Kim Gentes

It's true. There is a long history of a small segment of Christianity that has held to the belief that God will save all people, even those that reject him on this earth. Rob Bell's recent book "Love Wins" takes a look at another spin of this age-old concept of universalism.  Bell writes and thinks well. There is no denying it. But ultimately he stays well within the context of the best argument for universalism- human reason and human attribution of the qualities of "love" on to the Divine Person.  As long as you use logic that does not look at all the scriptural record, and rely heavily on personal anecdotes to frame the "kind of God" that you are willing to believe in (and that He is a good God), then you can arrive at the doctrine of universalism and feel pretty good about it. And this is primarily what Bell does.

I was surprised at how anecdotal the entire book was. I love much of Bell's writing, but his treatment of this topic relies initially on a logical progression of human reasoning (not based primarily on Scripture) and ignores investigation, explanation and support of key texts that seem to contradict Bell's thesis. I wanted to emotionally agree with Rob Bell. But neither the specific texts of the Bible that might seem to support universalism (but on deeper look, do not), the historical context of Jesus timeframe or a comprehensive review of all Scripture (including texts which clearly contradict universalism, and overtly declare literal judgment in a literal hell) line up to do anything but refute the premise and content of "Love Wins". I am not a Bell basher, and I appreciate and like some of his other works. Throughout, there are a number of concepts based on specific redefinitions of words (such as forever not actually meaning "eternal", hell not meaning a non-earthly place of punishment but instead meaning "Hell is our refusal to trust God’s retelling of our story"[1] according to Bell). And you see the conflict here- yes Hell could include our refusal to trust God's retelling, but it is a definition that removes the imagery Jesus used of suffering and eternity.

 Bell begins with exploring some thoughts about what kind of God we might be talking about, who is ultimatley in control, some thoughts about hell as a concept (placing it on earth mostly, and certainly not as a reality in the ethereal world), understanding more about what God's desires are and how they might work and ultimately towards a conclusion that just assumes that a good God would not send a person intentionally to a painful punishment for all eternity. But Bell uses conjecture as his backbone to the book, not scripture. He proof texts some support when possible, but does not draw his primary thoughts from the bible.

I love that Bell asks so many profound questions. For this, his voice is refreshing. But "Love Wins" ultimately answers none of its questions except to give universalism a "pass" because ultimately Bell's anecdotal view of life leads him to that conclusion.

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Review by Kim Gentes

[1]Bell, Rob. "Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived". (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2011) Kindle Edition.  Pg. 170

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together is a modern classic manual to understanding and practicing Christian community.  The book, though short, provides thoughtful and crisp perspectives on what people foundationally believe about community, some of the misguided premise which people start with and what a core of Christian community should be based on.  From there, he guides people through a myriad of important issues dealing with community.  Each sub-topic is addressed in terms of its value to the individual and its value to the community.  Always, we see Bonhoeffer subverting the desires of the individual by exposing them to the underlying truth of the selfishness of their practices. 

Bonhoeffer begins his treatise by exploring the need and nature of fellowship.

The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer.[1]

This definition is quickly assigned a real world understanding in the representative place that a believer has as the reflective image (Imago Dei) of God:

The prisoner, the sick person, the Christian living in the diaspora recognizes in the nearness of a fellow Christian a physical sign of the gracious presence of the triune God.[2]

This kind of understanding of community as a mutual mirroring of God’s presence to all around us throughout the fellowship is not simply an inward blessing club, rather, it is a entrance into the reality of Bonhoeffer’s understanding of what Jesus has given us in the kingdom of God.

Bonhoeffer assigns his weightiest words on the deconstruction of the mythic utopia that some think Christian community to be, when he says:

Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial. God hates this wishful dreaming because it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. Those who dream of this idealized community demand that it be fulfilled by God, by others, and by themselves. They enter the community of Christians with their demands, set up their own law, and judge one another and even God accordingly. They stand adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of the community. They act as if they have to create the Christian community, as if their visionary ideal binds the people together. Whatever does not go their way, they call a failure. When their idealized image is shattered, they see the community breaking into pieces. So they first become accusers of other Christians in the community, then accusers of God, and finally the desperate accusers of themselves. Because God already has laid the only foundation of our community, because God has united us in one body with other Christians in Jesus Christ long before we entered into common life with them, we enter into that life together with other Christians, not as those who make demands, but as those who thankfully receive.[3]

