By now, there is no way you have missed the controversy about Rob Bell's new book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. The internet nearly exploded on Saturday when Justin Taylor posted a rather unhelpful piece essentially declaring Bell to be apostate for rejecting the idea of hell and embracing universalism. Taylor wisely amended his post soon afterward and noted that he had made his judgments without actually reading the book. Nonetheless, folks all over took Taylor's post to be the truth, and immediately proceeded to toss Bell aside as a heretic.

My knowledge of Bell's theology is limited, but I know that he has been a controversial figure for quite some time. Robin, my wife, is from Grand Rapids, and during the time we were dating we went to Bell's church a couple of times, although for all the ink spilled about his bad theology, I never heard him say anything overtly unbiblical. Nonetheless, I was not surprised to see his name dragged through the mud again for his views on how God deals with those who reject him.

I was not surprised, but I was very disappointed. We always need to have an enemy, it seems, and Rob Bell made the perfect target this weekend. And so without having read his book or interacted with him on the issue at hand, people all over set to judging him and condemning what they think they knew of his theology.

Eugene Peterson, in Practice Resurrection, spends a few pages discussing Martin Buber's book, I and Thou. Buber puts forth the theory that there are three ways humans typically approach their relationships with others: I-It, which objectifies the other in the relationship; Us-Them, which divides every relationship into good and bad; and I-You, which recognises the personality and humanity of each person in the relationship. Having the Bell controversy on my mind as I read this, I was struck by how often evangelicals view everything through the lens of Us-Them. Peterson summarises Buber's second category like this:

Us-Them: the world is divided into two, the children of light and the children of darkness. This is a very convenient way to think about the world because whatever is wrong, it's obviously because of 'them.' Complexities vanish. Everything is suddenly tidy. There are goats and sheep, and the sheep by the very nature of things will triumph – didn't Jesus say so? Us-Them has always attracted demagogues, and the demagogues have attracted great crowds. This in effect demonizes everyone who doesn't think or feel along the lines of Us... Us-Them turns others into the enemy.

I am not here to defend Bell's theology or to offer an apology for his book. And if you do a quick Google search, you will find lots of helpful (and not so helpful) responses already written about what happened this weekend. But the whole controversy brings to light again the need for Christians to stop glorying in ugly theological battles, especially when our understanding of the theology we are opposing is based on speculation.

John Frame, one my seminary professors, had such wisdom and humility in how he dealt with the thought of others, particularly those he disagreed with. I learned a great deal from him about this. We have a responsibility to have a thorough understanding of the thinking of those we disagree with before we set out to critique them. And when we do, Ephesians 4 is instructive, because our critique of the theology of others is not to tear them down, but to build them – and the whole body of Christ – up. So we must speak the truth in love (Eph. 4:15). What's more, we simply cannot be so casual when it comes to throwing around accusations of a false gospel. To be sure, we have a responsibility to carefully evaluate the teaching of others, and sometimes there will be a need to be frank and honest about someone teaching a false gospel. But to label someone apostate is a major charge, one that has immense implications. We are wise to use this label very sparingly. 

Needless to say, this was largely absent from the internet discussions over the weekend. It is a lot easier to label someone apostate than to take the time to interact with their thought. But this hardly serves to build up the body of Christ.

I don't know what Rob Bell thinks about hell or universalism or how God deals with those who reject him. If the promotional video that caused so much of a stir is accurate, then there are some major theological issues that need to be addressed. But writing off Bell as a heretic or bidding him farewell should not be our first reaction. We need to carefully evaluate Bell's theology, interact with him about these issues, and speak the truth in love. Don't revel in division and controversy. Seek the unity and peace of Christ's church.

As children innocently prepare their costumes and empty bags or pillowcases for an enjoyable evening of collecting candy, evangelicals will be battling the forces of Satan on two fronts tonight: boycotting Halloween, and gathering together for a few rousing rounds of Rome-bashing.

Now, I don't enjoy Halloween (specifically what American culture has made of it), and have no problem with those who wish to abstain from participating in it; there are many good reasons not to. However, I am sure there are many doing so tonight who have no idea what they are actually boycotting. They prefer to ignore all that history and instead seize on to the opportunity to celebrate another day which nicely coincides with this awful pagan holiday—Reformation Day.

