This ‘model prayer’ or ‘prayer outline’ approach has become the grist for a couple of really excellent books on prayer, including Larry Lea’s Could You Not Tarry One Hour? and Dick Eastman’s The Hour That Changes the World, both excellent books.

However, this past weekend in church, a friend who does not read books much (she has some learning disabilities due to a car accident) asked if I could write a briefer explanation of the Lord’s prayer. Here it is.

1. Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.

a. Thank you for being my father, and for loving me like a perfect father

b. I praise you for who You are:

•  the God who saves me (JEHOVAH–YAHWEH…..Genesis 2:4)
• the God who works in me to help me grow in maturity and strength (JEHOVAH-MACCADDESHEM – Exodus 31:13)
• my Shepherd (JEHOVAH-ROHI – Psalm 23:1)
• the God who is near me (JEHOVAH-SHAMMAH – Ezekiel 48:35)
• the God who heals me (JEHOVAH-RAPHA – Exodus 15:26)
• the God who forgives (JEHOVAH-TSIDKENU – Jeremiah 23:6)
• my provider (JEHOVAH-JIREH – Genesis 22:13-14)
• the God who gives me peace (JEHOVAH-SHALOM – Judges 6:24)
• God Almighty (EL-SHADDAI – Genesis 17:1,Psalm 91:1)
• The everlasting God (EL-OLAM – Isaiah 40:28-31) 

2. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.

God, I pray that your will be done

• First, in my heart. May I see things the way you do. May I desire right things in my heart and mind. May your desires become my own. May I learn to love others the way you love me.
• Second, in my family. I pray for my children, and siblings, and parents, that your will would be done in their lives. That you would protect them, and work in their hearts to draw them closer to you.
• Third, in my church. I pray for the pastors and ministry leaders, that they would have your wisdom, to lead us into spiritual health, maturity, and joy. I pray that you would provide the resources and strength they need to do a good job.
• Fourth, in our schools. May our children learn character and wisdom and kindness, not just information. May you bless the teachers and raise up Godly teachers for our children.
• Fifth, in my country. I pray for our leaders, that you would support the Godly, and give wisdom and wise counsel to all.

3.  Give us this day our daily bread.

God, I pray that you would release your provision from heaven for me. Here are the things I am worried about God (talk about them with God). I give them to you.

4. And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors.

God, is there anyone I need to forgive?  Just like you forgive me, I forgive those who have hurt me. Help me to reach out with forgiving kindness to everyone.

5. And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one.

God, protect me from the temptations that I face, help me to choose what is good, and healthy for me. Keep me close to you in my mind and heart all day. Help me to have daily time with you.

6. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

God, thank you for

• Inviting me into your Kingdom, and giving me eternal life
• The new body I will receive at the resurrection
• The hope I have of living with you and your love forever

But for the sake of argument, if you believe that those who have never heard quite probably are going to face judgement and eternal punishment for their sins, how can you call God just? Isn’t it unfair that some people have had a chance to hear the gospel, and others have not? The real accusation is this – is it just for God’s mercy to be inequitably distributed – that is, some people hear of God’s mercy, and some do not. Is that fair?

Below, I explore this theme, but I want to suggest a theodicy that defends the idea that God is just in condemning those who have never heard, and that they have in some sense received the gospel and some measure of mercy, based on one principle alone (though others may apply) – that of Generational Justice.

Logical v. Evidential Challenges

The plight of the unreached taps into what I consider one of the two most significant challenges to Christianity – that of Predestination and Free Will (the other is the Problem of Evil). In my survey of the Bible, these are the only two conundrums in which, after giving some explanation, the Bible appeals to mystery – i.e. God challenges us by essentially telling us that we are too puny to get it.

Since we are not omniscient, I would suspect that there ARE a few subjects that are only partially intelligible to us, and since the Bible really only makes this defense on these two subjects (unlike some Christians who use it as a lazy way out of a challenge), it is reasonable that perhaps God would make this move, but only AFTER giving some intelligible but incomplete justifications.

What ends up happening in these cases is that the challenge breaks down into two pieces – the  logical argument, and the evidential or emotional argument. The logical argument answers whether or not it is logically possible that such a condition, such as the existence of both predestination and free will, could exist. The evidential argument addresses whether or not the logical solution offered is probable, or philosphically, evidentially, and intuitively convincing.

So I assume that any or all of the arguments below adequately address the logical challenge – that is, it is logically possible that God has just and adequate reasons for punishing all and everyone, including those who have not heard the gospel.

However, many people do not find these probable or emotionally convincing. So I am now adding one more, and I think reasonable answer.

Theodicies for Defending the Damnation of the Unreached

Christian theologians and philosophers have attempted to address this moral challenge in many ways, but few address the evidential challenge  and no one that I have found offers the one explanation that I believe may be most critical – that of Generational Justice. But let’s work through the other excuses, er, defenses first.

1. God’s Providence and Predestination

Biblical theology, in general, would claim that all people are guilty, and if God punishes the Unreached, it is because, like everyone else, they are guilty of sins and merely getting the just penalty, nothing more, and nothing unjust. If some receive mercy and are not punished, that does not make the punishment of others unjust. And while this may be logically consistent and sound, it utterly fails to address the inequity of mercy given to the two groups – and so it fails to address the evidential challenge.

Calvinists, who heavily emphasize God’s role in choosing the saved and the damned, might also emphasize God’s sovereignty, foreknowledge and election, remarking that God chose who would be near the preaching of the gospel, and who would not. In addition, they may be tempted to resort to the appeal to mystery, or answer that we can not challenge God in such a way as to question his justice. They might quote something like Romans 9.18 -

Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

Who are we to question God’s mercy or justice? Naturally, such an answer again avoids the evidential moral challenge, even if it is correct that we can not really fathom it. William Lane Craig, a self-declared Molinist (Molinism entails a softer type of predestination) attempts to justify God’s providential placement of individuals, near or far from the preaching of the gospel, by arguing this way:

It is possible that God in his providence so arranged the world that those who never in fact hear the gospel are persons who would not respond if they did hear it. God brings the gospel to all those who he knows will respond to it if they hear it….No one who would respond if he heard it will be lost.¹

However, as Dr. Jerry Walls remarks in Hell: The Logic of Damnation, this logically possible solution doesn’t pass muster if we really consider it:

It is exceedingly hard to entertain seriously the notion that all the persons who lived and died in countries the gospel did not reach for centuries would have rejected it if they had heard it. ²

I mean, think of it – he must say that, for instance, most of the people in China or other unreached regions were more hardened to the gospel than those in the west. Is that believable? Not to me.

2. The Numbers Game – Best of All Possible Worlds

William Lane Craig has another possible explanation in his arsenal, that known as the Best of All Possible Worlds concept. To grossly oversimplify it, in a world with free people, God could not force everyone to love him, so some would go to hell. However, he could design a world where the least NUMBER of people go to hell. Or as Craig argues:

God has actualized a world containing an optimal balance between saved and unsaved. ³

Now while that is a possibility, I do not think it answers the geographical problem that such providential views face, as mentioned above. Are we to believe that if God had reached China (with arguably more people than any country in all time), that less people would be saved overall? In defense of this argument, Jesus has not yet returned, and it has been suggested that more people are alive today than if you summed up the population from all of human history – so if China, for example, continues it’s current rate of Christian conversion, it is possible that more people will end up being saved across history than under other circumstances. So this argument is not totally without merit. But I think there is better.

3. Post-mortem Opportunity

There may be some biblical support for the idea that people will have a chance to hear the gospel AFTER they die and BEFORE their judgement, though such support is minuscule at best. Most of it is based on passages that describe Jesus’ descent into Hades during his burial (as per the doctrine captured in the Apostle’s creed), and perhaps preaching the gospel to the Old Testament saints in Hades/Sheol (the ‘holding tank’ for the dead awaiting the glorification of Christ - other passages used in this doctrine include  Job 38:17, Psalm 68:18-22; Matthew 12:38-41; Acts 2:22-32; Romans 10:7; Ephesians 4:7-10, 1 Peter 3:18-20, and 1 Peter 4:6).

People extend this idea to a possibility that those who die AFTER Jesus’ death may have a similar post-mortem chance before or at the resurrection. Again, this is not stated in scripture, and is merely an extension of an already weakly supported doctrine. Let’s remember what we are doing here – we are trying to explain how God justly judges the Unreached – in this case, God would be considered just since they DO have at least one good chance to hear the gospel. Dr. Walls defends this view tentatively, though with reservation about it’s validity

Of course, the assumption that the opportunity to receive grace can extend beyond this life is also controversial. But if it is granted, I think the problems I have noted can be satisfactorily addressed,and we may reasonably maintain that God can and will make up for the disadvantages pertaining to salvation which some have in this life.⁴

As a side note, Dr. Walls is a protestant philosopher who also promotes the idea of Purgatory for the purpose of post-mortem sanctification (but not penal satisfaction or salvation), and has written an entire book on the subject. This view, in summary, might address the perceived injustice of damning the Unreached by God giving them a real chance, post-mortem, to hear and respond to the gospel. However, this theology is not well supported by scripture, and I want to suggest two more that ARE biblically supported.

4. Proportional Punishment as Justice

If you are a traditionalist regarding hell, you believe that God will punish the unsaved with an eternity of conscious torment. This in itself raises questions about God’s justice, since this seems quite disproportionate to a short life of sin, especially if done in ignorance of the saving message of the gospel.

While this does affect our perception of the injustice of punishing the Unreached, I think it can be taken off the table in two ways.

Firstly, if such a punishment *is* somehow proportionate (and I understand that many of us do not think it is), then the damned are merely getting what they deserve for their sins, and no more. They may not be receiving mercy, but mercy is not demanded by justice, and it is arguably not unjust to extend mercy to some, while withholding it from others, especially if those who do not receive mercy are impenitent.

There is, in my view, a second reason why we can ignore the perceived injustice of eternal conscious torment – I am of the mind that the traditional view of hell is NOT biblical, and I now subscribe to Conditionalism (a.k.a. Annihilationism), which claims that the best exegesis of the relevant Bible passages is that after the unsaved die, they are punished in proportion to their sins, and then cease to exist – that is, they do not receive eternal life, and are therefore annihilated. You can read my many posts on this issue here, or at RethinkingHell.com, where I am a contributor.

So to sum up, those who haven’t heard are not receiving punishment they do not deserve, but exactly what they DO deserve. This is just, even if some receive mercy. Those who do not receive mercy are not being unfairly treated, but justly so.

5. Generational Justice

But here is my main argument, the biblical perspective which I think best justifies God’s damnation of the Unreached. Our decisions have consequences (as I have written about elsewhere, see God’s Consequential Wrath) - that is, one type of God’s judgment is allowing us to incur the consequences of our decisions. And such consequences naturally extend not just to us, but to our immediate and even future family members. Generational judgment is clearly justified in the scriptures, such as in Exodus 34.6-7

And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

Let me illustrate – if I reject the gospel, and am in some form of leadership, be it the head of my children, home, school, or society, I impact not just myself, but others – not just metaphorically or ‘spiritually,’ but actually! And while God may judge me more severely for influencing others away from the gospel (Matthew 18.6), the fact remains that I did affect them. Are they guilty? Yes, and not only due to their own sins, but perhaps also by the extension of my authority over them, as the one responsible for them.

My claim is this – modern nations who are largely without a gospel witness are not so because their ancestors never heard the gospel – most DO have early first and econd century witnesses that they murdered or rejected, and in doing so, they brought God’s just judgment upon themselves AND their descendants.

