Abraham Heschel informs us that “The prophet was an individual who said no to his society, condemning its habits and assumptions, its complacency, waywardness, and syncretism. He was often compelled to proclaim the very opposite of what his heart expected. His fundamental objective was to reconcile man and God.”

This is what defined this brilliant German pastor and theologian; a man not of his times, a man beyond his times, but a man for his times. A man who saw deeper and further in, who took a stand that the majority balked at, and who understood with unerring and unnerving accuracy the trajectory of his nation, his culture, and more importantly, his church.

As I read this book I could not shake the feeling that I was not just reading a story about a prophet, I was holding in my hands something much more profound and troubling than that. And by its end I was convinced: this was as much fore-telling as it was post-telling. It seemed to me to be prophesy disguised as biography. As I read the story of this man who in obedience lost his life for saying no to the swelling current of his culture, the question kept surfacing: am I being given a glimpse into our own future?

This biography left me to wonder, did Bonhoeffer lay out a path not only to inspire but to emulate? Granted, the lines are not so crisp and clear as they were in his day. But, to be honest, they did not get clear until the die was well and truly cast. That’s what distinguishes the prophet, he sees several years ahead of the game. In his day it was a choice between the German church and the Confessing Church. In ours the labels would be different since it isn’t about the worship of nation as much as it is about idolizing culture. The choice would then seem to be between the Acculturated church or the Faithful church.

A few months before his arrest in 1943 he wrote an essay in which the prophetic tone is almost deafening. This is after five years of blatant genocide against “subhumans”:  “The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity, or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for the Christian who bases his life on the Bible it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil.” In our day, the categories have shifted and narrowed, but the killing continues apace.

And to us who may not see the issues with the same stark prophetic clarity he issues a challenge: “Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God—the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God.”

The specific choice we make may very well not be the same as his. He studiously refused to impose his individual ethical imperative on his brothers knowing that we must each give an account for our own acts or omissions. But fundamentally, the only answer that Bonhoeffer’s life allows is a total and unequivocal yes to God who in the words of this martyr-prophet calls us to come and die.

Os Guiness comments on the perhaps not so remarkable paucity of prophets. “Prophets tear through social complacency and moral rottenness like bolts of lightning. But such occurrences are rare today as modern people sleep untroubled beneath a million lighting rods.” After reading this biography with its sobering prescient weight one’s prayer might very well be, “Lord, send us more prophetic preachers in our own day lest without clear vision we perish.”

            By the atonement, therefore, is meant that action of Christ’s death which has a prime regard to God’s holiness, has it for its first charge, and finds man’s reconciliation impossible except as that holiness is divinely satisfied once for all on the cross. Such atonement is the key to the incarnation. We must take that view of Christ which does most justice to the holiness of God. This starting-point of the supreme holiness of God’s love, rather than its pity, sympathy, or affection, is the watershed between the Gospel and theological liberalism [post-modern Christianity]. My point of departure is that Christ’s first concern and revelation was not simply the forgiving love of God, but the holiness of such love.

            . . . . Our view of what Christ was and did must be the view that does most justice to the holiness of God and takes most profoundly and seriously the hallowing of His name.

            A true grasp of the atonement . . . meets the age in its need and impotence, its need of a centre, of an authority, of a creative source, a guiding line, and a final goal. . . . Change is everywhere. . . . With no centre, either for its own action or for our estimate, it means disintegration. And especially does our religion need a moral centre. It grows on the one hand evolutionary, and therefore inevitably unearnest and on the other hand sentimental. It harps on love till it reaches the condition of those decently demoralised people who read nothing but the literature of love, dwell on nothing else, slacken every moral fibre by the submission to this of every other interest in life, and finally gravitate to a chief interest in its morbid or immoral forms. Fraternity grows at the cost of fidelity, the democratic sympathies and pities monopolise the moral world, the moral type changes, and another scale of virtues fills the ideal. [This is nothing but] the removal of authority from a positive centre in Christ’s redeeming act to what I might call a diffused centre in the heart. . .  What is lacking to current and weak religion is the very element supplied in the atoning cross as the reconciling judgment of the world. P.T. Forsyth, The Cruciality of the Cross (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 1997), viii.

But let me explain my exuberance over King’s latest novel.

Who would have imagined Stephen King as a romantic? This is what he proves himself to be in his latest, 11/22/63. While I am not really a devotee of his writings, I did enjoy The Stand and, to a much lesser degree, Desperation. However, I loved The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, which is much more similar to 11/22/63 than those others.

I have this theory, while hate can produce art only love can produce good art, and certainly this is the case with great art. While King’s 11/22/63 is not great art it is still a very good book. And, surprisingly, a tender, sweet and poignant love story. It careens between the land of “ago” and our time, taking breath-taking curves in and out of historical incidents that intersect with famous personalities during a few fateful years in the sixties. While it is about the dreadful and unexpected impacts of a well-intentioned desire to change the past, King’s book is fundamentally about love. As such it was birthed out of a great love. Love for a time–the early 60’s; a place–small-town Maine; cars—the Ford Sunliner, and a dance—the swinging, swaying, exuberantly joyful Lindy Hop, danced to Glenn Miller’s memorable In the Mood.

While having been personally stunted by a subculture that forbade participation in that art form, I viscerally agree with what George, or is it Jake? repeats more times than I could count: “Dancing is life.” There are few passages that pulsate with brighter light than those in which our time-dislocated protagonist describes losing himself with Sadie in that pulsating rhythmic celebration. And while I concur with his assessment, I would add, that what King is also saying is that dance, at its passionate core, is about love. After all dance is art and great art is birthed in love.

This book is also about love for a president—John J. Kennedy. And it is this that compels an obsessive and desperate, and possibly world-altering attempt to prevent his assassination. But, when you drill down to the core King has written a tribute to romantic love. It is not about star-crossed, but time-crossed lovers—a time traveling teacher and a librarian who find each other after great sorrow across the impossible chasm of half a century. Its most touching moments are when George confronted with “a past that harmonizes” is once again faced with the ravages of alcoholism that is taking hold of his beloved Sadie. His loving ministrations are beautiful to read. I could not help but think that here King is paying conscious tribute to his wife who no doubt nursed him many a time in his battle with his own addiction.

I was entranced by this paean to love, to its joy, its delicious surprises, and its heart breaking, unexpected cost. For what it shows us is that love demands of us sacrifices that may feel like death but in reality are the gateway to life. And that what looks to be a great evil may in fact be the cloak of a greater good or perhaps the “harmonics” of a better good than would have occurred had we somehow managed to prevent it.      

I overheard someone say that they heard someone say that the definition of a saint is having the purity of heart to will one thing. That immediately reminded me of a book by Kierkegaard that I read in college. It had the same title and was, I’m sure, the inspiration for the remark. 

I cannot recall much of what the book was about. Mr. K is kind of like that, at least for me. I know he had lots of important things to say, but all I can recall are his titles: Fear and Trembling; Sickness Unto Death; Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments (this latter shows you that even those adept at pithy titles can go very far afield, if not careful).

The spin given to that lovely Kierkegaardian phrase was that the true artist is the one who devotes himself fully and unreservedly to that core thing to which he is utterly passionate. By expelling competing loves and distilling them down to what truly gives supreme joy, be it writing lyrics, playing the guitar, painting landscapes, singing opera, the artist somehow takes on the mantle of sainthood.

Though most of the book’s details escape me, I would say with confidence that this was not what Mr. K had in mind. If single-minded devotion to what brings satisfaction and fulfillment is the criteria for sainthood, then we must conclude that the greatest saints are crack and heroin addicts and the Gordon Gekkos, trampling everything that stands in the path of the drug or the next millions dollars. Nobody, not even marathon runners have better powers of concentration than those living for dope or the big deal.

The problem with that artistic re-definition is that it takes a three dimensional truth and squeezes into a two-dimensional box. A complex sphere is hammered into the shape of a flat pancake. Kierkegaard’s lilting, nuanced statement about holiness and transcendent longing; about the passionate life of faith, is reduced down to a thin pronouncement about taking your finger exercises more seriously.

The call to live with passion is important. No doubt about that. And what is even more necessary is the challenge to be intentionally passionate about things that have ultimate significance. But what I think is more troubling is our inability to take transcendence seriously. We seem to be afflicted with an endemic lack of awe. Where everything is “awesome” nothing is. We tend to treat it like construction paper: something we can take in our hands and fold into the shape of an origami crane and make believe it can soar. It is almost as though we are threatened by that which is utterly above us and beyond us.

Take heaven for example. It is a plane of reality flowing in a totally different rhythm than ours, with different and higher interests. And it frightens and shames us somehow. Whether conceived as place or state, it is weightier and infinitely more substantial than ours. I think we find it embarrassing because it exposes our smallness and lightness of being. It is too bright and too concentrated by far. After all, it is where saints live, and maybe we dislike thinking about it in those categories because it reminds us that that is precisely what we are not.

So, we crush it down into a shape that we find more comfortable. We say things like heaven is not about there but here. It is not about pie in the sky by and by but peace on earth in the here and now. We write catchy titles like: “Here is the new there.”

And this leads me to what I would call a terrible theft in Love Wins. That which glows with breathtaking brilliance is painted over with charcoal and crayon, and is robbed of every ounce of splendor. The unutterably splendid and other-worldly becomes almost pedestrian and mundane.

In the book of Revelation there is this unforgettable scene where 24 great and mighty elders clothed in stunning white linen with brilliant gold crowns are gathered in the throne room of heaven. These are formidable men. They have this regal gravitas about them. Each has some kind of unique authority and power. John sees them sitting around God’s throne while He is being worshiped by winged beasts. And we are told that “Every time the animals glorified and honored and gave thanks to the One sitting on the throne, who lives forever and ever,” the elders throw themselves prostrate in an ecstasy of worship. Unable to restraint the overflow of passionate devotion they take off their crowns and cast them down at the feet of One they adore (Rev. 4:4-11).

