The Whore of Babylon Identified

Ever wonder who or what the author of Revelation had in mind when he penned these verses:

1 One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits by many waters. 2 With her the kings of the earth committed adultery, and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.”

3 Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. 4 The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. 5 The name written on her forehead was a mystery:

BABYLON THE GREAT

THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES

AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

6 I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of God’s holy people, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus.

(Revelation 17:1-6)

Well wonder no longer. Damon Thompson has heard from God and it turns out the whore of Babylon is Rob Bell!

Who knew?

Okay, so the whore of Babylon isn’t Rob Bell himself. According to Thompson, the whore of Babylon is “the universalist church”, but if you’re reading Rob Bell, you are flirting with said whore.

Rob Bell, probably praying to the Beast

It’s about time someone pointed out how “drunk with the blood of God’s holy people” those universalists are. Why, just this week a Reformed church in my neighborhood was firebombed by a mob of universalists wearing TOMS and chanting slogans about the reconciliation of all things. Those bastards!

What I found particularly helpful was Thompson’s insight that Gehenna can’t be a reference to the Valley of Hinnom outside the walls of Jerusalem. Why not? Because worms die in the Valley of Hinnom. Hell, on the other hand, is located in “the bowels of the earth” and has no shortage of worms capable of tolerating the 4000+ kelvin temperatures in the earth’s core for all eternity. Game, set and match, you inclusivist Babylonian hookers.

So in case you got lost, here’s a recap: When the Bible describes the place of the dead as being under the earth, that’s literal. When it mentions immortal worms eating the dead, that’s literal. When it describes a prostitute with the name “Babylon the Great” on her forehead, that’s a metaphoric reference to Christians who believe God intends to reconcile all people to himself.

Exegesis is so much easier when stuff just means what you want it to mean.

Carl Medearis on Piper vs. Bell

Carl Medearis takes a Rally-To-Restore-Sanity kind of approach to the whole hell/universalism/Rob Bell debate.

I think I like this guy.

Rob Bell & “Silly Questions”

I was really enjoying this video … until he started making his point.

The video was produced by Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, home of Douglas Wilson.

Apparently, people who struggle with the concept of God consigning Gandhi to eternal torment are asking “silly questions”.

Apparently, those who want to explore non-exclusivist views of salvation are “talking like idiots”.

Apparently, asking questions at all is bad because the church is in the business of dispensing ANSWERS!

And Christ Church certainly has answers. Their “What We Believe – Creeds and Confessions” page is over 48,000 words long. How could I possibly have any questions left? Silly me. It’s all been figured out for me.

I feel no need to defend Rob Bell. I’m not even sure I agree with him.

But personally, I’ve had 3 decades worth of churches that pretended to have all the answers. And it was in that context that I encountered “the cover up of shallow thinking.”

I say, bring on the questions.

Rob Bell in the Hot Seat

Today, Rob Bell sat down in front of an audience to discuss his new book, Love Wins. You can watch the interview here.

One thing is clear. Rob is not a universalist. He doesn’t believe that everyone will be in heaven, but he seems to take the view that those excluded will be excluded by their own choice. He also believes that there will be a lot of surprises about who populates heaven. He makes a good point that this was a frequent theme of Christ’s teaching – that the ones we’d expect to be in heaven will be cast out and the ones we’d least expect will be invited in.

If you’re looking for a really concrete systematic explanation of what heaven and hell are and what it takes to get to either place, you’ll be disappointed. I’m not sure Rob even has a clear idea himself. And he has certainly mastered the political art of answering the question he wished he’d been asked, rather than the question that was asked.

But having watched the video, you’ll definitely come away with a better understanding of what he’s hoping to accomplish. If you don’t have an hour and 12 minutes to spare, skip ahead to the last few minutes of the video, starting at 1 hour 04 minutes. Rob is asked why we need to re-examine our understanding of heaven and hell. His answer had him (and, I must confess, me) welling up with tears.

Rob shares the story of a woman from his church who had been in numerous abusive relationships and had struggled with cutting herself. He uses her story to indict the familiar heaven/hell explanation. You know, the one where God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, but if you were to die today, he would have no choice but to send you into eternal torment. Rob remarks that this notion of a God who can change from infinitely loving to infinitely wrathful in a split second, who can turn on you in a moment, has left many people with  ”really, really toxic, dangerous, psychologically-devastating images of God in their head – images of a God who is not good.” The God behind these conceptions “smells” profoundly unsafe, untrustworthy, unloving.

