT IF HELL IS PART OF THE GOSPEL why do they never mention it in their presentations of the gospel?

Sure, someone might point out rightly that it is implied in the apostles’ statements about judgment and exclusion from the people of God.  But that’s not the same as explicitly stating it which is what I take it people who insist hell is necessary to the gospel imply.  In other words, I am arguing that a complete account of the gospel of Jesus Christ can be given without mention of hell (or the Trinity).

On a different tack, let me offer a thought experiment to make my point.  SUPPOSE (I know some of you won’t) that hell disappeared from the Christian vocabulary, but everything else remained.  Would the gospel then disappear with hell?  Hardly.  The New Testament contains some presentations of the gospel; most do not mention hell.  Here’s one from 1 Timothy: “Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory.” (3:16)

So what are the necessary parts of the gospel (as opposed to a full account of Christian doctrine)?  Well, certainly that Jesus Christ died for our sins so that we may be forgiven by God and reconciled with him and given eternal life because of his resurrection and our faith in him.  The “gospel” should be brief–something that can be memorized and written on a three-by-five card.

To continue the thought experiment.  If hell disappeared from Christian consciousness would the good news of Jesus Christ disappear with it?  How so?  I simply don’t get that.  Imagine (I know some of you will refuse even to imagine this with me imagining that I’m asking you to believe it which I’m not) that we know nothing of hell and therefore suppose that all people go to heaven.  Where would be the loss of “good news” in that?

In other words, what I am arguing is that hell is revealed in Scripture which is why we believe it, but we don’t believe it (or shouldn’t) because we think it is good news.  It’s very bad news (except in the sense that God lets us have our way which isn’t very good news in this case!).  It’s bad news not only for those who go there but also for God because it means God loses something; his perfect will is not done (because he permits that in his antecedent will–antecedent to the fall and sin).

Now, of course, if you’re a high Calvinist you’ll disagree.  And I think ONLY a high Calvinist can believe and say that hell is really, truly good news.  What do they mean?  They mean that hell is good news because it is necessary for the full manifestation of God’s glory–the complete revelation of all his attributes (as Jonathan Edwards argued).  But that can’t really be good news because it makes God a moral monster.

Hell cannot be part of the gospel IF the gospel is unconditional good news.  And the only way hell can be made compatible with the gospel as unconditional good news is to believe that it is “the painful refuge” God provides for those who refuse to be in his presence, worshiping him eternally (C. S. Lewis).  But hell does NOT have to be preached for the sermon to contain the good news that Christ died for sinners to enable them ALL (I said “enable,” not “assure”) to be saved.

So why believe in and teach the reality of hell if it isn’t part of the gospel?  Well, for the same reason we believe in and teach the Trinity–it’s either part of revelation or (as in the case of the Trinity) a necessary implication of what is revealed.  But there are many things revealed in Scripture that are NOT “the gospel”–unless you are going to claim that everything revealed is part of “the gospel” which would then mean that the apostle’s sermons in Acts were incomplete presentations of the gospel.

One of the hallmarks of fundamentalism (and neo-fundamentalism among postfundamentalist evangelicals) is the tendency to pack every Christian doctrine into the category of “the gospel.”  There is this tendency to equate “the gospel” with a systematic theology.  That is why many Calvinists (not all, of course) consider non-Calvinists “barely Christian”–because they think we deny something essential to the gospel.  That just reminds me of the old fundamentalists such as William Bell Riley (founder of the World Christian Fundamentals Association in 1919) who claimed that premillennialism is an essential part of the gospel!  I believe in premillennialism, but I would never, never claim it is part of the gospel just because I think it is revealed truth (or at least logically implied in what is revealed).

So, can a universalist who denies the reality of hell (or its everlastingness) still believe in and promote the gospel?  I’m sure that’s a question some are asking as they read this.  I believe (and I will attempt to prove it here at some time in the future) that Karl Barth was a universalist.  Anyone who would claim ON ANY OTHER ACCOUNT that Barth left the gospel out of his theology would, in my opinion, either be ignorant or asinine.  Barth was a powerful promoter of the good news of Jesus Christ.  So, yes, I believe a universalist can nevertheless believe in and promote the gospel.  What I do NOT think is that a universalist can be doing justice to the whole of what is revealed.

