And in all truth, it’s been a strange season for me. Holy Week as well. I am immersed in the Christian world and yet I think Lady Gaga’s new controversial single “Judas” has prompted more spiritual reflection in me than anything else this week. It’s been amusing to follow the controversy and to read the outrage of those who are incensed that anyone would dare admit to being tempted to love Judas over Jesus. Because, of course, none of the rest of us ever betray Jesus in any way. None of the rest of us lives in the real world full of its tensions and murky conflicts. We all must preserve the façade of who we declare Jesus to be without admitting to the reality of the world we inhabit. Or something like that.

So while Lady Gaga’s song was a well-timed publicity stunt, it is brilliantly proving its own social commentary in how it is being received. A world that hypocritically denies its own hypocrisy is throwing a fit at having that hypocrisy pointed out in such an outrageous manner. The Jesus they claim to follow doesn’t match the lives they live and it is a divided life that they are fine with until someone like Lady Gaga forcefully pulls down the dividing curtain. But as I thought about it, I realized that it is that crazy divided life and disconnect from reality in the church that has defined my experience this Lent.

During this season of spiritual reflection and sacrifice as Christians theoretically prepare ourselves to respond to the sacrifice of Christ by becoming living sacrifices ourselves, the church as I’ve experienced it this year has been hell-bent on defending tooth and claw its own personal construction of Jesus apart from the reality of the world. On one hand there have been the vicious attacks on any who would dare suggest that maybe, just maybe, God’s love is stronger than death and will win in the end. For some, theirconception of a limited God must be defended above relationships or the even the communion of saints. Then on the other hand this season has been defined by large sections of the church campaigning to ensure that our government doesn’t waste our hard-earned tax dollars on programs for the poor and disadvantaged in our nation. ‘Jesus’ must be defended at all costs, but never to the point that he actually crosses that dividing line into our real lives (and budgets). This is how we have been preparing to celebrate the Resurrection this year.

Instead of letting the sacrifice of Christ prompt us to live eucharistically as the body of Christ that shares the abundant blessing and gifts of God with each other, this Lent has been defined by selfish hoardings of God’s love. We limit God’s love to only those who intellectually assent to the same cognitive propositions as we do, and we then hoard God’s freely given blessings as if we’ve done something to deserve them or something. We love Judas and the pieces of silver too much to actually follow the Christ we proclaim – but unlike Lady Gaga, we refuse to admit it.

So this is Easter and what have we done? It hurts my soul to see how the church has spent Lent this year. We are the Body of Christ, why can’t we live like it?

Whether it was a brilliant marketing strategy or just a sad reflection of the charged atmosphere of Christian dialogue these days, one cannot deny that Rob Bell’s latest book Love Wins has stirred up a load of controversy before it has even hit the shelves. As a book claiming the daunting task of being “A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived,” the uproar was understandable although disappointingly cruel at times. For some reason many Christians hold to the notion that where we go when we die is the most important aspect of our faith and thus get rather up in arms when people even dare to open that topic up for conversation. Bell deftly addresses the need to re-prioritize what is central to our faith, but more on that in a moment. Let me first get the controversial stuff out of the way.

Does Bell believe in hell? Yes. Does Bell believe in heaven? Yes. Is Bell firmly rooted in Christian Orthodoxy? Yes. Does Bell think that Jesus is the way? Yes. Is Bell a universalist? If by that we mean that God is reconciling all creation to himself and that we shouldn’t assume that God will fail at this, then yes, Bell is a universalist. If that’s all you want to know so that you can judge, label, dismiss or whatever, then you can stop reading now. But if you are curious about what the book is really about and the hope-filled message of transformation it contains, then I invite you to keep reading.

At the most basic level, Love Wins is a typical Rob Bell book. Which is to say that he writes like he speaks and so what the reader encounters is an easy to read yet powerful narrative that speaks straight to the heart. Bell’s gift is to take tremendously complex theological concepts and translate them so that they are not just understandable to all but also blessedly practical. People can complain that he is too popular or over-marketed, but it is this gift that makes him resonate with so many people. At the same time, those who are versed in history and theology can clearly see the conversations of Christians through the centuries behind the ideas Bell expresses. He is not espousing anything new in this book, simply making accessible the rich tradition of Christian thought for believers today.