Once this misunderstanding of Christian community is thoroughly shattered under his lithe polemic of artificial Christian community, the remainder of Life Together builds a construct that expresses, for Bonhoeffer, the reality of true fellowship.   Such architectural work is clearly informed by the very real situation and community in which Bonhoeffer found himself during World War II, within the confines of Nazi Germany.  In such a stark environment, this great Christian leader is trying to practically give people tools for caring, in faith, for Jesus (as represented in each other) and for experiencing the co-unity of God with his community.  This kind of effort manifests itself very practically in Life Together.

The exclusion of the weak and insignificant, the seemingly useless people, from everyday Christian life in community may actually mean the exclusion of Christ; for in the poor sister or brother, Christ is knocking at the door. We must, therefore, be very careful on this point.[4]

But Bonhoeffer is careful not to assign every care for the community on the conscience of the individual. In fact, he finds wayward desires in the system itself (often controlled by leader with poor agendas) and sets them to rights by verbalizing the offense in the book. For example, here he charges those in leadership of communities to seriously evaluate the fruit of the local communities they pastor.

Has the community served to make individuals free, strong, and mature, or has it made them insecure and dependent? Has it taken them by the hand for a while so that they would learn again to walk by themselves, or has it made them anxious and unsure? This is one of the toughest and most serious questions that can be put to any form of everyday Christian life in community.[5]

There are literally dozens of quotable sentences and phrases in Life Together, not because it is snippets of wisdom compiled, but because of the authors compact writing style that brings the up quickly and answers the dilemma within the same sentence often. One particular point rises powerfully to the surface in Bonhoeffer’s acknowledgement and treatment for loneliness among Christians. He clearly believes that loneliness is a powerful foothold for the work of the enemy.

The more lonely people become, the more destructive the power of sin over them.[6]

For Bonhoeffer, the antidote is clearly confession, a unifying force requiring the presence of one another. Unlike modern western culture whose individualism has told them to confess to God in private, Bonhoeffer sees that as a misplaced and powerless position. Instead, he says:

A confession of sin in the presence of all the members of the congregation is not required to restore one to community with the entire congregation. In the one other Christian to whom I confess my sins and by whom my sins are declared forgiven, I meet the whole congregation. Community with the whole congregation is given to me in the community which I experience with this one other believer. For here it is not a matter of acting according to one’s own orders and authority, but according to the command of Jesus Christ, which is intended for the whole congregation, on whose behalf the individual is called merely to carry it out. So long as Christians are in such a community of confession of sins to one another, they are no longer alone anywhere.[7]

And profoundly,

Confession is conversion.[8]

You cannot spend time in the book Life Together without being changed by its powerful message, which has obviously been informed by the realities of living under the persecution of the thoroughly anti-Christian Third Reich.

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Review by Kim Gentes

[1]Bonhoeffer, Dietrich; Albrecht Schonherr; Geffrey B. Kelly; Daniel W. Bloesch. “Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works v.5: Life Together and Prayerbook of the Bible”. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1996),Kindle Edition, Location 561

[2]Ibid., Location 570

[3]Ibid., Location 671

[4]Ibid., Location 805

[5]Ibid., Location 1453

[6]Ibid., Location 1745

[7]Ibid., Location 1758

[8]Ibid., Location 1779

In the last 150 years, since Darwin, science has advanced significantly in every field and discipline. On every level of natural science, the continued discoveries and study have led to a waterfall of on going re-interpretations of principles and exposure of new ones.  Whether Christians like it or not, science has become the leading voice of truth in the modern age. The Church, once the global bastion of truth to the world, bequeathed its preeminence as a guardian of moral, philosophical and practical understanding by arrogance and oppressive posture towards society in general.  While the Church was busy disconnecting itself from the humanity it once served, science was forwarding its framework of modernity and filling out its broad structure of the theory of evolution.  The theory of evolution has especially seemed to be a particularly “anti-Christian” concept, since it seemed to (on first blush) be directly contradicting the literal interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative found in the bible.  This is the arch-type of the modern scientific v.s. traditional Christian creationist conflict that has become a major issue not just for converting non-Christians to a belief in the Christian God, and savior Jesus, but also to retain a sense of truth and integrity within the well-thinking ranks of its own membership (Christians).  In the last 20 years, the study of genomics has become a particularly powerful field of advancement in the scientific and popular worlds.

