…what would it be?
For me, there is one question, and only one question, that sums it all up:
Why have you waited so long to return and make your home among us?
This, I think, is the great challenge to faith — a challenge that has not, and I suspect cannot, be adequately answered until God does come again and make all things new.

[I]f anyone says, ‘After Auschwitz it is too late to go on hoping for the Messiah, who could come but who has not in fact come’—then, said Fackenheim, he would reply, ‘It is precisely because it is too late that we are commanded to hope… To hope after Auschwitz and Hiroshima is just this: don’t leave the future to hell because hell is always with us.
~ Moltmann, quoting Emile Fackenheim, in A Broad Place: An Autobiography.
I think that this quotation from Fackenheim does a fine job of expressing the sort of hope that I am pursuing. Journeying, as I do, with many who are considered hopeless, I am often confronted with the questions posited by the supposedly well-intentioned realism that pervades our culture:
“Why bother with all these people? After all, they will never get clean, they will die on the street, they will continue to break, and be broken by, others. Why remain in such a dark place? Why throw away your life, why surrender whatever talents you might have, on those who will not appreciate them? For these people, it is too late. Move on. Be free of them (doesn’t your Jesus offer you freedom?). Focus on those who are close to you, focus on those who will appreciate what you have to offer. Make the little difference that you can, but, for heaven’s sake, don’t get so caught up in all of this!”
Such realism is entirely hopeless. It is here — here in the places that are beyond hope, in the people that are beyond saving, in the broken who are beyond fixing — here that hope must truly come to exist. For hope should not be mistaken for the optimism that comes with experiencing privilege, nor should it be mistaken for the pale myth of progress that continues to cling to our culture. No, hope, the true hope of Christianity, must be born from the hells of our world. True Christian hope is precisely the sort of hope that arises from the (realistic but hopeless) observation that “it is too late.”
Why is this the case? Because Jesus is the perfect example of the ways in which our concepts of ‘lateness’ are displaced by God’s activity. By all accounts, after dying on the cross, and spending three days lying dead in a tomb, it was too late for Jesus to be anything but another failed messianic pretender. The imperial powers, coupled with the local religious and social elites, had definitively put an end to Jesus’s work — Jesus was dead, the game was up, all the disciples could do was flee for their lives. But then resurrection happened… and everything changed. New life, life that conquers death, occured, and is now a central part of the lordship of Jesus.
And so we know, when all the powers of death are united, when they are bearing down on us and telling us that it is too late for change, too late for this person, too late for that person, too late for hope — when know that there is a power greater than death. The power of God, acknowledged in the confession of Jesus’s Lordship, it is this that requires us to hold onto hope for everyone whom death tries to claim (and even does claim).
Too late? We know that it is not too late. It is early! The new day has only just begun to dawn.
Too late? We know that it is not too late. It is only too late for death and all the powers in the service of death. For the rest of us, there is hope.
Too late? We know that it is not too late. After Holy Saturday, all of our hells have been planted with hope, and even the most devestated places can be the foundation for fertility. Yes, it is not too late, this wilderness will yet rejoice, will blossom, will shout for joy.
Too late? We know that it is not too late. The eyes of the blind will see, the ears of the deaf will hear, the lame will leap like a deer, the dead will be raised to new life, “and the ransomed of the LORD will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away” (Isaiah 35).

In The Making of the Counter Culture: Reflections on the technoratic society and its youthful opposition, an exploration of the counter-culture of the 1960s, Theodore Roszak notes how the majority of those interested in the counter-culture are youth who were raised within the domains of bourgeois society. Roszak views this as an unanticipated development within the middle and upper classes. Thus, he argues that “the bourgeoisie, instead of discovering the class enemy in its factories, finds it across the breakfast table in the preson of its own pampered children.” He then goes on to note the twin perils of this counter-culture: “on the one hand, the weakness of its cultural rapport with the disadvantaged, on the other, its vulnerability to exploitation as an amusing side show of the swinging society.”