This is not only a depiction of stunning grandeur but a profoundly moving description of true sainthood: two dozen kings throwing that which symbolizes their pomp, their privilege and position before the One who alone is worthy of receiving honor and glory and power. They will one thing: to glorify God unreservedly, forever.

Rob’s only comment on this thunder-struck response is to say that it illustrates how what we consider significant on earth turns out to be, “much like wearing a crown, quite absurd.” (LW 44). This deflation quite honestly is a reduction down to the absurd. Exquisite, pure and humble worship serves merely as a foil upon which to hang a brief diatribe on the insignificance of material possession.

This is like taking the Imperial State Crown in London Tower, with its 2,868 diamonds, crushing it to powder in order to fill a crack in the floor at Westminster Abbey. What is radiant and resplendent has been compressed, reduced and flattened into cheap tin foil. If you were to strike this remark with a mallet it would clang like a stick against a cheap garbage can. John’s however shatters you like standing inside the bell tower at Notre Dame Cathedral at 12:00 noon.

Heaven for Rob is a both continuation and a perfecting of earth: It is the day “when earth and heaven will be the same place,” and “when things are on earth as they currently are in heaven.” (LW 43, 47) Heaven is the place God will finally find what He has been looking for since the beginning of time: “People who will take seriously their divine responsibility to care for the earth and each other in loving, sustainable ways.” (LW 36). And at that time He will put an end to all that is wrong with the world, “like war. Rape. Greed. Injustice. Violence. Pride. Division. Exploitation. Disgrace.” (LW 36). It is a peaceful realm where all is in its right place and we are filled with an endless joy for we get to participate “in the ongoing creation of the world.” (LW48)

Though this description is not quite mistaken it is nonetheless terribly misleading. And it robs the truth by what it studiously omits. While the prophets did speak passionately about the age to come in very earthy and material terms, they also describe it as a mind-blowing realm of majesty characterized by unbridled worship. Read Ezekiel and you see a guy almost coming unhinged by what he has seen.

The ultimate glory of the coming age for was not lions lying down with lambs but resplendent saints drenched in joy beholding One who is lauded by towering, flaming, winged beings as “Holy, Holy, Holy.” And as they thunder these words every single thing shakes (Is. 6:1-4). What these saints longed for with every fiber of their being was not a land with potable water but finding their unquenchable thirst satisfied eternally by beholding God’s majesty and pouring themselves out in ecstatic praise.

Rob caricatures this image by another reduction. He quotes time-bound and unimaginative homilies in which heaven is unhelpfully compared to “a church service that goes on forever.” (LW 25) I understand the joke. I grew up on mandatory attendance at Sunday School, at the 11:00am service, at the preaching service six hours after the first one ended, as well as the Wednesday night prayer meeting, also with its ubiquitous sermon. Yes, the thought of enduring even a full month of that is enough to send me heading for the hills.

However, in my adult years I and my family have had the great privilege of being in settings where heaven really did touch earth. We were transported into a realm fraught with the fearful weight of a holy, joyful, almost terrible awe. During those experiences, could we have stood up under them, we would have gladly chosen to remain forever. So, the inside joke winds up exposing a deficit that turns the humor on its head. The truth of it is that when God removes the veil just the tinniest bit, nobody in their right mind wants to leave-ever.

Read the descriptions of the First and Second Great Awakening where men and women were brought to their knees in glad and grateful abandon at the undeniable and irresistible presence of God. The Welsh Revival in the early 1900’s was marked by spontaneous, accapela singing that broke out like geysers of undiluted, angelic joy in the church and in the streets. It was so powerful and so pure that hardened sinners by the thousands were dissolved to tears and repented on the spot. And those who knew Him came in droves to get as close and stay as long as they possibly could. That is much nearer to the kind of “church service” that we see described by the prophets and apostles.

But it hardly bears mentioning in Love Wins.

For where heaven is really earth, just better and perfected, and where its chief attraction is the opportunity to partner with God in caring for the earth and people “in loving and sustainable ways” delirious worship, joy unspeakable and full of glory, the unimaginable  shalom of being reconciled, restored, redeemed and perfectly at peace with God, enjoying Him and His gracious favor forever–none of these even enter the frame. These central apostolic components have been flattened by a crude, rhetorical hammer into a thin transparent film and rendered invisible.

Heaven is flat because what it seeks to resolve is flat. Rob explains that it was wealth that kept the rich ruler from experiencing the shalom of the age to come, but for others “it’s worry, or stress or pride or envy—the list goes on.” (LW 62). Almost every sin mentioned in Love Wins is horizontal. They are sins against man not God. Man’s big problem is that he treats himself, others and the creation in unloving ways. So heaven is where this is resolved. Man has a man-sized problem and gets a man-sized heaven.

The glory of Rob’s heaven is man at peace not God praised. 

But John tells us a different story. It is a realm in which we come home to the only home we ever really wanted, to the Father we always longed for, to a Lover whose touch and voice we‘ve craved our whole lives. As Augustine, that God-entranced saint, puts it, it is where we will exult that, at long last, our long exile is over for our restless hearts will have found their perfect rest in Him. It is where all lesser, lower loves (even love for good created things) will be drowned out by that saint’s pure-hearted song:

“Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you. But you flashed, you shone, and you have dispelled my blindness. You have breathed your fragrance on me. I have drawn in breath so that now I pant for you. I have tasted you; now I hunger and thirst for more. You have touched me, and I burn for your peace. Uniting to you with my whole being I am at last free of sorrow and toil. I am alive, filled entirely with you. O Love ever burning, never quenched! O Charity, my God, you have set me on fire with your love!’

And there we will discover that our thin, flat loves have been burned away in the flames of consuming fire and we will be all love, we will be all joy, and we will be all saints. And with the prophets, apostles and transported sinners of all the ages we shall experience shalom for we will be with our Lord forever and forever, worlds without end. Our wills refined to Mary’s one (needful) thing we will gladly lay before Him the crowns we’ve been awarded, not because they mean so little but because they are the very best we have to offer.

And we will know what every saint has known, that He is worthy of it all.   

I was asked a question about Rob Bell that I will admit made me just a little bit upset. It was from a friend. This is why it stung so much. It wasn’t that it was mean or rude. I just felt it to be so off the mark as to betray an almost total ignorance of who I really am. It was like someone seeing me taking spastic kangaroo hops around the bar and thrusting my fists into the air while shrieking like a manic when the Spanish national side won the World Cup, and being asked if I really felt that bad for the losing Netherlands team. 

I mean do you not know that I bleed yellow and red? Are you not aware that I fasted for three days prior to the game just in case it might help the best team in the world never to win the Cup finally pull it off? And Netherlands? Those felons? I mean really!

It just rankled.

But I tried to respond judiciously like my wife repeatedly has counseled me. When I was finished with my civil clarification, I thought that had done the trick. But, apparently, it still festers. And it has made me think about my attitude and those of others who have taken issue with Love Wins. It has made me wonder what really motivates us, down deep where the rats scurry about looking for little treats.

Let me tell you the question and see where that leads.

My friend explained that while he did not think he agreed with everything in Rob’s book he certainly disagreed with how “religious people” had responded to it. His question to me was: “Why are you so threatened by this?” I had a choice. I could have shrugged it off by interpreting the personal pronoun as an indefinite plural rather than a pointed singular.

I refused the dodge and took the blast full in the chest.

What raised the reflexive hackles was the adverb “threatened.” (It is an adverb isn’t it? Unfortunately, I missed English grammar during my elementary school years in South America.)

What is particularly offensive about that word is that it sort of drips these slippery globules of condescension. That was not the intent of the questioner, I know that. But, it happens to be the specific term I have heard others frequently use in defense of the book. And every time it has that faint reek of superiority: “Are you so insecure about what you believe that you become unhinged and have to scream “heretic” at the top of your freaking lungs to hide the deficits in your own logic?”

No, I told my friend. My disagreement is not motivated by fear or inadequacy. For one thing, I am not the one recklessly tossing 2,000 years of patristic, scholastic, reformed and post-reformational teaching over the railings of the ship. I don’t feel a compulsion to defend St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, or St. Aquinas on the one hand, or Luther, Calvin and Jonathan Edwards, on the other, not to mention all the best preachers of the past two centuries. It isn’t a latent inferiority that drives my disagreement with cutting-edge interpretations that argue that the most influential teachers in the history of the church got it completely and totally wrong, regardless of whose minority voice may have been raised in disagreement over the years.

I don’t intend to be smug on this point. It is just that with those Fathers and Doctors and pastors of the church on one’s side, and over such an extensive period of time, one does not feel terribly vulnerable or embarrassed following their lead. So, “threatened” is just not the appropriate word to describe the motivation behind the strong reaction.

So, what is?

I cannot speak about the motives of others. I can however state that, in some, I have heard the discordant and jarring notes of a loveless anger. This is perhaps what prompted my friend’s question. Why the mean-spirited barbs and the nasty ridicule? Why the acid? I’m sure that one of the reasons I was stung by my friend’s inquiry was because I have put serious effort into avoiding that tone of malice I equate with political talk-show hosts.

I am all too aware of the seductive attraction of the ad hominem. Those like myself, and like Rob for that matter, nurtured within the sometimes spiky and belligerent folds of fundamentalism find ourselves, if we are honest, drawn almost against our wills into a posture that can look suspiciously like that of a bare-knuckled Victorian pugilist. While we may despise the acerbic barbs of Glen Beck, it is an all-too-attractive slide into the snide verbal parody of those on his left. No party, political or theological, has a monopoly on pride. And no one is more susceptible than the one who is battling hard against it.

So, if I am not prompted by an inferiority complex what is in my gut that won’t let it be?

The word I prefer is sadness.

I have not met Rob, though there are a score of people I know intimately that fall in the category of one-degree-of-separation. So, the pain that I feel is not for a personal friend who has hit the skids. It is not about feeling let down by a confidant, a colleague, or close comrade. What it comes down to is grief for a misguided and gifted teacher and for those whom he continues to influence.

The reason I am not angry is because I do not believe Rob is driven by a conscious malevolent intent to undermine and eviscerate the Gospel. I am sad because I think what it impels it is just the opposite.

