(Warning: theology post. Long one. Also, sentence fragments.)
For the first half of this book, I was considering titling this review "This Book is Real (But I Hate That I Read It)," but the latter half of the book brought it back around to being basically a worthwhile read. So I'll start with the positives, I guess. Kind of a good news/bad news thing.
The good news is that Brian Jones is a decent writer, and he clearly communicates his passion for evangelism, and the second half (maybe the last third) is all about that topic. His advice on loving people, chilling out, and winning people not through bouncing Bibles off them but by being normal and engaging with them genuinely, was top notch. The kind of common sense that's not so common. If that's what the book consisted of, I'd probably give it very high marks.
In addition, the autobiographical parts of the book were interesting and engaging and generally drove the narrative of the book. So that's good, too.
Lastly, it's a short book. A couple of hours would be sufficient to read it cover to cover. Me likee short books.
(One more thing: it was free from the NOOK store. Now it's something like three bucks.)
Unfortunately, there was also the main topic of the book. Now, I've undergone something of a conversion on the topic of hell over the last decade or so, essentially since I started reading through the Bible every year. As I read and re-read the Bible, I didn't find the Eternal Conscious Torment view (hereafter called the Traditional view) there. I found the passages I'd always assumed taught it, but when I started to realize how the language of the Bible worked, I found I couldn't stick with the Traditional view.
This didn't mean I rejected hell altogether, of course. The Bible is pretty clear on hell's existence, but what exactly it involves is harder to pin down. Is it a fiery furnace? There are passages that seem to indicate so. But then there are the passages that refer to it as darkness. Fire. Darkness. Not generally considered synonymous. And what about all that language about perishing and destruction?
I eventually realized that the Traditional view is probably wrong, but wasn't sure which other view is correct (also, I discovered that other views existed). I read a bit about Annihilationism/Conditionalism (I'll stick with Conditionalism hereafter) and found it pretty much explained all the relevant passages, and then I read about Christian Universalism (Universalism for short). I didn't find that latter view quite so convincing, but I still found it persuasive (and still do). I haven't really settled on which one I take, but I lean toward Conditionalism on my pessimistic days and Universalism on my optimistic ones. But the Traditional view is just gone. I understand why people believe it, but I just don't see it taught in scripture.
Again, a Conditionalist can believe in hell. They believe the lost go there. They believe the lost suffer and then cease to exist. Universalists can believe in hell. They believe that the lost go there. They believe the lost suffer there and can eventually be saved and brought to repentance. But they can both believe in hell.
Brian Jones doesn't think either group believes in hell. For him, apparently, if you don't accept all of the Traditional view, you're not only disbelieving what is an essential tenet of the faith, you're actually sinning.
At its core, believing in hell is an obedience issue, not a theological issue.
Okay then. For me, it's basically theological (I'll acknowledge some philosophical reasons, too, but they're minor). I have a Bible, I read it, and I don't find the Traditional view. I don't believe this is a sin. And I'm really not sure there's such a thing as a sin of disbelief.
The problem here is that if you're going to assert that it's a sin to not believe the Traditional view, you need to actually show that it's true. Jones takes a few pages and lays out his case. It's essentially this:
Jesus employed the most graphic language to describe what hell is like: fire; eternal fire; destruction; away from his presence; thrown outside; blazing furnace; darkness; eternal punishment; weeping and gnashing of teeth.
I omitted the scripture references for the sake of brevity here, but let me just say this: I'm not disputing any of these sayings, though I'd point out that many of them are teaching about Gehenna, which can be understood as referring to hell. It can also be understood as the language of judgment and death. There's also this: even if every one of these sayings refers to the nature of hell, they can all be understood in a Conditionalist way. There's nothing about any of them that is incompatible with that view. And perhaps only one or two of them could be a challenge to a Universalist interpretation.
But Jones brushes aside Conditionalism by taking a poke at Clark Pinnock, asserting that he'd veered from clear Biblical teaching. (Again here, I keep looking and not finding the Traditional view taught clearly.) He apparently doesn't consider a hell that will one day be empty (after either the damned are annihilated or redeemed) as "real hell."
Worse than his lack of honest dealing with Conditionalism is his dismissal of Universalism by way of a straw man argument:
(In discussing something he asks a friend who doesn't believe in hell:)
…I always ask him a simple question for which he has no answer: "If everyone goes to heaven after they die, and the point of Christianity is to do good on earth, then why did Jesus have to die on the cross?"
He's never provided an answer.
Because there isn't one.
Really he's kind of begging the question here. Universalists (I assume his friend is one) don't necessarily believe that "the point of Christianity is to do good on earth. Instead, the idea might be that the point of Christianity is to enter God's Kingdom now and live in it forever. One can't join it now if they wait until after death. That's how time works.
I could have enjoyed a book that tackled the topic of hell from a Traditionalist angle if either ignored the other views held by evangelicals or dealt with them in a straightforward way. No, actually, I'd have insisted on the latter. I think the attempt to write a brief book resulted in a worse one than it might've been.