That’s what Rob is driving at. His message is that God is good. At the end of the day, whatever it looks like, God’s love will win. And that is Good News.

Believe Correct Things and Thou Shalt Be Saved

In the wake of all the hullabaloo over Rob Bell’s forthcoming book, Love Wins, Adam Ellis and Kevin Brown have posted some thoughts on the topic of orthodoxy vs. heresy.

Both rightly ask why the defenders of so-called orthodoxy feel the need to question the salvation of those whose doctrine differs from the popular doctrine of the day. As Ellis puts it, “Since when does one’s belief about the afterlife call their salvation into question?  Grace covers a multitude of sins, but not misunderstanding?”

Listening to some, one might conclude that while God can forgive murder, rape and child molestation, he won’t forgive a mistaken belief on certain theological issues. I can understand being held responsible for my actions. I have some control over those (assuming I have a free will). But I have little to no control over my beliefs. Contrary to common Christian appeals, the average person can’t really “choose to believe” anything. Try it. Try believing that the earth is flat. You can repeat it to yourself all day long, but you won’t actually believe it unless presented with evidence and reasons sufficiently persuasive to change your mind.

So what does God do with the sincere believer whose experience and reason genuinely leads his brain to conclude that X is true? Will God punish him if X is not true? Is being wrong the unforgivable sin? Has the church replaced “faith in Christ” with “faith about Christ”?

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t strive for correct beliefs or that we shouldn’t challenge questionable theology. But we need some grace for those who reach different conclusions.

At times, the evangelical community seems possessed by an unhealthy need to control the theology of its members. I believe that at the heart of the problem lies an insecurity. Deep down, we worry that our beliefs might actually be vulnerable, so we shut down dissent to avoid having to scrutinize our own doctrine too carefully. After all, we might wind up doubting some of our previously secure convictions and that’s scary. It’s much easier to dismiss those with dissenting beliefs as dangerous heretics than to allow their perspectives to challenge our own.

Wretched Theology

As much as I don’t agree with the approach of Ray Comfort, he does strike me as a fairly humble and pleasant fellow. Meet Ray’s ugly stepsister, Todd Friel. Friel started out with Comfort’s “Way of the Master Radio” and eventually branched out on his own with “Wretched Radio” and a related TV show. Friel takes Comfort’s Kindergarten-level theology and adds to it heaping doses of self-assured condescension.

In the following clip, Friel’s target is William P. Young, author of The Shack:

 
What’s abundantly clear from the above clip is that Friel has no grasp of the distinction between universalism and inclusivism. Universalism holds that all will be saved. Period. Inclusivism, on the other hand, holds that while salvation is through Christ alone, it is not limited only to those who come to a knowledge of Christ. From the inclusivist perspective, it is possible for people who have not heard and accepted the gospel to be saved. This is why Young keeps bringing the interviewer back to the fact that salvation is accomplished through Christ’s work on the cross, not through a person’s choice.

Several times throughout the radio interview, Young makes it clear that he is not a universalist. He thinks some belief/acceptance of God is required. Yet, because he isn’t certain what that belief/acceptance must look like, he doesn’t purport to know with certainty the ultimate fate of every non-Christian. This is what gets Friel all hot and bothered. In his black and white world you either confess Jesus as your Lord and Savior or you’re doomed. He accuses Young of being slippery like the devil, when in reality Young just has a more cautious, nuanced soteriology.

Friel’s lack of theological depth is no more apparent than when he insists that if you don’t believe in penal substitution, you’re not a Christian. Wow. In one fell swoop, Friel has condemned the entire Roman Catholic church, the Eastern Orthodox church, and pretty much every Christian up until the Reformation. But that’s a topic for another day.

I’ll leave you with these words from Billy Graham:

I used to play God but I can’t do that any more. I used to believe that pagans in far-off countries were lost and were going to hell—if they did not have the Gospel of Jesus Christ preached to them. I no longer believe that … I believe that there are other ways of recognizing the existence of God—through nature, for instance—and plenty of other opportunities, therefore, of saying ’yes’ to God.

Love Wins

I’ve never heard anything from Rob Bell that didn’t make me think. This video promo for his forthcoming book is no exception. Should be an interesting read:

HT: Mason at New Ways Forward