Universalism: A Summary Defense (by Richard Beck)

I came across this article at by Professor Richard Beck, an excellent introductory case for Universalism.  Followers of my blog probably pick up on my fixation on different ideas of afterlife that have developed within the Christian tradition, as well as my personal ambivalence with settling on one view.  As a Christian Universalist, Richard Beck does not share that ambivalence, and since I get a fair amount of traffic searching “hell” or “universalism,” it seemed a good chance to share:

————————————————————————–

Universalism: A Summary Defense

by Richard Beck

Watch the Jesus Creed blog in the coming days and weeks as Scot McKnight will be starting a series on if evangelicals can be universalists. Early in the history of this blog I posted my reasons for subscribing to universalism. Lately I’ve wanted to pull those arguments into a summary post. Here, then, are the reasons I believe in universal reconciliation, the eventual redemption of all of humanity.

1. Talbott’s Propositions (along with a discussion of moral luck and human volition)
The philosopher Thomas Talbott has us consider the following three propositions:

1. God’s redemptive love extends to all human sinners equally in the sense that he sincerely wills or desires the redemption of each one of them.
2. Because no one can finally defeat God’s redemptive love or resist it forever, God will triumph in the end and successfully accomplish the redemption of everyone whose redemption he sincerely wills or desires.
3. Some human sinners will never be redeemed but will instead be separated from God forever.

All three propositions have ample biblical support. But, as Talbott points out, you cannot, logically, endorse all three. Talbott goes on to show how the various soteriological systems adopt two of the propositions and reject/marginalize the third. Summarizing how this happens:

1. Calvinism/Augustinianism: Adopt #2 and #3. God will accomplish his plans and some will be separated from God forever. This implies a rejection of #1, that God wills to save all humanity. This conclusion is captured in the doctrine of election and double predestination (i.e., God predestines some to be saved and some to be lost).
2. Arminianism: Adopt #1 and #3. God loves all people and some people will be separated from God forever. This implies that God’s desires–for example, to save everyone–can be thwarted and unfulfilled. This is usually explained by an appeal to human choice. Due to free will people can resist/reject God. Thus, where a Calvinist put the “blame” on God for someone going to hell (election) Arminians place the blame on people (free will).
3. Universalism: Adopt #1 and #2. God loves all people and will accomplish his purposes. This implies a rejection of #3. The implication is that God will continue his salvific work in some postmortem fashion. Note that this postmortem salvific work can, and often does, involve a strong vision of hell and be Christocentric.

I reject Calvinism because I find the doctrine of election to be loathsome. I don’t find God worthy of worship, praise or service if he created people with the intention of torturing most of them forever. True, such actions would demonstrate his sovereignty and “justice” but it is hard to see those actions as loving and praise-worthy. Also, I don’t see how Calvinism allows for a dynamic and interactive relationship between God and humanity. We end up being mere puppets and playthings.

To be fair, the reason Calvinism and Reformed theology leave me cold is largely biographical. I grew up in an Arminian tradition. Since college, however, I’ve also grown disillusioned with free will soteriological and theodicy systems. For three interrelated reasons:

1. Moral Luck: We begin life in very different places, morally and religiously. Some people get a head start on Christianity. Others are raised in different religious traditions. Further, our life journeys can be highly variable, religiously and morally. A child might be abused by a church leader. A missionary might never show up at your village.
2. The Timing of Death is Unpredictable: The death event is arbitrary in its timing. Some people live to a ripe old age and get to repent of past sins or find the time to explore Christianity (if they were born in another religion). Other people die young and never get the chance, through no fault of their own, to repent or explore Christianity.
3. Free Will is a Non-Starter: As a psychologist I’ve come to believe that human volition (will) is very circumscribed and anemic in its powers. Humans have the capacity for choice, and perhaps freedom within a certain range, but at the end of the day human choice is finite and limited. It can only do so much.

Given that our moral and religious journeys are qualitatively different (e.g., moral luck: some people get head starts), that death is random (which can arbitrarily lengthen or shorten your religious and moral journey) and a realistic view of human volitional powers (there is no radical form of free will) it was difficult for me to maintain the Arminian stance of my religious heritage.

So, having rejected both Reformed and Arminian thinking I’ve settled on universalism as the soteriological and eschatological system that best describes my views on salvation and redemption.

