Not Soft on Hell… Nor Excited about It

Posted on: 03/8/11 12:25 PM | by Jonathan McKee

Why is it that when it comes to the subject of Hell, some people seem to either bring it up too much, while others want to suppress the truth of the matter?

A lotta hype about Hell in Christian circles lately, much of it is because speaker/author/pastor Rob Bell seems to be coming out with some pretty radical conclusions about Hell. This New York Times article  provides just a glimpse at the controversy.

My response?

I’ve been watching some people throw some pretty big rocks at each other over this one. So I’m going to try to speak candidly, but without criticism. Seriously… I’m going to try!

And rather than just sharing my take on this, I emailed a couple friends and asked for their two cents because I really respect their opinions. So I’m going to chime in with my two cents, but I’m also going to share what Dan Kimball and David R. Smith shared with me. Then I’m going link some resources for your reference.

My two cents: We need more compassion, and a theology that is unchanged by emotions.

MORE COMPASSION:
Rob has always had a heart for the lost– a very admirable and Christ-like quality. If you’ve ever met someone with a heart for the lost, you might also notice, they grow very frustrated with people who are abrasive to the lost. It comes with the package. Rob reveals this frustration (not a bad thing at all, in my opinion) in his new video about his upcoming book Love Wins, telling the story of an incident at an art show at his church. One of the pieces at this show had a Gandhi quote and someone felt the need to post a note to that quote, writing, “Reality check. He’s in Hell.”

It’s really sad when God’s people forget about love.

Yesterday I was interacting with a few people on our Facebook page about this whole controversy. I commented to someone. People with good theology need to remember that even “good theology” is still just a clanging cymbal without love (I Corinthians 13).

So I praise Bell’s compassion for sinners. That being said, I hope that Rob also doesn’t put on emotionally-distorted reading glasses when reading the truth of God’s Word. As believers, we need to cling to the truth. We need…

A THEOLOGY UNCHANGED BY EMOTIONS
Let me start by going on the record. I wish I could go soft on Hell. The concept of eternal separation from God is an uncomfortable reality. I wish I could believe it wasn’t true. I really do.

But truth wins.

In Rob’s video he says the following:

“Will only a few select people make it to heaven? And will billions and billions of people burn forever in Hell?”

He goes on to say,

“Millions and millions of people were taught that the primary message, the center of the Gospel of Jesus is that God is going to send you to Hell unless you believe in Jesus. And so what gets subtly sort of caught and taught is that Jesus rescues you from God. But what kind of God is that that we would need to be rescued from this God. How could that God be good. How can that God be trusted. And how can that ever be good news. This is why lots of people want nothing to do with the Christian faith. They see it as a endless list of absurdities and inconsistencies.”

He concludes his thoughts with a nice pitch for his new book.

“The good news is actually better than that, better than we could ever imagine. The good news is that love wins.”

We don’t know exactly how this is going to play out in his book, Love Wins, because it isn’t released yet. (Mental Note: This is a pretty dang good way to sell books. Raise a controversy that requires even your critics to have to buy your book just to try to prove you wrong.) That’s why I’m not going to go on the record and criticize his theology, because I haven’t read his book yet. But in his sermons and videos, I have to say, Rob is definitely treading on some dangerous ground here. His video alone seems to convey that mere “belief in Jesus” isn’t good news. After all, this is an uncomfortable fact to unbelievers.

Hmmmm.  It seems to me that after Jesus laid out the “uncomfortable” truth to the crowds in John 6, a bunch of people didn’t want anything to do with him then either.

I’m not going to say anymore yet… because who knows where his book is going.

My friend, author/speaker, Dan Kimball, can’t comment on the book either, because he hasn’t read it. But Dan has wrestled with the topic of hell and other difficult subjects and says this:  (giving me permission to share with you all)

I would love to be a Jesus-died-for-all-universalist. I would love to be an annihilist. I would love to be pro-gay theologically. But from the immense amount of reading, studying the Scriptures, praying, and reading different viewpoints. From looking at church history from the beginning and various beliefs and the culture they developed in…..and looking at contemporary doctrinal beliefs and their history…and personally having talked to scholars over the years that I respect about these very issues like NT Wright, Scot McKnight, Roger Olson, John Walton and the late Stan Grenz……  I find I personally cannot believe those things, although my emotions surely would like to. And it fits so well in culture today. It would be easier being in ministry in our culture today, holding those views for sure. But I cannot compromise what I am convicted that the Scriptures do teach about these things. But how we then teach about them, speak about them etc. is of great, great importance. I think many (especially younger people who don’t have a breadth of knowing church history and patterns of the past) are turned away from these doctrines often not even by the doctrine itself as much as how Christian leaders have taught about them and their attitudes towards others who believe differently.

