Will 'Love Wins' Win? We're Early in the First Inning ...

Because of my own experience as a writer, I've been anticipating the baptism in hot water (or worse) that Rob Bell was about to experience with the publication Love Wins. And because of the old saying that it's not the attacks of your critics but the silence of your friends that hurts the most, I've been looking for an opportunity to speak up in Rob's defense.

I couldn't help but predict who would be first at bat with critique, what they would say, and how they would say it. A prominent Southern Baptist leader, Dr. Albert Mohler, put it well: "We Have Seen This All Before." His response to Rob's book, in an article under that title, will be judged by fans a veritable home-run of a response. It stirred up a few responses which I'd like to share.

Dr. Mohler rounded first base by articulating a claim that goes along these lines: "Our view is the biblical view, so all who oppose it oppose the Bible." Here's how he said it:

We have no right to determine which "story" of the Gospel we prefer or think is most compelling. We must deal with the Gospel that we received from Christ and the Apostles, the faith once for all delivered to the church. Suggesting that some other story is better or more attractive than that story is an audacity of breathtaking proportions. The church is bound to the story revealed in the Bible -- and in all of the Bible ... every word of it.

Of course, Dr. Mohler is right to say that the gospel isn't simply a ball of silly putty we can mold to our liking (although sadly, any cursory study of church history shows how often we Christians have done so). But he is wrong to assume that Rob is saying his story is better than Jesus' story. Rather, Rob is suggesting that Jesus' original story (as he interprets it) is better than the version many hold and proclaim today. He's making a distinction -- nuanced to some, obvious to others -- between the actual original gospel and the imperfect versions or approximations of it that any of us proclaim. He wants to be bound to that original story rather than to a popular (perhaps the most popular in some settings) version of it.

Now communication is nearly always tricky, as any of us who are married or are parents know. The speaker has a meaning which is encoded in symbols (words) which then must be decoded by the receiver. That decoding process is subject to all kinds of static -- for example, interference from the biases, fears, hopes, politics, vocabulary, and other characteristics of the receiver or the receiver's community. If the receiver then tries to pass the meaning -- as he has decoded it -- on to others, there is more encoding and decoding, and more static. That's why, with so much encoding and decoding and re-encoding going on, the challenge of communication across many cultural time zones is downright monumental. (By the way, if you say that's all overcome by good scholarship or the Holy Spirit, you still have a problem, since so many people who sincerely seek to follow the principles of good scholarship and/or the promptings of the Spirit come up with such wildly different versions of Christianity.)

Our versions (mine included) are all, then, human interpretations of the gospel of Christ and the apostles, and human interpretations of the original message are not exactly the same thing as the original message. Some are more true to the original and some less, but no articulation of the gospel today can presume to be exactly identical to the original meaning Christ and the apostles proclaimed. That doesn't mean we can't proclaim anything with confidence, but it demands a proper and humble confidence rather than a naive and excessive confidence.

That excessive confidence hides behind a popular saying: "The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it." To many ears, the saying sounds admirable. But wouldn't the saying be a bit more honest, and a bit less admirable, if we phrased it like this: "The Bible says something which I interpret in a certain way, and I believe that interpretation, and that settles it"?

I know Rob, and I'm quite certain he (like many of us) started questioning the interpretation of the gospel he received not because he was looking for a more palatable or popular version. (The truth is, he was already wildly popular as a megachurch pastor and bestselling author. A controversial book like this risks his popularity -- it doesn't guarantee to increase it.) He started questioning the interpretation/version he received because he became convinced -- from studying Scripture itself -- that the version he received wasn't the best interpretation. He (and many of us) may be wrong, but if we're wrong, it's not simply because we are trying to pander to "contemporary culture" (a problematic term in itself ... which one? Fox News culture? Bill Maher culture? Christianity Today culture? Christian Century culture?). Yes, that's Dr. Mohler's interpretation of our motive -- but his interpretation, I suggest, isn't infallible.

Next Dr. Mohler rounded second base with this: " ... Bell's argument is centered in his affirmation of God's loving character, but he alienates love from justice and holiness ... Love is divorced from holiness and becomes mere sentimentality."

