“Hell Is Real (But I Hate to Admit It)” by Brian Jones

I got this book to review kind of by accident. I got an email asking me to review it, and I responded that, since I’m a conditionalist, they likely would rather that I not. But they sent the book anyway. And I had this beach trip planned, and what better beach reading could there be than a book on hell?

I’m really just not into the whole Rob Bell and his sort-of-universalism and all. Yes, hell is a serious issue for many Christians and many potential converts. It is. But I don’t think the solution is to publish books pro and con on universalism or the reality of hell. Those aren’t the only two choices.

As Edward Fudge has demonstrated very convincingly (to me) in The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment, the Bible teaches that the damned are destroyed and their destruction is painful but just and finite. God punishes them painfully but fairly, and then their existence ends. Moreover, the Bible plainly teaches that immortality is not an inherent feature of humanity. Rather, it’s a gift given by God only to the saved.

(Rom 8:11 ESV)  11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

“Life” — meaning life in eternity, of course — is a gift given by the Spirit that not everyone receives.

(1Co 15:53-54 ESV) 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.  54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

Again, our present bodies are mortal but when we are transformed by God into immortality, death will be defeated.

(1Ti 6:15b-16 NIV) God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords,  16 who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.

If only God is immortal, then we must not be — not until he gives us immortality.

I could go, but I’m supposed to write about the book.

Brian’s story

The author was educated at Cincinnati Christian University, an independent Christian Church school. He went to Princeton for his M.Div., and there the professors shamed him into rejecting the doctrine of hell. And so for years, as a minister, he denied hell privately while trying to hide his unorthodoxy. There came a day, though, when he repented.

It’s a good story, and one that is surely familiar to many ministers in many denominations. It’s not that the professors had brilliant theological, Bible-based reasons to deny hell. Rather, they just denied it and so condescended to the students that many were intimidated into agreement. It’s quite sad, actually.

The fact is that much of the theological liberalism that is common on some seminary campuses is built on little more than condescension — and a hatred for fundamentalism (in the worst sense of the word).

Evangelism

After repenting of his unbelief in hell, Brian was convicted of the importance of evangelism. Indeed, one reason so many mainline denominations are evangelistically weak is that the leadership denies hell and even accepts universalism. But Brian got over that.

Brian came to conclude that the Jesus who wants us to care for the needy (the Jesus favored by the mainline denominations) is the same Jesus who wants us to teach the gospel and convert the lost (the Jesus favored by evangelicals and fundamentalists). Both are true. We don’t have to choose.

He tells the story of planning for a mission offering for September 11, 2005, to plant churches in New York City. They’d planned for months, and then Katrina hit. The first day they could do a fundraiser for Katrina victims was — you guessed it — September 11. And so they had two offerings that day.

When Brian addressed the church, he told the members that if they could only give for one cause, they should give for the church plants in New York City rather than Katrina. After all, “What good would it be if we gave money to help people who are already Christians rebuild a home, a temporary need, and didn’t give money to help reach people who are going to hell?”

And I disagree. I didn’t use to. I used to figure that souls are worth more than meals, and so we should handle souls first. It’s, you know, logical. Except it’s not. You see, to be evangelistically effective, you have to be disciples and you have to be the church that Jesus died for. We aren’t attractive because of our shiny white teeth and big buildings. We’re attractive — if at all — if and only to the extent we’re like Jesus.

Think about it. Jesus had three years in which to do ministry on earth. Every second was precious. Every sermon not preached was a group of souls who might never be reached. And yet he healed the sick. He touched the lepers. He ate with sinners. And it took time, lots of time, time he didn’t really have. Why?

Well, in part, because those healings, touchings, and meals were more powerful sermons than the ones preached with words. He had to show the church how to be the church. God sent his word in the form of a person, not a book, because we are saved to become a certain kind of person.

You can’t ever place evangelism and benevolence in opposition or in competition with each other. If you love people, you love all of them, not just their souls. Indeed, the notion that we care about their eternity and not their homes is a little Gnostic and lot unloving. You can’t make those kinds of choices about people you love. It’s not how loving people should think.

After all, New Orleans was just as unchurched as New York City, maybe more so. There were plenty of lost people in South Mississippi. It wasn’t a choice between helping the lost and the saved. It was a choice between helping people without houses, who lost everything, who were destitute and homeless — and many of whom were also without Jesus — or not.

If I had been part of the planting team, preparing to go to New York to save souls, I’d have put off my plans and headed south to help people. After all, what better way to touch hearts and win converts than to show God’s love to people when they need it the most?

Indeed, rather than pitting the two fundraisers against each other, why not give as another alternative giving money to the New York effort and then driving South to help the victims? Lots of people did — and some still do. The recovery isn’t over yet in some places.

Here in Tuscaloosa, we were on the edge of Katrina, had thousands of refugees to care for, and could have used the help. And their service would have been a testimony to the greatness of Jesus.

Yes, it’s hard and somewhat unfair to have to make these choices, but that’s why you can’t state as a rule that evangelism is more important than benevolence. That’s the kind of thinking that makes evangelical churches as ineffective at evangelism as we are! The mainlines barely try — much to their shame — but the evangelicals try to bring people to Jesus without living like Jesus, and that’s not working too well either.

Sorry. I remember Katrina. I get upset. And I think Brian, who obviously has a very good heart, is over-reacting to the notion some have that we should just help the poor. False dichotomy. It’s a dangerous path that has been proven ineffective by experience. We have to do and be both benevolent and evangelistic all at once.

Personal evangelism

So the book of kind of slow getting going for me. But in the second half, Brian taught me some valuable lessons about personal evangelism.

1. If we’re to be fishers of men, what’s the bait? Well, we are, and therefore we have to be interesting. We can’t be much of a lure if we’re boring.

2. We should develop a secular interest — rock and roll, class car restoration, cooking, Star Wars — something that allows the lost in the world to relate to us. And we should use that interest to get out in the world as something other than just an evangelist. We should find something that gives us joy that we can share with non-Christians, get out into the world, and share joy. And Jesus.

3. We should plan to be evangelists our entire lives. Therefore, we should figure out how we’re going to position ourselves to touch many lives and be influences. Maybe we need to make tents for visitors to the Corinthian games — that was evidently Paul’s strategy. And you can imagine how many people he met in making tents for the Greek version of the SuperBowl. He was a highly educated, brilliant Jewish rabbi, filled with the Spirit, who sewed leather while he talked to his customers and helpers about Jesus.

And there’s more. The fact is that, although I have my disagreements with Brian, he knows a lot about personal evangelism — because it’s critically important to him and so he works at it and he’s thought hard about it.

It’s a discipline that he works at for the sheer joy of seeing baptisms.  And that makes the book a very fine read.