At this point some may be gesticulating with their index fingers at Paul’s caustic remark about false teachers emasculating themselves. I do not take that as precedential in this instance. I think that that is the very, very last word about a Gospel-threatening heresy, not the first, or the second. And it is only to be uttered by those with a sufficiently broad authoritative mantle after direct confrontations have failed or been repulsed. The rest of us can reject, correct, and seek to instruct but anathemizing is reserved for others with a much higher pay grade than lowly bloggers or pastors with a narrow geographical jurisdiction.

I choose (until proven otherwise) to believe that what drives Rob is genuine love and that is what makes it all so terribly sad. It has made me wonder about many of those branded “heretics” (and rightfully so) by teachers of the church over the years. I wonder whether what made some of them willing to face martyrdom was the love which precipitated their error. Not all of them mind you, but some.

Was it love for purity that drove Montanus to extreme ascetism and a rejection of art? Was it love for the unique, singular majesty of God that motivated Arius to deny the deity of Jesus? Did Pelagius feel compelled by a love for the value and dignity of human freedom and choice to reject the doctrines of grace? In the 11^th century was it devotion to a holy and cleansed church that pushed the Cathari over the edge? I am starting to ask myself whether these all loved their version of the truth or their conceptions of the church so much that they felt duty bound to lay down their lives for it.

It is these questions that prevent me from taking the slightest pleasure when I read an article in the local newspaper in which Rob admits that the past month has been the hardest in his life. And it brings into clear focus the deceptive power of misdirected love.

James warns us about this danger that can easily swallow us unawares. It cleverly hides behind a certain justifiable hatred. This is what makes it such a potent deception. It wraps itself in the soft glow of a kind-hearted, gentle, irenic disposition; it woos us into accepting a generous orthodoxy in reaction to a brutal, belligerent and reactionary judgementalism. It beckons us by disguising itself as the necessary antidote to smug, sanctimonius, self-congratulatory Phariseeism. And it ever so slowly spins us and twists us into the very object of our hatred.

The apostle James sounds out the warning: “You are as unfaithful as adulterous wives; don’t you realize that making the world your friend is making God your enemy? Anyone who chooses the world for his friend turns himself into God’s enemy” (Jam. 4:4 JB).

Not knowing Rob personally I can only extrapolate based on our similar religious upbringing. I have detected my issues in lots of Rob’s questions, so I do not think I am far off the beam in drawing certain parallels. When the “world” is declared to be toxic enemy number one and when cultural truths, goodness and beauty are disparaged and demonized a reverse toxicity can occur. The truths, goodness and beauty within your own camp may take on repulsive, radioactive qualities. Now, if you’re clever and good with words this can be masked to a great extent but the poison will seep out like mercury through the cracks.

But, there is more. When your eyes are opened to the unexpected and shocking splendor of culture (“the world”), in reaction to its shallow and fearful dismissal, that submerged spill of toxic waste makes you susceptible to a dangerous embrace that is equal parts love and hate: a too-great love for the “goodness” of the world and a too-intense hatred for that which has defamed and denied it.

Ever so subtly you become a defender of the world over against the culture-phobic church. And in short order you find yourself its friend in precisely the way James warns us about. You have grown to care more about how God treats humans than how they treat Him. You are far more interested in humanity being treated fairly than you are in God being worshipped, served and glorified.

Loving the world in this unhealthy way and for these unhealthy reasons causes you to reject whatever reminds you of the oppression you have grown to despise. It is love for those marginalized by an unloving church (and an angry God) that causes you to jettison all doctrines that smack of cruelty and a harsh vindictiveness.

I suspect that this is why Rob finds the historic teaching on an eternal Hell so abhorrent. It is an unconscionable assault on those he wants to protect. He tells us in his book that he wishes to shield sincere men and women from a mean God propagated by an ungracious religious establishment. This is understandable. If you are in love with the world what becomes compelling is ensuring humane justice here, not divine justice everywhere.

Unwittingly, and with the best of motives, when one’s affections are bent in one direction, one loses the capacity to empathize with the God who characterizes our misdirected loves as gross and brazen adultery; who considers humanity’s rebellion a provocative rejection of His infinite goodness, truth and beauty, and who thunders from beginning to end of the Epic Story that ignoring Him is a grievous assault on His exclusive rights as Creator and King and is ultimately self-destructive.

And what makes this whole discussion so hard is that this blindness is instigated by a faulty love that masks a subconscious hate. James tells us that loving the world in this way makes us an enemy of God. Or, put another way, when we love the world improvidently, we can easily be deceived into perceiving God (as proclaimed by the traditional, conservative Church) as the enemy.

This is why it is wrong to assume that all those who disagree with Rob are angry reactionaries.

This is why, I for one, am so sad about this whole discussion.

I am sad to see a gifted teacher defaulting on his calling to keep, guard and hand over the historic deposit of truth entrusted to him (II Tim 1); and to fail in his fiduciary obligations to “fight for the faith which has been once and for all entrusted to the saints” (Jud. 3).

I am grieved by a misdirected love and a misguided compassion.

Although I am not threatened by the error, or by the questions, I am saddened for those who will knowingly reject Christ but still be offered false hope, false comfort, false assurance and empty promises.

What makes it so heartbreaking is that when you choose to love humanity above God, you wind up becoming an enemy of both.

But let me be honest, in answering my friend’s query, I have to admit others that are beginning to bother me even more:

Has our too-hasty and untroubled defense of CET (conscious eternal torment) exposed something about us as well?

Do our assertions of concern for the lost serve as flimsy cover behind which apathy and indifference really hide?

Does all this bluster and resentment and fulmination against Love Wins mask the absence of a genuine sacrificial and evangelistic love for the world in our own hearts?

Is it all together too easy for me to rush to the defense of an admittedly terrible doctrine because rather than loving the world too much, I love it too little?

And that would be the saddest thing of all.     

I have not counted all the questions in Love Wins but I did do a cursory pass through the first chapter and counted close to 60. It would be interesting to ask the copy editor how many question marks lie between those 198 pages. There are many, and this is not necessarily a bad thing. Rabbis ask lots of questions. Philosophers are defined by the questions they ask. More often than not, Jesus responds to inquiring minds not with an answer but another question. And, come to think of it, the first words out of the mouth of the serpent came in the form of an insidious, sly, unexpected interrogatory, as well.

The lesson? (speaking of interrogatories): all questions are not created equal. Some are helpful while others are designed to lead you away from light and life into death and destruction. In Love Wins, I have no reason to think that the authorial intent is for ill. Bell invites the reader to look at old answers in new ways. Bell wants to shake people free from a mindless assent to ancient creeds, stodgy dogmas, constricting religious mantras.

And this is not bad.

More than three decades ago I was a Freshman in Intro to Philosophy. My acerbic professor was a die-hard Calvinist. Despite his unwavering commitment to Reformed theology he made it his singular mission to undermine all our nice convenient assumptions, even the ones that happened to be true. He wanted to slap us awake. Dr. Grier succeeded brilliantly. The majority of those who paid attention in class left that institution with a sturdy commitment to what became known as the doctrines of grace. But he shook the heck out of us first. We had to survive boot camp for the mentally and spiritually soft and flabby.

Good questions do that.

I think Bell asks good questions. In the middle of the book he devotes a whole chapter to one of his better ones. “Does God Get What God Wants?” On the surface this appears to be a simple, straightforward question with a rather obvious answer: God is God therefore God gets whatever He wants. The positive response bursts from the mouth almost before the interrogatory is affixed to the last word. But as the assent dies on the lips a niggling thought interrupts: but does God want sin, and death and evil? Does God want Hell?

God being God–with the automatic corollary following hard at its heels that His desires are invariably fulfilled–leads one to wonder, who then wants the truly awful things that have gone on since the Garden? Beginning with the goodness of God as a starting point we conclude rightly that He does not want sin. He hates it. Who then wants it?

Satan.

So do we live in a universe with two competing powers, one getting the good He wants and the other getting the evil he wants? If you stop and think about this cosmology for just a minute you realize that, if this is true, neither is getting what he wants. Since there is evil everywhere, the good God is clearly not getting what He wants, but given the prevalence of goodness, truth and beauty, neither is his arch nemesis. So, who gets what he wants?

Bell states categorically that God most definitely, surely and without question gets what God wants. Anything less makes Him out to be pathetic and inept. Bell is thinking specifically about God’s declaration that He “wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (I Tim. 2:3). If this is what God wants, and He is great, Bell wonders, how great is He? Is this God “great enough to achieve what God sets out to do, or kind of great, medium great, great most of the time, but in this, the fate of billions of people, not totally great. Sort of great. A little great. (LW, 97-98).

It’s a fair question.

If God wants everyone to be saved and God is God, does that not lead to the conclusion that all will be saved? Anything less, Bell argues, means that God fails and human sin prevails. It means that God would have to take the stage with Mick Jagger and “shrug God-sized shoulders and say, ‘You can’t always get what you want’” (LW 103). And that, for a host of reasons, could never be.

This is a foundational premise of Bell’s book. It drives his conclusion that since God is neither helpless, powerless or impotent, and “doesn’t give up until everything that was lost is found,” God’s love ultimately and finally triumphantly wins (LW, 101). Yet, to be honest, Bell does not categorically paint himself into the “universalist” corner. He hints, suggests, winks and nods, but he never directly and positively answer the ultimate question: “Will everybody be saved, or will some perish apart from God forever because of their choices?” He leaves the answer unresolved because he believes a definitive answer is impossible. It is a tension “we are free to leave fully intact” (LW, 115).

The reason he rejects the “U” label is because he wants to leave the door open. God gets what He wants because love wins. Yet, paradoxically, there is still the real possibility that “we can have what we want” (LW, 119). We can choose Hell, which is “our refusal to trust God’s retelling of our story” (LW, 170). Despite these careful caveats, again, just being honest, the pervasive implication throughout the book, beginning with the title, is that God is great and good enough to insure that somehow, sometime, in some way His love will not go unrequited. There are good and convincing reasons to expect that, at the end, all people will “experience this vast, expansive, infinite, indestructible love that has been [theirs] all along” (LW, 198).