And so God is just in condemning the Unreached, based not only on their own sins, but on the sins of their forefathers. In the proxy of their own leaders, they DID receive the mercy of the opportunity to hear the gospel, but, just as all sinned in Adam, these sinned in their ancestors, who rejected God’s mercy for themselves and their descendants.

Admittedly, this still does not bring the mercy of the gospel to the living person, so it incompletely answers the challenge. But it does explain in part that they received SOME mercy, though distant in time by at least one generation. What say ye?

FOOTNOTES

1. William Lane Craig, The Only Wise God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1987), 150-151
2. Jerry Walls, Hell: The Logic of Damnation (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 97.
3. William Lane Craig, “No Other Name: A Middle Knowledge Perspective on the Exclusivity of Salvation Through Christ,” Faith and Philosophy 6 (1989): 184
4. Jerry Walls, Hell, 92.

Satisfaction, meaning paying for one’s sins, is rejected by Protestants since we see Christ’s work as full and final on that account. But what about sanctification? Walls is proposing that, among other things, Purgatory would answer the question as to how God intends to complete our sanctification before we come into his presence.

Now, I’m not sold on his solution, but he offers it in response to this important question, which I want to address in two parts – “Does God require complete sanctification before we can enter into His full presence, and how does he accomplish it?”

Walls answers seem to be “Yes” and “Purgatory” for the repentant (he also believes in post-mortem repentance, but that’s an entirely other subject).

My thesis regarding santification, however, is different:

MY THESIS: Full Practical Sanctification (FPS) is composed of two parts – moral purity, and moral maturity. The former is fully attained at the resurrection, when we receive our new bodies, having left the old corrupted bodies behind. The latter is achieved throughout eternity.

Let’s explore, shall we?

1. What is Sanctification?

Sanctification in Christian theology is a two part process – when one accepts Christ (at regeneration) we are declared morally pure (holy), but from that point on, that new ‘legal’ or ‘positional’ status must also be developed into the reality of our life and character – typically called ‘progressive’ or ‘practical’ holiness.

So we are initially declared holy, but the process of becoming holy and Christlike in reality takes time. This dual definition of sanctification is nicely explained at gotquestions.org:

Sanctification is a state of separation unto God; all believers enter into this state when they are born of God: “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30). This is a once-for-ever separation, eternally unto God. It is an intricate part of our salvation, our connection with Christ (Hebrews 10:10).

Sanctification also refers to the practical experience of this separation unto God, being the effect of obedience to the Word of God in one’s life, and is to be pursued by the believer earnestly (1 Peter 1:15;Hebrews 12:14).

2. Is full sanctification required for us to enter into God’s presence?

That is the traditional viewpoint, based on many scriptures, including:

And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”  ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:23

“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is. ~  John 3:2

Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. ~ Hebrews 12:14

The last verse is interpreted as requiring holiness in order to see or get near to God in his full glory, and the first two verses seem to indicate that our sanctification will be completed by the time of Christ’s return, so there is no timeline conflict there.

Assuming for the moment that full practical sanctification  (FPS) occurs between now and Christ’s return, as you might expect, there are a range of proposed endpoints for sanctification. But before we look at the possible milestones for FPS, I want to stress the importance and impact of this topic.

3. Why the doctrine of full sanctification matters

Wrong doctrines have practical impacts on people, and wrong doctrines of sanctification have caused many to suffer wrongly, and even leave the faith. Below, I will discuss the various doctrinal views, and the impact they can have – bad views produce bad results. But ‘bad’ results or not, in the end, we must ask, what do the scriptures say, and where they are silent, what do reason, tradition, and experience suggest are the most likely answers?

4. When is full sanctification accomplished?

Well, that depends on who you ask.

a. Before Death (Methodism/Wesleyanism/Holiness)

The Methodists, chiefly led by John Wesley, developed the idea that full sanctification can be, and perhaps must be, attained in this life BEFORE death, and that through application of effort. In Methodism, this is called “entire sanctification” or “Christian perfection.”

Though I disagree with the proposed timing of reaching this perfection (before death), Methodism’s definition of perfection provides the two attributes which form my thesis – purity v. maturity. Here’s the type of sanctification Wesley beleived Christians could attain in this life – that is, moral purity.

And again: `If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.‘ Now, it is evident, the Apostle here speaks of a deliverance wrought in this world: For he saith not, The blood of Christ will cleanse, (at the hour of death, or in the day of judgment,) but it `cleanseth,’ at the time present, us living Christians `from all sin.’ And it is equally evident, that if any sin remain, we are not cleansed from `all’ sin. If any unrighteousness remain in the soul, it is not cleansed from `all, unrighteousness. Neither let any say that this relates to justification only, or the cleansing us from the guilt of sin: First, because this is confounding together what the Apostle clearly distinguishes, who mentions, first, `to forgive us our sins, and then `to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’ Secondly, because this is asserting justification by works, in the strongest sense possible; it is making all inward, as well as all outward, holiness, necessarily previous to justification. For if the cleansing here spoken of is no other than the cleansing us from the guilt of sin, then we are not cleansed from guilt, that is, not justified, unless on condition of walking `in the light, as he is in the light.’ It remains, then, that Christians are saved in this world from all sin, from all unrighteousness; that they are now in such a sense perfect, as not to commit sin, and to be freed from evil thoughts and evil tempers.”

Now note that he wants us to know that this moral perfection is not entire, nor is our sanctification, from a maturity point of view, complete.

They are not perfect in knowledge. They are not free from ignorance, no, nor from mistake. We are no more to expect any living man to be infallible, than to be omniscient. They are not free from infirmities, such as weakness or slowness of understanding, irregular quickness or heaviness of imagination. Such in another kind are impropriety of language, ungracefulness of pronunciation; to which one- might add a thousand nameless defects, either in conversation or behaviour. From such infirmities as these none are perfectly freed till their spirits return to God; neither can we expect till then to be wholly freed from temptation; for `the servant is not above his master. ~ A Plain Account of Christian Perfection by John Wesley

So, Wesley admits that our moral perfection can be accomplished before or at death, but there still remains room for growth.

SIDEBAR: Christian Perfection, Arminianism, and the accompanying mistake of striving for holiness

Unfortunately, this doctrine of the possibility of moral perfection in this life also leads to and is tightly and logically integrated with the idea that one can and must continue to exercise effort with respect to that growth, or else they could lose their salvation. This emphasis on human effort and responsibility has a huge risk, which is that Christians will subtly shift from faith in God to faith in their own ability to persevere. And this leads to some of the most hellish Christian striving. I know firsthand.

As a victim of the heavy burdens of the Wesleyan/Holiness view of full sanctification in this life, I nearly gave up on faith until the more Reformed views of Christ’s finished work put me back on a foundation of faith in God instead of faith in my own efforts.

b. At Death (Reformed)

The traditional Reformed view is that our sanctification is completed when we leave this sinful body behind at death. This is a convenient spot to insert this completion, but it is a bit of a deus ex machina solution, and it then begs the question – if we are all instantly sanctified at death, what use is there maturing or seeking Christ-likeness in this life? If it’s automatically given, rather than worked into us through experience and cooperation with God, why try at all?

This objection is a good one, and is one of the motivating factors behind the purgatorial view described below. However, my bifurcated view of sanctification, that of separating it into purity and maturity components, obviates the need for purgatory, allows us into God’s presence immediately, and allows for ongoing spiritual growth in heaven. But I’m skipping ahead.

c. In Purgatory

Believe it or not, there are some Protestant theologians who, in an attempt to answer the question of FPS, opt for a ‘sanctifying purgatory.’ Their reasoning is based on their assumption that time and real experience are necessary for our meaningful participation in the sanctification process. As Jerry Walls summarizes:

The essence of the first argument is that there is no way to make conceivable the abrupt transition of a morally imperfect being into a morally perfect one. Since all or most persons who die are morally imperfect, purgatory is needed as an intermediate state in which this transition can occur in a fashion that fits our condition as essentially temporal beings. The self-acceptance argument turns on the claim that God desires our free cooperation in his relationship with us, so he will respect that reality and work with us in such a way that we freely endorse each aspect and step of our moral and spiritual transformation. ~ Purgatory, p. 114-115 [Kindle Location 2607]

On this view, our time spent in the intermediate state, after death and before resurrection, is spent becoming sanctified. However, this view has some issues – like why is it that people who die just before the resurrection only need a few years in purgatory, while those who died in the first century, need 2000+ years to complete their sanctification? Some purgatory supporters might say that we spend some time in purgatory AFTER resurrection, but that too has problems – so some of us get into heaven at the resurrection, while the rest work on our sanctification? And on it goes.

d. At Resurrection

This view is very similar to the Reformed view, except that it puts attainment of FPS, not just at the point of leaving this earthly body, which would put FPS attainment at the start of the interim period between death and resurrection, but at the point of receiving our new bodies at the resurrection.

Since we don’t know much about the interim state of the regenerate dead, there’s not much difference between this and the ‘at death’ view of FPS.

e. During Eternity

 This is where my thesis comes in. If you can accept the bifurcation of sanctification into moral purity and moral maturity, then there seems no reason why you could not hold to a view that says the first is attained at death or the resurrection, while the latter could go on for eternity.

In fact, church father Origen, fond of learning, pictured heaven in just this way – as an ongoing classroom:

Although an individual may depart from this life less perfectly instructed, but who has done works that are approved of, he will be capable of receiving instruction in that Jerusalem, the city of the saints, i.e., he will be educated and moulded, and made a living stone, a stone elect and precious, because he has undergone with firmness and constancy the struggles of life and the trials ofpiety; and will there come to a truer and clearer knowledge of that which here has been already predicted, viz., that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceeds from the mouth of God. And they also are to be understood to be the princes and rulers who both govern those of lower rank, and instruct them, and teach them, and train them to divine things. ~ Origen, De Principiis, II.11.3

CONCLUSION

Allow me to restate my thesis:

Full Practical Sanctification (FPS) is composed of two parts – moral purity, and moral maturity. The former is fully attained at the resurrection, when we receive our new bodies, having left the old corrupted bodies behind. The latter is achieved throughout eternity.

This approach addresses what I see as the weaknesses of the other views.

• It doesn’t require full maturity in order to be with Christ in Heaven
• It doesn’t require instant, magically attained sanctification at death or resurrection
• It doesn’t posit some purgatorial structure in either the interim period or after resurrection, an additional component for which we see little or no scriptural support.

Of course, I have not made the exegetical argument for my case, mostly a philosophic one. But that could come next.

My main purpose in making this proposal, however, has a goal, and that is to reduce the amount of acrimony in our society by reducing the amount of legislation that is coercive, that is, both Prohibitions (making activities illegal), and Provision (redistributing money for government programs).

I am not, however, suggesting a Libertarian view, which eshews nearly all prohibitions or public programs, as shown in the diagram below. Some prohibitions do make sense (don’t steal, don’t kill, don’t bear false witness, you get the idea), and some social programs make sense too. But I do want limits.

What I am trying to avoid, and what our current American trajectory seems to be, is the Euro-socialist model, which, like National Socialism and Communism, has proportions more like the diagram below:

In that scenario, many activities are prohibited, many are regulated, and few are permitted or free from government interference (Proscription).  On the other side of the curve, lots of social engineering incentives are used to promote state goals (in the geise of helping society), and a majority of individual income is garnered in taxes in order to support a large ‘social safety net,’ providing for many things which are probably better left to individual responsibility, like housing, retirement savings, or child care.

Again, my goals is to recommend the normal distribution, and then to suggest specific public policy efforts that both the right and left should temper in order to reduce public acrimony, increase freedom, and reduce government.