I think that this is an astute observation, and one that remains true for Christians who are interested in pursuing (or recovering) a counter-cultural form of Christianity within our contemporary context. In particular, I can't help but think of the Emergent Church 'Conversation'. It seems to me that the Emergent Church is, by and large, filled with disillusioned bourgeois Christians, and frequently falls prey to the perils Rozsak notes. It frequently fails to connect with the disadvantaged (even as it talks about AIDS in Africa, and caring for the environment) and is frequently simply a means of amusement, and self-gratification, for those who are no longer amused, or gratified, by the expressions of Christianity that dominated mid-to-late twentieth century America. All that to say, I don't think that there is very much that is 'counter-cultural' about the Emergent Church. Rather, I think it frequently simply counters the culture of modernity, and posits a form of Church that fits well within the dominant culture of 'post-modernity', or 'late capitalism.' Indeed, that the Emergent prefers to be called a 'Conversation' and not a 'Movement' should already be tipping us off to these things!
To a certain degree, I think that the same criticisms, and cautions, should be applied to the New Monasticism. Granted, there seems to be genuine efforts to attain a much deeper connection with the disadvantaged, but the extent of the depth of the New Monasticism remains to be seen. Given the media hype that has surrounded some of its proponents (think Shane Claiborne), I can't help but wonder if a great deal of its popularity is due to the fact that it can be viewed as an 'amusing side show'. Here I am reminded of Herbert Marcuse's response to his own rise to fame after the student revolts of 1968. “I'm very much worried about this,” Marcuse said. “At the same time it is a beautiful verification of my philosophy, which is that in this society everything can be co-opted, everything can be digested.”
Finally, I think that the same caution can be issued to certain 'hot' theological topics, especially topics that attempt to posit something unique (and thereby counter-cultural) about Christianity. Take, for example, our increasing interest in trinitarian theology. Now I don't want to suggest that we abandon trinitarian thinking (far from it!); what I do want to ensure is that trinitarian theology remains grounded in the proper place. That place, of course, is the cross of Christ, which then also becomes our own places of cruciformity as we follow Christ on the road to the cross. Thus, Jurgen Moltmann (who is surely one of the reasons why trinitarian theology has gotten 'hot') says the following in his recent autobiography, A Broad Place: “the doctrine of the Trinity becomes abstract and loses its relevance without the event of the cross.” Rather than being a amusing side show within theology, trinitarian thinking should also lead us to a deeper connection with the crucified Christ, with the crucified people of today, and with our own call to cruciformity.

I've begun to have an interesting conversation with Dr. Craig Carter, on his blog, about Liberalism, Fascism, Marxism, and Christianity. Not sure if it'll go anywhere, but I thought a few other people might be interested in joining the conversation. Here's the link: https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22805636&postID=3938383778913520460 (be sure to read the original post).

In 1976, Jean Baudrillard wrote a provocative essay entitled Forget Foucault, wherein he argued that Foucault's discourse, as powerful as it is, is fatally flawed. Drawing on Foucault's writings on both power and sexuality, Baudrillard argued that Foucault was able to speak so well of these things only because the forms of those things were disappearing. Hence, Baudrillard writes that “Foucault spoke so well of power to us… only because power is dead”. He then goes on to say that “[Foucault] spoke so well of sexuality only because its form, this great production (that too) of our culture was, like that of power, in the process of disappearing”.
Now, I'm not convinced that Baudrillard is correct when he argues that power is “dead” (by this he means that it is “[n]ot mere impossible to locate because of dissemination, but dissolved purely and simply in a manner that still escapes us, dissolved by reversal, cancellation, or made hyperreal through simulation (who knows?)”). Indeed, it seems to me that contemporary capitalism reflects a change in the form of power, but not its death or disappearance — it continues to exhibit a great concentration of power within particular institutions.
I am, however, more sympathetic to Baudrillard's notion that the form of sexuality is disappearing — and that got me thinking.
In particular, it got me thinking about criticisms of the State project that have been raised by the likes of Hauerwas, Cavanaugh, and Bell Jr. What if Hauerwas et al. are able to speak so well about the State, because the form of the State is disappearing? Perhaps we are able to so trenchantly criticise the State because the State is, in essence, dead.
