One of the points I've raised with progressive Christian audiences in talking about my book Reviving Old Scratch is what I call "the colonialism of disenchantment."

By and large, progressive Christianity struggles with disenchantment. That is to say, by and large progressive Christians express and privilege doubt when it comes to the supernatural and miraculous aspects of the Christian faith. You see this in both the mainline Protestant churches and among ex-evangelical progressives.

Consequently, among the progressive Christian crowd my book Reviving Old Scratch, a book about the devil and what many Christians describe as "spiritual warfare," is a bit of a scandal. When it's hard to believe in God it's even harder to believe in the devil, let alone anything resembling a clash between angelic and demonic forces in the world. And beyond that skepticism, there's also a worry about how talk about the devil and demons goes horribly wrong, used to demonize other human beings.

So given tall this, why should progressive Christians invest time in thinking about a theology of the devil and spiritual warfare? If the devil is hard to believe in and morally dangerous why not just leave the topic on the shelf?

Well, one of the reasons I share with progressive audiences is this: the colonialism of disenchantment.

There are two aspects related to the colonialism of disenchantment.

The first aspect is the observation that disenchantment is largely a Western problem. The Christianity of the global East and South are very much enchanted. In Africa and South America Christians don't need convincing that the devil exists and that malevolent spiritual forces are at work in the world. White people in America and Europe doubt this, but the rest of the world doesn't.

The second aspect is harder to admit, but I think it's real. Specifically, the disenchanted Christianity of progressive Christians in the West is considered to be more "educated," "complex," and "scientifically literate" than more enchanted forms of Christian belief. This largely due to the fact that many progressive Christians, especially ex-evangelicals, have been on a journey away from the enchanted Christianity of their childhood. This journey is typically narrated as a developmental process, moving from a childhood naivety into something more ambiguous, yes, but something more adult and mature, more willing and courageous to "face doubts" and "live with the questions." Sometimes this developmental process is described as an "evolution," from a simpler to a more complex faith.

All that to say, the unspoken assumption within much of progressive Christianity is that enchanted forms of faith are childish, naive, and simplistic. We grow out of certainty to embrace doubt. A Christianity that doubts and questions the enchanted aspects of faith is felt to be mature, sophisticated, and complex.

Combine those two things and you have the the colonialism of disenchantment. The skeptical, questioning, doubting, faith of progressive Christianity in the West is the more evolved faith. By contrast, the enchanted faith of the global East and South is more primitive, more naive and superstitious. And this is, in case you haven't noticed, the colonial posture the West has always had toward Eastern and Southern spiritualities and faiths. The West, by rejecting enchantment, is "enlightened." Disenchantment is adult and grown-up, whereas enchantment is childish, trafficking in make-believe and fairy tales.

And this, I would argue, is one of the great paradoxes of progressive, ex-evangelical Christianity, how it claims to be a champion of a post-colonial Christianity in the world, yet enacts and embodies a colonial attitude when it comes to their questioning, evolving, skeptical, doubting, and disenchanted faith.

To recap, since it's been a few weeks.

A theory of love plays out upon the slopes of Mount Purgatory in The Divine Comedy. According Dante, our loves go bad in one of three ways. We've already talked about two of these.

The first way love can go bad is loving a bad thing. This love is purified on the lowest slopes of Mt. Purgatory.

The second way love can go bad is loving a good thing too much. This love is purified on the uppermost slopes of Mt. Purgatory.

And in the middle of Mt. Purgatory, between the loves we've just described, is found the third way our love can go bad. We can love a good thing too little.

Loving a good thing too little, a love that is lazy, is identified with the Deadly Sin of sloth in The Divine Comedy. Dante describes the sin of sloth as love that is "lukewarm."

This may come as a surprise, but this part of The Divine Comedy is why I'm blogging about it. The sin of sloth is the part of the Comedy that most captured my attention, shook me up, and convicted me.

Why?

Well, when I looked at the loves being purified on Mt. Purgatory, I really didn't resonate or see much of myself in the bad loves found on the lowest and highest slopes, loving a bad thing or loving a good thing too much. To be clear, I do struggle with these sorts of temptations. But what really struck me as I ascended Mt. Purgatory with Virgil and the Pilgrim, was not how I love bad things or good things too much. What struck me is how lazy and lukewarm my love often is, how I don't love the good things in my life as well or as much as I should. Of all the Deadly Sins, I felt sloth best described me.

I love Jana, my wife. But my struggle in my marriage isn't that I love Jana too much. No, I wish I loved her better. My love for her can be sluggish at times, procrastinating, slow, and lazy in many places.

The same goes with my being a father. I love my boys so much, just like I love Jana, but I can get lazy as a Dad. I don't love my boys too much, I wish I loved them better.

And the list goes on, even with my love for God. My love for God can get lazy and lukewarm.

That's my sin. Sloth. I am a lazy lover, not loving the good things in my life with as much energy, passion, attention, and commitment as I should.

It was the sluggishness of my heart that struck me so powerfully when I read The Divine Comedy.

Continuing our Thursday series with Darrell Smith, sharing from his book Faith Lies: Seven Incomplete Ideas That Hijack Faith and How to See Beyond Them.