CONDITIONALIST / NEUTRAL

SITES

1. Doctrine of Eternal Punishment / Hell – lots of good articles (theologicalstudies.org.uk)
2. Edward Fudge Ministries - tons of articles, audio, and video
   
3. Hell According to Scripture
4. Rethinking Hell – informative podcasts and articles. I am a contributor there. (E)
5. Warren Prestidge Archives – videos and articles

VIDEO/AUDIO

1. The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment (Edward Fudge | 2012)
2. Hell and Mister Fudge (Movie | 2012)
3. Does the Bible teach eternal torment in hell for the unbelievers? (Steve Greg | 2012)

BOOKS

1. The End of the Unrepentant: A Study of the Biblical Themes of Fire and Being Consumed by J. Webb Mealy (Wipf & Stock, 2012)
2. Evangelical Essentials: A Liberal-Evangelical Dialogue by John Stott and David L. Edwards  (InterVarsity, 1988) (E)
3. Hell: A Final Word by Edward Fudge (Leafwood, 2012)
4. The First Doctrine of the Christian Church by Charles Earl Preston (1891)

5. The True Image: The Origin and Destiny of Man in Christ by Philip E. Hughes (Eerdmans, 1989)

6. “The Case for Conditional Immortality” in Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell by John W. Wenham (Baker 1992)

7. Edward Fudge, The Fire That Consumes: The Biblical Case for Conditional Immortality (Paternoster, 1994)  (E)
8. Four Views on Hell by William Crockett, Stanley N. Gundry, John F. Walvoord and Zachary J. Hayes (1996) (E)

ARTICLES

1. Annihilationism (wikipedia)  (E)
2. Annihilationism (theopedia)
3. Annihilationism: A flawless response to traditional eschatology? (Ryan Paetzhold)

4. Annihilationism, Traditionalism,

   and the Problem of Hell (Philosophia Chrsti, 2010) (E)

5. The Apocalypse’s Lake of Fire (Scot McKnight, 2013)
6. The Destruction of the Finally Impenitent (Clark Pinnock, 1990)
7. Evangelical Annihilationism in Review (James I. Packer, 1997)
8. Karl Barth and annihilation theory (Refdoc.fr)
9. On Hell: A Helpful Bibliography by Peter Lumpkins (SBC Tomorrow, 2011)
10. Rightly Dividing the Hell Debate (Christianity Today, 2000)
11. Undying Worm, Unquenchable Fire (Christianity Today, 2000) (E)
12. What in the Hell is Hell? (TheoMag, 2013)
13. What is Conditional Immortality (Dr. Glenn Peoples, 2008)

14. Where the Fires are Not Quenched:

    Biblical, Theological & Pastoral Perspectives on Hell (Jonathan Gibson)

TRADITIONALIST / ANTI-CONDITIONALIST

SITES

VIDEO/AUDIO

1. Can a loving God send people to hell? Debate between William Lane Craig and Ray Bradley (1994)
2. Rethinking Life After death by N.T. Wright (A support for dehumanization of the unredeemed)

BOOKS

ARTICLES

1. Evangelicals and the Annihilation of Hell (Christian Research Journal, 1994)
2. HELL: NEVER, FOREVER, OR JUST FOR AWHILE? (TSMJ, Fall 1998)

Regarding public policy, I propose that a method is needed to quantitatively balance and proportion the various types of public policy actions. With that in mind, the following spectrum of public policy types are proposed, and superimposed over them is a normal curve which, it is argued, reflects the most effective relative emphasis, which should be pursued by Christians.

Figure: The Functions of Government Over a Normal Curve

Briefly, the five types of public policy efforts, listed from most negative to most positive are:

1. Prohibition – legislation prohibiting various actions, such as murder or theft
2. Prescription – legislation regulating various actions, such as alcohol or product labeling
3. Permission – no legislation proffered, government remains neutral
4. Promotion – legislation incentivizing various actions, such as home ownership or savings through tax incentives or low cost loans
5. Provision – legislation redistributing money to provide services

Now, given these , I want to suggest the following important claim.

Guiding Principle: A distribution of legislation across a normal curve represents an effective, if not optimal balance of legislation types.

My justification and explanation for this approach is as follows.

1. By reducing the more coercive forms of governmental control (Prohibition and Provision), we  reduce the negative social repercussions of ‘legislative strong-arming.’

We must focus less on the tail-end public policy actions (prohibition and provision) and more on the ‘softer’ policies of prescription and promotion. The simple evidence of the public’s distaste for the strong-arm  legislative tactics and rhetoric of the ‘culture wars,’ quite visible in the growing ranks of newly minted  Independents leaving both the Left and the Right, tells us that such intrusive government policies create ill will.

2. By increasing the number of topics that Government remains neutral on, we reduce government control and expense, and increase freedom.

How much of life do we want government to manage for us? I suggest that the MAJORITY of the control of public life should be guided by individual freedom and virtue, not by an oppressive, always present state system that requires conformity.

3. The Constitutional Emphasis on Limited Government

Many people do not realize that the Bill of Rights, the first 10 clarifications of the Constitution, are aimed at LIMITING the power of government, and ensuring the Rights, the freedoms, of the populace. With that in mind, I think that the most coercive public policy should be limited, as should all legislation in general, as emphasized in points 1 and 2 above.

4. These ‘strong-arm tactics’ violate the spirit of Christ

Christ asks us to serve in meekness rather than by using the coercive power of the state. This latter approach demonstrates what James Hunter calls the “basic intent and desire to dominate, control, or rule.”

He decries this approach, writing:

Our times amply demonstrate that it is far easier to force one’s will on others through legal and political means or to threaten to do so than it is to persuade them or negotiate compromise with them. ¹

In Part 2, I want to discuss some specific public policy issues that both right and left ought to abandon in order to treat the members of society with respect, rather than with commands.

FOOTNOTES

1. Hunter, James Davison. To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, & Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010., p. 106-7.

1. I hate shaving my chin

Actually, I hate shaving in general, but the chin can have some of the most gnarly and tough of all facial follicles, and with all of the angles, it’s easy to cut yourself or irritate the face. And I don’t even have a cleft. For women, I liken it to shaving your knees, not sure if that captures it, though.

2. It keeps me warm

Sure, California doesn’t get that cold, and my beard only covers my chin. I’ve had it cover more space, and whatever it covers is warm. That’s a plus.

3. I want to promote non-conformity, especially among Christians

One of the most pernicious, soul-killing forces in the world is the pressure to sublimate our true person in order to fit into society’s expectations, which are often superficial and crafted out of insecurities, not real values. The pressure to conform to a ‘clean’ image is even more pronounced in religious circles, and I think such conformity is contrary to how God raises up mature people.

In Christian circles, the negative view of the self and self-care, based in poor understandings of ‘self-denial’ in scripture, leads many to ignore or even hate their created self, as I discussed in Orthodox Heresies – 7 false doctrines of the Church. I want people to feel the freedom to differ, to express their uniqueness, and to enjoy being themselves, even as their brokenness is still contaminating and being removed from their created self as they are changed by God.

4. I want to promote the idea of healthy rebellion

Beyond merely resisting conformity, we need to be willing to take heat for being different, especially when we are different for the right reasons. There is a worldly wildness, which won’t come under any authority, but there is also a godly wildness, which is willing to disobey man’s laws and expectations in order to obey the higher laws and ways of God. John the Baptist was like that, and so was Jesus. I want people to be willing to offend both Pharisaical and worldly expectations. And a non-conforming beard is a nice, visible, and free statement to that end.

A little wildfire is better than no fire at all.

5. I am a little rebellious, and I’m OK with that.

Sure, there may be some not-so-spiritual reasons why I wear a beard, but until that comes to the fore in my spiritual journey, I’m OK with expressing who I am. I’m not working on myself, I’m exposing myself to God, and letting Him choose the agenda.

When God gets any of my many minor faults, I’ll deal with them then. Otherwise, I’m not going to kill myself trying to be clean and perfect.

6. I want to identify with those outside of acceptable society

Conforming people have lots of places they might feel accepted and comfortable. The hurt and angry, the rebellious and rough don’t have much hope of fitting into the sanitized world of business or church culture. I don’t want them to get the impression that they first have to clean up the outside, when really, God starts on the inside and works His way out.

Dead spirituality emphasizes external conformity, but God wants the heart. See

The LORD doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart. ~ 1 Samuel 17:6

7. I enjoy the fellowship of manliness

Once, a woman challenged me, asking “Do you grow your beard to prove that you are a man?” “No,” I replied, “I grow it because I AM a man.” I’m not trying to prove anything, I just enjoy being a man, and enjoying the company of manliness and men.

As all many of us beard guys know, we have an instant, unspoken bond, esp. if we sport the same kind of unique beard. We suppose that we understand one another, and with regard to the beard, we probably do. It’s like being at a convention for your favorite hobby or interest – everyone there is connected, in affections, and often, in motive and spirit.

When I meet another beard guy, especially those who risk an unconventional or long beard, we share the following values about one another:

• This guy doesn’t dig conformity
• This guy is comfortable with a little lack of refinement
• This guy appreciates the warrior spirit of manhood
• This guy appreciates the value of healthy rebellion, and isn’t going to judge me

This may sound crazy to some, but I get a similar kinship with cat people – we know when we recognize one another that we share a common love. The beard is even more powerful because it is more closely attached to common values, not just affections, personality types, or superficial preferences.

Maybe this is all in my head. Bearded men, what say ye? Huah? Grunt? Yep.

• Tom Wright & James Dunn The New Perspective on Paul (youtube, 11 min)
• The New Perspective on Paul (theopedia.com)
• The NP: Introduction and Summary (The Paul Page)
• Critical Assessment of the New Perspective on Paul 1/4 (Cornelis Venema) (youtube, 4 episodes, 15 min each)
• The New Perspective on Paul: Its Basic Tenets, History, and Presuppositions  (The Master’s Journal)
• The Doctrine of Justification and the New Perspectives on Paul (Ligonier Ministries)

1. Denial and isolation
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

I want to encourage my fellow conservatives, and conservative Christian friends to move through the stages quickly so that we can recommit to making a positive difference. Personally, I am somewhere between Anger and Depression right now. Denial and Bargaining won’t get us anywhere, since we’re stuck with the results we’ve got.

So let me articulate the vision that I am focusing on in order to move past the perceived doom of the current election results.

1. The change starts with me

It is human nature to see the problem outside of ourselves, when really, our first and greatest responsibility and opportunity is to exercise control over the one thing we have rightful and full control over – ourselves.

I need to become better. I need to become ‘the change I want to see in the world’  (Ghandi). I can do whatever I want with myself! So let me start with that foundation.

For my Christian friends, let us also remember that first and foremost, our satisfaction, personal growth, and success are all founded on our intimacy and time spent alone with God. If you gain the outside world but ignore and lose this inner world, what have you gained? Even the great Apostle Paul wrote:

But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified. ~ 1 Corinthians 9:27

Bringing myself to the place of prayer and closing the door to the outside is a tough but necessary discipline, one that we all fail at. I am not just reminding you, but myself as well. Let’s do it!

2. My family is the next larger circle I must influence

If you are a parent, your next sphere of influence (a.k.a. Sphere of Government) is your family -  the responsibility, privilege, and opportunity of having a healthy marriage and children is the greatest one in the world!

The nuclear family is the foundation of a healthy society. Healthy marriages make for happy, industrious, healthy people (did you know that both men and women live longer if in a stable marriage?).

And good marriages, with children instructed in the virtues of chastity, industry, tolerance, patience, generosity, and fidelity to commitments is the foundation of any society. Lack those and NO amount of legislation or government can save you.

That’s why, for example, government efforts at eradicating poverty have had only measured success – because the primary problem is a moral one – a lack of faithful, industrious, and chaste men (and women). When, for example, more than 70% of African American children are born out of wedlock, do you think that these children growing up in broken homes can really be happy and healthy without a change to the behavior of their parents, especially their fathers?

