{"id":1332,"date":"2011-07-07T15:08:01","date_gmt":"2011-07-07T19:08:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/?p=1332"},"modified":"2011-07-07T15:23:27","modified_gmt":"2011-07-07T19:23:27","slug":"hells-bells-francis-chan-erases-hell-and-refutes-bell-in-new-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/07\/hells-bells-francis-chan-erases-hell-and-refutes-bell-in-new-book.html","title":{"rendered":"Hells Bells! Francis Chan Erases Hell, and Refutes Bell, in New Book"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe title=\"Erasing Hell by Francis Chan\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qnrJVTSYLr8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>For someone who doesn\u2019t actually believe in hell, I\u2019ve spent a lot of time reading about it lately, a prurient pastime that I\u2019ll leave others to psychoanalyze. In the last two years there have been some fascinating books on the subject, my favorite of which is Sharon Baker\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thethoughtfulchristian.com\/Products\/0664236545\/razing-hell.aspx\"><em>Razing Hell<\/em>.<\/a> That book is the best I\u2019ve found at tracing the development of the doctrine of hell through the Bible and church history, as well as proposing an alternative understanding of what is meant by eternal punishment.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/Resources\/Additional-Resources\/Evangelicals-Might-Learn-from-Mormons-Jana-Riess-04-20-2011.html\">As I\u2019ve written recently for Patheos<\/a>, I also greatly appreciated <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Love-Wins-About-Heaven-Person\/dp\/006204964X\">Rob Bell\u2019s compassionate and thoughtful book on hell<\/a> that came out earlier this year. Not everyone felt that way, however, as you can see from the fiery discussions <a href=\"http:\/\/thegospelcoalition.org\/blogs\/justintaylor\/2011\/02\/26\/rob-bell-universalist\/\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/JohnPiper\/status\/41590656421863424\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1333\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1333\" style=\"width: 202px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/files\/2011\/07\/erasing-hell.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1333\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/83\/2011\/07\/erasing-hell-202x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"202\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1333\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Erasing Hell, which was published on Tuesday<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>This week, evangelical writer and pastor <a href=\"http:\/\/www.francischan.org\/\">Francis Chan<\/a> throws his hat into the ring with a brief but deliberate refutation of Rob Bell\u2019s work. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Erasing-Hell-about-eternity-things\/dp\/0781407257\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1310065423&amp;sr=1-1\"><em>Erasing Hell: What God Said About Eternity and the Things We Made Up<\/em><\/a> is Chan\u2019s answer to Bell\u2019s brand of Christian universalism, or the belief that God will save every person. Tragically, says Chan, this isn\u2019t the case; plenty of people are going to be a-roastin\u2019 and a-toastin\u2019. Forever. \u201cFor those who follow Jesus, there is everlasting life in the presence of God,\u201d he promises. \u201cBut for those who don\u2019t follow him, there will be punishment.\u201d (38)<\/p>\n<p>In contrast to some other conservative Christians who have written about hell (I\u2019m especially thinking of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Hell-Yes-Outrageous-Believe\/dp\/1578565200\/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1310065464&amp;sr=1-6\">Robert Jeffress\u2019s gleeful <em>Hell? Yes!<\/em><\/a> from a few years ago), Chan seems genuinely choked up about this. Consider this scene where he\u2019s sitting in a busy Starbucks looking with wonder and distress at all the people around him:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px\">The place buzzes with life. Meanwhile, I sit here reading passage after passage after passage, which all say that <em>some of those people are going to hell.<\/em> It sickens me to say that, and I can\u2019t explain how conflicted I feel right now. There are at least a dozen people within ten feet of me right here, right now, that may end up in the agony I\u2019m studying. What do I do? Do I keep writing? Keep studying? Should I bag this whole book thing and start building relationships with them? How can I believe these passages yet sit here silently? (72)<\/p>\n<p>A number of things bothered me about this book (not the least of which is the oral writing style with its plethora of italicized words, exclamation points, and rhetorical questions). One is that Chan and his co-author Preston Sprinkle, a Bible college professor who helped Chan with the historical and biblical background, claim that since Jesus didn\u2019t go out of his way to challenge first-century Jewish understandings of hell, he obviously agreed with them. (82) It\u2019s hard to prove an argument of absence. Isn\u2019t it possible that we have no record of Jesus reformulating hell because the idea wasn\u2019t significant enough to the Gospel writers for them to record? As Chan and Sprinkle admit, there isn\u2019t much about hell in the Old Testament. (50)<\/p>\n<p>Another flaw lies in the book\u2019s discussion of Matthew 25, that discomfiting and wonderful scripture about the sheep and the goats. \u201cThe sheep (believers in Jesus) and the goats (unbelievers) are divided into two camps, and Jesus decides who\u2019s who based on what they\u2019ve done in their lives.\u201d (82) Fair enough on the last point. But did I miss the doctrinal litmus test that the authors seem to think happens in this passage? Nowhere does Jesus mention belief as a pre-requisite; it\u2019s all about action. \u201cBeliever\u201d doesn\u2019t mean squat if the people have not visited the sick and clothed the naked.<\/p>\n<p>And of course the idea of Jesus as an angry dispenser of eternal punishment gives me pause:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px\">\u2026the wrath of Jesus [as depicted in 2 Thessalonians 1] is <em>retributive<\/em> and not <em>corrective.<\/em> In other words, the wrath wasn\u2019t intended to correct the behavior of those opposing Christ to make them fit for salvation. Rather, the wrath is an act of\u2014dare I say\u2014vengeance. (102)<\/p>\n<p>One of the things I greatly appreciated about this book is that even though it gives every appearance of having been hastily put together as a response to Rob Bell\u2019s work, it never engages in the kind of knee-jerk heckling that some even hastier Christian responses have generated. Chan never questions Bell\u2019s sincerity, never says Bell couldn\u2019t possibly be a Christian if he holds such progressive beliefs, never anathematizes Bell in any way. What\u2019s more, I think the book actually takes pains to present Bell\u2019s ideas in context and not caricature them.