Within this context of a great show down of scientific discovery and post-modern Christian change, Francis Collins, a noted scientist, writes the book “The Language of God”.  Collins convincingly argues for a more thoughtful interpretation of both science and the Bible, such that a faith-centered belief might not be incompatible with such a scientifically understood world.  Collins begins with the usual larger picture issues in developing his thesis towards a scientifically compatible faith, establishing a list of natural descriptors that make man unique in the natural world.

It is the awareness of right and wrong, along with the development of language, awareness of self, and the ability to imagine the future, to which scientists generally refer when trying to enumerate the special qualities of Homo sapiens.[1]

The Language of God walks judiciously through both arguments of the uniqueness of the humanity and arguments related to creation as a whole that some Christians try to use to make science compatible with faith.  The best thing this book does is to discount unprotectable positions made by Christians that are simply not reasonable or scientifically accurate.  What Collins is doing is both deconstructing false Christian/scientific theories and opening up the possibility to leave space to have the story of creation and human place in it become tellable in a post-modern, scientific world.  Without walking through many arguments, he uses CS Lewis, Augustine and other great thinkers to steer away from poor logic and reason, and keep the understanding of morality within the confines of generally accepted thought (although he largely discounts post-modernity as a methodology to achieve deeper understanding of the faith /science conflict). 

While deconstructing much falseness about the scientific provability of creation science, Collins introduces the importance of “the Anthropic Principle: the idea that our universe is uniquely tuned to give rise to humans.”[2]  He elucidates that so many parameters and probabilities exist in the physical universe that make the possibility of the existence of the physical universe, the development of the stars and planets, the flourishing of life on earth and the development of humans within that- all but an impossibility in a reality which contains no preeminent being (God) from whom such precision is possible.  He says,

There are good reasons to believe in God, including the existence of mathematical principles and order in creation. They are positive reasons, based on knowledge, rather than default assumptions based on (a temporary) lack of knowledge.[3]

In addition, he adds two other important points to the Anthropic Principle, both of which have no scientific solution either now or in the foreseeable future.

First, is the problem with actually having the universe at all.  Collins argues that no scientific work has even proposed a reasonable hypothesis from which the “singularity” (an initial state of mass/energy) can be explained.  That is- even if we attribute all things from having come from a Big Bang (from which develops all other things through evolution), how does the first point of the universe (before the Big Bang) come into being?  Simply put, science has no answer. Somehow, everything came from something, but no one can account for how that something came about.

Second is the actual origins of first life on earth. Collins carefully tracks understandings of origin of life theories but comes to this conclusion:

how did self-replicating organisms arise in the first place? It is fair to say that at the present time we simply do not know. No current hypothesis comes close to explaining how in the space of a mere 150 million years, the prebiotic environment that existed on planet Earth gave rise to life. That is not to say that reasonable hypotheses have not been put forward, but their statistical probability of accounting for the development of life still seems remote.[4]

After dismantling the scientific plausibility of life  and universe existence without some supreme being, Collins turns his mind to breaking up false concepts of creation put forth through groups like the YEC (Young Earth Creationists).   This is heartening, not because of an anti-Christian standpoint, but because of a need to keep credulity inside of a thoughtful Christian response to scientific /atheistic attacks.