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't disagree with the criticisms of the State raised by Hauerwas et al. I just think that when such criticisms are limited to the State we are not getting to the root of the problem we are confronting today. At its core, I believe the problem we are confronting today is that of late capitalism (global capitalism, disaster capitalism, call it what you will). Power today is not rooted in the State, it is rooted in global economic forces and institutions, and it is these forces and institutions that then manipulate the State to meet their desired ends. Therefore, rather then focusing overly-much upon the State (and spending all our time trimming branches — indeed, trimming branches that these institutions are also eager to trim!), it is these economic powers that we must confront if we are to have any hope of digging up the roots of the problem of living Christianly today.

You shall not worship [false gods] or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me.
~ Ex 20.5
This idea, that God punishes children for the sins of their parents, is one that is widely considered offensive — to both Christians, and those who stand outside of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Indeed, I have often heard people say, “Who wants to worship a God like that?”, assuming that God is some sort of vindictive asshole. Indeed, underlying this objection is a more general refusal of the idea of a God who engages in judgment and who punishes sin. In response, I want to begin with the general point and work my back from there.
In general, it seems to me that God does not actively punish sin. Rather, I believe that God usually punishes sin by passively allowing a person to suffer the consequences of his or her actions. Hence, in the OT, when Israel rebels against God, God permits Israel to chase after other gods, to look to foreign empires to save them (from other foreign empires!), and the result of this is that Israel is dominated by those empires — she is conquered and led away into exile. Further, in the NT, this seems to be the view that Paul presents in Ro 1.18-32: once people exhange the glory of God for that which is corruptible, God “gives them over” (a phrase Paul uses three times in this passage) to the consequences of that exchange. Stated simply, the punishment for chasing after that which is dehumanising is to be allowed to become less than human.
How then does this relate to our reading of Ex 20.5? I believe that this verse, and the others like it, make it clear that our actions don't simply impact ourselves, but impact others. I am not alone in causing myself to suffer because of my sinfulness; I also cause others to suffer. Hence, the seriousness of sin: when I sin, I cause others to bear the burden of my sinfulness.
Perhaps an examples will help. In my last post, I mentioned kids who suffer from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), and the devestating consequences that that can have on the life of a child. Now, it is not as though God, as a vindictive asshole, has chosen to punish a child because his or her mother abuses alcohol; rather, it is that FAS is simply one of the consequences of alcohol abuse. God did not set out to punish the child, but in Ex 20.5, God does let us know that our sins will have a negative impact on our children. Other patterns of abuse confirm this — sexual, physical, and substance abuses have a way of being passed on from parents to children, and the abused frequently goes on to become an abuser.
However, as I noted at the beginning of this post, this is the way in which God passively punishes sin. When God actively responds to sin, he tends to favour another method: forgiveness. Hence, the full weight of our punishment for sin is revealed on the cross of Christ, and the result of the cross is our forgiveness. Thus, I can't help but wonder if God's final active response to sin — the return of Christ, the coming of God, and the Day of Judgment — will also be a great (and terrible!) act of forgiveness. On that day, God will no longer hand us over to the consequences of our decisions — indeed, there will be no other Power for God to hand us over to, for Sin, Death, Hades, and all other powers in their service will have been defeated! Thus, rather than handing us over, I suspect that God will welcome us home — all of us.
Hence, as we await that day we have, through the victory of Jesus and the gift of the Spirit, received a wonderful opportunity. Although we know we have been forgiven, we still carry the burden of the sins of others. However, we can now embody and proclaim forgiveness and, in doing so, bear those sins away.
Maranatha!

I have always felt some frustration with the way in which N. T. Wright approaches the topic of hell, both because of the positions he engages and because I expect a little more from someone so committed to the larger narrative of Scripture.
