about the recent controversy
\nover Rob Bell’s new book, which centers upon concern that Rob Bell is
\nadvocating universal salvation. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\nAs a few of
\nyou pointed out, the book isn’t even out yet, so the controversy is somewhat
\ncontrived, presumably both by Bell’s publisher–he’s generated a lot of
\ninterest–but also by the Christians who are responding to it without reading
\nits contents. I don’t want to weigh in on Rob Bell’s views, but I would like to
\naddress some of the questions this debate has raised.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\nAs I wrote
\nabove, God is the ultimate judge, and as Ellen Painter Dollar commented
\nyesterday, “<\/span>What happens after we die isn’t up to us. It’s up
\nto God. There is no possible way for us to know what will happen, and
\nspeculating on it, trying to figure it out, just tempts us to believe we have
\nsome control over something that we don’t.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And yet it seems to me that these questions matter. For one, if God, through Jesus, is inviting all human beings to live a full and eternal life with Him, then I not only want to be a part of it, but I also want everyone I know and love to be a part of it with me. Christians have often differentiated between life on earth and life after death, but Jesus talked about the kingdom of heaven “among us,” as if heaven was available today, here, now. He also said that he had come that his followers might have “life, and life to the full.”<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\nOne reader asked yesterday, “what if people who never got preached at get a free ride? That would only seem fair. But that would mean you were doing a disservice to anyone you preached at.”<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\nIf following Jesus is the beginning of life with God, then it is also the beginning of life in heaven forevermore. Just as I will tell my friends and family about a book I’ve loved, so too I want to tell them about this God I love. “Getting preached at” should be a positive thing, not a punitive one. The idea that Jesus opens the door to heaven through his grace should also be an assurance, a reason for hope, for faith that what is good in this world remains, even after death.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\nChristianity centers around the person of Jesus, and Christians believe that Jesus has “saved” us from sin. In other words, whether or not we go to heaven has nothing to do with our moral uprightness or moral failings. It depends entirely upon Jesus.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\nOf course, any question of eternal life and salvation brings up the question of free will. If human beings have the option of rejecting God, then hell (or annihilation of the body and soul) is a possibility. If God’s love overwhelms human decision making, then there is good reason to suspect that everyone goes to heaven. And there are Biblical texts to support both views.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\nThere is much more that I could say, but I’ll leave it here for now: God is the judge, and it is up to God to determine what happens after we die. I believe that Jesus offers eternal life, starting here and now, to all of us. Heaven is an invitation, and an affirmation of all that is good and true and beautiful in this world, and it is offered to us not on the basis of the good things we’ve done or the background we come from. It is offered to us by God’s grace. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I remember a time in college when my roommate was handing out copies of C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity. Another student approached her and said, “I’m Jewish. I don’t believe in Jesus. I don’t even believe in God. Am I going to hell? My roommate stammered something, but she didn’t really know what to say.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith"],"yoast_head":"\n
Heaven and Hell - Thin Places<\/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\/thinplaces\/2011\/03\/heaven-and-hell.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Heaven and Hell - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I remember a time in college when my roommate was handing out copies of C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity. Another student approached her and said, “I’m Jewish. I don’t believe in Jesus. I don’t even believe in God. Am I going to hell? My roommate stammered something, but she didn’t really know what to say.…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2011\/03\/heaven-and-hell.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-03-08T13:09:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"amyjuliabecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Heaven and Hell - Thin Places","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\/thinplaces\/2011\/03\/heaven-and-hell.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Heaven and Hell - Thin Places","og_description":"I remember a time in college when my roommate was handing out copies of C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity. Another student approached her and said, “I’m Jewish. I don’t believe in Jesus. I don’t even believe in God. Am I going to hell? 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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}