ach age would fain have its own gospel, and the present is not behind hand in the desire to be its own prophet. Many are ready to help in this presumptuous design.
Certain divines attain to eminence by undermining the gospel they pretend to defend, and forging new theories upon the anvils of their own fancy. Men who would never have been known if they had acted honestly have gained a cheap notoriety by vending heresy, and yet wearing the garb and eating the bread of orthodoxy.
The most fashionable form of this evil just now is the production of novelties with regard to the future punishment of the wicked. False prophets prophesy smooth things, and talk of a larger hope which being interpreted is this, that men may live very much as they like; but some time or other, and somehow or other, character will cease to operate upon destiny, and the righteous and the wicked will stand on a par. This is the old doctrine of falsehood with which the sinner blesses himself in his heart, saying, "I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart."
The punishment of sin has been doubted from the very beginning. The chief of all subtle thinkers said in the garden of Eden, "Ye shall not surely die." By this larger hope, insinuated rather than boldly stated, the serpentine philosopher tempted the woman, and ruined our race. Pleased with his success, he continues to use the same artifice, asserting either that sin is trivial, or that penance can remove it, or that hell is temporary, or that the soul will be annihilated, or some other form of the same radical lie. His perpetual cry is, "You shall not surely suffer what God threatens; you may sin, and yet there is a hope larger than the revelation of Jesus Christ, wider than the Savior has proclaimed."
In this refuge there is no Christ, and no faith in him, and assuredly there is nothing in it that conduces to holiness. Mark its influence wherever it is received.
When any of our friends embrace the novel theology, do they become more devout, more earnest, more gracious, more holy, as the result of it? I think not. Are these the persons who make our prayer meetings a power? Are these the winners of souls? Are these the men who speak much of Jesus, and live in daily fellowship with him? Do we see them more careful to avoid conformity to the world?
Our witness is that the consequences are the reverse. Did you ever hear of a man who was converted from vice by hearing that sin would be lightly punished, and who, in proportion as he grew purer in life, grew more heterodox in his views? Such an instance would be a rarity, if indeed it ever existed; but when a man who holds orthodox doctrine backslides and declines, as a general rule he finds it convenient to adopt some novel hypothesis, in order that he may feel comfortable in his sin. IS it not so? So far as my observation goes, these modern notions go with looseness of life, with worldliness of heart, with decay of prayerfulness, and with backsliding from the living God, and as you lay this line and plummet to them it will soon be seen that they are refuges of lies.
At any rate, sirs, suppose your larger hope should turn out to be correct, in what respect will the orthodox be the losers? But suppose your larger hope should turn out to be a mere delusion, what will become of you who venture your all upon it? We are in any case upon the safe side of the hedge, and this is no small advantage when the weightiest interests are at stake. Suppose there shall be no hell, if I am a believer in Christ it matters not to me; but suppose there is and there is—then you who are unbelievers are in an evil plight.
If you do not catch this will-o'-the-wisp of a larger hope, as I believe you never will, then where are you? It behoves every man not only to make sure, but to make doubly sure. About the soul we want the utmost certainty. I would counsel you to dig deep, and see what you are resting on. I would have you make sure that you do not permit a falsehood to lie like a worm at the root of your hope.
Seek to know the reason for your building on Christ, and when you have ascertained that, then look for God's warrant for placing stone upon stone in the upbuilding, and without this do not rest. Nothing but divine authority ought to content you in the business of eternity.
The views and hypotheses of the learned Dr. Somebody are of no value to me, for I can theorize for myself if I have a mind to. I want fact and certainties, for I dread every refuge of lies.
What I think our constituency was guilty of in that case is overkill. There might have been select spokesmen put forward from within our constituency, and they would be told to go to it. But we had too many people on the attack; too many people going for the jugular, and our movement displayed its unlovely side.
Challies' co-host, David Murray, quickly agreed, suggesting that once Challies and Kevin DeYoung had posted their reviews of the book, "all that needed to be said had been said."
Murray: "Tim, what do you think?"
Challies: "Yeah, I would tend to agree. . . . there was a little too much being said."
Professor Stewart then elaborated:
What does [our use of new media] display? What it can display is that we are ungracious. That we pile on. I like to think of what happened to Rob Bell in football terms. When the whistle is blown there's not to be any more tackling.
