“I Wouldn’t Believe in a God Who Would…” — A Response to Francis Chan, Part 1
Jun.09, 2011 in
Podcast Episodes
Author Francis Chan is releasing a new book soon called “Erasing Hell” and has released a promotional video. Unlike the Rob Bell video which raised a lot of questions, Chan makes some definitive statements (not necessarily about hell) in his video. And it is those statements to which Ray and Steve respond in this two-part episode.
Can we know the Father? Or is our finite, sin-infused mind incapable of knowing what God is like. When we say God is “just”, can we know what that means? Is the “justice” of God at all related to our human understanding of the concept of “justice”? Or is it in a completely different category altogether?
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June 9th, 2011 at 2:27 pm
Just found your podcast, guys. Great discussion on this topic! I especially appreciate your tone and your fairness to Chan. I can tell that this is going to become one of my favorite podcasts.
I, too, am looking much more at universal reconciliation these days, and was similarly disturbed by Chan’s comments.
June 10th, 2011 at 5:43 am
After watching the clip I thought I would finally disagree with you guys on something, because I thought you’d promote Chan’s book…guess I was wrong…dangit.
What really bothered me was not so much what he said (eventhough I disagree with most), but the ‘feel’ of the clip. He says he wants to aproach the subject with humility, but I don’t see that in the trailer.
Is the one who says he’s humble humble, or the one who just walks in humility?
Does humility say that there is just this one way, my way, to understand a bible passage?
Does humility need to portray itself in a super flash video in order to sell this great new product?
Anyway, I don’t know him, so I guess I could be wrong…
It just didn’t sit right with me.
I liked you guys talking about the progressive revelation of the bible. Have you ever come across http://www.presence.tv and Spiral Dynamics and Integral Theology and that sorta stuff? It reminded me a bit of that.
Anyway…Part 2…I’m ready when you’re ready 🙂
June 10th, 2011 at 10:27 pm
Steve,
Thanks for listening. I was hoping that our tone was one of love and fairness to Francis Chan. I appreciate what I have seen of his passion for the Gospel, but am just disturbed by where some of his thinking seems to lead.
I enjoyed your post that you linked to. It sounds like you are on much the same track as Steve and I when it comes to understanding the nature of the Bible.
I look forward to more interaction with you.
Ulf,
I thought I would finally disagree with you guys on something, because I thought you’d promote Chan’s book…guess I was wrong…dangit.
Sorry to disappoint 🙂
I also think that humility is much misunderstood these days. Even though I get where Francis is coming from in trying to let the Scriptures dictate what he believes about God instead of simply “going with his gut”, I think it’s misleading to take this approach. Should I really fight to defend God’s “right” to be a monster? Is this a battle God would want me to fight? I don’t think so. I think God wants us to let Jesus be the “trump card” for all previous revelation, Scriptural or otherwise.
I’m not familiar with the website that you linked to or with Spiral Dynamics and Integral Theology. Tell me more.
June 12th, 2011 at 6:48 pm
Raborn,
I am really trying here to come up with a few sentences that would summarize Integral Theology…but the best would just be to go to the page itself and have a read for yourself. They summarize it pretty well, and the ‘Video Series 1’ under the Integral Theology tab is a great introduction to the whole thing.
I came across these guys a few months ago, while researching ultimate reconciliation and preterism. And as I read, I felt it really resonating with me.
I’d be interested in what you think, if you ever get the time to explore the site a bit. (They only just started and are still in the process of adding to it)
June 14th, 2011 at 10:23 pm
Ulf,
I will have to check this out. Thanks for sharing the knowledge!
April 13th, 2012 at 10:13 am
The very frustrating thing is that many christians build a self confirming construct that can not be argued with.
IF the word of god is perfectly recorded by the bible, then it would be the hight of foolishness to reject anything.
Simple, if God did it, too bad, it is stupid to fight.
I can see that.
The real question is, do you think jesus reveals God or not.
Let jesus character be the final word.
Not our ‘human logic’ but jesus.
I still think that once you have decided the old testament can be questioned there is no hope to introduce logic.
April 17th, 2012 at 11:24 am
@James, I’ve been wondering about the value of the OT for Christians. This week I came across your comment and FB’s “the day the music died” podcast. Also, remembered listening to this BtB podcast last summer. Blending OT theology into the new covenant actually seems to generate confusion.
It might be useful to consider questions like how was the OT canonized, how can we extract relevance from a culture and time far removed from us, do we understand the writing styles employed, symbolisms, idioms etc? One already gets hit with this in just the first few chapters. Would a Jewish/Israelite audience 2.5 – 3 K years ago have taken the first few chapters of Genesis as 100% literal or would they have naturally understood what sections were prose? Today some Christian literalists use this section as clear support for their young earth view (a modern case of Copernicus vs Church?).
Finally in churchy language, the focus of the OT was on the old covenant (although there are occasional glimpses of the new). Presumably the new covenant is more mystical (i.e. God living in you) rather than a written code. I can see why some of the Jewish rabbis in the first century were mad at Christians for hijacking their books. I think that whoever wrote the book of Hebrews (presumably a Jewish Christian who was well versed in Jewish tradition) was telling the early Christians to basically drop the old covenant. I suppose that the OT can be a useful tool for church organizations; i.e. for supporting clergy versus laity hierarchy, insisting on tithing, theology based on do good and get health & wealth but do bad and get your ass kicked etc.
What are your thoughts?
February 25th, 2014 at 10:29 pm
Just found the podcast, and love the thoughtful discussion in this and the other podcasts..so much of what you guys say really resonates with me particularly the parental analogies.. if the meaning of education is to ‘lead out of’ as in leading people out of darkness, I would think God takes as much delight in educating us as we do our children, and implicit in this is the idea of progression..revelation does seem to be be progressive as you say, both for us and the nation of Israel. I used to think heaven would be like a giant MVD office, where we would need to pass the doctrine test to get in… so glad to be free of that delusion!