Faith Lies with Darrell Smith

Lie #5: There is One Right Way to Believe and One Right Way to Behave

Are Orthodox Jews more right than Reform Jews?

Is Christianity more right than Judaism?

Is Catholicism more right than Protestantism?

Is one Protestant denomination more right than the rest?

Is baptism by immersion more correct than baptism by sprinkling?

Does a Greek Orthodox worship service provide access to the divine that a Baptist worship service does not?

Is there one correct way to observe communion?

Are certain methods of prayer more right and true than others?

We can probably all think of people who could answer those questions with resounding certainty. We may even be those people. I certainly have Orthodox Jewish friends who believe that their embrace of the Jewish faith is truer than that of their Reform brothers and sisters. Likewise, I have Catholic friends who are convinced that all Protestants must return to the Mother Church and Protestant friends who sit in judgment of the Catholic Church. In my hometown, it is easy to find someone who “knows” a certain mode of baptism is the only true baptism—or that a specific style of worship is God’s preferred style.

All of these questions and thoughts can be summed up with two words: orthodoxy—correct belief and orthopraxy—correct behavior and practice.

Whether we admit it or not, we answer or avoid the kinds of questions drummed up by orthodoxy and orthopraxy everyday. What do we believe? How do we behave? The nightly news always contains stories of some group of people somewhere fighting or defending a religious or spiritual principle. Those people—just like most of us—have arrived at an interpretive decision. They have decided that the orthodox version of their faith requires them to believe something, do something, defend something, refuse something, and in the most tragic but all-too-common expression, to attack something.

Is it possible that we have completely misunderstood orthodoxy and orthopraxy?

Is it possible we are all part of a diverse creation that flows from a God that cannot be contained by any one belief or behavior?

Next week, Faith Lie #6 – Faith is a Private Matter

This will be our last post drawing out Christological themes in the Joseph narrative, leaning upon Walter Brueggemann's commentary on Genesis.

We've talked about the themes of betrayal, passion, death and resurrection, all culminating in a grace and forgiveness that breaks with the past to give birth to a new future. Our last observation is how the actors in the human drama, intent on doing evil, are used by God for creative, redemptive purposes.

God plays a very long game in the Joseph narrative. Joseph's brothers sell him into slavery, expecting to never hear from him again. It's a wicked, evil act.

And yet, many years later, that evil act becomes the means of their salvation and deliverance. Ruling in Egypt, Joseph finds himself positioned to save his family from starvation. The covenantal promises that God made to Abraham are about to die, but God makes a way toward life. God uses the wicked, evil act to restore, deliver and save. And save not just this one family, but all nations who will one day be blessed through this family.

As Joseph declares to his brothers (Genesis 50.20):

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

The Christological parallels should be obvious.

What humanity did to Jesus upon the cross was a wicked, evil thing. But what we intended for evil, God intended for good in order to accomplish what is now being done.

The saving of many lives.

We've mainly been talking about the motifs of resurrection in the Joseph narrative, but there's also aspects that point to the passion in the gospels.

We've already mentioned a bit of this, how both Joseph and Jesus are betrayed and abandoned by their brothers (familial brothers in the case of Joseph, and kingdom brothers in the case of Jesus).

And that rift wounds and hurts. Both Jesus and Joseph shed tears. Jesus in Gethsemane, and Joseph when he encounters his brothers again. To be clear, I'm aware that the tears don't come in the same places in the story for both Joseph and Jesus. The point is the deep pathos of each story. Neither story is stoical or a narrative of resignation. There is feeling.

As Brueggemann writes about the tears in the Joseph story around his disclosure to his brothers:

The narrative asserts the Joseph can speak a word which creates newness...In this speech of Joseph, the power of the conspiracy of chapter 37 is broken. The break with the awful deed comes in the lordly speech. But this regal speech is based on the flood of passion...Joseph's speech is filled with passion....The point is a central one in biblical faith: The power to create newness does not come from detachment, but from risky, self-disclosing engagement. 

Again, the parallels with the passion of Jesus are striking. The pathos of God that is "the power to create newness does not come from detachment, but from risky, self-disclosing engagement." 

When the forgiving victim returns to speak a word of grace a break with the past occurs. When Joseph forgives his brothers he refuses to reenact the past, refuses to pay back an eye for an eye, refuses to seek revenge and retaliation.

Grace breaks with the violent past to open up the possibility of a new future, a future predicated on love rather than blood. Brueggemann describes this in the Joseph narrative:

[Joseph's brothers] had yet to discover that [Joseph's] assertion was a complete break with the past. They feared that the live Joseph would exploit and act out the past...But Joseph does not. He breaks that past. He invites his brothers to put that pitiful past behind them...Joseph opens to them another future. [Joseph's] self-announcement in regal language is a beginning with new possibility. The new possibility does not come from anything done by the brothers. It is, rather, a gift wrapped in the speech of their brother.

What we see playing out here with Joseph on a small, intimate, and domestic scale plays out with Jesus on a cosmic, universal scale. In Jesus's act of forgiveness, in dying for the sins of the world, his word of grace decisively breaks the past, opening up a new future for the world.

