When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power. (1 Corinthians 2:1-5)
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Rob Bell has been a bit of a controversial figure the last couple of years, especially among more conservative, self-professed “evangelical” Christians, who used to proudly claim him as one of their own. The controversy about him reached new heights after the publication of his book “Love Wins” at the beginning of this year. That may not sound like a particularly controversial title for a Christian community supposedly devoted to the concept of agape love, but it turned out to be. The controversy was the subject of a Time Magazine cover story and a featured article in the New York Times. In his book, Bell says the following: “It's been clearly communicated to many that this belief” (the belief he’s talking about here is belief in hell as a conscious and eternal state of torture) “is a central truth of the Christian faith and to reject it is, in essence, to reject Jesus. 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.” Bell went on to offer a variety of views from within the Christian community about hell, including what he called universal reconciliation (which is also known as Christian universalism) - the idea that eventually all people will be reconciled to God because of God’s overwhelming love. He doesn’t say that he’s a universalist, but he says that “whatever objections a person may have of [universalism], and there are many, one has to admit that it is fitting, proper, and Christian to long for it.”
I have to admit that I’m not a big fan of Rob Bell. On a couple of occasions we’ve used some of his videos here at Central to help illustrate points, but in the normal course of things and for whatever reason Rob Bell just doesn’t turn my theological crank, you might say. And then I came across what he said in “Love Wins” - and, all of a sudden, I had to say - I agree with him. The problem of Christianity for far too long is that it’s had a tendency to emphasize punishment over love, judgment over grace and threat over promise. In the same way, the cross has come to be used as a weapon that strikes fear into people rather than offering them hope. For some people it serves as a barrier to God, because as much as the cross gets emphasized, it gets emphasized without the context of agape love far too often. We need to correct that tendency. I want to correct that tendency.
When Paul wrote, “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” he was not thinking of the cross in terms of threat, punishment or even atoning sacrifice. He was thinking of the cross in the context of love. He was thinking of the cross in terms of divine solidarity with the human condition. The cross reminds us that nothing we’ve suffered is beyond the experience of God. The cross reminds us that as a community, and whatever our differences of doctrine and theology and worship style preference might be, we are held together by a bond of divine love that makes us all simply God’s children.
Rob Bell also said that “our tendency in the midst of suffering is to turn on God. To get angry and bitter and shake our fist at the sky and say, ‘God, you don't know what it's like! You don't understand! You have no idea what I'm going through. You don't have a clue how much this hurts.’ The cross is God's way of taking away all of our accusations, excuses, and arguments. The cross is God taking on flesh and blood and saying, ‘Me too.’”
That’s what binds us together. If we can believe that God truly is one of us and knows us and stands with us in even the hardest of times - how can we not do that for one another. How that would change the world!
Sometimes we let the simplest things become so complicated. The gospel is one such example. Really - what's complicated about it? God loves us, and so God, through Jesus, saves us from all that saps us of life and joy and eternity. And we respond with thanksgiving and praise. That's why Paul resolved to "know nothing ... except Jesus Christ and him crucified." The cross, as far as Paul was concerned, was the sign of divine love; the place where God's love showed itself most powerfully. If our calling as Christians is to offer good news to the world, maybe more of God's love and less of God's judgment is the way to start.
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