David R. Smith chimed in as well.

It’s hard to know where Rob Bell will go with this. The videos certainly hint toward a universalist belief, and if they don’t go there, then the publicity certainly was misleading, which says something in itself.

If Rob Bell’s “new treatise” on hell claims a universalist mindset, then it is not new at all. In fact, it’s an issue that thousands of biblical scholars have wrestled with over hundreds of years. Universalists aim to make Christianity more appealing and/or convenient (whether they admit that or not). But if one were to strip the Bible of hell, he actually makes the Christian message far less appealing. That might sound strange, but consider these ramifications if there is no hell.

God is a liar. Jesus talked about hell far too often for it to not exist. It was in His warnings, amongst His parables, and even a part of His Revelation. There was no doubt in His mind that hell existed; He created it! So to concede hell is to concede a truth-telling God. Thus, I won’t concede either one.  

God is a sissy. Everyone who’s ever experienced life on Earth has seen injustice, oppression, evil, sin, and wickedness. In many places around the globe, these dark forces run rampant and unchecked. But God, the ultimate Judge, has decided there will be justice and recompense for those who have suffered at the hands of unrepentant sinners. If God will not judge nations and individuals (as the Bible says He will), He’s nothing more than a cosmic wimp who needs to apologize to 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, and millions more killed in tyrannies around the world. Again, this is a concession that is too expensive to make.    

Ultimately, the reality of hell ties into God’s nature. Rob Bells sees this truth, too, and if his book goes soft on hell (we’ll see soon), then he just misinterprets its impact on God’s character. Regardless of what Bell says, I will continue to believe in a God who tells the truth and will one day judge perfectly and righteously.

I promised you some resources about Hell. Here’re two:

1. Dan Kimball, not only a friend, but a man who’s faith and knowledge of scripture I really respect, wrote an amazing article in Outreach Magazine last year, Teaching the Truth About Hell. This is a great resource to refer to.

2. You can listen to Dan and I talk about hell in our podcast last year, The Podcast from Hell.

Your thoughts?

Parents Getting Their Kids Talking

Posted on: 03/7/11 1:35 PM | by Jonathan McKee

It seems that I hear it again and again as I’m dialoguing with parents after one of my parenting workshops. “I can’t get my kid to open up and just talk with me.”

It’s a common dilemma. Sometimes it maybe be because our conversations with our kids tend to be like this: me lecture, you listen! But often, it’s more than that. It often can be pretty difficult to get kids to open up.

That’s one reason why we created two new pages on our www.TheSource4Parents.com page:

1. MUSIC DISCUSSIONS:
The average 8-18-year-old listens to 2 hours and 19 minutes of music per day. Parents can use current music to springboard conversations with their kids about what they heard. That’s why we’ve created this brand new MUSIC DISCUSSIONS page just for parents (much like our MUSIC DISCUSSIONS page on our youth ministry website, but quicker, simpler, and designed specifically for parents). Be sure to check out this page, because we just added brand new music discussions for parents to talk about hit songs such as Gaga’s Born This Way, Bruno Mars’ Grenade, and more.

2. MOVIE REVIEWS & QUICK Q’s:
Ever walk out of a movie with your kid and wish you had some resources to talk with them about what you just saw? That’s why we decided to add “Quick Q’s” to our movie reviews when we launched our new parents website just a couple months ago. Our MOVIE REVIEWS & QUICK Q’s page, not only provides the reviews, it also provides questions that you can ask kids about what they just saw. Each one of these resources includes a relevant scripture to help you bring truth to the discussion. Check out this page this week– we just added reviews for The Adjustment Bureau in our theatrical release section, and 127 Hours in our rental release section.

Enjoy these resources.

The Adjustment Bureau

Posted on: 03/3/11 2:01 PM | by Jonathan McKee

Do we really have free will… or is God a colossal puppeteer manipulating the strings of all of mankind.

Look out John Calvin, here comes The Adjustment Bureau… and they’re making you submit to “the chairman’s” plan.

