Magnificent Obsession by David Robertson (a response, Part 6)

Dear D.,

We're getting near the end of your book now, having worked our way through eight chapters of your book [1-3, 4, 5, 6-7 and 8], and now we come to Chapter 9: Maranatha. I think this may be the first chapter in this book with no actual apologetics in it. You're in preacher mode throughout.

You talk about the end of the world, heaven and hell, and your only justification in believing in any of these claims is that Jesus spoke about them in the Bible. Jesus said it, you believe it, that settles it.

I guess you'll not be surprised to find that many skeptics (or is it sceptics, I'm never sure?) don't find this line of reasoning particularly compelling. Why should there be any life after death? You don't explain. Is there any life after death? You offer no evidence. Why should the Christian explanation of heaven & hell be preferred to any other (after-)world view? You don't justify it. This is not an intellectually challenging or satisfying chapter.

This chapter, as with many discussions of heaven & hell that I've read, ends up simply quoting C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Truly, the best explanations of heaven and hell are to be found in fantasy fiction. Why should the version presented in Matthew's gospel (you don't notice this, but all your 'Jesus' quotes about heaven and hell come from Matthew's pen, not the other gospel writers) be any more real than the version presented in "The Last Battle"?

Have you ever noticed that Matthew is obsessed with heaven and (particularly) hell, in a way that Mark, Luke and John are not? And have you ever noticed that hell is (almost) entirely absent in the Epistles of Paul? Paul's message is one of salvation for those who are in Christ, but not one of damnation for those who are not.

Anyway, let's move on to the climax of your book, Chapter 10: Magnificent... where you remain in preacher mode and basically explain why apologetics only gets you so far. Indeed, you appear to dismiss the value of apologetics, which is odd in a book of apologetics. You also go in for a bit of atheist bashing, but I'm not really interested in that.

So you present no further evidence or argument for your case, but just list lots of theological reasons why Jesus is important to you. I suppose that's fair enough, but I'm sure adherents to other religions could give similar lists about Krishna, or Bahá'u'lláh, or Sabbatai Zevi, or Haile Selassie, or whoever. The justification for all your reasons is, essentially, because it is in the Bible.

Your book repeatedly takes the stories and claims of the Bible at face value, without question, and this is the greatest weakness (as I see it) of your case. It would appear that you've never needed to justify to yourself that the Bible is an authority, so you don't really need to justify it to your readers either.

For me, it was not the debates between science & Christianity, or by consideration of the big philosophical arguments for or against God, but the failings in the Bible itself that ultimately led to the erosion of my faith. The Bible is factually wrong in places, the Bible is internally inconsistent in places, the Bible records as history things that cannot have happened (and in some instances demonstrably did not happen) in history. The Bible tells stories about God and Jesus. If it is wrong about the other stuff, we have to at least consider the possibility that it is wrong on these subjects too.

After much study, I came (somewhat grudgingly) to the conclusion that the Bible is an errant book, and was written by human authors with human agendas. In your book, you have shown that you base your life on the Bible, but you haven't managed to convince me that the Bible comes from God. You've not even shown me why you came to that conclusion.

Your magnificent obsession concerns a man who comes to you through the pages of a flawed book. I agree, if the stories about Jesus are true, then he is worthy of this obsession, but for now at least I have reasonable doubts about the truth regarding Jesus, so I think your obsession is misplaced.

Regards,

R.

Near death experiences and evidence in support of the theory of life after death

A recent edition of the Unbelievable radio show (on 6th December 2014) looked at near death experiences and out of body experiences. Unusually, for the Unbelievable show, there was no Christian guest on the show. This made the discussion and debate somewhat different from usual, in that there was no defence of the Christian viewpoint in the show. And there was no anti-apologetic either.

The show featured Eben Alexander, a former non-believing neurosurgeon who had a "near death experience" (NDE) while in a coma and has written a couple of books about it. The experience has convinced him that consciousness does not require a functioning brain to exist in, that is, that the conscious mind will exist after the brain ceases to function. In other words, the experience has led him to believe in life after death. But he isn't a Christian. 

Also on the show was sceptical psychologist Jane Aspell, who thinks that Alexander's experience was purely a creation of the mind, and not evidence of consciousness outside the brain. Aspell contends that Alexander's 'journey' was, essentially, a creation of his subconscious mind as he was coming out of coma, not an experience he had during the time he had "no brain function".