2. A Morally Coherent View of Justice
Most defenders of a classical view of hell eventually make appeals to God’s justice. However, for justice to be justice it has to meet a few, almost axiomatic, standards. Most importantly, all notions of justice involve proportionality. As they say, the punishment must fit the crime. Thus, a punishment of infinite duration and unspeakable torment fails to meet any moral standard of justice. More, if we want to link justice to love then there needs to be a rehabilitative facet to the punishment. Not all justice is rehabilitative. Capital punishment isn’t. But aloving justice will try to accomplish three things:

1. Vengeance for Victims (Justice)
2. Rehabilitation of the Perpetrators (Grace)
3. The Reconciliation of Perpetrators and Victims (Forgiveness and Repentance)

Of the major soteriological systems only universalism gets us all three of these things.

3. Missional Concerns Over the Soteriological/Eschatological Disjoint
Many people in the church see salvation as a binary, you are either saved or lost. Christians then fetishize this status, obsessing over who, at Judgment Day, will be saved or lost. This causes the Christian community to become otherworldly in its focus, ignoring the cosmic (e.g., social, political, ecological) and developmental (i.e., sanctification) aspects of salvation. This becomes a missional problem in the church, where people just look to “get saved,” eschatologically speaking. But it is hard to fault people for this fetish if they are seeing thing correctly, that there will be a non-reversible binary judgement at the end of all things. In short, as much as missional church leaders want to instill the notion that salvation is this-worldly as well as other-worldly they will fail, for clear psychological reasons, unless they undermine the classic doctrine of hell. Leave the classical teaching of hell intact (overtly or by trying to ignore it) and you’ll compromise your missional effort. Like it or not, hell and mission are intimately related. Worries over hell (which can’t be helped if you leave the doctrine intact) will import otherworldliness into the mission of the church.

4. Regulating Passages
The biggest objection to universalism involve the passages regarding hell in the bible. However, there is no doctrinal teaching that doesn’t have contradictory tensions within the biblical witness. Witness the hermeneutical and exegetical diversity within the Christian tradition. In short, universalists are not in any unique position. This is the way it is with just about any doctrine.

The issue, then, ultimately boils down to which biblical texts will regulate doctrinal choices. For example, which of the two passages regulates your doctrine regarding female leadership in the church:

1. “I do not permit a woman to teach, nor have authority over a man.” (1 Timothy 2.12)
2. “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3.28)

If you are a Complementarian Passage #1 regulates your understanding of Passage #2. If you are an Egalitarian Passage #2 regulates how you understand Passage #1. An there is no way to resolve any debate between the two camps as these are meta-biblical choices.

A similar thing holds for the soteriological debates. Universalists have regulating passages that frame how they understand the texts about hell. Here are four regulating texts for universalists:

1. “God is love.” (1 John 4.8)
2. “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” (Colossians 1.19-20)
3. “When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.” (1 Corinthians 15.28)
4. “For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.” (Romans 11.32)

As with the gender texts one has to choose regulating texts about hell. And these are meta-biblical choices. People who believe in a classical vision of hell will read the four passages above through that lens. Universalists, by contrast, will read the texts on hell through the lens of these four passages. That is, they will teach that hell must:

1. Be a manifestation that “God is love.”
2. Be a means to “reconcile all things” to God
3. Allow God to be “all in all”
4. Provide a way for God to “have mercy upon all”

5. Hope
I think it was Karl Barth who said that he couldn’t be sure that universalism was true but that it was every Christian’s obligation to hope that it was true.

Hell: my research on places, verses and problems

I get a daily tally of terms people are Googling to reach my site.  Recently, I’ve noticed a sharp upturn in people landing on my site by searching about “Hell.”  Aside from this post, I haven’t written much on the subject, but I figure the least I could contribute is a bit of research I’ve accumulated over the past few years on the topic of Hell.  I make it no secret that I don’t hold to what is generally called the traditional, literalist, or exclusivist view of hell.  This is largely because I find it to be neither traditional, nor respectful of the context of Scripture, nor philosophically coherent, nor considerate of the Gospel as Jesus taught.  I think we need to take the doctrine of Hell much more seriously, but we need to do so Biblically instead of taking culture’s common perception.

"Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here"... though we may deny it, we naturally feel the disconnect between Love and perhaps-misguided understandings of "justice"

A few general Issues arising with a belief in a literal Hell:

1) To begin, to think of a literal, fiery Hell, we are speaking of a metaphysical “place”; that is, a sort of beyond-place place, or a “place” for “places” that don’t have “places.”  It’s confusing to begin with.  You have the same problem in positing a metaphysical Heaven as a place as well, but it is worth noting that the ancient church believed in Resurrection here on earth rather than ascension to an ethereal realm  Most believers seem to resort to ascribing Hell to an invisible realm unworthy of scrupulous discourse due to being a matter “beyond earthy comprehension.”  But I think such language should be a red flag for us, hinting that we need further study in a matter rather than abandonment due to complexity.

