Faith
About this blog
Thinking the Faith, Praying the Faith, Living the Faith is written by the PC(USA) Office of Theology and Worship.
Thinking, praying, and living the faith is at the core of ministry in the Office of Theology and Worship. In the following videos, learn more about what thinking, praying, and living the faith means to the leadership of the Office of Theology and Worship. Discover why it matters and what difference it makes in our lives, work, and worship.
Charles Wiley
Barry Ensign-George
David Gambrell
Christine Hong
Karen Russell
Recent posts
- Our Challenging Way: Faithfulness, Sex, Ordination, and Marriage
- Unity, Confessions, and the Book of Order
- Come and See
- Please and Thank You
- Back to Basics on Ash Wednesday
Categories
- Theology (32)
- Worship (26)
- Faith (23)
- Spirituality (13)
- Leadership (11)
- View all categories →
Archives
Love Wins
Love Wins seems like a particularly appropriate subject for the day after Easter, the day we celebrate the triumph of Jesus Christ (warning: YouTube link).
I finally got around to reading Rob Bell’s Book, Love Wins (if you haven’t heard of the hubbub about this book see this and this and this and this). Bell is the pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, MI and is a significant younger leader in American evangelicalism. 
The Math
Bell begins with a story of an art show at his church where an artist included a quotation from Ghandi in the piece. Someone pinned to this work a piece of paper that read, “Reality check: He’s in Hell.” The certainty of the statement disturbed Bell, raising profound questions about the nature of God and the role of our beliefs in our relationship with God: is it our profession of belief in Jesus Christ that secures our salvation? This raises for Bell what I like to call “the math question.” Evangelical leaders from John Stott to Billy Graham have puzzled over how many would be saved. The math question arises from two claims: 1) that salvation only belongs to those who explicitly accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior; and 2) The God of Christian faith is a generous expensive God and it is inconceivable that only a small minority of human beings throughout history will be saved.
Bell asks the question in a particularly poignant manner:
If there are only a select few who go to heaven, which is more terrifying to fathom: the billions who burn forever or the few who escape this fate? How does a person end up being one of the few?
Chance?
Luck?
Random selection?
Being born in the right place, family, or country?
Having a youth pastor who “relates better to the kids”? (p. 3)
Bell’s framing of the issue puts him squarely in that part of evangelicalism that has emphasized “making a decision for Christ.” This is not the dominant expression of evangelicalism in the PC(USA) where a more Calvinistic strain has emphasized conversion, but not so much a time and place decision. So, in one sense reading Love Wins is for Presbyterians, evangelical or not, a window into another part of Christ’s church. And for us, it can be easy to dismiss this preoccupation with whether or not we go to heaven or hell as so twentieth century.
But Bell’s book is a readable and helpful exploration on that character of God and Christian discipleship. Bell is especially helpful at taking words like eternal life, hell, and heaven and reexamining them in biblical context. And any of us in the PC(USA) would be well-served by paying attention to Bell’s serious treatment on heaven, hell, salvation, and the Christian life.
I’ve noted a healthy number of passages as particularly interesting. If you want to work through some of these together, let me know in a comment.
Charles
p.s. You have to read a book that has a line such as: “It’s as if Thomas Kinkade and Dante were at a party, and one turned to the other sometime after midnight and uttered that classic line ‘You know, we really show work together sometime . . .’” (p. 22)
April 20, 2011
On Voting for Unity...
The post that appeared under this title on April 19, 2011 was seen by some in our denomination as potentially influencing (whether intentionally or inadvertently) one or more debates currently before of our presbyteries. While not at all my intention,...- Posted at 2:27 p.m.
- Permalink
April 16, 2011
Remembering September 11
In a few months we'll observe the tenth anniversary of the tragic events of September 11, 2001. This year, that anniversary happens to fall on a Sunday. Several of us at the Presbyterian Center have been meeting to collect and...- Posted at 10:37 p.m.
- Permalink
April 12, 2011
Is it really all about us after all?
Anyone who pays attention to the PC(USA) as a denomination knows that we in the PC(USA) are at a critical juncture: membership losses, aging congregations, long-term battles over sexuality, deep questions over the form of our governance, missional emphases, etc....- Posted at 12:22 a.m.
- Permalink
April 8, 2011
Practicing Presbyterian
It’s interesting to me that what makes the difference between being a nominal and faithful religious devotee is practice. “He's a practicing Jew,” someone will say, or “I’m a practicing Roman Catholic.” Not just a Jew or a Catholic, but...- Posted at 7:10 p.m.
- Permalink