Hell is not part of the good news; it is its shadow.  My shadow is always there when I’m sitting or standing in light.  But my shadow is not me.  Anyone who would treat my shadow as part of me would be ludicrous.  I would say “Get away from me!” (if I thought they were serious).  So it is with hell.  It is the shadow of the gospel but not part of the gospel itself.

Now watch.  Some fundamentalist or neo-fundamentalist will take something I said here out of context and spread it around to claim that Roger Olson denies hell or the importance of hell.  They will do that NOT BECAUSE they really believe it but because they want to do damage to my reputation and to that of the institution where I teach.  This sort of thing (e.g., claiming I am an open theist because I defend open theists as not heretics) goes on all the time and I consider it a form of lying.  It’s only purpose is political–to promote their own organizational power at the expense of someone else’s.  I have made abundantly clear here that I believe in hell and nowhere have I said it is not important.  (If I were to stand in the light and not see my shadow I’d be very worried!  My shadow is evidence of my own substantial reality, but it is not part of me.  There’s a difference.)  Let me say right now that those who will no doubt claim here or elsewhere that I deny hell or demote its importance are either weak-minded or mean-spirited.  They should be ignored.

A publisher recently sent me an advance copy of what I take to be the first full book length response to Love Wins by Rob Bell and asked me to review it here.  I’m happy to do that.

The book is entitled God Wins: Heaven, Hell and Why the Good News is Better than Love Wins.  The author is Mark Galli, senior managing editor of Christianity Today magazine.  The book is published by Tyndale House Publishers.

I know Mark Galli and respect him highly.  I led a church-based discussion group in reading and discussing his book Jesus Mean and Wild.  We found it a bracingly helpful corrective to overly sentimental ideas of Jesus in much contemporary Christianity and folk religion.

Mark is a serious evangelical scholar with an irenic approach to controversial material.  While he takes on Love Wins with vigorous criticism, he is careful to give the author, Rob Bell, the benefit of the doubt as to his intentions.  In almost every chapter Mark says he thinks Bell does not intend errors he inadvertently promotes.

Before I interact with Mark’s book, let me say that you should read the book for yourself and not take my word for anything–except that it is a serious book deserving thoughtful consideration by both Bell’s critics and admirers.  (Here by “Bell’s” I mean Love Wins’.)

God Wins goes to great lengths to express agreement with much of Love Wins.  Mark does not sweepingly condemn the book or dismiss it as unworthy of consideration.  He has clearly taken the time to read it carefully and try to understand it fairly before expressing disagreement with it.  And his criticisms are, for the most part, generous toward the author.

However, God Wins pulls no punches.  Mark clearly considers it a dangerous book that will probably lead many readers astray–not from Christianity into atheism or anything like that but from a better focused and truer picture of God to a fuzzier and largely erroneous one.

Chapter 1 is entitled The Really Important Question.  There Mark argues that Bell misses the mark by raising too many questions about God that imply an attempt to interrogate God.  Mark says “as the Cross demonstrates, God takes us seriously.  He takes our sin seriously.  But he continues to show relative indifference to our questions.  He does not answer them to our intellectual satisfaction; he refuses to submit himself to our interrogations.” (14)

I wonder, however, whether Mark (I am not calling him “Galli” out of disrespect but because I know him personally and it would be awkward to call him by his last name when we are on a first name basis) is confusing interrogation of ideas about God with interrogation of God.  When I read Love Wins I did not sense Bell intending to interrogate God.  His questions, I thought, were aimed at traditional notions about God.

This first point gives me opportunity to say something about different interpretations of the same book.  Sometimes when I am reading Mark’s account of Bell’s book I feel like he read a different book than I did!  I get the sense that Mark felt things that I did not feel and that I felt things Mark (and others) did not feel.  I’m not trying to reduce interpretation to feelings.  I’m just saying that people often get a different sense about a book.  I thought Bell was reacting to what he perceived to be an overly harsh picture of God as a distant judge delighting in sending people to hell and to an all-too-common attitude among some Christians that hell is a good thing–as if we should celebrate every time we think someone goes there because it reinforces our sense of retributive justice.  So I filled in some gaps as I read, giving Bell the benefit of the doubt and taking for granted that he was trying to correct those images and was not trying to say everything one could say about the subjects.