2) A very large second problem with believing in a literal Hell is that the word “Hell” never appears in scripture; not even once.  Many words are mistranslated loosely as Hell, but no word in our modern cannon accurately translates into this concept.

3) Third, I was quite surprised to learn how untraditional the “traditional” view of Hell actually was.  We certainly do find a “traditional” view of Hell emerging within the first few centuries A.D., but we also find Annihilationists (the unrighteous cease to exist post-mortem), Universalists (all are reconciled to God in the end), and Reincarnationists among the early church fathers right from the begining.  Many scholars argue early Christianity was Universalist or Annihilationist before it adopted a belief in Hell.   Most of these coexisted well until the Creedal era of refining dogmatism.  You may notice that the Apostle Paul seems to alternate between universalism and annihilationism in his poetic descriptions of the eschaton, but never once uses a word that can be mistranslated as Hell.  The matter is left somewhat vague in Scripture, but we can know for certain that different Biblical authors would have disagreed on the matter of what happens to a person after they die.  So perhaps we are meant to be somewhat vague on the matter if we take a high view of Scripture.

4) On a more vague note (but perhaps the most important of all), most people recognize at least a disconnect with a radically inclusive and reconciliatory Jesus Christ with the concept of Hell.  The conflict arising from reconciling unremitting Love with torturous exclusion is difficult to deal with.  Many resort to taking a soft view on Hell, being that there is an eternal, conscious separation from God for the unrighteous, but that the separate place does not involve fiery torture.  It looks like a move forward, but I suspect this merely provides cover for an difficult exclusionary view by softening the emotional factor required by imagining the pain of fire.

I would argue that our theologies of hell very often have more in common with Dante's Inferno than with Scripture

5) Like conceiving of God as a person, one with gender, or conceiving of salvation as a legal trade-off, the belief in a literal Hell seems quite archaic and anthropocentric.  Like a six-day creation story or a flat earth with four corners, it sounds an awful lot like a pre-scientific people trying to grapple with reality using only the conceptual tools available to them.  To dogmatize these beliefs even where they do occur in history runs the risk of betraying the very real concepts they were trying to describe by not moving beyond admittedly simplistic narratives into the truth they were pointing to.

As for my own view, while I can no longer hold to the literalist, exclusivist view of Hell with any integrity of my own, I don’t quite know what I believe.  I’m ok with that because I think the Scriptures would have spelled it out with clarity if we were supposed to be able to put it in a doctrinal statement.  I tend to alternate between Annihilationism and Universalism, and when I lean towards Universalism, it is only the softer version that C.S. Lewis describes (in which a universally reconciliatory paradise would be something of a hell for those refusing to live in a reconciled way with creation, others, and the Creator).  But like anytime I speculate on something so ethereal, I assume I am at least partly wrong 100% of the time.

Below is an outline of some research I did on the word “Hell” before leading my small group through a study of it.  I list here in detail every single place in the Bible that a one of the 3 Greek words translated as “Hell” appear.  I did not list the appearances of “Sheol” since scholars agree with unanimity that, contrary to King James’ translation, it meant “grave” not “Hell”.  Here’s the outline:

—————————————————————————-

Hell

Two very important questions to consider when looking at the word “hell” in the Bible:

-Where do we find the word hell?

-What does it mean in that particular contextual moment?

-Is my understanding of Hell more Biblical or cultural?

Gehenna, Hades, Tatarus, Sheol

Gehenna

Matthew: occurs eight times

Matt 2:22- “raca”- contempt. Fool. .  Anger and Contempt

Matt 5:29,30- adultery.  Cut off eye/hand to avoid whole body into hell.  Lust

Matt 10:28- God can destroy both body/soul in hell.  Don’t fear ppl. . Misplaced Fear

Matt 18:9- repeats 5:29.  Refers to ppl deceiving/stopping God’s work  (getting in the way)

Matt 23:15,33- Pharisees, converts, twice as much a son of hell.  Hypocrisy

Mark: three times

Mark 9:43,45,47- (parallels Matt 5:29,30)

Luke: once

Luke 12:5- (parallels matt 10:28)

James: once

James 3:6- tongue set on fire by Hell

modern day Gehenna: the valley one the south side of Jerusalem, often translated in English as "Hell"

