4 - Unarmed Empire with Sean Palmer / Transcript

Intro

Welcome to another episode of the Can I Say This At Church podcast. I'm so thankful that you're here. Before we get started. In today's episode, I want to make a brief feel to your patronage. This podcast is supported completely in 100%t by you, if you have in any way felt moved or challenged or impacted or enjoyed what you've heard, please consider going to our Patreon page, you can find the link in the show notes. You can also find that link at the website. Your donation in any amount is so helpful and I am greatly appreciative for it.

My guest today is Pastor Sean Palmer. Sean is currently a teaching pastor at a church in Houston, Texas. In 2013. He was profiled in the Christian standard magazine's 40 leaders under 40. He's a contributing writer for The Voice Bible project. His writings have also been featured on Scott McKnights, Jesus creed blog, sojourners, Fox News, Christianity Today, he's also the co-host of the not so black and white podcast; seek that out again, that's called not so black and white podcasts that he co-hosts with John Allen Turner, it is well worth your listen, and I've enjoyed listening to it as well.

The topic at hand is concerning his new book Unarmed Empire in which Sean speaks to those that have been misled about church, for anyone that feels blacklisted, anyone that's been hurt and we discuss that and how the church can move forward as a whole, how we can lean into a better community to a heart of hospitality.

So without further ado, I would like to introduce you to Sean Palmer. And it breaks again.

Seth 2:44

Sean, thank you for being on the podcast with me today. And I want to take some time here in a little bit to discuss your new book on Empire, but beforehand, I'm almost certain there will be some people listening that are just unfamiliar with you. So if you could just briefly give me a crash course of how you came to do the work that you do. And then we'll just kind of roll from there.

Sean

I'm glad to be here. Seth, thank you for having me on the show. I look forward to talking to you about the book. Just a little bit about me. I live in Houston, Texas. I am the teaching pastor at a church here Eclesia Houston we're a multi site church here and I have been in ministry, I guess coming up in pastors and churches. At the end of this month, it will be 20 years I will have completed 20 years of doing that. So I started in the youth ministry world and did that for a dozen years before I moved into senior ministry. And I've been doing that since since that time, both here in Texas and California. Couple of different places. I grew up in the south, Mississippi and Georgia, went to do my undergrad and graduate school at Abilene Christian University. So that's a school associated with Churches of Christ denomination or non-denomination, depending on who you talk to,. And so that's that's about it. We live here in Houston.

My wife and I've been married for almost 20 years. We have two daughters we think the world of and most of my ministry at this point is traveling and speaking and writing I do a good bit of writing had a long term blog for a while wrote for Scott McKnight and some others gave that up about a year ago to write for Missio Alliance to focus on my attention there. That's also who we do our podcasts. I have a podcast called not so black and white with a friend of mine, John Allen Turner. And that's in partnership with Missio Alliance. So if you stumble across Missio Alliance, you can look for me there and find just about everything that I've been up to in the last couple of years.

Seth

Yeah, I have stumbled across their stuff and read some of their interpretation of the research on millennials leaving the church and reasons why. Yeah, so I enjoyed that greatly. So would….this is unfair…o I'm from Texas, I actually visited Abilene Christian and Hardin Simmons University during the same whatever day to let you skip school was a senior day. Yeah,

Sean

Well they are just right down the street. So you make good use of your time.

Seth

Yeah, well, you have to have that note to prove that you went so. Or you you know, you get you get called out and ultimately I went to Liberty but I have…So my brother was born in San Dimas. And so I've lived in California. I've lived in Texas. So unfair question unrelated to anything In and Out Burger or What A Burger.

Sean

That's a tough call. I think they are really different. I like them both a lot. Got like their fries got when push comes to shove. Like, if I had to choose one or the other. I would probably go with What A Burger. But if I was just getting a burger that I would definitely opt for In and Out.

Seth

Yeah, I like the scripture verse. And that's about it. So your book, what kind of was the story behind that, or I guess the Genesis that made you ultimately want to write it?

Sean

Well, I grew up a child of the church like I was essentially born in the Pew nearly and I was the kid who never missed a worship gathering. And that's back in the days in the 80s, where it was Sunday morning, Sunday night every single missions trip.. And and the church handed me I was part of the small churches in Mississippi, and Georgia for a while. And the church handed me this vision of what God called us to as a community of people, and how we're supposed to live that out in the world. And they talked about a lot. I mean, from in my the church of my youth, we talked about the church as a sensuality for life, a good bit of the time. And what I saw as I got older, I started working in churches. That so much of what I was taught as a child still lived in the rhetoric of churches, but not in the actual application of what our communal life looked like.

And so it was things like hospitality and openness to the other. It was things like extension of grace and peace. And I started reading the Apostle Paul, just understanding what the music kind of playing in the background of the New Testament as he writes letter after letter to these churches, what that really is this conflict between Jew and Gentile, or at least the tensions that existed there, and what his prescription was for that. And I, it dawned on me that folks have done a really great job of sort of teasing out a scripture here, and a paragraph there from Paul to make certain arguments about particular theological knots that they were trying to untie. But we weren't looking at the big scope of what he was trying to accomplish, and his writing and why he was trying to accomplish it. And at the heart of that is this kind of community that reaches out in love and hospitality and openness and acceptance, and almost all of that had been lost in 21st century American evangelicalism, it'd become the app, the opposite of that, where it had become, hey, these are, these are the rules, or at least our interpretation of the rules. And these are the things that we're going to put more weight on and the Bible puts weight on, these are ways that we're going to try and draw out division instead of open ourselves up for engagement.

And I wanted to write about that in a way that folks who were not in agreement with me at the beginning of the book would at least be open to the argument. So it's the kind of book, I think, for three people, it's for people who have been really wounded by the church. It's for people who love the people who have been wounded by the church and want them to come back and find the life that God intended in the community that God intended it to be lived out in., and it's for the people who have unwittingly done the wounding. And so you know, I didn't have a big enough picture of what God was up to, and what God was calling the church to and all of this. So it's for all of those people. And I hope that it at least starts a conversation with folks who really want to investigate what God is doing, and how he's bringing about his preferred future.

9: 49

Seth

So when you say, people that have been wounded? You mean? You mean what, specifically, like I grew up extremely fundamentalist, and so wounding to me, I think, would hold a different view than some. So what do you mean by people that have been wounded?

Sean

What I mean is, it's anyone who feels that they have been shunned or condemned or tried to, or controlled by a local body of believers. For whatever reason, they asked too many of the wrong kinds of questions, or they were trying to figure out what a holy sexuality looked like when their sexuality didn't feel to them, hetero normative. They were trying to look at their world and say, you know, we see a lot of black churches and white churches, and what's that about? And how does that represent what God is doing in the Gospel? So it's for people who have really been caught up in the crossfire, on all of these wars that we keep talking about all the time, you know, like, war on Christmas, and all of the, you know, war on the family and the war against women or for women, or, or, you know, all of these folks who look at the church and say, “I have some understanding of what Jesus taught and came to do. And my engagement, my time in a local church wasn't what Jesus was revealing to His disciples about how to live in the world”.

And that's been wounding to they've been hurt, because you know, when I was a kid, because I like to use that's like, I grew up in a fundamentalist churches. But we, what happened in the church, and I talked about this in the book is that suddenly, church leaders and their children started going through rough spots in their marriages, and some of them chose divorce. And now we look at those people and folks are going through a difficult time in their marriage. And they show up at our doorstep for a worship service, or in a Bible class or a small group, and we look at them and we go, well, thank goodness, you're here. We're glad we want to walk with you through this. But just 25-30 years ago, the same people were being shunned and saying you can't come into that. And so there are other people groups that we are doing that with right now that we are saying, You can't do that and be a part of you can't ask those questions here. You can't explore that here. And my hunch is that in another 30 years, we're going to be the place that they come and, and be loved and welcomed. And we will walk in journey with them through whatever difficult time they're having. And that's part of what I'm trying to get at in the book.

Seth

One of the questions that has always been rattling around in the back of my head is, is, I guess my fear for the church is, say, 60 years from now, when my kids are middle age. Is it the evangelical quote unquote, church of today, going to turn into the Mennonite and Amish Church of the right now, if we don't make a difference or a choice? I'm glad at least for the Baptist though there should be some good recipes. But, I don't know. What are your thoughts on that? And you may touch on on things around that. But I'm just curious.

Sean

Well, it really debate depends on what you mean by Mennonite and Amish?

Seth

Well, at least where I'm, I'm from here, it's you know that people look at them from a distance. They don't necessarily care what they do. They're really nice people, but that's just something they do. And there's never a second thought to it. No, no outreach, no, no ministry.

Sean

I think the lifeblood of evangelicalism is fundamentally evangelistic. I don't think that that will ever happen in evangelicalism, what will because there is even when we see some really toxic portrayals of evangelicalism in the public square, if people were to get down to the root of what's causing some of that, what they will discover is that evangelicals, for whatever reason, really think that the world should be converted to something. Right? And that part of their existence in the world is to play a role in that conversion.

So the Amish don't necessarily feel that way. You know, there have been in the last hundred years less than 100 Amish converts who have stayed. I know this because my wife is very much into Amish literature and reads a lot of Amish books. We took a vacation a couple years ago to Amish country; and in many ways, it's a BM, you know, it's the beautiful side of fundamentalism, right? It's very good communal, it's very other centered is very service center, but it is not evangelistic, and I can say that on a podcast because no Amish people will hear it.

Seth

laughter

Sean

And so that won't happen in evangelicalism. What is what is more likely to happen in evangelicalism is that the people who are portraying the most toxic versions of evangelicalism or at least hiding their other agendas behind the name of evangelicalism, which is I think, is more more of what happens, the people who are hiding their agendas behind the fig leaf of evangelicalism will place evangelicalism in a situation in a posture where it will simply be ignored, where someone will say they are an evangelical, and we're already seeing this. I mean, I think Russell Moore, that article today, kind of outlining kind of where he sees that going, well as more likely to happen is when someone says they are an evangelical, that will be associated with a set of precepts and principles that don't have anything to do with the gospel. But it has to do with a particular view of America's future.

Seth

Yeah, it's a Christianity version of politics in Jesus, and it's in it's really neither of those. So yeah, and I will say that's, that's what's disenfranchised me from from Liberty, which is where I chose to spend money to go to school after visiting Abilene Christian, and yet not to get political. But I've been so disheartened with the picture of Jesus, that that the way that they treat things just portrays it a Jesus, that's, that's not my Jesus. So, so that is the opposite of a beloved community. So how then instead, can can, I guess our generation, lean into creating a beloved community where we're at, because I know when I drive, to church, you know, the the black churches are all together, the poor churches are all together, the rich churches are really rich. The Hispanic churches are really Hispanic, and there's very little, there's very little community, there's a lot of little cliques, or that's probably a bad word. So how do you instead lean into becoming a beloved community?

Sean

Well, I think there are a few things that are really key:

One, we have to and I did this, I try to study some the the second chapter of the book where I talk about the healing of the nation's is churches, first of all, have to have a theological framework that not only welcomes and embraces others, but understands that the coming together of all kinds of people from all different places, and all different backgrounds, that that is central to what the gospel is. That's what Paul is doing, that has been God's aim from the beginning. And without that theological understanding, without framework that says, this is actually the story of the Bible, that God is bringing together, God is healing all the nations and bringing them together, then it will always be secondary or tertiary kind of thing that churches will essentially, you know, take the posture of, Finn, the beautiful side of that is that so much of this, because it's all biblical, because that's what God is aiming for. So much of it is already inherent in the practices of the church, that's inherent in communion. Its inherent in worship, if we can, if we can divorce the ways that we have done that to be pretty self serving,then those practices are already there.