I had a few thoughts in response to this exchange:
Of course I disagree strongly with Professor Stewart. In the first place, the response to Bell's book was hardly "a display of our disunity." The reviews of that book from the conservative and Reformed districts of the blogosphere reflected the strongest evangelical consensus I've seen since the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy disbanded. The only significant dissenting opinions were early complaints that Justin Taylor had jumped the gun, the critics were being too harsh, and other similar shopworn scoldings, mostly from Bell's own fan-base, erstwhile Emergents, and other espousers of postmodern values.
It's hard to get evangelicals exercised about any point of doctrine nowadays. To scold them for supposedly overreacting at the rankness of Bell's damnable heresy strikes me as counterproductive—dangerously so.
The notion that the Reformed blogosphere should be regulated like an episcopal body, so that certain designated spokespersons would be appointed by an oligarchy, a college of cardinals, a blog-Pope (or whatever) and "told to go to it"—with the rest of us being instructed to shut up—is a Really Bad Idea.
Perhaps the main deficiency in the Reformed blogosphere's response to Bell's universalism is the speed with which the scandal blew over. The whole matter is already being treated as yesterday's news, as if the danger were past. Let's not forget that Arianism made most of its gains in the two or three decades after Arius's theology was categorically condemned by the Nicene council. There were many in those days who accused Athanasius of "overkill" because of his polemical persistence against Arius. (In fact, just about everyone complained that Athanasius was too relentless in his condemnation of Arius.) They were dead wrong.
In my estimation, one of the most troubling characteristics of the neo-Reformed is the way so many work so hard to cultivate a culture of artificial collegiality, courting the world's admiration and the academy's esteem. Let's not encourage them in that. We need to be more concerned about declaring the truth and refuting worldly wisdom. Time Magazine's judgment about whether we are open-minded enough, diverse enough, or winsome enough is not a good barometer of how we're doing in the realm of apologetics.
I also disagree with the insinuation that the early critiques of Bell were sufficient and the later ones superfluous. Justin's initial post hit in February before anyone else's. Judging from the sheer volume of comments, that was actually the post that seemed to stir the most ire. John MacArthur didn't touch the subject until more than a month later, but he wrote an extended series of posts that added up to one of the more complete analyses of Bell's error. The discussion in the combox at GTY's blog proves that "all that need[s] to be said" in response to Bell's book has not been said even yet. (I'd hate to think someone thinks MacArthur should have held his peace just because a couple of well-known bloggers had already written fifteen paragraphs or so).
The hell debate has been brewing among evangelicals at least since Edward Fudge wrote The Fire that Consumes in 1982. It's not going away soon.
The debate Rob Bell has provoked is not a game or a merely academic discussion. No whistle has blown; the down is not over. Bell has not retracted or recanted so much as a single sentence. His book is still selling briskly. If there ever is a time when "piling on" is appropriate, it's when Christ's teaching is being attacked so wolfishly. The suggestion that it's unsportsmanlike for too many people to comment is like saying David "displayed his unlovely side" when he whacked Goliath's head off. After all, he had already rendered Goliath unconscious! Was it "fair play" to go for the jugular (literally) while the giant was thus incapacitated?
Controversy, though always unpleasant, is sometimes necessary, and it can even be good and beneficial. The idea that controversy is always evil is a falsehood that is as full of mischief as any heresy.
In short, the suggestion that the Reformed blogosphere's response to Bell's awful screed was an "overreaction" is the wrong message to be sending evangelicals, who already have an unhealthy obsession with what the secular world thinks of them, an exaggerated estimate of the importance of academic respectability, a postmodernized concept of "cordiality," an irrational fear of speaking the truth plainly, and an unholy timidity when it comes to taking unpopular stands against politically correct but erroneous beliefs.
Yes, I did write Tim Challies privately and express all of these concerns before blogging about my disagreement with his podcast.
Our "disagreement" is not as wide as some might think. Tim is frequently embarrassed by the half-cocked fusillades that regularly spew forth from certain self-styled "discernment" bloggers. He wrote an excellent book on true discernment, which I fully endorse. I share his horror over so many self-styled "discernment ministries" that are neither truly discerning nor edifying to anyone. The horror is doubled when people who are put off by such side-shows refer to them as the "truly Reformed" (though many—most?—of them are not Reformed at all).