Hades

Matthew: occurs twice

Matt 11:23- “you will go down to the depths”  (rendered depths in NIV)

Matt 16:18-  “gates of Hades will not overcome it” (as Hades, not Hell in NIV)

Luke: twice

Luke 10:15- “Capernaum… you will go down to the depths.” (rendered depths)

Luke 16:23- Rich man and Lazarus (rendered Hell)

Acts: twice

Acts 2:27, 31- rendered grave, from Hades… translation of Sheol (from Ps. 16:8-11)

I Corinthians: once

I Cor. 15:55- renedered death, from Hades…translation of Sheol (Hos. 13:14)

Revelation: four times

Rev 1:18- rendered Hades

Rev 6:8- rendered Hades

Rev 20:13,14- rendered Hades

Tartarus

2 Peter: occurs once

II Pet 2: rendered hell.  Sent angels to be held in dungeons for judgement

Sheol

In old testament.  Everyone (good and bad) went here.  Sometimes mistranslated as “hell” but is more accurately translated as “grave.”  The Hebrew Scriptures were redacted and compiled c. 4-500 years B.C., and though scholars will testify much of the Scriptures were written under psuedonyms attributed to older writers, we can also safely assume much of the Old Testament was being transcribed as accurately as possible from a time much earlier.  But since the Israelite cult did not assume a fixed theology of afterlife until the influences of Babylon and Persia, we can also assume that Sheol did not refer to a conscious afterlife in any certain sence, and even more certainly assume that Sheol did not refer to Hell as we think of it today, as those reading older Biblical translation (a la KJV) may be lead to assume.

Hell, as an English word

the English word “hell” is derived from Hel, the name of the mythological Nordic goddess of the underworld.

The Greek word translated Paradise in Luke 23:24 is “paradeisos.” For the Greeks, paradeisos referred to the Persian concept of a well-watered grove, garden, park, or hunting ground, which for the Greeks was a part of hades set aside for the heroic among others and as distinguished from the portion of hades where some of the dead were tortured.

Hell occurs in NIV 14 times

Hell occurs in NASB 13 times

Do Christians and Muslims believe in the same God?

A week ago, I linked to an article that stirred up some discussion on the subject of gods represented in Christianity and islam: are they separate gods or one in the same? I wanted to comment further on this.

As a partial response, I posted on a (dis)belief towards a/theism. In that post, I tried to point to the reality that any theological discourse carries the idea of god somewhat lightly, reshaping god as an object to be discussed. But as this flies in the face of our claim towards god’s trascendence, we can assume that there exists, in a theological speculation, a faithful betrayal of god. We demote the divine to an object to be speculated on, and must realize that we are then partly (and likely significantly) erroneous in our conclusions 100% of the time.

So when we speak of god, as C.S. Lewis famously put it, we speak not of god, but of an idol. However much we wish to accurately know of god, the divine is something that cannot be colonized.

Which brings us to this question of whether or not Christians and Muslims and Jews worship the same god. I remember this being the trendy question following the violence of 9/11. There sprung up a cadre of Christian apologists who pounced on the attack as an avenue to prove a difference, and another cadre of Mulsim apologists sprung up to explain the difference between extremist Wahabism and more moderate Muslim doctrine. The rhetoric of the question gave a tacitly playful acknowledgement of the existence of two gods, but the question was understood as not asking about the existence of two actual gods, but whether or not Christians and Muslims were imagining the same being; the entity who would be the one true god. But it is not that simple either, because I could say I believe in the one true god, who happens to be a toasted cheese sandwich sitting behind Neptune. I can speak of the “one true god” and mean the same thing as you as far as the term itself goes, but that says nothing of the characteristics we would not agree on.

So the question should not be phrased childishly as “do Christians and Muslims worship the same god?” (as we can agree there could only be one god), but instead, “do Christians and Muslims worship a god with either identical or similar enough characteristics to be called the same entity?” To continue to insist otherwise, to rhetorically insist that Christians and Muslims actually worship different gods, becomes a bit childish and incoherent at best. We cannot dispute these cousin monotheisms both trace ancestry to a singular god of a man named Abraham, but we can certainly dispute whether or not the god represented by each has markedly different characteristics.

It is no secret that Christianity and Judaism influenced Islam, and that Islam influenced Christianity back. The god depicted by each came be so remarkably similar. Consider these verses, some from the Qur’an and some from the Bible:

“When God’s help and victory come, and you see men embrace God’s faith in multitudes, give glory to your Lord and seek His pardon. He is ever disposed to mercy.”

