Book REVIEWs

A Not So Radical Look at Heaven and Hell

Love Wins ters of Jesus—namely Rob Bell the question of whether God is more invested ob Bell pastors a megachurch in Grand in judgment (hell) or in Rapids, Michigan, that has been suc- hospitality (heaven). This Rcessful in seeing revival in a younger book has the potential to generation of Christians. He speaks frequently gather younger and older throughout the United States, and his NOOMA Christians together for a videos can be found in almost every youth room. lively theological discus- He has captured the attention of Covenanters sion, and hopefully the at Midwinter, CHIC, and North Park Univer- conversation will invite sity, and is known for his engaging style, trendy understanding and not appearance, and passionate love for Scripture, battle! God, and the world. As it is, this is not a Bell released his new and controversial book, particularly good book. Love Wins, in March. It has unleashed a fire- The logic is often unclear, Love Wins storm as many see it as an attempt to answer the and Bell’s use of Scripture Rob Bell question, “Do all people go to heaven?” Bell’s is just as user-centered HarperOne, 2011 critics have made the book a wonderful success; as those who criticize 224 pages, $22.99 he was on the cover of Time magazine and has him. Finally, the sentence made several guest appearances on morning and structure is flippant and grammatically incoher- evening news channels. ent. I wondered if each chapter would work I hadn’t read any reviews of Love Wins prior better as an individual sermon. On the writing to reading the book. Upon finishing it, I was level, English composition teachers should be as amazed to see the number of responses and furious as John Piper or John MacArthur, two of criticisms. Bloggers and reviewers either overly Bell’s most vocal critics. Yet these critiques aside, sympathize with him—“finally, someone has Bell invites biblical and theological reflection— taken on this monumental issue that is consum- even when readers disagree with him (which, for ing the faith of young and old, alike”—or they me, was on and off throughout the book). personally attack him. Most have responded In his attempt to heighten heaven as a this- with strong critiques—some exaggerate Bell’s worldly participation with the love of God, devilish and heretical qualities; one blogger Bell actually heightens our concerns for hell. By noted that Bell’s book has created a “tsunami” framing “God’s love” in terms of heaven and in his community. hell, he never quite gets beyond the old para- I think overly romanticizing Bell’s contribu- digm. The question, by the end of the book, is tion is a bit much, but so is comparing Bell’s still, heaven or hell? The difference is that here book to a recent natural disaster that threatened heaven gets priority. nuclear meltdown. I wonder if we Christians The first chapters outline classic and contem- will ever find a way to debate texts, ideas, and porary understandings of heaven, hell, judgment, questions without following the popular media’s and salvation. If the reader can get beyond the practice of personal attacks. inflammatory speech and the confusing biblical In my opinion, Bell’s book, five years in the work, Bell has a good idea for a book. making, is only semi-important. For younger On the positive side, chapters 4–6 are an invi- evangelicals, Bell finally names the great divide tation to understand Bell’s desires. I recommend between younger and older generations on mat- that readers begin the book here. These chapters