Still, I think a centralized committee directing the Reformed blogosphere is not going to alleviate that problem at all. (I'm not sure there is any easy answer to that problem in a free country with easy Internet access.)
I did not say (and certainly did not try to imply) that Tim Challies belongs in the category of "'neo-reformed' compromisers." Tim's podcast partner, David Murray, took my comments that way and thinks most of our commenters did too. I don't believe objective readers could possibly think that's what I was saying, but I'm happy to disavow the idea for the record.
From my point of view, Tim is sometimes squeamish about plain-speaking when he shouldn't be. No doubt from Tim's point of view, contributors at TeamPyro are too edgy at times. For the most part, however, we get along just fine. I certainly appreciate the role Tim has had in the blogosphere. He was blogging for many years before I started, and like most evangelical and Reformed bloggers, I have long regarded him as something of a role model.
Lastly, this is not the first time I have blogged about Tim's uneasiness with the role of the perennial critic. See this post from a couple of years ago.
Just one other thing: There's a parallel discussion going on at another blog,and Professor Stewart has weighed in over there. His comments are worth reading.
Back in 2008, you were working at Newsweek and your team of professionals decided to take on the question of marriage and whether or not it should be redefined. As I responded to you in full back then, I don’t have anything new to say on that subject, but I wanted to let you know I’m familiar with your work and your outlook on “Christian” things.
This month, TIME magazine has published its list of the 100 most-influential people in the world, and it’s an interesting compendium. From my desk, anyone who has heard of more than 30% of these people is probably a pretty avid world news buff. But as a list of people with substantial influence, that list can hardly be criticized for its inclusiveness or broad interest in how “influence” is demonstrated.
Rob Bell turns up on their list, and you’re the one who drafted his entry, crediting him for his contribution to Christian thought. Here’s what you said:
I particularly enjoyed the photo TIME included with your report as it included a subtle halo around Rob’s head, but I’ll bet you didn’t choose that photo. You did, however, choose to say something specific, and then adorn it with praise for Rob: a vexed church has wrestled with the question of hell for 2000 years.
I read that a few times in and out of context to make sure it's what you meant, and I'm convinced. So from my perspective, I only have one question for you: is it true?
What I am not going to do here is fall into the trap of arguing with you about it -- or arguing at you, since it's unlikely you'll respond to a Christian Lifestyle blog with fewer readers than Gismodo. But what I am going to do is think about that question for a moment in the hopes that others will join me in considering the matter.
How would we know the answer to that question? Is there a way to know whether or not the Christian faith (and specifically, the Christian church) has made any decisions about the doctrine of hell? If there's not, I think Rob Bell is actually a kind of snake-oil salesman -- because let's face it: he's portraying a doctrine of hell which he thinks other people ought to adopt. He's a partisan guy -- and we can see that in almost every interview he's done for his book so far. That is: he wants us to know that for certain the Greek word "Aeon" doesn't mean "forever and ever" (at least, not in reference to hell -- in reference to heaven he's convinced that the good stuff doesn't ever stop). He thinks that we do God a disservice by saying hell is punishment that lasts longer than the crime(s). He wants people to get a firm grip on the doctrine of hell -- and not fear it. We should embrace it as a commentary on what we do to ourselves.
What he doesn't want for them is a doctrine in which hell is an unquenchable verdict.
That's strange, isn't it -- if the story of salvation in the biblical discussion is, as you put it, contradictory, perhaps the problem is that Rob has put too fine a point on it. And if that's the case, I wonder why his influence is seen as so useful by yourself and by TIME.
So I ask you: is it true? If it is not in fact true, should you do anything about it?
Look: sometime around 60 AD, there was this fellow Paul -- he wrote a lot of books and letters in his day, so you may have heard of him. Anyway, around 60 AD he was rounded up by the religious leaders of his day, and by the Romans, and he was put on trial for what one account calls “serious charges,” but it was likely for sedition and upsetting the peace of the city of Jerusalem.
When Paul came up for trial, and he was asked to explain himself – to defend himself against the charges at-hand – he did a strange thing: he appealed to what actually happened to him. He said: “I am not insane, Most Excellent Festus. What I am saying is the sober truth. And King Agrippa knows about these things. I speak boldly, for I am sure these events are all familiar to him, for they were not done in a corner!”