Lest I sound too cynical, let me note that I am, indeed, very thankful the Reformation happened—I am glad that the doctrines of grace were recovered, I am glad that the abuse of power by corrupt church leaders was curtailed, and I am glad that I did not have to pay for St. Peter’s to be built pay for my relatives to be sprung from purgatory. The Reformation is most certainly something to be thankful for. But one question continues to linger in my mind—would we even celebrate Reformation Day if it didn't conveniently fall on the same night as Halloween?

We might ask why we need a special night to celebrate the Reformation. On the one hand, it seems to be the equivalent of using Valentine's Day to tell your wife that you love her. As your love for her should be manifest each day, shouldn't our rejoicing in God's saving grace be something we do each day? This grace should pour forth from the preaching of the Word and we should taste it in partaking of the Lord's Table each Sunday. Do we really need a specific day to commemorate this?

Moreover, Martin Luther's act of nailing the 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg was not the monumental act of defiance that many make it out to be. He only intended to raise a discussion about various issues concerning the Catholic Church with his academic peers. Luther's innocent action exploded into the major events that followed only because some random guy grabbed the piece of paper off the door, translated it into German, and sent copies of it all throughout the country. Do we need to a special day to remember that autumn day in 1517 when Luther walked up the stairs to the door of the Wittenberg church and made known his desire to have an academic discussion with his colleagues?

Hardly. So what is it, then, that evangelicals end up celebrating on Reformation Day? To be sure, there are those who will understand and acknowledge the theological implications of the Reformation. But for others, Reformation Day is, for all intents and purposes, a day to celebrate the disunity of the church. That, to me, is certainly not worth celebrating.

For some reason, people seem to forget that while Luther ultimately made the move to break from the Roman Catholic Church, he did not do so immediately. He spent years in agony deciding whether or not to leave the church he knew as mother and to go against Christ's call for unity in the body of believers (John 17:20-26, 1 Corinthians 1:10). People also forget that Luther was not the first Reformer, and that there were many who went before him who also tried earnestly to reform the church from within. Separating from the church was never the intention of these men, yet their valiant efforts to remain united seem to go unheralded. Instead, we prefer to celebrate the Protestant break from Rome, the second-most definitive and drastic split in the history of the church (the first being the Great Schism of 1054).

Am I advocating a return to Rome? No. Do I think the church will ever be one this side of our Lord's return? Of course not. Am I thankful for the work of the Reformers? Absolutely—I count it a great privilege to be rooted in the theological heritage they left us. But we can't forget that the Reformation also produced a lot of collateral damage. When you have to start constructing graphs that look like the one below (and this is just the American Presbyterians!) something is terribly wrong. And it is nothing to celebrate.O Lord, make us one as You are one.

Some weeks ago, I posted about the recent trend among evangelical Twitter users to tweet the gospel. A couple of days ago, Anthony Bradley, associate professor of theology and ethics at King's College, discussed the same thing at the WORLD magazine blog, garnering a lot of attention and prompting Jared Wilson, who pastors a church in Vermont, to issue a lengthy response defending the practice. By no means am I a big player in the blogosphere, but since both of them linked to my original post on the subject, I wanted to offer a few additional thoughts in response to Wilson's post in particular. You will need to read both for the background to this post.

First, both Bradley and I argued that one of the problem with the gospel tweets is their lack of context, a point Wilson takes issue with. He argues that all tweets, regardless of content, assume a context and that to understand what a person is tweeting about, you need to know this context. This is a logical point, of course, but there is a difference of degree in the contexts needed. For example, let's say that I tweet something like, "Heading to Sanford to have dinner with some folks from the church." You will need to understand a few things to make sense of this: clearly, I don't live in Sanford as I need to travel to get there, but obviously I live close enough that I can go there to have dinner with people. You will not know where Sanford is unless you know that I live in the Orlando area, and so it must be in that area as well. Also, you will need to know that I am a member of a church, and quite involved to the point that I'd share a meal with some of the people who belong to it. But these are all things that are easily deduced.

As another example, recently I tweeted a link to a blog post discussing the problems of consumerism and poverty in America. The tweet contained a brief quote from the post, "While iPad sales show no sign of slowing, one in five children in America are living in poverty," and was followed by the link. What context do you need to understand this tweet? You need to understand that what the iPad is and that it is being sold in large quantities, and you need to understand that there is a significant portion of the American population living in poverty. Further, you need to understand that a comparison is being made between the two statistics in order to demonstrate that our culture values consumerism more than it does justice. Again, though, this is not difficult to figure out.

