A Non-Rob-Bell Hell Post

You've probably noticed the recent popularity of books detailing people's trips to both heaven and hell, ostensibly intended to warn the future inhabitants of hell and comfort the future inhabitants of heaven. The most recent addition to this genre is Heaven Is For Real—not to be confused with Choo Thomas' Heaven Is So Real! or Heaven Is Fo' Real Dawg, a soon-to-be-released album by a Christian hip-hop artist. (Just kidding.)

If you accept the often divergent travel accounts of these post-mortem tourists, there are two biblical passages with which you must deal:

1) The ONLY biblical example we have of a person apparently traveling to heaven and returning is the cryptic account offered by the Apostle Paul of "a man" (who many scholars think was Paul himself) who visited "paradise" and was strictly forbidden to share what he saw.

2) The ONLY biblical example we have of a first-person account of hell is that of the rich man in Jesus' story  in Luke 16:19-31 who pleaded with Abraham to return to earth and warn his living brothers of their plight. Abraham noted that even if someone visited them from hell, they would not repent.

Please tell me: What has changed?

The Pharisee and the Tabloid

Yesterday I stopped by the grocery store to pick up some lunch fixin's and happened to glance at the magazine rack as I waited in line to pay for my goods. Now the sin I have been most warned about as it relates to supermarket tabloids is that of lust. The plunging cleavage of female celebrities and salacious headlines detailing their exploits are said to be veritable ICBMs in the tempter's arsenal.

Not this time.

As I surveyed the absolute train wrecks that are the lives of our nation's celebrities, a very pious thought came to my mind: "I thank God I am not like one of these loathsome monsters ... making babies out of wedlock, snorting cocaine, losing and gaining weight all willy nilly."

The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: "God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector." Luke 18:11

The pride of the Pharisee can seem so holy and upright, but the stench of it must be utterly obnoxious to God. How often we look at the comfort, wholesomeness and relative normalcy of our lives—in contrast to others—and attribute the cause of such goodness to the wise choices we have made, the quality education we worked hard to obtain, the decent spouse we had the good sense to marry.

There is little room for grace in the face of good, clean living.

Baptizing Ambition

American exceptionalism—the belief that our country stands apart from other nations in divine favor, potential, morality, etc.—has been imported to the church, personalized for the individual and then sanctified and elevated to a virtue. Each person—it is suggested—is born with a seed of greatness. Accepting mediocrity, ordinary-ness or normalcy is an offense against the God who made you for greatness and wants to "unleash" you into your "destiny."

In many conferences, books and TV programs, this is presented as the essence of Christianity. Biblical characters like David and Paul are normative models for Christian life—sans the adultery, stonings, shipwrecks and imprisonments, of course. Speakers and authors will artfully weave their own life stories into the narrative to reinforce the principles they applied to achieve their dreams.

This is nothing more than the baptism of selfish ambition, and it leaves no room for the countless obscure, persecuted, poor, unempowered and mediocre people (from the world's standpoint) whom God has called to be a part of His family. From their birth until their death, they have no dreams beyond "living quietly," "minding their own affairs" and "working with their hands" (1 Thessalonians 4:11). Counterintuitively, these are the people with whom God is building His Kingdom.

As I heard Tullian Tchividjian say recently, "The gospel frees me to be ordinary." This is why the gospel was relevant to the slaves, women, immigrants and outcasts that composed much of the early church, and it is why it is relevant to the idolatrous, ambition-drunk narcissists of the 21st century.

Eternal Security and the Belittling of Sin

Now that you're here, you are probably expecting me to argue that those who teach "eternal security" or "the perseverance of the saints" are somehow belittling the seriousness of sin by doing so. On the contrary, let me reverse the argument:

If I believe that certain sins—or a certain number of sins—can cause me to lose my standing with God, then I must believe that there are scores of sins that are fairly minor and inoffensive to God. Why? For every sin I acknowledge and confess on a daily basis, there are myriad other sins—of commission and omission, word and deed—of which I am unaware.

One way I could set my mind at ease is to convince myself that perhaps God is unconcerned with these sins, that they are not an offense to him and that they pose me no real eternal danger. Although they may build up over the course of my life like toxins accumulate in a body from living near a nuclear waste dump, most likely I will die of natural causes before a tumor develops and kills me. As long as I repent for the sins I'm aware of, He'll let me slide on the others.

But what if this is not the case? What if I don't have the right to determine what sins are more serious to God? What if the seemingly innocuous little weeds of self-righteous pride I can't keep from sprouting in my garden are just as noxious to God as the tree of debauchery in my neighbor's yard? What if it's not for me to decide which sins God will damn me for and which sins he will shrug off like a doting grandfather?

If the second is true than I am in deep trouble, without hope in the world.

I am without hope unless I receive the righteousness of Another—"alien righteousness" as Martin Luther put it—that has no connection or dependence on my ability to perform and is appropriated through faith alone. This is a scandalous and obnoxious thought to a human mind obsessed with justifying itself, posturing itself, positioning itself in a more favorable light in order to earn God's favor or avert His wrath.

No, sin is much more serious than your wildest imaginations. But there is good news—THE Good News.

For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. - Philippians 3:8-9

Mocked for the Wrong Reasons

Mockery was a common response to Jesus' and the apostles' ministry and continued into the early church era as the radical claims of a Christian minority confronted the pagan world. In many parts of the world today, a Christian minority is mocked and persecuted for its faith in the face of opposition. In America, where Christianity is considered the "majority religion," mockery takes a different flavor.

Rarely are American Christians mocked for their claims of the divinity of Christ (e.g. 4th century bishop Athanasius) or salvation through faith alone (e.g. Martin Luther). No one pokes fun at us for our commitment to nonviolence (e.g. MLK Jr.) or refusal to curry favor with a political movement (e.g. the prophet Daniel). When was the last time American evangelicals were criticized for not bowing to the idols of this age—consumerism, celebrity worship and greed (e.g. the Amish)? In my view, these are worth being mocked for.

But today, we are mocked for things like this: