Pastor and author Rob Bell is a phenomenon hard to avoid. His best-selling books (e.g., Velvet Elvis) and his popular Nooma video series have made him an attractive figure for many Christians during the past six or seven years. Ten thousand souls attend his Mars Hill Bible Church in a suburb of Grand Rapids. Hailed as either an enfant terrible or on the leading edge of evangelicalism, Bell is deliberately provocative, iconic, and charismatic. He appeals to “hipster Christianity”—a younger, edgier, and less traditional form of church that challenges established patterns of worship, teaching, and Christian practice.¹ While attending a talk he gave to a packed room, I noted that Bell draws in many through his postmodernist ethos—informality, humor, storytelling, and questioning. In an interview Bell said, “I have as much in common with the performance artist, the standup comedian, the screenwriter, as I do with the theologian.”²

His recent book, Love Wins, has propelled Bell to a new level of notoriety, partially due to various prepublication leaks and speculations concerning its content. Pastor and author John Piper wrote a tweet saying, “Farewell, Rob Bell,” which sparked great interest, as did the strong endorsements given by Eugene Peterson and Greg Boyd. The burning concern was whether Bell was a universalist, someone who claims that all human beings will be redeemed in the end. Since some hipster or emergent Christian writers and speakers have seemed to embrace universalism, many wondered if Bell would join the ranks.

Having read part of Bell’s first book, Velvet Elvis, a few of his articles, and having watched several Nooma videos, I did not expect a careful, logical, deeply biblical, or theologically knowledgeable account of the perennially urgent question of the afterlife. My expectations were met. While this is not a review of all of Bell’s writings or videos, it is fitting to comment briefly on some points in Velvet Elvis, Bell’s first book, as they pertain to ideas expressed in Love Wins.

Velvet Elvis’s thesis is that Christian faith is never a finished affair; it is always exploratory, conjectural, and provisional. Bell likens it to jumping on a trampoline as opposed to standing on a foundation. For Bell, a constitutive part of this playful and bouncing faith is paradox and mystery, the unresolved and irresolvable enigmas at the heart of Christianity. By about thirty pages into Velvet Elvis, Bell assures us that all the major doctrines of Christianity (Trinity, Incarnation, salvation, etc.) are matters beyond rational knowledge. Bell even questions (but does not outright deny) the virgin birth of Christ, by drawing parallels between it and birth narratives from pagan religions.³ Notwithstanding, the virgin birth is deeply rooted in historical documents and has no real parallels in mystery religions.⁴ By his invocation of mystery, enigma, and paradox, and by questioning doctrines firmly established in history, Bell dismisses the historic discipline of apologetics: faith needs no rational support to be genuine. In fact, it cannot accept such apologetic assistance and remain real. Rather, Christians must celebrate unknowing. (I side with Christian philosopher Gordon Clark who said a paradox is “a charley horse between the ears”—something to correct, not to celebrate.⁵) Apologetics is, however, both intrinsic to the biblical sense of mission and well served by apologists through the centuries, such as Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Pascal, G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, and, more recently, William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland.⁶

An even more disconcerting feature of Velvet Elvis is Bell’s endorsement of Ken Wilber’s A Brief History of Everything. Bell says, “For a mind-blowing introduction to emergence theory and divine creativity, set aside three months and read Ken Wilber’s A Brief History of Everything (Boston: Shambhala, 2001).”⁷ Bell gives no indication that Ken Wilber affirms pantheism, a worldview that negates the Creator creation distinction intrinsic to biblical Christianity (see Gen. 1:1; John 1:1; Rom. 1:18–21). Wilber, on the contrary, believes that everything is divine.

This is a bad sign, since it reveals that Bell either cannot discern the difference between pantheism and Christianity (see Isa. 5:20), or does not think the difference is worth noting. How unlike the apostle Paul who, while before a thoroughly pagan audience of Greek philosophers, was able to contrast Christianity cogently with the Greek worldview, and to commend Christ and call for conversion (Acts 17:22–34). A teacher of the Bible should be well-studied (2 Tim. 2:15; Titus 2:7–8; James 3:1–2) and able to refute demonic doctrines that oppose biblical truth (2 Tim. 2:24–26; 2 Cor. 10:3-5). Scripture also warns us of spiritual counterfeits: teachings that seem pleasing, but betray the truth (2 Cor. 11:14; 2 Tim. 4:3; 1 John 4:1–6).

Love Wins will be pleasing to many who embrace postmodern culture and its ways of thinking and feeling. The postmodern spirit avoids most certainties, plays with ideas more than carefully argues for conclusions, favors impressions over convictions, and tends toward glibness as a virtue. In this spirit, the text of Love Wins is not laid out like an ordinary book. There are few words per page, most of which do not consist of complete sentences. (This style is similar to that of Velvet Elvis.) An inordinate number of questions appear throughout the book (often one after the other), usually without resolution. The style often aspires to poetry, but falls short. It is rather a fragmented and affected prose. There are no clearly stated premises leading to a conclusion through some identifiable form of argument. One finds instead impressionistic and staccato discussions—and without any supporting documentation. There may be a place for this kind of writing, but it is ill-fitting for matters as consequential as heaven and hell.

ADJUSTING THE GOSPEL

Love Wins begins by telling a short story that leads Bell to wonder whether Gandhi is in hell. He asserts that traditional ideas of heaven and hell have repulsed many from being Christians. As he writes later in the book, “Telling a story about a God who inflicts unrelenting punishment on people because they didn’t do or say or believe the right things in a brief window of time called life isn’t a very good story” (p. 110). The biblical view of the afterlife, therefore, should be readdressed in the hopes of reaching those who have rejected Christian faith.

This is a noble intention, but intentions are insufficient for virtue. We should be like Paul, who said, “I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings” (1 Cor. 9:22–23⁸). Zeal for evangelism should meet two conditions. First, one must realize that many people reject the gospel of Jesus Christ not because they have been presented with a defective version of it, but because they do not want to bow their knee to God. As Jesus said, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). The gospel is always offensive to human pride (see 1 Cor. 1:18–2:16). We must understand the bad news that we are sinners before a holy God before we can receive the good news that we can be restored through God’s grace in Christ. We should not shy away from the implications of biblical teaching. Second, we should never redefine and so diminish the gospel for the sake of winning a larger audience (see Gal. 1:6–11). Adjusting the gospel to placate human rebellion against God transforms the good news into a compromise with worldliness, something we should earnestly avoid (Rom. 12:1–2; James 1:27; 4:4; 1 John 2:15–17).

TWO COMMENDATIONS

Before examining Bell’s assertions, we should commend him for two things. First, he rightly emphasizes that salvation, biblically understood, involves the present as well as the future. There is a this-worldly dimension to the Kingdom of God that some Christians miss. God created a good world and will recreate it with the new heavens and new earth (Rev. 21–22). Christians should bring shalom (God’s justice, peace, and well-being) to all of life. In this, Bell is influenced profitably by the writings of N. T. Wright.

Second, Bell addresses some biblical texts that seem prima facie to teach universalism, which some evangelicals have not taken seriously enough. If we believe that the entire Bible is authoritative, we need to interpret these passages rightly as well as the rest of Scripture. Bell’s competency in this regard will be addressed below.

THREE CONTRADICTORY IDEAS

Bell’s claims about heaven and hell, however, are fairly difficult to discern, given the impressionistic, interrogative, and scattered nature of much of the book. But he does clearly challenge the view that death seals our destiny (by advocating postmortem possibilities for salvation) and suggests that all people may be saved. Unfortunately, the book affirms three contradictory ideas: (1) Since God is love and God gets what God wants, all are saved. No one is in a permanent hell. (2) Since humans are free, they may resist God’s love. Some will end up in a permanent hell. (3) We cannot know whether or not everyone will be saved.

Of course, these three statements cannot all be true. Statement (1) contradicts statement (2). Statement (3) affirms that we cannot know whether (1) or (2) is true. Therefore, these statements do not cohere with one another logically. Nevertheless, I will address each of these three points, spending the lion’s share on (1).

1. No Hell.Bell first claims that he cannot reconcile a God of love with the punishment of hell immediately after death. How could God offer His love to us during this earthly life and then end up punishing people forever after they die? Bell says that we cannot love a God like this (174). In many cases, God’s judgment would be grossly unfair, since one may not have had ample opportunity even to hear the gospel message. What if the missionary’s car got a flat tire, thus causing someone not to hear the gospel before he or she dies (9)? Would God send that person to hell? In three different places, Bell also questions how an eternity of punishment could be suitable for one limited lifetime of sinning (2, 102, 174).

If God is love and all-powerful, then God is able to win every creature to Himself. Bell cites some biblical texts that speak of the universal effects of Christ’s work, and claims that many prominent Christians throughout church history have believed that everyone would be saved. He asserts that one can be a Christian and believe this, since Christianity is wide enough for all manner of divergent beliefs (108).

Bell also avers that biblical passages speaking of eternal punishment do not literally mean unending, conscious punishment. The Greek word for “eternal” may mean a time of pruning or trimming (91; see also 31–32), and the Hebrew word for “eternal” may mean “long lasting” (92). Bell says, “So when we read of ‘eternal punishment,’ it’s important that we don’t read categories and concepts into a phrase that aren’t there. Jesus may be talking about something else” (92).

In worrying about humans not getting a fair shake from God, it appears that Bell has little sense of God’s sovereign purposes in salvation. Yet God works out “everything in conformity with the purpose of his will” (Eph. 1:11). He places people where He wants them (Acts 17:26), reveals His existence to all (Rom. 1:18–21), and holds us accountable for our moral character (Rom. 2:14–15). “Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save” (Isa. 59:1). When I heard Bell speak, he asked why God would send people to hell because they had not heard the gospel. I was surprised that a forty-year-old pastor and author would utter words so often on the lips of ignorant unbelievers. God holds people accountable for what they know, not what they do not know. The argument in Romans, chapters one through three, is direct and emphatic on this point.⁹

Bell is wrong that “an untold number of serious disciples of Jesus across hundreds of years have assumed…that no one can resist God’s pursuit forever” (108). While some with a high view of Scripture have embraced universalism, it has been a minority position and has never been affirmed by the historic creeds and confessions of any of the three branches of Christianity: Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant.¹⁰ Moreover, simply because some people identify as both Christians and universalists, this does not lend credibility to universalism. Truth is not a matter of counting noses. The issue is not whether one can be a Christian and also a universalist, but rather: What does the Bible teach on the subject? (On the importance of making Scripture the ultimate source of truth, see Ps. 119; Matt. 5:17–20; John 10:33; Acts 17:11; 2 Tim. 3:15–16; 2 Pet. 3:16.) Despite Bell’s complaints, it is not intrinsically unjust for God to sentence unrepentant sinners to a conscious and eternal hell for their sin. As the great American theologian and preacher Jonathan Edwards emphasized, human sin is an offense against an infinitely holy God (see Ps. 51:1). As such, the punishment must be perpetual. Edwards took this question up in his essay, “The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners.”¹¹ Edwards argued that  because God is “a Being of infinite greatness, majesty, and glory,” He is therefore “infinitely honorable” and worthy of absolute obedience. “Sin against God, being a violation of infinite obligations, must be a crime infinitely heinous, and deserving of infinite punishment.” D. A. Carson puts things into perspective: “I doubt if any of us is equipped to assess what is an ‘appropriate’ punishment for defiance of the holy and sovereign God, save God himself.”¹²

Even apart from this impeccable theological reasoning, the Scriptures repeatedly speak of God’s judgment, either unto eternal life or eternal punishment. While Bell skates over the text (91), the clearest New Testament passage on hell as a conscious state of eternal punishment is Jesus’ teaching on the sheep and the goats (Matt. 25:31–46). “The righteous,” who respond rightly to Jesus (by serving Him in serving the “least of these”) will go into “eternal life” (v. 46). But “the cursed” (v. 41) go into “eternal punishment” (v. 46). As Walter Martin often said, this passage is the clearest and most cogent teaching on the eternity of hell in the Bible. The logic is straightforward. If “eternal life” means the everlasting experience of the redeemed, then eternal punishment means the everlasting torment of the damned, since the Greek constructions are symmetrical.¹³ No major translation of this passage speaks of hell as being of limited duration or as a time of purging, as Bell suggests several times in Love Wins (more on this below).

Further, Jesus spoke of eternal punishment more than any other character in the Bible (see Matt. 5:30; 8:10–12; 13:40–42, 49–50; 22:13; 24:51; Luke 16:19–31). He also warned of the sin against the Holy Spirit, which would never be forgiven (Matt. 12:31–32; Mark 3:28–30; Luke 12:10).¹⁴ Bell ignores this teaching of Jesus. He further omits a strong reference to eternal judgment found in Daniel: “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan. 12:2).

What of Bell’s claim that postmortem salvation is possible? Bell avoids the usual verses used (wrongly) to support this view, but appeals to a statement by Jesus. Since Jesus said that it would be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than in a Jewish town that rejected the gospel (Matt. 10:13–15), Bell infers that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah still have hope of redemption (84–85). But the text never suggests this. Rather, Jesus speaks of the heightened culpability of God’s own people in rejecting the Messiah. (He also indicates in Luke 12:47–49 that there are degrees of punishment.) Jesus says nothing about hope for the destroyed cities. Further, Jude contradicts Bell’s interpretation by saying that Sodom and Gomorrah “serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire” (Jude 7–8; emphasis added).

Bell simply posits postmortem salvation as a solution to the problem he finds with God’s eternal judgment of humans on the basis of their response to Him in one lifetime. But the burden of proof is on Bell, since orthodox Protestant thinkers have traditionally affirmed that judgment immediately follows death and there are no biblical texts that even suggest otherwise.¹⁵ Consider Jesus’ warning to the Pharisees: “If you do not believe that I am he, you will indeed die in your sins” (John 8:24, emphasis added; cf. Heb. 9:27).

2. Hell Is Real.Despite his (poor) case for universalism, Bell also develops the idea that some humans may freely and finally resist God’s desire to save all people. “Love demands freedom” (114), and freedom means we can say no to God in this life and the next. This, Bell claims, even demonstrates God’s grace, since God lets us have what we want (117). This is an odd understanding of grace, since the Bible always presents grace as God granting salvation to those who do not deserve it: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Eph. 2:8–9; cf. Titus 3:5–6). According to Scripture, those who are redeemed experience God’s saving grace; those who are condemned experience God’s justice.

Bell defines hell as “our refusal to trust God’s retelling of our story” (170). He also writes of hell as part of the evil of the present world. After seeing many teenagers who had their arms and legs hacked off in the Rwandan civil war, Bell says, “Do I believe in a literal hell? Of course. Those aren’t metaphorical missing arms and legs” (71). Bell believes that hell is real in the present world, but only speculates that it might continue forever for some in the world to come.

Bell’s discussion of hell trades on the human refusal (whether temporary or eternal) to trust and be healed by God. Bell nowhere articulates the biblical concept of hell as God’s active punishment of incorrigible sinners. Consider Jesus’ warning to pseudo-Christians, “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” (Matt. 7:22–23; cf. 8:11–12). Jesus also said, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them” (John 3:36). He also prophesies a day when the dead will be raised and evil-doers will be condemned (John 5:28–29). Many other passages on this theme of divine condemnation could be cited, but Bell either avoids these passages or misses their meaning.

While Bell suggests that some kind of hell may exist, it is not obvious what he means by “hell,” especially since he refuses to speak of divine wrath, rejection, or punishment. Given Bell’s emphasis on postmortem salvation and God’s desire for restoration, pruning, and refining, he may think of hell as a kind of purgatory—a temporary state prefatory to final redemption. If so, he has no biblical leg to stand on. Carson makes the point forcefully. “There is no shred of evidence in the NT that hell ever brings about genuine repentance. Sin continues as part of the punishment and the ground for it.”¹⁶ This is why the New Testament emphasizes the urgency of repentance in this life: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” (Heb. 3:4; cf. 4:7; Matt. 4:17).

3. We Cannot Know.Having argued for two logically incompatible statements concerning hell, Bell then waxes agnostic: “Will everybody be saved or will some perish apart from God forever because of their choices?” Bell answers, “These are tensions we are free to leave fully intact. We don’t need to resolve them or answer them because we can’t” (115). One should ponder the significance of this statement. Bell implies that God’s revelation through Christ and the Bible cannot answer the most important question possible: Who will be saved? Thus, the force of Love Wins is to confuse and withhold certainty from needy sinners, since Bell has given up on knowledge in this area (cf. Mal. 2:7).

In the end, Bell mutes and muzzles biblical revelation through his 198-page confession of ignorance. Should we join him? We should not. The biblical God reveals saving and sanctifying truth in the Bible (John 17:7). This revelation is “living and active” (Heb. 4:12; cf. Isa. 55:8–9), “profitable for teaching” (2 Tim. 3:15), and should not be twisted or adjusted (2 Pet. 3:16). One central means by which Christians grow in the knowledge of God (1 Pet. 3:18) is through understanding the truth of the Bible (Ps. 119).

FURTHER PROBLEMS NOTED

Space forbids me to criticize further Bell’s view that salvation is available in other religions (see Eph. 2:12), his endorsement of the pantheistic book, The Soul of Christianity by Huston Smith (201),¹⁷ his deficient views of Christ’s atonement (chap. 5), or to do more than note that he fails to explain adequately justification by faith, which is the heart of the gospel itself. Suffice it to say that despite his popularity and desire to reach unbelievers with God’s love, Bell has withheld knowledge from the very people he desires to reach. As Jesus said, “Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge” (Luke 11:52).

Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D., is professor of philosophy at Denver Seminary and the author of many books on apologetics, including Christian Apologetics (IVP Academic, 2011).

 NOTES

1         See Brett McCracken, “The Perils of ‘Wannabe Cool’ Christianity,” Wall Street Journal, August 13, 2010, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111704575355311122648100.html.

2         Michael Paulson, “Rob Bell on Faith, Suffering and Christians,” The Boston Globe, September 26, 2009, http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles_of_faith/2009/09/rob_bell.html.

3         Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 25–26.

4         On the case against Christianity being influenced by mystery religions, see James R. Edwards, Is Jesus the Only Savior? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 132–39.

5         Gordon Clark, quoted in John Robbins, Trinity Review, March-April 1986, 8.

6         See Douglas Groothuis, “The Biblical Basis for Apologetics,” in Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2011). For the case against New Age pantheism in general, see Douglas Groothuis, Confronting the New Age (1988; reprint, Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2010).

7         Velvet Elvis, 192. I reviewed A Brief History of Everything in the Christian Research Journal, http://www.equip.org/articles/a-brief-history-of-everything.

8         All Scripture quotations are from the New International Version.

9         For an excellent exposition of Romans 1–8, see Francis A. Schaeffer, The Finished Work of Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1998).

10      See Richard Bauckham, “Universalism: An Historical Survey,” Themelious 4, 2 (September 1978): 47–54.

11      Jonathan Edwards, “The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners,” in Puritan Sage: Collected Writings of Jonathan Edwards, ed.Vergilius Ferm (New York: Liberty Publishers, 1953), 293–326.

12      D. A. Carson, How Long, O Lord? (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2006), 10.

13      See D. A. Carson, Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, eds. Tremper Longman III and David E. Garland (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 586.

14      I am not here explaining what the unpardonable sin may be, but Jesus says that at least some people in His day had committed it. If so, they go to hell.

15      See Robert A. Peterson, Hell on Trial (Phillipsburg, NJ: P and R, 1995), 150–52.

16      Carson, 587.

17      See my review in Christian Research Journal 29, 4 (2006): 48–49 (http://journal.equip.org/articles/selling-the-soul-of-christianity). Smith also endorses the use of LSD for spiritual enlightenment.

“God hates the sin, but loves the sinner.” This old saying often is used to resolve the tension between God being both just and loving toward fallen people. There are, however, instances in the Bible that appear to defy this principle. When David cries out, “The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked, and the one who loves violence His soul hates” (Ps. 11:5),¹ or when Malachi prophesies, “I have loved Jacob; but I have hated Esau” (Mal. 1:2b–3a), they appear to communicate that God hates certainpeople. A closer examination of these passages in their immediate context and in relation to the overarching message of Scripture reveals these to be ways of expressing God’s opposition toward corrupt souls bent on committing sinful actions.

The Lord Hates the One Who Does Violence. Psalm 11 is attributed to David. It reflects a time when the psalmist took refuge in the Lord on being warned that he had been targeted for death and needed to fly to the mountains like a bird (vv. 1–2). The psalmist’s world was in such upheaval that he cried, “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (v. 3).

In the psalm’s second stanza, David envisaged the Lord in the heavenly temple reigning over and knowing all things (v. 4), and says, “The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked, and the one who loves violence His soul hates. Upon the wicked He will rain snares; fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup” (vv. 5–6).

The Hebrew word translated “hate” in Psalm 11 is Sänë´ (שֶׂנֵא). It “expresses an emotional attitude toward persons and things which are opposed, detested, despised and with which one wishes to have no contact or relationship.”² This is not hate out of ignorance or animosity; rather it is a righteous God’s opposition to wickedness. The same idea is communicated by Isaiah against unrepentant Israel, declaring, “I hate [Sänë´] your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts, they have become a burden to Me; I am weary of bearing them” (Isa. 1:14). Solomon, likewise, says, “There are six things which the LORD hates [Sänë´], yes seven which are an abomination to Him: Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run rapidly to evil, a false witness who utters lies, and one who spreads strife among brothers” (Prov. 6:16–19).

A number of commentators believe the historical backdrop to Psalm 11 is the time when David had to flee from Saul, who sought to take him down like a man hunting partridges in the mountains (1 Sam. 18:8ff).³ Sin had so corrupted Saul that he not only tried to assassinate David on more than one occasion (1 Sam. 18:10ff), but also succeeded in murdering the priest, women, and children of Nob, who provided David sanctuary (1 Sam. 21–22). Saul was indeed in the place of receiving divine judgment, and the lyricist rightly captures the situation in poetic hyperbole with the words “the one who loves violence His soul hates” (Ps. 11:6).