Not so fast on at least two counts. First, many of us are concerned about the traditional doctrine of hell for reasons of justice and holiness, not mere sentimentality. Even putting God's loving nature aside for a moment, it's very hard to square the idea of eternal conscious torment with a just or holy God, especially when Jesus repeatedly encourages us to trust God as a just and holy father (in contrast to human fathers who, Jesus points out, can be downright evil). If a human father decided to throw his child in a fireplace for just ten seconds as punishment for disobedience, we wouldn't fault the father simply for being unsentimental: we would say such behavior was unholy, an act of torture in violation of our most fundamental sense of justice. Any definition of justice and holiness that involves being unsatisfied unless the imperfect are suffering eternal agony seems to many of us as unworthy of a human being and if so, how much more unworthy of God whose justice must be better than our own.

That doesn't solve the problem, and it doesn't address all the biblical texts that those who defend the traditional view can quote from memory. (Which is a legitimate topic for civil discourse -- discourse that I hope will come in the next innings of play.) But it does demand that the question be opened so the traditional interpretations of those texts can be reconsidered -- alongside the other often-marginalized texts that argue for a wideness in God's mercy and a compassion in God's justice. Having grappled with those texts myself, like Rob I found it more reasonable and faithful to the full witness of Scripture to conclude that love wins through God's restorative (not merely punitive) justice. And no, that's not traditional universalism because it works within a very different framing narrative than traditional universalism, exclusivism, and inclusivism all assume. (I've tried my best to address that issue of framing narrative in my books Everything Must Change and A New Kind of Christianity.)

It's out of line to label such concerns for the justice and holiness of God as mere sentimentality.

We should also notice what Dr. Mohler thinks Rob is being sentimental about. He doesn't accuse Rob of being overly concerned about real people supposedly writhing in absolute, utter torment at this very moment. Nor does he accuse Rob of being overly concerned about this troubling image of God as inventor and enforcer of eternal conscious torment. No, he accuses Rob of being sentimental about the people who are offended by this idea:

There is no reason to doubt that Bell wrote this book out of his own personal concern for people who are put off by the doctrine of hell.

No, I don't think so. This isn't simply a matter of "personal concern for people who are put off." This is personal concern for our ancestors, descendants, friends, neighbors, relatives, and even our enemies who are put in ... thrown in hell to experience torment at the hand of God forever and ever and ever. It's insulting to use the words "mere sentimentality" in relation to this kind of concern for our fellow human beings.

Next Dr. Mohler races around third base with the popular epithet liberal. He accuses those of us who differ with the prevailing view on hell as, "Pushing Protestant Liberalism -- just about a century late ... This is just a reissue of the powerless message of theological liberalism ... This is the traditional liberal line."

Now if "liberal" simply means "not conservative," then I suppose that's OK. But the term liberal used in this way evokes a whole narrative that is nearly universal in many fundamentalist/Evangelical circles. Mohler sums it up smartly:

By the time the 20th century came to a close, liberal theology had largely emptied the mainline Protestant churches and denominations ... Liberalism just does not work ...

From childhood I was taught this liberal-mainline-decline narrative (and its counterpart -- the conservative-Evangelical-growth narrative). I'm ashamed to say I never questioned it for years. But the narrative, like all prejudices, turns out to be terribly vulnerable -- especially if you actually meet many of the people it purports to describe. Consider these possible rebuttals (some of which are quite popular among mainliners, some not):

• Perhaps it wasn't liberalism that killed mainline Protestantism. Perhaps it was institutionalism.
• Perhaps it was an excessive concern among many mainline Protestant leaders to protect their "mainline" status of privilege and power.
• Perhaps it was complicity with nationalism, a complicity that was exposed as faulty in the 20th Century by two world wars and Vietnam.
• Perhaps it was liturgical and organizational rigidity.
• Perhaps the fall of mainline Protestantism had more to do with complacency and a lack of visionary leadership than it did with a willingness to question traditional interpretations of Scripture.
• Perhaps mainline Protestantism isn't dead or even dying: perhaps mainline Protestants have entered a latency period from which a new generation of Christian faith is trying to be born. (And perhaps conservative Protestantism is about to enter that latency period too.)
• Perhaps mainline Protestantism isn't failing at all, any more than the U.S. Postal Service is failing. (It's actually doing more work than ever, with proportionately fewer resources than ever.) Perhaps it's just that the times have changed, and First Class mail isn't what it used to be, and mainline Protestants think they're in the stamp-and-envelope business instead of the communication business.
• Perhaps mainline Protestants are in decline primarily because they haven't been as good marketers as Evangelicals. Perhaps mainliners haven't "pandered" to customer demands as well as Evangelicals. They haven't adopted new technologies -- first radio, then TV, then the internet -- as savvily as Evangelicals have.
• Perhaps mainline decline is related to higher college attendance rates -- rates that, by the way, Evangelicals are now catching up to. Perhaps conservative Christianity will fare no better in holding young adults who get a college education than mainline Protestants were. Perhaps the graphs will end up in the same place, with just a 30- or 40-year lag.
• Perhaps mainline Protestants started to decline when they became prophetic -- agreeing with Dr. King about the institutional evils of segregation and the Vietnam war. Perhaps being prophetic, which involves calling people forward to a better future, is inherently more costly and less popular than being conservative, which involves calling people back to a better past.
• Perhaps Evangelicals started to grow when they filled in the same role mainline Protestants used to occupy: the civil religion of the United States.
• Perhaps mainline Protestantism collapsed because of hypocrisy and disconnection from real-life issues, and perhaps Evangelicalism is edging ever-closer to a similar collapse.
• Perhaps mainline Protestantism was the religion of the American countryside and small town, and it declined as rural and small-town populations declined. And perhaps Evangelicalism is the religion of the American suburbs, and its fate will rise and fall with suburban life.