You know, one of the things that I talk about in the book is this idea of like, our practices really can save us, without us having to go out and create something. You know, there's a chapter you're in there about, about drinking real wine. And so what does it what does it mean then to, to, to sit down at table with someone and let's look at what happens that every time Jesus sits at a table, like there's an extension of forgiveness, and healing, every time Jesus eats with someone. So who we share our table with then becomes a really big deal. And so if you if you just couple a couple of ideas together, this idea that God really is healing the nation's and taking seriously who's at table with us, maybe our table without having to change anything in our church, you know, initially, maybe our table is a place where we can start to extend healing, and grace and openness to the other.

So you can do that at your house, you can do that over coffee, you can do it in a restaurant, without saying, hey, my whole congregation, we've got this big new program. And we're going to do all we can, and I've got some friends who are doing this. Lots of people want to talk about racial healing. Well, that's great. I encourage my Caucasian friends, you know, if you look around your church, and it's all white folks, and my African-American friends, if you look around your church, and it's all African-Americans, that's part of the problem, you might need to covenant with a different body of believers. And if enough of us who say we take these things seriously, begin to put actions behind them that take them seriously. That's when we begin to see change, and growth and understanding. And it none of that's going to be easy. But it is the task that is that's ahead of us.

Seth 20:37

So hearing you speak, and I'm currently finishing. Richard Beck's Stranger God book. I don't I don't know if you've read it or not. But he talks a lot about habit, you have it? Yeah. He talks a lot about hospitality and how, just what you were saying a little bit, you got to get out of what makes me comfortable and go to the margins, and in and brining people in that are not necessarily allowed, “at your table”. And that there's just beauty in that. And he argues that you see Jesus in that, I guess, in the act of trying to serve that way. So I just think that's beautiful.

So you talked a little bit about just a second ago, that can be you know, ratio, healing, political healing, whatnot. But how I mean, that the climate that you and I live in right now, especially over here, I'm 30 miles west of Charlottesville. Everything is so charged, and ministers and churches want to take sides on, you know, race or white supremacy or anything like that. So how do you? How does a church or a layman in in the church walk that back and begin to re center that into a way to bring people in, or to go to those people? But how can you do that without being disingenuine? But how can you do it in in a good way?

Sean

Well, I think you're exactly right, in that we live in a particularly charged political climate, where you can't say and just to, just to name the elephant in the room; and this is particularly thorny for, for pastors right now, you can't say anything without it being taken as a referendum on President Trump.

Like, you know, you can't even you can't speak to a particular policy, without being castigated as either “pro Trump or anti Trump”, which is terribly unfair. Because the one thing and I think Martin Luther King is a great example of this, as well as some other, you know, legendary pastors of the past. And I think this is one of the things that Beth Moore is doing really well, right now is that the path forward for most of us in the pastorate is that we really got to talk about particular issues. Regardless of what candidate or with a news headline, so, you know, for our congregation, our church has long history to talking about refugees and immigrants. And so when we talk, that's the one thing that we can talk about now, that doesn't carry that baggage. Because we can look around and say, Well, you know, we've been talking about this for 12 years, you know. And so the only way forward, and I think we just have to, we're in a time where we have to be crystal clear about this. So this particular thing matters to us as a body, and here are the reasons. And it's it matters today, regardless of who we elect to the Senate, or regardless of who is in the White House, because those things will change. And we are not, I think more than ever, we have to be very clear about the fact that we are not choosing sides. And the reason we don't choose sides politically, isn't because there's not a right and wrong side in alot of these things, and we know inevitably that those things will change. And seven, or I guess in three or seven years, we will have a different occupant in the White House, we're coming into the White House regardless. Right? And so what do I want to give away in terms of my ability to speak and my voice now, knowing that that's going to be different, but you know what I can do, because we live in Texas.

We're going to stand with kids who were brought to this country, by their parents from Mexico. And under no, for no fault of their own are here. And the everyone that we know is contributing to their own future contributing into the fabric of our community, we can stand with those people, because we've always stood with those people. And regardless of who's in the White House, we're going to do that. We're going to stand against racism, we're going to stand against misogyny and sexism. And, you know, it's the people right now, Seth, who can't say anything about President Trump, because they didn't say anything about Bill Clinton. And it's the people who said so much about Bill Clinton, and now are being silent about Trump, in terms of their sexual ethics, those are the people who speak without authority. But if we are consistent in what we believe, in and out of season, regardless what's happening around us politically, at least when people make that charge against us, and I've had this happen, I had it happen a couple years ago about something that I wrote. I said, no, no, no, go back and look at this, this, this and this that I wrote three or four years ago, when we had a different occupant in the White House. And I was saying the same thing. If you're saying it differently, now, that's really got to do with you. And so we can't make everybody happy, but we can at least keep our own integrity.

Seth

Yeah, I agree. Yeah, and everybody's going to filter everything through whatever lens I was given, or taught, you know, through through school, or through raising up, you know. Thinking about reconciliation in all forms of the church, there's a there's a song by either the Gungor Band, or Gungor, or I don't know what it is, and one of the lyrics is, church has to stop being us or them, it should be us for them. And that it brings that to mind, as well as and I know, in Texas, and quickly becoming that way, in Virginia, the current majority will change also in seven or eight years. I mean, we, both white and blacks are quickly being outnumbered by almost every other race, which will bring an entirely different everything.

I want to circle back around to the book, and something we haven't talked on much. You talk about an unarmed empire, which I don't quite understand what you mean by that. But I want to be careful, because I know you're in Texas. And I know I was raised in Texas. And, and I know we got guns, and I know we are armed. I mean, that's what many, many people politic on everywhere. So what do you mean by an unarmed Empire, I guess in relation to a, you know, a community?

Sean

Well, really, this comes from, the way Jesus internet sent to the world that Jesus comes proclaiming the kingdom of God is here. And a kingdom, it is an empire, that it has a rule, ruler, people, and a place where, the Kings rule is done. Right. So that's what an empire is, it is a place where the one who rules is followed, because he is the one who rules and then unarmed. Because Jesus enters the world, it's good to talk about this during the Advent season, though I don't know when you will publish it. But that's when that's when you and I are talking about sharing, that Jesus comes into the world completely vulnerable, as a baby, I mean, you know. And sadly enough, there are a couple of stories every year that you hear of a baby who dies from exposure, and all these other can't feed himself can't work, can't produce anything.

And then as an adult, he sends out his disciples, in Luke 10. And he says, In the the translation I use called the voice, the voice Bible, that he sends them out into the world armed only with vulnerability. And Jesus goes to the cross it garbled , other, so many of the other disciples and vulnerability. And so what God's kingdom is, is an unarmed Empire, people who follow this king who are dedicated to this kings rule and reign, but enter into the world, a world full of wolves, but they are unarmed. They go without, with the only protection they have, being the protection, approved and delivered to them by God. So when I think when I talked about unarmed Empire, it's about a posture of Christians toward the world that we serve God and all that we do, is to foster God's kingdom. But we do so not like the Romans did at the edge of a sword, or lots of military powers throughout the ages where we are going to enforce peace, through displays of power.

But by being vulnerable, by saying, we know we're not going to be received by everybody. We know that there are going to be slings and arrows. We know that there are going to be shipwrecks and beatings and imprisonments and all of the things that the disciples suffered, but they still did it that way, for a reason. Because they knew that God's power is made perfect in weakness. And there are no needs for these grand displays of power, when the one who stands behind you is the most powerful force in the universe.

So we have no fear as Dallas Willard says, “for the Christian, the the world is a completely safe place to be”. And so we enter into that calling enter into God's world, unarmed because we are trusting in God to deliver us from all things.

Seth

Oh, man. You see that, that's it's a little bit scary in…I think, honestly, would be scary for most people across the country. Because I know in America, it seems like we have many religions. There's Christianity on Sunday, and the rest of the week, it's football, more football, and then and then war. I mean, we're, darn…we're born doing it, as a country. So what do you do as as a pastor, you're standing up and you're preaching that on Sunday? And you're gonna, I'm sure you're going to get pushback? Well, at least in my church you might, I think you would your church is probably used to it. Maybe so what do you do? I'm not a pastor, but if there's any listening to, to preach sort of pacifist but also not at the same time to preach that version of relationships?

Sean

Well, I think one of the things that you have to do is, first you have to, you have to embody it as a person that you do not whatever it is, whether you're a pastor, whether you sell real estate, where that you do not live the way you treat your children, your spouse, that you do not live from a place of violent or coercive power to get people to do things that you want them to do. So that's one of the ways. But also, I think, and this is what Jesus does so marvelously throughout the Gospels, is that he unmasks and undermines the notion that coercive military physical, manipulative power, he uncovers those things to be the evils that they are. If you look through the, the teachings of Jesus, the people who come off the worst, are the ones who try to use power to control or manipulate. From the way Jesus talks about leadership when he says, you know, the Gentiles lord it over others, but but not with you.

What does he mean by that? I mean, that's a teaching that people kind of gloss over. And they think, well, “don't be mean to people who are, who serve under you”!

But what Jesus is getting at is that like power, the use of top down coercive power is not the way things are done in the kingdom. If they were the way that things done in the kingdom, then God would send a lightning bolt and kill everybody. Versus this baby who comes in a manger, to be sacrificed on a cross to take away the sins of the world. This is this is Paul talking about the cross is foolishness to the Greeks, this idea, that a certain kind of power is indeed powerless, when it comes against the power of love, and of self sacrifice, and that's the Gospel story. You don't see the disciples taking over, beating anybody up bullying, anyone demanding things, they just don't do it. Jesus doesn't do that. And when he's faced with a question, during his trial, he just says all the power that you have comes from God, because Jesus understands that he is about to dethrone the way that power is understood in our world through the mechanism of the cross, and overcome defeat, sin and death, which are, up until that point up until the point of Jesus's death, the most daunting powers in the universe. And you keep preaching that message, you keep revealing that. And so you say, look through history, if you're, if you're preaching on Sunday, just look through history.

Nero thought that that was that power work that way. Hitler thought power work that way. Napoleon thought power work that way. Over and over and over again, throughout history. There are these powers and when you get down under it, you see that while small acts done by what they would have considered powerless people, to then to then move the world to their cause. Yeah, hey, long enough people begin to form an imagination around it.

Seth 35:23

Yeah. And I mean, thinking back to you're talking about the disciples never did that. The one time they did try to take up arms and lop off a guy's ear. Christ immediately said, we don’t, that's not what we're doing here. Let me repeat it. This is not

Sean

he says, Get behind Me, Satan. Yeah, there is that Jesus associates that kind of obstructive bloodletting power with forces that I don't know that we want to be associated with.

Sean

Yeah. So love trumping over not had to play on words, love, striding over the rules,

Sean

I think it's impossible to miss how Jesus behaves, and how the disciples behave, given the fact that you go back to the political point. There, there are very few biblical characters both in the first and second testament. who like, whatever governmental power they lived under, it was worse than ours.