Apparently (according to Eben), the visions he had must have coincided with the time he had "no brain function" because the vision included six people who were there when he was in the coma, and who weren't there at a later stage. Well, actually, only five of the six were there during his coma, the sixth wasn't there, but is apparently relevant, for some reason not explained in the show. I'm afraid this sounds a bit like special pleading. A vision of six people which supposedly corresponds to a visit of five of them doesn't sound like great evidence. Maybe it is, but Eben's response to questioning on this issue was "buy my book, I've discussed all the evidence there", which doesn't make for great debate.

So the discussion was inconclusive. Alexander had a vision, but didn't manage to persuade the audience that it had to have been during his "no brain function" period, so the jury has to be still out on that one. Meanwhile Aspell's explanation for the whole thing sounds compelling and really quite reasonable.

Also on the show was Graham Nicholls, an out of body experience (OBE) researcher who claims to have been having out of body experiences all his life. He is also not a Christian. He gave some hand waving examples of 'real' out of body experiences he has had, but came across as quite a credulous chap. Basically, willing to believe almost any story of 'evidence' that is presented to him.

What he (and Alexander) seem to think is that evidence which is consistent with a hypothesis necessarily lends support to that hypothesis. For example, Nicholls' remote viewing of a cathedral in Tallinn (I think that's where it was) was taken by him as 'proof' that OBEs are real.

The issue is that this is only half of the rigorous scientific method. In order to count as 'evidence' for any given hypothesis, an event or observation must also count as evidence against any and all rival hypotheses. If an observation is equally consistent with all possible hypotheses, then it lends no weight to any of them. This is the essence of Bayes's Theorem, which I've blogged about before.

In other words, if someone claims to have had an OBE, the story of their experience only counts as evidence if it contains elements which are inexplicable by 'natural' explanations. In Nicholls's story of the OBE involving Tallinn cathedral, the 'observation' of the scaffolding on the hidden side of the cathedral could only count as evidence in favour of OBE if there was no physical way that Nicholls could have seen the scaffolding before, and no way that anyone could have mentioned it, and no way he could have seen something about it on TV or the internet, etc. Given that it is almost impossible to prove that one doesn't know something, or didn't know about it before a given point in time, this hardly counts as evidence.

The possibilities in this case are (a) that Nicholls had a genuine OBE, and therefore OBEs are real, or (b) that Nicholls hallucinated the whole thing, possibly based on things that he 'knew' prior to the hallucination (perhaps he only knew these subconsciously), or (c) that Nicholls is an intentional fraudster. Note that neither (b) nor (c) entails that OBEs are either true or false.

The 'evidence' of the story as presented in the Unbelievable show is entirely consistent with all three hypotheses, so really counts as evidence in favour of none of them. Given that we have quite a lot of other evidence for people being fraudsters or deluded, but limited evidence in favour of OBEs, our reasonable conclusion cannot be in favour of the existence of OBEs based on this. Maybe other evidence will present itself, but certainly nothing presented in this radio show was strong enough to give support to the OBE hypothesis.

No evidence is not proof against any theory. No evidence is simply no evidence.

Finally, I have to comment about the flawed reasoning behind the premise of the show. It seemed to be taken as read that evidence of out of body experiences, or brain activity during the "no brain function" period, or other 'near death' experiences would in some way count as evidence for the possibility of life after death. Why should this be? The thing is that NDEs are always recounted by people who return to conscious life after the experience, similarly with OBEs, the people telling the stories are always back in their own bodies and clearly not dead. The conscious mind is always tied to the body which it inhabited before the experience. We know nothing, precisely nothing, about what happens once the link between conscious mind and living body is actually severed. Maybe the conscious mind can continue (somehow) after this, maybe not, but as far as I know, we have no way of investigating this. Well, not by talking to the living anyway...

Richard Carrier's very human Jesus

I've just been listening to a debate on YouTube between the noted atheist Richard Carrier (pictured) and an apologist called David Marshall. You can watch it here. Its fair to say that Carrier wins this debate. Its also clear that one of his arguments against Jesus being divine is very strong and appears not to have an adequate rebuttal by Christian apologists. The argument is basically as follows (my summary):

Jesus is depicted in the gospels as having direct revelatory knowledge from the creator God. He is also depicted as being someone who cares about people and miraculously heals some of them. Given these two observations, why does Jesus do nothing to inform his disciples of a few health related things which could prevent disease? For example, he could have instructed his disciples in the merits of properly washing your hands before eating. He appears to actually do the exact opposite to this, by telling them that hand washing before meals is not important (Matthew 15:1-20). We know (from science) that washing is important and this simple action can prevent disease and infection, etc. Jesus does not know this. He appears to have no conception of germs. This is no surprise if he was merely a human being, but is very surprising if he was sent on a mission - which involved healing - by the creator God.

