I had a thought the other day.  If God’s judgment leaves someone out of the Kingdom of Heaven, which can be rationally described as hell, then I’m going to hell.

Did I get your attention?

Here’s why I’m going to hell.  The broad assumption in evangelical Christianity is that in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, one must speak a specific belief of Jesus.  This was called the sinner’s prayer when I was growing up.

So let’s say that is true.  It is then arguable that most of the Eastern world, Australia, Asia, and much of the Arab and Jewish world would be excluded. The primary assumption in that model is that grace is only true once it is accepted.  It becomes true in the cosmos, when we accept it.  As Rob Bell asked, “Will billions and billions of people burn forever in hell?”

I’ve said that prayer. I learned to recite it daily in college because I constantly wondered if I had said it right.  When someone speaks this prayer, they are considered in…mostly. ;-P  So I’m assuming that I’m in.  In fact, as Paul would often suggest, I must be in.  I’ve committed my entire life, my entire way of being to following this Jesus guy.  I gave up my career in business to pursue ministry.  I spent most of my life savings so I could spend time developing community based discipleship programs. I wrote a book on the Gospel.  None of that get me in heaven. It simply is.

But if I’ve learned anything from following Jesus, if I’ve learned anything from the Gospel, it is that it is relentless in its pursuit of the lost.  Jesus spoke parable after parable of the lost sheep, coin, and son. If there are people on the outside of the gates of heaven, then I’m rallying the troops inside to go find them.  I’m going to hell to remind them of who they are: children of the living God who are called very good.

Love doesn’t end.  The mission isn’t over if someone is on the outside of the gates.  There is still someone who doesn’t know the message.  Call me a dreamer, but I just can’t see Jesus going all the way to the cross and then saying, “Yep, they just didn’t get it while they were alive.  Let’s leave ‘em to rot and burn.”

Care to come with me?

Is belief the central work of the evangelical faith?

Lately I’ve been watching as the really big voices in the evangelical world have been wrestling with their own faith structures. Ed Stetzer and Scot McKnight, whom I greatly respect, recently explore some of the tensions within the evangelical faith.  Scot recently explored the stereotypes and tension of what happens when you bring evangelicals and mainliners together. Ed recently explored the tension of interfaith dialog. But it was Scot who asked if evangelicalism creates a new fundamentalism.

It’s like the emerging church all over again. ;-P

I noticed the tension Ed shared.  He said, “As a rule, I don’t do interfaith meetings. Our goals generally do not line up.” I get and respect his desire in what he’s saying.  He wants to remain true to his understanding of the Gospel.  But it was interesting to note that his understanding of the Gospel became a barrier to participating with other human beings.  I also appreciate Ed’s candor for sharing something so personal.  By living out his faith in the public context he’s sharing some of the same fears we’ve all felt.

But the three posts have increasingly led me to ask, “Is belief the new work?”  Has evangelicalism created a new structure for works through belief?  Because in order for someone to get into heaven, they have to believe, and some would say the right way.  Maintaining the purity of that faith in practice becomes central to the process.  I’ve wrestled with this question before, but its interesting to hear Scot and Ed work it out in their own life.

What do you think?

Ed Stetzer recently reflected on the tension of ecumenical efforts at Lausanne, and stated in a post, “Evangelicals (and Lausanne is an evangelical gathering) are conversionists–we believe that people need to be converted.”

What is the nature of conversion?  What in your mind is actually happening at the moment of conversion?

What is the role of belief in the life of a follower of Jesus?

One of the central ideas I present in Discovering The God Imagination is the idea that we can’t change reality.  In the creation of the world, God establishes what is true. It’s remarkably simple and brief.  Everything rests on God’s original judgment of all reality as good. If humanity can change it, it was never true in the first place. My previous post, A Question To Ponder, explored the idea of becoming a child of God. At some point a few embrace the belief that we are children of God.  This moment is often called salvation, which is the recognition of what is true in the cosmos.

But a subtle tension emerges when we create two groups: those who are in and those who are out.  Does belief get you in?  To belief is then traditionally thought of as the moment we then change the accounting ledger, or the Book of Life.  The act of believing gets us in to heaven.  I get this.  Who would ever WANT to be thrown voluntarily into the lake of fire.  But the act of believing is then seen as the moment we change reality.  To belief literally places our name in the book of life.

The problem with this theory is that it becomes a “work”.  In other words, salvation is dependent on human action.  The central act of grace rests not on reality, as evidenced in the cross, or on the atoning work of Christ, but on the human act of believing.  Belief gets you in. The Apostle Paul directly argues against the idea of works in his letter to the Ephesians.

in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.  Ephesians 2:7-9 (New International Version)

If reality, and thus salvation, is cosmologically dependent on the human action of belief, then it is a work. The change in the reality rests on a human action.  The different is in where the problem is located.  If the problem is located in God, and our belief in Jesus gets us out of judgment, then it’s not grace.  According to Paul it can’t be.  The change is dependent on human action. So what then is the role of belief?

But if the problem is located in humanity, in us, in our capacity to construct a false reality, then the human act of belief doesn’t change reality. It aligns the person to reality.  In order to offer the concept of salvation to someone, it must already be true for them to accept it.  The act of acceptance is then not getting someone in but revealing reality to that person that they are already in.  The act of belief changes the person locally to the grace that has always been true.  Belief then serves to change the mind of the person, not the cosmos.  Faith holds onto that reality and confronts the evidence that suggests a different reality altogether.

