Bell begins by mentioning that someone at an art show said Ghandi was in hell. This is a fine example of Bell courting controversy. He's trying to upset people (or is he trying to get people to think?) Either way, it's all part of his purposeful sensationalism that's causing such a ruckus.
Here we go:
Of all the billions of people who have ever lived, will only a select number "make it to a better place" and every single other person suffer in torment and punishment forever? Is this acceptable to God? Has God created millions of people over tens of thousands of years who are going to spend eternity in anguish? Can God do this, or even allow this, and still claim to be a loving God?... That doesn't just raise disturbing questions about God; it raises questions about the beliefs themselves... If there are only a select few who go to heaven, which is more terrifying to fathom: the billions who burn forever or the few who escape this fate? How does a person end up being one of the few? Chance? Luck? Random selection? Being born in the right place, family, or country? What kind of God is that?
Now you see why people are upset. My first thought is, "If you don't like the rules of this religion, pick another." Don't go trying to argue that the basic beliefs of Christianity are wrong just because you don't like them. Go follow a religion you do like.
People who like liberal politics don't join the Republican party and try to tell them their beliefs are wrong; they become Democrats and try to convert the Republicans.
Bell should start his own religion (and sorta' has) and then he can work on converting others to worship the "god" he likes better. Of course, Ephesians directs us to kill him if he does.
Jesus explained it in one of his parables, the one about the wedding feast. He said a few people were chosen to attend the wedding, but they ignored it, so now the invitation goes out to everyone. Now everyone has the CHOICE: Accept or decline the invitation. If you reject the invitation, that's your decision; don't blame God.
Several years ago I heard a woman tell about a funeral of her daughter's friend, a high-school student who was killed in a car accident. Her daughter was asked by a Christian if the young man who had died was a Christian. She said that he told people he was an atheist. This person then said to her, "So, there's no hope then." No hope? Is that the Christian message. "No hope"? Is that what Jesus offers the world? Is that the sacred calling of Christians - to announce that there's no hope? (2-3)
How does Bell, with good conscience, make that leap? Anyone who's ever heard even ONE evangelical sermon knows that the Christian message is all about the hope of salvation. Not "hope" the verb - "I hope I get into Heaven"; but "Hope" the noun as in Emily Dickinson's poem:
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
Bell then discusses the age of accountability: What happens to children when they die? At what age are they responsible for their eternal soul? He picks the age of twelve, and then writes, "If every new baby being born could grow up to not believe the right things and go to hell forever, then prematurely terminating a child's life anytime from conception to twelve years of age would actually be the loving thing to do, guaranteeing that the child ends up in heaven, and not hell, forever. Why run the risk?" (4)
Now here's the deal: Obviously, Bell is borrowing from Jonathon Swift's Modest Proposal, but some people are just going to get angry and shut the book; others are going to miss his hyperbole and focus on the rhetorical questions Bell then puts forth: What when a fifteen-year-old atheist dies? Was there a three-year window when he could have made a decision to change his eternal destiny? Did he miss his chance? What if he had lived to sixteen...? If the message didn't get to the young man in that time, well, that just unfortunate?
That's too big of a question for him to leave unanswered for..... who knows how many pages. Some questions do not need to be rhetorical.
He goes on to ask more questions: What do you have to do to get into Heaven?
Perform a specific rite or ritual?
Take a class?
Be baptized?
Join a church?
Have something happen somewhere in his heart?
Say a specific prayer though Christians don't agree on exactly what this prayer is.
What about people who have said some form on "the prayer" at some point in their life, but it means nothing to them today? What about those who said it in a highly emotionally charged environment like a youth camp or church service because it was the thing to do, but were unaware of the significance of what they were doing? What about people who have never said the prayer and don't claim to be Christians, but live a more Christlike life than some Christians?
Notice how Bell gets stuck on "the prayer" as if it's some magical spell that results in salvation.
And all the questions - When will he start giving the answers. Isn't that the point? Will he get to the answers before losing his audience? Luckily, the book can be read quickly unless you're writing lots of notes in the margin.