Let us consciously focus more energy where we already have influence and responsibility –  arguably the most important human endeavor of all – our families.

3. The Church is the avenue of salvation, not the government

Why is it that we spend so much emotional capital and time on elections, but spend so little on our Churches?

a. Our churches don’t really contribute much to our communities

It’s a sad fact that, while evangelical churches are very active in our communities compared to other voluntary organizations, we are still largely a population that comes to church once a week, listens to a lecture, then goes home.

We should be less organized around passive learning, and more organized around participatory learning, service, and evangelism.

b. We forget what true salvation is

In this world, science and politics are powerful and important avenues for ensuring human well being. But let’s remember that you can ‘gain the whole world but lose your soul.’ And I don’t mean just ‘not go to heaven.’ I mean place your inner well being and hope in the temporal things of this world – power, position, pleasure, possessions.

And there is little hope for redemption or meaning in suffering in a purely material, non-spiritual view of the world. As atheist Richard Dawkins has said

In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference. ~ ”God’s Utility Function“, Scientific American: 85, November 1995

The gospel offers an experience of the loving, healing, transforming God in a real relationship in this life, not just the future. And a hope for full redemption of the pains of this life in the next.

c. We forget the importance of the Church in God’s plan.

The Church is the essential vehicle for delivering the work and message of God, bringing people into healing relationships, and displaying the power of God to overcome our own hopelessness and hate in this life. Not just nice Christian individuals, but healing communities. The gospel is displayed in loving communities, which is what our churches are supposed to be.

“By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” ~ Jesus in John 13:35

To the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places… ~ Ephesians 3:10

Ultimately, government can only provide a societal framework in which the agents of moral change, in Christian context, the Church, can create virtuous citizens. And ultimately, this is the primary work of most Christians – not reforming government, but being committed to and participating in a healthy Church.

“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion . . . Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” ~ John Adams

4. Four years goes by fast, and we need to continue to participate in public arenas

While the impact of a four year presidency can last well beyond those four years, so can the influence of the NEXT administration. Towards that end, we conservatives need to focus on doing a better job of developing just, appealing, and reasoned public policies, convincing the public, and ethically playing the ‘game’ of politics. That’s the American way.

CONCLUSION

I share the disappointment, sense of foreboding concerning our future, and frustration with the freedom-stealing potential of the Euro-socialist policies of the current administration.

But beyond name calling, building a storm cellar with food and guns, and retreating to our vices, let’s commit to being better people, better families, better churches, and better citizens.

Be the change you want to see.

I have noticed, not surprisingly, a knee-jerk reaction among conservative Evangelicals against this ‘new’ view, and quite a few misunderstandings. However, I urge my more conservative friends to enter into dialogue on this, at least enough to understand it correctly so that their refutations are grounded in what is really being claimed, rather than straw men.

1. Conditionalism is NOT Universalism

Many Evangelicals were rightly alarmed when Rob Bell published Love Wins, his book claiming that Christian Universalism, i.e. ‘everyone will eventually be saved through Christ’ was the truth. This was distressing because Rob was a darling of the Evangelical movement, and part of the very innovative, intellectual, and influential Mars Hill Church.

But as the diagram to the right shows (courtesy of rethinkinghell.com), Conditionalism has more in common with Traditionalism than Universalism.

In contrast to Universalism, and in common with Traditionalism, Conditionalism teaches:

• That there is no redemptive or purgatorial function in hell
• That not all will be saved

2. Conditionalism is NOT a Liberal doctrine

Genetic fallacies aside, Conditionalism is not rooted in a low view of scripture, nor does it find its origin in Liberal theology. Liberals typically favor Universalism. This doctrine is rooted, as far as I can tell, in the following concerns:

• A concern for what the Bible really teaches, rather than the doctrinal traditions we have inherited.
• A concern that the Traditional view is a stumbling block to many people, who see eternal conscious torment as unjust. Are we putting this stumbling block in the way of those who might otherwise consider our gospel more seriously?

We need to survey the biblical materials afresh. I do plead for frank dialogue among evangelicals on the basis of scripture. I also believe that the ultimate annihilation of the wicked should at least be accepted as a legitimate, biblically founded alternative to their eternal conscious torment. ~ Evangelical Essentials, p. 319.

3. Conditionalism is NOT rooted in the ethical objection to eternal torment

This is not to say that Conditionalists are not motivated or awakened by the ethical objection to eternal hell- that is, that it violates the biblical and reasonable view that the punishment should fit the crime, a.k.a. ‘proportional punishment.’

I myself initially left Christianity in part because I felt that eternal hell was an unbalanced, and unjust punishment for temporal crimes done mostly out of ignorance, if not fallenness. I returned to Christianity later, holding on to and articulating the arguments for the justness of hell myself. I was, however, relieved to see that perhaps the Traditional view is actually not what the Bible teaches.

But let me be clear. Conditionalists like myself do not object to the Traditional view because it is unjust (though it might be) – we object to it because

• (a) it is not what we think the Bible teaches, and we are ready to make the theological case for such, and
• (b) we are concerned for the lost who might be turning away from the gospel due to the potentially false Traditional doctrine.

4. Conditionalism is NOT ‘another gospel’

Some recent articles have appeared attempting to brand Conditionalism as a clear heresy by labeling it ‘another gospel,’ a clear reference to Paul’s admonition in Galatians 1:8 that anyone who teaches another means of salvation other than Christ should is accursed and a heretic.

Here’s the simple answer to that claim – Conditionalists do not debate the means of salvation at all – that Christ’s substitutionary death paid the price for man’s sin, and that faith in Christ is the means to reconciliation with God.

What we do debate is the nature of the punishment of the wicked. We agree that there is a punishment. If one considers this part and parcel with the gospel, I am not sure what else I can say, except read this longer defense.

5. Conditionalism is NOT unbiblical

Conditionalists argue that their view is the more straightforward and biblical exegesis of the relevant passages. Rather than taking them out of context, or explaining them away using some historical/cultural contextual argument (as some do with homosexuality), Conditionalists are calling for a straight up, passage by passage, and holistic biblical re-examination of the Bible passages as their primary argument.

Just as an example, as yourself – do the following passages on first glance (and we will need to take more than a first glance, but for argument’s sake, start this way) seem to support the view that punishment is ongoing, or merely a cessation?

• The soul who sins will die (Ezekiel 18:4, 20),
• The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23),
• the lake of fire is the second death (Revelation 20:4; 21:8), a molten inferno in which every condemned thing—including death and Hades passes away, gone forever out of existence (ESV, NLT, and NET, respectively)

6. Conditionalism does NOT contradict the creeds

Surprisingly little is said about Hell in the most famous Christian creeds, as I’ve excerpted below.

Nicene Creed
We believe also in only One, Universal, Apostolic, and [Holy] Church; in one baptism in repentance, for the remission, and forgiveness of sins; and in the resurrection of the dead, in the everlasting judgement of souls and bodies, and the Kingdom of Heaven and in the everlasting life.

The Apostle’s Creed
I believe in God the Father Almighty…
And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord…
He descended into hell;
I believe in ...The Resurrection of the body,
And the Life everlasting.

Athanasian Creed
At whose coming all men will rise again with their bodies; And shall give account for their own works. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting; and they that have done evil, into everlasting fire. 

Note that the question of what everlasting means must be answered Biblically – does it mean that punishment is ongoing and forever, or does it mean that the fire will permanently consume those condemned into it?

The reason that this is not further elucidated can have two possible answers.

First, that the authors assumed that everyone would know what they meant by ‘eternal fire’ (in the one case where it is actually called out). But let me ask you – since when to creeds, which are meant to elucidate the exact particulars essential to the faith, assume you understand what the details are?

There is another credible explanation, and that is that the fate of the wicked is not an essential doctrine, but a secondary one. Salvation is through Christ, but one’s belief about the actual character and duration of Hell does not make or unmake a Christian.

CONCLUSION

Challenging a long tradition is not undertaken lightly, nor do we expect to change minds or Evangelical culture and doctrine overnight. However, those of us in this movement do view ourselves, not as liberals with a low view of scripture, but quite the opposite – Evangelicals with a high view of scripture and a great concern for the truth, and for those who might be stumbling away from Christ due to our doctrines.

And those who share our concerns need to take this discussion very seriously, because it’s exegetical power is real and will not go away as just another liberal doctrine. Like the doctrine of infant baptism, it may take time, and persecution of those who propose an alternate, more biblical view (in that case, believers’ baptism), for this doctrine to find its place as the accepted view.

May God hasten the day that this is resolved, for the sake of the Church and those who need the gospel.

Prop 30: Temporary Taxes to Fund Education, Public Safety – NO

While this initiative proposes to raise money for schools and public safety, it’s a temporary fix to the bigger problem of spending. Also, I’ve never met a temporary tax that didn’t want to become permanent. Additionally, Prop 38 takes a long term view that doesn’t just tax the employers (those earning > $250K a year), but everyone. Now THAT’S what I see as ‘fair.’

Prop 31: State and Local Budget. Constitutional amendment and statute – YES

The SEIU is against it. Do I need any more evidence to vote for it when a known criminal organization is against it? No.

Prop 32: Prohibit Political Contributions by Payroll Deduction – YES

This prohibits unions from using payroll deducted funds for political purposes. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met who hate the politics of their union, but have to belong and pay dues in order to be employed. Oh, and the SEIU is against this. So I am for it.

Prop 33: Auto Insurance Prices Based on Insurance History – NO

While this looks like a consumer protection bill to allow people to change insurance companies and keep their good driver discounts, it is SUPPORTED by the car insurance companies. Hrm. Further investigation indicates that this may actually be a way for them to legally raise rates on people who have temporary gaps in their insurance, like poor people and veterans.

Prop 34: Repeal the Death Penalty in CA – YES

I have recently changed my position on the death penalty, not because I think it is unjust, but because I have seen how many people are falsely convicted and exonerated later. I’m willing to give on this issue. My conservative friends disagree. Until, perhaps, they’ve seen the stories at The Innocence Project.

Prop 35: Increase Human Trafficking Penalties by Making them Sex Offenses – NO

This is another deceptive initiative. I mean, who would NOT want increased penalties for human traffickers? The problem is, this bill confuses and conflates human trafficking with sex offenses, and while it increases monetary penalties, it gives NONE of that money to the victims, and all of it to an as to be named state agency. This is poorly constructed, and should be redone. Oh, and did I mention that the SEIU is FOR it? I wonder what a Union gets out of this legislation? Money, perhaps? Certainly.

Prop 36: Make the ‘Third Strike” only valid for serious or violent felonies – NO

All of the law enforcement people with years of experience, including the author of the original three strikes law, are against this. Why? Because if you have two violent offenses, but your third is not a ‘serious’ felony, they want to keep you on the streets. Truth is, DAs and judges already have the discretion to not count this type of ‘non serious felony’ from being your third strike. This would mandate it. I want our judges to have the ability to use their own judgment on these repeat offenders.

Prop 37: Labeling of GMO Foods – YES

I don’t think this will actually cost more, and I am all for consumer information. Monsanto, the evil corn corporation (go watch King Corn if you don’t believe me), is the top opposition funder in this battle. Opponents are claiming that the organic food companies who support this are the evil capitalists trying to increase labeling burdens on their competitors. You have got to be kidding me.

Prop 38: Tax to Fund education and Early Childhood Programs – YES

California is 47th in per-capita spending on students. I am all for spending where it counts, and even taxing, esp. if legislation is long term, forward thinking, and fair. This taxes ALL citizens with a sliding scale (why couldn’t it be flat? I guess you can’t be TRULY fair in California). This initiative also aims to pay off debt. Imagine that. Now they’re talking my language – fiscal responsibility.