In Jesus, the cycle of violence comes to an end and the possibility of a new world opens up before us.

We'll get back to Dante next week. Today a bit of housekeeping.

For a few years people have asked me to add a "subscribe by email" feature to the blog. Whenever I've poked around Blogger in the past I could never see an easy-to-add widget for this. And since I'm generally indifferent and apathetic about making it easy for people to find, follow, share, or read my blog, there I let the matter sit.

Well, after another nudge from a friend this week I took another look at the widgets available on Blogger. And there it was: email subscription!

So, at the homepage of the blog, where you see the sidebar on the right, at the top of the sidebar is a place where you can subscribe to the blog via email. Let me know if you use it and have any issues.

And if this is something you've been wishing for, well, "You're Welcome!" True, it goes against my blogging philosophy to make this blog easy and accessible, I still like to keep things simple, primitive, and advertisement-free here on Blogger, but sometimes you just have to give the people what they want.

See you next week, perhaps now in your Inbox!

Continuing our Thursday series with Darrell Smith, sharing from his book Faith Lies: Seven Incomplete Ideas That Hijack Faith and How to See Beyond Them.

Faith Lies with Darrell Smith

Lie #4: I Am Supposed to Protect and Defend God and My Faith

Shortly before his death, renowned theoretical physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking gave an interview to the Spanish paper El Mundo. In that interview, Hawking stated, “Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe. But now science offers a more convincing explanation. What I meant by ‘we would know the mind of God’ is, we would know everything that God would know, if there were a God, which there isn’t.”

Bam! That is one of those drop-the-microphone-and-leave-the-room quotes, isn’t it? There was no uncertainty, no ambiguity. “There is no God. See ya later, Hawking out.”

What are we supposed to do with that? One of the most intelligent thinkers to ever live said that science proves that God is not real. What does that do to you? What is welling up inside of your gut? Do you feel yourself beginning to perform mental gymnastics to make Hawking’s thoughts jive with your own? Maybe not. Maybe you feel your mind throwing up a wall to keep such arguments out. Maybe you find it easier just to dismiss Dr. Hawking as a lost soul who didn’t really know what he was talking about. Do you want to argue with Dr. Hawking? Do you want to forget about him? Do you want to prove that God does exist?

If I’m honest with myself, I can admit that I have felt all of these responses at different times when I am faced with people, opinions, and worldviews that do not seem to fit into my understanding. As strange as it may seem, it is in our reaction to this benign story where we find our next lie—the idea that we, in some way, are responsible for defending or protecting God—that we need to be able to explain God and prove God in any situation at any time.

Let’s state some truths clearly in the first person:

• I am not responsible for defending or protecting God—and that is a good thing because I need God to defend and protect me. 
• God will not falter or disappear if I do not argue correctly, fight for, or stand up in the name of God—and that is a good thing because if God could falter or disappear, God wouldn’t be much of a God. 
• God does not need my protection or defense—and that is a good thing because if God did need my protection or defense, we would both be screwed. 

Explore these statements and expose the incomplete and unhelpful idea that God needs our defense in Faith Lies: Seven Incomplete Ideas That Hijack Faith and How to See Beyond Them.

Next week, Faith Lie #5 – There is One Right Way to Believe and One Right Way to Behave.

So, both Joseph and Jesus come back from the dead to face again those who betrayed them.

Now, we've been conditioned to view this return as "good news," but the fact of the matter is that we would be terrified to face a person whom we've betrayed and abandoned.

In short, the resurrection event initially engenders fear and the anticipation of punishment and judgment. We expect the victim to return with vengeance on his mind.

That's certainly what Joseph's brothers expect. And fear was the first reaction upon the news of Jesus' resurrection. But in both instances, the victim doesn't seek revenge. Rather, the victim returns and speaks a forgiving word. Joseph to his brothers, and Jesus to his disciples.

Here's how Walter Brueggemann describes Joseph's disclosure to this brothers and makes a parallel with the gospels:

The key fact in the life of this family is that they must live now with the reality of a live, powerful, ruling Joseph...[The] terror and astonishment of the brothers is not unlike that of the early church with the disclosure of the live Jesus...

[The past actions of the brothers] put them in grave danger. The wrath of their now powerful brother is imminent. But the response of Joseph is not the expected one. Instead of a response that depends on the past estrangement, his fresh speech concerns something new: 'Do not be dismayed...Do not be angry with yourselves...for God sent me...'

In the same way, Jesus appears to his disciples and says, "Peace." Or, in the language of Hebrews, the blood of Jesus speaks "a better word" than the blood of Abel. Instead of a word of vengeance, we get a word of mercy.

Related to yesterday's post about David Bentley Hart's book That All Shall Be Saved, below is a reworked post from six years ago, giving newer readers a taste of how I've argued for universal reconciliation.

The big point of the post below is how to square universal reconciliation with human freedom. For a lot of people, that's the big sticking point. An appeal to human freedom sits at the heart of many arguments for eternal conscious torment, but it also sits at the heart of a view called "conditionalism" or "separatism," the view of hell espoused by C.S. Lewis and dramatized in The Great Divorce and Rob Bell in his book Love Wins.

Using Love Wins and C.S. Lewis as points of contrast (and to be clear, I'm a huge fan of both Lewis and Rob), what follows is a meditation on love, freedom, and salvation:

When Love Wins came out many pointed out that what Rob Bell was saying wasn't new. Love Wins was sharing the view famously espoused by C.S. Lewis. Specifically, God's love wins because God respects human freedom, not because everyone, eventually, is reconciled to God. C.S. Lewis famously phrased the notion this way: The doors of hell are locked, but they are locked from the inside. We banish ourselves from heaven, not God. The idea here is that God never forecloses on salvation. Not now, not ever. But humans, exercising their freedom, can turn away from God and keep turning away. Perhaps for eternity.

Here are selections from Love Wins where Rob Bell is walking through this conditionalistic, separatist vision of "love winning":

If we want hell,
if we want heaven,
they are ours.
That's how love works. It can't be forced, manipulated, or coerced.
It always leaves room for the other to decide.
God says yes,
we can have what we want,
because love wins.

...

Now back to that original question: "Does God get what God wants?" is a good question, an interesting question, an important question that gives us much to discuss.

But there's a better question, one we can answer...It's not "Does God get what God wants?"
but
"Do we get what we want?"
And the answer to that is a resounding, affirming, sure and positive yes.
Yes, we get what we want.
God is that loving.

If we want isolation, despair, and the right to be our own god, God graciously grants us that option. If we insist on using our God-given power and strength to make the world in our own image, God allows us that freedom; we have the kind of license to that. If we want nothing to do with light, hope, love, grace, and peace, God respects that desire on our part, and we are given a life free from any of those realities. The more we want nothing to do with all God is, the more distance and space are created. If we want nothing to do with love, we are given a reality free from love.

The specific issue I'd like to assess in this vision, and with conditionalism/separatism generally, is the regulating notion that love requires freedom. Love wins, not because we all get to heaven, but because we all get what we want. Love wins because love allows us freedom. So even if someone is separated from God, perhaps for all eternity, that is a win for love. Because you are getting what you want.

You don't want God and walk away.
God allows this.
So love wins.

Let's think about that. Love, according to conditionalism/separatism, allows people to walk away from God. More, Love allows people to keep walking. Toward what? Away from "light, hope, love, grace, and peace." So this passage in Love Wins asks us to imagine Love allowing people to walk deeper into darkness, despair, hate, revenge, and violence. To get a sense of this, imagine the horrors, depravity and bestiality of war. And then keep multiplying that. We imagine Love allowing people to walk deeper and deeper into that?

The question all this raises is if a loving God would allow that descent into madness to happen.

The response, I'm guessing, comes back to the issue of freedom. What, it might be asked, am I suggesting? That God thwart our choices and corral us, against our will, into heaven? That seems to be the key idea driving Rob's and Lewis' vision: Love requires freedom. This is how love "wins." As Love Wins says, "That's how love works. It can't be forced, manipulated, or coerced. It always leaves room for the other to decide."

It's at this point I'd like to push back with a little psychology, because I think the notion of freedom at work in conditionalism/separatism is flawed.

At root, our psychological experience of freedom is comprised of two things: 1) Self-authorship/ownership and 2) Choice/caring congruence.

We feel free when we "own" our decisions and actions. When I scratch my nose I feel that I "own" (i.e., willed) the entire action. This sense of ownership helps create a feeling of self-authorship. I am writing, with my decisions, the story of my life.

We know this experience of "ownership" is a feeling because there are situations when this feeling can become suspended. Hypnosis and disassociation are examples. In such cases my motor cortex is activated--I'm doing things--but I don't feel the actions are "mine."

The second part of the feeling of freedom involves choice/caring congruence. When our choices align with what we want or care about we feel a sense of inner harmony and freedom. I'm doing what I want to do. Harry Frankfurt calls this volitional unanimity. Everything within me "agrees." Desire, choice and behavior are aligned.

(Programming note: I use the word "volitional" a lot in what follows. "Volitional" means "pertaining to the will.")

Feelings of "unfreedom" occur when we are forced, say, at the point of a gun, to do something that is misaligned with what we care about. We are doing something we don't want to do. The point-of-a-gun example seems obvious enough when we think of external compulsion. But the compulsions can be internal as well. Psychosis, obsessive-compulsions, and addictions are all examples of states where people feel internally overthrown or coerced. But these are really just extreme example of what Paul describes in Romans 7, doing things we don't really want to do. Paul describes this lack of volitional harmony as being "wretched." It doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel free. We feel internally betrayed and coerced, "against our will" as it were.

All this describes our inner experience of freedom.  Freedom--call it free will or voluntary behavior--is the experience of self-authorship and inner unanimity.

Let's now go back to Rob Bell's statement: "That's how love works. It can't be forced, manipulated, or coerced. It always leaves room for the other to decide." As it stands, this assessment is totally non-controversial. Love doesn't put a gun to your head. Love doesn't force, manipulate, or coerce.

In short, God wants our choices to be voluntary. God wants us to "own" the decision. God wants us to "want" the decision.

But here's the critical issue at this point, an issue that many who make strong appeals to human freedom against universalism regularly overlook. As we've just noted, more than mere choice is involved in creating the experience of freedom. For a feeling of freedom to exist we need choice/caring congruence.

Suddenly, this freedom thing is looking a bit more complicated. Freedom isn't simply the absence of external coercion. Freedom is about getting our choices to align with our affections and desires. God abandoning us to our choices isn't freedom. It's a lack of coercion, to be sure. But that's a very thin view of freedom, love and choice.

Let me try to illustrate this by taking on a sacred cow.

You often hear preachers say, "Love is a choice." This is wrong. Love is fundamentally about caring. To be clear, I'm not saying that love is a fleeting feeling. I'm saying that love is a deeply rooted affection.

What is remarkable is that everyone knows this already. So it's a testimony to how strange things have become that I have to spend words convincing people to stop and note how very strange and inhuman is the "love is a choice" formulation. Just think of someone you love (I've got my sons in my mind) and ask yourself: What best describes your experience of love toward these people? Choice? Or a deeply rooted affection?

I don't know about you, but I don't wake up and "choose" to love my sons. No, I wake up and feel a deeply rooted affection.

To be sure, those affections affect my choices and decisions. And that's going to be my final point in all this. Caring drives choice. I make loving choices because I care about my boys. I don't choose to care about my boys so that I can make loving choices. That's backward.

[Interlude:

How did the "love is a choice" meme become so ascendant and popular among preachers? Here's my best guess:

The "love is a choice" meme gained prominence among preachers as they were trying to preach the centrality of covenant and promise-keeping in the face of marital infidelity, where people were justifying their actions with statements like "I just don't love him/her anymore." And by this people meant, "I don't 'feel' in love with him/her anymore." To push back on that argument preachers started to respond with,"Love isn't a feeling. It's a choice." And what they meant was that feelings of affection ebb and flow, but a commitment gets you through the low periods. This is true, but we should get clear about what is actually going on.

What the preachers tend to miss is that you have to care about commitments for the "love is a choice" encouragement to work. Because if I don't care about my commitments or keeping my promises you have very little leverage with me on this score. Again, this is my root point. Caring is what grants us volitional traction. If you don't care about something I can't use it to sway your choices. Parents of teenagers know this very well. Where caring doesn't exist, you have zero volitional traction to affect choice.

In short, what the "love is a choice" encouragement is doing is this: "I know you don't care about him/her right now. But you should care about the promise you made before witnesses. You should care about your integrity. You should care about what God thinks. You should care about the kids." And so on. The hope here is, because caring has evaporated for the spouse, that caring can be found elsewhere--in God, the kids, the commitment, the extended family, personal integrity/reputation. But at the end of the day you've got to find caring somewhere. Because if you can find that caring and bring it to the front you can affect the choice. You can say stuff like, "Okay, you don't love him/her. But think about the kids." You try to fish for some alternative/backup location of caring to give the marriage time to heal and for spousal affections/caring to reemerge.

The point is, I understand the whole "love is a choice" idea and what it's trying to do--shifting caring from the spouse to the promise--but we shouldn't think "love is a choice" is good psychology. "Love is a choice" isn't psychology, it's a rhetorical strategy and it should not be used to guide us in thinking about human freedom.]

Given what I've sketched above, let's return to the view of freedom at the root of Love Wins and conditionalism/separatism. What's the problem with C.S. Lewis' and Rob Bell's view of love and freedom?

On the one hand, the notion that Love isn't going to force or coerce anyone into heaven is perfectly true. I totally agree. But there's something problematic if this is all we mean by "freedom," God just leaving us to our choices. Again, freedom isn't just about choices. Freedom about something deeper and more complex. Freedom has to be about what we care about. Freedom has to be about love.

I think Augustine was pointing to this when he said that all our little loves are shadowy and incomplete until they fully rest in the Love of God. "Our hearts are restless," he famously wrote, "until they rest in Thee." Our affections are broken and scattered. Our loves are all pointed in the wrong direction. And due to that disarray our choices become sinful and self-defeating.

With our affections broken our choices are broken.

Here the deep problem with conditionalism/separatism comes into view. If our affections are disordered there is no way we can "choose our way" toward God. Something deep within us is confused and disoriented. We want the wrong things. So if God wants us to turn toward the Kingdom God can't just abandon us to our choices. God can't just step back and say, "I love you. And because I love you I will step back to grant you freedom." That's a recipe for disaster. Because freedom isn't about the absence of external pressure or force. Freedom, rather, is about getting our choices aligned with our affections. But if we want the wrong things to begin with how are we to make good choices?

The point is, love isn't going to win if God just steps back to abandon us to our choices. There might be a "win" in there somewhere, but it's not a winning God would want. Love doesn't win if all we have are choices running amok because of our disordered affections. No, love really wins only when God begins to work at a deeper level, when Love begins to work with our loves. Love moves our loves toward Love. Our desires and affections have to change before our choices begin to move. And that requires positive action on God's part. Not the Divine withdrawal and passivity that Love Wins imagines in the passage above.

And I'd also like to make the point that this healing of affections is generally going to be a very slow process. Because Rob Bell's right on this point: God isn't going to overthrow or coerce our affections, internally or externally. God can't just change our affections overnight without that being experienced as a volitional assault upon us. These are psychic structures rooted deep, deep within our identity. These are psychic glaciers that are going to have to move at a glacial pace.

But they can move, even if slowly. And the slow pace allows us to preserve our inner sense of self-authorship and unanimity.

Which brings us to one the reasons why I prefer universalism to conditionalism/separatism. Conditionalism suggests that God abandons us to our disordered affections and the predictable volitional mess that soon follows. Universalism, by contrast, confesses that God loves us and will not abandon us, that freedom isn't about a lack of coercion. A lack of coercion is not what sets us free. What sets us free is having our affections healed.

Freedom happens when our loves come to rest in Love. And where conditionalism/separatism envisions God's abandonment, universalism envisions God's tireless and eternal involvement in bringing this healing to completion.

It is a vision of Love healing the loves of my life--bringing order, unanimity, and harmony.

Bringing freedom.

That is when Love truly wins.

Many of my long time readers found me in the early years of this blog because of my writings defending universal reconciliation. Newer readers might be unaware of these posts since I haven't written about this topic a lot lately. But nothing has changed, I still believe that God will, in the end, reconcile all things to Himself.

In the early years of this blog, my colleagues in theology and Biblical studies thought I was bonkers when I shared my views. Rob Bell did come out soon after with Love Wins, but that wasn't vindication. If anything, it made things worse. Rob Bell and Love Wins represented everything that goes wrong with progressive, liberal theology. It was assumed that I believed in universal reconciliation because I was "progressive." It didn't matter that some pretty less-than-liberal heavy hitters flirted with or endorsed universal reconciliation, from the church fathers to Karl Barth. There's more to this view than is typically assumed. You just can't dismiss it with a wave as a capitulation to modernity, liberalism, and humanism.

All that to say, the Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart has just published That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation. I seriously doubt that my colleagues can accuse David Bentley Hart of being a squishy, progressive, "love wins" theologian. As Hart makes clear in the book, universal reconciliation has nothing do with with liberalism. The point is, rather, for me at least, the simple yet courageous recognition that Christianity is incoherent without universal salvation.

If you don't buy that and don't want to read the book, you can dip into a bit of Hart's argument in his article God, Creation, and Evil: The Moral Meaning of creatio ex nihilo (an essay reworked as a chapter in That All Shall Be Saved). And if you don't want to read that article, here's the gist of it: If God created the vast majority of humanity knowing that He would torture them for all eternity, well, then he'd be a monster.

A God that creates ex nihilo, only to end up torturing the majority of His creation for eternity, strains the theological definitions of omnipotence and omnibenevolence past the point of breaking. So I'll say it again: Christianity is incoherent without universal salvation.

The issues here are real, but it takes some theological courage to admit and face those issues directly, honestly and squarely rather than dismiss them as a modern product of liberalism and humanism.

Two weeks ago, I invited you to donate Bibles for the French-Robertson unit, easy to read translations for the prison chaplains to hand out to inmates requesting a Bible. The unit had run out of Bibles and the chaplains have no budget to buy them.

And now, thanks to you, the Bibles are coming in. Thank you! The Bibles you shipped directly the the prison have been arriving. On Monday I took inventory of all the boxes stacked in the chaplain's office. And below is a picture of four boxes of Bibles you've shipped to me that I'll be carrying out to the unit.

Again, Thank You! Let's pray that God uses these gifts to bring comfort, grace, and transformation to the men who receive them.

Continuing our Thursday series with Darrell Smith, sharing from his book Faith Lies: Seven Incomplete Ideas That Hijack Faith and How to See Beyond Them.

Faith Lies with Darrell Smith

Lie #3: The Devil is God’s Counterpart

What is at stake in this lie is not whether evil is real. It’s not even whether the devil is real. It’s whether or not that evil, or the devil, can stand against our God.

The question we need to ask is who have we said the devil is and how does that distort our view of God and of ourselves? This is a lie about a good God versus a bad god—what is known as dualism. Dual means two opposing forces. Good versus evil, dark versus light, right versus wrong.

The primary example of dualism in our world is the idea that there is a good, supernatural force guiding the universe that battles an evil, supernatural force corrupting the universe.

God versus Satan makes sense to us because it successfully divides and organizes our reality for us. It just seems simple to think that everything that is good and right is because of God, and everything that is bad and wrong is because of the devil.

As much as we might feel that such thinking is neat and orderly, it falls apart really quickly as soon as something that is bad and wrong touches our lives. When evil or corruption really hits home and affects us personally, we want answers. “Where were you, God?” “Why did you let that happen to me?”

In turn, those questions shine a bright light on dualism and lead to questions like, “If God created everything, why did God create the devil?” or “How did the devil get access to me?”

What originally seems orderly about dualism becomes confusing and disordered as soon as we start talking plainly about the devil. To be honest, we have every right to be confused. The history of our faith is rife with misunderstanding and misapplying information about the devil. The truth is, we don’t have a clear and consistent picture about the devil—not even within the pages of the Bible.