I think Mark read the book differently–as Bell being seduced by a liberal approach to life and the world and God that places man at the center and God at the periphery.  One reason I didn’t think that is because almost everything Bell says about God and heaven and hell can be found in well-respected evangelical theologians or theologians most evangelicals respect like C. S. Lewis.  (Okay, I know Lewis wasn’t technically a theologian, but he wrote theology better than many professional theologians do!)  But my point is that I get it–Mark “sees” a gestalt, a pattern in Bell’s book I didn’t see.  We read the same book but saw it “as” different things.  I think that may be because Mark is a member of a denomination struggling with rampant liberalism in which conservatives (by which here I mean people who value traditional, orthodox, biblical Christianity) feel embattled.  I, on the other hand, have been beset by fundamentalists and aggressive neo-fundamentalist heresy-hunters.  So I read Bell as a fellow questioner of that kind of ultra-conservative Christianity whereas Mark read him, I suspect, as an unintentional ally giving aid and comfort to the liberals destroying his denomination.  Well, all that is surmise and guess work.  I just don’t know how else to make sense of how Mark and I read the same book and came away with such radically different interpretations.

So, where Mark saw Love Wins reveling in unaswered questions that attempt to put God in the dock, so to speak, I saw the book as simply challenging certain cherished but often unreflective assumptions about God among conservative Christians.

Chapter 2 is entitled Who Is This God?  The chapter’s thesis is that “Love Wins tends to come across as beautiful and exciting–but ultimately thin and sentimental.  It does not communicate the gravity, the thickness, the mystery of God.”  There I began to suspect that we are dealing with two different visions of God–one the hidden, mysterious, awesome and transcendent God of Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Edwards and Spurgeon (Mark quotes the latter two) and the other the very personal, intimate, loving and profoundly caring (for his creatures) God of the Greek fathers, Wesley and Moltmann.  Of course that’s a simplistic dualism.  But so is Mark’s.  In this chapter Mark posits two accounts of God–one is “God as agent” (bad, wrong) and the other is “God the Lover” (good, right).  The picture of God as agent puts humans at the center and views God primarily as existing to serve us and our needs.  The picture of God as lover puts the Trinity at the center and views God primarily as existing in and for himself as inner-trinitarian love that then overflows in grace to creatures.  Mark says “…only when we see God as Lover can we understand how God is more than mere Agent.  As wonderful as it is to experience the benefits of his grace and mercy, they should never be the focal point.  The minute they become the focus, they disappear.  It’s like happiness–make it your goal, and you’ll never reach it.  The blessings of life in Christ, like happiness, are the result of something else, something that has objectively happened–Christ’s death and resurrection.” (32)

I can’t imagine that Bell would disagree with that!  And my reaction to the dualism between “God as Agent” and “God as the Lover” is to ask why these have to be in conflict with each other?  I guess Mark is arguing it is a matter of which comes first.  Giving Bell the benefit of the doubt, I would say he would also put God as the Lover before God as Agent.  Perhaps he could have made that clearer in Love Wins.  Mark sees Bell as inadvertently making our experience of God’s blessings THE central feature of the gospel rather than secondary to God’s glorious nature and sacrifice for us in Jesus Christ.  In other words, Mark thinks Bell puts the accent on the subjective too much whereas the accent ought to be on the objective content of what God has done for us out of the inner resources of his own being in Jesus Christ.

Is this a case of wanting a book to be and do something it wasn’t designed to be and do?  In other words, might it be that Bell ASSUMES things Mark thinks he should STATE explicitly?  Every book begins with certain assumptions.  As an author I can testify to that.  I have often been criticized for not highlighting or underscoring something I THOUGHT I could take for granted and assume as common ground with my readers.