“Do not treat men with scorn, nor walk proudly on the earth: God does not love the arrogant and the poud”

“Believers, Jews, Christians… whoever believes in God and the Last Day and does what is right- shall be rewarded by their Lord; they have nothing to fear or to regret.”

“But the wicked will perish: the lord’s enemies will be like the beauty of the fields, they will vanish- vanish like smoke.

“whoever believes in God and the Last Day and does what is right- shall be rewarded by their Lord; they have nothing to fear or to regret.”

“I warn you, then, of the blazing fire, in which none shall burn save the hardened sinner, who denies the Truth and gives no heed.”

“He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?”

‘What has brought you into Hell?’

They will replay: ‘We never prayed, nor did we ever feed the hungry. We engaged in vain disputes and denied the
Day of Reckoning till the inevitable end overtook us.’

Which verses came from the Bible, and which came from the Qur’an? Even where we know, we see remarkable similarities in how god is represented and what god’s concerns are. We could quote many more verses to trace more similarities. Each is a god that has commanded war and peace at varying times. Each is a god of the oppressed, who holds those who hoard resources with fiery contempt. Each is depicted as a god who saves men by his grace but will one day judge man by his works and come down to reign on the earth. In our scholarship, we know that both depictions of these gods evolved from earlier concepts of god, that El became Eloh’im who became YHVH in the Bible, and that Eloh’im became al’Lah in the Qur’an.

We cannot deny that the god of the Qur’an and the god of the Bible have differing characteristics. But I think if we are honest with ourselves and resist the temptation to force the Old and New Testaments into a seamless theology, we all know that the god of the OT and god in the NT have differing characteristics as well. Are the gods of the Qur’an and the Bible different? Certainly, at least as much as the gods of the OT and NT are different. This is to say, both texts try to describe the same god, but have attribute to him (well, god even fluctuates on gender in the OT) differences. So how big of a difference does there have to be before we call these different gods?

Many make a great deal of the difference of Trinity, although then we must also say that Judaism worships a different god from Christians as well. In addition, we would have to say any sect of Christianity that rejects the Trinity concept, as well as many or most Christians before the 4^th century creeds, do not worship the same god either. There is the difference of the Christ, but even this is not so clear as we make it seem. It is no secret to historians that it took several hundred years for the idea of Christ’s coequal status with God-Father to become orthodoxy (a la filioque). Just as Christ is only the 2^nd greatest prophet and a messiah in Islam, Christ was no more than a messiah (and not coequal with god) to many Christians in the pre-creedal centuries (and many continue this line of thought today). At what point does the line of exclusion aim its guns at fellow Christians in the same way we exclude the Muslim for differing beliefs? What about particular atonement models which many Protestants unknowingly hold on to and decide who is a “real christian” or not? What about differing concepts of afterlife? Differences on Resurrection? Differences on Virgin Birth? Differences in how we view inspiration? Differences in predestination and god’s determinism? These are all differences which have evolved into creed-level fundamentals over time for some Christian or another (or Muslim), but there is a pervasive myth of orthodoxy within the Church that undermines the key point here. That is to say, every Christian wants to believe he believes the same as the early followers of Christ did, but this myth of consistency and orthodoxy across churches in the beginning betrays in itself an ignorance of history.

At what point do we consider the other an other because his god is too other? At what point are we, rather than looking for insight, merely looking for a reason to label a fellow Christian as liberal or unorthodox, or a Muslim an extremist, misogynist, and racist in a violent religion? Choosing to use rhetoric that encourages the idea that the other is a follower of another god and not my god gives approval that the other 1) is pagan, 2) is ignorant, 3) is not righteous, and 4) will lose in the end to the true god. Which are all things that make rhetorical or physical violence easier to justify.

And a side note for Christians of the more exclusive point of view: what do we say of the fascinating growing trend of Muslim Christians? There is a vast and growing populace of Muslims coming to see the Christ as their savior while staying Muslim, honoring Muhammad, keeping the prayer hours, etc. Would you judge that they are in or out, Christian or Muslim, faithful or syncrotistic?

So again we pose the question: do Christians and Muslims believe in the same god? First answer me this, acknowledging that no two people on the planet have identical concepts of god: do you and I believe in the same god?

And another question: isn’t this a really bad question?

