- Excerpt
Conversations About Hell
an excerpt from
The Last Word and The Word After That:
A Tale of Faith, Doubt, and a New Kind of Christianity
by Brian D. McLaren
Brian McLaren is a leader in the emergent church movement. He was interviewed
by Larry King on February 1, 2005, after Time Magazine named
him one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in America.
The Last Word is the third book in McLaren's New
Kind of Christian trilogy. It combines deceptively entertaining
narrative with Socratic style dialogue and sound theological insight. "I
am more interested in generating conversation than argument," McLaren
says in the introduction. The book is presented as a series of conversations
about hell.
According to one character in the book, "Millions
of people, young and old, have given up on Christianity because our
way of talking about hell sounds absolutely wacky. 'God loves you and
has a wonderful plan for your life,' we say, 'and he'll fry your butt
in hell forever unless you do or believe the right thing'... No wonder
Christianity -- or that version of it -- is a dying religion in so
many places in the world."
More information about The Last Word and The Word After
That -- and author Brian McLaren -- follows the excerpt.
Conversations About Hell
by Brian D. McLaren
I believe that god is good. No thought I have
ever had of God is better than God actually is. True, my thoughts --
including my assumptions about what "good" means -- are always more
or less inaccurate, limited, and unworthy, but still I am confident
of this: I have never overestimated how good God is because God's goodness
overflows far beyond the limits of human understanding. That conviction
gave birth to this book.
Now if you believe everything is pretty much
fine in the Christian church and its theology, if you believe that
only small cosmetic or methodological tweaks are needed in a basically
sound enterprise, then there's no need to read this book. If, however,
you believe that our common images and understandings of God are generally
too small and even mean, then this book may help you -- and us. On
the surface, this book appears to be largely about hell. But it isn't
really. Those who read it and react to it as such will have missed
the point. True, the subject of hell is worth talking about. In researching
the evolution of the conventional doctrine of hell for this book, I
discovered that the story is truly fascinating, putting its horror
aside for a moment. In Christian theology, hell (which a character
in this series calls the tail that first wagged and then became the
dog) is catalytic; too little attention has been paid to the practical
effects various formulations of the doctrine of hell have had on Christian
thought, worship, behavior, and practice. But the subject has all but
disappeared, at least overtly, from most contemporary preaching --
whether liberal or evangelical -- although fundamentalist preaching
is in many a place still quite spicy with it. As Martin Marty quipped, "Hell has disappeared and no one noticed."( U.S.
News and World Report, January 31, 2000, p 44.) The widespread suppression,
cooling, civilizing, and now near- disappearance of hell deserves some
notice and reflection from serious scholars and professional theologians.
As a mediocre pastor, former scholar, and amateur theologian, I can't
claim to be sufficient for that task. I can only raise questions here
that I feel need to be raised and hope that better scholars and professional
theologians will provide better answers than I've been able to discover
or construct.
As I see it, more significant than any doctrine of hell itself is the
view of God to which one's doctrine of hell contributes. William Temple
once said that if your concept of God is radically false, the more devoted
you are, the worse off you will be. So this book is in the end more about
our view of God than it is about our understandings of hell. What kind
of God do we believe exists? What kind of life should we live in response?
How does our view of God affect the way we see and treat other people?
And how does the way we see and treat other people affect our view of
God?
When the brilliant and influential American theologian Jonathan Edwards
etched the image of an angry God upon our minds in a famous sermon in
the eighteenth century, was he helping us or hurting us, telling the
truth straight or slanting it?
"The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider
or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you and is dreadfully
provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as
worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire." (Jonathan Edwards, Sinners
in the Hands of an Angry God, 1741.)
Whatever you think of Edwards's sermon, the conventional
doctrine of hell has too often engendered a view of a deity who suffers
from borderline personality disorder or some worse sociopathic diagnosis: "God loves
you and has a wonderful plan for your life, and if you don't love God
back and cooperate with God's plans in exactly the prescribed way, God
will torture you with unimaginable abuse, forever" -- that sort of thing.
Human parents who "love" their children with these kinds of implied ultimatums
tend to produce the most dysfunctional families, and perhaps the dysfunctions
of the Christian religion can be traced not to God as God really is but
to views of God that are not easy for people swallow while remaining
sane and functional.
With this situation in mind, it is no wonder that many theologians and
preachers like myself have downplayed or entirely dropped the idea of
hell in our writing and preaching. Perhaps intuitively, we have known
that something is wrong and so we've backed off until we figure out the
problem -- or until some foolhardy person ventures to do so for us.
Meanwhile, the popular reaction against the mean-spirited
God distortion often creates an equally distorted and distorting view
of God: the divine doting Auntie in Heaven, full of sweetness and smiles,
who sees war and corruption and violence and racism and says, "Well, boys will be boys.
Would you care for another blessing, dearie?" Along with our doting Auntie
in Heaven, we have God the chum, God the cheerleader, God the mascot
(denominational or national), God the genie, God the positive force,
God the copilot, God the romantic sweetheart, God the sugar daddy, God
the rich uncle, God the sentimental feeling, God the watchdog, God the
absentee landlord. All of these distortions probably, in some way, flow
from an understandable but unhealthful overreaction against God the eternal
torturer. Perhaps the consequences of these distortions are not as serious
as those of the traditional approach; perhaps they're more serious. But
either way, they are scary for their own reasons, as I hope the book
will make clear. Is there a better alternative to either of these polarities:
a just God without mercy for all or a merciful God without justice for
all? Could our views of hell (whichever extreme you choose) be the symptoms
of a deeper set of problems -- misunderstandings about what God's justice
is, misunderstandings about God's purpose in creating the world, deep
misunderstandings about what kind of person God is? (I use this anthropomorphic
language intentionally, realizing that it could be misunderstood and
hoping it won't be.)
