Much to the pleasure of publisher Harper-Collins, most of us have watched the promo video to Love Wins by Rob Bell. The book is due to be released within the next month and has generated quite the firestorm of discussion around the doctrine of hell. To be more specific, the discussion centers around Bell’s view of hell, and then what that means in terms of impact in contemporary Christianity.
If I may step away from the fray for a moment I think there is a valuable lesson in this for us. In particular, the lesson is for the folks who think that Jesus was neither confused nor simply being poetic nor cryptic when he talked so much about hell. This lesson is brought to us courtesy of the person who found it appropriate to leave a note on a quote by Gandhi at art show mentioned by Bell in the video.
According to Bell, someone attached a note to the piece of art with the Gandhi quote that read, “Reality check: He’s in hell.”
Bell responds: “Gandhi’s in hell? He is? And someone knows this for sure?”
And off we go.
In this post my beef is not with Bell’s hell but the guy who found it necessary to drop a note on the art and let everyone know that Gandhi is in hell.
Here’s my issue: what does a note like that accomplish? What is the objective of dropping that on the table for everyone to see?
Maybe the objective was simply to put their finger in Rob Bell’s eye. Maybe they were frustrated and wanted to communicate it to the people who put on the art show. A more tactful method would have been to engage in a side conversation with a leader at the church.
Why is the note a bad idea?
Two big reasons: It’s truncated and it’s unbecoming.
First, the note was truncated. Any thoughtful and burdened Christian has two chief goals: faithfulness and clarity. We want to be faithful with what God’s word says and we want to be clear with it. To have one without the other is a disaster.
The guy who dropped the note was not clear. There is far more to say about this. Sure, all orthodox people could piece together the rest of the data and make sense of what was said. However, for the majority of unbelievers and liberals this would make no sense. It would come across as religious hate speech. There is simply no context given for this. It falls flat. It makes no sense.
This type of thing reminds me of those ubiquitious billboards in major cities in the US. You know the ones I’m talking about. They say something like,
“You think it’s hot down there?!” –God
or
“If you must curse use your own name.” –God.
While ambitious, the signs fall a bit short. They are truncated. They give people the opportunity to color in whatever theological ‘white space’ remains. And there is a lot left.
Like the lame billboards, the lame note guy fumbles both priorities: faithfulness and clarity are lost.
Second, the note was unbecoming. As Christians we want to be characterized also by love (1 Cor. 13). This does not mean that we sacrifice biblical faithfulness on the altar of tolerance, pluralism, or acceptance. It does mean that we don’t want to be unduly rude or offensive on our own. We know that the message of the gospel of Christ is offensive; and where it is not offenisve it is foolishness (1 Cor 1). There is no need for us as Christians to be unduly offensive ourselves.
Conclusion
The needle in the Rob Bell hell haystack that makes the point is that Christians have to think carefully about the clarity and hue of our message. One lesson that we can learn from this is that both can be sacrificed by those who aim to maintain biblical orthodoxy. This is an action item that each of us should personally think through and address.