For Paul, the question of who Jesus was, and what his purpose was on this Earth, was a question of truth -- of things not done in a corner which cause speculation or uncertainty but of things for which there are many witnesses.
But what is truth, Mr. Meacham? Is it something we need today, or is it something we have outgrown?
I ask that of you, and I leave it to you. I hope that there is something true, and that it finds you ready to receive it.
First of all, I wanted to thank you for giving me something to do from my flight back from Europe last Friday as my choices were looking rather bleak. In-flight movies were lame (except for the re-run of the Dark Knight, which of course I cannot pass by), and thanks to your new publisher, I had the Kindle version of your new book to keep me occupied. I had 9 hours to go over your new book, and I wanted to send you a note about it.
Before I get to the single bite of meat and the one french fry I wanted to add to the total conversation about your new book and your take on what constitutes the Christian faith, there’s a video out there from your friend Doug Pagitt which I wanted to bring to your attention.
It's an interesting reproach, but it also gives an insight into the way Doug (and I think you personally) receives and responds to criticism. One of the things I took away from your book is that you have a pretty wide net when it comes to the Gospel. Now by that I mean not that you take in all manner of things and call it the Gospel (which, maybe that’s true, but that’s for another day), but rather that you want the Gospel to cover everything that man does. In fact I think it’s totally fair to say that you think the Gospel does cover everything that man does, one way or another. You sum it up nicely when you say this in the Kindle version:
Right? In your view the unlimited love of the Father is for everyone and will be manifest for everyone because it’s His love, and not ours. Now, I bring that up in the context of your friend Doug to say this: you and Doug have this horrible problem when it comes to the kind of Christianity you think you are trying to explore and expand: you can’t live it.
See: if this is the kind of God there is, and the kind of Gospel there is, then your outburst in the promo video about whether we can know who is and is not in Hell (that is, your incredulity at someone who said that someone else is in Hell) which casts indignation and aspersions on that person is a contradiction of the Gospel you preach. If indeed the person who never hears the Gospel preached and who never knows for certain that Jesus is both Lord and Christ has nothing to fear from the Gospel, then I suggest to you that the person who thinks Hell is the place where people who reject Christ wind up also has nothing to fear from the Gospel – and your attitude toward him should be the same as your attitude toward others you perceive as unbelievers. And likewise, when Doug Pagitt get all frothy in the mouth because John Piper says you have exited orthodoxy with your promo video and your new book, why can’t he find the tentless love of God which he says works out for Buddhists and Muslims and atheists -- but for Dr. Piper? Why does he have to transgress the circles they both travel in to make a point of saying Dr. Piper is a very bad man?
The fun part would be to speculate on that – but that’s not why I’m writing. I leave it to you to speculate why the truth claims of some make you livid when you demand that truth claims should make no one angry or scared but only hopeful. That speculation would be profitable for you, I am absolutely certain.
Now, that said: your book.
Others have made much of it, so I’ll be brief. The only chapter worth going back to for me as I think about what I’d say in response to you, or (if we’re lucky) to open a discussion with you, is the chapter titled “Hell”. In it, you make three significant claims:
The OT does not mention Hell at all
There are only a handful of mentions of Hell in the NT (you say there are 12+2 mentions of Hell), and those are probably metaphors or object lessons and not references to a final, eternal place where God’s judgment is carried out.
Our modern view of Hell is a superstitious one based on “devious” “pagan” notions meant to control people.
For #1, I can take it or leave it – that’s a pretty shallow reading of the OT if you ask me, but it’s not any more shallow than any other one-paragraph summary of any topic which may or may not be in the Hebrew Scripture. I think it’s close enough to being true, and common enough in all kinds of commentaries, to be your part of a longer hermeneutical discussion, and something a reasonable person can stipulate without an onset of theological madness.