Now I think the reasons for mainline decline are many and complex, and I wouldn't bet my life on any one of these possible rebuttals alone or even all of them together. But taken together, they show that the "conservatives grow and liberals shrink" formula might give a false sense of superiority to one group, and a false sense of inferiority to the other. (My personal belief is that neither Evangelicals nor mainliners nor Roman Catholics nor Pentecostals nor anybody else is or has the full answer. I think Fr. Vincent Donovan had it right when he said we shouldn't leave others where they are, nor should we try to bring them to where we are, as beautiful as that place might be. Instead, we should go with others to a place neither we nor they have been before. Where we need to be is not where any of us currently are; we are all being called higher up and further in - a journey I try to describe, by the way, in Naked Spirituality: A Life with God in 12 Simple Words.)

Finally Dr. Mohler strides across home plate with a point I actually agree with: "At the end of the day, a secular society feels no need to attend or support secularized churches with a secularized theology."

True enough (if by "secular" you mean "without any reference to God"), but the rub for many who identify as conservatives, I think, is that for them, secularism only comes in one flavor: liberal.

To more and more of us these days, conservative Evangelical/fundamentalist theology looks and sounds more and more like secular conservatism -- economic and political -- simply dressed up in religious language. If that's the case, even if Dr. Mohler is right in every detail of his critique, he'd still be wise to apply the flip side of his warning to his own beloved community.

Yes, many of us are rejecting theologies that seem to dress up secular conservative ideology in "Sunday best." But that doesn't mean we want to put secular liberal ideology in robes and collars instead. Of course not. We're seeking -- imperfectly at every turn, no doubt -- an incarnational theology, a theology that brings radical good news of great joy for all the people, good news that God loves the world and didn't send Jesus to condemn it but to save it, good news that God's wrath is not merely punitive but restorative, good news that the fire of God's holiness is not bent on eternal torment but always works to purify and refine, good news that where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.

If some like Dr. Mohler want to reserve the terms Evangelical, orthodox, and even Christian for those who hold fast to the traditional view of hell, they seem to have the power and moxy to do so. Those of us who can't in good conscience defend that view any longer are certainly not condemning people who can't in good conscience stop defending it. But we are hoping at least to be given the courtesy of a fair hearing. To impugn our motives (that we are selling out the Bible for the pottage of popularity), to reduce our concerns about love and justice to sentimentality, to dismiss us with the "L" word and a questionable narrative surrounding it, and to demean as "secularized" our attempt to articulate a fresh vision of the gospel probably won't pass muster as a fair hearing.

So after the first inning of responses, I imagine Rob Bell feels a lot like I have on many occasions: it's not that the critics have accurately understood what I'm trying to say and have explained why they disagree. It's that they've misrepresented what I'm trying to say and have explained why the misrepresentation is audacious and ludicrous. Thankfully, there's still time to see the conversation continue and deepen, and Dr. Mohler can be thanked for getting the first inning off to a strong and exciting start. If we seek true understanding and give one another a fair hearing all along the way, knowing we'll all strike out sometimes and even commit an error or two from time to time, whoever "wins," love will win.

 

Comments

[Adam Keffer]

02:28 PM on 04/27/2011

One of the major issues I see with McLaren's view (and apparently Bell's also) is that he sees God as the Father of every individual on earth. Jesus didn't. He told some that their father was the devil(john 8:44). Also, a good thing to keep in mind is that the fear of the Lord is a good thing(Proverbs 1:7; Proverbs 14:26) especially since He is the one who has the power to destroy not just the body, but the soul as well(Matthew 10:28). There's plenty of scripture and i do agree that being able to discuss it in a civil manner is going to glorify God more than straw men and cheap shots. However, the Truth should be the goal and when Truth is found it should be held more dearly than great riches.

