I read the book Love Wins by Rob Bell. I liked it, and I agreed with it, more or less. Based on the "Christian culture" reading of the Bible, God is presented in a wildly contradictory way. On the one hand, He loved us so much that He sacrificed His only son for us. On the other hand, those who don't get the message about Jesus and receive him in a very specific way will have to burn in Hell for all eternity. And that includes billions of people.
Bell points out that God's love is endlessly patient and inexhaustible. Even if a person seemingly rejects or disregards Jesus during the timeline of his or her life, that doesn't mean God gives up on him or her. Whatever happens to us after death is in the realm of speculation. The idea that you have one life to accept Christ or burn in Hell forever, without any more chances to be won over by His love, is speculation. It could be otherwise.
Then I read what some established Christian leaders are saying about it--that Bell twists Scripture for his own purposes, that there's not a shred of evidence to support his ideas--and I was troubled. Their attacks didn't shake my initial feeling of agreement with his ideas. But it bothered me that those Christian leaders didn't address the problem that Bell brings up: this contradictory presentation of God in the Bible. No one answered the question, Does a 15-year-old atheist burn in Hell forever? And if so, how could a loving God allow that?
One thing I love about Jesus' gospel message is that it's not about what I do that counts most. It's about what He did on the cross. My best intentions, my attempts to be a good person, don't cut it. Only Jesus's sacrifice does. So there is no measuring stick, no grading system I'm judged upon when I die. The idea of a measuring stick always confused me. (Murderers go to Hell, but white liars don't, etc.) So I was glad to find out that there was no measuring stick!
But Rob Bell points out that there still is a measuring stick. Now the measuring stick has to do with timing. Have you accepted Jesus by the time you die? If you haven't yet, but you're only 11 years old, do you get a free pass into Heaven? But if you're 17, you ought to have done it by then? Or maybe make that 18, like voting rights? Or 21, like alcohol drinking rights?
Bell says that this idea, too, is false. The fact is, we don't know how God works. Our minds can't fathom the power of His love, which is timeless and reaches beyond the three dimensions we experience with our senses.
I'm still working this out for myself. The take away, for the moment, is just trust Him.
Which Afterlife?
ReplyDeleteIn his new book "Love Wins" Rob Bell seems to say that loving and compassionate people, regardless of their faith, will not be condemned to eternal hell just because they do not accept Jesus Christ as their Savior.
Concepts of an afterlife vary between religions and among divisions of each faith. Here are three quotes from "the greatest achievement in life," my ebook on comparative mysticism:
(46) Few people have been so good that they have earned eternal paradise; fewer want to go to a place where they must receive punishments for their sins. Those who do believe in resurrection of their body hope that it will be not be in its final form. Few people really want to continue to be born again and live more human lives; fewer want to be reborn in a non-human form. If you are not quite certain you want to seek divine union, consider the alternatives.
(59) Mysticism is the great quest for the ultimate ground of existence, the absolute nature of being itself. True mystics transcend apparent manifestations of the theatrical production called “this life.” Theirs is not simply a search for meaning, but discovery of what is, i.e. the Real underlying the seeming realities. Their objective is not heaven, gardens, paradise, or other celestial places. It is not being where the divine lives, but to be what the divine essence is here and now.
(80) [referring to many non-mystics] Depending on their religious convictions, or personal beliefs, they may be born again to seek elusive perfection, go to a purgatory to work out their sins or, perhaps, pass on into oblivion. Lives are different; why not afterlives? Beliefs might become true.
Rob Bell asks us to reexamine the Christian Gospel. People of all faiths should look beyond the letter of their sacred scriptures to their spiritual message. As one of my mentors wrote "In God we all meet."