I first came across his views in three small articles he had written (“Toward a Biblical View of Universalism” in Themelios 4:2 [1975]: 54-58; “Universalism” in The New Dictionary of Theology, eds. S. B. Ferguson and D. F. Wright [Leicester: IVP, 1988], 701-703; “Universalism in the World-Wide Community” in The Churchman 89:3 [1979]: 197-212), but he has, once again, addressed the topic in his recent book, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of God. I'll begin by summarising what he says in this book, before making a few comments.
Wright begins, IMO, in the right place by refocusing what Jesus had to say about Gehenna. Essentially, Wright argues, Jesus was warning Israel of what would befall her if she continued to pursue violent revolution and rejected the way of peace that Jesus was offering (Wright expounds on this in more detail in Jesus and the Victory of God). Hence, he argues:
As with God's kingdom, so with its opposite: it is on earth that things matter… Unless they turned back from their hopeless and rebellious dreams of establishing God's kingdom in their own terms… then the Roman juggernaut would do what large, greedy, and ruthless empires have always done to small countries… Rome would turn Jerusalem into a hideous, stinking extension of its own rubbish heap. When Jesus said, “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish,” that is the primary meaning he had in mind.
So far so good, and Wright continues to argue that the parables that appear to address hell directly must be remembered as parables that insist on the pursuit of justice and mercy within the present life.
Hence, he concludes that Jesus offers us no fresh teaching on this topic, but simply follows the normal first-century Jewish belief on this topic — which does include the belief that some people will be damned.
Wright then goes on the attack against the type of universalism promoted by liberal theologians in the '60s and '70s. He argues that their optimism is naive and that our recent experiences of horrible evils (he names places like Rwanda, Darfur, and the Balkans) remind us that there must be a judgment — good must be upheld, evil condemned, and the world set right.
Again, this is all well and good, but then Wright's argument continues in a way that I wish to challenge. He argues that setting the world right requires that some have “no place” in the new creation — in particular, those who have pursued idolatry, and thereby both acted in subhuman ways, and become subhuman creatures. What is the fate of these subhuman creatures? Not the traditional view of endless torment, nor a universalist view of repentance made possible after death, nor, yet again, a conditionalist view that argues that those who presistently refuse God's love, will be annihilated. Rather, Wright argues that the fate of such people is to become “by their own effective choice, beings that once were human but now are not.” Hence, he argues that these creatures, existing in an ex-human state “can no longer excite in themselves or others the natural sympathy some feel even for the hardened criminal”. In this way, they are “beyond hope, beyond pity”.
Ultimately, Wright states that he would “be glad to be proved wrong but not at the cost of the foundational claims that this world is the good creation of the one true God and that he will at the end bring about the judgment at which the whole creation will rejoice.” Indeed, he even goes so far as to suggest that Revelation 21-22 might open the door for holding the view that those outside the gates might be healed because the water of life flows out of the city, but he holds back from going any further in this thinking. Thus, he says, regarding this suggestion:
This is not at all to cast doubt on the reality of final judgment for those who have resolutely worshipped and served idols that dehumanize us and deface God's world. It is to say that God is always the God of surprises.
There are a few points I would like to raise related to Wright's presentation of these things. To begin with, I'm puzzled that he chooses to engage the forms of universalism that he does (and always has). Granted, there are some serious flaws in the liberal universalism that he criticises, but there is another form of universalism that he either doesn't know or ignores — that is, the hopeful universalism propogated especially by Hans Urs von Balthasar, but also expressed recently by Gregory MacDonald.
Secondly, I'm not sure why Wright links hell so closely to judgment. Indeed, I think the most compelling thing about Moltmann's understanding of eschatology and universalism, is that he deftly and biblically demonstrates that the two need not be held together. It is quite possible for good to be upheld, evil to be condemned, the world set right, and, at the same time, for all people to be saved. Yes, there must be exclusion before there can be an embrace (as Wright argues, following both Volf and Tutu), but that does not mean that the act of exclusion must be final — it could mean that all will, in the end, be embraced. This point, I think, goes a long way to overthrowing his stated objection to universalism.
