NT Wright on Hell
Dan Phillips has an excellent post this morning on NT Wright and his view of hell and eternal judgment.
For several years now, many in the Emerging Church have been looking to Bishop Wright to draw up some trickery for their Emerging-play-book.
Some of Wrights comments about hell sound eerily similar to some of Rob Bell’s. See here and here. Is Coach Wright calling the plays in from the sidelines?
Thanks for the link. I just read the post, good stuff.
humanitasremedium
June 18, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Personally, I don’t see too big of an issue here. Tom, like most who are in a position like his, does tend to dance around the issue a bit, and so careful listening is in order to grasp what he is really saying.
I believe he is trying to make a few points. First, that the descriptions the Bible uses to speak of hell are not (necessarily) literal. I have no problem with that. Tim Keller said that he does not believe that there is literal fire and brimstone in hell, he believes it’s much worse than that. C.S. Lewis made similar statements to Wright and Keller. What Wright is getting at, I believe is accurate. The choices we make do affect out eternal destination. Anyone familiar with Wright’s theology will understand that “the entire life one lives” plays an immense role for Wright in justification. So for him, hell is based on the entire life one lives, so that we see a degrading and downward spiral of denying God in one’s life which eventually leads to hell (Romans 1).
He is also trying to help people to understand that we do not just float off to heaven when we die. See his book “Surprised By Hope” for a better picture of all of this. But what he is saying is that since heaven and earth become one in the New Jerusalem (Rev 21), our pictures in Western cathedrals aren’t quite accurate. Heaven is not on one side and hell on the other. The New Jerusalem (ie Heaven come to earth; God’s dwelling with man) is on one side and hell on the other. This is one of the biggest points that Wright hammers down again and again in his theology. He is not overly concerned with “life after death” (the middle state where believers are in heaven), he is more concerned (as he argues the NT is) with “life after ‘life after death.’” That’s all he’s saying. I can’t (Biblically) disagree with that.
See the link below for more on this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z50Jv-PXYb4
Furthermore, he is arguing against using hell as a ‘fear tactic’ to get someone to become a Christian. People who argue this way appeal to the fact that the apostles never speak of hell in Acts as a reason to ‘get saved’ and so forth. The notion is not without merit since I believe that many false conversions have been wrought by such scare tactics, yet I do not think that hell should be abandoned in our preaching. I believe that it all needs to be in perspective.
Just to note here, Tom Wright is not at all like Rob Bell in this regard. When Wright speaks of “redemption of the world,” he speaks of the physical world (Romans 8). It’s not something that we conservative fundamentalists like to talk about much, but perchance we should….
Wright very clearly admits that hell is a real place (albeit he flirts with the possibility of annihilation in Surprised By Hope). In fact, see that clip that Dan Phillips was referencing here and pay careful attention to the end, he clearly admits that he is not a universalist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vggzqXzEvZ0&feature=PlayList&p=D966D6224EA97F83&index=4
See also
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qoo7rGhfsMw&feature=PlayList&p=D966D6224EA97F83&index=8
Though I think he could be slightly more forthright about certain matters here, I cannot say that I completely disagree with him. Certainly, there is no postmodern/liberal/emerging church connections to N.T. Wright (in fact he goes to great lengths to refute those notions in his books). Everyone here in England (and MANY in the USA) consider him to be a conservative (though I may add – conservative by English standards, not American). All in all, I think that while there are issues in regard to the New Perspective, he is in line with traditional evangelicalism in regards with heaven and the afterlife and we would do well to interact with what he says.
Paul Nesta
June 26, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Paul, I want to interact with you on this — however, we just moved in and I’m finishing up a 20 pager due monday. I will get back with you:)
Mind the gap!
clearly
June 27, 2009 at 5:54 am
Paul, still not a lot of time here. But a couple thoughts nonetheless…
Regarding fear tactics and scaring people into getting saved, how do you handle John 16:8 — where Jesus says he will convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment? It seems like judgment is a motivation for salvation — it was in my life personally.