Last week my 13-year-old and I were out on a delightful daddy-daughter date (pardon my alliteration) and we saw a screening of this new film, starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. Maybe you’ve seen the previews. Damon’s character falls in love with her, but the “bureau” tries to step in and “adjust” his will. But Jason Boerne uses his martial arts skills… wait… wrong film…

Ashley and I really enjoyed the film. It wasn’t the greatest thing we’ve seen this year, but it was entertaining and had good character development (although it did throw in the typical PG-13 “non-nudity” sex scene, as is so abundant today).

I am not only providing a full review of the film on our MOVIE REVIEWS & QUICK Q’s page this weekend (posting it Friday), but I am also providing a discussion adults can use to talk with their kids about free will, the conscious choice to let the Holy Spirit take over our lives, and what that kind of submission looks like day to day. (I’ve loving this new “Quick Q’s” section of our MOVIE REVIEWS & QUICK Q’S page. Each one of our reviews now includes these questions that adults can use to dialogue with young people about what they just saw.)

(SIDE NOTE: If you like those “Quick Q’s, I encourage you to check out a few others I wrote recently on the same page— check out my review of Adam Sandler’s “Just Go With It,” and the Vincint Vaughn and Kevin James flick, “The Dilemma.” I think you’ll find that I provided deep discussions for both of these films)

An Insane Sale and a Freebie…

Posted on: 03/2/11 5:30 PM | by Jonathan McKee

For some reason my blog never was sent out via FEEDBURNER to all my email subscribers this morning. Weird! It only went out via RSS feed. I’m plugging it again below so that my email readers don’t miss out:

A lot of buzz about my 10-Minute Talks book lately, so I thought I’d give you all an insane deal… including a freebie. More on that in a minute.

I actually heard a youth pastor give one of the talks from this book a few weeks ago– then printed out the small group questions from the free supplemental CD that comes with the book. As I saw the kids responding to the talks and the small group questions, I remember thinking, “This is cool! I wonder how much venders are actually selling this book for?” (yeah, I think these things!)  But seriously, it’s funny looking at the variety of prices that people sell your books for around the web.

Right now BORDERS is selling it for retail which is $24.99, YS is selling it for $21.24, Amazon has it for $18.24. So I had my web guy go in and drop it down to almost 40% off. We’re selling it for just $15.99… that includes the supplemental CD that has all the transcripts of the talks and a complete small group curriculum– small questions and scripture that go with each talk (I include a link to sample talk with the small group questions from the book and CD on this page).

But what the heck… I’ll even throw in another bonus. The first 10 of you– my blog readers– to order the book today… no… I’ll do better than that. I’ll do it for ALL of you just this week. For EVERY person that orders the book this week and puts MR. or MRS. or MS. in front of their name (when you fill out your mailing address), I’ll throw in a free copy of my book, THE TOP 12 RESOURCES THAT YOUTH WORKERS WANT. I’ll do that all week with the order of any of my books, for those that follow directions.  🙂

Buy it from us RIGHT HERE.

The First Ten of You…

Posted on: 03/1/11 1:23 PM | by Jonathan McKee

A lot of buzz about my 10-Minute Talks book lately, so I thought I’d give you all an insane deal… including a freebie. More on that in a minute.

I actually heard a youth pastor give one of the talks from this book a few weeks ago– then printed out the small group questions from the free supplemental CD that comes with the book. As I saw the kids responding to the talks and the small group questions, I remember thinking, “This is cool! I wonder how much venders are actually selling this book for?” (yeah, I think these things!)  But seriously, it’s funny looking at the variety of prices that people sell your books for around the web.

Right now BORDERS is selling it for retail which is $24.99, YS is selling it for $21.24, Amazon has it for $18.24. So I had my web guy go in and drop it down to almost 40% off. We’re selling it for just $15.99… that includes the supplemental CD that has all the transcripts of the talks and a complete small group curriculum– small questions and scripture that go with each talk (I include a link to sample talk with the small group questions from the book and CD on this page).

But what the heck… I’ll even throw in another bonus. The first 10 of you– my blog readers– to order the book today… no… I’ll do better than that. I’ll do it for ALL of you just this week. For EVERY person that orders the book this week and puts MR. or MRS. or MS. in front of their name (when you fill out your mailing address), I’ll throw in a free copy of my book, THE TOP 12 RESOURCES THAT YOUTH WORKERS WANT. I’ll do that all week with the order of any of my books, for those that follow directions.  🙂

Buy it from us RIGHT HERE.