Those are the kind of questions I'm pursuing in this book. No doubt,
many readers will dislike the answers given by various characters in
this book; I hope they won't blame me for raising the questions and playing
out through these characters conversations that many of us have silently
in our own minds or in tense whispers among trusted friends in parking
lots or dimly lit restaurant booths. Other people will read this book
and wonder, why the fuss? For them, everything in this book
will seem so patently obvious and noncontroversial, they won't be able
to imagine anyone needing it, much less arguing against it. The whole
subject seems rather medieval to them. I hope they'll realize that a
great many people do, in fact, need this conversation -- very, very much.
Many conservative religious people I know complain
about "political
correctness," which they associate with left- wing restrictions on freedom
of speech. I hope they will not impose a conservative P.C. restriction
on people who want to bring these kinds of questions and conversations
out into the light. (Yesterday someone told me that the pastor of a large
church had banned his staff from reading and discussing the first book
of this trilogy, so freedom of speech is on my mind today.)
At any rate, at heart this book is about the goodness of God and life
with God. This means it is about the gospel and about justice and mercy
and a new way of understanding their relationship -- suggesting that
God's justice is always merciful and God's mercy is always just. This
book flows from the hunch that the heart disease afflicting the Christian
community is chronic and serious rather than cosmetic: deep in our hearts,
we don't fully love God because we are not fully confident that God is
fully good.
Of all my books so far, A New Kind of Christian has sold most
strongly, elicited the warmest response, and engendered the most controversy.
Meanwhile, I feel its sequel, The Story We Find Ourselves In,
is actually a more radical book, although its more subtle tone disguises
that fact. This final volume, which rounds out the trilogy, will probably
be judged both radical and controversial. I am not proud of this and
actually wish it weren't so. I am not a fan of controversy. As a pastor, "the
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" is a precious thing to me;
no one should disturb the peace unadvisedly or lightly. I would much
prefer that my books be banned than have them cause destructive conflict
in churches or trouble for pastors, who face enough problems without
needless controversies being stirred. I would not go down this road at
all if I did not feel, deep in my soul, that the issues raised here need
to be raised for at least some people to consider, for the good of individuals
who seek God, for the good of the church in all its forms, and for the
good of the world at large. It is my belief, hope, and prayer that any
short-term controversy will lead to long-term benefits that are truly
worthwhile.
I am tempted to beg for mercy in this introduction, knowing that some
conventional religious leaders take on an attack- dog affect when conventional
formulations -- of hell, God, or justice and mercy -- are questioned.
With that in mind, the biblical character I identify with most these
days is Balaam's ass, whose story is recounted in Numbers 22 (well worth
reading before you continue). As a voice in the ongoing conversation
about God and the world, I am, like my equine counterpart, both an unlikely
candidate and a last resort. And if I, like the donkey, seem to be veering
uncooperatively from the conventional path, it's because I see something
ahead that others might not see. Balaam's poor beast was beaten three
times, but eventually his message was heard and Balaam stopped long enough
to reconsider and see what he needed to see. If I can have similar results,
any beatings I get will be well worth it.
I can imagine some impassioned critic of this
book concluding a review with a statement something like this: "It's bad enough that McLaren has
undermined conventional understandings of hell, but in its place what
has he offered? No clear alternative. One cannot even tell for sure,
after a careful reading of this book, whether McLaren is an inclusivist,
conditionalist, or universalist. All one can say is that he is clearly
not an orthodox exclusivist." In response, I might offer, as I have often
suggested elsewhere, that clarity is good, but sometimes intrigue may
be even more precious; clarity tends to put an end to further thinking,
whereas intrigue makes one think more intensely, broadly, and deeply.
Jesus' teaching on the kingdom of God is a case in point; his parables
don't score too well on clarity, but they excel in intrigue.
Even more, I might add that like some politicians, we often seek clarity
at the expense of truth: we would rather have something simple and clear
than continue to search beyond convention for a truth that won't resolve
to a neat formula, label, category, or pat answer. Or I might reply that
asking me -- as people often do -- whether I'm an inclusivist or a universalist
is like asking a vegetarian whether she prefers steak, pork, or venison.
The question that yields these answers as options is a question I have
no taste for asking. My intentional avoidance of this question does not
spring from fear of saying what I really believe; a fearful writer wouldn't
even begin a book like this. Rather, I am more interested in generating
conversation than argument, believing that conversations have the potential
to form us, inform us, and educate us far more than arguments. So this
book is presented as a conversation, with multiple points of view, not
as an argument pushing only mine.
Three disclaimers need to be made in this regard.
First, this is not a "fair" book. It is not an attempt to give equal
time to all views. It intentionally underrepresents the conventional
view on the grounds that it is already widely known and defended. Second,
while it intends to privilege new voices and minority reports as alternatives
to the conventional view, it doesn't even promote the best- known alternatives
but rather explores a less traveled path. Finally, even this path is
not very original, depending heavily on seminal ideas presented by
Bishop N. T. Wright, Lesslie Newbigin, and others.
Rather than claiming the last word on hell, then, I consider this sketch
an accomplishment more suitable to my modest talents: to make a largely
secret, forbidden conversation about hell more overt, public, and accessible.
That's not everything, but neither is it nothing. I look forward with
eagerness to see what creative Christian leaders -- especially young
ones, previously unheard ones, and ones from the global South -- might
do in taking the ideas and questions raised in this book and working
with them further so that we all will see and celebrate the ultimate
goodness of God more clearly and so that we may more joyfully and fully
do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.