Don’t miss that. The Bible itself does not offer a clear picture about the nature, state, or identity of the devil. What the Bible does make clear, however, is that whatever the devil is, the God who is for you stands unopposed.

Next week, Faith Lie #4 – I Am Supposed to Protect and Defend God and My Faith

We were studying the book of Genesis in our adult Sunday School class, and one of the Sundays I had the Joseph narrative to teach. We were using Walter Brueggemann's commentary as a resource.

In Brueggemann's commentary I was struck by the parallels between the Joseph narrative and the gospel accounts, especially the passion, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. I'd like to share some of these parallels.

The first is simply to note that we can read the story of Joseph as a story of resurrection. Specifically, Joseph's disclosure to his brothers, who betrayed him, foreshadows Jesus' own betrayal, death, and return. Joseph was betrayed and abandoned by his brothers. And Jesus was betrayed and abandoned by his followers. And both Joseph and Jesus are "left for dead."

And then, out of nowhere, the dead one is standing right in front of you.

As Brueggemann describes it, in Genesis 45, when Joseph reveals himself to his brothers: "We are permitted to witness a gospel disclosure: The dead one is alive! The abandoned one has returned in power!"

The parable of the sheep and goats:

Matthew 25.31-46
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

It probably comes as no surprise, given my book Stranger God, that the parable of the sheep and the goats has had a huge influence upon my life and thinking.

The point I take away from the parable: We don't extend hospitality to be like Jesus, we extend hospitality to welcome Jesus.

It's a simple point, but how many churches get this reversal? Churches like to stand in the position of Jesus, as the Savior. But in Matthew 25, the Savior is the stranger, the homeless, the incarcerated.

When we welcome the stranger, shelter the homeless, or visit the incarcerated we are the one who are being saved. 

You likely don't need a reminder of the Parable of the Sower, but here it is:

Matthew 13.3-9
Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.”

And as we know, in a rare change of pace, Jesus goes on to interpret the parable for us:

Matthew 13.18-23
“Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”

So, why has this parable been increasingly important to me?

Well, I speak and preach a lot. Every week I'm speaking to my church, the inmates in my Bible study, and my students in my Psychology and Christianity class. And then, on many weekends I'm speaking at churches, conferences, or guest lecturing at other schools.

And because of all that speaking I can get self-focused and self-absorbed. How did I do? Did I make an impact? I focus on my speaking ability and my ideas. And because of this, I fret and push myself.

But over the last year or so, I've become increasingly relaxed and at peace about any "impact" I'm having, largely due to the Parable of the Sower. "All you can do, Richard," I tell myself, "is sow the seed."

Much of the "success" of any talk I give isn't really in my hands. It's mostly up to the person listening and the status of their heart. And I don't have access to their heart. God does, but I don't. My job is to just sow the seed.

I've become more focused on fidelity to the task than maximizing "effectiveness." I try to do my very, very best, and once I'm done I'm at peace.

Two weeks ago, we observed what Dante meant when Virgil shared that love can go wrong when we love a bad thing. We can desire to hurt others (wrath), we can desire that misfortune befall others (envy), and we can delight when others do experience misfortune (pride). These are the worst sins, purged on the lowest terraces of Mt. Purgatory.

This week, I'd like to take things out of order and jump to the top of Mt. Purgatory, where the sins of excessive love are found. There we find the Deadly Sins associated with loving a good thing too much. As Virgil shares in Canto XVIII:

the love that yields excessively to this
is purged above us on three terraces,
but how the nature of such love is threefold,

I would have you discover for yourself. 

The Pilgrim does climb the mountain to discover the "threefold" nature of excessive love, the sins of greed, gluttony, and lust.

Greed, gluttony, and lust are examples of loving a good thing too much. Possessions, money, comfort, status, praise, success, pleasure, a nation, a dream, a job, your appearance, your reputation. The list goes on and on. Name any good thing in your life, and ponder how you might be loving this good thing a little too much, perhaps way too much.

Our life is full of good things, gifts to be enjoyed, but we can love a good thing too much. And when we do, our love curdles and goes bad.

Today we continue our Thursday series with Darrell Smith, who is sharing from his book Faith Lies: Seven Incomplete Ideas That Hijack Faith and How to See Beyond Them.

Faith Lies with Darrell Smith

Lie #2: God is Angry and Doesn’t Like Me—Especially When I Sin

The God that holds you over the Pit of Hell, much as one holds a Spider, or some loathsome Insect, over the Fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his Wrath towards you burns like Fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the Fire... 

— Jonathan Edwards, "Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God," 1741

What happened to you as you read through the Jonathan Edwards’ quote above? How do you respond? Is there something in you that rejects the philosophy behind Edwards’ sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God?”

If you are like me, perhaps you have picked up a milder version of this philosophy. You may not think that God holds you over the “Pit of Hell” like a loathsome spider, but you may believe that God disapproves of you—or is disappointed with your life.

Whatever our response may be to the idea that God is angry with us and doesn’t like us, the truth is, too much of the Christian faith is built upon this corrupt foundation.