June 2011 | 23 Book REVIEWs

communicate a tone of humility and love. Bell There is a word here for the church. It is a truly wants the world to know that God desires word of freedom. We no longer need to uphold to love them and not harshly judge them. He false certainties. The ambiguity of the kingdom states that God is passionately committed to invites the church to discover Jesus anew. Bell reconciling all things to him. Each page invites claims that we can stand assured of Christ’s the reader to join a God who is gracious and resurrection powers that will now and in the merciful toward the world (a world that God future redeem the entire world—no exceptions. deeply loves—John 3:16). As stated at a recent funeral for a man who This book is anything but radical for the committed suicide, “There is nothing, not one Evangelical Covenant Church. The Covenant thing, beyond the power of God’s redemption.” has held strongly to a view of the atonement Bell’s book is about radical inclusivity, and God where “God’s love for the world is magnified” chooses the world. and less so to the more classic substitutionary Finally, I think there is something going on in model of atonement where “the wrath of God this book that many of us cannot understand. I is satisfied.” Covenant theology rejoices that continually felt like I had entered another fam- God came to love the world and generously ily’s argument. Bell is overly polemical through- gave himself fully to us. I would venture to say out these pages. Several friends have commented that Bell becomes a Covenanter in his middle that wherever Bell says something clear and chapters. He even sounds like P.P. Waldenström helpful he uses the next page to make a point in a few places (who was also wrongly criticized that resembles a sword and not a ploughshare. for being a universalist). As I re-read sections of He seems to write as if embattled from the the book, I wondered if the Covenant Church outset. (via the Communications Department) had been I think Bell is responding to his theological invited to edit the work, especially the tone past—a past that many North American young and phrasing, would this book have be more people continue to revolt against—in profound palpable? Perhaps! ways. Bell is a Reformed guy with a love for Bell is most brilliant in his invitation to C.S. Lewis. If you grew up Baptist, Bible church, readers to stop possessing Jesus. His opening Reformed Church, or even conservative Pres- chapters are a diatribe (to my dismay) against byterian, this book might deeply resonate with closed-theists and legalistic churches who at- you. And most Americans have a Reformed tempt to possess Jesus. This, in my opinion, is view of God in their back pocket, even when the gift of the book. He deeply wants the world they are not aware of it (see Sydney Ahlstrom’s to know that Jesus is not held captive by the A Religious History of the American People). church. And regardless of how badly we in the Lutherans would be one of the few groups to be church have disfigured the whole “Jesus thing,” somewhat disengaged from the topic altogether. there is hope—for everyone. Bell simply wants Reformed theology is centrally concerned the skeptics to know that no one—not one— with the theological topic of election. Bell’s tra- possesses Jesus. He poetically describes how dition most often stresses certainty of salvation God is radically committed to redeeming the and election, including predestination. Reformed entire world and how unavailable God is for our folks, like John Piper, read the Bible through the possession. lens of election, asking, “Who has God chosen He writes, “[Jesus Christ] is for all people, and not chosen? God chose Israel, God chose Je- and yet he refuses to be co-opted or owned by sus; did God choose me?” This question strikes any one culture. That includes Christian culture. fear in the heart. This fear responds by seeking Any denomination. Any church. Any theological salvation because the other options scare the hell system. We can point to him, name him, fol- out of us. low him, discuss him, honor him, and believe in In the end, I don’t think this book is about him—but we cannot claim him to be ours any heaven and hell; it’s not really even about salva- more than he’s anyone else’s” (page 131). tion. Love Wins is about election. If you live in

24 | The Covenant Companion Grand Rapids or Minneapolis or anywhere else flect on his life’s research into religion, using his where evangelicalism and Calvinism have great physically and emotionally harrowing journey sway, this is the great theological question. as a vehicle in which to explore the genesis and American Calvinism has this interesting development of human spiritual experience— acronym for their theology called TULIP. I don’t especially our concept of God and the self. As necessarily understand it, but it has to do with such, this book becomes a kind of primer of reli- the question, “Who is in/out?” If you resonate gious anthropology, sociology, and cutting-edge with John Piper, your perspective is primar- neuro-science into psychological mapping of the ily on “Who is in?” and “How do we assure anatomy of the brain as it relates to religious ourselves of this?” If you resonate with Bell, the experience and theological evolution. perspective is “Who is out?” and “How do we Kugel’s intimate and extensive knowledge welcome them in?” If you resonate with neither of biblical and other and wonder why this book has produced such ancient cultures is illu- a firestorm, perhaps it is because you believe in minating, provocative, a God who blesses the world, inside and out, wise, and often witty— or possibly because regardless of debates about even if some patience heaven and hell, open or closed, you believe that is needed for occa- Jesus Christ is the world-concerned story of how sional self-indulgent love wins. scholarly tedium. He Reviewed by Kyle Small is exceptionally adept at moving between the ancient and modern In the Valley of the Shadow worlds with clarity and James L. Kugel ease, his stark contrasts carving out intention- ames L. Kugel was a notable biblical scholar ally ironic connections. at Harvard, a well-respected academic ab- His presupposition is In the Valley of the Shadow Jsorbed in his career and research before be- simple: we have grown James L. Kugel ing diagnosed with cancer in his mid-fifties. His too big, enthralled with Free Press, 2011 decision to write a book about his reflections on and anesthetized by our 256 pages, $26 that experience as a survivor echo author Wil- busy, self-important liam Saroyan’s poignant quip as he approached lives, artificially out of proportion to our appro- his own demise: “Everybody has got to die, but I priate relation to God. Though we have matured always believed an exception would be made in past the frightening superstitions and spiritual my case. Now what?” slavery of our forebears, we have unconsciously But Kugel accomplishes that endeavor traded away our sense of the immanence of the with honest humility and facile grace, offering Divine—that God is present and powerful and profound insights that may be best recognized intimately active in our lives. God has become by those who have known such profoundly (conveniently) other, out there, distant and even stark places. In the Valley of the Shadow is his irrelevant to our large agendas except, of course, attempt to express modernity’s loss of our sense when “the music stops,” when the incessant rush of appropriate size—how we fit into relationship of the sound of our life ceases abruptly because with God and the universe—and the resultant of illness, tragedy—whatever it takes to remind scarcity of the sacred in our human experience. us of our smallness in relation to God and Significant as the insights that surround this his infinite, eternal purpose. Kugel comments, thesis are, they might have been offered ad- “Death has become taboo in America because equately in the first and last chapters alone, but it spoils the myth of human control and our Kugel opts to use the perspective of fragility newer, bigger selves.” imposed by his illness as a launching point to re- Frequent reference to the Psalms (and other

