I can’t think of a good joke for this right now. (Feel free to use your wit in the comments section, if you feel inclined.)
The reality of Heaven (that we’ve been discussing in recent posts) pulls into question the validity of the bible’s portrayal of Hell as well.
I think the scorching flames, pitchforks, and undying worms have actually undersold the idea of Hell.
Not that isolation and burning hot sulfur would be fun, but the reality of choosing death over life and the separation from God cannot be caught up in amputated descriptions we ordinarily have.
Who better to elucidate the topic than arguably the foremost New Testament scholar alive today.
Below is the statement not about real keys, or master locks. It’s about the victory of God, and about the hope we have that death is truly conquered.
First, remember that Christmas is a time of giving. Here’s my project to give things away (public domain style). There are just a few days left to leave your mark on the world during Advent.
Second. Some needed Christmas humor…okay, it’s semi-dark humor.
Three selections: 1. Funny Santa photo 2. Funny Santa photo 2 (I did a whole week of this last year) 3. (suspicious holiday songs)
I haven’t been able to put my finger solidly down on the reason why I haven’t enjoyed the artwork of Thomas Kinkade, the self-described “painter of light.” Until now.
If you like his work, please accept my apology. It could just be a matter of personal taste, but my dislike centers on something that maybe he has created very unintentionally. Yet, on inspection of his many works, I find something very untrue about it. Something saccharine. Something short of Truth. Do you?
This brings me to a great commentary on truth. As NT Wright says, “Truth happens”. It is not a matter of whether I speak correctly of something factual. “The table is made of wood,” for instance. In the case of corresponding evidence, for an authentic reality, we may speak what is true. But most of life doesn’t flesh out that way. Really, none of the biggest questions do.
So, perhaps, Truth is a verb.
I appreciated N. T. Wright’s thoughts on beauty and truth (see short video). I’d like to hear your thoughts about it.
Loud and sustained sounds used to send me into shutters with shivers up my spine. Once in a while they still do, especially if they resemble a brass instrument. Since I live near a firehouse, my overall sensitivity has decreased. How odd…Why the fright, you may ask?
Two words:
Trumpet Blasts
(signaling the Rapture)
The 1980s Mark IV series of fundamentalist apocalypse films are to blame.
The titles are as follows:
1. A Thief in the Night
2. A Distant Thunder
3. Image of the Beast
4. Prodigal Planet
Have you seen any of them? $99 will buy you all 4 here. Horrible stuff.
In more recent times, the Christian mega hit book series by Tim LaHaye, and subsequent movie trilogy based on his books Left Behind, claims to portray the Biblical predicts in the so-called Last Times.
All three movies will cost you just under $20 here. The extra bonus, if you grew up in the 1980s, is seeing teen heartthrob Kirk Cameron acting again.
(I really thought I’d married him one day. In middle school, I wrote him 2 fan letters and everything. Pffft, his LOSS!)
Here’s the real problem:
What many, if not most, of us don’t realize is how recent and uniquely North American this pseudo-theology is. It’s popular just in North Amercia, and hardly heard of nor accepted elsewhere in Christianity, globally, let alone historically.
Here is a quick rundown of it. It’s recent doctrinal misappropriation: The Rapture and Second Coming stuff. (Spoiler Alert: It started “coming to life” rather recently…in the 1700s).
I deeply appreciate NT Wright’s comments called Farewell to the Rapture. It’s a short read.
He shows how Paul’s language colorfully used social, religious, and political metaphors of the particular time. Rapture advocates have wildly attributed his intriguing language to extremely specific and literal occurrences and world events–present and future.
Regarding eschatology (the study of end times), Wright says,
“Understanding what will happen [in the future] requires a far more sophisticated cosmology than the one in which “heaven” is somewhere up there in our universe, rather than in a different dimension, a different space-time, altogether.”
Basically, this invention which is American-flavored End-Times theological subverts God’s current work of redemption in us. It obscures God’s nature, as well, and what God is “up to.”
The Harold Camping rapture nonsense brings this misunderstanding into glaring and ghastly light. How were his followers helped by his understanding of God? What will they do now that they haven’t raptured? Sad.
Even the attempts to map out the book of Revelation on any sort of timeline are terribly misguided. The book reads like an acid trip. Revelation barely made it into the Biblical canon. Martin Luther, who wanted the Bible in the hands of all Christian laity, said it should be included in the canon, but only if it was never used as teaching material.
Nevertheless, I’m quite fond of the Revelation 22:17. It sums it all up for me! For more encouragement, try my friend Ed’s related post here.
How do you view the Book of Revelation?
The prime focus for believers should be the event and meaning of the cross, then and forever. It should be about how this truth of God’s work and grace becomes incarnational reality in our everyday lives. Let it never be degraded to who will get sucked into the sky one day, and when.
After you read these 7 considerations (from Scot’s post), will you please comment here?
1. Theodicy: how does God deal with evil if it, in effect, exists for ever in a hell-state? Does evil not continue to exist, even in spite of the statement in Revelation 21:1-4 that death and suffering will be no more? So, the issue here is squaring God’s goodness with eternal evil.
2. Eternal hopelessness: a traditional hell does not permit any hope after death for anyone, including those who have never heard. Is there a law that says God’s grace can only be active in the temporal sphere — that is, during our physical lifetime?
3. Eternal evil: does not the traditional view entail the view that God never really does purge his world of evil?
4. Justice vs. Love: the issue here is an old one. If God is love, how does justice fit in with that love. Is God ambivalent or split? An image of God that emerges for many is a cruel father who guides people to think of eternal punishment as an act of love.
5. Eternal divine violence: assumptions are that punishment is an act of violence and eternal punishment would mean God is eternally violent. She connects this view of God with acts of violence in history. She thinks God’s violence contradicts God’s love.
6. Retributive justice: again, a major issue is that God’s justice in the Bible — in Christ — is restorative but hell is a belief in a retributive justice that never becomes restorative.
7. Eternal punishment for temporal sin: how can it be just to punish a human being, who sinned temporally — that is over a life time (and no more), for an eternity for that temporal sin?