Now, let's take one of the examples of a gospel tweet I originally cited, which both Bradley and Wilson reproduce in their posts: "Legalism says achievement leads to approval, the gospel says that approval leads to achievement" (and by the way, Mr. Wilson, if I recall correctly this one belongs to Tullian Tchividjian. I didn't see the need to cite the authors of these sample tweets originally because it wasn't important for the purpose of making a general observation). What context will you need to understand this? In the first place, you will need some of the terms defined, particularly legalism and gospel, because the extent of the definition of gospel at this point is, "not legalism," and vice versa. Then, what is the achievement spoken of? Approval by or from whom? Unless you have some sort of theological foundation, these questions are not so easily answered.

Interestingly, Wilson also points to John 3:16 as an example of a presentation of the gospel in tweet-sized form (he notes that the verse is 126 characters long). It is true that this is a concise expression of the gospel—and indeed, much clearer than many of the gospel tweets out there—but again, it is not understood by everyone without further explanation; Nicodemus himself needed the entire discussion with Jesus in John 3 to make sense of what he was talking about. The point is simply that there is a much greater context needed to understand a gospel tweet. Now, while this in and of itself is insufficient reason to abandon the practice altogether, it should raise some questions about the how and why of tweeting the gospel.

If you do the gospel-tweet thing with the purpose of trying to evangelize, hoping that it might plant seeds, I cannot imagine this practice bearing much fruit. I certainly would not deny that in some cases it might, but I do not think that something like, "Only the gospel glow of the New Jerusalem can make the city lights of Tarshish appear as bling bling," (this one belongs to Scotty Smith, by the way) is going to bring people to their knees. It surprises me, too, that many of these who engage in the gospel-tweeting practice are the same people who emphasize the need for building relationships in the process of proclaiming the gospel to the world. If, instead, you do it as a means of discipleship, what level of depth are you bringing to that relationship? These are just some of the questions this practice raises in my mind.

Second, Wilson makes a big deal over the discussion of the simplicity of the gospel. I am not sure what the problem is here. Bradley is right to say that there are times where gospel-tweeters attempt to say something profound or clever and in doing so, "frustrate the simplicity of the message." There is a sense in which the gospel is profoundly simple, and trying to dress it up with a slew of over-the-top adjectives only obscures that. But this does not, as Wilson insists, contradict the fact that the gospel is also far bigger than any tweet can encompass. I simply don't see the tension here.

Third—and this is the biggest issue I have with Wilson's post—at one point, he mentions that gospel-tweeters understand that the gospel is a "big deal" and later goes on to say that because he believes in the Lordship of Christ over all of life (the title of his blog is a reference to that oft-quoted statement of Abraham Kuyper), he can't help but use his Twitter stream for proclaiming the gospel. What comes across in these statements is an implication that those who don't use Twitter for this purpose—myself and Bradley included—don't get how big the gospel is and don't believe in the Lordship of Christ. Now, I am sure that Wilson would not want to say this (his words could have been more carefully chosen at this point), and indeed it is not true.

In fact, I think that if you really believe in the Lordship of Christ, you will tweet more than your clever comparisons of the gospel and legalism or the gospel and religion (the latter of which, by the way, are not antithetical to each other). Your tweets will talk about all spheres of life because Christ is Lord over all of life. The gospel is not just about individual salvation (which is what receives the most emphasis in the gospel-tweets). It is about the transformation of all of life, and God's act of redeeming his whole creation. It is about the Kingdom of God that has come and the sovereign rule of Christ over all. I would think that your tweets would reflect that by going beyond the implications of the gospel for individual salvation and piety. Perhaps you might link to articles discussing how to think about politics, education, and justice from a Christian perspective. Maybe you would share some quotes from books you are reading on creativity and the arts. Even something more mundane, like mentioning that you are going to spend a quiet night at home with your family is not outside of this because it demonstrates that you understand the value of the family. What's more, it seems to me that this sort of thing would be a lot more effective if you want to reach non-Christians, because it gets them thinking about things they deal with on a regular basis. A good article on how to deal with the problem of poverty prompts your followers to ask questions: "Why does he think about poverty from this perspective?" That point of contact lays a greater foundation for a relationship instead of blasting them with the ills of legalism.

In the end, I think Bradley is right to say that this practice, in some ways, keeps believers on "spiritual milk." If the gospel doesn't go beyond the usual fare of the Twitter-gospel, it is not helping to transform all of life. 