Jacob I Loved, but Esau I Hated. Malachi prophesied to the Jewish people after the Babylonian exile around the middle of the fifth century BC. His oracle begins, “‘I have loved you,’ says the Lord. But you say, ‘How have You loved us?’ ‘Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?’ declares the Lord, ‘Yet I have loved Jacob; but I have hated Esau’” (Mal. 1:2–3a).

Historically, Esau and Jacob were the sons of Isaac and Rebekah. Prior to their birth, God revealed to Rebekah her sons would become two nations but “the older shall serve the younger” (Gen. 25:23). God’s word came to pass when Esau despised his birthright by selling it to his younger brother for some lentil stew, and Jacob with the aid of his mother tricked his father into giving him the elder brother’s blessing (Gen. 25:19–34; 27:1–40). Jacob ultimately fathered the nation of Israel and Esau the nation of Edom.

Malachi’s prophecy concerns the nations of Israel and Edom during the post-exilic period of Old Testament history. He puts God’s love for Jacob in antithesis to the divine hate toward Esau. The same Hebrew word for “hate” [Sänë´] is employed, signifying God’s righteous opposition to sinful Esau. The reason divine hate came was that “not only did the Edomites gloat over the ruin of their Israelite brothers, but also actively helped the Babylonian invaders by acting as informants and cutting off escape routes, (Ps. 137:7; Ezek. 25:12–14; 35:15; Obad. 8–16).”⁴

God’s opposition to Edom was further demonstrated in the nation’s expulsion from their homeland. What happed was that around the sixth century, prior to the days of Malachi, the Nabateans invaded Edomite territory. They left the Edomites’ cities in ruin and forced them to resettle in southern Palestine in an area later called Idumea. The prophet alludes to this invasion saying, “I have made [Edom’s] mountains a desolation and appointed his inheritance for the jackals of the wilderness. Though Edom says, ‘We have been beaten down, but we will return and build up the ruins,’ thus says the Lord of host, ‘They may build, but I will tear down; and men will call them the wicked territory, and the people toward whom the LORD is indignant forever’” (Mal. 1:2b–3). Edom’s sins were hostile to the ways of a righteous God, so the prophet’s hyperbolic expression “Esau I hated” is befitting.

Romans 9 similarly references Jacob and Esau as part of a sophisticated argument demonstrating that the Jewish people rightly could be judged by God for rejecting Jesus Christ. Those who rejected the Lord identified themselves as descendants of Abraham, but Paul contends, “They are not all Israel who are descended from Israel” (v. 6). Before Esau and Jacob were born, God told Rebecca that “the older will serve the younger“ (v. 12). The nations of Israel and Edom both sinned and went into exile, yet God brought back Israel but not Edom; hence, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” (v. 13). Paul’s point is that “God has the right to choose among the chosen line,” and “not all Abraham’s descendants received the promise.”⁵ Their salvation would not be found in a genealogical connection to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.⁶ The Jews who rejected Jesus as their long-awaited Messiah sinned greatly and put themselves in opposition to God.⁷

Using the Clear to Understand the Unclear. God’s opposition to wickedness depicted in Psalm 11 and Malachi 1 should be considered in light of other truths Scripture reveals about God’s dealings with sinners. Readers can use clear passages of the Bible to understand unclear ones.

First, the Bible teaches that God offers common grace to all. For example, He sustains the creation, sending sun and rain on the farms of both saints and sinners alike (Matt. 5:44–45).

Second, the Bible teaches that God loves sinners and works to resolve the problem of sin. Paul writes, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). John likewise writes, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). In the same epistle, he writes that Christ “is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world” (1 John 2:2).

Finally, the most remarkable thing the Bible teaches is that sinful and corrupt people do not have to remain that way. They can repent and enter into a right relationship with God. Zacchaeus came down from the tree, received the transforming grace of God, and committed himself to making restitution to those he defrauded (Luke 19:1–10). Paul also witnessed the resurrected Lord on the road to Damascus, which converted him from a persecutor of the church to an apostle to the Gentiles (Acts 8–28).

The God of righteousness opposes unrighteousness. It is, therefore, befitting for the psalmist to say, “The one who loves violence His soul hates” (Ps. 11:1), and for Malachi to prophesy, “I have hated Esau” (Mal. 1:3), to demonstrate God’s vehement disapproval of those bent on doing unrighteousness things. However, the Good News is that sinners can be saved by God’s grace through faith on account of Jesus Christ. —Warren Nozaki

Warren Nozaki is a graduate of Talbot School of Theology and a researcher for the Christian Research Institute.

NOTES

1. Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard version.
2. Gerard Van Groningen, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, vol. 2, ed. R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer, Bruce K. Waltke (Chicago: Moody Press, 1980), 880.
3. Cf. Willem A. VanGemeren, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 5, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991), 130, and J. A. Motyer, New Bible Commentary: Twenty-First Century Edition, ed. G. J. Wenham, J. A. Motyer, D. A. Carson, R. T. France (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 494.
4. Gordon P. Hugenberger, New Bible Commentary: Twenty-First Century Edition, ed. G. J. Wenham, J. A. Motyer, D. A. Carson, R. T. France (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 885.
5. Ibid., 885.
6. Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 1993), 432–33.
7. Whether or not Romans 9:13 can be used to support a particular view of divine election, Calvinism, Arminianism, or another mediating position is an issue that Christians can debate but should not divide over. For further study, see James White and George Bryson, “Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility, Part One,” Christian Research Journal 23, 4 (2001): 32–41 (http://www.equip.org/articles/the-divine-sovereignty-human-responsibility-debate-partone-) and James White and George Bryson, “Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility, Part Two,” Christian Research Journal 24, 1 (2001): 23–25, 41–47  (http://www.equip.org/articles/the-divine-sovereignty-human-responsibility-debate).

That which has been is what will be,
That which is done is what will be done,
And there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which it may be said, “See, this is new”?
It has already been in ancient times before us.
There is no remembrance of former things,
Nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come
By those who will come after.

King Solomon’s words in Ecclesiastes 1:9–11 (NKJV) echo through the generations. There is no new thing; we only forget what has come before. For instance, we are born rebels, yet each youthful generation that rebels believes its insurrection is novel. Seeking to set ourselves apart from the majority, to impress the world with our unique style and way of living, is part of our nature. We want to stand apart from the larger group but seek acceptance from a more insular group.

Brett McCracken, a twenty-something journalist, examines these and other tensions in Hipster Christianity: When Church and Cool Collide. The self-described Christian hipster surveys his own “cool Christianity” subculture, questions whether these Christians are obsessed with being different for its own sake, and discusses the impact the quest for cool has on our faith.

The History of “Hip.” McCracken defines the hipster as a young, fashionable, and “independent-minded contrarian.” He embarks on a well-researched exploration that tracks the evolution of hip, from as far back as the Enlightenment to America’s founding to the post-World War II hipster era to 1960s hippiedom to the present-day incarnation of “a commitment to total freedom from labels, norms, and imposed constraints of any kind” (p. 52).

The seeds of Christian hipsterdom were sown in the 1960s, when teenage Baby Boomers became a cultural force. As the culture goes, so goes the Christian church. Youth ministries sprang up, but churches still faced an important question. Given the church’s square and oppressive image, and youth’s countercultural rebellion, how was the church to reach them? McCracken is critical of the church, which at times has bowed to the culture to reach young Christians. Cool, as defined by mainstream culture, collided with the church’s values.

From this flowed the unexpected rise of hipster Christianity in the form of the Jesus People and Christian rock music. Next came the cultural co-option of Christianity as a sort of retail brand. The current form of Christian hipsterism mocks and rebels against this branding. Christian hipsters typically don’t like megachurches, altar calls, the 700 Club, contemporary Christian music, or Christian movies. They like breaking taboos and getting tattoos. They tend to drink and may smoke, and they prefer the term Christ follower to Christian. Generally, they like alternative and independent secular music, movies, and books “well respected by their respective artistic communities—Christian or not.” McCracken offers examples of Christian hipster “figureheads,” such as musician Sufjan Stevens and writer Lauren Winner, author of Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity, and he lists top Christian hipster cities and churches.

The “Cool” Conundrum. What distinguishes the Christian hipster from his secular counterpart? The Christian hipster strives to live a more Christlike life, as befitting a believer, and he’s marked by “significantly less” hedonism, less cynicism, less drug use, and less premarital sex. Nevertheless, McCracken concludes that the pursuits of Christianity and cool are irreconcilable.

“Cool” trails, which include individualism, alienation, and rebellion, are problematic for the Christian, because these things tend to cause self-centeredness, loneliness, and elitism. Rebelliousness, for instance, isn’t always a bad thing. Jesus Himself was a rebel. But an attitude of rebelliousness can easily move from breaking oppressive rules to breaking rules that help us grow in grace.

When is Christian coolness authentic? When it sincerely celebrates what’s good about art and culture apart from trendiness, when it’s centered on Christ and not consumption and image, when it’s different from the world, and when it’s willing to say no to sin.

“We easily forget that our Christian beliefs are actually pretty radical, unheard of, life-changing, world-shaking, and elegant,” McCracken writes (240). Why should we fear unpopularity or being out of touch? The Christian shouldn’t concern himself with outward coolness and being different for its own sake. Our faith sets us apart. We should dare to be different as new creations in Christ.

Though Hipster Christianity adopts a tongue-in-cheek tone at times, it’s appropriate to the material. McCracken attempts to generate a serious discussion about a subculture of believers trying to set themselves apart, like generations before and generations to come. The impulse to stand out, however, is satisfied only in Christ.

—La Shawn Barber

 La Shawn Barber is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in such publications as Christianity Today, Today’s Christian Woman, the Washington Post, and the Washington Examiner. Visit her blog at lashawnbarber.com.

Christianity is often pejoratively referred to as “dirty rotten sinner” religion. Our detractors will often say something like this: “Christians tend to be so guilt-ridden. They feel that they have to go through life degrading themselves in order to win God’s approval. I find that very depressing. Instead, I want a spirituality that’s positive, freeing, and one that will make me feel good about myself.” This type of reaction is very understandable. We all want to be happy, and it might seem that the gospel is a one-way street into a medieval village where the Inquisition is diabolically entrenched, seeking to wipe away every smile. While it’s a hard sell merely to claim that the gospel will set us free from so many of life’s torments, a story might prove helpful. For the first few years that I was teaching Bible and theology at the New York School of the Bible, I was assailed by such intense feelings of unworthiness, shame, and self-contempt that they co-opted my thought life. Driven by such powerful feelings, my self-doubts seemed to speak with unassailable authority: “You teach? What type of Christian are you anyway? You think you really have faith? Look how selfish and self-absorbed you are. How are you going to help anyone? What a charlatan, posing in the front of the class as some type of authority! What do you think their reaction would be if they really knew you?” Devastated by these indictments, I wanted to disappear and to have the buildings of New York City implode over my head and swallow me up without a sign. Many times I thought of calling my school to say, “Find yourself someone else. I’m not your man.” But gradually, the gospel began to take root.