And what he is saying is powerful. Bell gets at the heart of what Christians believe about God and isn’t afraid to challenge the implicit assumptions about God that are at the core of some Christians’ belief systems. Central to that message is the suggestion that our relationship with the God of the universe is a dynamic and not static reality. Jesus’ work on the cross isn’t just an historical event, but an ongoing narrative of redemption and reconciliation. Our faith isn’t just about going to heaven when we die, but about entering into a relationship and partnership with God now and for eternity. Heaven and hell are real for Bell, but are not simply places we go when we die. They are connected to who we are in Christ now. We are called to accept the gift of a transformative life that can endure even death. This life is a gift from a God who truly desires life on earth to be like it is in heaven, both now and for eternity, and who lets us serve as partners in this work of reconciling a world that God loves and will never give up on.

This message that God loves his creation so much that God refuses to give up on us, forms the core of Bell’s book. Bell points out, that since the early church fathers, Christians have held that since God’s central essence is love, it is reconciliation and not eternal suffering that brings God the most glory. What we believe and how we act are vitally important, but in the end upholding and glorifying the essence of God is most important. And when we insist that people who think differently than us, or who haven’t had the same revelation as us, or who said a different prayer than us will be eternally separate from a God the scriptures say works for and longs for the redemption of all things, we are stripping God of his power and denying him glory.

At the same time, Bell doesn’t deny that love involves freedom. We are free to deny God and to refuse to live the ways of God’s kingdom. God cannot abide injustice or greed or hatred – such things have no place in the world to come and have significant consequences in the world now. Suffering exists and God cares about those in pain, yet God loves us enough to allow us to continue to live in the hell of our own choosing. Hell is real, but it is a place we create for ourselves as we reject the gift of life God offers to us. But in the scriptures judgment is always connected to restoration. God essence is love and that essence can never change. The gates of heaven never shut, for even as God will not abide injustice and sin in his realm he by nature is always desiring the reconciliation and restoration of all things. God can never stop being God which means that in the end, love has to win.

Love Wins is not a book about who is in or out. That sort of talk is too small. It is a book that invites people to remember the life God is offering them and that encourages them to thrive as they joyously participate in that life. Bell challenges theologies that seem to have forgotten what it means to live this life and moves the conversation back to a placed where Christians have the freedom to say yes to the gift God continually offers. Christianity isn’t about being right or wrong, it’s about living joyously and transformativly for Jesus – and that is a message we can all benefit from being reminded of.

And then I came home and saw the social networks ablaze with the inquisitional fires of the evangelical church jumping at the chance to denounce Rob Bell for his audacity at (supposedly) proclaiming in his upcoming book that in the end love truly does win. From the blog posts dismissing him for his universalism to John Piper’s juvenile tweet of “farewell Rob Bell,” it was hard not to laugh at the absurdity. Here I had spent a weekend having my faith in the church’s ability to actually follow Jesus somewhat restored to only be immediately reminded of the vitriol many in the evangelical world possess for any who don’t buy into their very historically recent and rather scripturally unfounded definition of what it means to be a “biblical Christian.” But what truly got to me was how in how this debate was framed those opposing Bell’s ideas were being forced to claim that in the end God’s love actually doesn’t win. Like Jonah pouting after God didn’t utterly annihilate the people of Nineveh, they are actually defending a system that puts limits on God’s love simply because they want to be the ones with a corner on the truth who get all the goodies in the end. Call it doctrine or dogma or self-centeredness, it simply confounds me that people still continue to argue against the love of God.

What appears to be at the source of the controversy is Bell’s supposed claim that a loving God would never judge anyone to eternity in hell (although since most people –including myself – have not read the book yet, no one really knows if that is what he is actually saying. But check out the YouTube promo video here). So Bell is being called a universalist which in evangelicalese is code for "I'm a heretic who hates the Bible" (or something to that effect). But if Bell is saying what I think he’s saying (and of course I have no idea, but I’m throwing my 2 cents in anyway), he is actually far more in line with traditional orthodox Christian theology than this new-fangled thing called evangelical theology. I’m betting that the position he is asserting is that of a universalist who believes in hell (which is where I’ve found myself landing these days as well).

In this view nothing – not human doctrine nor prejudice – can stand in the way of a God seeking to reconcile all things to godself. God created humans to be in constant relationship with godself – growing ever closer to mirroring the image of God we were created in. We instead chose to attempt to be godlike without God, walking away from God in the process. But God did not reject us. God could have withdrawn from us, casting us away from divine perfection – annihilating us in the process since by nature we could not exist apart from that which we were meant to be in eternal relationship with. Instead God was merciful and simple let us walk away. But like Dante so beautifully portrayed in his Divine Comedy, even as the furthest reaches of hell are frozen over as Satan flaps his wings in a furious attempt to fly further and further away from God, he is still not out of the reach of God’s love. Hell exists, but it is a place of our own creation as we try to flee from God asserting “our will be done” instead of “thy will be done.” God does not condemn us to hell, or cast us out of his presence (which would destroy us); instead God pursues us out of Eden and even into hell, offering the gift of blessing and redemption. We are meant by nature to be in relation with God, created in God’s image our purpose is to bear that image and continually reflect it back to God through our acts of worship in this world. Despite our attempts to flee to the furthest reaches of hell, God still reaches out to us because if we still exist, we are still image-bearers, and God seeks after us to restore the racked icons of our person to godself.