Seth

Yeah, they were slaves, or, I mean, the church, or God's people have always been enslaved in it. And at least currently, we're not that so. Well, maybe to capitalism but that's something different. Keeping in mind with preaching a gospel of love and and trying not to be warlike or aggressive is there ever a case then, as a nation or quote, unquote, a church body to go and defend? Should we always just just turn turned to a posture of, I don't know what the word is. Hope, not helplessness. I don't know what the word is. I'm struggling to find the word.

Sean

Defenselessness?

Seth

That's it nailed it. My thesaurus is broken a day.

Sean

It depends on what you mean, I'm not a pacifist, though, I think we need to take pacifist thought much more seriously. And it really needs to be placed in a realistic dialogue with just war theory. if for no other reason that I've never seen a war in history, we're just war stopped us from going to war. Just war theory, as far as I know, has never stopped a nation from going to war. So it seems to be a theory that allows us the freedom of conscience to do what we wanted to do anyway. But I'm not a pacifist, and I, so I do think there are times where the state has to defend itself or defend the vulnerable and the weak. Our inclination is probably to do that more quickly than I would like. But I understand that we live in a world where there is real evil. And I think there are some things that we have to and can only truly understand as powers and principalities. And those things have to be resisted. Is there a time for the church to defend something, it depends on what you mean about defense. Because the best critique is always creativity, to create something more beautiful and to to work towards something more holistic. So obviously, churches aren't going to go to a physical war against it.

Seth 38:49

Well, I mean, I mean, defense in so much, as you'll see in your references earlier, you know, we have to fight back against the war on Christmas or fight for the 10 commandments to stay up at this public park or fight for ever, whatever it is fight for abortion, fight for not letting people be LGBTQ. And I'm missing a letter, and I'm sorry.

Sean

LGBTQIA is what your…

Seth Oh, gosh, I miss two letters.

Sean

Here's what I think the church's role is. We are to love and advocate for people. So I'm trying to think I'm sure there are examples, I just can't think of them. I can't think of a situation where making sure that there's a nativity scene down at the courthouse is really going to make a difference in the lives of people who are either away from the Lord or suffering greatly. I'm sure that someone Someone will make an argument, say, I know, someone who was walking down, I saw an activity at the courthouse, and it changed their life. Well, that's great; I'm sure that story is out there somewhere, right? I don't hear that story a lot. You know, I live around a lot of Christians, and I'm at a big church, and I just haven't heard that story. I just haven't heard that story.

So more times than not, what we're really doing is saying we want to keep, we want to keep our religion and our religious beliefs Central and privilege in a particular way. And that's not, that's not particularly helpful in winning people, to God's love. So all the things that will be fought for, absolutely. But I want to make sure that we use the right weapons, and the right weapons, regardless of what we're fighting for our love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And if we, if we aren't using those weapons, or if we can't use those weapons to fight for the things that we're fighting for, we're fighting for the wrong things. And and I want us to as a church, to really look at what the New Testament means when it talks about loving people, because what typically happens is that we decide a course of action, or we think we know what's best for other people. And we will set out on it and then rationalize how that thing that we're doing is actually love.

Seth

Right…right.

Sean

Right. I it's kind of like you know, it's every abusive husband, and every abusive boyfriend that I have ever known. They were doing that to their girlfriend or their spouse, their wife, every single one of them can tell you that they did it because they loved him. You know, OJ Simpson in the back of his white Bronco is telling the police, all I did was ever love Nicole, up until the point still where he was virtually cutting her head off.

And so he wrapped anything, we wrap our actions around terminology to make ourselves feel better. And we don't ask the question, Well, does this seem does it feel like love to the person that it's being enacted on? I know, people who would say, you know, art tax, you know, someone becoming going through sexual reassignment surgery, I think we ought to stand up against that, and we modified it. And we do it because we ought to love them. Now, I know people who could say that with a straight face and mean it. And I also know people who would say that the same thing and what they really mean by it is, I don't like those people. Yeah. And so it's a question of motives and heart and being serious about what if what we're saying is actually what we mean.

Seth

Sean, I want to be want to be respectful of your time and your family's time. I'm sure you're you're taking away time from your, from, from your wife and from your kids. Oh, they're all asleep? Yeah, mine are as well above, but we'll see if they wake up with me. And so it's, and I think you've already answered it, but I want to just hit the nail on the head. And then after the last question, just just let you plug the book a little bit, and anything else that where you can direct people to find you? The question I've asked everyone is what is one thing as, as a church community, regardless of your denomination that we can step into that would that would further the kingdom in a generative way,

Sean

I would say this, that every church leadership and maybe just do do it even in a in as assembly so everyone can see it, I don't know how practical that is, for everybody might depend on your church size, but needs to put a big map on the wall and draw circle, about five to seven miles away from wherever it is that they meet. And look at each other in the eye and say, everything within this five miles.

We belong to this community and not that they belong to us. But we belong to this community. And because we belong to them, we are going to orient ourselves around serving them with love meeting them with their needs, and being as vulnerable as we can, and open an unarmed as we can to this community. I think that would reshape the world. So whatever, elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, if you've got a homeless population in that five to seven miles, if you've got whatever undeserved if you've got wealthy people within that seven miles, say, okay, like, we belong to them, God put us here for a reason. And it is fair for them to make demands of us, because we belong to them.

And every church can just walk those five or seven miles and and pray for that community, meet that community know who's there and know what the needs are. Without this in game of how can we get you to come to our church. But we just want to love you, with a metric being, we're not going to do anything to you that we wouldn't want someone else to do to her for us. If you don't want someone else in your face, about all the things that they perceive that you've done wrong, we're not going to do that. If If you don't want someone her harassing you, if you if you want someone to be a good neighbor, and to know your needs, and know your story, if you want someone to mow your yard, whatever it is that we belong to you in a particular way. And we're going to do our best to be God's ambassadors in this place. That's what I would say, to all those people.

Seth

That's big, I think, yeah, I can't I mean, I can't say any better than that. That is that would change the world. So in wrapping up, where would you direct people to buy the book, to get engaged to converse with you? Just to get involved a little bit? Where would you point people?

Sean

Well, first of all, the book is available at Amazon, and Barnes and Noble, just those places where lots of folks get their books now and it's an armed Empire. And my name is Sean Palmer. SEAN is how I spell Sean, or at least how my mother gave it to me.

If you live in Houston, is to come down to our elder campus, our downtown campus for Ecclesia and buy the book there, only because you'll get it cheaper there. And all the proceeds for that go to Harvey relief, hurricane Harvey. Really so if you're, if you're in the area, which I know most people aren't, that's the best thing to do.

But you can get it on Amazon pretty easily enough. You can. I'm easy to find through the echo CEO web page. My email is just Sean Palmer@ecclesiahouston.org. Follow me on Twitter, Sean at Shawn Palmer, Facebook, I'm pretty easy as as you have found out, right, I'm pretty easy to get ahold of. And love talking with people about the content of the book and the last chapters are the best chapters. So stick with it through the end.

Seth

I greatly appreciate coming on. Appreciate your time. Enjoyed it, Sean so hope you have a good night and thank you very much.

Sean

Oh, thanks for having me. I really enjoyed it.

End

3 - Hell: Annihilationism with Dr. John Stackhouse Transcript

Note: Can I Say This at Church is produced for audio listening. If able, I strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which has inflection, emotion, sarcasm where applicable, and emphasis for points that may not come across well in written word. This transcript is generated using a combination of my ears and software, and may contain errors. Please check the episode for clarity before quoting in print.

Seth

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the Can I Say This at Church podcast?Thought today that we would finish or continue the conversation about hell. It is, not to put it lightly important. It is an essential part of our church of our beliefs of us.

Today, I got to interview someone that can speak with some authority from a different viewpoint than our last guest. We're joined today by Dr. John Stackhouse, Jr..

A little bit about him. He was born in Canada, raised in southwestern England, and in Northern Ontario. He was educated in history and religious studies at Mount Carmel Baptist School in Alberta, Queens University in Ontario. Wheaton College Graduate School in Illinois is where he got his masters with highest honors and he also has studied at the University of Chicago, where he got his PhD. He's formerly a professor of European history at Northwest College in Iowa. He's also been a professor of religion at the University of Manitoba, and the Sangwoo Youtong Chee Professor of Theology and Culture at Regent College. He now currently serves at Crandall University in Monckton, New Brunswick as the Samuel J. Mikolaski Professor of Religious Studies and Dean of Faculty Development at Crandall University. John has written 10 books, he's edited and authored over 700 articles, books, chapters, reviews, and the list just goes on and on. He's spoken throughout North America, in the UK, in China, India, Korea, Australia. His commentary on religion and culture has been featured by many major broadcast networks such as the New York Times The Atlantic, ABC News, It was a privilege to talk to Dr. Stackhouse and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. So why am I still talking? Let's just dive right in.

Seth

My guest today is Dr. John Stackhouse. Dr. Stackhouse, thank you so much for joining us. Would you prefer Dr. Stackhouse? John? Sir, how would you what would be better to address you with?

John

Well, I've always preferred Your Majesty, but I don't get that as often as I'd like. So any of those I’m comfortable with.

Seth

Thank you, we can do that if you want. Um, so I'm certain that some of our listeners are either unfamiliar with you or unfamiliar with the topic that we're going to discuss today. So I'd like to start with just a little bit in brief of your story, kind of how you came to the faith and how you became where you are now at the university that you work at?

John

Well, I was born and raised mostly in Ontario, Canada, with some time in my childhood in Britain, where I started school. So This is about my fourth accent. Now. I've also lived and worked in Texas, and in Iowa, Illinois, in parts of western Canada. But I studied in both Canada and the United States history and theology philosophy, and taught in the US and a couple of private colleges, Wheaton College at Northwestern College. And then taught in Canada, both at a large public University, University of Manitoba, and a Christian graduate school called Region College in Vancouver. And the last few years, I've been working out here on Canada's east coast in a small Christian University, where I am a professor of religious studies, but also have a kind of player/coach role.

I'm also Dean of Faculty Development, which gives me the opportunity to help my colleagues push ahead and both their research and their teaching. So that keeps me busy and happy out here.

Seth

So where here in Texas, that's actually my stomping grounds. Where were you at in I guess my home state?

John

In 1978, my parents made the extraordinary decision to leave a lakefront home in Northern Ontario, for a home in Abilene, Texas. And that’s “real Texas”

Seth

I'm actually from a few hours west of Abilene, where my grandfather affectionately says, with the right set of spectacles, I'll watch your dog run away for a few weeks.

John

Yeah! No kidding.

Seth

There is just nothing there.

John

So, a few hours West Abilene? You must be in the Permian area?

Seth

Midland Odessa, went to high school in Greenwood and can't stand Midland Lee or Odessa or any of those schools. But that's football and that would be an entirely different, I could talk about football all day. Do you prefer the bigger school or the smaller school that you're at now? Knowing that each one employs you, but you know, just as far as the student basis and, and size and human ratios and whatnot?

John

Well happily for me, I've enjoyed every place I've taught, and every place I've taught has also deeply frustrated me. And I think that's probably what it's like to live in the in the real world, good things and bad things mixed up together.

Seth

The overarching theme of this podcast is to ask questions that you either don't want to ask or you're comfortable asking in a quote unquote, church setting and in my opinion, Hell is an essential conversation that at least in my upbringing, I feel was a bit glossed over and it was presented as a “here's the one option you have and learn how to get right with it”. And so I always believed in what I've come to call his eternal conscious torment, or what other people call the traditional view that I can't hold. And so my question is, Is there ever a time that that you also were like that, where you've either taught it or you've been forced to teach it, or you were raised that way and somehow changed?