Good Christian. In my longstanding pre-Christian struggle to attain some sense of significance and value, I’d ward off the shame and self-contempt through positive affirmations: “I’m a good person; no, I’m a vastly superior person. I’m _____, _____, _____, and more. I’m a once-in-a-lifetime person!” There was no end to the superlatives. In fact, I was always inventing new ones-whatever I needed to tell myself to keep the shame at bay. However, these never sufficed, and so I always needed to up the superlatives in order to overcome the ubiquitous feelings of shame. As a Christian, I learned that it was wrong to engage in such self-stroking. But I had to do something about the poisonous arrows of my own demons. I needed to prove myself, and now I had a new vehicle with which to do it. I would excel at spirituality! I would prove, at least to myself, that I was worthy of God’s grace. I reassured myself that I was more deserving of salvation than others. I was more spiritual; I had chosen God because I wasn’t as carnal as most of the human race. I had the keenness of mind to recognize the surpassing value of the things of God, and I had a great destiny, not just in heaven, like all the other Christians, but I would also lead the way here. God loves us too much, however, to allow us to continue in our delusions. He closed my hand to all my dreams of spiritual accomplishment. Even more difficult to endure, I began to see my own poverty of spirit, my utter unworthiness. My levees were overwhelmed, and the demons of shame and self-contempt came roaring back. I feverishly sought to rebuild the levees with good works-anything that would tell me, “You’re OK!” However, in my torment, I began to read the Bible with new tear-filled eyes, hoping to find a God tucked within its pages who would be far more merciful than I had ever dared to hope for. Jesus told a parable about two men who entered the temple to pray. One was a self-assured Pharisee, the other a broken sinner who lacked the confidence even to look up to heaven (Luke 18:9-14). I had become that broken sinner, now defenseless against the internal raging. I had been stripped of confidence and any sense that there was something about me that would merit even a glance from a holy God. Paradoxically, this was the beginning of psychological freedom. I had been stripped bare of all my defenses, and for the first time in my life, I gradually found that I didn’t need them. I could finally let go of my miserable fig leaves, because I was beginning to know a God who wanted to clothe me with His forgiveness, His righteousness, and His sanctification (1 Cor. 1:29-30). I was beginning to learn that I was complete in Him (Col. 2:9-10), not because of who I am, but because of who He is. It took me a while to learn these lessons. The Bible was my thought life foundation, but it seemed to say such contradictory things. On the one hand, it assured me that salvation, along with everything else I needed, was absolutely free. But then I observed that other verses seemed to say that God’s “gifts” also required some labor on my part. These “contradictions” first needed to be resolved before I could decisively confront my demons. However slowly, that day did come. Now, when demons accuse me of my failures and unworthiness, I’m ready for them: “Satan, you’re right! I am totally unworthy to serve God, let alone to teach. I don’t deserve the slightest thing from Him. But I have an incredible God who is everything to me-my righteousness, my sanctification, and whatever else I need. He loves me with an undying love and will never leave me. It is He who has given me the privilege to serve Him by teaching. I’m so glad that I’ve been reminded of my unworthiness, because this just prompts me to be grateful, and makes me want to sing His praises.” Understanding the truths of Scripture becomes a wellspring of peace (Col. 2:1-4). I’m now rid of some baggage that had been too heavy to bear. As Jesus said, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32 NKJV). The truth has set me free-free from the need to defend myself, free from struggling to prove myself, free from shame and self-contempt, and free from the fear of failure. Well, not absolutely free, but free enough. This freedom would never have come without seeing the depths of my unworthiness. Had I not come to this crushing point, I would never have discovered true grace, and without receiving this incredible grace, I never would have found the confidence to lay aside all the inner struggles and finally to accept the fact that I’m an utter sinner saved by grace. Not everyone’s experience is as intense as mine was, but we all have a conscience that tells us things we don’t want to hear, and we all have attempted to beat it down one way or another (Rom. 1:18-21). We all yearn to prove ourselves and, to accomplish this, we resort to self-deception. This isn’t merely a biblical point of view; this is the prevailing view of psychology. Shelley Taylor writes, “As we have seen, people are positively biased in their assessments of themselves and of their ability to control what goes on around them, as well as in their views of the future. The widespread existence of these biases and the ease with which they can be documented suggests that they are normal.”¹ While for the successful and admired, these biases are easy to maintain, for the depressed, they require more effort than can be sustained. Ironically, the more successful we are at maintaining our comforting self-delusions, the more we sacrifice mental flexibility, freedom, and joy. As paradoxical as it might seem, the road to freedom compels us on a humbling journey through the “valley of the shadow of death” (Ps. 23:4 NKJV), where our old armor and defenses are stripped away so that we can be reclothed in splendor. No wonder Jesus tells us, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:14 NKJV).

Blessed Assurance. How then do we come to this place of assurance of God’s grace in the face of our spiritual brokenness? It’s not possible on our own. Jesus had taught emphatically against the idea of self-salvation (Matt. 19:26; John 3:3; 6:44). He made it equally clear, however, that spiritual growth is also impossible without His involvement (John 15:4-5). Knowing this, we have to trust Him to perform for us the humanly impossible and to cry out for His intervention. Spiritual desperation is a lens that brings grace into focus. It’s this mourning that sharpens our eyes to the reality of grace (Matt. 5:3-4; Ps. 25:8-9; 14-15). But what if we don’t see our neediness? We have to embrace the prayer of David: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Ps. 139:23-24 NIV). Trust Him in this. He has promised to reveal to us our spiritual deficiencies as He also did for the churches of the book of Revelation (chaps. 2-3). As Paul proclaimed: “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained” (Phil. 3:14-16 NIV). The more we grow into the assurance of the gift of His acceptance, the more we will grow into self-acceptance. With self-acceptance, we can begin to be transparent about our failures and inadequacies and even to laugh at ourselves. I used to think that in order to show Christ off to the world, I had to exhibit Christ-like perfection. Well, I’ve learned instead that I’m far from perfect, but I have a Savior who is perfect. I’m inadequate, but He is fully adequate. This has given me not only a freedom to be me, but also a lowliness and a confidence to draw other broken people to the One who can make all the difference. -Daniel Mann

Daniel Mann has taught at the New York School of Bible since 1992. He is the author of Embracing the Darkness: How a Jewish, Sixties, Berkeley Radical Learned to Live with Depression, God’s Way. He blogs at: www.MannsWord.blogspot. com.

NOTES

1 Shelley E. Taylor, Positive Illusions (New York: Basic Books, 1989), 46.

First, we develop an eternal perspective by saturating ourselves with Scripture. Jesus modeled daily devotion to the Word of God. In the ultimate spiritual battle, Jesus took up the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. He had mined, memorized, and meditated on Scripture. Thus, when the slanderer sought to tempt the Savior to turn stones into bread, Jesus was prepared. “It is written,” he said, “‘man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4).

Furthermore, we begin to view this world withan eye toward eternity by focusing on the needs of others. As our Master sacrificed himself for the sins of the world, we must learn to live selflessly rather than selfishly. At the Judgment those who fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, clothed the naked, cared for the sick, and visited those in prison will be rewarded as if they had done these things for the Lord himself (Matthew 25:31-40).

Finally, we develop an eternal perspective by saturating ourselves with Scripture, by focusing on the needs of others, and by withdrawing from the invasive sounds of this world so that we can hear the Dr. Luke tells us that “Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed” (Luke 5:16). Unlike the religious leaders of his day he did not pray to be seen by men. He prayed because he treasured fellowship with his Father. If you too wish to develop the kind of perspective that leads to abundant living both now and for all eternity, “go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you” (Matthew 6:6).

For further study see, Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1998); see also Hank Hanegraaff, The Prayer of Jesus (Nashville: Word Publishing, 2001) and Resurrection (Nashville: Word Publishing, 2000).

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This rejection, however, has major implications for Christianity, at least as traditionally understood. Christians have taught that the soul of the believer is what can survive the death of the body, will then depart to be with the Lord, and one day will be reunited with a resurrected body. Thus, the rejection of the soul might have significant implications for these and other Christian teachings.

I will examine reasons why some key emergents (and key academics influencing them) are rejecting body-soul dualism. In that process, I will sketch some alternative proposals they offer. Then, I will assess these proposals: to what extent should we accept them? I will show that these views undermine our personal identity and lead to disastrous conclusions: if there is no body-soul dualism then we cannot have eternal life and we will be incapable of having interpersonal relationships.⁴

THE REJECTION OF BODY-SOUL DUALISM

First, we will look at some key ideas of the emergents. According to Doug Pagitt, modern thought often is dualistic.⁵ To Pagitt, flesh-versus-spirit dualism reflects the influence of a more Gnostic way of thinking, and it implies conflict.⁶ Under that kind of view, Pagitt assumed his body was one thing and his spirit another, that he himself is “a collection of distinct parts.”⁷ To him, this Gnostic way of thinking separated flesh (which was bad) from spirit, or soul (which was good), rather than treating humans as integrated wholes.

Instead, Pagitt pursues a theology of “integrated holism,” which includes creation, even matter, at the smallest level. For him, matter is “made of energy packets and not ‘little hard balls of matter,’” and this idea requires “not only different theological conclusions but different presuppositions.”⁸ Apparently, one such presupposition is “the idea that there is a necessary distinction of matter from spirit, or creation from creator.”⁹ Instead, as Pagitt explains, “I have started to get my head around this idea that everything is made of the same stuff, the same energy, interaction, and movement.”¹⁰

Brian McLaren, another key emergent leader, reasons similarly. In his fictional The Story We Find Ourselves In, McLaren’s protagonist, Neo, explains how the Greeks had a bifurcated view of reality, between the immaterial and the material realms. They tended to treat the immaterial (including the soul) as higher, more real, and morally superior in relation to the material (including the body and creation), which was subject to change.¹¹ In contrast, for the ancient Jews, there was “one world, one universe, a universe with matter and life and God, not chopped up between real-ideal versus illusory-material, between spiritual and physical, supernatural and natural.”¹²

How do these ideas impact human beings’ personal identities (being the same person through time and change), and their hopes for life after death? Neo suggests:

Imagine that at that point in the future…the point from which God is sending each present moment with all its possibilities toward us…God holds all of God’s memories of all of us. When we get there, not only will we be what we are at that final moment, but also we will find all that we have ever been—all that God has remembered—and we will be reunited with all we have ever been. We won’t be only the little sliver of ourselves that we are at this instant we call the present. We will be the composite of ourselves through our whole lifetime, all…gathered in the mind and heart of God. All the momentary members of our life story, the me of a second ago, the me now, the me that will be in a second—all these members will be remembered, reunited, in God’s memory.¹³

Notice that there is nothing about us that enables us to remain the same person through changes. God’s memory unites all our “slivers.” So, what is a person? Drawing from Neo, the character Dan suggests that persons emerge in synergy with certain biochemical reactions.¹⁴

In A Generous Orthodoxy, McLaren further develops his notions of the soul and mind. While discussing emergent thinking, McLaren diagrams the interrelationships between body, mind, and soul with three (more or less) concentric rings, with the body in the innermost one, the mind in the next, and the soul in the outermost. Mind emerges from brain, and soul emerges from the integration of body and mind:

From the integration of the faculties of the human body—which includes the brain…the mind emerges with its own faculties (will, memory, anticipation, analysis, classification, contrast, cause and effect, imagination, etc.). It can be differentiated from the body (think of someone in a persistent vegetative state), but it is not disassociated from the body (think of mental illness, learning disabilities, the effects of narcotics or alcohol or caffeine). From the integration of the faculties of the body and mind, the soul emerges with an ethical and aesthetical and relational dimension—the person whose story includes a body and mind, but is not limited to a body and mind.¹⁵

Clearly, McLaren does not see the soul as one’s essential nature. Yet, he does see it as a higher, emergent reality that never is disassociated from the body and mind. Thus, humans seem to be primarily material bodies with emergent properties that depend on the body for their existence.

