Mark Galli has a post up at Christianity Today about the recent controversy with Rob Bell and Hell.
A great many of the responses to Bell assume that there is only one right way to think about the destiny of people who do not put their trust in Christ in this life: they will experience eternal, conscious punishment in hell. Despite the cultural stereotypes, people don’t think this because they are cruel and vindictive, because they relish the thought of people roasting in hell. No, they are trying to take seriously the teaching of Scripture, especially the words of Jesus. As Tim Keller has pointed out, Jesus talked about hell more than anyone else in the New Testament. So if you take Jesus seriously, you are going to have to take hell seriously.
Well, that’s true, but, it might be nice to know what Christ was meaning when He spoke of hell and how that might differ when we speak of it, but who am I to thrown in scholarship when we are talking about interpreting Scripture? Of course, you’ll have to read the rest of the post to find out what he says.
To counter, Ted has a post up here which has some insight that none of you will enjoy,
Heaven and hell are artifacts of apocalyptic, and apocalyptic arose as a response to injustice; if, as seems to be the case, the wicked are not always punished and the righteous are not always vindicated, then perhaps this will be rectified at some later date. At first this was national, and largely temporal: faced with exile and oppression, Israel looked forward to a time when God would come in and make things right. Later, this became personal as well: God would not only restore the nation, but also individuals. Individualism is not solely the product of modernism or liberal democracy — it has its roots in the doctrine of resurrection.
You may as well check out this review on the Four Views on Hell by T.C., one of the best theo-bloggers that you should always take the time to read.
Related articles
- Rob Bell: Universalist? (veritasmizzou.wordpress.com)
- Tuesday Tidbits: Love, Hell, Universalism, and Rob Bell (revcooper.com)
- A Cartoon is Worth 10,000 Words: Rob Bell – Universalist – in Hell (zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com)
- Rob Bell & Heaven & Hell (ryangear.com)
- Rob Bell’s talking points (arthurandtamie.wordpress.com)
- Love Wins…Rob Bell on Heaven and Hell (jaythomas1983.wordpress.com)
- Rob Bell’s new book “controversy” (frasermurdoch.wordpress.com)
- Oh Rob Bell, What Have You Done? (pressingtoward.wordpress.com)
- Rob Bell Reax (casanovatheology.wordpress.com)
- Is Rob Bell a Real Christian? (friendlyatheist.com)
- Rob Bell: Love Wins (cafewitteveen.wordpress.com)
Thanks for the plug, my friend. 😉