JohN

I certainly was raised that way. I was raised by parents who were both strong believers, I was raised in a Protestant tradition known as the Christian Brethren, or the Plymouth Brethren. And so that tradition gave us a dispensation of theology. And so these, these are people who were very committed to the Scriptures, and understanding the scriptures as well as they could particularly interested in end times prophecy. And so the doctrine of hell was bound up with all of those things that have taken American Christian popular culture by storm from raptures and being left behind and all the rest of it.

So my very early teaching was that hell is dark, and painful, and awful, and hopeless, and everlasting. And I can remember as a child, actually, one night, as I’d gone to bed, said my prayers, trying to imagine what it would be like. Leaving aside the excruciating pain of hell, just to be in a dark place by myself, like I was in my bedroom, forever, knowing I would never get out. And I remember, I must have been only six or seven at the time having a very keen sense of how awful that was. And it left a very strong mark, that stayed with me when I was into my theology work decades later.

8:38

Seth

Yeah, You know, I can echo that. And I know, as my children, my oldest is eight, and he's beginning to question things. And every once a while, he'll say something and like, I don't know, I don't know how to answer that, and be truthful, and also not scare him to death. Not that our church teaches that, but just, I mean, it is what it is. It's, it's an honest question. So. So what then made you move from the views that you held to what you now espouse? What I believe someone call it conditional view of hell, and and in a chapter of a book, you gave it a different term? And all we'll talk about that in a minute. But but what moved you or how did that evolve?

John

I was a convinced believer, all of my growing up years, and in high school tangled with a thoughtful, ex-Christian English teacher, who seemed to me to have left his Roman Catholic Christian faith behind and was determined to help other people leave their Christian faith behind as well. And so that pushed me into thinking about apologetics and how to defend my faith, even as a pretty young person up just 12 or 13. And I saw this, though, as not just combat, because I really liked this English teacher. But as serious as searching conversation, I'll always be grateful to him that the conversation was always respectful and even affectionate. And I'm on good terms with him to this day, he's read several of my books. And in retirement, we've had a couple of good talks on the phone.

So I was open to rethinking anything that I had been taught if it were wrong, but I was also pretty inclined to defend it unless I really couldn’t. And It wasn't until I taken to your Bible school and then was at a secular University for my first degree, where I read a book by a British Bible scholar, John Wenham, that was published by the University Press, and I was an intervarsity Christian Fellowship, Chapter leader at that point, and selling IVP books. So here's this individually, evangelicalism Christian publisher, publishing this book by a fine Bible scholar, and in this book called The Goodness of God; he for the first time, in my experience, raised the idea that hell was terrible, and was something that one did not escape, but wasn't something that one had to endure infinitely. His idea was that a finite being can only pile up so much debt, so to speak, can only sin so much. And then in hell, we pay for our sins because we didn't get Jesus to do it. And then once your sins are paid, you're done. And it made so much sense to me, luminous sense to me, that I kept an eye out then for scriptural study Over the next number of years to make sure that what he was saying, wasn't just appealing, but was actually biblical.

Seth

Yeah, Yeah. And I've gone through that as well. I am similar, but I've been…I've read many books recently, especially after starting this and realizing I quickly got in over my theological pay grade.

I went to Liberty, but I did not get a theological besides that base level that a school make you do. So I'm finding that as well to be true. So shat are…or I guess, what were the biggest reasons that you could no longer hold the traditional view of hell?

John

Well, the first and most obvious reason has to do with the title of that book that I first read The Goodness of God, it always seemed to me to be very difficult to hold together, the God not only of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but also the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to hold of you have a loving God, with the idea that God could somehow be joyful, forever while many of his own creatures that the Bible tells me he loves are roasting away with no hope of reprieve.

This is a problem and actually ends up showing up in the tradition. Thomas Aquinas, for instance, who taught eternal torment tries pretty desperately to somehow get across the idea that the joy of God and the blessed are somehow enhanced by knowing that the evil are getting theirs and hell. And I thought, this Thomas guy seems to be some empathy problems here. It seems to me to be pretty awful.

So I was already, I think, theologically inclined to doubt that this made sense. There's some kind of real contradiction there. And yet, I wanted to be faithful to what the Bible said. And if it really said that I had to believe in eternal torment, then I, I can be pretty stubborn, I was gonna I was going to stick to it. And so Wenham being a biblical scholar himself, open d the door for me, and then when I encountered the painstaking work of Edward Fudge, your fellow Texan. Where he laboriously goes through every passage that you can find that pertains to this, as well as some writings in the early fathers; to me that really sealed the deal. And what I've done, I think, if anything, Seth, is perhaps to bring some theological sophistication to the early work that John Wenham did the biblical work that Fudge has done.

Seth 14:09

Yeah, I've tried to read some of Fudge, and I haven't gotten to it. It's on the it's on the shelf, to my right. I did watch that, I think it's a documentary, which, who knows how closely that follows things. But it was interesting to watch.

So, I've had many private conversations, some with pastors, some with friends are in ministry, and others that have become disenfranchised and weren't able to start their church after Liberty. And It seems to me that, that many people entertain these thoughts. Yet, they're all cautious because they don't want to be implied that they're going down some slippery slope or that their faith is in question. So I'm just curious, why do you think people are just either I don't know what the word is…are they? Are they so ingrained that they can't look past their bias? Or are they fearful of what would happen if they espouse to a different view?

John

I think people who come from the background you suggested, and certainly the people who come from my background as well, are properly worried that they are giving in to what they see to be the tidal flow of our culture. The general direction of the title flow of our culture, and it's been this way, for a couple of hundred years, at least, has been to soften the hard things of Christianity, to erode the distinctive teachings of the faith, to domesticate the scandal of the cross; the particularity of Jesus, and any other doctrine, that seems difficult for a kind of mildly liberal outlook to swallow. So this sounds like it's a move in the same direction. And if we've been paying attention, we're worried about anything that looks like a move to the left, most of us aren't actually worried about making a mistake to our right. But I would say that having understood why people are worried about a move that they perceive to be to the left as a historian, where I seen Christian movements, and go both ways, or each way, I would say, don't worry too much about whether your move is to the left or to the right, try to make a move toward the truth. And The truth is not always to the right, and the solution to a culture that is driving into the “left ditch” is not to yank the steering wheel as hard as you can to the right and drive into the right one. That's the error of fundamentalism, and the error of dogmatism. Instead, let's go deeper, rather than left to right, let's go deeper into the Scripture and see if we can find out what the Bible says in a fresh and convincing way.

Seth

When you say left or right, I assume you're inferring the quote unquote, Western Christianity version of, I guess, government or church the way that things are, as the status quo, at least currently, or do you imply something else?

John

No, thank you for asking. No, I was trading on what I think is probably a common vocabulary for you and me and your listeners in terms of what we take, broadly speaking to be liberal, and liberal as it moved to the to the left as opposed to conservative to the move to the right. I think as Christians, we need to realize that those words are not biblical words, those are just more or less useful words to describe moves one way or another. But they're not from the Bible. And our concern needs to be of course, not to be liberal or conservative, but just be faithful and figure out what the Bible saying.

Seth

Was there ever a time I guess before say, I don't know, I've been as I've been researching and seemed like there was this gentleman named Darby that came in and installed what we still happen upon today. So was there ever a time that the view that you hold was more prevalent or more predominant?

John

I don't think so. Actually, Seth, I think it's always been a minority view in the history of the church. I think that what's interesting, though, is that the two most prominent views in the history of Christianity are either the traditional view of eternal torment, or universalism. That hell is at worst kind of purgatory for everybody. And that the worst people, at least everybody's not going straight to heaven. And so everybody does their time there gets gets right with God. And then eventually, the back door opens, and you get to go be with God, that's shown up in the history of the church as well.

This view that I'm defending, is a view that only shows up from time to time. And particularly in the more modern period, where we realized that it's really just a kind of modification of the traditional view. I think that the reason I prefer it is nbecause I think the Bible's teaches it; and secondly, because I think everything that we need to retain in the traditional view is retained.

The only thing we're giving up actually, is this horrific idea that God is okay with people suffering infinitely. And that we're supposed to somehow go to the world to come and enjoy the New Jerusalem, being okay with the idea that people we know, are going to be suffering, not just their just desserts, which I think we just have to be reconciled to. That's what happens when you don't take Jesus as your Savior. You don't get saved. But that they somehow are kept in perpetual agony. I think we're well rid of that. And frankly, why not get rid of that if you possibly can, since it's such a frightening and the idea?

Seth

I agree. It is. It's an awful idea.

20:41

I realized just a second ago, as we were speaking that I think I skipped chapter one primarily because I've already done a little bit of pre homework. So your view specifically is quote, unquote, the conditional view of hell. And I know in your chapter on in the four books on hell, you give it a different terminology, you call it terminal punishment.

And So I was hoping maybe you could espouse just quickly what terminal punishment means, as opposed to conditionalism. And then just in a succinct nutshell, The primary difference, and you've already alluded to it between it in the traditional version.

John

Sure. The view that I'm representing is normally known by one of two words, the most common word is annihilationism. The idea that once you have been resurrected to judgment, as we see in Revelation 20. Everybody's resurrected, and those whose names are not written in the Book of Life are cast into the lake of fire, where they are annihilated.

I don't think it's a really helpful view, because annihilation is a process that somehow God has to visit upon the damned. And God doesn't have to do that, God doesn't have to crush some kind of immortal soul. Because we don't have a immortal souls. We are simply creatures that are sustained moment by moment by the energy of God. And so the idea of annihilation that God has to make me die isn't quite right.

I choose to flee from the face of the only source of life in the universe. I am a sinner who has refused to accept a relationship with God, and therefore I wink out of existence, when God refuses to keep me alive any longer, so that God doesn't do anything to me, I deserve what I get. And that's what I get.

Conditional immortality is the technical term, not just conditionalism, but conditional immortality. And that's an unhappy term as well, because while it's not incorrect, it does get across the idea that we are not possessors of immortal souls, but we are simply creatures who are given if we are saved, immortality by God. And that is true that's a biblical teaching, that the focus is on the saved. And our whole conversation right now is on the lost. So I don't think it's such a great term.

So I cast about for a better term, Seth. And it seems to me that terminal punishment that gets across two things, to take it backwards,

Everybody will atone for their sins. If they do not have Jesus atone for their sins, atonement has to be made, and Jesus makes it for us. And if we will receive it by faith, then it will be credited to us. And if not, then we have to pay it ourselves. But just as Jesus was able to say, on the cross, It is finished, I have in fact paid this. So it's, it's a certain finite amount of suffering that is undertaken. And if I don't let Jesus do it for me, I have to do it myself. So I then suffer the punishment that is due me. And then I'm terminated, because I have cut myself off from the only source of life in the cosmos. Once I'm done, my suffering, my debts paid, and I disappear.

So it's awful, and the consequences are eternal. I'm not coming back from that. There's no backdoor. But on the other hand, I don't have to suffer infinitely for a finite lifetimes lifetime's worth of sin.

Seth 24:10

Yeah, to put it into a political term for today, that is an extremely long mandatory minimum, for whatever the sin is. You said something a minute ago, which is different than I normally hear.