Kirk Cameron vs. Darwin

Child actor Kirk Cameron grows up, meets Jesus, and becomes a proselytizer for Christian fundamentalism.  He teams up with Ray Comfort, preacher-man who holds science suspect along with anything else he hasn’t heard before, and together they have made a name for themselves as evolution-antagonists extraordinaire.  As far as I can tell, proselytizing against evolution is as big a gig for them as proselytizing for Jesus.  Or, maybe they see it as one in the same.  Regardless, the duo is coming out with a republication of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species.  Why, you ask would a couple of guys dedicating their life to fighting the forces of evolution want to reproduce the enemy’s chief propaganda piece?  Why, because they are including a 50 page introduction to the book, rife with every reason to not believe in evolution that we Christians have come up with over the last century and a half.  Oh, this is embarrassing.

the cheesiness factor is impressive

My first introduction to this duo came one evening as I sat at the edge of the Grand Canyon watching the setting sun.  From behind me came an awkwardly hobbling man, obviously nervous and unsure of himself.  Curiously, he sat down beside me, tingeing the scenery with the frustration of interruption.  From nowhere, he plainly asked me how I thought the canyon “got there.”  I, being no expert on the subject but vaguely recalling the generally accepted theory, muttered something regarding the river basin and millions of years of wear and tear.  He had a sad look on his face, and asked another couple questions, quickly changing subjects to evolution and age of the earth.  I realized I was failing every question, as his face grew more and more sad for me, and it occurred to me what was happening: I was being tested.  And I failed.  This man was trying to decide if I was a Christian or not based on my answers to his questions about evolution and earth-age.  Taking Genesis allegorically, as I tend to do, put me in the “out” camp.  Before I could explain myself, he handed me a CD with the words “Ray Comfort” printed across the front and told me I should give it a listen, I suppose in lieu of conversation.  On my drive back home the next day, I played Ray’s CD and heard all about Hell.  I learned that people how don’t believe certain things about Hell and evolution are going to Hell.  I learned that if more pastors would just talk about how awful Hell is, and that most people are going to burn forever, then nobody would be roasted.  I even learned that I was going to Hell.  I was a sinner in the hands of an angry creationist.  I smiled that morning as I drove with the morning sunrise in front of me, displaying God’s handiwork as the background noise-preacher told me I was going to Hell believing in evolution instead of Hell… or something like that.

Ray Comfort is not afraid to use bananas to explain why you are going to hell if you are ridiculous enough to believe in evolution

For the life of me, I don’t get how you can read the Bible and think it’s telling you that evolution is false and you can go to Hell for rejecting God by believing in science.  In fact, I’m reasonably certain you cannot have an educated understanding of Scripture and buy that.  If I could go back, I would have loved to ask the CD-packing proselytizer which creation account he believed in: the Genesis chapter one version of creation, an adaptation from Babylonian creation myths, or the Genesis two version, the likely older Israelite version?  Or, if he wanted to ram the two accounts together in literalistic fashion, I would have liked to ask him just how Adam was able to name every single creature on the planet without leaving the Garden, all in the handful of hours between his awakening and the creation of Eve (with time left for a good nap in between).  It would have been interesting, but too bad; I expect I know how he would have responded anyways.

Last year, I finally got around to reading Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species (or as little known fact, if you care about the correct title it’s, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life).  It’s a genius read.  In fact, I was surprised to learn that most of the commonly used counters I learned as a child in anti-evolution apologetics classes (such as the lack of transitional fossils or the lack of use for a non-viable transitional eye) were actually derived from Darwin himself.  He brilliantly anticipated nearly every objection we can come up with and answers them before they arise… which always makes me wonder if guys like Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron read the book before writing a 50 page intro/rebuttal for it using, seemingly unbeknownst to them, arguments Darwin will pummel on the following page.  It is true that Darwin began his career as a seminarian but dropped out to explore the world due to his growing fascination with biology and geology.  Emerging away from theism, Darwin ended his life at most an agnostic, and most likely an atheist (though there exists a fashionable myth in Christian circles of a deathbed recanting of evolution).  The Origin of Species, contraire to the impulses of Ray and Kirk, does not attempt to explain the origins of the universe, nor does it even say much of evolution.  It is chiefly concerned with the vehicle of natural selection, and Darwin does a marvelous job of documenting his claims with the Galapagos plant and animal life.

And about the Hitler claim: is it true that Hitler used evolutionary theory as a basis for genocide?  Yep, there’s no getting around that fact.  But is it also true that he used Christianity (especially a belief in a Calvinist-style predestination to a literal Hell for people who don’t believe like us) to condone the genocide far more than he ever used evolution?  Why, yes that is true.  So if we want to pretend we are tossing out evolution because a manipulative despot used it for his own maniacal ends, we had better be ready to toss out Christianity as well (or patriotism, prisons for terrorists, preemptive defense, and a host of other things Hitler found legit).