Prop 39: Taxes on Multistate Businesses – NO

This was a tough one, but looking closely at it, I don’t think it’s really about just raising money for California – it will penalize businesses that sell here, and will raise our prices. AND, the SEUI is for it. Why? I don’t know, but I’m voting against it.

Prop 40: State Redistricting Keep as Is? – NO

This prop will probably fix nothing. Gerrymandering will go on. I just thought, “What the heck, maybe a change will do good.” The confusing thing here is that a YES vote keeps the status quo, and a NO changes it. Who is going to figure that out? Not many.

Here’s the Table of Contents, and a PDF of my paper A Framework for Preparing
A Christian-Center Call to Unity & Action: THE MENLO DECLARATION.

• The Genesis and Goals of this Effort
• The Form and Content of Declarations
• Principles for Reducing Disagreement
• A Specific Proportionality Proposal for Public Policy Types
• Specific Sacrifices Suggested for both Sides
• Setting Goals Using the Balance of Scripture
• Stepping Back from Controversial Science
• Stepping Back from Coercive Public Policy
• CONCLUSION
• An Outline for the Menlo Declaration

I repent of my past denial of hell or that a person could ever be eternally separated from a holy God.   I know now that I had no fear of God.  Therefore, I had no knowledge of God (Prov. 1:7).   I was a fool with an MDiv.   I was wrong.

Marrow’s Chapel United Methodist Church was right to ask me to leave.  It was God’s mercy.   I am so sorry for the pain I caused them through that entire ordeal last year and I ask their forgiveness.  I have wept many tears over the last many months, pleading with God that no one would be lost for my prideful and blind confident assertions (1 Tim. 1:7).   Love doesn’t win. God wins.  And it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a holy, living God (Heb. 10.31).  I lost sight of this and God, in His mercy, granted me a chance to repent.

My old blog will be deleted this weekend (and this one was only created for the purpose of this post).

It is a reality that if you don’t agree with the doctrines or politics of the board of elders of a church (who supposedly represent what the church founders and congregants believe), you shouldn’t be up front leading them in a different direction.

But instead of finding a new church, he dropped out, hit the bottom, and his addictions, including porno and extramarital affairs consumed his life and marriage.

I realize now that much if not all of what I did in the past was from a place of pride.  A love of self more than God and a desire to build myown kingdom (blog readers, facebook friends, amens) rather than God’s Kingdom.   God resists the proud, and I was most certainly being resisted….

My addiction and adultery all took place while serving as a pastor and going through seminary.  I knew a lot about God but did not know God.  I had no fear of God, denying that such a loving God could ever send a soul to hell.  But if there was ever a person to whom our Lord would say, “Depart from me, I never knew you,” it was most surely I.

My first observation is, it is too bad that he did not consider the Conditionalist view – he may not have had to repent of error.

Second, it is too bad the high profile people often have messed up inner lives, probably because they became high profile at the expense of really growing into spiritual people with healthy marriages along the way. Keeps me wary of notoriety  and focused on becoming a better person rather than a more well known one.

I never wandered into the Emergent camp, but I was not always comfortable with Evangelicalism either. So, as I am wont to do, I began reading, and I began to take issue with certain doctrines of Evangelicalism. And then I took a big step. I enrolled in the M. Div. program at center-left Fuller Seminary.

Fuller is infamous among evangelicals for abandoning the traditional view of scriptural inerrancy, though it still holds scripture in high esteem as “the written word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice.”

In my first class at Fuller, Christian Ethics, my big aha moment was discovering the Christian Center, which essentially incorporates the best priorities of both Evangelical right and Left, and is well represented in the NEA’s For the Health of the Nation, as well as David Gushee’s The Future of Faith in American Politics: The Public Witness of the Evangelical Center.

Now in my second class, New Testament 2 (Romans to Revelation), I have had my second aha moment (it seems to happen about midway through the 10 week class). I have discovered, albeit late to the party, the view known as the The New Perspective on Paul.  And it is not trivial.

I intend to do a series of posts on it, but here’s the real comment I want to make.

I decided not to enroll in a traditional Reformed seminary in order to broaden my perspectives. I chose Fuller because, among other things, I too had decided that plenary inerrancy was illogical, and not taught in Scripture.

So this is the risk of attending a more ‘liberal’ (but not liberal) seminary – my perspective is being seriously challenged again! And it is irritating. But hey, I am getting exactly what I had hoped for. So there you go.

A picture of hell from the video “The Light of the World.” by Jack Chick

The traditional view of hell, that of eternal conscious torment of the lost, is under fire again, this time, not from Christian Universalists like Rob Bell, but Conditionalists, who believe that the Bible teaches that the unsaved are punished at judgment, then are destroyed, NOT tormented forever. The term ‘Conditionalist’ is short for “Conditional Immortality,” which means that we are not eternal souls, but temporal souls who must inherit eternal life in order to exist for eternity.

I am strongly leaning this way, but of course, am not quick to abandon the Traditional view, which has been the orthodox position for most of Christian history. I am often asked WHY I am even questioning this doctrine. So here you go.

Better Exegesis

The greatest reason to consider the view is that it may be a more accurate interpretation of the text – we want to ‘rightly divide the word of truth’ (2 Tim. 2:15). While every interpretation may have some open questions, the Conditionalist view obeys Occam’s razor, that is, it is a simpler, less convoluted answer – it’s a more straight forward reading of the text.

So when, for example, Jesus says “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mt. 10:25-27), we don’t have to explain that ‘destroy’ actually means eternal separation from God – it just means ‘destroy’!

Using this simpler approach is not simplistic, and I’m not saying that simpler approaches are always better, but in this case, I think it solves more theological dilemmas than it creates.

More in keeping with the law of proportionality

A second reason to reconsider it is that we claim that God is just, but the perceived injustice of punishing someone for eternity for sins performed in a short life seems out of balance – that is, it violates the law of proportionality. In the context of punishment, the common phrase for this is that ‘the punishment should fit the crime.’ Does the eternal torment view actually violate this rule of justice?

Many thoughtful, caring people see eternal conscious torment as overkill, and so reject the faith. And many, like myself, have temporarily or permanently left the faith because eternal torment seems unjust.

I do not claim that this perceived injustice is a good enough reason to doubt eternal torment, since eternal torment has its justifications. I even presented the traditional justification in Why eternal punishment?  But once we open the door via exegetical scrutiny, we should also re-ask the question of proportionality. It is important to understand what is and what is not just,, since God commands us to do justice throughout the scriptures. It should not be a complete mystery to us if we are to do it!

My experience of believing and sharing this view

My experience is one of relief that I do not have to justify the ‘injustice’ of eternal hell anymore – instead, God will “repay each person according to what he has done” (Mt. 16:27), and then, after this just punishment, the person’s existence is over, and they fail to enter into eternal life. This seems entirely fair.

This is still a fearful and terrible end, yet just. Or so it seems.

You can read and lsiten more about the growing Conditionalist movement at www.rethinkinghell.com.

This documentary covers both the critics and supporters of the traditional view, and pushes lots of buttons (in fact, the tagline for the movie on the website is ‘prepare to have your buttons pushed’).  Here’s the trailer.

Hellbound? Official Theatrical Trailer HD from Kevin Miller on Vimeo.

I am coming to this conclusion based on scriptural exegesis, not personal preference, and I am not alone – just visit rethinkinghell.com and see the growing Conditionalist movement within evangelicalism.

One of the classic books supporting this theological position is Eward Fudge’s The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment, Third Edition.

The story of how Fudge came to write this book has been made into a movie called Hell and Mr. Fudge. Check out the trailer below.

HMF PROMO VS 13 VIMEO from Jim Wood on Vimeo.

In one of Seth’s recent posts entitled Ten Questions About God, he provides an incisive list of questions that he feels he SHOULD have asked himself as a believer, and he asks us to do the same.

I have given each set of questions a Difficulty Rating, from 1-10, where 1 is an easy no-brainer, and 10 is a question which I find very challenging to my faith, and have no good answer for.  Ready?

1. Is God really all-powerful?  Omnipotent?  Is it true that He can do anything?  If this is the case, why has God not already defeated and destroyed Satan?  Wouldn’t it have made more sense to conquer Satan before Adam and Eve could be tempted in the garden?  Why do you think God is waiting?

Difficulty Rating: 7

Although he is making overtures to the classic argument from evil (if God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, why doesn’t he stop evil?), it seems that his real question here is ‘Why is God waiting to finish bringing an end to evil?’

We could insert the many theodicies crafted to answer this question, such as soul-making (Irenaean theodicy) or maximizing good (or the number of souls in heaven). But I suspect that Seth, who probably knows that the logical problem of evil is largely sufficiently answered, is really re-asking the evidential problem of evil – that is, the reality of evil in the world makes God less likely, especially natural evil (suffering caused by nature).

From where I sit, the question of ‘why does God wait?’ has the possible answers above, but to some extent, it’s irrelevant if God is waiting for His own, unfathomable mysterious purposes. And I think that, in addition to the theodicies, this is the final answer.

Look, I hate the appeal to mystery as much as any, but I find that in the scriptures, there are only two subjects to which this is presented as a final answer (after first proposing some questions to us on our perspective and ability, as well as proposing some answers). These two subjects are the problem of evil, and predestination. And I think that it is eminently reasonable that, due to our human limitations, there are at least a FEW things that might be beyond our grasp. A list of two is not a copout, but very generous, if not realistic.

To the problem of evil, the book of Job reaches a conclusion – you and I have insufficient perspective and knowledge to figure this out or even understand the answer when presented. Check out Job’s dialogue with God:

Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind:

“Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorant words? Brace yourself like a man, because I have some questions for you, and you must answer them. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much.” ~ Job 38:1-4

“Do you still want to argue with the Almighty? You are God’s critic, but do you have the answers?” ~ Job 40:2

Then Job replied to the Lord:

“I know that you can do anything, and no one can stop you. You asked, ‘Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorance?’ It is I—and I was talking about things I knew nothing about, things far too wonderful for me. You said, ‘Listen and I will speak! I have some questions for you, and you must answer them.’  I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes. I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.” ~ Job 42:106

So that’s my answer. I’m not sure, but this is not a reason to abandon faith because it lies in the realm of the two items to which the Bible says “trust me.”

I think that Seth has missed the more difficult question here, which is ”Why didn’t God, being omniscient, stop this mess before it all got started?’

My reply to that would be, in addition to what I have said above, is that we ought to be more concerned about what is true, not why it played out the way it has. That is, is there evil in the world? Yes. Does Christianity provide a working, logical world view to address it? Yes. Is it superior to the answers provided by other world views? Yes, including atheism.

I realize that the question ‘does it make sense logically’ is part of how you answer ‘is it true,’ but in light of the inscrutability of the problem of evil (it’s also quite a problem for the atheist view), we ought to shift to the question ‘if logical fails me in answering this, how else can I determine what is true?’ That’s how I address this.

1. From Arminian Holiness to Calvinism

In 1990, I abandoned the burden of Arminian holiness for the grace and peace of Calvinism. I am often surprised at some Christians’ strong negative reaction to Calvinism, but perhaps they have experienced the fatalistic hyper-Calvinism  I described in Orthodox Heresies – 7 false doctrines of the Church.

For me, trying to keep my salvation through holiness was an unbearable burden, but the rest described in Hebrews 4:1-8 is the result of seeing all the work – salvation, sanctification, and perseverance – as God’s doing.

2. From Abusive Christianity to Doubt

The second was in 1993 when I abandoned Christianity in order to learn from and adopt many helpful truths and practices from psychology, Buddhism, and yoga.