These rejections of body-soul dualism are not isolated from the thought of several self-identified Christian philosophers and theologians. Nancey Murphy, a professor of Christian philosophy, thinks that there are several key reasons why we should reject the soul as our essence. First, she thinks “science has provided a massive amount of evidence suggesting that we need not postulate the existence of an entity such as a soul or mind in order to explain life and consciousness.”¹⁶ Second, “philosophers have argued cogently that the belief in a substantial mind or soul is the result of confusion arising from how we talk. We have been misled by the fact that ‘mind’ and ‘soul’ are nouns into thinking that there must be an object to which these terms correspond.”¹⁷

Third, she claims that dualists have been unable to solve cogently how an immaterial substance can interact with a physical body (i.e., the “interaction objection”).18 On the so-called “Cartesian” view (going back to the seven teenth-century French philosopher René Descartes), humans are a dualism of very different kinds of substances, our bodies and souls. If so, this makes it hard for many to conceive how they even could interact.

Murphy endorses a type of physicalism. Reductive philosophers (which usually are atheistic) try to reduce persons to just physical stuff, so causation is always from the lowest levels to the highest. But Murphy’s view is causally nonreductive because causation also can be from whole to part. Yet, she favors ontological reductionism; that is, what we are is nothing but physical stuff. So, for her, the soul is not a substance; rather, it is a “functional capacity of a complex physical organism.”¹⁹

Emergent leader Tony Jones is sympathetic with Murphy’s views. He has suggested that her nonreductive physicalism is the best explanation of the unity of persons in the Old Testament.²⁰ He also suggested that “a lot of them [emergent people] would jibe with that [nonreductive physicalism], but I don’t think that too many of them have thought much about it.”²¹ The philosophical theologian LeRon Shults has been influenced by Murphy, and he too embraces a kind of nonreductive physicalism.²²

While not directly associated with emergents, New Testament interpreter Joel Green argues that humans are basically physical, based on the evidence of neuroscience, biblical studies, and philosophy.²³ He argues that despite our English translations, terms in the original biblical languages do not offer clear support for either the soul as our essence or the existence of a disembodied, intermediate state.²⁴ Furthermore, Green thinks we can survive death and yet be the same person, even though bodies continually change, and the person (and not merely the body) dies at death.²⁵ He appeals to a narrative and relational unity of the person, which constitutes each of us, and these “are able to exist apart from neural correlates and embodiment only insofar as they are preserved in God’s own being, in anticipation of new creation.”²⁶ Our unity lies in our sustained relationships and the stories of our lives.

The late evangelical theologian Stanley Grenz also is an important fountainhead for emergents. With John Franke, Grenz argued that the soul as our essence fails to do justice to our rational and moral capacities.²⁷ Grenz criticized Enlightenment dualistic thought for leading us to emphasize saving “souls,” as though bodies have no eternal importance.²⁸ As Grenz saw it, this dualistic view suggests that sin resides in the body, so redemption involves overcoming our bodies.²⁹ Finally, the words “‘soul’ and ‘spirit’ do not refer to substantial entities that form part of our ontological nature.”³⁰

Together, these arguments powerfully reject the soul as our essence, and instead embrace a holistic, relational view of humans.³¹ For many, this can best be explained by a kind of monism, or physicalism. Now I will offer a brief assessment of these proposals.

SOME CONTRIBUTIONS FROM EMPHASIZING PERSONAL UNITY

Green, Pagitt, and others are correct that the biblical authors presuppose a deep unity of human persons as normative. Moreover, our bodies are not the prison of the soul, to be escaped by death. Even in the eternal state, we will enjoy a resurrected body. Further, an emphasis on getting souls into heaven when they die can be misconstrued to imply that the body really doesn’t matter. Yet, the conformity of our lives to Christ’s is to be worked on in the midst of this physical life. The believer’s body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. So, the body matters to God and should to us.

Murphy is right to criticize Cartesian substance dualism, for if our bodies and souls are radically different, we need to explain how they can interact. Descartes also stressed rationality, yet—while this is an important aspect of human nature— there is more to us than just being thinking things. We also need relationships with others, especially with God.

ASSESSING THE REJECTION OF BODY-SOUL DUALISM

That said, let me respond to this family of views in two ways. First, consider personal identity, or what makes each of us the same person, regardless of the changes we experience. This is not the same thing as one’s social identity (the cultural group with which one most closely identifies), or one’s sense of identity (how one tends to view oneself; e.g., seeing oneself primarily as a Christian, parent, professional, etc.).

In philosophy, the law of identity states basically that for something to be identical to something else, both items must have all their properties (qualities) in common. Thus, there would not be two different things, but only one thing. Now consider what would be the basis for one’s personal identity if

we are basically just physical stuff. Our bodies, including our brain cells, continually change over time. At age twenty-six, I had a full head of brown hair and weighed about one hundred and fifty-five pounds. Moreover, other traits could be described autobiographically; for instance, I had married Debbie, and lived in San Bernardino, California. Yet, at age fifty-one, much has changed. I have less hair, which is grayer. Though I still am married to Debbie, weigh about the same, and live in San Bernardino, I now have graduate degrees and teach at Biola. And, I am a father.

Much has changed about me. Yet, somehow, I am still the same person. How is that possible? The traditional answer (from Thomistic body-soul dualism) has been to appeal to the soul as our essence, which does not change essentially, yet can change accidentally. Our souls, as our set of ultimate capacities, remain fundamentally the same from conception through death and even beyond, and this grounds our personal identities, even though various capacities can be developed or blocked as we mature (e.g., intellectual and relational capacities can develop, but also decline as one gets older).

What answers are available if we reject the soul as our essence? There is no one essential aspect to us that “grounds” all the various changes we undergo so that we will remain the same persons. For example, our physical parts are always changing, just like our narratives (stories). Moreover, our relationships also vary: some deepen, others decline, and new ones are being formed. Yet, even if someone has had several relationships, but now is in an irreversible coma, we don’t suggest that a “former” person has ended, and a “new” one now exists. Rather, we include the period of being comatose in that same person’s story.

If we reject the soul as one’s substance or essence, we seem left with the view that we are a “bundle” of physical parts, relationships, and other narrated episodes. But there is nothing intrinsic to this “bundle” that makes it the same through change. The set of all the properties that make up the person at one time will not be identical to the set at another. Therefore, there is no actual continuity of person through time and change.

This conclusion has many implications. First, I would not be the same person now that “I” was at twenty-six when I said “I do” to Debbie Hubbard in 1984. But though I have grown and changed in many ways, I still am the one married to her. Nor would I be the same man who trusted Jesus in 1978 to forgive all my sins. But that is disastrous; if there is nothing about me that maintains my personal identity through change, then the man who was adopted into God’s family then is not the one who lives now. If so, I do not have that relationship with God now, nor will I after I die, because the person who dies will be different, too. Therefore, contrary to Green’s and McLaren’s claims, it is not primarily about what God can somehow do (e.g., preserve my narrative, or remember my “slivers”) to sustain me in existence. Instead, there is nothing about me that can maintain my identity through changes. Even relationships themselves, which emergents rightly stress—whether to other humans or to God—become impossible, for they require that we are literally the same persons through change that can enter, maintain, and grow in relationships.

Likewise, our stories cannot constitute our respective personal identities. They too are made up of various parts (chapters, episodes, sentences), which then would be added to the other parts of our respective lives. As such, they have nothing in themselves that remains the same through change; instead, they presuppose the sameness of one’s life about which a story can be told, which then reflects the changes that a person has undergone. So Green is mistaken to appeal to our stories and our relationships as that which can maintain our personal identity.³²

Still, how could an immaterial soul interact with a physical body? Here I will consider a second response to those who reject body-soul dualism. Our ability to undergo a vast range of changes suggests a deep unity between body and soul. Thomistic body-soul dualism maintains this. The soul, not DNA, directs the development of the body and its parts.³³ Moreover, the soul grounds one’s agency, such that a person can choose to move the body directly, and we each can be aware directly of that by introspection.³⁴

For whom is the “interaction objection” more problematic, the emergent with Christian physicalist tendencies or the body-soul dualist? For at least one reason, which I can only briefly suggest here, the interaction objection is more problematic for the Christian physicalist. For God to have an interactive relationship with humans there must be a conti nuity of meaning to be obtained between speaker and hearer. Ongoing communication presupposes that we are a deep unity, and that we maintain personal identity through time and any such changes. But without a good basis for personal identity, a physicalist view ironically loses the prized ability for us to have relationships, whether divine or even human.

AN IMPORTANT BOUNDARY

Not all emergents embrace the exact same views, so we have to examine each person’s views individually. But there does seem to be a tendency, at least amongst some emergent lead ers, as well as many of those influencing them: the rejection of the soul as our essence. Yet, if someone embraces this reduc tive view, then that will lead to severe repercussions, including ones I highlighted above. This is at least one boundary that emergents should not cross, for it will lead to an undermining of core aspects not only of their own theology, but also of the Christian knowledge tradition about the nature of human persons.

R. Scott Smith, PhD, is associate professor of ethics at Biola University in the MA in Christian Apologetics program. He speaks frequently on the emergent church and postmodernism and has written Truth and the New Kind of Christian: The Emerging Effects of Postmodernism in the Church (Crossway, 2005).

notes

1 I am following the terminology of Tony Jones, former national coordinator of Emergent U.S., in The New Christians (San Francisco:

Jossey-Bass, 2008). Jones seems to conflate the definitions of “the emerging church” and “emergent.” Before, the former tended to mean any Christian who is involved in the discussion about how to live faithfully as Christians in postmodern times, whereas the latter had been used to refer mainly to those who are part of Emergent Village.

2 By “modern,” I mean approximately the period from Descartes (1596–1650) to today, which is a transitional time, from late modernity to postmodernity.