What Collins gets to is the reality that neither Christian misinformation about science or atheistic pride based on science can lead to the real answers of the prime questions of our universe, life and the human place in it.  He eventually leads the discussion to the clear questioning of the atheistic/scientific modernist mindset, from which much criticism is leveled. Collins, after deconstructing their presumed positions of pride (by the 3 main points listed above), challenges scientists by saying this:

Are you simply uncomfortable accepting the idea that the tools of science are insufficient for answering any important question? This is particularly a problem for scientists, who have committed their lives to the experimental assessment of reality. From that perspective, admitting the inability of science to answer all questions can be a blow to our intellectual pride—but that blow needs to be recognized, internalized, and learned from.[5]

I found the book to be enjoyable and interesting. Collins ends with a profound call to both sides of the discussion:

Science is not threatened by God; it is enhanced. God is most certainly not threatened by science; He made it all possible. So let us together seek to reclaim the solid ground of an intellectually and spiritually satisfying synthesis of all great truths.[6]

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Review by Kim Gentes

[1]Collins, Francis S. “The Language of God”. Kindle Edition (New York, NY: Free Press 2006), Pg. 23

[2]Ibid., Pg. 74

[3]Ibid., Pg. 93

[4]Ibid., Pg. 90

[5]Ibid., Pg. 232

[6]Ibid., Pg. 233

The argument is made that naming God is never really naming God but only naming our understanding of God. To take our ideas of the divine and hold them as if they correspond to the reality of God is thus to construct a conceptual idol built from the materials of our mind.[1]

Thus launches a compact and insightful book on the Christian church for the postmodern age.  The book is “How (Not) To Speak of God” and is written by Peter Rollins.  This book is a philosophical building block for what is considered a new brand of Christianity- one that places itself beyond Catholic or Protestant confines as a re-invention of the foundational core Christian tenants of faith on a new trajectory than previous “Christian” classes of belief.  As with all belief centered in logic, foundational comprehension and exploration of such belief begins with language.  Rollins begins and fuels much of his book with the clarifying of language in his “emerging church” conversation.  This is done through visiting constructs such as definitions, re-definitions,  syntax (a/theology, a/theist, mis/understood etc) and even ambiguating subject/predicate grammar (God rid me of God[2]).

The purpose of Rollins use of language in this way is to break ground on traditional use of language against which our faith is eventually handcuffed into suppositions that it cannot adequately make it s way free of. As you can see from one of the opening arguments (top), one of the primary points of his re-imagining what it means to talk about God is to re-think about how conceive about him as an object in a sentence. The noun for God, in Rollins logic, is itself rife with our own thoughts about that noun. We name it and believe it in a circular motion, which continues to define who God is by our use of a label-- thus an undefinable God has become something by use of such a label that we cannot be sure he is.

It is with this kind of linguistic and philosophical approach that How (Not) To Speak of God uses to arrive at several points such as the meaning of what it is to be a Christian, what it is to become one, what belief is, reason and its place in belief, influenced observation (Heisenberg principle), ideology as idolatry, revelation as concealment and more.  He then explores many inversions of current orthodox belief such as a/theistic belief- the concept that our deconstruction of edifices about God (what he calls “unknowing”) actual lead us closer to God by removing what we think of God. He says this well:

This a/theistic approach is deeply deconstructive since it always prevents our ideas from scaling the throne of God. Yet it is important to bear in mind that this deconstruction is not destruction, for the questioning it engages in is not designed to undermine God but to affirm God. This method is similar to that practised by the original cynics who, far from being nihilists and relativists, were deeply moral individuals who questioned the ethical conduct they saw around them precisely because they loved morality so much. This a/theism is thus a deeply religious and faith-filled form of cynical discourse, one which captures how faith operates in an oscillation between understanding and unknowing. This unknowing is to be utterly distinguished from an intellectually lazy ignorance, for it is a type of unknowing which arises not from imprecision but rather from deep reflection and sustained meditation.[3]

All of this redefinition is helpful to allow in the inverted /dark side of thought as things which can become a vital part of faith- dis-belief, doubt, longings, sorrow and hunger.  Rollins hopes that his straightforward, though at times over-done, approach allows a more holistic exploration of broad formation of “theology”. His goal is to bring religion back to the ability to build in a orthodoxy of both knowing God and a tradition of self-critique, saying “To be part of the Christian religion is to simultaneously hold that religion lightly.[4]”

Rollins has a target, however, beyond just language and philosophical theological editing.  He leads the reader to a point of both the need for transformation and the need for a desire for transformation[5].  This is an important primer to creating a fresh man/God vacuum expository (Pascalian God-shaped hole: retold) he sets up the focus of need (hunger) that leads his readers to the primacy of Christianity.  For Rollins, the climax of all thought towards God leads self-critiquing people to the core tenant of love, but even that is re-envisioned:

Thus we can never rest easy, believing that we have discovered the foundations that act as a key for working out what we must do in different situations: for the only clear foundation laid down by Jesus was the law of love.[6]

The remainder of the book deals with practical exploration, including several case studies (examples) of gatherings that Rollins and others have designed to help with post modern expression, in the form of art/drama and concept that allow the attendants to enter imaginatively into this process of deconstruction and opportunity for re-envisioning God not as we see him now, but as we are relearning.