Thirdly, given Wright's emphasis upon the biblical narrative, I'm a little surprised that he doesn't think (or at least doesn't say) that the salvation of all might be just the sort of “surprise” that fits rather well within the trajectory of that narrative. Despite the Old Testament material that shows us that the Gentiles would be also be welcomed into the Kingdom of God, the offer of the inclusion still came as a surprise to many in the days of Jesus and Paul. Of course, in retrospect, we 21st-century Christians can see how that inclusion fits the story rather well. I can't help but wonder if a similar surprise awaits us. Given the hints that exist within the Scriptures, we might also see the inclusion of all people in the consummation of the Kingdom.
Fourthly, I'm somewhat troubled by the things to which Wright appeals in order to refute “liberal optimism”. In his “catalog of awfulnesses” and his mention of those who are “utterly abhorrent” he lists mass murderers, child rapists, those who engage in “the commodification of souls”, and so on. Here's the kicker: over the years I have personally known several people who would fit into these categories, yet I hold onto the hope that they will be saved, and made new, along with the rest of us. I have known those who have tortured and killed others (gang members), I have known those who have sexually exploited children (pimps and johns), and I have known those who have commodified the souls of others (drug dealers), yet I have been unable to “cast the first stone.” Now, let me be clear on this: I believe that all of these actions are truly, truly horrible, but I do not yet believe that the people who performed these actions are horrible. Yes, such people must be resisted, yes, they must be held to account; but must they be damned? I don't think so.
Wright, I think, is too quick to demonise the humanity of the Other in these examples. I don't know if he has spent much time with such people, but I wonder how that might change his views. You see, because I have had the opportunity to personally journey alongside of many of these people, I have had a chance to see that most of them had little or no chance to be something other than what they are. Some were born broken, others were so broken when they were young that they never had a chance to develop into anything else (remember most of those who sexually abuse kids, were sexually abused as children — this is not to suggest that all those who are sexually abused as kids go on to abuse others, but it is a large factor, and I think other circumstances in one's life go a long way to determining whether or not one goes on to abuse others or not). Ultimately, contra Wright, I don't think that it is the human Other that becomes ex-human and is damned. Rather, I think it is the forces that dehumanise the Other — forces of sickness, of structural evil, and so on — that are damned, while the person is restored to their fully human status in Christ.
But wait, what do I mean when I say “some were born broken”? A few things: first, some people are born unable to empathise with others or follow moral codes (this is called Antisocial Personality Disorder, or, more commonly, such people are referred to as sociopaths). It is hard to know how to respond to such people. People who never had a conscience. Yes, they can do awful things — but will they be damned or will they, in the end, be healed? Secondly, I also think of kids born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome — often born into poor and violent homes. Such kids often have their brains damaged in such a way that they are unable to empathise, and unable to understood the consequences of their actions. Again, it's just the way their brains are wired. I've known a few like this; some were gang-bangers, who had done some awful things, but I'm just not sure that they'll be damned in the end. They, too, might be healed. In such people, sinful actions are the symptom of an underlying brokenness — a brokenness they had absolutely no control over.
Similarly, for many of those who are not born broken, but are made broken, I cannot help but wonder if those who have not journeyed alongside of people who have experienced great traumas and violence, can really understand the true depth of the impact that trauma and violence can have — especially on children. If these children grow up to inflict violence upon others this is tragic, but I wonder to what degree they are culpable — or, rather, I wonder if I would have been able to grow up and be any different, or if any of us would. So, in the end, will these people be damned, or will they, like us, be healed, and made new?
I can't help but think of the scenario in Jn 8.1-11 involving the woman caught in adultery. I wonder, if at the moment of judgment, once we have been fully confronted with both our own sinfulness, our own complicity in the broader structures of sin, and the ways in which those who sinned against us have been sinned against, if what will result is similar to what happens to the woman. In 1 Cor 6.2, Paul tells us that the saints will judge the world. I wonder if this means that God will say “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone.” I wonder then, if we are unable to throw stones, if God will also say to those being judged, “then neither do I condemn you. Come now and leave your life of sin.”