Waving or Drowning?

The Last Word: Chapter 13

Chapter 13 hit a little close to home.

"Jesus wants us not just to avoid being bad; more, he wants us to avoid being fruitless."

I hate that word - fruitless. At 35 I was a vice president of an investment firm. I loved my job, and I had arrived. As I approach my 40th birthday this summer I am, according to the people who know about these things, unemployed. (Although, I've never been busier. Or happier. Who knew?) I'm growing more and more comfortable with all that, but every once in a while, it'll wake you up at night.

To me this is a key thought in the book. If the point of the gospel isn't where you go when you die, what is it? I believe the point is what have you done/will you do while you live(d). And that is the purpose of Jesus' strong language, in places, on the issue of hell. It should shock us, "arrest us" as Neil puts it in this chapter, so that we turn from our current path of fruitlessness and choose a better option.

Ah, but you say, you're talking about works. Well, yes... yes I am. And hang on to your hats, because I think it's going to get worse.

NOTE: On May 9th Andrew Jones will be hosting Brian on his blog. Should be worth tuning in for.

The Last Word: Chapter 12

The point is not whether there is a hell: the point is God's justice! The point isn't whether Jesus -- by using the language of the construction -- confirms it. The point is, for what purpose does he use the language? What's his point in working with the construction?

Chapter 12 is a milestone... a marker in the book. I suppose that some readers, up until this point, were expecting that universalism would be Brian's preferred answer to the question of hell. Instead, in this chapter he draws a line in the sand, and each reader must decide if they are willing to cross it and go on. Universalism is not the correct anwers to the question. There is no answer the question worth considering, because it is the wrong question!

As Brian points out in the heading of this chapter, this is "something like a straight answer", or, as close to a straight answer as you are going to get. This point is so huge, and I think it will be a stumbling block to many. If you require an answer to the question of who is going to hell, this is your stop. Everybody off the bus.

Although we've approached the issue from a few sides already, this is where we can no longer avoid the question.

What is the gospel... to you?

The Last Word: Chapters 10 & 11

I probably should have included Chapter 10 in my previous post because here we're introduced to two more threads; the Messianic, which is entirely a Jewish construct, and the "scapegoat" factor. This is more good history for our education, but it's the latter thread that I think really comes into play when we consider how we arrived at the fundamental rationale of hell.

The scapegoat factor is all about "why hasn't God saved us yet, and just who's fault is it, anyway?" The Pharisees used the threat of hell to try and badger the Jewish people into correct behaviour, so that the Messiah would come and deliver them. And it is this view of hell that Jesus addresses, turns around, and throws right back in the Pharisees' faces. He deconstructs it! So I believe those famous statements on hell are not Jesus' definitive position on what hell is, but are more about pointing out the error of the Pharisees' ways.

"...maybe he was trying to alter their definition of what goodness or righteousness is. For the Pharisees, good meant disdaining, stigmatizing, excluding, and avoiding sinners. For Jesus, good meant forgiving sinners and reconciling them to the community. For the Pharisees, good meant explaining why the poor and sick deserved to be poor and sick and blaming scapegoats for the bad status quo. For Jesus, good meant helping the poor and healing the sick and seeking through love to transform the status quo."

Oh man... any of this starting to sound familiar?

No matter, because in Chapter 11 Brian completes the circuit for us, connects the dots, whatever else you want to call it. We have used the doctrine of hell in exactly the same manner as the Pharisees. We have missed the point entirely, and our definition of "righteousness" is way off the mark.

Heresy

I've had two hits this morning from someone googling "is Bono the Antichrist?"

I tell you what: I'll ask him Thursday night!

5 days to go!

The Last Word: Chapters 8 & 9

Note: Lest you rush off to canonize the afore mentioned Ron, let me quickly point out that he also accused me of cheating because some of my chapter posts are so short!

For those who haven't seen a copy of the book yet, Brian's chapters are mostly "bite-sized" - four or five pages in length. What I'm trying to do is take a salient thought from each chapter and relate to it personally. So some will be very short, and some longer.

And the comments are open, so let me know what you think!

Chapters 8 and 9 give some history , and walk us quickly through four historical schools of thought on hell; Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Zoroastrian and Greek.

These threads made up the cultural and linguistic experience that surrounded and influenced Israel. These were the building blocks the Jews had available to them as they sought to articulate their own beliefs.

Again, some very rich contextual background that you will hate if you are seeking the "right"  - and also by extention the "wrong" - answers. If you are already intuitively comfortable with the notion of biblical context then this gives you a good education.

Note2: I've been trying not to read too far ahead of where I've posted too. But because the chapters are short, I can't stand it any more! I'm going to barge ahead with the reading and "backfill" my posts as I'm able. This book is too good to only read a few pages at a time.

Earth Day

It's Earth Day. What will we do?

(Swing by Pernell's blog and check out a few Earth Day posters.)

The Last Word: Chapter Seven

In Chapter 7 the conversation between Dan and his friend Neil (the artist formerly known as Neo) gets rolling:

"My problem hadn't been that Scripture uniformly and unequivocally portrayed my traditional doctrine of hell; rather, it was that I had adopted a rationale - a work or construction of reason, logic, interpretation - for weaving the many voices of Scripture together into a tight cord. I had supressed some voices and favored others. Others.... - who rejected the traditional view - weren't necessarily rejecting Scripture; they were rejecting our traditional rationale, our conventional construction, our preferred way of weaving or binding together the many relevant passages of Scripture."