Mark ends chapter 2 with this summary statement of its point: “As great as forgiveness is, it is not our exceeding joy.  As wonderful as are the blessings of salvation, they are not our exceeding joy.  Our exceeding joy is God, the God who has brought us into his very presence through Jesus Christ.” (33)  Would Bell disagree with that?  I doubt it.  But I can’t be sure.  Maybe that’s Mark’s point–one can’t be sure, so Bell should have been more clear and explicit IF that’s what he believes.  On the other hand, perhaps Bell would argue (with some right, I think) that these two things should not be prioritized.  IF God withheld the blessings of salvation from us, we would have no reason to have exceeding joy in God.  We have exceeding joy in God for who he is and what he has done for us in Jesus Christ BECAUSE he has extended the benefits of his grace and mercy to us for our salvation.  Is there something wrong with looking at it that way?  Well, I suspect Jonathan Edwards and  John Piper would think there is.  But does Mark?  I don’t know.  I can only hope not.

Chapter 3 is entitled Becoming one again and is about God’s highest aim.  At least that’s what I think it is about.  It’s about several things.  But before I interact with the chapter’s content I have to comment on the “hook” at its beginning.  (Every chapter begins with a story which authors call a “hook”–something to lure readers further in.)  Mark confesses that when he was in college he went to see the movie The Summer of ’42.  I guess we’re about the same age!  (I thought so, but this pretty much proves it.)  That was the first movie I ever saw in a movie theater.  I snuck into it just to find out what was so awful and evil about movies in movie theaters.  (The church I grew up in wouldn’t even take our youth group to see a Billy Graham film shown in a secular movie theater!  We were taught that if Jesus returned while we were in a movie theater it wouldn’t matter what movie we were watching, we’d be left behind!)  You have to remember movies back then didn’t have ratings.  I remember watching some of the scenes through my fingers and fearing God was going to strike me dead just for seeing parts of them and hearing them!  Well, Mark’s story and mine are quite different, but I thought it was interesting that we both went to see The Summer of ’42 while in college!  Shame on him! 🙂

Back to the book.  In this chapter (Becoming one again) Mark rakes Love Wins over the coals (gently, of course) for neglecting (not completely denying) the substitutionary atonement model in favor of Christus Victor (which is not false but by itself inadequate) and for implying (not outrightly stating) that the main purpose of the life, death and resurrection of Christ was to maximize our fulfillment as persons through an experience of wholeness.  Mark says “…one cannot help but notice how relentlessly human centered these descriptions [of the cross and atonement] are.  The Cross becomes about our getting inspired and being sustained.  Salvation becomes about something that satisfies our deepest longings.” (52)  Then, “It’s not just about what we experience but about what God has done.”

Mark’s point seems to be that Love Wins neglects the objective dimension of the cross in favor of the subjective dimension.  Toward the end of the chapter Mark accuses Love Wins of downplaying God’s justice in the cross.  “The book is so anxious to show that love wins, it fails to appreciate how important it is that justice also wins.” (57)  There may be some truth to that.  But, again, I wonder how much of this is due to Bell’s tendency to react to overly harsh, one-sided depictions of God’s wrath in some fundamentalist circles.  Nowhere does he deny that the cross displays God’s justice or wrath.  I guess Mark wants that highlighted more and perhaps Bell should have done that.  I admit that when I read Love Wins I took some things for granted.  I took it for granted that Bell believes the cross was God’s judgment on sin as well as the ultimate expression of God’s love.  How could the cross BE an expression of God’s love if it isn’t also a display of God’s justice?

Mark’s major point in this chapter is, I think, that Bell’s book simply doesn’t do justice to the fullness of the cross and resurrection event.  He reads Love Wins as implicitly if not explicitly playing up the benefits of the cross and resurrection for our human fulfillment and downplaying (not explicitly denying) the propitiatory aspect of the satisfaction of God’s righteousness by the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ on the cross.  But perhaps one could point to many conservative treatments of the cross event and say that they leave out entirely God’s concern for our well-being because he loves us.  Some theologians and pastors have said recently that Christ died “for God” and not for us.  Was Bell perhaps reacting to that kind of one-sided treatment of the cross?  Could Mark give Bell credit for wanting to balance such popular treatments of the atonement with an emphasis on God’s real care and concern for our fulfillment because he loves us?