3 Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger, Emerging Churches (Grand Rapids:Baker Books, 2005), 236. On the soul as our essence and substance,see J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, Philosophical Foundationsfor a Christian Worldview (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press,2003), 285-303.

4 Elsewhere, I address another issue, that we cannot know reality(whether creation—including other people—or even God) if all our access to reality requires interpretation. See my “‘Emergents,’ Evangelicals, and the Importance of Truth: Some Philosophical and Spiritual Lessons,” in Evangelicals Engaging Emergent, ed. William Henard and Adam Greenway (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2009).

5 For example, Doug Pagitt, A Christianity Worth Believing (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008), 78–79.

6 Ibid., 81.

7 Ibid., 78.

8 Doug Pagitt, “The Emerging Church and Embodied Theology,” in Robert Webber, gen ed., Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches (Grand Rapids; Zondervan, 2007), 142.

9 Ibid.

10 Pagitt, A Christianity Worth Believing, 76–77.

11 Brian McLaren, The Story We Find Ourselves In (San Francisco:Jossey-Bass, 2003), 51.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid., 152–53.

14 Ibid., 194.

15 Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 280–81.

16 Nancey Murphy, “Human Nature: Historical, Scientific, and Religious Issues,” in Whatever Happened to the Soul? ed. Warren S. Brown, Nancey Murphy, and H. Newton Malony (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 18.

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid., 7–9.

19 Ibid., xiii. Also “Avoiding Cartesian Materialism,” in her book, coauthored with Warren Brown, Did My Neurons Make Me Do It? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

20 Tony Jones, e-mail message to author, February 28, 2006.

21 Tony Jones, e-mail message to author, Oct. 20, 2008.

22 For example, F. LeRon Shults, Reforming Theological Anthropology(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 2, 179, 213.

23 See Joel Green, Body, Soul, and Human Life (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008).

24 On Hebrew and Greek terms, see ibid., 35–71; on the intermediate state, see ibid., 140–80.

25 For example, see ibid., 179.

26 Ibid., 180.

27 Stanley J. Grenz and John Franke, Beyond Foundationalism (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 197.

28 Stanley J. Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 171.

29 Stanley J. Grenz, Theology for the Community of God (Nashville: B&H, 1994), 761–62.

30 Ibid., 239.

31 Let me qualify that while Grenz’s thought might suggest physicalism, he did not explicitly endorse it.

32 Green, 180. Furthermore, stories themselves seem to be just more physical stuff for him, so they too will be changing. For a more indepth treatment of the problem of the “narrative unity” of the self, see chapter six in my book, Virtue Ethics and Moral Knowledge (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2003).

33 For example, see J. P. Moreland and Scott B. Rae, Body and Soul (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 204–13.

34 Here, I am referring to an “agent” as a person “who is in some sense the originator of one’s own actions and, in this sense, is in control of one’s action” (Moreland and Craig, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, 268).

i For a contemporary Christian explanation of Thomistic substance dualism, see J. P. Moreland and Scott B. Rae, Body and Soul (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 199–206.

SYNOPSIS

In our age of information overload, Christians must learn to discern between good and evil, right and wrong, truth and falsity. The need for discernment becomes particularly pressing in the face of sharp disagreement on critical issues among leading Christian apologists. A case in point concerns debate over the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL’s recent publication of CRI’s in-depth reevaluation of the “Local Church” Movement of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee (vol. 32/no. 6). Using the acronym D-I-S-C-E-R-N, I sort out the matter at hand and codify principles formatted as a memorable tool through which believers can, in general, separate wheat and chaff for themselves.

“The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel: To know wisdom and instruction, To discern the sayings of understanding, To receive instruction in wise behavior, Righteousness, justice and equity; To give prudence to the naive, To the youth knowledge and discretion.”

-Proverbs 1:1-4 NASB

For me, the words discern and Solomon are virtually synonymous. Whenever I hear the word discern (or discernment), Solomon immediately flashes through my mind. The Creator of heaven and earth gave Solomon the opportunity to ask for whatever he wished. Solomon’s response is forever imprinted on the canvas of my consciousness. He did not ask for wealth or honor. Instead, he asked for the ability to discern between good and evil. So pleased was the Sovereign with Solomon’s choice that He granted him a wise and discerning heart-and He granted him riches and honor as well.¹

Like Solomon, we would do well to discern between good and evil, right and wrong, truth and falsity. Indeed, we should so steep ourselves in his Proverbs that we, like he, may be able “to discern the sayings of understanding” (Prov. 1:2 NASB, emphasis added). Likewise, with Paul, we must pray that our “love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight,” so that we “may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ” (Phil. 1:9-10, emphasis added).²

Without the ability to discern, we stand impotent in an age of information overload. A glance back to 1999 may be instructive. Formidable intellects across the Christian landscape were busily propagating reckless rumors, spurious statistics, and anecdotal arguments respecting a bug that portended the demise of Western civilization. Although painful, the January 1999 issue of Esquire gave us a glimpse of the world’s perspective on the lack of discernment among Christians. Leaders were castigated for “mining the subjunctive, cultivating the seed of the threat buried inside each unrealized instance.”³ Not knowing how to discern between wheat and chaff, heat and light, followers were resigned to stalking up on freeze-dried food and generators. What was really in short supply, of course, was the ability to discern. As evidenced by my article in a 1999 edition of the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL, a modicum of discernment would have been sufficient to debug the millennium bug.⁴

Today we face another situation requiring the ability to discern. In January we published a special edition of the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL featuring the culmination of a six-year primary research project respecting a movement originally founded by a Chinese Christian named Watchman Nee.⁵ Primary research was conducted not only in the U.S. but in such far-away places as China, Taiwan, South Korea, and England. It involved careful evaluation of literally hundreds of books, papers, church documents, and audio and video recordings. Even court documents. The result of our primary research is encapsulated in three words splashed across the front cover of our flagship magazine: “We Were Wrong.”

Shortly after publication, Norman Geisler and Ron Rhodes issued a response expressing surprise at our conclusions: “Not only does CRI no longer believe the ['Local Church' Movement (LC)] is a cult, as they once did, but they do not even believe they are an ‘aberrant Christian group’ (47). They now call the LC ‘a solidly orthodox group of believers’ (47, emphasis added). Moreover, they say, members of the LC are in many ways ‘an exemplary group of Christians’ (29). All this has come as a great surprise to the majority of countercult ministries and apologists who have studied the matter and have come to the opposite conclusion.”⁶

For concerned Christians, this poses a significant dilemma. Are the primary research findings of the Christian Research Institute correct? Or are seventy-plus evangelical scholars from seven nations who “call on ‘local churches’ to renounce doctrines, legal attacks” on target?⁷ My purpose here is not merely to sort out the matter at hand, but to provide a memorable discernment tool through which you can separate wheat and chaff throughout the remainder of your Christian walk. As we think through this issue, bear in mind that we are not engaged in a mere ivory tower debate. Ideas have consequences. To unjustly label a brother or sister a cultist, or worse, may well lead to public humiliation and disgrace in the West-in the East it can lead to prison and death.

DOUBLE STANDARD

To discern between right and wrong, we must ever be wary of applying a “double standard.”⁸ In the present matter, the “local churches” (LC) are reproached for making unorthodox statements with respect to deification. As such, seventy-plus scholars from seven nations have called on the LC “to disavow and cease to publish”⁹ the following declaration: “We the believers are begotten of God. What is begotten of man is man, and what is begotten of God must be God. We are born of God; hence, in this sense, we are God.”¹⁰

What is neglected is the following qualifying sentence: “Nevertheless, we must know that we do not share God’s Person and cannot be worshiped by others. Only God Himself has the Person of God and can be worshiped by man.”¹¹ Not only so, but as the author makes clear elsewhere, “It is a great heresy to say that we are made like God in His Godhead.”¹² Or, as he writes, “From eternity to eternity He [God] remains the same in His essence. But in His economy the Triune God has changed in the sense of being processed.”¹³ As such, believers are infused with the life of God-and thus deified-through a “process involving regeneration, sanctification, renewing, transformation, conformation, and glorification.”¹⁴

Apart from a double standard, Athanasius of Alexandria (d. 373), widely regarded as the greatest theologian of his time, would likewise be accused of heresy for suggesting that “[the Word] was made man that we might be made God.”¹⁵ Not only so, but the apostle Peter would be suspect for stating that we are “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4 NASB). Of course, in context, Peter is not suggesting that mere humans may be deified as gods, but he is speaking of believers undergoing a moral transformation from one that expresses the corruption of the world to one that reflects the character of God.

INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY

In initially viewing the list of people who allegedly signed the “Open Letter,”¹⁶ I was surprised-dare I say, shocked-at some of the names I encountered. My initial reaction was hardly in keeping with the maxim, Innocent until proven guilty. The first two scholars I called told me they were not aware of the Open Letter, did not endorse its conclusions, and never knowingly lent their names to it.¹⁷

Furthermore, when leaders in the LC testified to their belief in one God, revealed in three Persons who are eternally distinct; to the reality that human beings can never ontologically attain Godhood; and to the fact that they are “only the church” as opposed to being “the only church,” Christian charity alone compelled me to give them the benefit of the doubt. After a six-year primary research process, I am fully persuaded that the LC is innocent-rather than guilty-of compromising essential Christian doctrine. Moreover, it has become apparent that the Holy Spirit has moved in their midst to recover New Testament principles and practices widely neglected in the modern church.

Finally, what is true from a theological perspective is true sociologically as well. After meeting thousands of LC adherents and personally interacting with hundreds, I am not only convinced that they are innocent of the charge of cultism from a sociological perspective, but I can testify that they are among the finest Christians I have encountered in life and ministry. Even respecting litigation, every evidence points to the reality that the LC first tried diligently to reconcile libelous claims through peaceful fellowship as the Bible instructs in Matthew 18 and 2 Timothy 2. In three extreme cases in which the LC was accused of criminal behavior, the LC pursued requisite vindication through secular courts because Christian authors and publishers outright rejected their efforts to attain a Christ-honoring rapprochement.

SOPHISTRY

Sophistry might best be defined as subtly deceptive reasoning or argumentation. At first blush the argument appears airtight, but on closer examination its flaws are exposed. An apt illustration was a video series by Chuck Missler and John Ankerberg titled, Will America Survive the Y2K Crisis?¹⁸ The series presented elaborate arguments designed to demonstrate just how vulnerable embedded chips made our banking system during the alleged Y2K crisis. Unless one is aware of the facts, the subtly deceptive reasoning appears to have real substance. The video, for example, contends that because January 1, 2000, was a Saturday, bank vaults would snap open making their contents accessible to crooks and making them inaccessible the following Monday to customers. This sophistry sounds persuasive until one realizes that the opening and closing of bank vaults is not regulated by embedded chips to begin with. Rather they are regulated by triply redundant, hand-wound mechanical timers set each evening by bank personnel. What was truly regrettable is that credible Christian leaders were soon parroting information garnered from the series.¹⁹

Sophistry with respect to the matter at hand is likewise troubling. Indeed, the Open Letter in question is a veritable case study in sophistry. Consider, for example, the matter of lawsuits. The LC is painted as a victimizer, despite the fact that Harvest House published a book by John Ankerberg and John Weldon that identifies the LC as a cult and defines a cult in terms of immoral and criminal behaviors, including murder, rape, prostitution, and child molestation.²⁰ As Elliot Miller commented, convincing a worldly court to hold Christians to a lower standard than it holds the world is hardly a cause for celebration.²¹

Furthermore, Harvest House, not the LC, initiated litigation. Harvest House has in fact engaged in more litigation against Christians than has the LC.²² Although the LC engaged in two other suits, they did so only after exhausting all other options. In both cases, the court concluded that distortions were deliberate and intentional. Not only was Witness Lee identified as the leader of a cult, but false statements conveyed that the LC engaged in deceptive recruiting practices in order to bring the weak and vulnerable into total subjugation.