So you said that, as as human beings, our souls are not immortal, I guess by default. So can you explain that a bit? Because I know I've been raised to believe that everybody is given an immortal soul. And it's got to go one of two places. So is that not scriptural? Or is that…

John

No it really isn’t. It's Greek thought creeping into Christian thinking, which a lot of Greek thought has through the early church. And I'm not one of those folks who reflexively thinks the Greeks are wrong about everything it is one of the great civilizations of the world. And in the providence of God, Christian theology was worked out largely with the help of Greek philosophical care and categories. But with any non Christian way of thinking, some non Christian ideas got in and one of them was the idea of immortality of the soul.

Now, the Scripture is very clear that life and immortality come to us only for the gospel, that’s virtually a quote from Paul's letters, that the only one who is immortal, invisible is God, only wise. As our hymn says, God's the only one who within himself has a the eternal power to live forever. So any kind of immortality we have is granted to us by God. And remember, you know, Adam and Eve, are set out of the garden of Eden, lest they eat from the tree of life and die. And so are we.

Seth

To recap, terminal punishment is just a change of term to more accurately described the end when it's all said and done, correct?

John

Now, let me also flag for a minute that of a few people who align themselves with my general point of view, I think, have a seriously defective you. And I say that with respect, but these folks believe that when we're all resurrected on that last day, Revelation 20, When those who are not recorded in the book of life, are cast into punishment, they're immediately annihilated, They're immediately disappearing. And that, to me, makes no moral sense at all.

I do think that Jesus talks about a servant who will be beaten with many blows, as opposed to a servant who will be beaten with few blows, that some people really are worse than others. Some people have caused a lot more damage in the universe than others, and their suffering will be a commensurate with the evil that they've done. Everybody really will atone for exactly, his or her sins. So I wanted to just mention to you, Seth, and to your listeners that some people hold to this view, which I think is going too far in the other direction. I think the Bible makes it pretty clear that all those books that are talked about in Revelation 20, I think, imply that God's kept the careful account of everybody's behavior. And If you don't put your sins on Jesus, they're on you line by line.

Seth

Sure. In in the book that I referenced earlier, the four views on hell, in your chapter, you talk about two different, I might say it wrong. So correct me if I am, two different poles of God's goodness, as a way to understanding that goodness. Can you elaborate on that a bit?

John

Yes, God is good in two ways. Our culture prefers us to emphasize one of those two poles.

God is love.

I've even heard quite orthodox theologians, people who should know better, say things like whatever else God is, fundamentally, God is love. Not just well, meaning preachers, but people who really have their theological grounding will still say stuff like that. And it's just not true. For one thing, everything that God is God is, so it's not like God has layers. And he's got, you know, a heart of love. But then he's got this other layer of holiness, you know, he's got this other side to him, as if he's sometimes angry, or he's sometimes wrathful or, or is it? So I know the trying to get at.

But in the very same letter of the New Testament that tells us God is love. First, john, The same letter tells us God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. And God is his straightforwardly continually against anything that is not optimal. Anything that is not right. This is why God is the God of justice and righteousness. God is the God who judges the world and make everything right. I sometimes say that God's a perfectionist, and he's the only one who's a perfectionist who's not neurotic, as a Supreme being you know, you can make things right. And in the Hebrew, the judge is not only the one who deserves what's right or wrong, he makes what's wrong, right. Again, he levels things that are out of out of whack. So when Jesus comes back to judge the world, he's going to make it right. And This is God's settled opinion against evil. This is the wrath of God, God doesn't get raffle, God is always against evil, even as he's always a God who loves us and wants us to flourish.

And so any view of God on any doctrine, and particularly in the doctrine of Hell, needs to hold these two ideas together. The God is always against evil, he is always right to us even as he's always just even as he's also loving. And I think sometimes then some some, some defenders of the traditional view, have tended to emphasize God's justice and righteousness and dignity and holiness, at the expense of the obvious declaration of God's love for everybody. And some of our friends on the Universalist side, it seems to me have run into the danger of under playing the fierce resistance God has to evil and his insistence that evil be properly atoned for. I don't think you have to go that way. I think you could be a Universalist, on more Orthodox grounds. It's just that I don't usually find many Universalists who are strong believers in substitution atonement, who are strong believers in otherwise orthodox doctrines, they, they tend to kind of shift to the left on a whole bunch of things at once. And I think we need to hold this together.

Seth 30:58

Yeah. Atonement is a whole different beast. And I'm, I'm trying to work through that now. I'm know we're talking about that another time. Yeah, absolutely. Um, I thought there were only three versions. And apparently, there's not there's so many different, even some subset. So I actually spoke with Robin Parry. And I've also spoke with Thomas Talbot. And they both used a similar metaphor, and I will probably butcher it. But I'm curious as to your thoughts on it. So when I asked them what hell is, and I'll ask you the same thing in a minute. One of Robins terms and again, I'm probably very badly doing this is… it's a form of, to put it into better terms like a chemotherapy that's going to ultimately result and be painful throughout the process, but ultimately results in everyone. And In this case, everyone universally being reconciled. And so your view is obviously not that so. So what are some issues with that? I guess scripture really or or personally and then and then what in your in, I guess in in a terminal punishment version of hell? What is? Hell?

John

Yeah, the problem I found with with Robin's chapter in this book on the four views of hell, which is really, of course, three views of hell plus a chapter on purgatory. Yeah, there's there really are that's only three views in case your reader or your listeners are confused. There's just the traditional view is my view. And then there's the view of universalism. And when I've encountered universalism and other thinkers as well, whether it's somebody as lofty as Karl Barth or somebody more like the rest of us mortals. It always precedes deductively, it's always you know, given that God is good given that God is unwilling than any should perish, there's usually some reference to some scripture on the way. How can we possibly believe that? Hell has no backdoor how can we believe that God's purposes will be frustrated? How can we believe that God won't get what God wants? And all of this, these are all good rhetorical questions. And If one was willing to grant, Robin Parry his premises, only ,then I think he argues pretty validly to his conclusions. The problem is, there's a whole bunch of Scripture that he simply does not take into account hopes you won't notice, I'm being a bit cheeky here. And if you do notice. I think he has very poor responses to that.

In particular, Seth, I would say that the idea that hell is therapeutic, like chemotherapy is an interesting idea. It's just nowhere taught in Scripture. There's just nowhere When Jesus talks about Gehenna, that he says this is going to hurt quite a bit. But you come out the other side, and you'll all be all better.

There's nothing like that in Revelation, the lake of fire is a boiling cauldron of awfulness into which Satan, death, Hades are all plunged. There's no indication that they're coming out the other side, new and improved. And that's where the last go as well within verses of each other.

So the fundamental reason why I think universalism is wrong, is that every description we have of Hell is punitive, not therapeutic. And it is a, I think, and I say this respectfully, a willful recasting of what the scripture I think, pretty plainly says, to bring it into conformity with what one would prefer God and the afterlife to be.

Seth

Yeah. Okay-processing that you broke my brain a bit…Scripture, really, at least from what I can gather, all three of us use very similar passages, they may use a first part of the passage more than the back half, but they all are going to use the same specifics, or the same text.

So my question is, they all seem to use the word eternal or hell in a different way. And so is, since everyone's using the same scripture, how can we make a claim as to who is best interpreting either what eternal means? Or what any of that means? How can we know who's making a better scriptural case?

John

In my book, Need to Know Vocation as the heart of Christian epistemology, I do try to set up at book length, how we should think about things as Christians, because this questions bother me my whole life. How do I come to the best answers on next questions, not only a theology, but a politics or marriage, child rearing? How do I know who to trust? How do I know how I'm supposed to live my life. And so I wrote this book, published it a few years ago called Need to Know. And I hope that'll be helpful, perhaps, to you and to some of your listeners as well. In this case, I would say what we try to take into account everything that we think we know that's relevant to the subject, We try to make sure we do our homework, or we borrow from people who we trust, have done their homework. And we make the best conclusion we can, even though in any given case, the complexity of the situation may be such that there are still a few corners sticking out, there is still some ways in which my friendly opponent might argue one verse better than I can. But my obligation is not to make all the pieces of the jigsaw fit carefully. My obligation is to make the puzzle fit as best I can, recognizing the I’m limited, recognizing that I'm a sinner, that there are some things I really don't want to perhaps acknowledge.

And I tried to to make the best sense of things as I can. So In this case, I would say most of what you would find in the three views book, we agree an awful lot we agree on on actually most of the Christian faith, which is why we can identify each other as Christians. So I don't want to exaggerate the differences. Hell's really bad, right? I mean, Robin Parry isn't saying Hell is a nice spa in the country. He's saying it's chemotherapy, right. Yeah, awful. It's toxic. And and the folks in the underside, agree it's torment. Right. So we all agree, it's torment. We all agree, it's terrible. We all agree it has to do with people paying or just desserts. The differences then have to do with whether it's therapeutic, as I said, which I don't think it is. And the traditional view doesn't think it is we see it as punitive.

The traditional view, thinks that eternal always means lasting forever. And I think whatever is five shows is that that's not true. It's not true. The Hebrew alarm in the Old Testament, isn't that true of only on in the Greek New Testament. And so I think what Edward does is when the biblical fight against the traditional view, because he I think he's done more careful work. And that's something everybody has to decide for themselves. Whereas I think with with my friends in the Universalist side, I think that their argument is a strong one deductively, but I just don't think the scripture actually gives them what they need to make their case.

Seth

Yeah. So how then if it's as simple as just knowing how to read Hebrew, which I can’t so yeah, I agree. You have to, you have to find somebody that knows how to how to do it better than you. How then was it eternal conscious torment for so long? I can assume it's only since recently that people realized, Oh, this is not what this word is implied to mean. So why is it just recently that people have begun to deduce that?

John

That's a really good question. I wrestled with that question a lot. When I changed my mind about gender. And when I wrote my books on gender, First one, finally feminist, which has that F word in the title, which throws people off this good alliteration to it, it is so that the kinder gentler version of that the newer version called the partners in Christ, And I've actually explicitly deal with that question in those books. Why is it that the majority of the church through the majority of the churches life and even in the world today, has a male headship model and restricts clergy, to men? What is it that makes me think that we should change our minds about that? Was everybody wrong in the past? And I think a lot of biblical feminists, as well as liberals, have basically said, Yeah, they were wrong in the past, and we were enlightened enough. We know the Greek background, and we're right and they were wrong. I think that's really intolerable. I think the Holy Spirit must have done a really bad job of inspiring the Bible, and leading the church; if for 19 centuries, everybody got this question really wrong. And we alone have seen it in the clear light of a new day.

So I actually suggest why when it comes to gender, God did want us to read the Bible, patriarchaly until now. And now we are supposed to pick up on the clues that tell us to change our minds about how to treat men and women in the church and society today. But I'll leave that for another time. But I think you say that, I do care about that. And I think you're right about this. And I'm not sure I have a great answer to it on this one, Seth.