Chapter 4 is entitled The Wonder of Faith.  Here is where I almost stumbled.  By that I mean I almost slapped the book shut and put it down thinking I couldn’t say anything kind about it.  But I’m glad I persevered and even read it twice.  In the end I still struggle with it, but I think Mark is trying to give a balanced account of God’s sovereignty and human freedom.  I’m not sure he succeeds, but few do!

Mark accuses Love Wins of focusing too much on human freedom as free choice.  Interpreting Bell’s book as semi-Pelagian, Mark says “This is precisely the problem with Love Wins and with any belief system that ultimately says that faith is left completely in the hands of sinful and fickle people.  That is not good news.”  (66-67)  He’s right about that–except that I’m not entirely convinced Love Wins intends that.  Where I think Mark may be interpreting Love Wins too harshly is when he writes that “What is assumed in this entire discussion in Love Wins is that the human will is free, autonomous, and able to choose between alternatives.  The discussion assumes that the will is not fallen, that it needs no salvation, that it doesn’t even need help.  It assumes that human beings are unbiased moral agents who stand above the fray and make independent decisions about the most important matters.”  (71)  Wow.  If that’s true, then Love Wins is heretical!  But I’m not convinced it’s true.  Now I’m going to have to go back and re-read Love Wins in this light to find out.  This is certainly not how I read the book.  But, again, maybe I was giving Bell the benefit of the doubt and reading prevenient grace into his discussions of free will (e.g., where he talks about God giving us what we want–even hell).

I thought Mark was going off on a Calvinist rant against anything that smacks of Arminianism until I came to this paragraph: “And that’s the gospel.  Not that we have an innate free will, but that God in his freedom came to us to rescue us from spiritual slavery.  Through the work of Jesus on the cross, and through the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit, our wills are liberated.  Then and only then can we actually recognize Christ, his love, his forgiveness, his grace.  Then and only then can we finally respond in faith.” (72)

I can only say “Amen!” to that.  And I say amen as an Arminian.  That expresses perfectly what Arminians believe.  My question is whether Bell would disagree with that paragraph.  I hope not and I think not.  But clearly Mark, an astute reading with profound acumen, thinks so.  I hope he’s wrong.

But here and there throughout this chapter there are hints of something more than classical Arminianism.  Mark says on page 65 that God sometimes makes it impossible for people to believe.  And he leaves open the question of whether God withholds himself from some people (reprobation?).  But if it is Calvinism it’s soft compared to Piper or Sproul.  I can agree with at least ninety percent of this chapter, but I wonder if Bell would disagree with any of it?

Again, is this a case of an author taking something for granted, knowing his readers are evangelicals and therefore probably already conditioned to believe that God is sovereign in salvation (at least to the extent that salvation is God’s initiative and not ours)?  Clearly Mark thinks Bell shouldn’t take that for granted and maybe that he doesn’t even believe it himself.  When I read Love Wins I took for granted that Bell believes our ability to accept God’s gracious offer of salvation in Jesus Christ is grace-enabled.  Perhaps I was wrong.  But is it wrong to give an author the benefit of the doubt?

Chapter 5 is entitled The Point of Heaven.  There Mark repeats his concern that Love Wins’ main emphasis is on human fulfillment and enjoyment rather than on God.  He criticizes Bell for neglecting the biblical dimension of worship in heaven in favor of emphasis on humanization.  Again, when I read Love Wins I took for granted that Bell believes we will worship God in heaven and was simply trying to open some new possibilities about our continuing spiritual growth in heaven.  And that he was trying to overcome the all too common folk religious idea that in heaven we will be something other than human because humanness is intrinsically evil.  (As a professor of theology for almost 30 years I can tell you that is a common belief among young evangelicals!)