And with the publication of Origin, Christian fundamentalism came alive with, finally, a clear enemy to fight.  In fact, many sociologists date the birth of Christian fundamentalism at 1859, with Origin’s first publication.  Before this date, Christian’s were free to have no certain view on the depictions of creation according to Genesis.  But no longer.  After 1859, battle lines were drawn between two camps of Christians.  One camp would begin to see it as the division of educated Christians and backwater fundamentalist morons.  The other camp would come to see it as the division between the deceived and irreverent liberals versus the Bible-believing faithful.  From there, it became easier and easier to draw the camps around other items that would tell the pontificator if the other was in or out of my club.  Over time, the muddy collection of divisive items were divided up between the battle sides until believing one item (say, creationism instead of evolution) meant you most likely believed the same as me on a host of other items as well (Biblical plenary inspiration, or modern day abortion and gay marriage debates).  Don’t we all love a good fight against another side which is clearly uneducated or godless, depending on how you swing?  For my own faith, adopting an evolutionary view of the earth and its species has done nothing but enhance the wonder I have with God, and I don’t know how I ever saw it differently.  It is the though of reverting to a steadfast, anti-science fundamentalism that scares me for those of us involved with religion.  Fundamentalism on the left and right has been responsible for a host of atrocities in the world, and more atrocities are sure to come.

So until the day comes when fundamentalists of one persuasion or another finally blow up the world, if you want a book that could greatly encourage, enrich, and enhance your faith, I recommend Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species.

Last thoughts on “Why We’re Not Emergent” (part 3 of 3)

Review Part 1: Atonement.

Review, Part 2: Hell.

——–

Final thoughts.  The book’s been a big hit in the anti/emergent literature subcultures, leveling it to the category of “one of those books you should read just to be aware of what’s being said, if for no other reason.”  But people ask what I liked about the book. I actually do have such a list.

Pros and Cautions I found helpful for the emergent conversation:

-Be the action you say you believe. A lot of people on one side tell emergents they need to do more theology, while those on the other say “you’re just a bunch of young white guys talking theology.  Get out there and practice what you idealize.”  So while if you’re getting criticism from both sides then it often means you’re doing something right, take note: faith without works is dead.

-Don’t be a rebel, and don’t be arrogant.  Which is easy to be when you think you know more than everyone.  But then you’re brash and nobody will listen to you anyways.  There’s always something to tear down, but humility is the key to winning people.

-Don’t just be a new Left.  A common trend with emergents is having been raised in a conservative home and church (and as a voting block for a political party).  But going Left as a reaction to being right is just as lame as being Right because you think the left is foolish.  The church has long been in bed with the Republican party, but hopping into bed with the Democratic party just because you think you’ve seen the light that your parents or church were blind to is just as sinful.  To me, the drive should be to become post-Left/Right.  And be generous while you are being orthodox.

-It’s popular to search for God, but not so cool to find Him.  Mystery and philo/theological humility is huge, but mystery and ambiguity for there own sakes can lean toward sloppy theology or flat-out confusion.  Be careful not to take too much of a good thing.  And be ok with admitting that, yes, I actually am quite sure of a lot of theological positions which I tend to remain vague on because I fear the reaction from people. That’s something which I, because of flack I’ve taken in a couple of different church settings before, struggle with a lot.

Now for a few thoughts I scribbled down while reading, thoughts that I wished very much I could call up and talk to DeYoung and Kluck about:

- I’m still not sure why DeYoung and Kluck feel, as the title suggests, that they should have been emergents.  Is it because they are youngish and Christian?  Is that their take- that it’s purely a conversation of youngish idealists thinking out of youthful ignorance?  I can’t tell for sure, because they didn’t really explain the title all too well.  But if this view of emergents is, in fact, their characterization, then that could be very telling of the undergirding philosophy behind the book.

-Emergents don’t reject knowledge or real truth- that is while they generally read so prolifically. I think this is a lot easier to see than people make it.  Emergents genuinely are searching for truth, but they generally have a lot more informed perspective on the word Truth, largely because of the education they are packing behind those ears (and yes, it is true that the average emergent generally tends to be much more educated theologically than their average Evangelical counterpart, hence much of the disconnect).

