Love Wins is a book I've never read, by an authour I'm not all that familiar with - and yet it's ended up completely transforming the way I view Christianity.
That may be a bit disingenuous. The book itself hasn't really impacted me at all. Instead, it was the response to the book that completely transformed me. You see, Love Wins was a pretty controversial book, because to some it seemed to be advocating the idea that everyone winds up in heaven, Christian or otherwise. Others argued that it was advocating for something else, while still others held that it wasn't advocating much of anything at all (like I said, I haven't read it, so I can't really weigh in). In particular, there was one point made in response by the first camp, over and over and over again, and that point was this: If everyone goes to heaven, then there is no point in sharing the Gospel.
When I heard this, it completely changed how I viewed my faith and my life. It changed it because I came to the conclusion that this claim could not possibly be true.
I generally consider myself a fairly ecumenical individual, but I was truly baffled by these claims. How could anyone say "Well, if we all end up in the same place when we die, what does it all really matter?" I wanted to grab them by the shoulders and cry out, Experiencing fellowship with God? Freedom from the bondage of sin? Membership in something greater than yourself, a divine movement to redeem the world and transform creation? Participation in an overarching teleology? Obeying the commission given to us by our Lord Jesus Christ? Do all these things mean nothing to you? Do you really think that the only thing Jesus was interested in was getting people into heaven?
Because here's the problem that comes from all this: To say that the Gospel is meaningless without the fear of hell is to say that until the moment that we die the Gospel is nothing more than a luxury. I have heard people argue that universalism is devastating for missionaries, because why go to the ends of the earth when those people are going to go to heaven anyway? I argue the opposite - if the notion of people going to heaven no matter what robs you of whatever fire you have to reach these people, you need to take a long, hard look at what you believe the message of Christianity to be.
I have written before - and no doubt will again - against the unhealthy fixation much of evangelicalism has on the afterlife. If the message of Christianity is true, it is worth incalculably more than a free ticket to heaven. This is how my faith was transformed - by examining the Gospel and assessing what it means in the immediate sense. The promise of Christianity is not some nebulous prophecy, some claim that at some point in the future we're all going to see God and enjoy eternal life. The promise of Christianity begins now. In a previous post, I argued that Jewish theology was and is fairly unconcerned with the afterlife, and that the first Christians seem to have been similar.
Perhaps it's time we take a page out of their book.
PS This is my first time blogging in like a year, and looking back on it made me realize that this blog has a super pretentious name. So I'm going to try and change it. More on this story as it develops.