If this is the best you can do in engaging those who disagree with you, it's a real shame:
If there is no hell, then giving less than our best to our faith makes perfect sense.
Right, and since the homework isn't graded, there's no reason to do it, is there? Mastering the material would make no sense. And if my dad won't spank me, disobedience makes perfect sense. Because he's certainly not worthy of my respect and obedience if he's not going to beat the tar out of me.
Using hell as a disincentive to a sinful life is appealing to the lowest common denominator. The fact is that Christians should be motivated to live godly lives not out of fear of hell but in gratitude for, well, everything else. Just as a son should obey his Father out of respect and love, and not merely out of fear of getting whipped. This is obvious, isn't it?
When the disciples started preaching in the Book of Acts, they didn't call people to repent and avoid hell. Instead, they told them Jesus had risen from the dead, was the Lord of All and commanded them to follow him. They didn't threaten the crowds with hell, they promised them the gift of the Holy Spirit. Even going back to Matthew's mention of the name Jesus (Joshua), it's said that he was so named because he would "save his people from their sins." Notice no mention of saving them from hell there.
I'm not going to dissect the rest of the book. I wrote down a ton of notes, but I'm tiring of this now. But I have to mention something else, because it's disturbing.
As I mentioned, I have some philosophical reasons for rejecting the Traditional view. I don't believe it matches with the character of God as revealed in the Bible.
Exodus 34:6-7 (ESV)
6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, "The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation."
Now, I get that the whole third and fourth generation thing looks nasty, but it has a fairly obvious interpretation, namely that Israel disobeyed and was booted out of the land, which affected several generations. And it's worth pointing out that when they repented, God brought them back. So the punishment wasn't without a positive outcome. It showed that God's justice and mercy are both in play. Contrast that with this:
The real God, the Deity we only catch a quick glimpse of in the pages of Scripture, is infinitely more bloodthirsty, vindictive, genocidal, pestilential, sadomasochistic, and capriciously malevolent than human language could begin to express.
I don't even really know where to start here. I wouldn't actually consider any of these words as apt descriptors of God, though I guess an argument could be made for genocidal. I guess, depending on how you view the historical narratives about the conquest of Canaan. And I must assume Jones meant "sadistic" instead of "sadomasochistic" here. Otherwise, ick. Capricious is another word I'm not sure means what he thinks it means. ("Given to sudden and unaccountable changes of mood or behavior.") And malevolent means evil. This is a thesaurus fail of the highest measure.
But maybe this was just a random brain dropping or free association gone wrong. Or, maybe not:
…until you understand how violent and inhumane God really is, how utterly wrathful the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ can become, you'll never feel the urgency to help your non-Christian friends escape his detestable clutches.
We're going with detestable and inhumane, are we? I'm not suggesting we never talk about the wrath of God, but inhumane? Really? Detestable? And this is someone we're supposed to love?
I don't subscribe to the idea that the God of the Old Testament is different than the God of the New Testament. I know there's some rough stuff in the OT, and I definitely wrestle with understanding some of it, but I look to Jesus to see God. As the writer of Hebrews says:
Hebrews 1:3 (ESV)
3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.
Exact. Imprint. Jesus isn't inhumane or detestable, and certainly not capricious or sadistic. Neither is God the Father.
Jones was using this brutally inappropriate argument about how horrid God is to encourage what he calls "apocalyptic urgency," or the overwhelming desire of Christians to see non-Christians saved. In his view:
Christianity is about helping people get to Heaven.
I'm afraid I couldn't disagree with this more. Find me this in the Bible. Christianity is about bringing people into the Kingdom now, giving God his due glory, and making "his Kingdom come, his will be done" here. Getting to Heaven, or more appropriately, the resurrection from the dead, is certainly the hope of the Christian, but if it's all about getting to Heaven, what's the purpose of converting now rather than on our death beds? (This kind of turns around his argument against Universalism.)
I'm no scholar. I'm a guy who reads his Bible and tries to understand it. I also read other books. I've never read a pro-Traditionalist book, and I probably should. I've also not read a pro-Conditionalist one, so my tentative acceptance of that position can't be blamed on my being the easily-suggestible type. I'm looking forward to Steve Gregg's forthcoming book on the Three Views of Hell, because I think it will help me clarify my own position on this topic. But I have no doubt that there are good Christians out there who hold all three positions. Some of them are wrong. I might be wrong. But the fact that I reject the Traditional view doesn't make me less likely to try to reach people.
Ultimately, I'll take the good advice on evangelism Jones included in this book, and leave the rest.
Did I go on long enough, do you think? I deleted several paragraphs, too. Enjoy it while you can, because I'm about to do a three week hiatus from basically all online pursuits except Words with Friends. Road trip!
In the meantime, I'll hopefully be finishing Longitude, another 13 in '13 title, and I've got a couple of other titles (150 or so) on my NOOK to keep me company on our trip. Maybe I'll queue up a few or scrawl a capsule review using my NOOK Color's brutal web interface. That'd be worth seeing.
I also solemnly swear not to be this verbose all the time.