More on Hell

Of all the talk that Rob Bell’s book Love Wins has generated, the most curious to me is the charge that those of us committed to historic Christianity have had so little to do with the doctrine of hell that we have thrown the door wide open for erroneous and heretical views. A Facebook friend posted this position:

The hubbub about Rob Bell is our fault. If evangelicals were not embarrassed about hell, we would not have this problem.

And with wider distribution was this on the Justin Taylor blog, Between Two Worlds, where Mr. Taylor posted with approval a longer post by Tony Payne. In this post, after deserved praise for Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (which, sadly, many may think is the only topic Edwards ever addressed because of its ubiquity, a fault Mr. Taylor corrects), Mr. Payne seems to confirm that there is a dearth of Hell preaching. Taylor suggests we are made uncomfortable by it.

This disappearance of hell is noted as well by John Wilson in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal:

Something strange has happened in evangelical churches over the past generation. Not in every congregation, but in the main, sermons devoted to the grim prospect of hell have become rare, and even talk of heaven is muted.

I, for one, have no way to measure a) how much preaching on hell there is and b) how much is ‘just right’ in the broader culture. I do measure a) how much my sheep need to hear and b) how they can best hear and c) how any doctrine they hear is to be balanced against other aspects of gospel doctrine. And though an occasional reminder regarding my responsibility to preach the ‘whole counsel of God’ and what that looks like can be healthy, generally the appeals I hear are aimed at skewing my preaching in one direction or another depending upon the controversy du jour or the narrow focus of the complainant.

But the logic that an evangelical embarrassment and neglect has opened the door for a ‘heretical’ corrective makes no sense. Corrective to what?

IF the doctrine of hell has been systematically ignored in Christian churches, how does if follow that anyone would want to write a book dismantling a doctrine that has been ignored anyway? And how then could a book challenging a neglected subject capture a best selling audience? (It is now #3 at Amazon, ‘sandwiched’ between two diet books.)

I really think the opposite is probably true. It is an OVERemphasis and a misrepresentation of hell that has created the market and environment for Bell’s book and position to fly. Hell has been so gracelessly presented over the past generations that the preaching of conservative Christianity is equated with ‘hellfire and brimstone’. There is a discomfort regarding the doctrine not because it has been ignored, but because it has been mishandled. People are not turned off to hell because it has been silenced; they are turned off because we have allowed it to become severed from the full story of grace.

Richard Mouw, quoted in Geoff Henderson’s blog, reveals the unfortunate bent attached to so much teaching on hell when he asks

Why don’t folks who criticize Rob Bell for wanting to let too many people in also go after people…who want to keep too many people out? Why are we rougher on salvific generosity than on salvific stinginess?

Rob Bell is nothing if not a guide to sensing what a broad swath of American culture is feeling. And to this we should listen.

Some would have us respond by speaking more and more about hell. If we do it well, good could come. But I fear we will only perpetuate the caricature and harden, not soften, hearts. But we need not follow the lead of others like Rob Bell in recasting the doctrine in a way that makes it unrecognizable to the historic Christian soil it is such a rich part of.

The response should be for preachers to continue to preach carefully and faithfully a Christianity that is full of grace and truth, and for congregants to stick closely to faithful shepherds who evidence those twin passions. The shepherds should know what their sheep need to hear, and the sheep should trust their shepherds.