I benefited much from that exploration, and still practice yoga to this day. I’ve also posted many articles on the errors of Neo-Fundamentalism, as compared to healthy faith.

3. From Doubt to Evangelicalism

The third was in 2001 when I returned to Evangelical Christianity with a firm conviction that, despite the existence of common truth in many faith traditions, Christianity’s revealed truths were true, and its worldview was the most helpful and accurate, and led to the most human flourishing.

4. From Conservatism to the Evangelical Center

The fourth was early in 2012, where my first class at Fuller Theological Seminary, as well as my outside reading, convinced me that there was a Christian Center, and I moved from my far right position to a center-right position, which was no small shift. You can listen to a sermon I delivered on this subject entitled Adopting God’s Priorities, which forms the latter part of a Series I have begun (but have not completed).

5. From Eternal Hell to Conditionalism

The fifth is happening right now, in late 2012, where my unresolved theology of hell is resolving into a somewhat controversial position – that of Conditionalism, short for Conditional Immortality, also known as Annihilationism.

If you want a primer on this, check out The Case for Annihilationism with Glenn Peoples, part of the new podcast from RethinkingHell.com.

I’ll update this post as my journey continues, but I intend in the meantime to document the last step.

The burning of John Huss on July 6, 1415

I have a whole list of pet peeves, but one of my top annoyances to date is a list of Christian doctrines that are not only erroneous (IMO), but have driven people away from faith unnecessarily. I want to call these out and toast them.

But before I do, allow me to clarify – I am talking as an Evangelical about Protestant errors – not the many Catholic errors that instigated the Protestant Reformation, many of which persist to this day. We could go on at length about the many souls who have missed salvation in Catholicism due to its erroneous doctrines, such as indulgences, Papal infallibility, the cult of the saints, and the general way in which Catholicism obscures the gospel with a doctrine of works and the ideas of confession, penance, and purgatory.

So, let us turn a critical eye towards our own house.

1. Rejection of the Self

Some Protestants love to attack Buddhism, claiming that it teaches an extinguishing of the self. And while this is somewhat true, what is often missed is that modern Christianity has an equally destructive denial and hatred of the self grounded in poor exegesis of Scripture. Relying on misunderstandings of such scriptures as Matthew 16:24 and Romans 2:8, they assume that the created self is bad, and is to be ignored, and that the only solution to the cries of the self to be loved and restored is to ‘focus on who you are in Christ, not your self.’

This gross misunderstanding of how God saves, loves, restores, and leads us to surrender the created self in loving service to others has hurt and failed more people than I care to know. You can listen to a sermon I did on this subject at A Biblical view of self-love.

2. Rejection of the body

Along with a rejection of the created self is a negative or diminished view of the body – that the body is to be ignored, if not rejected as fallen and sinful. This comes, not only from adopting a dualistic view of humanity (spiritual world is good, physical is bad), but from a misunderstanding of the term ‘flesh’ in such scriptures as Galatians 5, where the Apostle Paul is referring to the fallen nature and perhaps the worldview of this ungodly world, not just the physical, corrupt body.

The problem with this view is that it (a) ignores scriptures that speak positively of care of the body (1 Corinthians 3:16-17, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, James 5:15-16, 1 Thessalonians 5:23), (b) leads to a lack of care for the body, even to the point of ignoring or accepting gluttony as a way of life, and (c) fails to incorporate physical disciplines into the spiritual life.

This is, in part, why as a Christian, I practice yoga (I can’t do ‘praise aerobics,’ it just isn’t aware and contemplative enough for me).

3. Arminian Holiness

Arminianism emphasizes  our ability and responsibility to believe the gospel, repent, and pursue God for our own sanctification. The problem with this is that it is often extended into a view that requires you to KEEP your salvation through effort, as well as maintain your good standing with God through holiness. This holiness often takes the form of not only inward striving, but of outward conformity to rules, both of which can easily move a person away from faith in God and into faith in one’s own efforts.

The outworking of this approach is that the believer is burdened with the need to be good enough to please God, rather than resting in the belief that God is at work in them. Two scriptures which illustrate the better, Calvinistic position include Hebrews 4:1-10 and Philippians 2:13.

4. Hyper-Calvinism

Having been rescued from Arminianism by Calvinism, and being convinced that the Reformed (Calvinistic) view is largely correct, I am slow to want to criticize Calvinism. However, there are a couple of strains of it which are damaging to people.

Eternal Security

The first is a kind practiced by many Southern Baptists, and is captured in the phrase “once saved, always saved.” The idea  rests on the correct Calivinistic idea that it is God who both saves us initially, AND completes the process for us (Romans 1:17, Philippians 1:6). This idea goes wrong when we miss the fact that REAL faith produces real changes in personality and in good works. Otherwise, it’s probably not real conversion at all (James 2:18, 2 Corinthians 7:10-11). We are eternally secure if we have truly been regenerated, but we better check ourselves to see that we are not just tricking ourselves that we are really in the faith.

Determinism

The second kind of Calivinistic abuse happens when people somehow wrongly assume that their destiny if fixed, and there is nothing they can do about it. They may feel they are beyond God’s grace or repentance, are not one of the ‘elect,’ and are damned. Alternately, some Christian determinists feel as though evangelism is not necessary because God is going to save whomever he wants whether or not we spread the message.

Misanthropy

A third type of Calvinistic error comes from misunderstanding of the term “total depravity,” part of the summary of Calvinism presented in the TULIP acronym. Some have mistaken it to mean that there is nothing valuable in the unregenerate person (see the error regarding the Self discussed above), and so they can end up despising human nature or any human effort, including intellect, science, art, and any other feature of the created person apart from God.

I have addressed this error in Is Man Basically Good or Evil?

5. Patriarchy

Some readers may be familiar with the battle over women’s rights, specifically as it applies to positions of authority in the Church. Unfortunately, there are two camps that are a bit polarized – the Complementarian and Egalitarian views, which emphasize man’s headship, and gender equality, respectively.

The problem with this polarization, in my view, is that both camps are partially correct. I think that the Complementarians are correct in emphasizing man’s place as head of the household, and perhaps in excluding women from being the lead pastor of the church. They may be wrong in extending this prohibition to other positions in the Church, and of course, are really wrong when they extend it to an authoritarian view of men in the Church and the home.

This type of patriarchy has offended and hurt many women, and forced them to either reject faith, or react and end up in an equally damaging feminist theology that demeans men, and destroys the peace of households by removing the idea of loving male headship.

6. Inerrancy of Scripture

Now I am seriously challenging orthodoxy, but I have come to this and the following convictions with much wrestling of heart and mind. So let me write plainly.

I  believe that the doctrine of inerrancy, in the form of plenary inspiration of the original scriptures, is unbiblical and damaging to faith and practice. My argument is fairly simple – we do not have the original documents, so we can not trust the translations we have as any more than a close approximation of the originals. So why is it important to believe that the originals were word for word the word of God?

Not only is scriptural support for this position tenuous, the fallout of thinking people who realize the illogic of this position is pretty significant, especially for what is at best a secondary doctrine. Many otherwise orthodox Christians have thoughtfully abandoned this doctrine, as I have mentioned in the following articles:

• What is the Evangelical position on Biblical Inerrancy?
• Applying to Seminary

One logical extension of this doctrine is the awful King James Only stream of Christian thought.

Rejecting word-for-word inerrancy, by the way, does not mean that you can’t hold a high view of scripture – there are still reasons to hold that scripture is inspired, infallible, and mediated by the illumination of the Holy Spirit.

7. Eternal Conscious Torment in Hell

I am a recent thoughtful convert to the Conditionalist view of hell, also known as the Annihilationist view. This unorthodox view of hell, which claims that scripture nowhere claims the default immortality of the soul, and that those who are not saved are punished then cease to exist, is growing in momentum, and I believe that it will soon replace the traditional view of eternal hell.

There are a couple of reasons why the traditional view of eternal hell has taken hold and has persisted despite a good biblical case against it. Primarily, it is rooted, not in scripture, but in the Platonic view of the immortality of the soul, and the church errantly adopted it, as it did Platonic dualism, mentioned above. If the unregenerate soul is immortal, then hell MUST be eternal too, right? Reading the scriptures through that lense has made us blind to what scripture ay actually teach – that no one has eternal existence outside of Christ. Re-read John 3:16 and ask yourself…what does ‘perish’ actually mean? Perhaps the most straightforward reading is actually the correct one.

Many fairminded men and women have rejected Christianity because eternal conscious torment seems grossly unjust – an eternity of suffering and punishment for temporal sins? God, who commands us to do justly, turns around and punishes forever?

I myself initially left Christianity because of this perceived injustice, even though I later attempted to defend the traditional view (in fact, I still think an argument can be made for the justice of eternal hell, but am glad to find that scripture probably does not teach it.)

A non-liberal and growing movement within evangelicalism is favoring the Conditionalist view, and with the tacit support of some great past theologians like John Stott (PDF) and F.F. Bruce, as well as the current theologians like John Stackhouse, this movement is gaining steam. You can read and listen to the movement at rethinkinghell.com.

CONCLUSION

The doctrines I have listed above are my list of worst orthodox errors, primarily because they have done so much harm to individuals and the Church. May God eradicate them!

NOTE: This post is part of a series on God’s Priorities

One of the first tasks in resetting our priorities as Christians is to change our relationship with God.

Naturally, that starts with what is known as ‘regeneration’, or being ‘born again’ through receiving Christ, as the scriptures describe:

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name ~ John 1:12

Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” ~ John 3:3

Having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever ~ 1 Peter 1:23

As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby ~ 1 Peter 2:2

Many people dismiss this necessity for rebirth, thinking it is merely some profound emotional conversion experience (which some do have), but even if it is not such an experience, it must be a reality in order to begin. Otherwise, all that comes after this is merely our own efforts at becoming spiritual, without the cooperation of God – it’s merely building another idol to our ego, another self-improvement project instead of a self-surrender and renewal project.

So before we go on to experiencing God’s love in our daily Christian growth, we must assure that we have actually BECOME Christian – not through family culture or mental assent, but heartfelt belief in the basic Christian message. What is that message?

1. God loves us
2. We are separated from God by our sin
3. Jesus died in our place to gain our forgiveness
4. We must individually receive Him in order to be restored to God.

God’s Love in Initially Drawing Us

If you are still skeptical, or you agree with this but are not really drawn to it, you may have missed the reality and importance of the first point. And in order to actually please God and have a spiritual life worth living, we must be assured of the first point – God’s love.

In fact, the Bible itself agrees that it is God’s goodness that is attractive to us, not just his declaration that we are fallen and need His help:

Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin? ~ Romans 2:4 (NLT)

Here’s one of the most powerful stories, told by Jesus himself, about how much we are loved.

“You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead?  Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not!  So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.” ~ Matthew 7:9-11

In other words, if you and I, who are very imperfect, if not selfish and limited, in our love, know how much we want to give good things to our children, how much more will God, who is perfect in love, want to give us good things? What are we waiting for in keeping ourselves from God’s plan?!?

God’s Love in our Daily Experience

The truth is, our experience of God varies, from very present and real to nothing at all. Some of the greatest saints of all time, including the John of the Cross and Mother Theresa, have admitted to times of doubt and lack of God’s nearness. John of the Cross called it “the dark night of the soul.”

Yet this ought to not discourage us from seeking and experiencing God. God is love, John the Apostle wrote (1 John 4:8), and God can be experienced through honest prayer. Let me share a story from my own walk in this regard.