[ambroseart]

02:46 PM on 04/22/2011

I just saw that a full length book engaging Bell's book has been published. It's called "Christ Alone" and is written by an evangelical theologian, Michael Wittmer. Should be an interesting read.

[Aruna R]

04:55 PM on 04/03/2011

"It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion- its message becomes meaningless." Abraham Joshua Heschel

So, instead of blaming the Rob Bells of the world or the people some group deems "liberal", perhaps people like Mohler should look within their own community. Actually, we all should.

[kylebueermann]

10:21 AM on 03/30/2011

As a youth pastor (which, by extension, requires me to be a theologian to a certain degree), this is a line that I have to walk all the time. How do I convey the Gospel truth in a way that emphasizes God's unconditional love, but also stresses His holiness and justice? You cannot separate one from the other. Here's how I convey it:

God loves every single person more than you can possibly imagine. Because of His great love, He took the initiative to sent Christ to pay the price of sin that no man could pay. However, God chose to give mankind the choice to accept His love or not. He did not create robots with no choice but to love Him. We have the choice to accept His gift of love through Christ or to reject it. His is not a love based on merit, because He took the first step (see Romans 5:8).

Because Christ already paid the price, it is true that love wins. In fact, love has already won. God has done His part. Now he leaves us with the decision: Will we accept His gift of love in Christ Jesus, or will we reject it? In a sense, it can be said that God sends no one to hell; rather, we choose it when we reject Christ.

This is the best I can explain it. God loves you and reached down because we were powerless to reach up. I pray you'll take the gift.

[legalhound]

01:16 AM on 03/26/2011

There is one other reason that mainline protestantism has been declining and it will soon be hitting the Evangelical fundamentalists too. Dogma. Pure and simple it is too confining for many of us who see God as loving and as truly Omnipotent. There is no separation, not from God and not from each other. I fully agree with you about God's restorative justice, but I will go a step further and argue that God does not use retributive "justice" at all. That is only a human thing. Justice is about balance. People do not have to be sadistically punished in order to create the adjustment necessary to bring things back into balance. Justice, true justice should be healing for the victim, community and the perpetrator. The fundamentalist community is deeply disturbed as they always tend to talk about hell with sadistic glee. They're just so certain that God has human emotions and is just as hateful and petty as we can be. It couldn't be further from the truth, God is literally the entire Universe and everything in it. We are little parts of God, not our bodies, but our souls. God is Omnipotent and perfect. Perfect is not hateful, spiteful, sadistic or petty. It is far easier to hate than to love so to hate is human, to love is divine.

[Steve McSwain]

12:06 AM on 03/26/2011

Brian, I have the greatest admiration and respect for you. Your comments and responses are, in my own opinion, a grand slam and the game is over. Or, should be. Unfortunately, it isn't. Nor will it ever be, when it comes to the fundamentalist mindset, or whatever one should call it. As few would know better than you, when the field is filled with fundamentalist players, coached by fundamentalist leaders as in the case of Mohler, and cheered by crowds of fundamentalist followers, and coached by fundamentalist leaders like Mohler, the game is never over. While I share your desire to see honest, open, and fair dialogue, you know, as do I, it will not ever happen with most fundamentalists. You are gracious and Christian to try, and I admire you for it. But, it won't happen and you of all people would know this. Fundamentalism, fundamentally, rises out of fear. And, fearful people only ever know how to fight or flee. I am glad you've served Bell well by being a kind of referee who has called foul on an unfair play against him. But, I would much prefer you continue writing and speaking and calling for "a new Christianity." In the end, you are right to imply, radical fundamentalism in America's churches will decline. It is already. But then, you would know this, too.

[skeptic406]

10:46 AM on 03/25/2011

The hubris of Dr. Mohler is not surprising. The conservative side of the church has become, in many ways, as dogmatic as the old RC church at the time of Luther. But to be clear, everybody interprets the Bible in some fashion or other, even Dr. Mohler. Jesus plaining says that if your eye or your hand causes you to sin, pluck it out or cut it off. Many of us know that Jesus was speaking metaphorically here because we have interpreted this passage. For those who claim to only interpret the Bible literally (by which they really mean "concretely") I would expect them to be without eyes or hands.