For #3, it’s an unsupported statement – you toss it out there as if there is a legion of theological, anthropological, and historical work in this field which just makes this common knowledge. I think it’s not entirely kosher to do that, but it doesn’t make you a liar. Maybe you’re just writing devotional literature where the broad brush is just fine because you’re not trying to really convince anyone. Maybe you’re just trying to draw a dividing line between pre-modern worldviews from what you have today, which I guess is more enlightened than Shakespeare, Augustine, and Luther. Again – I can take it or leave it. I disagree, but it’s not worth the academic battle of attrition that would have to ensue to show you that this is a poorly-imagined statement.
What I want to get serious about is #2 – that Hell is only mentioned a few times, and probably not as a place, in contrast to the place where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all dwell with God.
I think your assertion here tells us how you read the Bible. You say that the Bible only mentions Hell 14 times, but conspicuously-absent from your list are the passages where the end of those without faith and without Christ is discussed explicitly without saying, “and this, of course, is a place called ‘Hell’ which is a real place.”
For example, in Luke 6:46-49, Jesus himself says that those who come to him are like the man who builds his house on the Rock, which is therefore not washed away; there is another man who builds without a foundation, whose house falls immediately, and the ruin of his house is great. That has to be disturbing to you because it speaks to the fact that Jesus – in the great wisdom literature tradition – polarizes the issue of having faith in him. He is the one who makes out the proposition to be either/or, and that there are two groups of people in the ultimate tally. That theme comes up again and again in Jesus’ storytelling, but you don’t really go there to say that this is about how Jesus thinks about his Kingdom. And it's funny that in your view, all the Kingdom talk of Jesus doesn't set up the contrast between what is in the Kingdom and what is outside the Kingdom.
And that’s an important matter: what is the Kingdom like, right? Turns out, if you ask Jesus, in Luke 19:11-27, he tells us the parable of the 10 Minas. There are lots of conclusions to be drawn there, I think, but the first is that there are servants who the returning ruler will not receive – he will in fact punish them for being unfaithful. And I think you and I would identify those guys the same way: people who had the riches of Jesus who did not use them to bring great things back to Jesus. But the other is a stunning portrayal of what the Kingdom of God is like -- because after sorting out his own servants, the ruler then orders that all who opposed him from the far away country will be brought as a footstool under his feet. “Let them be slaughtered before me,” he says. That doesn’t sound very promising, does it? But "H-E-L-L" or "G-E-H-E-N-N-A" isn’t spelled out as a word there, so you have simply not included it. The same, I think, is true of Rev 20-21 where there is judgment and then some meet the same fate as Sin, Death and the Devil. The word “Hell” is missing, so these passages are missing from your system of references.
But even where Jesus does say “Hades”, in Luke 16, you don’t really tell the reader the right version of the story. The context of that story is the Pharisee’s love of money – not a socialist vision of the equality of man. And to that end, you dismiss or ignore that the man, there in agony in the afterlife, fears for his brothers and does not want them to suffer as he is suffering. You make it out to be a story of a man who wants others to serve him -- a point not at all in the context of the Pharisee's error!
So how can we receive that? In the very best case, maybe you just haven’t read all the NT, and therefore you may simply not know the NT. That’s forgivable – but you are writing a book here, and the least an author can do is to actually know what his source material says before he refers to it. I think, however that you have read the NT, and this simply shows how you are willing to treat it as a text – which is, without respect.
You know: if I read your book and made a case against it which says you don’t really even show the hope of the Gospel when in fact you have specifically spent a chapter on it, that’s simply disrespectful.
But maybe it’s more than that: maybe this speaks to us of how you’re willing to reason about the Christian faith and its message. See: the problem with the Scripture is that it is not written by us for our purposes. It’s written by God for His purposes, and in that it’s going to make all of us uncomfortable.
Let me admit to you that God’s Law makes me uncomfortable – both in the OT and the NT interpretations of it. I know that I am not the person who can keep even some of the Law. If the measuring stick is Jesus’ retelling of the law in the Sermon on the Mount, my score is zero. I have never done anything right – even when it looks pretty good on the outside. If it were up to me, we ought to find a way to read the Law as maybe good advice. Then we could aspire to it rather than be condemned by it.
But that’s me – maybe you don’t have a problem with the Law. But clearly: you have a problem with the Gospel. That is: you have a problem with the need for it. As I read you, all your real-world examples are about how Hell is what other people do to us. I should believe in hell because there are children maimed in war; I should believe in hell because there are rape victims; I should believe in hell because those who commit suicide have families. That is: the hell I should believe in is the one other people inflict on me. That’s how I know there is a hell: bad people make innocent people suffer.