Granted, there is an almost sensuous tug to those words. It enchants like the alluring song of those mythic sirens that drew unwary seamen to shipwreck on the rocky coasts of their flowery island. And the only way to break its spell is to question the question: Is it true that since God wants all to be saved and He gets everything He wants, all will be saved?

Those much smarter than I will tell you that questions about God’s will have been pondered by many theologians, for many years. The best answers point out the difference between what God desires and what He decrees. These are two parallel but distinct realities. God’s decrees govern what is and will be on a primary causal level, and direct—without coercion–what happens on the secondary causal level, where you and I live, in such a way that allows for human dignity and authentic choice—free will, if you will.

And speaking of will that brings up Shakespeare. On a primary causal level, Will writes his brilliant sonnets. He invests pulsating energy into his characters. He breathes his passion, fury and longing into them, and they come to life. As any novelist will tell you, the better the writing, the less control you have over what the characters choose to do. This sounds ridiculous on the face of it. After all, you are the one tapping on the keyboard. Of course you are manipulating every word, including the muscular reactions and gestures of everyone in the story. Your will must rule. Oddly, the reverse is the case.

The best characters sometimes surprise the stuffing out of you. They really do say the darndest things. And they go down paths you never expected. When you pour your blood into them these creatures made up out of your own imagination take on personality, a dignity that is nowhere more evident than in their “free” will.

Is Will scratching his inked quill across parchment paper? Is Will directing what is going on in his play? Are his characters functioning along the lines he is ultimately decreeing? The answer to all these is yes.

But on the level of the parchment where the characters have come to life, are they deciding and responding authentically and freely? The better the story, the more emphatic the yes. Looking at it from the perspective of the author (primary causality), Shakespeare gets what he wants. Every letter is what he wants, and every action is what he has ordained. Yet from Romeo and Juliet’s vantage point (secondary causality), they are doing exactly as they please. Nobody is forcing them to fall in love and start a bloody feud. Nobody is making them take poison or stab themselves on an altar.

This analogy, like all analogies breaks down. Nothing we do takes God by surprise. He sees the end from the beginning. That includes every word on our tongue and every decision we make. He is also the initiator of salvation, giving faith and repentance as a gift. But, this is all on the authorial level. On the creaturely plane, despite what the Author knows and wants for us, we go our own merry way choosing what seems best in our own eyes, free from all constraint and imperious authorial control. As Augustine would say, we are completely free to choose what we love and what we love is sin.

If Shakespeare were perfectly loving and good, Hamlet might very well look up at him out of the pages on which he broods, and declare, “I have it on good authority that you are loving and good. Will not your perfectly loving plan win out in the end? After all you are the Great Bard, are you not?”

Sharpening his quill, Will would properly respond, “Yes, tis true. I am and I desire for you all the happiness in this great, wide beautiful world. But alas, I’m afraid what I fervently wish does not compel your choice. You will do what you will do. I cannot force you to dance a jig when what you really pine for is death.”

Hamlet being of a philosophical bent would counter: “But you are holding the quill, confound it!” To which Will replies, “Yes, in truth, but you are the one living the story.”

God desires the salvation of all, true indeed. Man prefers to save himself, evidently enough. God is writing the story, but we are living it. So, the answer to Bell’s simple question is neither as simple nor as categorical as he assumes.

God is so great that He accomplishes everything He decrees, and every detail of it is perfectly loving. Yet He does not get what He desires. After all, God wanted Adam and Eve to live in Edenic perfection forever. But they chose to exercise their freedom against God’s will and were cursed. God’s desires are contingent on the wills of creatures He has invested with all the love and weight and significance He is capable of. And that is a lot. It is a weight of glory that is almost impossible to bear.

But let’s ask one more question. It is the question behind the question. It is the reason why Bell gets it so wrong. What is it that God really wants? What desire drives Him and the storyline of every story that has ever been lived? Is the Author’s ultimate and supreme goal for his Story that of the salvation of all people?

Am I the chief end of God? Asking the question answers it doesn’t it?

This Loving God has one supreme affection. It is not what Bell assumes. It is not what so many others with him assume who strain and kick at the sharp edges of the Gospel story. God’s great, primary passion is not the happiness of His creatures. It is for Himself. He is supremely glorious, supremely beautiful, infinitely perfect in His wisdom, majesty and splendor. The best that the fiery seraphim in heaven can come up with is the enthralled, repetitive tripartite chant: holy, holy, holy. Of course, this glorious Being loves Himself above all. There is no one more worthy. No one holds a candle to Him.

Wisdom is to love, cherish and enjoy that which most deserves it. And God is Wise as well as loving. He is the source of Wisdom and is its boundless repository. So out of this undiminished, free-flowing fount, He loves Himself perfectly. And that means infinitely and eternally. His aim, first, is that His glory fill the earth as the waters cover the sea.

This is why the great good news declared by those with beautiful feet on the mountains is not “You are forgiven!” or “All will be saved!” but “Your God reigns!” (Is. 52:7). This is why the first commandment is a prohibition against placing any other god above Yahweh, and why Ezekiel repeatedly states that God is jealous for His holy name above all things. And this is also why he asserts (almost 60 times) that everything God is about to do in the earth is so that His people will come to know that “I am the Lord.”

Jesus, the perfectly obedient Son, makes this priority explicit a few hours before His death. When the last supper is over he prays to His Father: “Glorify your Son that your Son may glorify you.” He then declares that He has given eternal life to all those the Father has given Him and turns His attention back to His Father: “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do” (Jn. 17:1-5).

Though we seem to miss the point, none of the apostles did. Paul, Peter, Jude and John punctuate their letters with the exclamation: “To Him be glory forever!” The last book begins with John’s dedication: “to Him who loves us. . . to Him be glory and power for ever and ever!” (Rev. 1:6). When John is allowed entrance into the mysterious activities before the throne of God he hears “every creature in heaven and earth and under the earth on the sea” singing: “To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power forever and ever!” (Rev. 5:13).

And when the story reaches its climax there is a New City prepared for God’s People. But what makes it significant is not its citizens. It is given a name that forever will celebrate its unique glory: “The Lord is There” (Ez. 48:35), while what eternally shines from it is the glory of God (Rev. 21:11).

So, does God get what He wants?

If by this we mean are the Author’s desires for His creatures carried out of necessity, the answer is no. But, if we are asking instead, will God get the eternal glory He wants from a passionate, holy bride who has voluntarily chosen Him above all rivals, the answer is unequivocally yes.

So, does love win? Of course it does—God’s love for Himself is a thunderous, irresistible wave of sovereign power that crushes and cows Satan and all his hosts. It triumphs over all who embrace it as well as all who resist it. God is eternally glorified by those who worship Him with full hearts and by those who refuse His love and are justly condemned to be separated from His love forever.

Either way, God’s love for Himself wins.  

Historical context can be of immense help. When deciding whether to invade Viet Nam, Iraq, or Afghanistan it would be good to do some homework on the culture, the values, and the demographics of these countries. Such a study might save you lots of heartache and loss down the road. Context can also sometimes blur the edges just a bit.

Perhaps we shouldn’t blame the sociological and historical studies but the one contextualizing: maybe he just failed to dig as deeply as he should. Maybe he just stopped when his shovel hit the first stone that supported his fixed intention: “We did our due diligence and found clear evidence of WMD’s, thus, we have decided to take preemptive action.” The result of that bit of wrong context was Shock and Awe.

If I wanted to, let’s say, undermine belief in an archaic pit filled with shrieking demons, the sounds of “weeping and the gnashing of teeth, where the worm dieth not,” some historical context could come in handy. I could investigate and find that “Gehenna” used by Jesus was actually a reference to a ditch that existed during His time. It was a geographical location traditionally believed to run outside the southern wall of ancient Jerusalem, stretching from the foot of Mount Zion eastward to the Kidron Valley. The location is in dispute and many now argue that it is actually a reference to Wadi er-Rababi which runs along the southwest boundary of Jerusalem.

But what is contested is its function. Bell in Love Wins describes it as “the city dump” in Jesus’ day; the place where the citizens of Jerusalem “tossed their garbage and waste” and where there was a fire “burning constantly to consume the trash.” There also were wild animals fighting “over scraps of food along the edges of the heap. When they fought, their teeth would make a gnashing sound. Gehenna was the place with the gnashing of teeth, where the fire never went out.” (LW 68).

What is omitted from this helpful bit of contextualizing is that before Gehenna was turned into an unpleasant, smoky landfill, it was something much, much worse. It was so much more heinous that the word became a euphemism for “Damn!” If I lost my temper and told you to go there I was thinking of something more horrific than a stinky dump with sooty fires around which dogs bullied each other. Though it did eventually become the municipal garbage dump, the truth of it is that the gnashing was more likely caused by gnawing on a human femur since bodies of criminals were also tossed out with the refuse.

Gehenna was not only physically disgusting, it was spiritually terrifying. Think of a haunted house. Think of Freddie Kruger and Hannibal Lekter rooming with Ted Bundy in that house and you are getting the picture. It was a place of horrific evil where the abominable demon-god Moloch was worshiped.

oloch (from the Hebrew melech, or king) was the god of the Ammonites, portrayed as a bronze statue with a calf’s head adorned with a royal crown and seated on a throne. His arms were extended to receive the child victims sacrificed to him. The ritual required that a great fire be lit inside the hollow idol, so that its body would glow an ominous red.

According to Rabbi Rashi in the 12^th century, “Tophet is Moloch, which was made of brass; and they heated him from his lower parts; and his hands being stretched out, and made hot, they put the child between his hands, and it was burnt. [W]hen it vehemently cried out the priests beat a drum, that the father might not hear the voice of his son, and his heart might not be moved.”