The question of interpretation of the "concreteness" of hell is whether Jesus is speaking in metaphor. When Jesus speaks of hell using the word "Hades" he is assuredly speaking metaphorically; unless you want to argue that Jesus believes in a hell of Greek mythology rules over by a greek god. When Jesus speaks of hell using the Hebrew word Gehenna, he is almost certainly speaking of a locale outside of Jerusalem where the garbage burns continuously.

[ninetailedfox]

06:20 PM on 03/24/2011

Im losing my patience on christians in general. It is time. Change or die. That is my warning. It is even a buddhist belief that those that dont change, die. perhaps there is truth to that belief after all.

[DianaLynn1967]

11:58 PM on 03/25/2011

It's not your job to change Christians. It's your job to change yourself. Leave the rest of us alone.

[JDuck]

02:04 AM on 03/27/2011

" Leave the rest of us alone."

Alas, if Christianity will only do the same....

[researcher]

12:28 AM on 03/24/2011

love is not about winning or losing, love is.

that winning thing is as american as apple pie and ducks and water. he has combined a cultural aspect of america with his religious teachings. easy to do.

and you are responding to what a southern baptist leader thinks and says. really?

have you spent time in the south. spend some time there then you will understand that southern mentality and why they love to be baptists even southern baptists.

or look at the mentality of their politicans. evangels are in great doubt so they want others to believe as they believe. it gives the ego comfort to think it can make others think like it thinks.

[Nicholas Berdyaev]

11:57 PM on 03/23/2011

A couple of observations:

There is no better winnowing fork than truth. People do not flock to megachurches (whether Bell's or anyone else's) in great numbers to hear the truth.

When Mohler says "liberalism does not work" he means it does not pay the bills.

[Loggietoad]

04:02 PM on 03/24/2011

You are incorrect. Liberalism does pay the bills.

[ANGEL53545]

09:12 PM on 03/23/2011

HELL WAS CREATED FOR FALLEN ANGELS. GODS JUSTICE WOULD DEMAND THAT HE SEND DISOBEDIENCE HUMANS TO HELL, THE FALLEN ANGELS REJECTS GOD LOVE, HUMANS REJECTS GOD'S LOVE WHAT IS DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEM? NOTHING

[researcher]

12:17 AM on 03/24/2011

and you just created a few more atheists. nice job with the religion thing.

[Old Sarge]

01:15 AM on 03/24/2011

Wow... that was pretty wierd.

[Pumadam]

06:31 PM on 03/23/2011

Albert Mohler's comment about "we have seen this before" is accurate in many ways. How I respond to this response and "Love Wins" is just like I intellectually respond to any new "gnosis" that has ever come down the pipe line. It appears and comes across like we are being told:

"You know, I like you "tradionalists" and all that, but you are totally wrong about "this" particular belief. For the last two thousand years people have been totally getting it wrong and finally, me and my group have come along to show you what was missing for the last few millenia, God was just patiently waiting for us to show up on the scene and rescue His "true" message that you all hijacked, he is sorry it took soooo long, but do not worry, we are here now!"

That is the historical MO for ever new fangled cult that comes along, everyone has been wrong, and we are the right ones. As if God's message is held up by such a tenous thread that one messed up interpretation 2k years ago set up irreversible dominos that only I can see how to put back correctly. The arguments by Bell, McLaren et all sound just like the things people like Joseph Smith and Charles Taze Russell said when they started their new "true" christian faith that was rescuing christianity from generations of bad interpretation that only they could set right.

[Rick Wiman]

07:18 PM on 03/23/2011

Yes, we should stand fast on the sands of time, time justifies everything. We have seen its accomplishments.

[Pumadam]

08:30 PM on 03/23/2011

If I am picking up correctly upon your sarcasm....My point being, you cannot on one hand say that scripture is God's word and Christianity is the true message of God (which Bell and McLaren would hold to, in their own definitions...) and then go and say everyone(the overwhelming vast majority) before me, for 2000 years has been wrong, and I am finally fixing it. It is logically inconsistent. If that is a true statement in any form, then you are simply allowing for us to redefine what you just said 100 years later in to the form we feel most comfortable with at that moment. And, rinse and repeat ad nauseum. Either God's message is consistently trustworthy and reliable continuously, or as you put it, stands fast on the sands of time, or, it has no more weight or value than what you decide to contemporarily and subjectively ascrbie to it.

