The Missiological Case for Hell

Last updated on: March 31, 2011 at 3:41 pm By Fred Clark

One of the common, but strange, responses to Rob Bell’s infamous lack of enthusiasm for eternal torture has been what we might call the Missiological Case for Hell. This case was articulated recently by Russell Moore, dean of the school of theology at Southern Seminary, during a Team Hell Strategy Session at Al Mohler’s Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. The (Southern) Baptist Press summarizes Moore’s remarks on the Missiological Case for Hell: Bell’s view of salvation, Moore said,... Read more

The three-step test for inflation

Last updated on: March 30, 2011 at 2:12 pm By Fred Clark

David Leonhardt writes about the irrational inflation fears of the Federal Reserve and the enormous human toll of policies driven by such fears. The New York Times headlined his piece “As Economy Sputters, a Timid Fed,” but it may as well have been titled, “Why Do Federal Reserve Officials Hate Working People?” The recovery looks uncertain, and the job market remains weak. Even if job growth were to accelerate sharply in coming months, the economy would be years away from... Read more

Vonnegut on VHS

Last updated on: March 30, 2011 at 12:58 pm By Fred Clark

So I’ve got this decades old VHS tape of a PEN conference taped off of PBS ages ago. It’s got some nice readings from John Updike, Woody Allen and Alice Walker. It’s got John Irving reading an excerpt from his memoirs about the death of his old classmate Russell in Vietnam after Russell “lied about his height” to get into the Army (that story eventually was embellished into my favorite Irving novel). But the real treasure on that VHS tape... Read more

TF: The President's Plane Is Missing

Last updated on: March 28, 2011 at 8:37 pm By Fred Clark

Tribulation Force, pp. 356-362 One of the questions any storyteller must answer before tackling an epic tale of global disaster is the matter of perspective and point of view: Big Picture or little picture? Will the focus be on the halls of power where the full scope of the problem is laid out in detail, or will the focus be on an average person struggling to cope despite a lack of information about what’s really going on? Any worldwide, massive... Read more

No! Not … the comfy chair!

Last updated on: March 26, 2011 at 4:13 pm By Fred Clark

By this point, I’ve come to expect the Spanish Inquisition. This is how things work in the evangelical subculture, where stridency is rewarded with prominence. You invite suspicion, inquisition and spontaneous catechism whenever you quote anything from the Bible that’s outside the usual limited parameters — such as anything it says in hundreds and hundreds of passages about wealth and possessions and the poor. You can expect the same thing whenever you question any of those things that everybody seems... Read more

That chair doesn't belong in this play

Last updated on: March 25, 2011 at 2:15 pm By Fred Clark

Playwright David Mamet, from the essay “Realism” in Writing in Restaurants: In general, each facet of every production must be weighed and understood solely on the basis of its interrelationship to the other elements; on its service or lack of service to the meaning, the action of the play. A chair is not per se truthful or untruthful. That one may say, “Yes, but it is a chair, an actual chair, people sit on it and I found it in... Read more

I Am what I Am

Last updated on: March 25, 2011 at 6:30 am By Fred Clark

“Later, I went back and looked at it and realized that the walrus was the bad guy in the story and the carpenter was the good guy. I thought, oh … I picked the wrong guy. I should have said, ‘I am the carpenter.’ But that wouldn’t have been the same, would it?” “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow,” Soggy Bottom Boys “I Am a Pilgrim,” The Lost Dogs “I Am a Rock,” Simon & Garfunkel “I Am Always... Read more

Smaller government, smaller dreams, smaller people

Last updated on: March 24, 2011 at 6:28 pm By Fred Clark

The Weather Channel last night failed in its duty to help me drift off to sleep, instead showing a fascinating documentary on the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. I was dimly aware of the historical fact that such a storm had occurred, and recalled seeing it at the top of those grim lists of American natural disasters, but I hadn’t ever heard a complete telling of this story. And I had never been even dimly aware of the remarkable story of... Read more

Nice is different than good: Al Mohler and Little Red Riding Hood

Last updated on: March 24, 2011 at 2:22 pm By Fred Clark

Civility does not mean, primarily, being nice. It means, foremost, being honest. Without a shared commitment to truth, there can be no civility. Pretending that one is trying to be nice while dripping with condescension and scorn is not compatible with civility. Particularly when this faux-politeness is all in the service of distorting another’s words — creating a mocking effigy of their argument, then criticizing that effigy for being so crudely drawn. The great thing about the evangelical subculture is... Read more

Libya: More questions than answers

Last updated on: March 23, 2011 at 5:18 pm By Fred Clark

On the question of international intervention in Libya I’m afraid I can’t offer any deep insights or unique wisdom. I have read numerous arguments expressing support or reluctance about this engagement and, unfortunately, I have found both sets of arguments compelling. I’ll list some of those in a bit, but first let me try to explain how I’m trying to go about thinking about this. I try to view military action primarily through the lens of just war theory. That... Read more