Why do we search for God?  It’s an intriguing question and one that I have spent way too much time pondering and wrestling with.  The word theology, broken down can mean God logic.  We’re trying to understand who God is because if we are created in God’s image, the purpose of our search is to inform ourselves of our own humanity.  We’re looking to understand who we are as human beings.

A little while ago, my son and I were playing a wrestling game.  During the game he inadvertently hit me and it hurt.  I voiced my displeasure and instead of staying in the game, he ran to his room.  As I approached him, I could see that he was afraid.  He wouldn’t look at me.  I could tell that he was afraid that my image of him had changed and that it was possible I didn’t love him.  He was captivated by what I would call a lie, and his fear was driving him away from me.  I spent the next twenty minutes just sitting with him to convince him that there was nothing he could do to make me stop loving him.  And when he finally let go, he crumbled into my arms and started crying.  He had discovered that the lie was untrue.

I get that moment.  I often wonder if the tension in our search includes the possibility that maybe we’re just not cut from the same cloth as God.  Maybe we’re the one exception to the story.  We’re the one individual that is part of the story that God leaves on the outside.  We see the evidence in our lives that suggests, “How can I do THAT, and still be a child of God?  How can God love me when there’s just so much evidence to the contrary.” What if the problem is not God’s capacity to love humanity, even when it does something evil, but our capacity to love the self when we do something evil?

In Discovering The God Imagination: Reconstructing A Whole New Christianity, I explore this tension as the central question of the human experience, one that disconnects us from our father.   We see the fruit in our lives and wonder, how can I be good?  How can God love me when I’ve done that?  How can I be a child of God when I am capable of doing something so counter to who God is?”  And in the process of questioning, we run.  And if we run, we lose our capacity to understand our dignity, our identity, and our purpose.

I also wonder if we’re afraid to be children of God.  If we are created in God’s image, we also hold the capacity to create a reality.  And in this capacity we also hold the capacity to construct a false reality, one that captivates us in a lie and makes us run.  To be children of God means we are powerful.  So the capacity to create also means we can get it wrong.  We can judge ourselves as wanting and even worthless.  And when we run, we perpetuate the lie.

One of the more provocative notions in Scripture is how Jesus reframes God not as a distant and uncaring God, but as a Father.  Jesus actually commands us to call God, “Father.”  It’s right there in the story.  And it’s easy to see this shift as something new.  But what if it’s instead really old.  If we go back to the beginning of the story, Adam and Eve had no parents.  God was in essence their Father.  And so Jesus’ command is to rediscover the perspective that has always been true.  It’s not something we make true, but something we discover is already true.

And when we do, when we open ourselves to a new reality, a new way of seeing God, we don’t find a father that can’t get over our sin.  We find a Father that has always been able to get over it.  We find a father waiting at the edge of the porch for us to come home so he can embrace us.  God never loses site of who we are, even when we do.  And that is salvation.

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This is the second video I made last year in a series called, “Something To Think About.”

In our desire to express what we believe we often miss that it can rob us of the very relationship we are seeking. This short presentation explores the nature of our faith, how it changes over time, and a way to practice our faith.

I don’t like to defend my own certainty anymore. I’ve come to believe the notion of certainty is not the point.

Recently a friend named Chad posted a note in Facebook defending certainty.  Chad explores it based on  Hebrews 11.

Hebrews 11:1 – Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

And I completely get the point he was trying to make.  At some point we need to have faith in something, to be certain to an extent.  If we lose the idea that we have faith in something, we have faith in nothing.  But the dialog that followed though illustrated to me why I don’t defend the notion of certainty.  It never comes out the way I had hoped it would.  It usually ends up with hurt feelings and misunderstandings.  Two ships continue to pass in the night.

If I defend it, it misses what the certainty is actually for, which is the fruit of love.  If I really believe it doesn’t really matter what anyone else thinks.  It only matters that I actually believe it.  The person I’m really trying to convince is myself.  And in regards to my faith, the best way for me to be certain that I am certain of my faith is made real in the act of love.  Is my certainty producing love in a way that is life giving, hope-filled, and draws people in, as opposed to pushes them away if they don’t agree with my certainty.

The truest defense of the faith is not a defense of the faith but the act of love. It’s the fulfillment of the Great Commandment.  Its a life lived in a way that actually reveals the Gospel.  Because I can say I believe anything.  But if my life doesn’t reveal it, well then its BS.  This is what I love about the cross.  It’s the truest measure of love.  Are we willing to love in such a way that people cannot help but be profoundly touched, even in a way that requires our own suffering?

I’m going to begin a new series on Sunday’s called a Question To Ponder.  It will ask something of you the reader to think, process and post a comment on.  Please add your thoughts to the mix.

Today’s Question To Ponder: How is your faith different than when you were a child?

Looking for your thoughts.

Many of the arguments that occur on blogs and on the web are based on the idea of defending the faith.

1 Peter 3:15 (NIV) – But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,

I get that.  But is there a difference between defending our reason for the hope that you have, which is ultimately based in the sometimes irrationality of faith, and defending the orthodoxy of what we believe, which sometimes appears to be a larger body of knowledge of the collective elite?

What say you?