It is possible that the reason the name Topheth was attached to this valley is because the Hebrew toph, means “drum.” It is also possibly connected with a root word meaning “burning” and so was known as “the place of burning” (Jer. 19:6) 

Around 740 BC the Valley of Hinnom became notorious as the place where King Ahaz sacrificed his sons to the Moloch (II Chron. 28:3). Manasseh followed the example of his grandfather by “causing his children to pass through the fire” (II Chron. 33:6). It is in the time of Jeremiah that it was referred to as Topheth where the Israelites descended “to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire” (Jer. 7:31). In 624 BC, King Josiah, as part of sweeping religious reforms, finally “defiled Topheth” so that the Israelites could never again use it to sacrifice their children to the dreaded fire god (2 Ki. 23:10).

While the Book of Isaiah does not mention Gehenna by name, it does however refer to the “burning place” in which the Assyrian army is to be destroyed as “Topheth.” (Is. 30:33). In that day of great deliverance, God is depicted as coming “with burning anger and dense clouds of smoke; His lips are full of wrath and His tongue is a consuming fire” (Is. 30:27). It is clear what Isaiah is doing, he is contrasting Yahweh with the false calf-headed “king” who rather than burning innocent children, consumes the wicked enemies of His chosen people.

“The Lord will cause men to hear His majestic voice,” he continues, “and will make them see His arm coming down with a raging anger and consuming fire. . . . The voice of the Lord will shatter Assyria; with His scepter He will strike them down (Is. 30:30-31). Lest we miss the not-so-subtle point, Isaiah explains that “Topheth has long been prepared; it has been made ready for the melech (the true king). . . “the breath of the Lord like a stream of burning sulfur sets it ablaze” (Is. 30:33). Since the prophet is intent on making the allusion obvious he includes this evocative statement: “Every stroke the Lord lays on them with His punishing rod will be to the music of tambourines and harps” (Is. 30:32). (Is this also to drown out the cries of the rebel army being destroyed?)

At the end of his book Isaiah related the future day of gracious restoration where “Jerusalem” will be comforted, and some of God’s chosen people will scatter throughout the nations to proclaim the Lord’s glory. “And they will bring all your brothers, from all the nations, to my holy mountain in Jerusalem as an offering to the Lord. . . . and all mankind will come and bow before Me” (Is. 66:19-20, 23).

While Bell uses Scriptures like these to establish his point that Love (eventually) Wins over everyone, he fails to quotes the whole context. For example, the prophet qualifies his assurance of complete restoration with these words: “the hand of the Lord will be make known to His servants, but His fury will be shown to His foes” (Is. 66:14). And though “all mankind will come and bow down before Me” they will be taken out “to look upon the dead bodies of those who rebelled against Me; their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind” Is. 66:23-24). With these chilling words this major prophet closes out his book.

The picture we are presented is one of nations turning to Yahweh to worship and turning also to look at the place of (eternal) burning. It is no stretch at all to conclude that when Isaiah, speaking on God’s behalf, prophesies: “I am coming to gather all the nations and tongues, and they shall come and see My glory (Is. 66:18), He is referring to His sovereign prerogative and majestic greatness displayed in forgiving and in judging. 

Bell finds this possibility repugnant. He cannot conceive of a God who can be glorious in pouring out both unmerited favor and fierce and holy anger. Since God is fatherly and not kingly it is impossible for Bell to accept God’s absolute right to punish all those who have not only willfully chosen to refuse His love but have also attacked, defaced and destroyed the creation He loves and the bride He has chosen for His beloved Son.

Since in his mind God is not also King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Bell confidently asserts that, “Restoration brings God glory, eternal torment doesn’t. Reconciliation brings God glory, endless anguish doesn’t. Renewal and return cause God’s greatness to shine though the universe, never-ending punishment doesn’t (LW, 108). However, unlike Jesus, he fails to address Isaiah 66, for it is from Jesus that we get the haunting King James phrase about Gehenna “where the worm dieth not” (Mark 9:48).

This is an incredibly evocative image. One can hardly imagine a more vivid and unforgettable phrase to describe the awfulness of a punishment that has no end. And these are the words Jesus chose to warn about the place of judgment. While He refers to Gehenna 11 times in the synoptic Gospels, He only uses this phrase once, no doubt, concluding once should be enough for anybody.

It is not altogether clear how Bell conceives of Hell. He finds Jesus’ teaching on the subject to be “a volatile mixture of images, pictures, and metaphors that describe the very real experience and consequences of rejecting our God-give goodness and humanity” (LW, 73). It is real. But it is not really awful. After all, Gehenna is only a stinky, smoky dump.

But when Jesus used that word He was thinking about Moloch. He was envisioning little children roasting in honor of a demon-god and of implacably cruel priests pounding drums to cover up the sounds of the shrieks. He was seeing in His mind’s eye glib prophets assuring His people that by offering their innocent babies they would gain the favor of the god. And when He added the words “where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (seven times), maybe He was not thinking about dogs chewing on human limbs. Perhaps what Jesus was recalling was the response of parents watching their infants writhing in pain on glowing red arms.

This is how Jesus depicted Hell.

It is not a dump.

It is a place to run away from as fast and as hard as you possibly can.

It is a place that you would not risk going to for a minute, not for all the pleasure in Las Vegas or all the riches in Saudi Arabia.    

Recently, a thoughtful young man asked a question that jarred a childhood assumption– one implicit in the evangelist’s creed: once you die you have forever lost the opportunity to change your mind. This was how the question was posed: “What’s so special about the moment of death that it suddenly cuts off the availability of God’s grace?”

Growing up in the home of Baptist church planters the important issues were simple and clear: Jesus died on the Cross to save sinners from an eternal Hell and it was the most important thing in the world to share the Gospel so that those who were lost could receive salvation through Christ. Now some may smugly deride that as an embarrassingly reductionist world view. The simple answer is that if you read the four Gospels for yourself, rather than through the second-hand grid of postmodern influencers, you discover an awkward fact: Jesus sounds more like a Baptist church planter than an ecologically sensitive, culturally nuanced, spiritually attuned, hip preacher.

That’s just being honest.

Now, as cheesy as it may sound, as it frequently happens, insight came several days later in my devotional reading. For Lent I am traversing the Gospels in the Orthodox Study Bible. I am also praying through the Morning Prayers in the Pocket Prayer Book for Orthodox Christians given to me by Scott Cairns several years back. Those prayers have helped mellow him (or mold him, as the case may be) into an amazingly sweet and gracious man—(I would say holy, but he would really resent it). I want to be like that, so there it is. I suspect that those potent, ancient prayers helped open me up to see something I would have missed otherwise.

In Mark 1 Jesus is preaching His first sermon in Capernaum, the town that is His base of operations. It is the Sabbath, and as is His practice, He is teaching in the local synagogue. In mid sentence He is interrupted by an enraged cry that sounds more like that of a terrified beast. There is both fear and loathing in the animalistic shriek. A man jumps up and, in violation of Jewish decorum, shouts out: “Let us alone! What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Did you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” The plural is highly significant: the man is demonized and the voice that is coming from his throat is that of “an unclean spirit,” but the repugnance being voiced is corporate. “Get away from us—leave us alone!”

With one assertive phrase Jesus prevents any further words. “Shut up,” He commands, “and come out of him!” After the demon throws his host into a fierce paroxysm, he flees, shrieking the whole way out (Mk. 1:21-26).

What we are seeing in this encounter is real Hell on earth. Bell in Love Wins makes much of human cruelty and the hell we create “when we resist and reject all that is good and true and beautiful and human now” (Love Wins, 79). Not to deny that humans are guilty of creating hellish situations, the (small and large) hells that have splattered gore over the pages of history are the product of the malevolent synergy of the human and demonic. Would any of the apostles disagree that the Holocaust was spawned by a demonized man given power to sway and mesmerize masses to perform insane atrocities? Would Paul negate the claim that the mass murderers, serial killers and implacably violent criminals of various stripes, at some level, have all been influenced by dark forces he describes as “spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places”? (Eph. 6:12).

But in Love Wins Satan is a comic foil: “a really crafty figure in red tights holding a three–pointed spear, playing Pink Floyd records backward, and enjoying the hidden messages” (LW, 70). His personality is frequently muddled by quotation marks. (Fact or fiction? Fable or fiend? It is purposefully unclear: “Whoever and whatever he means by that word ‘Satan’”) (LW, 89). When Bell refers to Paul’s hair-raising directive that the incestuous man in Corinth be “handed over to Satan,” Bell smirks and tells us that this passage makes him want to use “a Darth Vader voice” (LW, 89). When Satan is used for comic relief, and the demonic is excised from one’s cosmology, it is understandable why the picture of a fiery Hell would appear laughable as well.

But Satan and his demons did not make Jesus want to use a funny voice. I think it completely appropriate to say that He hated them, perfectly. He got in their face and shouted them down (and out) with scathing commands that show Him to be neither meek nor mild. I think that when Jesus confronts the demonic we see what God thinks of residents of a Hell prepared and reserved for Satan and his demons—that is what the constant warnings about the “wrath of God” signify. And more to the point, the words the demon hurls at Jesus through the man’s vocal chords provide us a clue about the reason for the irrevocable dividing line between the living and the dead. They help answer the honest question I was asked.

The automatic reaction of the demonized man is not to repent but to reject Jesus with the greatest intensity possible. Demonized men, left to their own devices, do not volunteer for exorcism. They spin down into interminable, increasing cycles of violence, depravation and horror, usually until death shuts them down. Which raises a question, after death do demons leave demonized people or keep spinning them like a crazed top?

Jesus warns religious leaders that when a demon is cast out of a man, if the man’s spirit remains open and unprotected, it returns with “seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first” (Lk. 11:24-26). What hope does a man have who is filled with seven wicked spirits? And, if on this earth men can give permission to demons to take control, what level of permission is given on their home turf, where they exercise immensely greater influence?

This is why cosmology (our view of how creation operates) matters so much. If Satan and his hosts are real beings, not make-believe comic figures, like Bell insinuates, then these are exceedingly relevant to determining what occurs when we die.

