Francis Chan and Rob Bell: A good review of Francis Chan's book 'Erasing Hell'

In April I reposted a review of Rob Bell's book 'Love Wins' (follow the previous link to read that post).

Today I would like to repost a great review by invisibleforeigner of Francis Chan's book 'Erasing Hell'.

Last week I participated in a radio interview on this topic - there were three perspectives, a conservative, a moderate and my own. In my view Rob Bell does make some mistakes in his reasoning and presentation. However, the wonderful challenge that he raises must not be discounted! He reminds us that God cares about this world. He reminds us that our lives have consequences today (not just in the afterlife). He reminds Christians that we are called to be part of God's transforming, healing, and renewing mission for the earth and all that lives on it and in it.

Here is invisibleforeigner's book review of Francis Chan's book which seeks to present an alternative to Rob Bell's 'Love Wins'.

Francis Chan’s new book, Erasing Hell, written with Preston Sprinkle, clearly aims to respond to and refute Rob Bell’s Love Wins. While Erasing Hell is written in Chan’s annoying conversational style, which made it hard to take seriously, I was glad to see the extensive use of Bible passages, as well as a more in-depth look at the historical context of first-century Israel. Whereas Rob Bell seemed determined to avoid any definitive statements about hell or universalism, Francis Chan is not afraid to say what he thinks the Bible says about hell. He also sees fit to take unnecessary digs at more traditional, liturgically-heavy denominations: “If hell is some primitive myth left over from conservative tradition, then let’s set it on that dusty shelf next to other traditional beliefs that have no basis in Scripture” (16). This was, of course, an early signal that Chan’s understanding of hell ultimately comes down to how he reads the Bible.

While I admire his willingness to reconsider the doctrine of hell, Chan basically reaffirms the traditional understanding: it will be painful, most likely everyone who isn’t Christian will be there, and the punishment will not be corrective but retributive. The only thing he remains unsure about, in the end, is whether or not hell will be eternal. “While I lean heavily on the side that says it is everlasting, I am not ready to claim that with complete certainty” (86).

As I read the book, I realized that there were two main questions that any book on theology and doctrine should probably attempt to address. First, what does the Bible say about hell? Chan and his coauthor do an admirable job of trying to work through the scriptures. However, they don’t really address the issue that I think is deeper, and frankly, more interesting: Is the Bible the final word on this issue? The second question is far harder to answer, particularly if you are Protestant and like to emphasize sola scriptura. Chan will obviously answer yes, demonstrated by his emphasis on the Bible, and in particular on the words of Jesus.

If Chan is right, and if his reading of the Bible really is correct, there really isn’t much wiggle room. Ultimately, the answer for unanswerable doctrinal issues, such hell, becomes: first, God reveals himself in the Bible, and, second, “God has the right to do WHATEVER he pleases” (18). The lack of scriptural evidence for second chances for salvation after death, in particular, means that we have to at least provisionally conclude that those second chances don’t exist. Whatever injustice we see in this scheme of salvation cannot be answered on this earth, Chan says, because “It’s incredibly arrogant to pick and choose which incomprehensible truths we embrace” (136).

I found this answer, in the end, unsatisfying. God created us with reason and with intelligence, he gave us the Bible and tradition and human institutions, however flawed they may be, to struggle over critical issues. While ultimately we will probably say, as Job did, that we spoke of things too wonderful to understand, we should still speak of them. It’s not arrogant to find the traditional understanding of hell repugnant, and Chan’s ultimate dismissal of those who still find the Bible’s answer unsatisfying was disappointing. Simply because God is too big to grasp doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on either Rob Bell's book 'Love Wins', or Francis Chan's book 'Erasing Hell'.

Rob Bell - Love Wins

I picked up my copy of 'Love Wins' after I saw a young friend, Ryan Vermooten, reading it when I visited LA last week. Ryan is extremely contrarian. He has dreadlocks, multiple piercings and both his arms are works of contemporary art - I love looking at his tattoos! But, Ryan is passionate about Christ and the ways of Christ. He is doing his DTS (discipleship training school) with YWAM (Youth With a Mission - an international evangelical mission agency). In fact as I write this he is serving on a mission in Haiti - that's deep, sincere, Christ-like, commitment!

Perhaps, Ryan is the kind of person for whom 'Love Wins' was written? I have encountered many young people who are passionate about Christ and the ways of Christ, yet they are less passionate about the narrow theology and approach of traditional evangelical Christianity (particularly as it is expressed in the Western world).

Please take a few minutes to read Ryan's perspective on 'Love wins' here. It sat next to him as he typed this... It is awesome to see a person who loves Jesus think so deeply and critically about our faith, the contemporary debates within the faith, and about ways in which we cultivate an authentic witness to the person of Christ!

I will start reading the book this weekend and then let you know what I think about it. The review below has been quite helpful in framing my approach to the book.

invisibleforeigner:

I had been eager to pick Love Wins up for while. I’ve read both Velvet Elvis and Sex God, and found both simplistic and boring, but I figured a book about an evangelical universalist understanding of hell might be interesting. Once I got past the strange prose, the book was engaging, and I can see why evangelicals are up in arms about this issue.