<\/p>\n<p>Conservative evangelical Christians deserve civil, high-minded arguments like this that don\u2019t stoop to attack and turn off the very people they\u2019re trying to persuade. If there is such a thing as a loving book on hell, this is it. I may not agree with it, but I laud the achievement nonetheless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For someone who doesn\u2019t actually believe in hell, I\u2019ve spent a lot of time reading about it lately, a prurient pastime that I\u2019ll leave others to psychoanalyze. In the last two years there have been some fascinating books on the subject, my favorite of which is Sharon Baker\u2019s Razing Hell. That book is the best&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":226,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9],"tags":[534,528,22,527,97,21,94,531,536,535,530,533,92,529,532],"class_list":["post-1332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-christianity","tag-annihilation-of-the-wicked","tag-erasing-hell","tag-flunking-sainthood","tag-francis-chan","tag-hell","tag-jana-riess","tag-love-wins","tag-mattew-25","tag-patheos","tag-preston-sprinkle","tag-razing-hell","tag-retributive-divine-justice","tag-rob-bell","tag-sharon-baker","tag-the-lake-of-fire"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Hells Bells! Francis Chan Erases Hell, and Refutes Bell, in New Book - Flunking Sainthood<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/07\/hells-bells-francis-chan-erases-hell-and-refutes-bell-in-new-book.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hells Bells! Francis Chan Erases Hell, and Refutes Bell, in New Book - Flunking Sainthood\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For someone who doesn\u2019t actually believe in hell, I\u2019ve spent a lot of time reading about it lately, a prurient pastime that I\u2019ll leave others to psychoanalyze. In the last two years there have been some fascinating books on the subject, my favorite of which is Sharon Baker\u2019s Razing Hell. That book is the best&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/07\/hells-bells-francis-chan-erases-hell-and-refutes-bell-in-new-book.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Flunking Sainthood\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-07-07T19:08:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-07-07T19:23:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/files\/2011\/07\/erasing-hell-202x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jana Riess\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Hells Bells! Francis Chan Erases Hell, and Refutes Bell, in New Book - Flunking Sainthood","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/07\/hells-bells-francis-chan-erases-hell-and-refutes-bell-in-new-book.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Hells Bells! Francis Chan Erases Hell, and Refutes Bell, in New Book - Flunking Sainthood","og_description":"For someone who doesn\u2019t actually believe in hell, I\u2019ve spent a lot of time reading about it lately, a prurient pastime that I\u2019ll leave others to psychoanalyze. In the last two years there have been some fascinating books on the subject, my favorite of which is Sharon Baker\u2019s Razing Hell. That book is the best&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/07\/hells-bells-francis-chan-erases-hell-and-refutes-bell-in-new-book.html","og_site_name":"Flunking Sainthood","article_published_time":"2011-07-07T19:08:01+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-07-07T19:23:27+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/files\/2011\/07\/erasing-hell-202x300.jpg"}],"author":"Jana Riess","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/07\/hells-bells-francis-chan-erases-hell-and-refutes-bell-in-new-book.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/07\/hells-bells-francis-chan-erases-hell-and-refutes-bell-in-new-book.html","name":"Hells Bells! Francis Chan Erases Hell, and Refutes Bell, in New Book - Flunking Sainthood","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/07\/hells-bells-francis-chan-erases-hell-and-refutes-bell-in-new-book.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/07\/hells-bells-francis-chan-erases-hell-and-refutes-bell-in-new-book.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/files\/2011\/07\/erasing-hell-202x300.jpg","datePublished":"2011-07-07T19:08:01+00:00","dateModified":"2011-07-07T19:23:27+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/#\/schema\/person\/fe5046ba89e9602d4de4c0e9b4ef53f8"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/07\/hells-bells-francis-chan-erases-hell-and-refutes-bell-in-new-book.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/07\/hells-bells-francis-chan-erases-hell-and-refutes-bell-in-new-book.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/07\/hells-bells-francis-chan-erases-hell-and-refutes-bell-in-new-book.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/files\/2011\/07\/erasing-hell-202x300.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/files\/2011\/07\/erasing-hell-202x300.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/07\/hells-bells-francis-chan-erases-hell-and-refutes-bell-in-new-book.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hells Bells! Francis Chan Erases Hell, and Refutes Bell, in New Book"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/","name":"Flunking Sainthood","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Jana Riess","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/#\/schema\/person\/fe5046ba89e9602d4de4c0e9b4ef53f8","name":"Jana Riess","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/954\/9541c99a399647166f0db1fe22b238ecx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/954\/9541c99a399647166f0db1fe22b238ecx96.jpg","caption":"Jana Riess"},"description":"Jana Riess is the author of Flunking Sainthood, a 2011 book about failing at twelve different spiritual practices. She is also currently working on The Twible, a three-year Twitter project with humorous daily Bible updates for your amusement (find her on Twitter as @janariess). She has a few silly degrees from swanky schools but was never once able to climb the rope in gym class. Her spiritual director is Buffy the Vampire Slayer.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/author\/jriess"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/226"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1332"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1336,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1332\/revisions\/1336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}