I need to explain something here. The reason why it seems arbitrary and unjust for God to draw the line at death (or at some point soon thereafter—assuming there may be some special manifestation granted to those who have not had a chance to commit to Jesus as their Lord before death) is because we are looking at things backwards. Our perspective is earth-bound. All we know is this reality, so we extrapolate from what we know to what we don’t know. God is gracious and merciful and slow to anger, we are reminded repeatedly. He is patient, wanting all to come to repentance, we are assured. The Bible’s most famous verse teaches us that God loves the world with such intensity that He does not want any to perish. These are all verses that Bell believes support the conclusion that in the end, somehow, someway, sometime, God’s love wins out over all–eventually.

If we turn around and look at the future from the perspective of the future rather than the present (if that is somehow possible), we see something else entirely. Jesus tells His hometown congregation that “this is the year of the Lord’s favor . . .” (Lk. 4:19 NIV). Jesus is directly quoting words from Isaiah 61:2. In doing so He uses a rabbinic technique called remez, in which a key phrase is left out. The purpose is to highlight by omission. The omitted words are: “. . . and the day of vengeance of our God.”

I think He stops in the middle of the verse in order to distinguish the present age of God’s grace from the coming age when mercy ends and refined judgment is released without restraint. He is telling them the He comes to inaugurate the Age of Grace, the Day of Judgment awaits the end of history. Throughout the New Testament we learn that that “day” is marked by a ruthless separation leading in two antithetical directions. That future day will be entirely different than what we now take so for granted. Whether we recognize it or not, we all live within a canopy of God’s loving providence marked by supernatural protections, loving restraints and divine influences. Everything that is true, good and beautiful in this world is inspired ultimately by God’s Holy Spirit. Every act of kindness is prompted and energized by His invisible power. God’s loving generosity makes this fallen world livable and delightful. And under this umbrella He also quietly, secretly, gently, in millions of ways, whispers, woos, and invites humans to turn away from self-centered emptiness to fullness of life in Him.

But one day this too shall come to an end.

Jesus refers to this reversal as day and night. He tells His followers that today is the season of favor when the sun shines and “we must do the work of Him who sent me.” But this will not always be true for, “Night is coming, when no one can work.” Then, reversing the metaphors, He says that as long as He remains in the world (physically and mystically) “I am the light of the world” (Jn. 9:4-5). This is a veiled warning: “Don’t presume on My grace, for one day the Sun will be extinguished and those outside will be left to grope in the dark.” That dreadful day is what He hints at when He lets the audience in Nazareth fill in the blanks with the phrase, “the day of vengeance of our God.”

At creation God put restraints upon man as well as the earth. According to Proverbs 8:29 “He gave the sea its boundary so that the waters would not overstep His command.” The Flood, when the waters transgressed these boundaries, illustrates the removal of creational restraints for the purpose of releasing cataclysmic judgment on the unrepentant. Many interpret Paul’s reference in II Th. 2:7 to the “One who now holds [lawlessness] back” as a reference to the Holy Spirit who likewise restrains the expansion of wickedness throughout the earth. Paul says that He will eventually, “be taken out of the way.” At that time evil will flood the earth like a Tsunami from backed up sewers.

If Hell is the place where demons rule, where all restraints on iniquity are dissolved, and where the convicting voice of the Holy Spirit is silenced, man is left to spin in ever tightening concentric circles. There is nothing to stop the downward momentum for the brakes and the pads are gone. The man who has chosen to worship himself rather than God is turned in upon himself and there is no external power available to reverse the centrifugal force and cause him to spin outward. Having said yes to his own will and no to God’s, he is now left to his own devices in the grasp of purely malevolent beings.

This takes us back to the phrase that Bell finds so humorous. Not surprisingly what is offensive to the postmodern mind proves to be of great significance. When Paul speaks about “handing over to Satan” he is describing the ordeal of releasing a human into hell while he lives that he might escape Hell when he dies. In Romans 1, on three occasions, Paul says that God “gave over” impenitent sinners who persist in evil. This refers to a horrific reality where all protections are removed and humans are left completely exposed to the forces of darkness—while they live. This is a foretaste and foreshadowing before death of a future Hell after death.

Being handed over to Satan is no joke for after death when a human being is given over, all hope vanishes. But, as Ambrosiaster clarifies: “They were given over, not so that they could do what they did not want to do, but so that they could carry out exactly what they desired. And this is the goodness of God.” (Commentary on Paul’s Epistles, 370-380 AD). 

Hell is more than a place, it is a judicial sentence where rebels are surrendered completely over to the power of another—and this power has no shred of mercy and sympathy. They are condemned to join a mad dance orchestrated and energized by demons which centers eternally around radical self love. True Love is banished by a manic obsession with “my rights”, “my feelings”, “my pain.” On this earth, where we have the powerful influence of the Spirit of God, there are times where the words: “I was wrong, please forgive me,” have to be shoved off our tongues with a bulldozer. In Hell they will be too heavy to budge. Like schizophrenics perseverating madly, the single, compulsive, endless thought will be “I was wronged—I was wronged–it was not my fault.”

When the night comes in which “no one can work,” good works will no longer be possible. Repentance will be out of reach since punishment can only provoke selfish sorrow and regret. The gravitational pull of the wounded self can sink in only one direction: deeper and deeper into cycles of self-pity, resentment and anger till it becomes a self-absorbed cauldron of fury in which God is the One terrible enemy. The demons within and without reinforce this seething fear and hatred such that even were Love Himself to appear the demonized man would run away screaming in unison: “Let us alone. What have we to do with you?”

It is not funny—not by a long shot. And the ironic truth of the matter is that the reality of an eternal Hell does the most honor to man as an image bearer of God. We are fearfully and wonderfully made and part of that fearfulness is freedom to will against God. The good news of the Gospel is that through Christ, God by His Spirit draws and enables us to choose for God. But He will not force the choice and strong arm a human being to do what he will not do. When the will has issued its resolute and final decision: “I will my will not yours!” The die is cast and, paraphrasing Lewis, God steps aside, withdraws all manifestation of His gracious love and says: “Well then, your will be done in Hell as it is on earth.”

That is why Hell is eternal.

That is why death will irrevocably seal our fate.

That is why none of this is something to laugh about.  

For years I have been troubled by something I could not quite put my finger on. I was unable to define what was producing this vague unease as I read popular Christian writings. It’s kind of like being asked to describe what color is missing in an abstract painting.

I felt this uncomfortable sensation again reading Love Wins. Finally, yesterday it hit me. The unexpected insight was as startling as Marley’s ghost making his dramatic entrance into Scrooge’s sitting room. So, I decided to step back a little from his book and look behind and underneath to address the cause for this persistent disquiet.

I felt its force almost 10 years ago when I made my way through A New Kind of Christian by Brian MacLaren. Its impact was so intense that it seemed to compel me to write a response. For months I worked on an extended essay that would eventually bloat out at 32 pages. It was a cleansing of sorts but of what was not always clear. I had specific disagreements and listed them point by point. But, having laid them out, I knew there was something deeper—something was dreadfully amiss. 

The phrase I would eventually borrow to describe my malaise was “a disquieting contrast” which is C.S. Lewis’s phrase for what he felt when he compared Christian literary theory and modern literary criticism. It was a “repugnance of atmosphere, a discordance of notes, an incompatibility of temperaments.” Christian Reflections, “Christianity and Literature,” (GR: William B. Eerdmans, Pub. Co., 1982) 3. 

A few years later, my essay was refined into The God Who Smokes (thanks to my sons, who encouraged me to heed the autobiographical muse rather than the inner academic pedant). Over the years as I’ve continued listening to the cutting-edge communicators within the church, that distressing “incompatibility of temperaments” has become increasingly apparent. Not till I was a third of the way through Love Wins that at last I knew what it was. It was reading the Church Fathers that provided the reference point.

As I tell my wife, Patty, when I’m reading those exemplary men, it’s not like stepping back into another century, it’s entering another world entirely. There seems to be so much more weight and gravity there. It is disorienting because it always makes me question the flimsiness of my own reality. All the great doctors and fathers and mothers of the faith do this to me. Their universe is drenched with God. They are these amazing God-entranced humans whose intellects were welded with white-hot devotion to a glorious and loving piety. In a word, they were holy; they were saints, and I am not. And, sadly, very few who teach today are, whereas, back in the day, most were. That is why it I am wanting to make them my good friends. Maybe their holiness will wear off.

Putting down St. Chrysostom, and Jonathan Edwards (who died right before the Revolutionary War and preached blistering sermons on Hell and sermons about Heaven that make your heart break with longing), it became obvious. What has been steadily seeping out of our discourse over several decades is the humble, awe-struck recognition of majesty. This did not just happen ten years ago. It has been disappearing for several generations. But it is in this most recent generation that the resultant lightness of God’s being and immateriality has become obvious, even to those who like myself are least situationally aware.

This is the golden anniversary of a bold, prophetic book written by one of the most popular preachers of his day. His name is A.W. Tozer and the book is The Knowledge of the Holy. He wrote it in response to an appalling condition in the church which he diagnosed as “the loss of the concept of majesty from the popular religious mind.” He was convinced that in his day “the Church has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and has substituted for it one so low, so ignoble, as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshipping men.”

Tozer’s book reads as though it was writing today rather than in 1961: “This loss of the concept of majesty has come just when the forces of religion are making dramatic gains and the churches are more prosperous than at any time within the past several hundred years.” All is not what it seems, he warns. “But the alarming thing is that our gains are mostly external and our losses wholly internal; and since it is the quality of our religion that is affected by internal conditions, it may be that our supposed gains are but losses  spread over a wider field.”

What is so interesting to me is that Tozer is not dismayed by the assertion that God eternally punishes rebellious and unrepentant humans. He is not shocked or distressed by what Bell regards as appalling and inconceivable: that God is Someone from whom we need to be rescued. This is scandalous to sensitivities finely calibrated to sympathize with man and exclude God from the frame—sensitivities like mine and like yours.

We have all been made drunk on distilled spirits that have distorted our view of reality. Man is now great and God is made small; man’s rebellion is marginal while God’s infinite justice is monstrous. This is why Bell has to ask: “How could that God ever be good? How could that God ever be trusted?” In asking these rhetorical questions Bell discloses more than he realizes. He is unpacking for the world his view of God.