Love Wins asks a lot of good questions that evangelicals, at least in my experience, are afraid to ask. As someone who has wrestled with the idea of hell, I found myself sympathizing with Rob Bell’s determination to challenge people who might be too complacent about the existence of hell and the eternal damnation of the people around them. Love Wins is very good at talking about the beauty, glory, and mercy of God. God is radiant in this book, and some of the extended meditations on the overwhelming God has for his creation were heartbreaking, in a good way. His view of creation as a place that reveals and displays the glory of God is a powerful corrective of an unfortunate Christian tendency to treat heaven and hell as distant places in the future, and reminds us that what we do in this world important.

Unfortunately, that’s all I really can say that is positive about Love Wins. I think part of that is because I am not the book’s intended audience. Rob Bell is reaching an audience of evangelicals who are disenchanted with a narrow view of a vicious God who condemns people to hell for no good reason, and I commend him for that. However, this book should be the start of discussion, if we have to talk about it at all. Bell messes up basic elements of theology and church history; he treats people like Origen as venerated mainstream church fathers, when the reality is far more complicated; he misquotes Martin Luther; he assumes the worst of opposing views of hell; he calls other views of salvation tribalistic and narrow-minded; he treats demonstrably poetic language as literally as possible when it suits his purposes.

In the end, he reminds me of a less educated version of N.T. Wright, or even of C.S. Lewis. Lewis writes a powerful rebuttal of a narrow view of hell in The Great Divorce, and yet manages to convey that approaching heaven is a terribly painful process, one that will demand the total casting off of everything we held dear. Love winning in The Great Divorce requires losing ourselves utterly, while in Love Wins it just seems to demand infinite amounts of time. While I’m sympathetic to Bell’s worries about hell, I can’t quite say that I’m convinced. I think he tries too hard to make the Gospel palatable, and sin insignificant.

I know that Bell is writing towards a specific audience of evangelicals, particularly the ones who are bitter towards a God they think is cruel. I think a lot of the people who read this book will be pushed towards a deeper understanding of who God is, what Jesus did, and what salvation and sanctification are all about. I know that this book should be taken as an introduction to people who have no idea about the depths of Christianity, and the best case scenario will be that this book will cause people to seek out people like N.T. Wright, and hopefully continue on to reading church fathers like St. Athanasius.

However, I also know that there will be people for whom this book is the last word. Instead of freeing Christians to explore the depth and breath of God’s faithfulness and their faith in full, this book could be the end of the questioning for some. For that reason, I found the book shamefully lacking. Other elements of Christian thought, such as the concept of realized eschatology, which both John Howard Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas write extensively about, would have strengthened Bell’s argument, and would have been far more convincing than platitudes about how a God that damns his creation to hell cannot be loving and glorious. The Eastern Orthodox understanding of theosis and the impassibility of God would have been a welcome addition to a text that is sorely in need of depth.

In the end, I hope that this book allows people to seek out what makes Christianity great. I hope people find Jesus in these pages, but I don’t think I did.

If you've read the book I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Update on Tuesday, April 5, 2011 at 10:23AM by Dr Dion Forster

A great, thought provoking, post by Scott McKnight on 'Love Wins'.  Gives an entirely different perspective by just pulling us back a step or two!

His point, which I had not considered (and I ask myself why not!) is that every congregation (denomination, Bible study, Christian community) shares an eschatology and a sotergiology (i.e., a perspective on the doctrine of salvation and a perspective on the afterlife). We hear it in sermons, pick it up in our liturgies, worship songs, and even in conversation between members.  Most of us unknowingly hold a 'grace filled' perspective that 'feels' that it is right that God is gracious enough to love everyone, even those who have no access to the Gospel (e.g., the population of North Korea that is largey cut of in their entirety from the Gospel of Christ - God must have a plan for them!  We cannot simply assume that because they live under a dictator that they are 'damned to hell'! Or can we?)

Very challenging thought!  Read Scot's post and let me know what your thoughts are.

Update on Thursday, April 7, 2011 at 7:24PM by Dr Dion Forster

So, I'm reading 'Love Wins' and enjoying it so much!  It is not a systematic theology, or a technical Biblical investigation...  It is a great sermon, in that great way in which Rob Bell thinks and speaks! 

Sure, there are some elements that I take with a pinch of salt. However, what I am loving about this book is that it emphasises the importance of the world NOW!  Far too much of contemporary Western Christianity (and so also the Christianity that dominates the media) is obsessed with a form a neo-Gnostic, world escaping, life avoiding, 'other-wordly' theology.

Indeed, while Rob Bell preaches a good sermon, NT Wright write a far better theological text along similar lines.  I read 'Suprised by Hope' about a year ago (I received it from SPCK in lue of payment for a chapter I wrote for one of their books (See the details of that book here, and the book itself here: ISG 44: Church Communities Confronting HIV/AIDS (International Study Guide (ISG)).  Instead of taking money I asked to get some books, and this was one of them).

The following quote seems to resonate quite strongly with the point that Rob Bell makes so convincingly and passionately in 'Love Wins':

As long as we see salvation in terms of going to heaven when we die, the main work of the church is bound to be seen in terms of saving souls for that future. But when we see salvation, as the New Testament sees it, in terms of God’s promised new heavens and new earth and of our promised resurrection to share in that new and gloriously embodied reality - what I have called life after life after death - then the main work of the church here and now demands to be rethought in consequence.

- N.T. Wright, Surprised By Hope (via @invisibleforeigner's tumblr blog)

You can get the book here