The Gospel in Chairs

Steve Robinson tells the Gospel with two chairs as props. Actually, he tells two versions.

First he tells a very common Protestant version.* He probably goes too far in calling it “the Protestant view,” and at least one viewer already posed that objection. (The existence of multiple Protestant views is perhaps a subject worthy of separate treatment some day.) I think Steve portrays it — a view similar or identical to what I held — quite fairly, without parody or sarcasm. A Protestant might well think, at the end of that segment, “yeah, that’s right; I dare you to top that.”

Then he tells the Orthodox view. I don’t think I’d qualify that as “an Orthodox view.” Having chanted multiple services every week for twelve or more years now, I feel comfortable saying it is our deep, fundamental view — though we would not necessarily deny elements of truth in other views, or claim that the Bible gives a single, clear explanation of the mystery of how Christ’s incarnation, life, crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection and ascension save us.

The two views play out profoundly in everything about the traditions that hold them. How could it be otherwise? The difference starts with what The Fall did to humankind (and creation), and thus from what we need to be saved. And the difference between the two cut decisively in favor of Orthodoxy in my soul.

Steve, by the way, is not a Priest despite the cassock; he’s a Reader, Subdeacon or Deacon, perhaps. Indeed, has has blogged or podcasted about how he dreamed of being a Priest and how, in retrospect, he sees how unsuitable a Priest he would have been — partly because he aspired to the Priesthood for dubious reasons. He’s been involved in two Orthodox Podcasts, though, as a guy who just loves the faith and thinks outside the box a lot.

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Addendum

* How common is this Protestant view? 5 days after I posted the part above the line, a Facebook friend posted a link to a video teaser for a coming book from emergent church pastor Rob Bell, where Bell discusses heaven, hell, our view of God, and perhaps a few other things. He pointedly questions something very like the view Steve discusses, saying that “millions upon millions have been taught” it. His book apparently offers some alternative vision where, as he puts it, “eternal life doesn’t start when we die; it starts right now” and “love wins:”

Bell raises some good points:

• Will only a select few inherit heaven while billions burn in hell forever?
• The “question behind that question”: what is God like?
• Millions upon millions have been taught that the core message of the Gospel is “God is going to send you to Hell unless you believe in Jesus,” which leaves the subtle message that Jesus rescues you from God.

On the third point, particularly, Bell states pretty starkly what Steve’s “Gospel in Chairs” left tacit. God (the Father?), in the Protestant version Steve portrays and Bell promises to challenge in his book, is fundamentally hostile toward humanity.

How well Bell follows through is an open question, awaiting his book; I’ve heard of him but have no solid opinion of him and don’t anticipate buying the book. It’s a hopeful sign that someone within the broad evangelical world is questioning the view.

I see nothing objectionable a first blush with the affirmations “eternal life doesn’t start when we die; it starts right now” and “love wins.” But within Protestant Churches, it seems that the usual way of avoiding Scylla (“God is going to send you to Hell unless ….”) is by sailing into Charybidis (universalism). I hope Bell offers something better than thinly-veiled universalism, but I’m not holding my breath. The title of Bell’s book is Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.

Steve’s video shows how, in Orthodoxy at least, neither “hostile God” nor “we’re all salvifically in Christ already” applies. God is not fundamentally hostile, but fundamentally — even relentlessly — loving. But we can reject His love (and after death, we cannot change our minds).

If Bell does offer something better than universalism, he should consider that he’s reinvented the wheel, so to speak, and that the eventuality of shedding bad Protestant baggage is to cease being Protestant, or “Emergent,” or anything other than fully uniting with the one holy, catholic and apostolic Church.