And fifty years back, with shattering lucidity Tozer reminds us that “What comes to our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. . . . For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at any given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. . . . Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God, just as her most significant message is what she says about Him or leaves unsaid, for her silence is often more eloquent than her speech.”

The reason Bell has to express his repulsion with biting sarcasm and ironic incomprehension is because his view of God has become so very, very flat. His God is bounded by a humanist, or humane frame. God is to be judged by the same standards that govern man. He must live up to our criteria for rightness and fair play. What we learned in Kindergarten applies just as rigorously to the Creator of the Universe as it does to any five year old playing in the school yard. God has been drained of transcendent majesty and replaced with a culturally-accepted deity whose goodness prevents him from punishing those who insist on rebelling against His love.

This is also why the only sins Bell finds distressing are horizontal, as if all that ultimately matters is whether I am greedy, mean, angry, abusive, fearful, or covetous. There is no mention of hating God, of loving ourselves more than Him, of ignoring God and refusing to submit to His commands. That we steal God’s glory for ourselves and want to be praised, honored and worshipped as little gods, does not crack the top 20 of big sins for which I should feel bad, much less repent. That we think about our own reputations but care less about whether Jesus is known, loved and served by those who have never heard of Him never ever comes up in the conversation.

In Bell’s cosmology God’s deepest longing and mankind’s greatest need is for humans to love each other and the environment well. “God has been looking for partners since the beginning,” he writes, “people who will take seriously their divine responsibility to care for the earth and each other, in loving, sustainable ways.” Love Wins, 36. I am hard pressed to come up with one Scripture that would support Bell’s reduction. But I admit, it does sound sweet, just like the idea of a God who is too nice to punish humans eternally.

The problem is that our view of God is not dictated by what is emotionally or even logically appealing. We do not have the freedom to make Him up as we go, or to redefine Him to make Him palatable to the fickle flights of public opinion. God stands over and against all our wishful thinking and shatters it with these words: “You shall not make for yourself an idol in any form . . . for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments” (Dt. 5:8-10).

Tozer issues a warning: “Among the sins to which the human heart is prone, hardly any other is more hateful to God than idolatry, for idolatry is at bottom a libel on His character. The idolatrous heart assumes that God is other than He is—in itself a monstrous sin—and substitutes for the true God one made after its own likeness. . .  A god begotten in the shadows of the fallen heart will quite naturally be no true likeness of the true God.”

This brilliant teacher very helpfully simplifies a concept that we make unnecessarily complex: “The essence of idolatry,” he explains, “is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him.” And this raises the obvious question: Where do we get correct thoughts about God? The answer is very simple: from reading His self-disclosure in the Bible, from beginning to its end—not just the parts in the middle we like.

Our conception of God will need to be imprinted with the full and unedited revelation of Himself. This will include the disclosure of His direct involvement in sending a flood, ordering the annihilation of seven Canaanite nations, burning two towns, punishing His people with the armies of Assyria and Babylon, and then fatally crushing His Beloved Son on the cross.

But it will not stop there, it will continue all the way to the end of the Epic in which it is revealed that this Son returns, revealing the blazing eyes of a Father at War. It will not shrink back from acknowledging that the Lamb who was slain will one day be the Lion who Reigns, from whose wrath men will free in terror. It will not close its eyes at the blood spattered vestments of this Warrior for Righteousness who “treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty” and on whose thigh are written the words: “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” (Rev. 19:15-16).

Why does a right view of God matter so much? Only a right view of God can produce a right view of self says Tozer. Only the person who has been overwhelmed with God’s beauty, majesty and transcendence can understand the significance of his failure to love and worship this God acceptably. And it is this conviction that drives the man to the cross for forgiveness and compels him to take up his cross and follow Jesus.

A right view of God alone makes the gospel intelligible. Tozer explains, “The gospel can lift this destroying burden from the mind, give beauty for ashes, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. But unless the weight of the burden is felt the gospel can mean nothing to the man; and until he sees a vision of God high and lifted up, there will be no woe and no burden. Low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them.” 

Contrary to what Bell implies, the higher the view of God, the more intense and the depictions of future judgment. Paul, Peter and John give us the most terrifying descriptions of an eternal, fiery punishment awaiting those who refuse to come to Christ, yet they are the ones who keep interrupting their letters with almost involuntary doxologies. They keep getting overwhelmed with God’s greatness, not man’s or creation’s.

John, the beloved disciple, “the apostle of love” is the most brutal and unflinching. He prophesies unapologetically that every man who rebels against the love of God and “worships the beast and his image” will be required to drink a cup filled “with the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of His wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur . . . and the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who received the mark of his name” (Rev. 14:9-11).

If you were to ask John, the apostle of love, “who wins at the end?” you would see his face suddenly enthralled with the majestic worth of his beloved Lord, and he would answer you without hesitation: “The Lamb wins, of course. The Lamb who was slain before the foundation of the world, the one to whom cherubim, angels, elders and holy martyrs sing eternally: ‘Worthy are you to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength, honor and glory and praise—forever and ever and ever.’”

And it is only those who can sing that song that can recognize the wisdom and justice of an eternal Hell.     

Though I am still reading it, what seems clear is that Bell’s marketing teaser is pretty accurate. In his video-pod he boils down the essence of the traditional Gospel to the assertion that God is going to send you to Hell unless you believe in Jesus. The questions he asks is, “How could that God ever be good? And how could that ever be good news?” In his book he repeats these questions and several dozen more.

In Love Wins Bell is launching a serious critique against the orthodox belief in the reality of conscious, eternal torment for those who reject Christ. I will read it through to the end before engaging his ideas in detail, but in his preface he spells it out:

“A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better…. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’ message of love, peace, forgiveness, and joy that our world desperately needs to hear” (Preface, vi).

Now, the really bad news hidden beneath Bell’s sympathetic and generous dismissal of the church’s historic teaching about an eternal Hell is that it drives evil and suffering, whether great and small, completely outside the providence of God. A good God who is too good to condemn to Hell is incapable of having anything to do with the major traumas of my life, except to (after the fact) put a kindly but impotent hand on my shoulder and sympathize with my pain. This good-natured, frustrated bystander to suffering can offer us no real hope or comfort at all.

The conclusion is obvious: God has nothing to do with the present calamity in Japan or Haiti’s devastation not so long ago, or any of the tragedies of life. Humans are stripped of hope that even in the bottomless depths of our sorrow God is purposefully, mysteriously at work in a multitude of ways and at a myriad of levels, disciplining, warning, protecting, training, refining, punishing, drawing, strengthening—and yes, loving. Stripping from God permission to “create darkness and light” leaves a major aspect of human reality devoid of His direct, gracious, and infinitely wise control.

What seems utterly inconceivable to the culture-current mind and contemporary teachers such as Bell is that God could be at both times good and severe; that He could be gracious and infinitely powerful; that He could forgive and yet also have the temerity to judge; that He could be both Father and King. These are all mutually exclusive categories for the post-modern student and (we now can say with conviction), to leading spiritual teachers as well. Love and omnipotence are radically contradictory to those who equate authority with oppression. Hence, Bell’s anxious flight from all concepts of eternal punishment and infinite judgment at the hands of a Holy and Loving God.

One thing we have learned from post-moderns is that objectivity is a myth. We are bent and biased by a multitude of factors toward or against just about everything that matters. And one of the problems with this subtle enculturation is that we walk around oblivious to how the tint of our glasses governs how we see the world. This is why C.S. Lewis observed that “Every age has its outlook. . . . We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books.”

The reason why it is unwise to only read books written by living people, or the recently deceased, is that we can all be unwitting participants of the same cultural blindness. Reading only cutting-edge authors can thus be an exercise in reinforcing paradigms that are not only wrong but dangerous—the blind leading the blind, so to speak. “We may be sure,” Lewis goes on, “that the characteristic blindness of the 20th century. . .lies where we have never suspected it. . . .”

Following Lewis’s sage advice I began reading a book that collected some amazingly old sermons. They were preached around 389AD by John Chrysostom, one of the Early Church’s best-known and most compelling preachers. He was in his time as popular as Rob Bell is in ours. As it happens, the last sermon of his I read was preached after a terrible earthquake hit the city of Antioch where his congregation was located.

Three days of wrenching anxiety and sadness have past and this Church Father begins by asking two penetrating questions. They are posed by a teacher who is broken by the devastation his city has undergone but is looking at it through eyes that are submissive to the revelation of God in both testaments. What he asks cuts to the heart of the assumptions which drive Rob Bell’s rejection of orthodoxy.

These are his two questions:

“Have you seen God’s power?”

“Have you seen God’s love for mankind?”

In two short sentences St. Chrys lays out a full-orbed, unapologetic, biblical cosmology. He asks his flock whether they caught sight of the greatness of God’s sovereign power and His limitless love in the midst of the cataclysm they just experienced. For this eminent teacher, these are not antithetical concepts. “His power, because he shook the world,” he continues, “His love, because he made the tottering world firm again; or rather, you saw both His power and His love in both. For the earthquake showed His power, and its cessation showed His love, because He shook the earth and made the world fast again, because He set it upright when it was rocking and about to fall.”

This wise pastor is teaching all of us that in all catastrophes we are to see two things; not love only, or power only. If we deny either, we slide into error and deception and, if we are teachers, we will take many down with us. “The earthquake has gone by,” observes this ancient and godly Bible teacher, “but let the fear remain; that tossing has run its course, do not let discretion depart with it. . . . Consider, if God had chosen to demolish everything, what we would have suffered. I say this, so that the fear of these events may remain sharp in you and may keep your resolution firm. He shook us, but he did not destroy us. If He had wished to destroy us, He would not have shaken us.” (On Wealth and Poverty, St. John Chrysostom, trans. Catharine Roth, St. Vladimir’s Press, 1981). 

These assurances which may appear glib and insensitive force us to ask: where is this supposed divine love in the face of horror, devastation and the scattered multitudes of dead bodies? And this is where we come face to face with the inescapable scandal of holy love. This is what is ruled out automatically by Bell’s sentimentalized assumptions about the love of God. This popular love is sympathetic, it is not distilled, pure and unrelentingly holy.