Furthermore, Carrier claims, the three most prevalent fatal diseases in the first century CE were tuberculosis, malaria and typhoid. Jesus is never recorded as healing anyone with any of these. Also, there are simple steps which can be taken to minimise the risk of catching these, such as mosquito nets and avoiding stagnant water. Jesus does not advise these actions, so clearly he has no divine knowledge of disease transmission.

Carrier has more to say, but you get the gist. I have to say that it seems like a very strong argument to me. But there are apologetic responses to it, for example this one.

As I see it, if Carrier is right, then there are only two options:

1. Jesus was a man with no divine knowledge, or
2. God doesn't care about the life and health of people.

When I say "doesn't care" what I mean is that God must have another - more important - agenda that would be hindered by healing more people and giving them advice that would prolong their lives and ease their suffering.

Let's think about these options, I'll take the second one first.

Healing and God's Agenda

The standard apologetic argument to the problem of pain is that God must have a morally sufficient reason for allowing this, and that even though we can't know what this reason is, we should trust God for other reasons and leave this in the hands of faith. I must say, this strikes me as yet another instance of the 'unseen infinite' argument that I've blogged about before. If prolonging people's lives and easing their suffering is not part of God's plan, then why does Jesus heal anyone? Why feed thousands of hungry people, why raise some from the dead? Again, apologists and preachers will tell you that Jesus did all these things to reveal aspects of the character of God, to reveal the heart of God - to show that God wants to heal. But if God wants to heal, then this must be part of his agenda. And if healing is part of his agenda, then he should have been able to do more, much, much more than is recorded for us in the bible.

But suppose we look at this the other way around. If God's agenda was not primarily to heal, but was to come to earth and suffer and die, and in this way to bring about post-mortem salvation for people, then surely he didn't need to spend 30 years doing nothing worthy of note, then up to three years of ministry in which he did not explain that this was his agenda. Why didn't he just come quickly, die quickly, and also hasten the deaths of all people, so that those who he would save would get to heaven more quickly?

Clearly, this is not consistent with what Christians believe, or what the bible apparently teaches. So I think we can say with reasonable certainty that Jesus simply did not know any more about disease and illness than his fully human contemporaries, and that if a modern day doctor were able to be transported back in time to the 1st Century, then they would be able to do many more kinds of 'miraculous' healing than Jesus is recorded as doing - because they have a far greater understanding of illness than Jesus. Which brings us to the second option.

Jesus was just a man
Is it conceivable that Jesus was genuinely divine in nature, but had no divine knowledge? We can discount the option that he had no inherent divine knowledge but God revealed things to him, using the reasoning above - if God revealed his agenda to a human Jesus, then we face the same problems as we have above with the question of God's agenda. If God only revealed part of his agenda and didn't empower Jesus to heal many multitudes of sick and dying, then we end up with a truly unbelievable or evil God. So barring this possibility, the only option we are left with is that Jesus simply didn't know more than his contemporaries about disease, and also didn't know any more than them about God's agenda. If Jesus was just a man without revelation, then nothing he said or did had divine authority, even if he truly had a divine nature. In this option, all of Jesus' teaching goes out the window as worthless, and all of his commands and life examples become meaningless. He becomes just an ordinary guy, and no more worthy of following than anyone else. Any good teaching he gave and any great insight he had came from human means, and other humans have just as much access to such wisdom as Jesus had. Indeed, the flip side is true, Jesus could just as easily have been wrong about a great many things. Even if he was right about some things, we have no reason to trust his claims about things he could not demonstrate, such as what happens after death. he knew no more about that than you do.

No, if the words and works of Jesus have any value, then he must have had knowledge and wisdom which transcended those of humanity. But in that case, we see a God who can only heal in limited measure or doesn't value the health and wellbeing of his people.

I can't see a way out of this conundrum except to say that the claims of Christianity about Jesus must be false or at least very flawed. It is much easier to suppose that these stories are simply that: stories, and that Jesus was no divine Son of God.

Jesus, if he lived at all, was just human. No more than that. If following his teachings bring you joy and happiness in this life, then all's well and good, follow him. But if following his teachings leads you into suffering and possible death, then be careful, because nothing promised after death is anything more than guesswork or wishful thinking.