I would say though, that pragmatically, The difference between my view and the traditional view, pragmatically doesn't make a lot of difference. It doesn't make a lot of difference evangelically, it doesn't make a lot of difference in the main point, which is Hell's really bad, and you need to flee it and run to Christ. Whereas our Universalist friends, they is its father, they wouldn't want us to run to Christ, because of course, it's better to be reconciled to Christ. Now then, at the end of 1000 years of hell, Of course, it's better. But it's not the same, right? That's not the same as saying there are two eternal destinies and you're going to one or the other, get right with God now. So pragmatically, it didn't make a lot of difference. And what I find interesting, though, is that I think apologetically, it does, I think; why offend people today with the idea that God somehow is okay with the people roasting forever, so to speak. And it's not clear to me why that wasn't more offensive to our Christian forebears and why they didn't wrestle more with that, because it would have been just as upsetting in the 13th century as it is to us today. But Aquinas tries to make it okay. And I would say, why don't you revisit the doctrine? So I don't have a really good answer to that yet.

Seth 41:44

Yeah, you're right, that would make a great conversation. I was thinking about that earlier. I was driving back from South Carolina, yesterday, and there's a longer ride the need be with three children under the age of 10. A lot of bathroom breaks, but something that I was thinking about, and I'm sure I've heard it elsewhere is the Bible, much like the way people argue about the Constitution, but in my mind, I don't know why the Bible has to be static, and how we understand it. And, and like there was a time that slavery was fine. And it was scriptural. And obviously, now it's not. So there's a lot of those not just gender related,

John

The obligation for us, then Seth, is to explain now, Did the Holy Spirit Want us to practice patriarchy? Until he didn't want us to do so anymore? No, I think I can make a case for that. Whereas I think it's very hard to make the case that the Holy Spirit wanted us to hold slaves and then changed his mind. Right. And so that's where I think when it comes to LGBTQ questions today, when it comes to universalism, when it comes to other proposed alterations that people have for our thinking, Sometimes we got things, We had different views in the past because of our sin.

Other times, it's because God accommodated himself to our sin to make the best of a bad situation, right? And then still other times there are fresh challenges that didn't occur to our forebears. I would say, for instance, that the whole rise of “creation care” and ecological concern and theology" isn't really an issue until human beings possess the technological power to really wreck the earth; it's really only a modern phenomenon. So it's not surprising Augustine and Calvin had nothing to say about it, because it's not an issue for them.

Seth

Yeah, I heard Um, I think I heard I think was Rob Bell said something similar that of, you know, you're doing other things better, but they also weren't destroying the planet, and it's fine. So they were doing I think his words were they did Leviticus better than you, and you're doing something else better than them. But that doesn't mean you can't learn from both sides. Something, and I'm sure I've heard it elsewhere, but something that has nagged at me over the last few months is in an eternal conscious torment version of, of salvation. Why would someone…so if Christ can die on the cross and cover the sins of everyone ever, in all times; in a finite amount of time? I'm mean he's not still hanging there. Why then would someone have to suffer for a infinite amount of time when Christ is able to suck up all sin in a finite amount of time?

John

Yes, that strikes me is exactly right. I think an argument for the case I'm making, And what my friends on the more traditional side, will then say, they'll stop bringing this fair bringing more infinities into the conversation. So God has infinite moral worth God's dignity is infinite. And so to sin against that it deserves infinite punishment. But Jesus is God who is himself infinite. And so you got all these infinities is like a whole bunch of math problems with infinity you just cross them all out. And I find that both in math and in theology, infinity is a very tricky concept, and it's usually better if you can to avoid it entirely. So I think here, it just ends up in obfuscation.

I think if Jesus is able to say as he does on the cross, It is finished. It's paid in full. I think it's kind of sneaky to say and he can say that, because his infinity cancel their infinity as if we're talking about the same order of things. Philosophers would say that's a category and steak. You're not talking about the two kinds of things on the same level or the same category. And It's not helpful to see it that way.

Seth

Okay, I got one final well, maybe two, but but definitely one final question for you. Um, so and it's, it's something that I asked Thomas Talbot as well. And I don't know where I say with his answer. So I was privileged enough to be born in America. But had I not been privileged enough. And I was born in India, and I was raised as a Hindu. Is there any hope for someone that has not been evangelize to and that death? Is there any? Is there any recompense or that's probably a bad word of them finding Christ, which I guess would be an appeal, and why universalism is so attractive? Is there anyone in a terminal punishment view, Conditional this view, that there's any hope for that person if they've never had the opportunity to hear?

John

Oh, sure. And I, in a couple different places, defend the what I call them Evangelical Inclusivism. I share with my traditional brothers and sisters, the idea that the only way anyone is reconciled to God is on the finished work of Jesus Christ, who atone for our sin on the cross, and let us come back from the dead and his resurrection, and govern the world through his essential and his continuing lordship, all of that is orthodoxy. Where I disagree with some of my traditional friends, is the idea that you somehow have to know about that to benefit from it. And I think that the New Testament is actually pretty clear that everyone in the Old Testament benefits from that without knowing about it.

Hebrews 11, is full of examples of faith, for the church to be impressed by, and all of them are pre-Christ. What Hebrews 11 does say is that, if you want to come to God and faith, he was believed that God exists, and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him. And then it goes on to show all these people who believed that God existed, and that he was good and kind and wise and would reward those who sought him out who gave their allegiance to him. You gotta believe that some of those Old Testament Saints had pretty sketchy theology, even what they knew was probably pretty sketchy how much Jessa, or Gideon or these guys knew, theologically, even an Old Testament terms would have been pretty sketchy, let alone falling short of having any clue about Jesus of Nazareth and the story of the gospel.

And yet, this is what the author to the Hebrews commends to us as a pattern of faith. So I draw from there, as well as some other New Testament Scriptures, the idea that one does have to respond to God in faith. But Paul tells us in Romans 1 that he has not left himself with a witness around the world, there is no one who can say I never knew, I had no idea who the true God was. Their theology might be terrible, It might be Hindu theology. It might be Muslim theology might be Buddhist theology, the theology they're being taught might be really bad.

Frankly, there's a lot of people in American churches today are also being taught really bad theology. But If through that fog, the Holy Spirit reaches down to you. And of course, that's what he does for all of us, right, God comes first and reaches down to us, none of us just reach up to God and our own goodness, God reaches to us. And if we will believe that God exists, and that he is the reward of those who diligently seek Him, we will be saved, Even if we haven't yet heard of Jesus Christ. So my confidence is that when somebody dies in India, or China, or some other place in Africa, who's never encountered the gospel, but has been visited by the Holy Spirit, and has given himself or herself to Christ, or to God, I would say, the true God, then when they need Jesus, that's going to be happy for them, No one's going to reject Jesus who loves the true God, his father. So I don't worry about that ever happening.

I think that in this case, we can say, there are lots of good reasons to be aggressive in the missionary enterprise of the church, because people don't just need to be converted. That is to say, regenerate, they need to grow up and become mature in Christ. As Paul says, this is what we do. We teach and admonish everyone so that everyone, we may present everyone mature in Christ. People need the Bible, they need the church, they need the resources that we can bring to bear and not only to just get away from hell, but to grow up into maturity. So there's lots of good reason to carry on the missionary work with zeal, without worrying that if we don't millions of people, through no fault of their own, are going to go to hell. That's what terrified some of our forebears and I don't think it needs to terrify us.

Seth

So my last question for you would be a building upon that. So you're obviously in a in a in a privileged position that you can educate those that are then going to educate others in religious, philosophical, theological issues. So what would be the one thing from what you've observed and unrelated to hell, that that the church could adopt what would be one thing that the church should or could adopt to really move the the mission of Christ forward, I guess, for the next, you know, 15-20 years with something that they were doing poorly or just is not on the radar, and we really should look at it as, as a society?

John

there's not much that we're doing as a church today really well, in your country, or mine. I think our worship is pretty thin. I think our fellowship is even thinner. I think our commitment to mission is about third or fourth or 10th, on our list of priorities after we focus on our family; qnd we do our jobs, and then we give what's left maybe to Christian work, per se. So there's not a lot we can be excited about. But I would say the one thing that has been shown to help adult believers live integrated, strong Christian lives is adult Christian education.

Among our many problems is that we just are stone ignorant, and we don't know our own faith very well. We don't know how other people think and how they believe. We don't know how to relate our faith to what they think We don't know how to contend for it. We don't know the Bible. So I think frankly, podcasts like yours help people because we have a lot of learning to do before we can really make ourselves clear to other people in the name of the gospel.

Seth

Yeah, that'll be hard, though headed midst, I have to admit that I don't know what I'm talking about to make that worthwhile, which is hard. We'll plug the new book a little bit, and also point people to where they can find more about you and some of your words as well, before I let you go.

John

Yeah, Thanks, Seth. Well, it's easy to find me, I'm just JohnStackhouse.com. And my website will show you around If you're interested in finding out more about me and where I write, my latest book is called why you're here, ethics for the real world. And so that will maybe something we can talk about other time. But my other books are listed there as well.

Seth

And then in a nutshell, hopefully will sell you 15 more copies, what what specifically, Are you are you trying to approach in the new book about about why I'm here?

John

Yeah, the new book is if I tried to get my publisher to call it the meaning of life, because it really is from a Christian point of view, I'm trying to suggest…Why is it that God has put human beings on the earth? And why is it that he has kept us here? As Christians? Why doesn't he just all rapture us into heaven? What are we supposed to be doing? And how do I think Christian Lee about my work about art or politics or child rearing, not just about Bible study and evangelism. And so this is an attempt to give us a very basic ethics a sense of what is it the God's trying to do with us and through us and to us While We're here on this planet? And What do we have to look forward to? One of the things I say in this book is that we're not going to have it, We're not going up to some kind of spiritual place in the sky, that we are going forward to a new Jerusalem on a new earth. And that's enough to get some people thinking…just a second, I always thought we were just going up to heaven, but we're really not. And this book tries to suggest why we're not and how this can invigorated everything we do here and now.

Seth

You know, I am intrigued, especially when you say we're not going to heaven. I don't know if you saw that my eyebrows did raise. So Well. Yeah. Look, I look forward to having you back on to discuss that. And I greatly appreciate your time today.

John

You too. Thanks, Seth.

Ending

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2 - Evangelical Universalism with Dr. Robin Parry (Gregory MacDonald) Transcript

Note: Can I Say This at Church is produced for audio listening. If able, I strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which has inflection, emotion, sarcasm where applicable, and emphasis for points that may not come across well in written word. This transcript is generated using a combination of my ears and software, and may contain errors. Please check the episode for clarity before quoting in print.

Hey there, and welcome to the Can I say this at church podcast? My name is Seth, I'm your host. And

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I have a topic for you today that Well, we decided just to go all in the first episode and discuss something that's ultimately going to happen to maybe all of us and that topic would be hell. What happens when we die? What happens with our relationship with God and Jesus when we die? And ultimately, what does that salvation look like?

This conversation was a pleasure to have. And I must say that I learned a lot with our guest. some background on him before I introduce him, He completed his doctorate, underneath the supervision of Gordon Windham, and Craig Bartholomew. He was a sixth form college teacher, it was true in the UK, in 2001. He began his work in the publishing arena at Patternoster in 2005, published to work on the Trinity that was very important, and briefly after that, took a job at Wipf and Stock publishers where he currently resides. I am of course, speaking about Robin Parry, the author of his best known book, The Evangelical Universalist, which I can't recommend enough. And again, he wrote that under the pseudonym of Gregory McDonald.

So let's get into it.

Alright, so my, my guest today is Dr. Robin Parry. Would you prefer me call you Dr. Parry, Robin.