Finally, as eminent social scientist Dr. Rodney Stark testified in court, charges of sexual and financial hanky-panky and quoting Lee’s theological statements so as to be diametrically opposed to what he was saying are not only libelous, but patently unfair.²³

CONTEXT

As frequently noted in Christian circles, a text without a context is a pretext. The same principle applies to broad-ranging matters of discernment. It particularly applies to present considerations. J. Gordon Melton, founder of the Institute for the Study of American Religions, testified that his examination of the research used by the Spiritual Counterfeits Project in their book on the LC (The God-Men) was among the more painful experiences of his Christian life. Not because he found the LC to be a cult, but because as he began to check quotes used against the LC he discovered time and time again that they were placed “in a foreign context” and made “to say just the opposite” of what was intended. Says Melton, “This was done while ignoring the plain teachings and affirmations concerning the great truths of the Christian faith found throughout Lee’s writings.”²⁴ Furthermore, although the Open Letter seeks to impugn Witness Lee and the LC with the heresy of modalism, the facts clearly point in another direction. Indeed, Lee clearly emphasized that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three distinct centers of consciousness and volition, or three I’s eternally united in subject/object relationships. In commenting on John 10:30 (“I and the Father are one”) he wrote, “Although the Father and the Son are one, between them there is still a distinction of I and the Father. We must not disregard this point, because if we do we would become modalists.“²⁵ Finally, if Lee is read in context, it is readily apparent that he makes a distinction between the essential and economic Trinity. As such, he stressed that from an outward objective aspect, Christ and the Spirit are two. However, from an inward subjective aspect, Christ and Spirit are one. Put another way, the Persons are never identical, but their manifest presence from a personal experiential perspective in the life of the believer is indistinguishable. Whether one agrees or disagrees, this is hardly a matter of heresy.

EQUIVOCATION

As I frequently communicate on the Bible Answer Man broadcast, words are not univocal, they are equivocal. Thus, their meanings are determined in large part by the context in which they are used. When I say that I hold to one God, revealed in three Persons, eternally distinct, I am clearly equivocating on the word Person. As such, I do not use Person in the sense of common parlance, but rather in the sense of “identity formed and completed on the basis of relationships” within the Godhead. To discern what someone means by what they say, we must carefully consider the principle of equivocation.26 As a case in point, the LC is often unjustly criticized for their practice of prophesying. This despite the fact that they do not prophesy in the sense of foretelling the future but rather in the 1 Corinthians 14 sense of forthtelling-of strengthening the faithful through encouragement, exhortation, edification, and equipping. The LC, likewise, equivocates on words such as “Christendom” and Babylon.” Properly understood, such words are not used to castigate Christians within denominations but rather denominationalism itself. As Lee makes abundantly clear in his writings, regardless of denominational background, if “we believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, who was incarnated as a man, died on the cross for our sins, and resurrected from the dead, we are all redeemed, justified, regenerated and saved. And we all have the divine life within us. Therefore, we are all of one Body.”²⁷ Lest we become self-righteous in regard to some of the harsher equivocations used by Lee, we would do well to humbly remember our own sins. Many within evangelicalism have dubbed denominations who believe that God has only always had one congruent covenant community connected by the cross as replacement theologians guilty of spreading the message of anti-Semitism. In their own replacement ideology (to coin another equivocation), God has two people and one of those people (Israel) will replace the other (church) as the focus of God’s plans during the Tribulation. Despite the harshness of the rhetoric between these groups, they are yet of one body through faith in our resurrected redeemer.²⁸

RESEARCH

As J. Gordon Melton discovered with respect to the LC, to rightly discern between heat and light requires first-rate primary research. In working on his Encyclopedia of American Religions, he took note of “the ludicrous attempt to equate the Local Church’s practice of pray-reading with the use of mantras in Eastern religions.” As his research rightly revealed, “They bear no resemblance whatsoever.”²⁹ As I have personally discerned, Melton is right. While countercult authorities attempted to convince me that the LC used pray-reading to work devotees into an altered state of consciousness, primary research revealed precisely the opposite. Not only is pray-reading a means by which LC members memorize Scripture, it is also a meaningful link between their intake of Scripture and effective prayer. I fear that lack of primary research is at the root of much of the misinformation that continues to be communicated in evangelical circles. Shortly after publication of the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL featuring the culmination of our six-year primary research project, Geisler and Rhodes issued the aforementioned response expressing surprise at our conclusions: “All of this has come as a great surprise to the majority of countercult ministries and apologists who have studied the matter and have come to the opposite conclusion.” Question is: Have they really studied the matter? Or has rhetoric replaced research?³⁰ Had Spiritual Counterfeits Project (SCP) genuinely applied proper research principles to their God-Men project, they would not have based the substance of their libelous charges on the unconfirmed account of a single hostile ex-member.³¹ As Melton rightly observed,

I was genuinely shaken as my research proceeded. I was concerned that such a parody on the life of a group of fellow Christians had been written, that it had been sponsored by such an organization as SCP, and then published by such a reputable publisher as InterVarsity Press. I was more shaken, however, by the obvious implications of the ethics involved in the production of such a book. The mistakes and misrepresentations in the book are so frequent and so consistent that it strains credulity to suggest that The God-Men is merely the product of poor scholarship.³²

My research into present accusations by the countercult community has left me similarly troubled and shaken. Perhaps it is the countercult community who need reformation.

NITPICKING

Last but not least is the matter of nitpicking. Jesus’ warnings in this regard are as instructive as they are sobering. Speaking to the Pharisees, He said, “You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel” (Matt. 23:24). While our Lord counseled followers to make judgments based on right standards (John 7:24), He cautioned followers not to judge hypocritically (Matt. 7:1-5). Unnecessary and unjustified fault-finding does not undergird the kingdom of God-it ultimately undermines it. We all make mistakes. In his Systematic Theology, Geisler wrongly brands Dr. Kenneth Gentry a full preterist while rightly branding full preterism a heresy.³³ In truth, Dr. Gentry is anything but a heretic. Indeed, like me, he has spent a good portion of his life and ministry debunking full preterism. While the cost to Dr. Gentry is not insignificant, it would be less than charitable to dismiss Geisler’s prodigious volume on the basis of such imprecisions. In their response to the JOURNAL’S reassessment of the LC, Geisler and Rhodes imprecisely communicate that the Son proceeds from the Father.³⁴ At the risk of getting stuck in a psycho-epistemological cocoon or linguistic hall of mirrors, I much prefer classical creedal verbiage. The Son does not proceed, but is begotten of the Father; it is the Spirit who proceeds from the Father. As Dr. Robert Letham explains, “The Father is not begotten nor does he proceed; the Son does not beget, nor does he proceed; the Spirit neither begets nor spirates.”³⁵ Geisler and Rhodes, likewise, seem confused with respect to CRI’s former position regarding the LC. At the beginning of their article they incorrectly assert that CRI once held that the LC was a cult; at a later stage they correctly note that CRI did not label the LC a cult.³⁶ Whatever they really believe in this regard is largely irrelevant. To waste precious time and effort nitpicking such matters is in the words of Solomon, “Meaningless! Meaningless!…Utterly meaningless!” (Eccl. 1:2). What is meaningful is this: through game-changing primary research, we have discerned that We Were Wrong! Uttering those three words is never easy. From a personal and ministry standpoint, the cost has been enormous. In the end, however, the goal is not to be politically correct or to gain a larger platform; the goal is to hear our Savior say, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” (Matt. 25:21). We live in an age in which Internet fabrications “travel half-way around the world before truth has had a chance to put its boots on.” Thus Paul’s words ring through the centuries with added urgency: “Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist” (Eph. 6:14). Without the ability to discern between truth and falsity, the covering that protects us from the Devil’s schemes simply crumbles to the ground, leaving us naked and vulnerable.

Hank Hanegraaff is president of the Christian Research Institute and host of the Bible Answer Man broadcast heard daily throughout the United States and Canada. For a list of stations airing the Bible Answer Man, or to listen online, log on to Equip.org.

NOTES

1 See 1 Kings 3.

2 Unless noted otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from the New International Version.

3 Tom Junod, “365 Days to the Apocalypse and We Still Don’t Know Where to Hide the Jews…and Other Notes from Pat Robertson’s Y2K Conference,” Esquire, January 1999, 96.

4 See Hank Hanegraaff, “The Millennium Bug Debugged,” Christian Research Journal 22, 1 (1999): 12-21.

5 See Christian Research Journal 32, 6 (2009).

6 Norm Geisler and Ron Rhodes, “A Response to the Christian Research Journal’s Recent Defense of the ‘Local Church’ Movement,” http://www.normangeisler.net/response-tochristian-research-journal-recent-defense-local-church-movement.html, emphasis in Geisler and Rhodes.

7 “Leading Evangelical Scholars Call on ‘Local Churches’ to Renounce Doctrines, Legal Attacks,” press release, January 9, 2007, http://www.open-letter.org/pdf/OL_PressRelease.pdf.

8 A point of clarification: the letters that constitute the acronym D-I-S-C-E-R-N represent carefully selected words that identify concepts important to remembering how to discern between wheat and chaff, heat and light. Some words employed in the acronym explicitly identify discernment principles, such as Innocent until proven guilty, Context, and Research. Other words identify common errors, such as Double standard and Nitpicking.

9 “An Open Letter to the Leadership of Living Stream Ministry and the ‘Local Churches,’” http://www.open-letter.org.

10 Witness Lee, A Deeper Study of the Divine Dispensing (Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1990), 53.

11 Ibid.

12 Witness Lee, The Christian Life (Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1994), 134.

13 Witness Lee, The Conclusion of the New Testament, Messages 79-98 (Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1997), 914. See also Lee, Divine Dispensing, 50; Witness Lee, The Spirit and the Body (Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1976), 83-84.

14 The Editors, “The Crystallization: Union with the Triune God,” Affirmation and Critique 1, 3 (July 1996): 64.

15 de Incarnatione, 54.3.

16 See “An Open Letter to the Leadership of Living Stream Ministry and the ‘Local Churches.”

17 Given our research thus far, there is reason to suspect that the list of signatories has been inflated.

18 Chuck Missler and John Ankerberg, Will America Survive the Y2K Crisis? (Coeur d’Alene, ID: Koinonia House, 1998), video.

