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Hell
Rob Bell
Who’s in Hell? Michigan Pastor’s Book Sparks Debate About Eternal Torment The pastor of a rural United Methodist church in North Carolina wrote a note on his Facebook page supporting a new book by Rob Bell, a prominent young evangelical pastor and critic of the traditional view of hell as a place of eternal torment for billions of damned souls. Two days later, Holtz was told complaints from church members prompted his dismissal from Marrow’s Chapel in Henderson. “I think justice comes and judgment will happen, but I don’t think that means an eternity of torment,” Holtz said. “But I can understand why people in my church aren’t ready to leave that behind. It’s something I’m still grappling with myself.”

Discussion

Thu, 03/24/11
This man’s position is biblically indefensible on many fronts, but his final words in the Fox news article are amazing to me: “So long as we believe there’s a dividing point in eternity, we’re going to think in terms of us and them,” he said. “But when you believe God has saved everyone, the point is, you’re saved. Live like it.”

I guess I don’t get it, but if we are all saved what are we living like? How will our life be lived any differently from anyone else seeing that we are all actually saved. If everyone is saved then I guess we might just as well live. I guess his congregation that fired him is also living out their redemptive life as well.

Thu, 03/24/11
This reminds me of what Mark Dever said of Southern Baptists in the 70’s and 80’s. The people in the pews were far more conservative than pastors and leaders of the denomination. I wonder if this holds true in the mainline denominations. Good for this congregation.

Thu, 03/24/11
A married Navy veteran with five children, Holtz spent years trying to reconcile his belief that Jesus Christ’s death on the cross redeemed the entire world with the idea that millions of people — including millions who had never even heard of Jesus — were suffering forever in hell.

“We do these somersaults to justify the monster god we believe in,” he said. “But confronting my own sinfulness, that’s when things started to topple for me. Am I really going to be saved just because I believe something, when all these good people in the world aren’t?”

Gray Southern, United Methodist district superintendent for the part of North Carolina that includes Henderson, declined to discuss Holtz’s departure in detail, but said there was more to it than the online post about Rob Bell’s book.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/03/24/whos-hell-michigan-pastors-book-sp…

Sounds like Holtz ought to spend his time reading more of the church fathers than Bell’s pop Christianity.

"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells

Thu, 03/24/11
Holtz spent years trying to reconcile his belief that Jesus Christ’s death on the cross redeemed the entire world with the idea that millions of people — including millions who had never even heard of Jesus — were suffering forever in hell.
Ignoring the obvious and problematic assumption at the beginning of that statement, I certainly hope he didn’t think he was the first person ever to wonder what he wondered. It seems a shame to waste so many years when an afternoon at the local seminary library (or Google, for cryin’ out loud) would have pointed him in the right direction.

Fri, 03/25/11
Brad Greenberg over at GetReligion.org deconstructs the shallow reporting in this news article that purports to show that a poor Methodist preacher is being done wrong here in North Carolina. Check out Brad’s interesting analysis at http://www.getreligion.org/2011/03/rob-bell-latest-devils-in-the-detail….

Evidently the good people in this congregation bent the ear of the Bishop and pressured some kind of departure for the universalist preacher. That’s usually the way it works in Methodism. :)

Gerry Carlson