When the historical church couldn’t understand how a person could be forgiven and reconciled to God they declared them an anathema which means that their fate be cast up to a higher court for although it was beyond them how they that person is in Christ he or she could never be beyond God. And if in the consummation of creation all things will be reconciled to God, then unless we want to assert that God rejects and therefore annihilates those who flee from him, we have to believe that in the end God’s relentless pursuit of his beloved results in the actual redemption and reconciliation of all things. In the end all that belongs to God, all that was created in the image of God, will turn away from its rebellion and be reconciled unto God. In short, in the end love wins. Love is not fettered by temporal constraints, or extended only to the workers that arrived early in the day. We were created to be in relationship with God, and it is the return to that state of theosis where we can participate in the covenant where we are blessed to extend God’s blessing to the world that God desires for us.

I saw a glimmer of a church that got that with the Salvation Army this past weekend – a group of passionate followers of Jesus taking seriously the call to end the injustices that stand in the way of the blessing and reconciling of the world. They know, in their own peculiar way, that love wins. So instead of trying to put limits on God’s ability to redeem creation and pouting about wanting to be the only ones the divine lover chooses to pursue, maybe we can start acting as if God really does rule the universe. Maybe we can accept the gift of God's love and instead of selfishly keeping it all to ourselves we live into our identity as blessed icons and give that love away.

Confession is admission, recognition, declaration, and agreement that we have participated in the wrong order of things – in ways that don't further the Shalom of God. And then we repent and say we want to return to the order that God wants.

The definition of confession that I have always heard restricts it to admitting particular sins. You told a lie, you confess it. But that view of confession doesn't truly cover all the ways we have participated in the disruption of true Shalom. It makes confession all about us and an easy checklist of dos and don'ts instead of our relationship with God and others and our call to participate in the kingdom of God.

For example, when we participate in systems that support injustices in the world we are disrupting Shalom. I would never go so far as to say that buying a banana grown by oppressed workers and with dangerous polluting pesticides is a sin in the traditional understanding of the word, but it is a failure to love and a disruption of the way things ought to be. So we can confess that we have participated in the wrong order of things, failed to support God's Shalom, and then choose to return (repent) to the order of love and stewardship that God desires. It's not about acts of individual sin, it's about an orientation of love.

But it is also not about guilt. Admitting, recognizing, declaring, and agreeing (confessing according to this definition) that these acts of oppression and pollution exist and that we are participants in them is not meant to make people feel guilty but to establish the impetus for change. Unless we admit that there is a problem, then things can never return to the way they should be. All too often those of us who talk about the need to confess our cultural sins (as with purchasing unfairly made items or benefiting from the past slavery of others) are accused of just wanting people to feel guilty. But in truth guilt should have nothing to do with this. Confession comes from a desire to serve God and see his will done. We may yes, feel bad or sorry for our actions, but change comes from positive vision not negative feelings.

This perspective on confession is bigger and messier than we might be used to, but it better reflects the way God desires us to be. It is harder to think of life holistically and attempt to orient ourselves to living out the Shalom of God, but I think it is more reflective of truth and results in deeper commitments to the way of Christ.

While on one hand I find this amusing. Does Blue Like Jazz really need a warning label? You've got to be pretty sheltered if you find that book dangerous. But on the other hand I'm disturbed by the unspoken implication that the other books sold at their website don't need as much discernment while reading. Apparently, if something agrees with historical evangelical theology then it gets a pass on reading with a critical eye. We only need to be discerning about those that are discerning about historical evangelical theology since such opinions are only valuable to those those who engage them "strictly for critical study and research." So if an author encourages us to love others, portrays God in feminine form, or narrates a road trip with friends we need to be extra discerning. But if Beth Moore takes every other verse out of context then it's all good because we don't need to critically engage with someone safe.

I'd say either drop the label (or replace it with the "This Book is Dangerous" label they seem to be intending) or stick it on every book. I'd love to see extra discernment and critical thought applied to the typical devotional or Woman's Bible Study. Discernment shouldn't just apply to things we disagree with. We are instructed as Christians to be as wise as serpents at all times – not just when the authorities tell us to be.

(HT – Jeromy)