19 See Hank Hanegraaff, The Millennium Bug Debugged (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1999).

20 See Elliot Miller, “Cultic, Aberrant, or (Unconventionally) Orthodox? A Reassessment of the ‘Local Church’ Movement, Part 5,” Christian Research Journal 32, 6 (2010): 42-44.

21 See ibid., 44.

22 See ibid., 46.

23 See ibid., 41.

24 J. Gordon Melton, An Open Letter concerning the Local Church, Witness Lee and The God-Men Controversy (Santa Barbara, CA: The Institute for the Study of American Religion, 1985), http://www.contendingforthefaith.com/libel-litigations/god-men/OpenLtr/open.html. Scholars at Fuller Theological Seminary came to similar conclusions as a result of their own independent and extensive study. In a summary of their findings they stated, “The teachings of Witness Lee have been grossly misrepresented and therefore most frequently misunderstood in the general Christian community, especially among those who classify themselves as evangelicals.” (“Statement from Fuller Theological Seminary,” January 5, 2006, http://lctestimony.org/FullerStatement.pdf.)

25 Witness Lee, The Conclusion of the New Testament, Messages 1-20 (Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1997), 34, emphasis in original.

26 Although the word Equivocation (the E in D-I-S-C-E-R-N) often connotes an informal logical fallacy (within the category of fallacies of ambiguity), I’m employing the word’s denotative definition, namely, that nearly all words are vulnerable to more than one interpretation; and as such, context must be taken into account in order to properly discern an author’s intention (note that equivocation can itself be used in an equivocal manner).

27 Witness Lee, The Practical Expression of the Church (Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1970), 98.

28 See Hank Hanegraaff, The Apocalypse Code: Find Out What the Bible Really Says about the End Times…and Why It Matters Today (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2007).

29 Melton, An Open Letter concerning the Local Church.

30 It should be noted that Norman Geisler and Ron Rhodes continue to bear significant fruit in the vineyard of apologetics. I particularly appreciated Ron’s recent article on hermeneutics, “Recognizing and Interpreting Anthropomorphic Language” (Christian Research Journal 33, 2 [2010]: 6-7).

31 Melton, An Open Letter concerning the Local Church.

32 Ibid.

33 Norman Geisler, Systematic Theology: Volume Four: Church, Last Things (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2005), 635.

34 Geisler and Rhodes write, “the Father did not die for our sins, nor does the Father eternally proceed from the Father, as the Son does from the Father.” (“A Response to the Christian Research Journal.”)

35 Robert Letham, The Holy Trinity: In Scripture, History, Theology, and Worship (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2004), 180.

36 On a more serious note, Geisler and Rhodes wrongly accuse the LC of litigation on theological grounds. In reality, the LC litigated due to libelous charges of sociological cultism.

One of the toughest challenges to the rationality of the Christian worldview is the existence of so much evil. We struggle to explain and cope with evils due to human agency (theft, rape, murder, racism) and evils due to natural causes (floods, famines, hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, illnesses). Why does God allow it? The philosophical problem of evil is stated in these terms.

1.In the Bible, God is understood to be all-good and all-powerful.

2.If God were all-good, God would desire no evil.

3.If God were all-powerful, God would be able to prohibit evil.

4.There is evil.

5.Therefore, God either is (a) all-powerful, but not all-good, (b) all-good, but not all-powerful, or (c) does not exist.

Some philosophers have used this argument to claim that it is impossible that God exists, since God would definitely want to keep evil out of the universe and would have the power to do so. However, in the last few decades, most philosophers have abandoned this heavy-handed strategy, since all that the theist needs to claim is that God has a sufficient reason to allow this evil to occur.¹ If the idea that God has a good reason for evil is even possible, then there is no contradiction in claiming that God exists and that evil exists.

Yet unbelieving philosophers have shifted the strategy to argue that, while it is not impossible that God exists given all the evil in the world, it is unlikely that God exists. This is because many evils (for example, the suffering of children) seem to serve no justifiable purpose. Therefore, these kinds of evils count against the existence of God. These evils are called gratuitous (or pointless) evils.

1.If God exists, there would be no gratuitous evils.2.Gratuitous evils likely exist.3.Therefore, it is likely or probable that God does not exist.

This type of argument is called the inductive or probabilistic problem of evil, and it commands the most attention among philosophers, pro and con. It is also a problem that troubles many laypeople as well, both Christians and non-Christians. We can conceive of how some evils might serve greater goods and be necessary for their achievement, yet many evils—whether great (tsunamis) or smaller (the premature death of a loved one)—appear unredeemable. How can we address this anguishing problem?

Some believers simply claim that God must have His reasons, although we are now clueless and left with a leap of faith. We can only hope that we may know the reasons for these evils in the afterlife. However, we need some apologetic arguments so that we might have a reason for this hope when people ask us why we believe in a good and all-powerful God in the face of horrendous evils (1 Pet. 3:15–16).

No book raises the problem of evil more grippingly than the Bible itself. Particularly in the Psalms, the writers cry out to God, asking why their enemies have triumphed, why God has not acted to deliver them when He had the power to do so. Although the biblical writers groan under the force of evil, they find reasonable hope and meaning because of their belief that God has revealed enough about Himself to be deemed trustworthy, even when all the pieces do not fit together neatly and nicely (Deut. 29:29).

Inadequate Attempts to Resolve the Problem. Let us first consider two influential worldviews that cannot deal with the problem of evil. The Bible, unlike eastern religions, does not relegate evil to the realm of illusion or unreality. We cannot transcend the appearance of evil by achieving a supposedly higher state of consciousness, as advocated by contemporary pantheistic writers such as Deepak Chopra and Eckhart Tolle. That stance is both unrealistic and cruel. We must suffer with those who hurt in a broken world, not tell them to get over their attachment to maya (the illusion of evil). Moreover, in these worldviews the illusion of evil itself becomes an evil, sinceit keeps people in ignorance (a bad thing). Therefore, there is evil after all! The supposed solution to the problem of evil is, therefore, both nonsensical (because we sense real evil) and illogical (because we cannot deny the existence of evil if the illusion of evil turns out to be evil itself).

Atheists, on the other hand, often invoke the problem of evil to support their atheism. Their worldview, however, cannot explain the existence of evil or give any hope for its resolution. According to many atheists, all that exists is the impersonal and unfeeling universe, controlled by “the empire of chance,” as Bertrand Russell put it.² The cosmos was not designed; all is a matter of chance and necessity. There is no Moral Law-Giver or Source of objective moral truth, since moral ideas are only the result of chemical reactions in the brain of an evolved animal. Humans experience pain, but this is just what the impersonal and uncaring universe does to them—without reason and without recourse to any higher purpose. According to this worldview, the very categories of objective good and evil dissipate. As existentialists such as Camus and Sartre have argued, the world is absurd in itself. Good and evil are merely human constructs, destined to die with those who absurdly assert them in an absurd world. Therefore, good and evil lose their meaning, and there is no hope that good will somehow triumph over evil in the end.³

Another atheist view claims that objective good and evil exist as bare, brute, immaterial features of an impersonal and otherwise material universe. These are set forth as moral truths. This view is called atheistic moral realism; it is a strange hybrid of atheism and theism. It captures the idea of objective moral values from theism (where such values reside in the character of a personal-infinite God), detaches them from God, and projects them as floating values in an otherwise meaningless, materialistic world.

This position is ungrounded, however, because morality requires a strong claim of obligation or “oughtness.” Consider the statement, “You ought to treat humans with respect.” This is an objective moral law. Moral law differs from scientific law because it compels reflective agents to act and live in certain ways; it is not merely descriptive in the indicative sense (what is), as are scientific laws. Moral law enjoins or commands us to conform to it. Therefore, the idea of a moral law that exists apart from a Law-giver makes less sense than the idea of a moral law that issues from the commands of a personal and moral being. This is God Himself, who as the Creator knows just how humans ought to live.⁴

A Christian Answer to the Problem. Having argued briefly against pantheism and atheism as adequate accounts of the existence of reality and the problem of evil, here is a Christian answer in a few broad strokes.⁵ God, a personal and infinite being, is the source of the moral law, of moral obligation, and of the virtues and goals necessary to morality.⁶ However, humans, heeding the evil lie of Satan (Gen. 3:1–5; Rev. 12:9) have rebelled against God (original sin) and have brought evil into God’s good world.⁷ While God is Lord of history, He is not the author of evil. Rather, humans brought evil into the world by warping and twisting God’s good gifts. Evil, then, is good gone wrong.⁸

Evil opposes the moral will of God. Yet evil is not without final or ultimate purpose in God’s providence, since God is both perfectly good and sovereign over His universe. Given the character of God as revealed in Scripture, as well as the overall apologetic case for Christianity, we have sufficient reason to believe that whatever evils occur are not random or meaningless.⁹ They play a part in God’s present and future plan for the universe. As Joseph said to his brothers who sold him into slavery, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good” (Gen. 50:20 TNIV).

While the reason for many particular evils may be opaque or unknowable to us, these evils are not gratuitous or pointless. On the contrary, they are employed by God to bring about good outcomes that would not otherwise be possible. For example, a world fraught with risk makes courage and heroism possible. A world beset by sin makes redemption through the love of God, shown in Christ, possible. In fact, the work of Jesus Christ in history demonstrated God’s love and concern for His creation more than anything else.¹⁰ While some evils may baffle and depress us, we can trust God that they are not without justification in the story of the universe, since God is that story’s Author. Thus, some evils may be inscrutable to us, but they are not inconsistent with the Christian worldview.¹¹

—Douglas Groothuis

Douglas Groothuis is professor of philosophy at Denver Seminary.

1 Alvin Plantinga has advanced this strategy, which is known as a “defense.” Instead of saying how God might use evil to bring about goods not otherwise possible (classically called a “theodicy”), this approach deflects the charge that it is not possible for both God and evil to exist. See Ronald Nash, Faith and Reason (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988), chap. 13.

2 Bertrand Russell, “A Free Man’s Worship,” in Why I Am Not a Christian, ed. Paul Edwards (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1957), 104–16.

3 On existentialism, see James W. Sire, The Universe Next Door, 4th ed. (Downers Grove, IL:InterVarsity Press, 2004), chap. 5.

4 See C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (many editions), Book One.

5 See D. A. Carson, How Long, Oh Lord? (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1991).

6 See Francis Schaeffer, He Is There and He Is Not Silent (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2001;orig. pub., 1972), chap. 2.

7 Satan and some of the angels sinned before humans did (Jude 6), but Paul credits “one man” asthe cause of human sin (Rom. 5:12).

8 See Winfried Corduan, No Doubt about It (Nashville: Broadman, Holman, 1994), 131–33.

9 See William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Apologetics, 3rd ed. (Wheaton, IL:Crossway Books, 2008).

10 See Millard Erickson, The Word Became Flesh: An Incarnational Christology (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1991).

11 See Nash, chap. 15.