This is a conversation about biblical context, and I know it's sensitive stuff for a lot of people. Some may feel that thinking this was is not being "true" to scripture. I think it's more accurate to say that thinking this way is not being true to our rationale of scripture, as defined by Dan above.

The challenge for us is to differentiate between the two, and to loosen our grip on our modernist need to "know".

This morning I hooked up with my friend Ron, and we chewed through some of this together. He came up with a great thought:

We need to get to the place where our goal is to know Truth, and release our need to know the truth. In other words, to know that which is real, as opposed to to that which is right.

Still working on this one. Thoughts?

Sushi, Sunshine, Sacred Sex and Secret Societies

Today is one of those days. If I tried to describe it using mere words I would shatter it. Suffice to say I'm down at Cates Park eating my lunch and enjoying the sunshine. I was also here last night, enjoying the same sun and having a little dinner by the ocean.

I've been a bachelor this week; Sue is up at Linwood House participating in the latest edition of The Journey. As I've written before The Journey (and East Vancouver in general) is becoming more and more of what we're all about at Linwood House Ministries. Sue is taking more responsibility in the program, and she is finding the work incredibly fulfilling.

Back to last night.

I opted for sushi, and around here that leaves me with a lot of choices. The winner was the "mid-range" place - the sushi isn't the best but the people are great. I go there once in a while to experience the smiles. Their english isn't very good, but it always amazes me how much we can communicate with smiles, laughter, a little bowing, and some pointing. I enjoyed some green tea while I waited, then grabbed the take-out bag and here to the park.

That's how I ended up on a bench by the water with a little box of sushi and my iPod. Let me back up a little and explain.

Last week I charged my way through The DaVinci Code. First, I loved the book - what a thriller! Initially I had ignored the buzz and had no intention of reading it. However, When I was back in Ontario last month the folks at The Meeting House were talking about the upcoming sermon series Decoding The DaVinci Code. That series took place over the last three weeks, so having read the book I sat here last night and listened to the first two segments. Bruxy Cavey (the teaching pastor) teamed up with Jim Beverley, author of Counterfeit Code and professor at Tyndale Seminary for the series.

For those who are interested, here are some links:

Week 1 - Faith, Fact and Fiction
Audio (mp3)
Notes (pdf)
Quotes (pdf)

Week 2 - Secret Societies & Sacred Sex
Audio (mp3)
Notes (pdf)
Quotes (pdf)

Week 3 - Hotseat Sunday: Life & Teaching of Jesus
Audio (mp3)
Notes (pdf)
Quotes (pdf)

The first sermon was a little difficult to listen to. The tag-team format is a bit distracting, but I think by the second week they'd worked out their rhythm a little.

Frankly I think the real value is in the notes and quotes. The Meeting House always has great resources and they've gone all out here, providing much more than they covered in the audio. Listening will whet your appetite, but the notes could provide several hours of study.

If you've read the book I think you'll find the material extremely interesting. They deal with a lot that Dan Brown passes off lightly as "fact". What I know about the holy grail I learned from Monty Python, so I appreciated the education.

N.T. Wright in Seattle

Hmm. This is tempting.

MAY 18, 7:30 P.M.
Public Address by N.T. Wright
“Decoding the Da Vinci Code: The Challenge of Historic Christianity to Post-Modern Fantasy”
Upper Gwinn Commons (SPU campus)

MAY 19, 7:30 P.M.
Public Address by N.T. Wright
“God, the Tsunami, and 9/11: The New Problem of Evil”
First Free Methodist Church (adjacent to the SPU campus)

I wonder what else he's doing while he's on the west coast. Thanks to Wes for the heads-up.

One

Here's an email just received from the good folks at the One campaign. As One is the American version of Make Poverty History (it took me a while but I figured that out!) this will be of particular interest to the Americans out there. You know who you are.

Dear Friend:

"ONE by ONE They step forward." As Brad Pitt and Cameron Diaz uttered those simple phrases on MTV, ABC and Christian Broadcast Network earlier this month, a new chapter was opened in the fight against global AIDS and extreme poverty as more than 100 million Americans were introduced to ONE! If you haven't had a chance to see the full 60 second version of the video, make it ONE hundred million and ONE

Watch the full ONE spot here!

History is being made by YOU! Across America, people have responded, as ONE to the emergency of AIDS and extreme poverty - in the past four weeks alone, more than 200,000 Americans have joined, more than doubling the size of  ONE: The Campaign to Make Poverty History!

Like you, Jamie Foxx believes that together, ONE by ONE, "we can start to make poverty history."

Watch the ONE spot now!

Learn the facts, share your knowledge, and teach others that it is possible to create a world where extreme poverty is a thing of the past. Visit ONE.ORG to learn about the challenges facing our world today.  As ONE, we can make the difference.

ONE by ONE, we will continue to make history; help keep our momentum building by emailing your friends and family and ask them to join The ONE Campaign. If each ONE of us shows this video to even ONE friend and they sign the declaration at ONE.ORG, we will double in size again!

Thank you,

The ONE Campaign Team