The Love of God Healing Deep Hurts

Before I was a Christian, I was a rebel. I had a mohawk in college (back when only skinheads and punks wore them), and I was very strident in my own wild life of drugs and drink. Part of the reason I lived this way was because I was hurt from childhood – my dad disappeared (to prison) when I was 4, and since I was a smart kid, they bumped me up a grade, which meant that I was always smaller than others. And always bullied.

When I became a new Christian, I was very radical as well. I brought all my hard-hearted “I don’t give a crap what you think of me” attitude into my faith. I preached outside of the bars I used to get drunk in. And while my initial experience with God was liberating, there were deeper wounds which God had not touched yet.

About a year into my Christian growth, I began to spend time worshiping God in my prayer time, often for 20 or 30 minutes at a time. And something profound began to happen. The presence of God would come, and overwhelm me with love. My heart had been so dry from lack of love as a child and adult, I often fell into a puddle of tears while God healed years of hurt in nightly bursts.

Now, that experience did not last forever. I still experience God in my times of prayer in varying degrees, but I know for sure that God’s love was real and present for me then, and is now on regular occasions.

I would like to go as far as saying, if this is NOT your experience, you should check your faith. Perhaps you are not yet born again. Or perhaps the faith you have been taught requires you to reach some level of perfection before God will love you.

CONCLUSION

In becoming people of God, our first new priority is to understand, agree with, and experience God’s love on a regular basis, as the foundation of our life and work with God. As soon as we start drifting from the experience of “abiding in Him,” our faith becomes dry, brittle, and powerless. Not to mention a drag.

 “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.” ~ John `5:9

Batman and Bane

I’ll admit it – I am NOT a fan of comic book movies. I don’t hate them, they are just uninteresting to me. Recently, for The Dark Knight Rises, I wasted 3 hours of my evening, and $45, and I wish I could get them both back.

Let me rant, er, explain.

Epics are Too Much Work

What is the appeal of epics?

Sure, they are often riddled with allegorical and archetypal significance – you know, exploring themes of love and loss, war and forgiveness, death and rebirth, etc. Sure, they are often intricately and intelligently woven adventures beyond the pale of modern life. And sure, they provide an escape from the banality and cruelty of everyday living.

But here’s my problem with all that.

I have limited time and energy to try to keep track of their elaborate histories and lineages, not to mention elfin languages and such. The payback for my energies spent tracking the lengthy unraveling of inter-generational mayhem seems small – I mean, sure, it’s an interesting curiosity, but so what?

As a theologian and writer, I work my brain hard all of the time, and to work that hard merely for some intellectual titillation is not worth it – it’s like going to the all you can peel and eat shrimp bar –  I get tired of peeling way before I get tired of eating.

Epics are A Substitute for Reality

Such involved escapism reminds me of unhappy housewives wrapped up in other people’s lives in the soap operas. Trust me, I like to get transported to great imaginary worlds through science fiction, and I love archetypal thems, but beyond a certain point, involvement in these imaginary worlds just becomes a waste of time, if not a pathological escape from self and reality.

I would much rather see something from real history, like Schindler’s List or The Stoning of Sorya M., than try to imagine why some dude with a mask is bent on destroying Manhattan.

Modern Comic Book Movies Try Too Hard

We’ve all enjoyed the more gritty tone of the comic book remakes, but there’s a problem with this – I think they are over-reaching their genre by attempting  too much gravitas – it feels manipulative and over-acted. You can’t turn what are essentially caricatures into real people – the supernatural quality of the villains and heroes is a magic that belongs to the pre-teen world, not to adults who know better.

If you want to explore deep evil, you’ll have to resort to the place where it really lives – in real human history and drama, not in archetypal fantasy stories. With movies about Nazis and Islamists and evil capitalists.

Real Epic, Real Evil, Real Heroics

I know, that’s what some will think. I don’t really understand comic book movies. Epics are so worthy. Star Wars, Narnia, Potter, The Rings, they are all such important literature written by people smarter than me. I just have issues.

Granted. But just like my dislike for the idolatry of sports, I have an objection to these epics that borders on being of moral consequence. The real epic, depicted in Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ (also accused of emotional manipulation and over-reach), is that of the descent, birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Because it’s not just fantasy or metaphor. It’s REAL life and death. For the entire world. In real history. And it’s not an escape from reality, but an escape into it. Batman? Not real. Not truly inspiring. Just a comic book trying too hard to be self-important and weighty.

• Failures of the Left and Right
• Emergence of the Christian Center
• Organizations moving from LEFT to Center
• Organizations moving from RIGHT to Center
• What are God’s priorities?

To download Adopting God’s Priorities, please subscribe to our podcast feed.

NOTE: This post is part of a series on God’s Priorities

This is the second of the four basic priorities of spirituality, as I outlined in my Introduction is that of Receiving God’s Truth.

As you may remember, this a combination of Loving God and prioritizing truth.

In attempting to love God and seek truth, we must first adopt a posture of being open to truth. This is no mean task – if we truly desire to become spiritual people, we must be open to ideas that we have not yet encountered or accepted. This means all of the following:a

A.  Seriously considering ideas that are new to us

By definition, accepting that we need to grow means that we admit that we don’t know it all yet. Our limited experience means that we may not have yet encountered the whole truth – we may have missed huge swaths of it!  Those who seek to grow must be open to new ideas.

With regard to loving God in truth, we must be open to this important concept – we do not understand God. In fact, we may misunderstand God pretty seriously – not only because we are finite and God infinite, but because truths about God are sometimes notoriously counter intuitive. For example, when Jesus says “love your enemies” or we read “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” we may need to sit down and consider such advice as opposite of what we’ve been taught.

B.  Seriously considering ideas that contradict our currently held positions.

Some truth is hidden in the ideas of our critics and opponents. At the very least, to become mature persons, we need to seek to understand others before seeking to be understood. We need to be able to articulate their positions clearly so that we can analyze them clearly.

Practically, thisalso  means not superficially dismissing ideas that we initially dislike, especially those we have previously rejected. Time to go back and do a better, more honest job considering ideas.

C.  Allowing our current priorities to be analyzed, challenged, and reformed

When you work for a boss, you may immediately realize that your boss’ priorities are not the same as your own. If you desire, however, to stay employed, you should rearrange your priorities to match your boss’.

If you desire to be a spiritual person, you will need to prepare to shift your priorities towards what God wants. As the founder of the relief organization World Vision once prayed:

God, break my heart with the things that break yours.

D. Seriously considering ideas from sources we had previously discounted.

One impediment to spiritual growth, and growth in truth, is limiting the avenues through which you allow truth to come into your life. If you are wise, you will first listen to “God’s two books” – the book of nature, and the Scriptures. But this is not the only way that truth comes into our lives.

In fact, if you survey the ways in which God spoke to people in the Bible, you’ll see that he spoke through dreams, visions, prophets, unbelievers, angels, and even a donkey. My point is, don’t say “I will only hear truth about God or reality through [fill in your trusted source]. Truth may have to come in through other channels because of your own hardness, narrow thinking, and self imposed limitations.

Invite truth into your life. Then watch for answers from expected and unexpected sources. Truth will call out to you. Let me give you a story from my life.

Finding Truth Outside of Christianity

When I was leaving Christianity (I have since returned), I was still desperately searching for truths that would remove my unease (dis-ease) of spirit. The Christianity I had received was legalistic, Pharisaical, and looking back, way too narrow.

So as per James 1:5, I asked for wisdom, since God promised to give it to anyone who asks, regardless of their merit or lack of it. But my asking came with conditions. I would ONLY accept truth from the Bible, or from (Christian) writers I trusted. As it turns out, my perception of the Bible, and the narrow writers I trusted, disallowed any new truth coming into my life.

But truth did start to speak to me. First, through Tony Robbins. Then through Louise Hay’s excellent book You Can Heal Your Life. Then through yoga and Buddhism. But I was slow to entirely receive what they had to say until one day in the Stanford University bookstore.

I picked up a volume by new-age Catholic Anthony de Mello. And in it, he relayed a story which changed my approach to truth. The story went something like this:

A warrior was shot with a poison arrow, and was taken to the medic, who attempted to remove the arrow. “I will not have this arrow removed until I find out who shot it!” said the warrior. The medic replied, “Sir, you will die before that happens because the arrow continues to deliver its poison into your system.”

I realized that I was limiting how I would allow truth to come into my life, and demanding answers to my questions before hearing anything else. And I realized that I was resisting the ways that truth was coming into my life. And that I would probably die emotionally and spiritually if I held onto my preconceptions. What I needed to do was be open to God speaking from anywhere, and use my intuition and conscience to guide me rather than my intellect alone, which had been poisoned by narrow thinking.

As it turned out, I had to abandon my initial faith altogether in order to rebuild a healthy version of it. But all I knew in the beginning was that I had to let go and allow truth in from wherever it wanted entrance into my life. And I’ve created a site for my upcoming book on the subject, Leaving Faith.

E. Seeking what is true, rather than what we’d prefer to be true

This is a hard but important point. Some truth may initially be unpalatable to us. Yet our intuition or conscience will bear witness against our biases that it is true.

I may not prefer to think that innocent children die every day from malnutrition, but it is still true. Similarly, I may not prefer that there is a day of judgement, or that I am a sinner, but the wise question is not “do I like it?” but “is it true?”

F. Biblically speaking, what is true about God?

Loving God in truth means learning and agreeing with what is true and knowable about God. The Bible claims to reveal that God, especially in the life and teachings of Jesus. The main truth of his life? We are all going to face judgement, and we are all guilty. But he died in our place. And if none of that is true, then he was mistaken and died that terrible death for nothing.

There is a coming kingdom, one in which the wrongs will be righted, and evil, including our own, will be punished. This is where God’s establishment of justice, righteousness, and truth will be completed. Justice wins, and we are invited to understand what is coming and be part of that kingdom by believing Him, receiving his work on our behalf, and starting a new life now. Hence the scripture:

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name. ~John 1:12

CONCLUSION

Part of adopting God’s priorities is being open to the challenge and liberation of truth in its many forms. It means taking a hard look at what is real, what is true, and what matters. It means being open in ways that challenge our biases and hurts in order to honestly arrive at our convictions. It means realizing that we probably grossly MISunderstand God, and need to change our thinking.

• God’s Priorities 1: Introduction
• God’s Priorities 2: Receiving God’s Love
• God’s Priorities 3: Receiving God’s Truth
• God’s Priorities 4: Giving Love
• God’s Priorities 5: Establishing Truth
• God’s Priorities 6: Ethical Norms and Public Policy
• God’s Priorities 7: Freedom of Conscience
• God’s Priorities 8: Family
• God’s Priorities 9: Life
• God’s Priorities 10: Poverty
• God’s Priorities 11:  Creation Care
• God’s Priorities 12: Human Rights
• God’s Priorities 13: Peace
• God’s Priorities 14: Conclusion

Here’s my workaround.

1. Log into your probably now unused Yahoo Mail account.
2. Import your CSV file there.
3. Export to vCard Single File
4. Email that file to your Gmail Account
5. On your Android device (phone or tablet), import the .vcf file you just emailed.

I still don’t have a solution for a unified contact list between Outlook and Gmail, but I’m trying.

“This”, I thought, “might account for why I see some of the Old Testament punishments as Draconian rather than unbalanced – like my underestimation of the wickedness of sin, perhaps I have also misapprehended other items.”

A quick survey of the capital crimes listed in the Old Testament gave me a quick idea of what God valued, and this alone was sometimes a smack in the face to what I thought was important, especially the last item:

• Worshiping false gods
• Child sacrifice
• Murder
• Kidnapping
• Sexual sins, including rape, adultery, homosexuality, incest, and bestiality
• Disrespect for parental, ecclesiastical, government, and any other type of  authority

Then, when I went on to study the prophets, there was a whole other list of things not high on my list. Things that perhaps I should have known, but did not really value:

• Ensuring that justice was fair and impartial
• Helping the poor, outcast, and foreigner
• Being honest in financial dealings

My subsequent studies have revealed to me that my view of Biblical ethics was lacking.