Robin Robin’s fine. I know that there will be many listeners that that might not be not only familiar with you, but some of your work, especially over here in the type of churches that I was raised in, so I was hoping we could start with a little bit of you just introducing yourself a bit.

Robin

Sure. Okay. So I became a Christian when I was almost 15, that was through a Methodist youth group. But very quickly, I became involved in evangelical one, very quickly, I became involved with evangelical charismatic churches that was around about 1987. And that's right through some kinda Baptist at times. But then in 2012, I became an Anglican and currently training for ordination as an Anglican priest. So I am evangelical, anglican, orthodox catholic, all with small letters to the Anglican, which is the one true Church of God. ;)

Seth Okay, fair enough. The Anglican Church, is that similar? I know they have an American version of that. Is that…

Robin the Church of England?

3:10

Seth So, in researching you a bit, you have a different take on hell, then, then what I was I was raised in and what I was led to believe, all the way up through university. And you referenced it a minute ago, your small “e” evangelical. And I know understand your view of Hell is a Universalist view of hell. So I was hoping you could break those two down because in my mind, evangelical, and the church that I was raised in and universalism don't really mesh well together. I was hoping you could kind of define this.

Robin Right? No, that's what I was told to. And so for many years, I didn't even consider the possibility of universalism. So maybe I should just explain what universalism is. What I mean by universalism is the view that in the end, God will save all people through Christ.

So it's very important to understand that this is God doing this, and he's doing it through Christ. So this isn't, “God will save you. It doesn't matter what Jesus came, it doesn't matter that Jesus died rose again, we go the same with any way because he's nice”.

It's not It's not that is the view that no matter how much sin wrecks creation needs to be dealt with, God has dealt with it in Christ, and what God has done in Jesus, and His death and resurrection and ascension is enough for the salvation of the world. So It's a sort of Christ centered attempt to explain how God will save everyone.

But of course, does that mean there isn't a hell? Well, no, it doesn't mean that way. It depends what you mean by hell. So the way I was taught hell, When I became a Christian, was that hell was eternal conscious torment. And after a few years, I became persuaded that the view that some people call annihilationism, was a better way of understanding scripture than eternal torment. Because the passages, there's a few passages, which looked like hell lasts forever, and you're suffering forever and ever. But as I read various biblical scholars who took different views, I began to think, you know, those passages on the surface in English, they look very clear. But when you look into them a bit more, they're not they're not actually a clear, and some of them can be read as suggesting annihilation.

So that's the view I took for several years, and I didn't even consider didn't cross my mind for a minute than anything else could be a possible way of reading scripture. But eventually, I went through an existential crisis, which is what raised the question for me, which was that I came to believe that God was able, if He wanted to, to save everybody, without violating their freedom, because Free Will was what I'd always used as the reason why God wouldn't save everybody. He wants to, in my non-Calvinist moments, in my non-Calvinist moments, I said, “God wants to save everybody. But, but he can't, but he can't force that on people or it wouldn't be love, you know, and if it's love, He wants us to freely choose. And if we freely choose not to them, it's up to us, and God can't make us”.

But I came to be persuaded that God of course, God doesn't make us, God doesn't compel us to do things that we don't want to do, well. Sometimes he might. But God can solicit our wills in such a way that we will freely choose to be saved, and God could do this, I came to believe and still do believe, for everybody. But I was also convinced that he wouldn't do that. And then I had a problem because I thought…

Ah, so God could, without violating their freedom, save everyone, but he's not gonna - he's gonna send them to hell instead. And that is quite difficult. So I wrestled with this. And then I came across Thomas Talbott, and I read his book. I came across him through William Lane Craig, who was criticizing him. And I thought, yes, I've got to find a good reason to disagree with this view. And the more I read, Craig's criticisms of Tom Talbott, but the more I became persuaded that they weren't very good responses, and that Thomas Talbott made a good case.

So I had to be persuaded as scripture said this and Talbott gave some, what I thought were, at least at face value quite plausible ways that the Bible actually can be read in a Universalist way without twisting it. But I wasn't persuaded. So I spent the next two years reading everything I could about all these difficult texts, and scripture and how it might fit together. And at the end of two years, I got to the point where I thought, you know, I really do think that God will save everyone through Christ is in fact, entirely consistent with Scripture.

And there are difficult text, but every view that anyone might take on this issue will come across difficult texts, and you have to find a way of dealing with that; and not pretending that it's all straightforward and obvious. And if everyone just read the text, straightforwardly, they see that my view is the right one, whatever, it's more complicated. So that was back in the late 1990s, that I came to that view. And, and, and have held it ever since.

Seth So in telling people that I was anticipating doing this podcast and rounding up people that would be willing to come on. When I told them about specifically this view of, I guess salvation or sanctification, or those are two different things, but you know what I mean, they kept peppering me with just rapid fire questioning, to defend something that I'm hundred percent certain. I don't know if I agree yet. I know, I can't believe in eternal conscious torment. But the other two I'm still wrestling with. And I found that I was ill prepared to defend that. And I've seen many of your other interviews that you do that. But I'd like to approach this a different way. So I've heard you say in the past that, that Christian universalism more fits in line with the Gospel of Jesus, as opposed to the other options. And so I'd love to hear your thoughts on how the to work well together.

9:29

Robin Yes. Okay. Before I do that, I just realized I didn't actually answer the question you asked me previously, which was hell, So and I didn't actually explain hell. So let me just say this for now. And then I'll proceed to answer the question you just asked…

So whatever Hell is, and we do have to have a place for hell, because let's call it hell for now. Hell, of course, is not a word that's in the Bible itself. I mean, you'll find it in various translations. And I'm okay with that. So long as you allow the text itself to explain what it means by Hell, rather than importing all the cultural baggage that the term was acquired over the centuries.

So The term itself isn't there. But the concept of some post-mortem, end time punishment for sin and sinners is definitely in Scripture. And So, whenever we say about universalism, we have to find the space for that and take that seriously. Jesus, as I'm often told, spoke more about this than anyone else in the New Testament. And Yes, that's true, He did. And that means we have to take it very seriously. And it has to have a place in our theology.

So the kind of universalism I seek to develop is not one that says there's no punishment after death, that there isn't a day of judgment that there isn't conscious suffering for sin, and so on. What I'm saying is, that can't be the end of the story. So in the way I think of this, If someone is goes to hell, If we want to use that language. That's not the end of their story. That's like the penultimate thing, there will be a redemption from hell after that.

So I have to try and make that case, which is what I try and do and book and various other things I've done. So I mean, there's a lot more that could be said about that. But what I would want to say is, there is a hell but it's not the end, penultimate. So the question you then ask is about the gospel. And why do I think that this, this view of mine arises from the Gospel?

So I suppose…it's because I all Christian theology, and all Christian interpretation of Scripture, is Christ focused. And the gospel, and for the early Christians, the rule of faith was the thing that you read scripture in the light of the rule of faith and what the rule of faith was, was simply the Apostolic story of Jesus, that God becomes flesh in the person of Christ. That He lives among us as, as our representative, perfect human being that he, that he dies for our sin, that he's raised by God from the dead and ascends to heaven. And God pours out the Holy Spirit upon the church, and so on.

So this story, this way of understanding Christ becomes the Center for the way they read Scripture. So This is the rule of faith, which is subsequently becomes the creeds that we know which has this trinitaryian and shape, and it's focused on Christ and the story of the gospel. The story of Christ coming, dying, rising again, and so on.

12:35

So if Christian theology is going to be really evangelical, it has to have the “Evangel” which is the gospel, at the heart. Now, I'm often told that it's presumptuous to say, oh, God will save everyone, because that's not to you to say that, you know, it's up to God to do that. But I think that actually God has said this, because this is what the Gospel story is about. If you think about it, most…Almost all Christians historically have been Universalist about certain things. We’re Universalist about the claim that everybody is made by God. Everybody without exception, we are Universalist about the claim that human beings are made universally in the image of God. And as such, they have … they’re orientated towards God, they find their fulfillment in God, they're created with a purpose; with a destiny, to find their completion in God.

So human beings have a direction, as it were, for which were create; something we were created for. What we were created for is for God. We are made by him, through him and for him. So this is what Christians believe about everybody. We also believe that everyone's a sinner, so we're Universalist about that. But we also believe, and the early church fathers were quite clear about this-and scriptures to, that Christ becomes a human on behalf of humanity.

He represents the whole world, Israel, but also the whole of humanity before God. And I think the New Testaments is quite clear,and most Christians in history; except some Calvinists, have said that Christ also died for everybody. So almost all Christians are Universalist about Christ's death in that it was sharing with the intention of redeeming or Christ's resurrection, also was the resurrection on behalf of all humanity. So he rises as our representative. And this is something that Paul develops in the New Testament, youu know, that in Christ, we rise because we share in his resurrection, is the resurrection of humanity. And in Him as we share in him by the Holy Spirit who joined him, we are raised, we are raised.

So all of this stuff is stuff that Christians are Universalist about. So what I'm saying is okay, In that case, what do we learn about the future of humanity, in the story of the cross and resurrection? We see, in the resurrection, that humanity, as a whole has been raised, and it's representative in Christ. And Christ's resurrection isn’t written small. It is the future of the world. It is the new creation, it is all things made new. So the new age has begun, because Christ has been raised. And because Christ has been raised, this is not just some quirky miracle.

Look what God can do, he can raise people from the dead, this is the future of humanity. So God has already redeemed all of humanity in Christ in the resurrection. So this when I say the gospel is Universalist, I mean, all of humanity is already redeemed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Of course, we don't all share in that yet, in our experience. And in fact, none of us do. None of us share in that in its fullness yet, because we haven't been resurrected, right? But we will be, we will share in his resurrection, that will come. It's not a full reality for us yet, but it'll come; and already by the Holy Spirit, those who are, part of the church who've been joined to Christ, through baptism by the Holy Spirit, are starting to participate in the age to come and are experiencing signs of this in breaking future in the present. So there's a sense in which all humanity is already saved. And that is what is declared in the Gospel. So I say it's an evangelical universalism, and it grows out of the gospel. in another sense, of course, none of us experienced that fully, some of us not much at all. But the but the faith we have is that God has already shown the future and has already committed himself in Christ and in the working of the Holy Spirit, to bring about that future. And so in the New Testament, we see when Paul anticipates, you know, what is the future. Creation is, it is the future that whole thing will be headed up under Christ the reconciliation of all things through the cross, which is Colossians 1, which is already a present reality.

If this is making any sense?

Seth It does.

Robin Okay. And it is God being All in all, which was a favorite verse of the early church Universalists because they were saying, look, if God is all in all, what does it mean for God to be all in any particular individual? If God is all in me, then all evil and all rebellion has to be eradicated, because if all the rebellion and sin in my heart hasn't been eradicated, God is not all in me.

But in the future, when God brings everything to a climax, God is going to be all in all, which means going to be everything in everyone.

Seth Right? And then eradicating evil and

Robin Eradicating all rebellion and evil.

So this comes back to the question…why do I think this is more of a gospel view than the alternative?

Okay, so let's think about three different views of hell, you've got hell as a torture chamber. And these are slightly caricatures. But hell is a torture chamber is like what we could call the traditional view, but it's not the traditional view. I mean, all these views go right back into the early church, but it's the one that's become the mainstream view, particularly in the West. So there's Hell is a torture chamber.

You've got hell as a sort of execution, electric chair, which is annihilation.