But then when you retell the Rich Man and Lazarus this gets utterly inverted. See: if your reading of what Hell is holds up, the Rich Man put Lazarus in Hell. That’s the definition you build from real life: Hell is the bad things others do to us. But when Jesus tells the story, the one who did bad things winds up in Hell. To your credit, you don’t actually try to make Jesus’ version of Hell into the Hell you have already explained to the reader. But what you do make of Jesus’ version of Hell is not any better – because now you try to make this into a tale where Jesus tells us that those who do harm to others, and think selfishly, make their own hell. Really? Someone knows this for sure?
Here's how you set up the reader for your answer:
Let me say it frankly: this characterization is a slander to those who hold to the traditional, majority-held view of Hell. For example, the Southern Baptist Convention, for all its flaws, teaches a literal hell and is also one of the largest international providers of humanitarian relief – so much so that the Red Cross relies on them as first responders. But to see traditional religious people this way means that you have to give them credit for thinking in categories that are larger than the ones, frankly, you play at for those who read your books and listen to your sermons. They see traditional people as evil haters, and therefore you have to see them that way.
This goes back to my preface about you and your enthusiasm for God’s grace. It’s crazy that you can extend a hopeful view of the final destination of Gandhi – who, in spite of the movies, was not a ruler with very modern ideas of how to rule India – but you make out the kid with the “turn or burn” t-shirt to be some kind of thug? Why is it that all manner of people with real sociological -- and indeed: moral -- faults can get a pass from you, but that people who hold to an older and more-robust view of the Bible and the Gospel than you do have to get cast as intellectual hicks and people prone to uncivil behavior?
I’m at my normal 3-page limit, so I’ll close with this: one of the reasons Jesus was so hard on the Pharisees is that they had a tradition which they thought was greater than Moses – greater than the Temple, greater than what God actually wants from men, which you have framed in your own Sunday talks as the “greater matters” of “justice and mercy”, the greatest commandments to love God above all and your neighbor as yourself. To that end, they taught all kinds of things, and behaved in all kinds of ways which made them blind to Jesus and to dismiss Jesus and ultimately to hate Jesus – to the point of plotting to kill him.
And in your view of your message, you are keyed on the question of the greater things so that we do not miss them. But the greatest thing was not the Law: it was Jesus himself. It was his work on our behalf. When Peter knew Jesus was the Christ, Jesus started to tell him that he didn’t come to reclaim the throne of David: Jesus said that he had to suffer and die, and be raised on the third day.
For your own good, please think about this. What you are teaching now is, in the best case, a Christian-flavored secular Judaism. That is: you make Jesus a good rabbi and not a great savior. Repent of it, Rob: repent because there’s no shame in turning away from even decades of wrong teaching to turning over a new leaf and teaching that Jesus saves sinner from their own sins and from God’s displeasure if they repent and believe. That is actually the message of the NT, and it ought to be your message if you’re really concerned with the real people you meet every day.
Think about it, and thanks for your time. As always, I’m available at frank@iturk.com if have any questions.
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ach age would fain have its own gospel, and the present is not behind hand in the desire to be its own prophet. Many are ready to help in this presumptuous design.
ast week on 
The debate Rob Bell has provoked is not a game or a merely academic discussion. No whistle has blown; the down is not over. Bell has not retracted or recanted so much as a single sentence. His book is still selling briskly. If there ever is a time when "piling on" is appropriate, it's when Christ's teaching is being attacked so wolfishly. The suggestion that it's unsportsmanlike for too many people to comment is like saying David "displayed his unlovely side" when he whacked Goliath's head off. After all, he had already rendered Goliath unconscious! Was it "fair play" to go for the jugular (literally) while the giant was thus incapacitated? 
In short, the suggestion that the Reformed blogosphere's response to Bell's awful screed was an "overreaction" is the wrong message to be sending evangelicals, who already have an unhealthy obsession with what the secular world thinks of them, an exaggerated estimate of the importance of academic respectability, a postmodernized concept of "cordiality," an irrational fear of speaking the truth plainly, and an unholy timidity when it comes to taking unpopular stands against politically correct but erroneous beliefs.