Do I think the gospel-tweeting should stop altogether? No. I've seen some genuinely good tweets out there. Do you need to only tweet stuff that everyone will understand? Of course not. My main objection, and I think Bradley would concur, is when it totally consumes a user. As Bradley says, there are times when it is hard to imagine that this is all nothing more than a popularity contest, just like those who only tweet things like "how to grow your business" or "how to get more hits for your website." Perhaps Wilson is right that part of our dislike for the practice is because we find it annoying, but that is the least concern here. It is the glut of overblown adjectives, often-bizarre comparisons, and in many cases, banality, that makes us wonder what the point of it all is.

Abraham Sangha, one of the contributors for the blog, The Institute, mentioned in his most recent post that he was once asked how you would tweet the gospel, to which he quickly replied, "You don't." I'm inclined to agree with him.

In recent months, I've noticed that some people involved in church ministry have increasingly been using Twitter as a platform for talking – though perhaps it would be better to call it preaching – about the gospel, in some cases almost exclusively (I'll attribute it to mere coincidence that this started to happen with more regularity once John Piper started tweeting). Below, I pulled a sample of some of these tweets so you could see what I'm talking about:

Reading the sample tweets I've posted above, there were a few things that came to mind. First, while I don't disagree with anything said above (although I might word them differently), these short tweets are lacking context. Now, in the case of the persons who tweeted these things, the vast majority of their followers will be Christians, with many likely coming from a similar tradition of the Twitter user and able to supply the needed context. In one sense, then, they are preaching to the choir. But perhaps one of their followers is in a place where they need to hear one of these messages, and are encouraged by it.

However, if you have people following you who are not Christians, none of this will likely make any sense to them. And though having followers who aren't Christians shouldn't stop you from tweeting thoughts that resonate with you or inspire you, it is worthwhile to consider your audience and the medium of the message. One other thing bearing consideration is the nature of social media relationships – is there some semblance of a personal relationship when following someone on Twitter such that you are sharing the gospel in the context of relationship, or is tweeting the gospel a 21st century varient of tract evangelism?

Secondly, these types of tweets seem to restrict the gospel message to the singular idea that we are saved by God's grace apart from anything we can do. While this is entirely true and was one of the major themes of the message Jesus came to proclaim, is this all the gospel is about? What about Jesus' proclamation of the Kingdom of God? The presentations of the gospel that come out of this recent Twitter trend seems to focus solely on personal salvation and individual piety. Again, while these are parts of the gospel, it is not the whole message. Is it a good practice to present bits and pieces of the gospel 140 characters at a time?

At any rate, I am probably reading too much into it this, and could just be missing the point. These are just some of my initial reactions to this increasing trend of tweeting the gospel. What do you think? If you like to tweet the gospel, why do you do so? Can you really present the gospel in 140 characters?

Soong-Chan Rah is a professor at North Park Seminary in Chicago. He's recently written a book called The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity. This video touches on the themes of his book, as he discusses American evangelicalism and the way it has become captive to the culture around it. There is lots of good stuff in here, and instead of trying to summarise it all, I'd encourage you to watch the video. If you've read Andy Crouch's excellent book, Culture Making, you'll hear some similar things from Rah. Likewise, if you've read Jamie Smith's also excellent book, Desiring the Kindgom, you'll appreciate a lot of what Rah has to say as well, particularly his reference to the mall as the centre of American religion. Additionally, Rah's emphasis on the need for the church to recognise the changing demographic's of America is important to understand.

(HT: Anthony Bradley)

Melvin Tinker, the vicar of St John Newland in the city of Hull, and the chairman of the steering committee of the Yorkshire Gospel Partnership, was kind enough to send me an article a few weeks ago that he wrote with Peter Sanlon on ecclesiology (later: I found out that this article was originally published in the Church Society's journal, Churchman 123:4 [Winter, 2009]). Coming from an evangelical Anglican perspective, the article addresses a number of concerns that those within that context of Anglicanism have to deal with, such as the accusations of having a weak or entirely lacking ecclesiology that might come from those within Anglo-Catholic churches or the disaffection of those who have left evangelical churches pursuing riches elsewhere.

With some biblical exegesis and a very helpful section on the posture we need to maintain when discussing ecclesiology, the article is both challenging and encouraging. In the coming week or so I will post some of the other pieces of the article I found interesting.