Then you've got hell as maybe some kind of nasty like chemotherapy, maybe. Whereby it's something that's unpleasant, but it's intended to bring about healing. So these are three different ways of thinking about hell.

Now, they've all got pros and cons, and all of them are analogies and need to be supplemented, and modify slightly. But, um, which one of these approaches is most gospel like?

So? How does God deal with sin? How does God want to deal with sin and deal with evil? What God punishes evil, because any evil is bad. God wants to eradicate evil from creation. So How does God do this? Well, what the Gospel says is that God does this by condemning sin, and the death of Christ, and in raising Christ from the dead.

So the gospel way of God dealing with sin is not through the destruction of sinners, so that they're wiped out, it is through the redemption of sin. Not simply forgiveness, but transformation. So that sinners needs to be sinners, and become holy people who in the life of God is is fully alive and full of the Spirit. So the gospel way of dealing with sin is through forgiveness, and through transformation through redemption. That's what the gospel is about, right? That's the gospel.

So I think universalism says, Yeah, and the gospel prevails for the whole of creation, the gospel prevails. Whereas If God ends up either torturing people forever, that's not the gospel way of dealing with sin. So that's saying God's got two ways of dealing with sin, the gospel way, and some other way, which is not gospel, or annihilating them, like electric chair-ing them.

Again, God hasn't healed creation, he's gotten rid of evil as a creation just by getting rid of the evil people. Right? Which is effective. But that's not gospel, because gospel heals people. gospel doesn't eradicate people, gospel heals people.

So I think what I'm suggesting is, if God has a gospel solution to sin and evil, we know what that is, it's healing and restoration and so on, even if it goes through a difficult and painful phases, and even if it's, everyone doesn't experience it in the same way at the same time, in the end. Anyway, hope that makes sense.

Seth It does. A minute ago, you said, you know, all three views that have had history, but at least in my worldview, and my bias, and the lens that I was I was given, is, it's implied that it's always been a eternal conscious torment. So when did that… I guess the history question is in the history of the church. When was that shift? Or why was that shift? And or why did we move away from from being at least open to having the option of not being tormented for forever?

Robin

Yeah, and that's it…the answer to that wouldn't be as straightforward and simple as overly complicated. And I don't think we really know all of the details to be able to answer that problem.

I mean, we can track that there were shifts. But even then, because our data is so sparse, it's very difficult to track shifts neatly. For individual thinkers, it's not always clear. And this dispute among scholars about “is this particular person an annihilationist, an eternal torment, or a universalist. I mean, there are some people for whom all views have been claimed. So it's not always clear with individuals, because sometimes they say things that seem to conflict with each other.

It is also not clear of course, what most ordinary Christians thought, because the data we have is just from a few. Some of those people, leaders and spokespeople and whatnot, and what did ordinary folk say?

The two people who are most associated with the view of eternal conscious torment, is Tertullian, and the second is St. Augustine, and both of them from North Africa.

St. Augustine is the guy who really popularized the view in the West. He argues at length in the, City of God, as to why he takes it. To be fair, and he feels the scripture requires it, although he's also quite clear that he doesn't speak Greek.

He likes Latin, he found Greek too difficult. And so you know, there are bits where he's, it's very obvious to him what the Bible means, but he's not actually reading in Greek.

Seth

That doesn't make much sense

Robin

Yeah, well…he was a bright fellow, Augustine. And so arguably, his understanding of original sin, which was based on Romans 5, a lot of it was based on a mistranslation in the Latin of the Greek. And so if you read it in the Greek, you may want to say it doesn't say what he took it to say.

Now, you might want to argue that still read the Greek text that way. And that's fine. And I think there's important discussion to be had there, but that's not what you're asking me then.

So you had these three views. And one of them was associated with Origen, who was loved by many and hated by others.

And quite why, by the sixth century, his views, some of the people who followed him, their views had become have increasingly weird. And so when their weird versions were condemned in the sixth century, people just assume that Origen himself had had those views. And so a lot of the views to do with universalism went away, which had been pretty mainstream, even great people like Gregory of Anissa, who was very orthodox and very involved, and Saith Athanasius; the core of Orthodoxy in the battle with areas and so on, these guys were arguably Universalists. But the point is, when the view had become associated with some really quirky people with some slightly strange views, they tended to think well, that must be what Origen thought and the whole thing became condemned by association.

Seth

That makes sense.

Robin

So I think that was some of it. Some of it was politics. Some of it was just people who became influential for other reasons and their views Came to dominate.

25:50

Seth

You've alluded to the Universalist view versus a Calvinist view. And in my mind that they both struggle with a similar problem in the point of, I guess…

I was raised mostly Calvinist, and I don't believe on that anymore. But in that view, I've always struggled with what is the point of me witnessing or or proselytizing the gospel if God just picks and choose, you know, duck duck burn? And then on the Universalist side, it seems like it doesn't matter as much. So I guess the question is, why would a modern Christian then continue to spread the Gospel? With either view, they seem to have a similar shortfall.

Robin

You right, the similar point can be made against both, so it always slightly calls me when Calvinists make it against Universalist. Because I think the Calvinist always made sense to me. When Calvinists have problems, but today, you go, Well, why would you evangelize? Because God's gonna save the elect anyway? And The answer is, well, this is how God says elect through the gospel, which God has chosen to do it through the preaching of the gospel.

Seth

Yeah.

Robin

That makes sense to me. So, I would say, why preach the gospel? Because that's how God saves people. You know, you say, well, I'll be saved in the end anyway, yeah, they'll be saved in the end through the gospel. So you got to preach it. And it might. And again, it depends. If you're a Calvinist Universalist, or an Armenian one, right? So all not all universalists are the same.

So if you're an Armenian Universalist and you're saying that God doesn't determine everything that happens,

Seth which could then

So that’s a …. that's a free will Universalist to say you're Armenian universalist?

Robin

Free will, yes. Although it's bit more complicated, because Calvinists, believe in free will too. They believe that free will is compatible with God's determining all our choices. And Armenians say, well, No, it's not. If God determines all our choices, then are free. So so for an Armenian, our choices are free, but they're not determined.

So if that's your view, then you can say…

“Well, look, people need to hear the gospel. And there’s going to be a whole bunch of people who are not going to be saved by the time they die and are going to go to hell who wouldn't have gone to hell if they'd heard the gospel before. So, in this view you’ve got an extra motive to preach it because you don't want people to go to hell.

Even if you think they're going to be saved anyway, that doesn't mean it doesn't matter. You know, who cares?

Well, it's like Jeremiah going, “what the heck, it doesn't really matter if the Babylonians destroy Jerusalem and, and all that, because God's gonna restore us after the exile anyway; so do what you like!”

That wasn't his attitude at all. He was desperate to persuade people not to go that route, because it would have been better if they hadn't gone that route. But, but they did. Even if it's the case that God restores them in the end.

So an Armenian Universalist would have those external motivations, a Calvinist, of course, wouldn't. A Calvinist Universalist would have to say we preach the gospel, because Christ commands us to because this is the means by which God saves people.

But those who do not respond before they die, that's because God ordained that they wouldn't. And you know, God ordained that they would be redeemed subsequently, after having had an time in hell. And then that's quite a difficult thing. But it's not as difficult as saying God would send them to hell and then they will not get out. That's even more than,

Seth

In your mind as you do things like this. And you know, you must discuss this with people all the time; what do you find, has been just the, and I'm asking this more for the people that will listen that don't like myself, haven't made their mind up.

What do you find is the strongest case against universalism? And it does not mean that's an endorsement of the other three, or the other two.

Robin

So the strongest case…well… I haven’t come will across very strong theological arguments against universalism. Because the strongest arguments against universalism would be taking a biblical texts, that on the face of it, look like “how can that be?”

Seth

When you say particular you mean just proof-texting?

Robin

Particular texts in the Bible was somebody would say, so for example, maybe Luke 16, with the rich man and Lazarus, who goes to Hades. And there's a chasm between them, they can’t be crossed.

Right. So on the surface, you think, yeah, that's, that's tricky, isn't it? You know, that's not what you would expect to read. If universalism was true. And I think, then you have to take that seriously. I mean, I think there were things I can say about that text. Various ways that, I think, at very least mean that you can't use it as a break to say universalism isn't true, but I still think it remain as something that will niggle a Universalist. Then there are the texts, likewise, particularly, maybe some in Revelation, although in the book, I have a long chapter explaining how the language in Revelation does and doesn't work.

And, and I argue, I think I argue quite persuasively that in Revelation, although you have people in the lake of fire and the language seems very final. We also see those very same people and nations and kings of the earth, coming into the New Jerusalem.

And I think in the book of Revelation, it's very clear that the nations of the kings of the earth are not the church, they're not Christian people, they're the baddies. The people who oppose Christ and the church all the way through the book. And then they're, they're the ones who are not in the book of life. And here they are coming into the New Jerusalem. And the names are in the book of life. So it, I think, for the reader, this would send clear signals to how carefully you need to think about how to interpret that language about what the lake of fire is about.

But that said, those texts about the lake of fire, and so on, are very strong. And people like me need to feel the weight of that, you know, need to feel the challenge of that language still, and not to feel we can domesticated it. So I think the strongest arguments would be those kind rather than theological argument, because I've never heard any good theological arguments against universalism, which is to say, arguments to say, because God is just, because God is righteous is why universalism is untrue.

But they just don’t work. None of these arguments from the character of the nature of God against universalism work. Nothing from the story of the gospel. No, none of those kinds of things work, it would have to be from specific text, text matters, of course, because Scripture is Scripture, and its got authority.

Seth

Yeah.

Robin

So it's all about, then how do we read Scripture? How do we interpret that stuff? And how do we not domesticated but allowed to threaten us still and challenge us?

Web

Before I let you go, where would you point people to, that are in a similar position as me that that are that are questioning and they want to be able to make a concerted effort to educate themselves in a way that will,that will yield clarity, I guess, in what they walk every day.

Robin

Yes, of course. And you need to read reviews from different perspectives. And it may be the best place to start is the Zondervan book on the Four Views on Hell.

Seth

I saw that one earlier. That one has purgatory included in it as well.

Robin

Yeah. Because that's got eternal torment, annihilation, universalism and purgatory, which isn't really a view of hell; it's something different. But anyway, it's in there. So the books good because it gives you the four different views on how they would respond to each other. So that's probably the best entry point. Because it gives a very succinct statement of each view and the arguments for it, and how they would attempt to refute their opponents. And then each of them gets a chance to argue with the other and so on, and it doesn't conclude it, it leaves it to the reader to weigh it out, and I t also points towards other resources, all the chapters do for people who would like to read more.

Seth

Sure. And your book…

Robin

Of course, from the university perspective, then there's the Evangelical Universalist by Gregory MacDonald.

There is Thomas Talbott’s The Inescapable Love of God. There's a whole bunch of books, George Saris’ book, the title of which now escapes me. I can see the cover but I can’t see the title. Anyway, there's a whole bunch of books, but those would be where I’d start.

Seth

Robin, thank you so much. I know, it's been a big time difference in shift between the two of us being on different sides of the Atlantic. I greatly appreciate you taking the time to come on and talk to me very much. And I look forward to maybe, again in the future on a different topic, some form in the future, if you're willing,

Robin

If I know about any other topics. Great, lovely.

Seth

Sure. Well, thank you very much, and be blessed.

Ending

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