There's no hotter topic right now than hell, thanks to a firestorm ignited by a book that hasn't even been published yet. First came a video and some marketing copy produced by HarperCollins about Love Wins, a new book about "Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Every Lived," coming from Rob Bell at the end of the month.

Then came a blog by Justin Taylor about the video and the marketing copy. Taylor, who is VP of Editorial at Crossway Publishers, pretty much concluded that Rob Bell is a "universalist" when it comes to salvation (in other words, everybody's going to heaven).Well, that got a lot of people talking, some defending Rob Bell, and others decrying him. (There's a good recap of the activity swirling around this topic at ChristianityToday.com.)

The Eternal Mind

One of the risks of an eternal mindset is that we check out on this life.  As Christians we can be guilty of adopting an “us – versus – them” mentality, reminding ourselves that this world is not ours and that we are citizens of another land. These ideas are true.  But the point is not that our circumstances don’t matter in some nihilistic homage to ascetic fatalism.  The point isn’t that we can simply inform people that “God has a wonderful plan for their lives” so they shouldn’t worry about how rotten their circumstances are.  That is not biblical eternal thinking. 

Eternal thinking is realizing that our circumstances matter to God, but they matter in the context of eternity.  It is realizing that this life and how we physically and emotionally experience it is not all there is.  When we invest ourselves in the world, we should always remember that our investment must have an opportunity for eternal consequence in addition to its worthwhile temporal impact.    

Time is such a precious thing.

For most of us, it is precious because with live with the knowledge that we do not have a limitless supply of it.  We all wish we could find a 25th hour in the day.  I have petitioned the Lord for such to no avail.  On a larger scale, however, we are oblivious to what "not enough time" really means.

As Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 15:24, the end WILL come.  Time eventually runs out.  The odd thing is that I often live in ignorance of that truth.  I live as if I have all the time in world to do the things I really need to do - things like loving my wife well or building Christ into the lives of my children.   I live with a youthful, though misguided, notion that I am in control of my days and my time.  William Henley's concluding words to his poem, Invictus, resonate somewhere deep within me:

In case you’ve missed it, it has been a busy week in the world of sports.

Monday, May 2 – (CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.) A University of Virginia men’s lacrosse player, George Huguely, is arrested on suspicion of killing his erstwhile girlfriend, UVA women’s lacrosse player, Yeardley Love. Though Huguely confesses to killing Love, his attorney calls it an “accident.”  

Monday, May 2 – (PHILADELPHIA, Pa.) A teenage fan at a Phillies game brazenly leaps onto the field at Citizens Bank Park, but when he eludes the grasp of security officers, a member of the Philadelphia PD uses a taser to subdue him in the outfield. A debate about the proper use of police force ensues, with certain reference made to the 2002 case of Royals first base coach Tom Gamboa, who was stabbed by two unruly fans who made their way onto the field.

Over the past several weeks, with the impending launch of Humanitarian Jesus, I have been asked numerous times what the basic point of the book is all about. The question is not always asked the same way, but when you get down to the bottom of it, the person really wants to know the punch-line in a sentence or two.

If you have ever written anything longer than your name, you probably know trying to reduce your writing to a single sentence is a hard and fairly aggravating effort.  My first thought is always that if I could do that, if I could tell you the story of the book in a sentence, I probably should not have written a book.  My second thought is that my one line answer always seems to be changing, so maybe I really don’t know or maybe I am giving a bad answer most of the time.

Heaven is a wonderful place to think about.  Hell, not so much.  Few people talk about hell these days.  Even fewer take it seriously.  But hell is real.  In his parables, Jesus uses various terms to describe what seems to be hell:  a place of outer darkness (Matt. 8:12); a fiery furnace where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 25:41); and eternal punishment (Matt. 25:46).

And then you have these graphic descriptions  by John in Revelation:  the bottomless pit (9:1); a huge furnace (9:2); fire and burning sulfur (14:10); no relief day or night (14:11); the fiery lake of burning sulfur (21:8); and the second death (21:8).

Sounds pretty grim.  Can you blame people for shying away from the topic of hell, especially people who struggle with a God who seems to allow suffering and evil in this life?  That's bad enough, but it pales in comparison to a God who is evidently (if we take this stuff literally) going to torture people in hell forever in the next life.