How to get to heaven or hell?

I was at church on Sunday. The preacher was speaking on Luke 16:19-31, the parable of the "Rich man and Lazarus". The sermon ended up being a traditional 'full gospel' type message, with an invitation to become a Christian at the end.

The problem I have with this is that the passage he was preaching on doesn't contain the full gospel, or anything like it. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the passage in question actually disagrees with the traditional gospel message in a number of important ways. So let's have a look at this passage:

Luke 16:19-31 (NIV)
19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’
25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’
27 “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’
29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’
30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

The basic assumption of this passage regarding how to get to heaven or hell is plain - if you are rich, live in luxury, and ignore the needs of the poor in this life, then you will end up in hell, whereas if you have been poor and had a hard life in this world, you will get blessing and riches in the next. This is a thoroughly Jewish and not-Christian view of eternal realities. It is far closer to eastern concepts of karma (you get what you deserve) than it ever is to Christian concepts of redemption and salvation (Jesus paid, so you get blessings that you don't deserve).

The preacher, and Christians in general don't notice this problem because he/they have a fundamental assumption that all parts of the bible have the same message and the same viewpoint. All this comes from divine inspiration, so Luke 16 must agree with John 3:16...

I'm not sure the writer of Luke 16 and the writer of John 3 would have agreed on everything. They clearly don't agree here. Here, salvation has nothing to do with belief in Christ, and everything to do with karmic justice. Here, as in several other parts of Luke (and Acts), being rich is seen as bad in and of itself, and the best thing a rich person can do to attain eternal life is give away their riches to the poor.

Of course, its not just Luke that has differing views on how to get to heaven or hell than John, parts of Matthew and Mark also seem to have other opinions, like the famous parable of the Prodigal Son; there all that is necessary for salvation is repentance, again with no reference to faith in Jesus, much like the message preached by John the Baptist.

There is also something funny going on in the final verses of this passage. The original storyteller (whether Jesus, Luke, or someone else) suggests that "Moses and the Prophets" (i.e. the old testament books, minus the 'writings' like the Psalms, etc.) contains all the info you need to know how to get to heaven. Live according to these rules and you will be saved. Once again, this is a Jewish message - be a good Jew and you'll go to heaven. But the final verse appears to take a side-swipe at the Christian message! Could the original version of this story (presumably in edited form here) really have been casting scorn on the story of the resurrection of Jesus? From one point of view it could be read to say that Jesus' resurrection is irrelevant to salvation, and what people really need to do is listen to Moses and the Prophets... Is this an anti-Christian message that has been 'sanitised' and adapted to (partially) fit with the Christian message?

Finally, if we consider that there were oral versions of this story in circulation which may have varied slightly from each other in each retelling, and the version we have in Luke is only one version of the story among many (and not necessarily the original or definitive version), might we also speculate about some of the others? What if one variation on the story considered that the requested resurrection of Lazarus actually happened - that Lazarus returned from the dead, and sure enough his resurrection wasn't sufficient to cause people to repent. What if that re-telling of the parable became narrated as an event rather than merely a parable? Could it have been this story that the writer of the 4th gospel heard and included in his story - not as a parable, but as a miraculous act by Jesus? Given that miraculous resurrections are rate events, while story modifications happen all the time, this seems quite plausible...

Are you sure that all this stuff is divinely inspired and accurate reporting of what Jesus said and did? I'm just not sure anymore.

Love Rob Wins Bell...

I've finally got around to reading the 'controversial' Rob Bell book 'Love Wins'. Its a very short book. Shorter even than it looks. Because (as I've said before)

Rob Bell

tends to write

large chunks

of the book

like this.

For emphasis, I assume.

But leaving that aside, what are my thoughts on the book?

I'm not sure I need to warn you of spoilers here, but if you read on, please be aware that I will be summarising my take on what Rob Bell says in this book and giving my opinions on his opinions. If you don't want to know what he says until you've read the book yourself, now would be a good point to stop reading.

(Regular readers of this blog will know that my current doubts are questioning things like the historical accuracy of the stories in the bible and whether Jesus really said the things attributed to him, but I shouldn't really bring issues like that into my thoughts on this book, so here I'll comment on this book without, for the most part, questioning most of its underlying assumptions, e.g. that the gospels are reasonably accurate accounts of what Jesus said and did, and who he was.)