For Bell, God’s love is circumscribed by the frailty of our own human feelings. Bell repeats the same dreadful mistake made by so many teachers scandalized by God’s self-disclosure through the ages. Rather than humbly submit, he deconstructs what is unappealing and crafts a more tolerable God in man’s image.

This is the choice St. Chrys refuses because he knows what all the great teachers of the church have known all the way back to Moses: God defines God, not man. Everything He has written about Himself in Holy Scriptures, from beginning to end, is essential for all of life and for becoming the kind of people that truly honors Him—the kind of people to whom He says: “Come you who are blessed by my Father, take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world” (Mt. 25:34).

St. Chrys, writing with the gravitas of a wisdom and a courage not of this world, faces the scandal straight on: “But since He did not wish to destroy us,” he states, “the earthquake came in advance like a herald, forewarning everyone of the anger of God, in order that we might be improved by fear and escape the actual retributions.”

Is it even possible for us in this day and in this age to be able to hear what this Father is saying, along with the mighty host who preceded and followed him? Cataclysms are mercy. Catastrophes are warnings. Or so they declare. These events are massive red flags waving high in the sky crying out at those living their own personal, private lives: “Take heed, it is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment!” (Heb. 9:27 KJV)

But where there is no danger of an infinitely painful, eternal and irrevocable separation from God, then tragedies are simply random, meaningless, and ultimately hopeless events full of sound and fury but signifying nothing. But if they are reminders that God is not willing that any should perish but all should come to repentance, then they are severe mercies. This is why Bell’s dismissal is so dangerous—it muffles the piercing sound of the claxon as it shrieks out insistent warnings of the oncoming tsunami.

But, he asks a fair question: How can the threat of Hell be good news for anyone? The answer is given again by St. Chrys whose intellect and emotions were fully submitted to the Word of God: “When and why is the threatened Day of Judgment so full of agony and anguish?” he asks. “In it a stream of fire is rolling before God’s face and the books of our deeds are opened in front of Him. The Day itself is depicted as burning like an oven with angels flying about.” Then, anticipating Bell, he inquires: “How can God then be good and merciful and full of loving kindness to man?” His answer? “Even in this is He merciful and does He show the greatness of His compassion, for He holds these terrors out before us that being compelled by them, we might be awakened to the desire of the kingdom.” St. Chrysostom, Homilies on II Timothy, Homily III (my updating).

The threat of Hell, like the pain of dreadful catastrophes are reminders that there is so much more at stake than getting through life being kind to others and the environment. Like angry sirens, they startle us with these very unpleasant wails that hurt our ears and interrupt our sleep. They blare: “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens–so that only what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, let us worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:26-29).

If nothing else, Bell’s book has performed a crucial service. It forces upon us a choice: take another sleeping pill or be awakened from sweet slumber before all Hell really breaks loose.

I, for one, at least am grateful for that.

One of the most powerful chants repeated in Tahrir Square following the resignation of President Mubarak was: “The people made the regime step down.” The indecision of the Obama staff with its unwillingness to lend vocal support to the protesters made at least one thing crystal clear, this was a revolt by the people, for the people, with no outside intervention—end of story. It can now never be disputed that it was the Egyptian people who on their own took their country and their future into their own hands.

But what could easily be overlooked in the celebration is the disconsolate young man who sparked the conflagration that took down two governments and threatens several others. It is a graphic reminder that one modest, unspectacular life can have unimaginable influence.

Mohamed Bou’azizi’s father died when he was three years old. He was 10 years old when he became the family’s main provider, selling fresh produce in the local market. He was unable to graduate from High School, having left at 19 to work fulltime so his five younger siblings could continue their education. Every day, he would take his wooden cart to the supermarket and load it with fruit and vegetables. Then he would walk it about 1 mile to the local souk. And nearly everyday, he was bullied by local police officers.

Mostly, the abuse was the type of petty bureaucratic tyranny with which many in the region are all too familiar. Police would confiscate his scales and his produce, or fine him for running a stall without a permit. Six months before the final provocation, police sent a fine for 400 dinars ($280) to his house – the equivalent of two months of earnings. But on December 17, 2010 the abuse became intolerable.

On the way to market he was accosted for selling without a permit (none is required for mobile street sellers). Unable to pay the bribe, one of the officers, a policewoman, attempted to take away his scales but Bou’azizi refused to hand them over. They swore at each other, then, reportedly, she slapped him and with the help of her colleagues, forced him to the ground. They left with his produce and his scales.

In any culture a slap is a significant insult but to be slapped by a woman in this part of the world, is the most extreme form of public humiliation. Finally, Bou’azizi had had enough. Burning with shame and anger, he sought help at the local municipality building. Rebuffed, he left, now filled with a furious rage. Robbed of hope and dignity he walked back to the central square with two cans of paint thinner. Disconsolate and broken, he poured the viscuous liquid over his body and with one match set himself ablaze. He died 18 days later on January 4, 2011.

His funeral accelerated a protest movement incensed by widespread police corruption and the self-enrichment of the ruling family. But, in the beginning, the outrage was intensely personal for the young man was well-known and popular. He was known for giving free fruit and vegetables to the poor. Fueled by heavy use of social-media web sites like Facebook and Twitter by Tunisia’s large contingent of educated young people, it could not be contained. It raged unabated until President Ben Ali’s 23-year regime was toppled on January 14, 2011.

The fire spread to Cairo on January 25^th and refused to be quenched until it had likewise forced the resignation of strong-man Hosni Mubarak ending his 30-year autocracy on February 11, 2011. A message from Tunisia was a catalyst. Alluding to Bou’azizi’s immolation weeks earlier, it urged the protesters, “Don’t burn yourself up; burn up the fear that is inside you. . . . This was a society in fear, and the fear has been burned.”

Though its speed shocked the world, the Egyptian revolt was years in the making. A loose coalition known as Kefaya (“Enough”) began forming to oppose Mubarak. Its first rally on December 12, 2004 was the first occasion an Egyptian protest had been organized solely to demand the president’s resignation. It was also a textbook example of nonviolent protest. Almost 1000 activists gathered silently on the steps of the High Court in Cairo. Taped over their mouths were large yellow stickers emblazoned with one word: “Kefaya.” Significantly, on their protest banner the next year was emblazoned the picture of a candle with a solitary flame.

This grass-roots movement was influenced by the ideas of Gene Sharp, considered to be the father of the study of strategic nonviolent action. His 93-page guide to toppling autocrats: “198 Methods of Nonviolent Action” is available for download in 24 languages. He argues that nonviolence is the most effective tool to undermine police states willing to use violent resistance as an excuse to justify repression in the name of stability. When the nonpartisan International Center on Nonviolent Conflict slipped into Cairo several years ago Sharp’s guide was among the papers it distributed.

Then, about a year ago, Wael Ghonim, a 31-year-old Google marketing executive decided to use his social-networking savvy to support a youth movement coalescing around Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Prize-winning diplomat who had returned to Egypt to resurrect an opposition party. The result was a Facebook group: We Are All Khalid Said, named after a young Egyptian who was beaten to death by police. Through that group young Egyptians were educated about democracy movements. This set the stage for the dramatic 18-day revolution which virtually no one imagined possible.

And the fire shows no signs of letting up. It has leapt to Bahrain and Libya, causing profound alarm to the entrenched autocrats. What is remarkable is to see tens of thousands who for decades have been held captive in a state of smoldering acquiescence, set ablaze and set free from the paralysis of institutional terror. This is what most struck Mr. Sharp. Commenting on the Egyptian protesters’ fearlessness and disciplined commitment to nonviolence, he said, “That is straight out of Gandhi. If people are not afraid of the dictatorship, that dictatorship is in big trouble.”

While the outcome of the Egyptian revolt was still very much in doubt, Hosam Khalaf, a 50-year-old engineer brought his wife and daughter to join with the protesters at Tahrir Square. He wanted his small family there for one reason. “When we meet God,” he said, “we will at least be able to say: ‘We tried to do something.”

Those words made me wonder. What I have risked or what would I be willing to risk for Jesus? When each of us stands, as Paul says: “to give an account of himself to God” (Rom 14:12) what will we be able to say? More personally, when I look into “the eyes of Him to whom we must give account” (Heb. 4:13) what will He see in me? Will there be exposed a long, unbroken history of fearful timidity, commitment to ease, security and avoidance of pain? Will there be any record at all of heroic obedience, costly sacrifice and courageous devotion?

Those fearless protesters with heads no longer bowed show what is possible when the chains of fear and self-preservation are broken. When men and women are willing to sacrifice everything for a cause, they are an unstoppable force. That is what the Roman Empire discovered in the first four centuries after Christ. Persecuting and killing Christians proved to be the most counterproductive strategy imaginable. The more they died the stronger they became and the faster they grew.

This is of course what Satan discovered to his dismay after the Crucifixion. The greatest suffering resulted in the release of the greatest power. This power not only destroyed death but set free those “held in slavery by their fear of death” (Heb. 2:15). This is what set on fire the followers of Jesus who gave their lives away in nonviolent resistance to the powers of this world. They sacrificed their bodies in bold love in order to mysteriously fill up in their flesh “what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s affliction” (Col. 1:24). Of whom we are told the world was not worthy (Heb. 11:38).

These brave revolutionaries risked their lives selflessly but, unlike the protesters in Tunisia and Cairo, did not live to see the fruits of their labor. They did not receive the promise, we are told, for God planned something better for us so that “only together with us would they be made perfect” (Heb. 11:39-40).

I take it this means that we are called to join these heroes by likewise risking and giving our lives up as required, not with a vague hope of “doing something” but of gaining the prize, earning the reward of obedience, winning the crown of righteousness, and receiving the promised inheritance along with the host of brave brothers and sisters “who did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death” (Rev. 12:11).

May we all be found in their number and be able to give a good account on that day, that we did not just do something, we gave up everything, “as a fragrant offering”—just like our Lord did.