As far as the words describing hell not being literal language, what textual indicators have you found that express this? If it were a simple matter of genre (i.e. based upon apocalyptic) then maybe (notice maybe) you would have a case. However, these descriptions transcend one particular genre — Jesus is fairly explicit in the gospels and they are not of the apocalyptic genre.
clearly
July 2, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Dave,
John 16:8 is not a “gospel in a nutshell” or a “homiletics manual” as you would no doubt agree, it is strictly Pneumatology. That is what the Spirit will do when the Gospel is put forth. Jesus is describing the inward working of the Spirit when coupled with the external call of the Gospel. Indeed, people are convinced of their sin in Acts 2 when they are cut to the heart because the crucified Jesus, but Peter is just proclaiming the facts, the Spirit is applying them as need be. I don’t see him saying how bad hell is or that everyone is destined to go there, as true as it may be. I agree, impending judgment is indeed important, but all too often it is abused. I was speaking with my manager at Radio Shack some time back and she told me about how she went to Awana at Calvary in Watertown when she grew up because the bus would always go past her house and it was something to do. When I prodded her a bit about her beliefs she said, rather flippantly, “Oh yes, I know I’m going to heaven when I die… I said that prayer.” May I also add, that there is more evidence for the Big Bang than there is evidence of a genuine conversion in her life. And all too often, I find that when hell is used as a motivation to get into heaven Jesus becomes nothing more than a Mr. Fix-it, salvation becomes nothing more than a get-out-of-hell-free card, and Christianity becomes a just-me-and-my-God religion void of the Big Picture of Christianity. I see all of these things as the antithesis of the Gospel. Now just because hell is far too often misused does not mean we abandon it (though Wright is treading a very close line in my opinion). Instead, I believe that we discuss it as it is warranted. Practically, for me that means that I don’t go out of my way bring up hell where the Bible doesn’t. I have seen far too many people become Christians, not on the basis that it is true and that Jesus did indeed die and rise again, but because they believe that by doing so, there’s something in it for them: namely, eternal life. That has bred the “my God and I” mentality of seeker-sensitive, milk-drinking Christians. Hell is incredibly important, but it needs to be discussed in perspective, not as a scare tactic to increase the number of hands that are raised at the end of a service.
That being said to go on to your second question, I do believe that hell is a real place where real people are, yet I would not say that there is a worm in hell that will never die or anything like that. Throughout all of these parables Jesus is saying “The kingdom of God is like…” He is using comparisons and metaphors all the time to try to describe, in our language and our culture and our minds, what things that are beyond our language, our culture and our minds are like. I believe in a real hell that is eternal, yet I do not wish to take the metaphors that we are given and make them the end of the line. I believe that hell is far worse than we could ever imagine, and heaven is far better that we know. Do you take issue with pastors who say to their congregations something like “Now folks, here in Revelation John has seen a vision of heaven and is trying to comprehend what heaven is like and help us picture it as well, though human words are inadequate to describe it.”? I dare say that you have no problem with that, or that you have no problem saying that Jesus will not have a literal sword coming out of his mouth when he returns (and the list goes on), yet for some reason we must limit hell to the literal descriptions we are given in parables (key word) that Jesus is telling? Sorry, but something doesn’t seem right about that to me. Yes parables are not apocalyptic, but they are painting a picture for us, similar to apocalyptic literature. If Jesus would have lived and died in our generation, he would have no doubt used different stories and different symbols to get the picture across, He would not have called hell Gehenna because no American (who hasn’t been in church) knows what Gehenna was. He would have used imagery that we understood. Let’s assume that he would compare the hell to the 9/11. Well people living 2,000 years from now would be foolish to say, “Well Jesus described hell as the spot where the World Trade Center collapsed and where people were trapped and burned alive until they died – only Jesus said that the firefighter would never die in hell. So hell must be just like the fire at the WTC and there is a literal firefighter in hell who never dies.” I don’t believe that’s how parables are to be understood, though there is much truth in the symbolism and terms employed, it is a different genre from a normal narrative and must be exegeted so.
Paul Nesta
July 3, 2009 at 9:23 am