• It is a foundation that leads to a world where punishment must be meted out for all bad behavior.
• It is a foundation that not only empowers but demands judgment.
• It is a foundation that distances children from their loving divine parent as they begin to believe what gives them divine value is the way they behave.

Behind the lie “God is angry and doesn’t like me—especially when I sin” is the idea that your relationship with God—God’s affection for you—is based on your behavior. The better person you are, the more God likes and loves you—the more God will bless you. The more mistakes you make and sins you commit, the less God likes and loves you—the less God will bless you.

Whether we recognize it or not, this lie requires God to have anger—or even worse, the dreaded biblical wrath—over the sinful behavior of people. This lie characterizes God as the cosmic scorekeeper watching our every move and shaking the Godhead in disappointment— wondering how we could repeatedly be so bad.

Actually putting these words to it may make this idea seem silly and easily dismissed, but the incomplete idea that God is angry and doesn’t like us when we sin is too prevalent and too important to leave unexamined. It must be exposed in all the little nooks and crannies of our lives.

If we can all admit that none of want to run head-long into an authentic, loving, relationship with an angry cosmic scorekeeper, then we can begin to receive the God we actually have.

Next week, Faith Lie #3 – The Devil is God’s Counterpart

A parable that's been increasingly influential on me is the parable of the unforgiving servant:

Matthew 18.23-35
“Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

“At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

“But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.

“His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’

“But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.

“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

The parable is told as an answer to Peter's question, "How often am I to forgive? Is seven times enough?"  Jesus responds, "Not just seven, but seventy times seven." And then he goes on to tell this parable.

Now, intellectually speaking, the point of the parable is obvious, simplistic even. The servant has been forgiven a great debt, yet is unwilling to forgive a much smaller debt. I think everyone understands this point of the story. But my question is this: Do we actually live it?

What I mean is this: Do you live under a great burden of grace? Do you feel forgiven a great and massive debt? And has this emancipation affected your capacity to pay mercy forward? Does your moral life flow out of a great ocean of gratitude?

Again, I know this seems a simple Sunday School lesson, fit only for children. Intellectually, you're not having any trouble tracking with me. What I'm asking you about is if you've experienced this gratitude, in your heart. And if you have, has forgiveness given you a greater capacity to forgive? Has grace given you a greater capacity for grace? Has mercy given you a greater capacity for mercy?

Because grace rarely seems to translate into action. We claim God's love for ourselves, yet are petty and miserly in giving grace to others. We're vindictive and hold grudges.

What's going wrong?

It's my hunch that this goes wrong because we're not operating out of gratitude, not living out of a daily and felt realization that we've been extended a great mercy.

What I'm wondering about is the connection between gratitude and virtue, between gratitude and love, between gratitude and mercy.

If we really felt and operated out of gratitude, wouldn't our actions change in an instant? Wouldn't we become radically different people?

The parable of the treasure in the field has had a huge impact upon how I view the kingdom of God:

Matthew 13.44
The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

Over the last year or so on the blog I've written about how welcoming the kingdom of God is a matter of perception, a matter of seeing.

That's not how we tend to think about the kingdom. Most of us, I'm assuming, adopt a moral framework when we talk about welcoming or entering the kingdom. Following Jesus is about becoming a better, more moral person.

But the parable of the treasure suggests the kingdom is nothing like that. The kingdom isn't morally hard, it's just hidden. The kingdom is here and available, but we cannot see it.

But if we do come to see it, our response isn't a long slog of spiritual discipline and mortification. The response is, rather, happy, easy, fast, and automatic.

It's all a matter about if you can see what is hidden right in front of you. 

The parables of Jesus keep haunting me. I'm not sure why. For most of my life I never really spent much time thinking about the parables. The parables were never theological touchstones for me.

But increasingly they are, and I'd like to share a few parables in a series that I keep pondering and returning to.

To start, the parable of the wheat and the tares:

Matthew 13:24-30
Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

“‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.

“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

“‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’” 

For most of my adult life the public witness of Christianity has dismayed me. The brand "Christian" has been pretty damaged. So much so, many of us want to distance ourselves from being identified as Christian.

Problems with churches and denominations fill the news. Abuse scandals, large and small, abound. The horrible news accumulates and you just despair.

And then I think of the parable of the wheat and the tares. The kingdom of God on earth was never going to be a pure community or spotless witness. The Children of God and the Children of the Devil will be all mixed up together on earth. Jesus said so.

And yet, the moral response to that situation isn't to begin an inquisition, to start a violent weeding process. It's up to God to judge the weeds at the harvest. Our call is simply to be faithful in the midst of this ambiguous situation.

To be clear, I don't think Jesus is saying we should be passive in the face of evil in the pews. The point I believe Jesus is making is that the location of the Kingdom of God is going to be hard to identify this side of judgment, and that we're going to have to tolerate an ambiguous situation until then. Because I have a great desire to create a "pure space" right here and right now. I'm really drawn to the weeding business. And yet, I know I'd do great damage if I started that up. I try to act with wisdom and responsibility, trying to balance grace and justice. But I can't be trusted to get that right. So instead, I live with the ambiguity, with the mixed and confused moral witness of the church, with wheat and tares living side by side until the harvest.