June 2011 | 25 ancient texts) describes Kugel’s thesis of self—too often over against the of our appropriate size in relation primal sense of soul. Central to his to God, the boundaries and perspec- message is that true religion requires tive that keep us in wisdom and out embracing the smallness of our real of wickedness, in relationship and in self in relation to God, that our concert with the divine will: “Lord, souls might grow in awareness and our Lord, how majestic is your name truly human maturity. Noting that in all the earth! You have set your “as usual, the strongest beliefs are glory above the heavens....When I the ones of which we are unaware,” consider your heavens, the work of Kugel is proposing that we look care- your fingers, the moon and the stars, fully at what we believe, and how, which you have set in place, what are perhaps daring to become aware that mere mortals that you are mindful of our beliefs—Christian or otherwise— them, human beings that you care for are too often little more than modern them?” (Psalm 8:1, 3-4, TNIV). totemism—pretenses at religion akin Our modern, out-of-proportion to the magical efforts of our forebears dilemma is exemplified by our lack of to control their world. awareness of God, forgetting who we Kugel offers no prescription to are and how we fit, the paucity of our cure our spiritual malady but rather a prayers, our confusion of purpose and humble suggestion that (whatever our value, and our confusion of purpose religious orientation) we look “out- and place in relation to God, each ward and upward in the desperate other, and the meaning and value of dignity of [our] smallness,” confessing existence. Concurrent with that dis- that the most fundamental element of ease is our missing sense of “stark- religious belief is not “God’s sover- ness”—of the quality of essential eignty over the entire universe...so difference between sacred and secular, much as it is his sovereignty over the light and dark, good and evil, etc. cubic centimeter of space that sits just Lacking this clarity we are cast into in front of our own noses. That is to the persistently gnawing questions of say, religion is first of all about fitting our own finitude, the stuff of the val- into the world and fitting into one’s ley of the shadow: fear of death, angst borders.” In the Valley of the Shadow, regarding life’s meaning, protesting as in the psalm that gives it name, is a the seeming unfairness and terrible good place to begin. fragility of life, and our search for Reviewed by Chris Haydon God in the midst of it all. As Kugel reflects on his own illness as a kind of metaphor of our human condi- THIS MONTH’S REVIEWERS: Kyle Small is co-pastor of Harbert Community Church in Sawyer, Michigan. tion, he asks “the sickening question,” Chris Haydon is a Covenant minister and a member “Why do we expect the world to be of the Board of Ordered Ministry. a fair place?...what right do we have to expect [life] to be good?” It is the intimate question of theodicy. How, and for what, can we trust in a loving God? Kugel’s concentration on the evolution of the brain is enlighten- ing at times, especially in terms of the development of the modern sense

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