[DianaLynn1967]

01:57 AM on 03/24/2011

Actually, Christian Universalism has been around since the Apostle Paul. That's right. Paul. He was a universalist. When Constantine came on the scene, he started the evil work of repressing Christian Universalism--choosing to trust the power of fear over the power of love. In other words, choosing to trust Satan instead of God. If you're actually interested in learning something about this, you might want to read Thomas Talbott's "The Inescapable Love of God."

[crparke]

02:29 AM on 03/24/2011

Paul warns in the epistles about the dangers of falling away and of false teaching. He warns that many people will not "inherit the kingdom of God" and that the wrath of God will fall upon certain people. These things seem to suggest that he was not a universalism. He spent his life traveling and preaching the gospel precisely because he believed that faith in Jesus - and only faith in Jesus- can save from the wrath of God and therefore his ministry was a matter of life and death.

[ninetailedfox]

06:24 PM on 03/24/2011

Oh and, Im not even sure if Paul is the good man you think he is. Theres something rotten afoot, and the more I find out, the more convinced I am that all of christianity is the Biggest Lie ever told.

[researcher]

04:56 PM on 03/23/2011

preachers cherry pick the bible the very best.

when a preacher makes a statement that every word in the bible is god's word.

I say to them what are you doing this next sunday afternoon as you will be busy with those folks working on sunday doing them terrible harm.

the bible is full of wisdom and full of ignorance knowing the difference between the two is no easy task.

there is an evolution of consciousness process in full swing and it leaves no one behind. no one even if you are a confirmed materialist or evangel, yes even the baptists are included in this process.

a little down the ladder but on the rise. well kind of. :-)

[TheSojourner]

04:50 PM on 03/23/2011

I'll take Bill Maher's interpretation, any day, and throw in the late, great George Carlin. How can you speak of a "Loving God" and the promulgation of the concept of Hell in the same breath? The whole concept of Hell coupled with a "Loving God" is totally ludicrous. Anyone who truly loves would never subject the object of that love to any kind of abuse, deliberately.

This is more like the "Stockholm Syndrome" or "Spousal Abuse" syndrome. "But he loves me, it must be my fault" or "if I try to please him, he won't beat me", etc. That is what this whole idea seems like to me, an outsider.

I'm an atheist, because I spent the time to learn about religions, and their history. I spent the time reading and digesting many religious "holy books". The almost all boil down to appease (insert your Deity here) or I will be punished, I must go through my life making sure I do not displease Him/Her/It.
That is why the expression "Godfearing" supposedly means piety, when it actually means being terrorized by what that Deity will do if you don't watch out. Some "Love" indeed.

[researcher]

12:19 AM on 03/24/2011

you gave up one religion for another. materialism and scientism like ducks and water.

[crparke]

12:41 AM on 03/24/2011

The way that Bill Maher uses the phrase "loving God" lends itself to a straw man argument. They use that phrase to depict God as supposedly being unconditionally benevolent and incapable of anger and wrath. But the Bible never depicts God like this to begin with.

Scripture depicts God as a being who first and foremost loves himself and his own majesty and glory. He does love us, but he loves himself and his glory more than he loves us. The Bible says that sin is an attack on God's glory and character, and that God hates sin and promises to punish sin and sinners. God does not wish for any to perish, but his desire to punish sin and show his own perfect righteousness and justice outweighs his desire to save everyone. This is precisely why God sent Jesus to die in the place of sinners, to that his wrath and justice would be satisfied on the one hand, and he would save some of the ones he loves on the other hand.

So Bill Maher and other people who make this argument are smuggling in and knocking down a claim that the Bible doesn't make in the first place. God is not a "loving God" in the sense that he is rigid in motivation and action and judgment and is forced to be benevolent towards humanity in every respect and circumstance.

[TheSojourner]

02:22 AM on 03/24/2011

That's exactly my point! Thank you for corroborating my conclusions. I rest my case.
Your God is a psychotic, vain, egomaniac not worthy of worship.

[mcsheam]

04:19 PM on 03/23/2011

I was in my doctor's office today for a follow through check up. The oracle on the wall was telling me about the growth of babies at ¼ inch per week after birth between the greed pharma commercials for useless drugs.

To paraphrase the words of the poet/prophet Yeat – the Savior is no longer slouching toward Bethlehem – He is Born – REBORN! - and with him a faith aka Christianity that is waiting a proper rebirth, resetting, rebooting of the message of the man from Nazareth. Perhaps this rebirth – second coming of the message of Jesus – is only going to go at ¼ inch per week etc.

Mile by mile is a trial. Inch by inch is cinch. Jesus Lives!