Let's take the book chapter by chapter:

Preface: Millions of us

This is a fair point, well made. Christianity has never been a uniform thing, with one set of beliefs shared by all. Virtually all beliefs in any part of contemporary Christianity have been held by some people in generations gone by. There is no such, well defined, 'thing' as Christianity. Also, there are a lot of folk put off by the 'hellfire & brimstone' type preaching, so he's right. This book has an audience.

Chapter 1: What about the flat tire?

Loads of questions. As yet unanswered. Case over-stated. Makes you want to read on, but is a bit irritating. Let's see if the rest of the book lives up to this intro.

Chapter 2: Here is the new there

This is where the book gets interesting. What do we mean by 'heaven'? More importantly, what did Jesus (and the writers of the bible) mean by 'heaven'? Have 2000 years of history shifted our understanding?

Well, yes they have, and Bell makes the case quite convincingly.

Christianity is not about what happens to you after you die.
The gospel is not about what happens to you after you die.
Jesus's teaching is not about what happens to you after you die.
Eternity is not about what happens to you after you die.
Heaven is not about what happens to you after you die.

The bible talks about 'the current age' and 'the age to come'. The latter of which is not necessarily a reference to something post-mortem, but comes when God has established 'the kingdom' on earth. When the earth is renewed.

Basically Bell explains that what the bible means by heaven is not what our contemporary society understands by heaven. All well and good, and ties in with my favourite ever Rob Bell sermon, but what the chapter doesn't really discuss, in any depth, is what actually does happen to the believer or the non-believer after they die.

If the 'age to come' is an earthly age, even a 'heaven on earth' age, then will people die there? What happens then?

In reading this chapter I kind of felt that Bell had done a slight of hand and had ended up answering a different question to the one posed. Or maybe the bible really doesn't answer the 'post-mortem' question?

Yes, in general, I agree with all of his points, 'heaven' can be here not there, but what does happen when we die? That question isn't adequately addressed either here or in the rest of the book!

Chapter 3: Hell

This is the flip side of the previous chapter. Just as heaven can be here and not there, Bell shows that hell is also here, not there. Is there a post-mortem hell? The book doesn't fully answer that.

So hell is a present reality for some and will be a future reality for others, but what about when you die? This question - which seems to be the main selling point of the book - is not adequately addressed. Yes, he asks questions about it, but he doesn't really have a clear message to promote - by which I mean he doesn't say 'this is what might happen to someone when they die', rather he says things along the lines of 'that can't be right, can it?'

So, its thought provoking stuff, but offers little in the way of answers.

Chapter 4: Does God get what God wants?

This is the heart of Bell's reasoning. The bible says that God doesn't want any to perish. The bible says that God is all powerful. Therefore God will ensure that all will be 'saved' - whatever saved means (but we don't really go into that here).

Here I have to question one of the underlying assumptions of the book. The problem I see here is that Bell assumes that the bible has a single, coherent message. Essentially that all parts of the bible speak with the same voice. (I commented on this a couple of weeks ago when Rob Bell was on Unbelievable). The problem - as I see it - is that your whole view of what that one message is is entirely skewed by whatever passages you start with or choose to be your favourites.

It is clear to me (from reading this book) that Bell starts with the Gospel of John and some of the parables in the other gospels. Everything else starts from that foundation. He starts with 'God so loved the world' and builds his theology from that.

If you were to start from other verses or passages, then you'd end up with a completely different set of beliefs, but still think of them as 'bible based'.

I agree, if you start with John and the parable of the prodigal son / loving father, then you will inevitably end up with a God who cannot condemn anyone to hell. But that isn't the only picture painted in the bible and there is no clear way that I can see of choosing which of the possibilities is 'right', if indeed any of them are.

Chapter 5: Dying to live

This is where the book loses the plot. He doesn't quite say this, but gets fairly close to saying that Jesus death and resurrection are just another death and rebirth motif, like leaves falling off trees in the autumn and coming back in Spring. Its like 'everything dies and everything is reborn, and Jesus is just one of those things', which isn't exactly the case. This is where some people will have serious issues with Mr Bell. But not as much as in the next chapter.

Chapter 6: There are rocks everywhere

This is the chapter where Bell basically says that some people can 'be saved' and 'come to God' without knowing about Jesus. Yes, he says, Jesus is the only mediator between God and man, but anyone, with any experience of the divine, in whatever religious context, is reaching God through Jesus, even if they don't know it. He actually does go as far as to give the cliche example of the mountain with many paths to the top.

Sorry Rob, but this isn't in the bible. No matter how hard you try, you won't find it there.