-emergents don’t reject teaching or preaching- that’s why podcasting and reading and blogging have taken off and driven much of the conversation.  If they aren’t getting stretching teaching at home, they go home and subscribe to 20 pastors from around to globe to meet that need.  I’m what I like to call a podcast-whore, and learning from a global community of pastors, writers, and leaders has given enormous fuel to my spirituality.

-on Hell: it really, it isn’t a clear subject in scripture (hence the debate throughout the ages), so please don’t throw the heresy card just because someone knows enough to be uncertain.

-It’s not that “social action gets priority over the Gospel.”  Instead, emergents see social action as part of the Gospel.  If you care for the poor, you really aren’t leaving Jesus behind.

-“Emergents don’t care about theology,” is a bad way to confess “Actually, I’ve just never heard it put that way before.”

-When criticizing Emergent Village, please quit quoting Piper,  Driscoll, Al Mohler or D.A. Carson.  I don’t know what else to say; they just don’t get EV and show little desire to.  Quote Scott McKnight or others that are inside or show understanding of it.  Quoting Carson makes me instantly think “Oh, you mean that guy that’s never even talked to an emergent?”  Consulting with Mohler for perspectives on emergents is like consulting with Sarah Palin for advice on… newspapers.

-If your religion is all about dying well, you may be a gnostic.  It is very telling that DeYoung feels (p.120) that if your faith doesn’t get you into heaven, then it’s irrelevant.  I’m not saying this is an important question, but it is very telling when this is the primary lens by which you see the world of faith and philosophy.

-If you quote someone like McLaren, who uses profuse hyperbole throughout, don’t pretend like a two sentence quote actually communicates his belief on something.  In fact, don’t do that with anyone, ever.

-Thank you for parroting Driscoll’s slander that Emergent Village promotes sexual promiscuity.  I’m still not sure how that even started.

-DeYoung and Kluck seem in way over their heads with Peter Rollins.  I’ll admit, he can be a hard writer to grasp, but I got the feeling they were merely looking for things to criticize without even trying to understand.  He’s a big name, and not that much easier to read that the brilliant philosophy giants like Derrida and Levinas.  You really have to let the writing work on you, and be willing to read the same page five times over.  If you don’t get it at all, then better to leave it alone than to criticize in ignorance of his point.

-DeYoung mistakes a lack of heavy criticism of certain sins for “tolerance of sin.”  And, of course, he only seems to care about certain sins here.  You know the ones; they are always the same.

-My question: is Emergent just getting attacked because it’s becoming a big thing in the broader, global Christianity?  Would the Neo-Calvinist camp’s attacks be the same against another group if there was a resurgence of Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, the Coptic’s, etc.?  I suspect so.

-Do we usually attack theology in person the way we lash out at writers behind the safety of a book’s page? Why the difference in attack?  Because it looks easier to attack when you aren’t face-to-face.  Is any of this helpful?  Intellectual disagreement is a good thing that, quite honestly, this whole conversation needs more of.  But misrepresentation and slander only set emergents up for pain and ostrasization, furthering the “us” and “them” divide in a faith community.

-I think the strong artistic correlation with Emergent probably says something about who “gets it” and who is left saying “that’s stupid.”  You may simply just not have the type of mind that sees things this way.  Note>> I’m not saying this is a bad thing, but it’s worth noting.  It really doesn’t surprise me that these two guys, given their background, don’t get into the philosophical rhetoric.  Not trying to be insulting, just honest. (Weak analogy alert) I don’t understand sports at all (no, I seriously could not name a single NFL team that Kluck spends all day writing about at ESPN; I just don’t care), but you won’t see me trying to pretend like I do and bring the hell-bound heresy charge against people who are really into it and think this team or that team is going all the way this year.  That would be beyond ridiculous, and that’s because it’s just imprudent to criticize what you don’t know or try to understand.  If only we applied that understanding to conversations that matter.

-DeYoung, when you say we should avoid ambiguity, that the Apostles we’re vague when giving answers, I think Good thing too, because if the Apostles had ever been vague, then there might be all sorts of different interpretations of Scripture out there.  Er… wait…

—–

For those of you who have asked for a recommended reading for an introduction to the emergent church conversation:

-For a fantastic introduction that may change your life, as well as a simple primer for what postmodern Christianity may look like:  A New Kind of Christian, by Brian McLaren.

-For a very short synopsis of the broader, global Emergence we are seeing in Religion/Culture/Politics/Economics/Etc., read The Great Emergence, by Phyllis Tickle.

-For a history: The New Christians, by Tony Jones.

-For a postmodern philosophical and theological primer: How (Not) To Speak of God by Peter Rollins.