One Hell of a Problem

I remember a conversation that the Simpsons had as they drove home from church one day….

Marge: “So, what did you children learn about today?”
Bart: “Hell.”
Homer: “Bart!”
Bart: “Well, that's what we learned about. I sure as hell can't tell you we learned about hell unless I say "hell," can I?”
Homer: “Eh, The lad has a point.”
Bart: “Hell, yes!”
Marge: “Bart!”
Bart: (Singing) “Hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell.”
Marge: “Bart, you're no longer in Sunday school. Don't swear!”

Hell is a lot bigger problem for Christians than its use as a swear word. It may be the biggest problem of evil we face. Who can imagine an evil greater than the evil of unending torment? Suffering in life is bad enough, but at least it eventually ends. The traditional understanding of hell is that of eternal suffering. Can you envision that? I’m such a sissy that I can hardly stand to be sick or in pain for one day. An eternity of pain more severe than any pain I have suffered in this life is unimaginable.

Hell also raises some pretty tough questions about God’s character. How could a perfectly good and loving God cast people into an eternal existence of torture? How could a just God penalize temporal, earthly sins, with a never-ending punishment for those sins? This seems to be a greater injustice than cutting off a child’s hand for stealing a cookie or hanging a man for telling a lie. James Mill believed the concept of hell is so cruel that it undermines the belief in a good God. He wrote, “all ages and nations have represented their gods as wicked, in constantly increasing progression…till they reached the most perfect conception of wickedness which the human mind can devise, and have called this God, and prostrated themselves before it.” While I disagree with Mill’s final judgment, I can certainly see his point. It’s hard to view the author of everlasting torment as a God of love.

I don’t have any great solution to the problem of hell right now. I haven’t become a universalist. I probably would become a universalist if it wasn’t for my conviction that I am not smarter than Scripture or the tradition of the church that affirms a doctrine of hell. I think C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce was probably the most helpful book for me reconciling some of these issues, but I still have a lot of unanswered questions.

Right now, my only decisive conclusion is this: Christians need to be careful about how they talk about hell to unbelievers if they want Christianity to be taken seriously. If we talk about hell, we must speak about it in such a way that makes it an intelligible reality, a reality that somehow corresponds to the Triune God who is both loving and good.

The Birds and the Sneeze

I’ve always been pretty skeptical of the holistic medicine scene. My wife, who’s a nurse, was recently told by a kooky propagator of holistic medicine that doctors have a cure for cancer, but they refuse to use it because there’s so much money in the cancer business! Perhaps a conspiracy theorist who listens to AM radio at 3 o’clock in the morning would buy such an argument, but I don’t. There may be some value to holistic medicine, but I have a hard time believing the claims of hippies and crazy persons.

But….my experience this spring may be changing my mind. I have some of the worst spring allergies of anyone I have ever met. They have become so bad in recent years that I dope myself up on all kinds of medication and avoid going outside at all costs, and still I remain pretty miserable for about a month. I have tried everything, but nothing seems to work. In my search for new remedies, I came across a website recommended eating honeycomb to help with seasonal allergies. I was skeptical, but I was willing to try anything. So, I went to the local all-natural grocery store and picked up some honeycomb and have been eating it everyday…and…my allergies have not bothered me at all this spring! The allergy forecast has been very high for Kentucky, and I remain unbothered. If this continues, I may grow some dreadlocks, make some hemp clothing, and open up a holistic honeycomb farm where I can sell my new remedy for allergies that the doctors just don’t want you to know about.

Winning...Isn't Everything?

Why do I watch sports? Sports is one of the only areas in my life where I allow myself to be emotionally unguarded. I’m normally a fairly reasonable person, but when I watch the Buckeyes, I admittedly turn into a biased, emotional nutcase. I know that ultimately, sports really don’t matter, and I think that’s why its fun for me. With that said….the Buckeyes are killin’ me this year! First, we had probably the greatest regular season for football that we’d ever had. We went into the national title game against Florida as heavy favorites, and we got SMOKED. That may have been the worst game I have ever watched.
Now, in the midst of basketball season, we are the #1 team in the country. We should have lost to last week to Xavier in the second round of the NCAA tournament, but Ron Lewis hit a miracle shot at the buzzer to put us into overtime. The Buckeyes pulled out the victory, and I nearly had a heart attack. In tonight’s game against Tennessee, we were down by 20 points with one second left in the first half. I thought the game was over, but we came all the way back to take the lead late in the game. The game was tense and went down to the wire. The Buckeyes were up by 1 point with 6.5 seconds left. Tennessee had the ball and drove down the court. They shot the ball at the buzzer……and Greg Oden blocked the shot!!! I can’t take much more of this…

Evangelical Mariology

I've often wondered if we evangelicals have too low a view of the Virgin Mary. I'm sure that our hesitancy to revere and honor her is due to a reaction to what we view as the extreme veneration of her by the Roman Catholic Church. But, like so many other aspects of Catholicism, I wonder if we error too much in the opposite direction. Mary has a unique role in the history salvation by being intimately involved in the Incarnation of our Lord. The early church never formulated an official doctrine regarding Mary, but the third ecumenical council, the Council of Ephesus, declared that Mary is to be called Theotokos, “Mother of God.”
A professor at the seminary made a comment last week that I found helpful. He used a metaphor that placed the Virgin Mary as the first example of the Christian life. “The Virgin Mary is the model of the Christian faith. We are to have Christ formed in us as the Virgin Mary allowed Christ to be formed in her.” She is the first person to have her life radically transformed by the coming of Christ.
Mary’s words in Luke 1:38, “Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word,” show a total resolution and trust in the will of God. I would hope that someday I could exercise the similar humility and abandonment to God’s will.

Miscarriage and the Problem of Evil

This is a bleak post to start out a blog, but it’s what’s been on my mind…

We found out a little over a month ago that Jill was pregnant, and we were pretty excited. We don’t have any children, so this was life-changing news. We started making lots of plans looking forward to our future.

Last week Jill miscarried. It was one of the saddest days of my life. It’s been a rough week.

Today, I’ve been reading J. L .Mackie’s Evil and Omnipotence and Alvin Plantinga’s The Free Will Defense regarding the problem of evil. I’ve been thinking a lot about the problem of evil lately. When we consider all of the evil in the world, it is hard to reconcile it with a good and all-powerful God. This is a huge issue for the Christian faith, and Christians need to be prepared to give answers to those who use it to discredit the faith.

It struck me today, as I was reflecting on this problem for Christianity, that I haven’t thought about our miscarriage as part of the problem of evil. The miscarriage broke our hearts, and I certainly don’t have any explanation as to why a good God would allow this to happen. But, this tragedy hasn’t shaken my faith or made me think that there is a contradiction between God’s goodness and his power. I find it strange that the theoretical problem of evil has made me question my view of God more than the experience of personal evil. In the midst of personal evil, I don’t find myself seeking answers to tough questions. I find myself seeking grace and comfort from the very God who doesn’t always make sense.