Now it may be that I am more inclined to agree with this kind of reasoning than I used to be, but this is where both Rob Bell and I diverge from what the bible says. Its just that I realise that and he apparently doesn't.

Chapter 7: The good news is better than that

Here Rob Bell pads out the prodigal son / loving father parable to the length of a chapter. For the prodigal son, he thought he could return as a servant, but the good news is better than that. For the older brother, he thought he was restricted by the Father, but everything the Father had was his, the good news was better than that. And so on.

If God is love now and shows his love to you now, will he suddenly change character, and his attitude to you at the moment of your death? Probably not. The good news is probably better than that.

This feels like an unnecessary chapter. Bell has already made all of his points, but the book needs to be a bit longer, so he's added a couple of chapters. More of the same, really.

Chapter 8: The end is here

So we get to the end. What is Bell's final message? Well, its more or less 'live life like each day could be your last'. In the end, his main question is not what happens after you die, but he is much more interested in what you do before you die.

He doesn't really say this, but I think he's saying that we should live life right now, and leave whatever happens in the future (both pre- and post-mortem) in the hands of a loving God.

And that's it. A book that doesn't really answer the question it apparently set out to answer, but does a bit of slight of hand and answers a few different ones. In ways that will make (and already has made) a lot of conservative Christians quite annoyed. But this book isn't about answering the questions, its about making the reader think about the questions and, hopefully, reach their own answers.

Some will read this book and will simply reject what it says.

Some will read this book and think 'so what?'

But some will read this book and it will give them hope for the future and a better picture of a loving God. Those people are who Rob Bell wrote his book for. I hope many of them find it.

---

In the time since 'Love Wins' has come out, a number of the outraged conservative types have written books in response. Books like: "Erasing Hell: What God Said about Eternity, and the Things We Made Up" by Francis Chan & Preston Sprinkle (I hope he doesn't preach a message of baptism by total immersion!) and "God Wins: Heaven, Hell, and Why the Good News Is Better than Love Wins" by Mark Galli & Randy Alcorn. I have no plans to read any of these. Sigh.

Where does it say...? #2

I'm reading a book at the moment that is very 'evangelical' in its view of the world. A review will probably follow when I'm finished it. But there is one thing that has been niggling me right the way through reading the book, and its this:

An awful lot of the reasoning in the book relies on the underlying assumption that this world isn't important, and that all this is really just a preparation for 'heaven', which is real life. In essence, what happens in this world doesn't matter except insofar as it gets you ready for the life to come.

Where does it say that in the bible?

Lazarus

A stray thought occurred to me the other day. There is a pervasive belief in modern evangelical Christian circles that this life is kind of insignificant compared to 'eternal life in heaven' - the bit of life which starts after we die. This bit of life is really just to give us the chance to get to know Jesus so that we can be saved and then go to heaven when we die. Then the fun begins.

If that's the case, the story of Lazarus raises two problems.

1. Why does Jesus cry?
2. Why does Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead?

I mean, clearly Lazarus had the thing which modern evangelicals believe to be required for salvation, he had a personal relationship with Jesus. The text makes it absolutely clear, Jesus loved Lazarus (John 11v3&5). If anyone's salvation was assured it was this friend of Jesus's!

But Jesus cries at the news and then goes on to raise Lazarus from the dead. Why would Jesus cry if Lazarus going to heaven was an entirely good thing? Why would Jesus choose to pull Lazarus back out of eternal life into this fallen world?

OK, so some would say that the point is that Jesus is here demonstrating his power over death, but why restore someone destined for heaven? Why not give life back to someone who had died in their sins and give them a second chance? I'm sure there are countless ways Jesus could have demonstrated his power over death without pulling his friend out of paradise and back into this fallen world.

Or are we missing the point? Is life in this world more important than we have been led to believe? Did Jesus bring Lazarus back to this life because this life is good?

Perhaps we should focus more on this life than we sometimes do?

Wine and Heaven

Kind of out of character for me on this blog, but I listened to a downloaded sermon by Rob Bell yesterday which was just great. Its on 'Wine and Heaven'. There was so much insight and interesting stuff crammed into it that I thought I'd encourage you all to listen. Sadly the sermon in question has dropped off the bottom of the Mars Hill downloads page (they only list the most recent 12 sermons) but I have put it on my website for your edification: [click here to download] (12Mb). I can't actually remember the last time I heard a sermon go well past the hour mark and still be interesting...