Bell then ponders the whole "message" of Christianity, what is it's point? To get to Heaven? If that's the case, Bell says, then "the central message of the Christian faith has very little to do with this life... Is that the best God can do?
Which leads to a far more disturbing question. Is it true that the kind of person you are doesn't ultimately matter, as long as you've said or prayed or believed the right things? If so, Bell argues, then Christians really don't need to care about anything that happens on earth or what they do as individuals because they said "the prayer", they're set for what comes after death, and nothing else matters.
What Bell is missing here is "motivation": It's not that "the prayer" is a magic spell. What matters is the motivation for saying the prayer, the belief behind it. And he's also assuming that Christianity has nothing to do with life on earth. That incorrect thought is what leads to all the misdirected questions.
So he says that since Christians won't care about what goes on earth, they'll live terrible lives and no one will want to follow Jesus, BUT he asks, "Which Jesus?" (8)
He then gives some examples of things being done in the name of Jesus, or religion, or like that Westboro Church and asks which of the Jesuses should be followed, Some Jesuses should be rejected.
Here's another problem: THESE AREN'T JESUS! The Jesus who should be followed is the Jesus in the Bible, not the example of man.
Here's where the title of this chapter comes from:
Romans 10 says, "How can they hear without someone preaching to them?" What if the missionary gets a flat tire? Is your future in someone else's hands? (9) So it's NOT up to us?
On page 10, Bell discusses having a personal relationship with God through Jesus. He says, okay, however it happens, you have to have a personal relationship with Jesus, right? If you don't have that, you will die apart from God and spend eternity in torment in hell. The problem, however, is that the phrase "personal relationship" is found nowhere in the Bible.
So if that's it,
if that's the point of it all,
if that's the ticket,
the center,
the one unavoidable reality,
the heart of the Christian faith,
why is it that no one used the phrase until the last hundred years or so? (11)
Oh my, what are we to do? Here's a question for you. If you were to remove your glasses and jab your finger into your face where those glasses used to be, what would you hit? Answer (see, I answer my questions right away): You'd hit your eyeball. WAIT!!!! Shakespeare was the first person to write the word "eyeball". This was back in the 1580's in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Does that mean eyeballs didn't exist before then. Are they even mentioned in the Bible?!!! Do we really have eyeballs??!!!
(Oh, and in The Message, Philippians does use the phrase "personal relationship".)
And that question raises another question. Chapter One seems to be all about questions; perhaps the answers come in Chapter Two.
If the message of Jesus is that God is offering the free gift of eternal life through him - a gift we cannot earn by our own efforts, works, or good deeds - and all we have to do is accept and confess and believe, aren't those verbs?
And aren't verbs actions?
Accepting, confessing, believing - those are things we do.
Does that mean, then, that going to heaven is dependent on something I do?
How is any of that grace? How is that a gift? How is that good news?
Isn't that what Christians have always claimed set their religion apart - that it wasn't, in the end, a religion at all - that you don't have to do anything, because God has already done it through Jesus.
Now, does Rob Bell really think that "accepting, confessing, and believing" are the types of actions or "acts on our part" or "works" that we're talking about here: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast." Ephesians 2:8-9, NIV
He's intentionally obfuscating the issues.
He further does so by presenting Biblical anecdotes, following them up with questions about salvation, resulting in.... more questions!
Is it what you say,
or who you are,
or what you do,
or what you say you're going to do,
or who your friends are,
or who you're married to,
or whether you give birth to children?
Or is it what questions you're asked?
Or is it what questions you ask in return?
Or is it whether you do what you're told and go into the city?
Is it the tribe, or family, or ethnic group you're born into?
... and washing Jesus's feet with your tears gets your sins forgiven?
BUT at the end of Chapter 1, he writes,
But this isn't just a book of questions.
It's a book of responses to these questions.
And so, away we go.
This is the important part. It's time to give Bell a chance to answer these questions, and not just close the book and call it heresy.
Because, lots of people DO have the questions and do want to know the answers. Let's hope they keep reading and that Rob Bell gives the answers.