Chapter 6 is entitled Hell and Judgment.  There, among other criticisms, Mark accuses Love Wins of implying, if not outrightly saying, that people in hell may have a chance to leave and go to heaven.  I did think Bell was suggesting that in Love Wins.  But so was C. S. Lewis in The Great Divorce.  In fact, I read Love Wins as simply restating much of what is in that book so beloved by many even conservative evangelicals!  Mark doesn’t see any biblical warrant for that and neither do I.  It is sheer speculation based on the character of God.  But Bell would simply ask if God is love and “love” means anything similar to what our highest ideas of love based on Scripture itself (e.g., 1 Cor. 13) how could God ever completely give up on anyone?  Mark raises some valid questions and concerns about that speculation.  But I’m not with him in his criticism that if people can go from hell to heaven it is necessarily the case that people could go from heaven to hell.  That overlooks deification–not just an Eastern Orthodox idea.  Wesley believed in it and used it as the reason why the redeemed will not be able to sin in heaven even thought they will still have free will.

Chapter 7 is entitled The Bad News: Universalism.  That’s an intriguing title and you should get the book and read the chapter for yourself.  I’ll just say that I agree that universalism is bad news.  But perhaps not for the same reason Mark thinks it is.  But my main concern with this chapter is that Mark, like many serious theologians in the Reformed tradition, seems to confuse freedom with free will in non-Reformed theologies.  What I mean is, he/they think we non-Reformed evangelicals (Arminians, Anabaptists) identify freedom with free will.  We don’t.  I don’t know about Bell.  Perhaps he does confuse or identify them.  I hope not.

Let me explain.  As Mark helpfully points out, true freedom is NOT having free choice.  True freedom is being what God intends for us to be–his faithful creatures restored in his image and likeness glorifying him.  Arminians agree with that.  But we don’t have that right now.  What we do have right now is free will–a gift of God’s prevenient grace whose purpose is to be used to cooperate with God’s renewing and redeeming grace to arrive at true freedom–something God wants for us but will not impose on us.  So free will is not true freedom.  But it is real.  True freedom is yet to be even though we may, by God’s grace, taste it here and now.

Mark thinks Bell revels too much in free will and confuses it with true freedom.  I hope not.  I didn’t get that sense from Love Wins.

The final chapter, Chapter 8, is entitled The Victory of a Personal God and this review is getting too long.  I would be surprised if anyone read this far (except Mark)!  I hope some will, but I’d better close or nobody, maybe not even Mark (!) will read on.

Let me wrap up.  I get the feeling that Mark wants Love Wins to be something that wouldn’t have gotten any attention at all–a rehearsal of traditional evangelical theology.  Perhaps he’s right.  Perhaps nobody should offer up anything else.  (I’m not saying Mark says that, but I wonder how far one could stray from it without being criticized.)  On the other hand, I think Love Wins does push the envelope of evangelical theology.  I don’t think it strays into heresy or even flirts with it, but it does intend to shock people out of their dogmatic slumbers into thinking hard about what they believe and it does intend to present them with some possibilities that are outside the evangelical mainstream.  How much Bell himself is committed to those possibilities remains something of a mystery, I think.

The strange thing is this.  I find myself agreeing with BOTH BOOKS!  How can that be?  I don’t mean I agree with everything in both books. That would land me in sheer contradiction.

To explain, let me once again appeal to something Karl Barth said.  Two of Barth’s interpreters had an argument about Barth’s belief about God in himself versus God for us.  Barth said both were right–vis-a-vis the extremes they were using Barth to fight against (one of which was Bultmann and I forget the other one).  Both couldn’t be right.  But both could be right vis-a-vis the perspectives they were using Barth to contradict.  Could it be that Bell is right (not wholly or completely but overall and in general) as an antidote to traditional “Sinners in the hands of an angry God,” hellfire and damnation, “let’s take delight in all those sinners going to hell” fundamentalist folk religion.  Could it be that Mark is right (not wholly or completely but overall and in general) as an antidote to serious lacunae in Bell’s theology brought about by his concern to correct extreme views of God’s wrath and hell?

In other words, would Bell perhaps have Mark’s perspective if he were in Mark’s place–trying to preserve biblical faith in a denomination in serious decline due to rampant liberal theology?  And would Mark perhaps have Bell’s perspective if he were in Bell’s place–trying to hold out a vision of God’s love in an evangelical world still fraught with hellfire and damnation preachers of God’s arbitrary sovereignty who sends people to hell for his glory?  Well, maybe not.  And I suspect both authors will think I’m belittling them which is not my intention.  I take them both seriously.  I just wonder if they are both right given their contexts and perspectives?