Now, having surveyed the Bible for God’s priorities, as well as completed a class in Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary, i am presenting an overview of what I’ve learned so far. I suspect that my priorities will continue to shift as I grow closer to God over time, but here’s my current snapshot.

Love and Truth

God’s priorities may be gathered under two great headings, that of love and truth. In fact, these two paradoxically complementary sides of God’s nature are used in describing God, as well as Jesus himself:

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

Love has many synonyms  in scripture, like mercy or grace (as in the scripture above). Truth is often referred to as justice or righteousness, and these various synonyms will come in handy as we attempt to apply these priorities. Here are a few more scriptures showing this pair in various forms:

All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth, To such as keep His covenant and His testimonies. ~ Psalm 25:10

God shall send forth His mercy and His truth. ~ Psalm 57:3b

For Your mercy reaches unto the heavens, And Your truth unto the clouds. ~ Psalm 57:10

I will sing of mercy and justice; To You, O LORD, I will sing praises. ~Psalm 101:1

“I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me In righteousness and justice, In lovingkindness and mercy; ~ Hosea 2:19

but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ ~ Ephesians 4:15

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. ~ 2 John 1:3

God and Neighbor

I’ve placed love and truth into a matrix with the two recipients of love and truth - God and others. These come from what is commonly known as The Great Commandment, a summary of all of the Jewish, and subsequently, Christian faith:

Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’  This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” ~ Matthew 22:37-40

This combination of priorities and persons gives us four general categories of spiritual activity to focus on.

1. Receiving God’s Love (Mercy/Grace)
2. Receiving God’s Truth (Justice/Righteousness)
3. Giving Love
4. Establishing Truth

In future posts, I’ll go into some detail on each of these.

All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize.
~ 1 Corinthians 9:25

Allow me to start with a disclaimer – I am not a sports person. In fact, I never enjoyed the many possible benefits of sports participation, since I was small and fearful. Instead, I was the butt of bullies’ towel snaps, royal flushes, and ben-gay in the jock strap hi-jinks.

My exclusion from playing sports led to a disinterest, if not disdain, for spectator sports. I carried the caricature of the mindless screaming fan who, failing to grow up or forge his own identity, got stuck in the identity moratorium of his teens, and found his only identity in sports fandom. Insult his team and you were insulting him. That’s a tough image to shake, especially if you watch football beer commercials. In truth, I still view spectator sports as largely a serious waste of time.

Candidly though, I waste my time on movies and games (both board and electronic), so I’m not allowing for a little leisure activity.  But I wish that people would admit to their own wastage of time on spectator sports. Sure, actually *playing* sports can forge character, and I am all for that, but mere cheering?

The amount of vicarious excitement and idolatry of modern sporting, including the Olympics, ought to be acknowledged, and even spurned by Christians. I realize that saying such a thing sounds as unChristian as questioning whether your country should go to war in the Middle East, but it needs to be said. Here are my reasons for spurning the Olympics.

1. Spectator sports is more entertainment than inspiration

The first defense offered by sports fans to my accusations is that sports are good for people, they form character. The problem with this defense is that it confuses watching sports with playing – sure, the guy you are watching is a perfect specimen of health, but your fat couch potato torso is not. Spectating doesn’t teach you teamwork, perseverance or good sportsmanship, all laudable benefits of actually playing.

A second response is that sports are inspiring – watching athletes with great skill and abilities motivates us all to work hard and be our best. I’ll admit that some of that is true, but how many hours of sports are you gonna watch before you actually get up and move that flab? I get inspired by great acting and movies too, but you won’t catch me excusing my inactivity because I am still gathering inspiration.

A third and last response is that watching sports together is fun. No argument there, and some fun is good for you – all work and no play, as it is said. And I’m not saying we should stop watching sports – just move it down from it’s pedestal. There are plenty of good things to have fun and fellowship around – like board games, where you actually do more than passively shout at the screen. You might actually (gasp) use your mind.

Now, I know you sports fans will argue that you DO use your mind when analyzing stats and strategies and plays. But come on, how many of us are really doing the Billy Beane thing?

Here’s why, beyond having a little fun, you are wasting your time: you ought to be analyzing and strategizing around getting on with your own life and purposes, not just wasting it being an armchair quarterback.

Hey, I’ll agree that people idolize movie stars and movies, as well as other diversions. I just wish that sports fans, even Olympic fans, would admit that they too are mostly wasting time in spectating.

2. Physical prowess is the least important feature of human development and maturity

One of my main beefs with modern consumer culture is that it idolizes youth and physical beauty. It’s superficial. As most of us are aware, in youth, we value physical prowess – in fact, some people never move beyond this external value, always harking back to their ‘glory days’ in high school (apologies to Bruce Springsteen).

If, like me, you buy into a tripartite model of man (spirit, soul, and body), the soul, i.e. the emotions, will, and intellect, are the next realm of human ability that we can develop. Beyond the mere outward, physical appearance, we can come to value intellect and natural abilities of the mind.

It is more inspiring and enlightening, generally speaking, to hear great ideas than it is to watch Micheal Phelps win yet another medal. Pursuing knowledge to understand our universe, solving challenges to the survival and flourishing of life, and bringing hope-giving ideas to the world, that’s the kind of excellence we ought to be valuing, at least, more than mere athletic ability. How impressive is sports excellence if the soul is petty, selfish, and filled with vain glory?

3. The idolatry of sports abuses humans

Actually, any kind of idolatry eventually ends up harming humans. Look at the poor health of supermodels.

And if you think our pursuit of ultimate sports does not have a demeaning effect on our athletes, perhaps you should read Lochte’s mom says ‘one-night stands’ typical for swimmer (USA Today).

“He’s not able to give fully to a relationship because he’s always on the go.”

In fact, many articles on the ‘Bacchic orgy’ of the Olympics have come to light, indicating that 70% of the athletes are involved in illicit sex during the Olympics – so much so that for each of these games, there is now a standing order for 100,000 condoms.

In fact, an anonymous male rower who participated in the Athens games has written an entire book about life in side the Olympic village. On sex, he writes:

“Sex, and plenty of it, increasing exponentially through the Games as more and more athletes finish competing,” ~ The Secret Olympian: The Inside Story of Olympic Excellence

Then there’s the Chinese weightlifter who wept openly and in humiliation on TV for failing his country after only earning a Silver medal. Having been manipulated by his own culture and Government’s political idolatry, he became an emotional casualty (one of many) in a game of nationalistic one-upsmanship.

Or how about the Chinese diving star who was not told that her grandparents had died over a year ago so that she could stay on track. Family vs. sports? Sports wins?!? She also wasn’t told that her mother is battling breast cancer. I understand why these things were kept from her, but at what point do we say “it’s only sports”?

And let’s not forget the flood of sex and child trafficking that comes with any large international event – this is another toll of our grand efforts at getting humanity ‘together’ without God. I would rather cancel sporting events than enable human trafficking to have such opportunities.

4. Competing for a temporal prize pales in comparison to pursuing godliness

Let’s move to arguments that apply directly to Christians. As the opening scripture states, the prizes of this life are temporal – when you’re dead, does it really matter?

One of my favorite motivational authors was Stephen Covey (RIP 2012). In his book First Things First, he discusses the goals and values that have demonstrably led to human happiness and fulfillment. He has generalized these into four areas – to

• Live
• Love
• Learn
• Leave a legacy

In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents. ~ Luke 15:10

5. Competition is the world’s way to betterment, God’s is cooperation and service

One of the subtler messages of modern sports idolatry is that personal excellence, achievement, and superiority over others is admirable. But competition feeds the motive of putting one’s self first, not putting others first. That’s the worldly value system which Jesus denies.

 If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all. ~ Mark 9:35

Quite honestly, being the best you can be, and NOT giving glory and service to God is selfish and vain. And we often laud those who achieve, sometimes at any cost, rather than praise those who remain humble and thankful.

There are plenty, perhaps even a majority of athletes, who maintain a humble stance, but our idolatry of them pushes them directly towards vain glory. This idolatry of ‘personal greatness’ goes directly against the servant mentality of which Jesus speaks.

The real bottom line here is that competition does not produce peace, cooperation does. And not just teamwork in BEATING the other countries, but in serving them. The competition of the Olympics is, in some sense, at cross purposes with creating fellowship. As long as winning is the emphasis over serving, we are still tacitly supporting the me-first motivation.

6. God identifies with the powerless and marginalized – the losers, not the winners

The world may celebrate the winners, but Jesus said that his kingdom is for the poor and outcast, which is most notably seen in the opening of His first lengthy public discourse, the Sermon on the Mount (Luke 6):

Blessed are you poor,
For yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now,
For you shall be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now,
For you shall laugh.
[...]

But woe to you who are rich,
For you have received your consolation.
Woe to you who are full,
For you shall hunger.
Woe to you who laugh now,
For you shall mourn and weep.

Let me be clear – I am not saying that being an athlete is a meaningless endeavor, or that we should not rejoice with those who accomplish rare deeds after sustained effort. What I am saying is that our zeal to vicariously share their victory is really a much hollower goal (Christianly speaking) than to empathize with those who do NOT win, in the Olympics, and life.

The tower of Babel (1568)Lucas van Valckenborch 1535 – 1597 

 

7. The Olympics is a modern Tower of Babel – human ‘perfection’ and solidarity without God

And that brings me to my final point – the real underlying inspirational cache of the Olympics is the idea that we can promote peace among nations by entering into communication, submitting to common rules of fair play, and competing with one another. And there is some truth to that.

But let me say this to the Christian reader – there is no long term, ultimate peace among humans without God and his regenerative power, because the root of war is human sin, not just the many other external influences like ignorance, poverty, inequity, and limited resources.

This is the whole point of the Tower of Babel story – men were unified without God, and set  out to build a monument to their greatness. But this type of idolatry, though perhaps cast as enobling, actually ends up in ruin – such godless and well meaning systems as Soviet and Chinese regimes are the inevitable result of efforts at human solidarity and peace without God.

This false spirituality (a type of humanism) is exactly what is behind the modern Olympics (only in their 30th recurrence).

Pierre de Coubertin(1863-1937) 

 

The Greek philosophy and ideals behind the Olympics, are a noble, but still  godless effort to accomplish some peace. Pierre de Coubertin, the father of the modern Olympics, wrote the following ode to the Olympics:

“O Sport, You are Peace!
You forge happy bonds between the peoples
by drawing them together in reverence for strength
which is controlled, organised and self disciplined.

Trough you the young of the entire world
learn to respect one another,
and thus the diversity of national traits becomes a source
of generous and peaceful emulation! “

Even the Olympic Charter states this as its purpose:

Art. 3. “The goal of Olympism is to place everywhere sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to encouraging the establishment of a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity. To this effect, the Olympic Movement engages, alone or in cooperation with other organizations and within the limits of its means, in action to promote peace.”

Art. 6. “The goal of the Olympic Movement is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practised without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.”

CONCLUSION

I am not attempting to be a killjoy or just a reactive Bible thumper – I am truly concerned about the amount of human energy spent on spectator sports, the impact of idolatry on those caught in the unrealistic values system of unreasonable expectations, and the false hope and spirituality it offers to mankind.

There is one hope for mankind, and that is the death and resurrection of Jesus. Christian, are you allowing this false hope to buoy your emotions while not paying attention to the true hope of nations?

In his name the nations will put their hope. ~ Matthew 12:21