Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, calls Rob Bell’s latest, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, a “theological disaster.” And then adds, “When you adopt universalism … you don’t need the church, and you don’t need Christ … and you don’t need the cross…. This is the disaster of nonjudgmental mainline liberalism.”
But nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, even if we go all the way to universalism, we need the church, we need Christ, and we need the cross all the more. Because this life then becomes incredibly important, and how we love one another, and we love the world, all the more, the bottom line. It’s not about going to heaven (which Jesus never ever said), but doing “God’s will on earth as it is in heaven.”
Mohler’s gospel is a small gospel.
Reduced to a few clichés and a “come-to-Jesus” moment.
In Mohler’s evangelical world, Jesus was born of a virgin and then he died. Everything else in between is ignored. Paul letters are stripped of their ethical orientation and turned into a Gnostic treatise – if you now this, you’re saved; if you don’t know this, your goose is cooked.
Mohler is flat-out wrong.
But there’s nothing new in that.
Mohler’s tiny little world is growing tinier, and it doesn’t feel very good, even for him. But rather than changing and growing, Mohler just grows more and more bitter.
Hats of to Rob Bell for taking up the challenge to think.
Think outside the box … because, indeed, God and God’s love are always larger and bigger than we want them to be.
Yes, I have no doubt about Mohler’s ultimate destiny. But when he gets there, he’s going to spend a few thousand years pissed off that Bell is there. And then a few thousand years pissed at God. And then more years pissed at himself, until there’s no more piss left. And from his lips, the angels will hear, Hallelujah!
If then, why not now?
Just asking … but what do I know?
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