To begin with, I want to highlight Melvin and Peter's discussion of family heritage. All church traditions have a heritage, be it one that spans centuries, or one that spans a few decades, and we all owe something to that heritage. I cannot speak for the UK, but I have noticed two dominant trajectories with respect to the way North American churches deal with their heritage: to varying degrees, they either entirely ignore it, or they idolise it. Melvin and Peter's insights on this point provide a very balanced perspective. They write,

Our family heritage, like any family, is far from perfect. If the reformers' teaching can be shown to be inadequate at points; not being entirely consistent with Scripture, then we are being most true to the reformers when we depart from them and draw closer to the teaching of the Bible. This is because the reformers were animated by the same heartbeat as modern evangelicals are—Scripture.

In the final analysis, our family heritage is to form us but not control us. Nobody appreciates an overbearing parent determined to mechanistically dictate every detail of their child's life. The reformers themselves never would have wanted their latter-day descendents to look to them for that sort of instruction. Rather they would have desired us to accept them as flawed, frail and imperfect family, who lived with the same passion that ought to enliven us. They are most respected when the heritage of active reformation and revival is pursued in ways that respectfully grow and develop from their firm foundation.

...the heritage of our earlier reformation family, by their divergences and growth, should stimulate us to further reflection and self-critique. If we only listen to the teachers who are alive today, with whom we agree, then we are consigning ourselves to only learn from leaders alive at a stage of church history when Western Christianity can hardly be argued to be in anything other than a weak, sorry state. Our family heritage in the reformers is rich and varied. Their acumen, scriptural insight and desire to spread the Gospel...should act as a real stimulus to our own growth and maturity. [But] we ought not to freeze any leader or period of history and simply try to repeat that. Engaging with the reformation writings earnestly would prevent us from doing so, for...the reformers were animated by the same heartbeat of scripture, but displayed considerable growth and difference.

A perspective like this avoids the extremes on either end of the spectrum. One side holds to the idea that there must be continual innovation and change in order to maintain relevance, and in this way, declares everything old to be obsolete and no longer useful. This can involve rather creative uses of scripture which downplay its authority. The other side pays too strict of an allegiance to heritage and tradition and can neglect to continually evaluate its scriptural validity which, in a different way, also downplays the authority of Scripture. Often, this is symptomatic of the sort of 'golden age' view of history that the article speaks of. This is not to vilify either side; indeed, the perspective Melvin and Peter put forth acknowledges there is much good in both, and that together they give us a balanced middle ground.

Heritage is important, and we ought not to neglect it. But likewise must we not elevate it to a level in which it begins to encroach on the authority if Scripture. The reformers recognised this; they did not intend for us to make carbon copies of themselves, but instead set an example for us to follow. Indeed, they confessed Ecclesia semper reformanda. May their spirit continue to inspire us.

Yes, dear church-goer, there certainly is. From the Westminster Larger Catechism:

Q. 160: What is required of those that hear the Word preached?

A. It is required of those that hear the Word preached, that they attend upon it with diligence, preparation, and prayer; examine what they hear by the Scriptures; receive the truth with faith, love, meekness, and readiness of mind, as the Word of God; meditate, and confer of it; hide it in their hearts, and bring forth the fruit of it in their lives.

Kind of flies in the face of that whole, "Here we are now, entertain us!" mentality of American evangelicalism, doesn't it?

Do forgive the cynicism. In reality, yes, this is a significant responsibility given to those who hear the preaching of the Word. But it is also one that comes with great blessing. Think of the words of Psalm 1: "Blessed is the man...[whose] delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither." That's a powerful image. And the corresponding negative is powerful too—without meditating on the Word we essentially become dead trees in an arid land, barely holding on, if at all.

Go read Psalm 119. It is telling that David's longest Psalm is about his love for God's Word. Oh, that we would sing praises like that for the Word of our Lord!

I know as an insider how disillusioning it can be to see how deep and widespread the ignorance of Orthodox Church members can be concerning their own faith, how low their levels of personal commitment sometimes are, and how bigoted they sometimes act toward other Christians.

On the other hand, I have witnessed the hubris of some evangelical Christians, which is often tied to historical amnesia and an idolatrous self-confidence in their own exegetical skills. I've also been a deeply wounded casualty of the broken promises and highly unethical behavior of certain evangelical leaders. But I must quickly add that the good in both communities far outweighs the bad.
-- Bradley Nassif, in Three Views on Eastern Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism, 28.

Well put, I think. But these are certainly issues not limited to Orthodox and evangelical churches alone. There are problems in each and every church. We're all sinners. But we have grace and the promise of Matthew 16:18; ergo, Nassif can confidently finish his statement as he did.