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Review by Kim Gentes

[1]Rollins, Peter. “How (Not) to Speak of God”. Kindle Edition (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press 2006), Location 238

[2]Ibid., Location 265

[3]Ibid., Location 642

[4]Ibid., Location 971

[5]Ibid., Location 1054

[6]Ibid., Location 1333

Pensées is a collection of thoughts, from French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal. In many ways Pascal was an early post-modernist thinker, perceiving and challenging (successfully) not only principles in mathematics and physical sciences, but in the philosophical and religious realms as well. The Pensées (which literally means “thoughts”) is not a completed book, but a point-style outline of important thoughts, that read more like proverbs than treatise.  The work was published posthumously and is missing a readable flow from thought to thought.

However, the concepts presented in Pensées are quite clear- they are a philosophical apologetic for the Christian faith. In Section III of the work (titled “the necessity of the wager”) Pascal clarifies his intention to speak directly to a specific group of people:

A letter to incite to the search after God. And then to make people seek Him among the philosophers, sceptics, and dogmatists, who disquiet him who inquires of them.[1]

From this point, Pascal lays out a logical progression of deconstructing arguments against Christianity.  However, Pascal is not saying that logic or reason as the answers to finding God. In fact, his premise is that reason will not be able to lead you through its processes to knowledge of God.  He uses philosophy and reason to counter the notion that reason is a singular tool to concluding God exists- this dichotomoy is not lost on Pascal and he tries to reconcile this by such paradoxical renderings as :

Submission.--We must know where to doubt, where to feel certain, where to submit. He who does not do so, understands not the force of reason.[2]

and

If we submit everything to reason, our religion will have no mysterious and supernatural element. If we offend the principles of reason, our religion will be absurd and ridiculous.[3]

In the midst of his musing about reason and heart (the contrast of the two), Pascal famously pens the phrase “The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.”[4] But he winds that discussion eventually around to a simple, clear and understandable summation: “Heart, instinct, principles.”[5]

He tackles a number of topics including integrity of searching for God to the seriousness of eternity and the scope of human lifespan. At almost every turn, Pascal uses the insights of a scientific mindset (along with its proofing mechanisms) to first examine a topic and then lead you to a conclusion.  This progression is sprinkled generously with several “proverb-like” sentences in which he levels basic human truths in seeming juxtaposition to the more straightforward point-building scheme of proofing his opinions.  Occasionally, he also uses a dialogical counterplay of asking us to imagine things about one position and then asking questions about himself, all the while inferring an obvious point toward the validation of the Christian position as a logical premise. 

But it is the punctual proverbs that surprise most readers, for example:

Instability- it is a horrible thing to feel all that we possess slipping away. 213 Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world.[6]

One of the most well known portions of Pensées is an argument that is popularly called “Pascal’s Wager”. This proposal is basically a logical explanation for why it would be unreasonable to not believe in God. Through using his wager, he hopes that intellectual people will consider believing in God to be a proper “wager” to take.

In a summary of proofs on believing in God the author gives yet another dailogical possibility:

Two kinds of persons know Him: those who have a humble heart, and who love lowliness, whatever kind of intellect they may have, high or low; and those who have sufficient understanding to see the truth, whatever opposition they may have to it.[7]

Pascal comes to this point, saying that people may come to God through the mind or the heart, and both are acceptable and not to be shunned.

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Review by Kim Gentes

[1]Blaise Pascal, “Pascal's Pensées ”, (Public Domain Books, Kindle Edition), Pg. 53

[2]Ibid., Pg. 78

[3]Ibid., Pg. 79

[4]Ibid., Pg. 80

[5]Ibid., Pg. 81

[6]Ibid., Pg. 63

[7]Ibid., Pg. 83