The Now

The Time is Now

(In hindsight, I think this blog works as either another comment on Love Wins or as a second installment of my upcoming book, When to Say Yes.)


In the fine cinematic masterpiece Wayne's World, I believe it was Garth who uttered the famous dictum to his harassed and harried friend, "Live in the Now." 


Rob Bell would agree. (More or less.) He finishes Love Wins with one of his key convictions: Life, in Jesus's eyes does, not consist in "going to heaven when we die" (although Jesus does promise eternal life). Instead, it is about responding to God now.

Whatever you have been told about the end— 

the end of your life, 

the end of time,the end of the world— 

Jesus passionately urges us to live like the end is here, 

now, 

today.

If I understand Bell correctly (and I hope I do since I've been reading and re-reading him for the past month or so), he is urging us to live now in God's presence, to respond now to the Good News.


I'll bet you can guess where this brings me: back to St. Clive (aka C. S. Lewis). Lewis puts the problem of human existence—or better the ongoing temptation of time—into the mouth of his fictional devil, Screwtape. (Remember in reading this that "the Enemy" is God.)

we want a man hag-ridden by the Future—haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth—ready to break the Enemy's commands in the present if by so doing we make him think he can attain the one or avert the other— dependent for his faith on the success or failure of schemes whose end he will not live to see. We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow's end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present.

C. S. Lewis has put the finger right on my pulse at least. I am concerned, and even pre-occupied, way too often about what's to come. My work, and my desire to achieve excellence, almost implies obsessiveness with the future. But if we only live in the future, we never live. 


I turn to another mentor. Blaise Pascal, that eternally insightful scientist and philosopher of the seventeenth century, pretty much described the same dilemma, but set this dilemma in the words of philosophical reflection. This comes from his Pensées: 

We do not rest satisfied with the present. We anticipate the future as too slow in coming, as if in order to hasten its course; or we recall the past, to stop its too rapid flight. So imprudent are we that we wander in the times which are not ours, and do not think of the only one which belongs to us; and so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more, and thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists. For the present is generally painful to us. We conceal it from our sight, because it troubles us; and if it be delightful to us, we regret to see it pass away. We try to sustain it by the future, and think of arranging matters which are not in our power, for a time which we have no certainty of reaching.

Let each one examine his thoughts, and he will find them all occupied with the past and the future. We scarcely ever think of the present; and if we think of it, it is only to take light from it to arrange the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means; the future alone is our end. So we never live, but we hope to live; and, as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable we should never be so.

I'll let Rob Bell have the last word on this topic, as he ties this call "to live in the now" with the words of Jesus's parables. I find these words true and truly moving. Even though I've quibbled with Bell in previous posts on some things, words like this reminds me that there's deep wisdom in Love Wins.

Jesus tells these stories to wake us up to the timeless truth that history moves forward, not backward or sideways. Time does not repeat itself. Neither does life. While we continually find grace waiting to pick us up off the ground after we have fallen, there are realities to our choices. While we may get other opportunities, we won't get the one right in front of us again.

Bell on Jesus

Reflections on Christ inside

How do you summarize Jesus's message?

If you've been keeping up with this blog, you know I’ve been reading Love Wins. So I’ve taken some notes to summarize Rob Bell’s position on Christ (his “Christology,” to use the technical term). Here are some notes along the way (not intended to be exhaustive, but certainly to representative):

First of all, Bell writes that, according to Jesus, love implies freedom. Therefore God’s invitation to us in Christ is a free invitation. But this freedom has consequences: 

God extends an invitation to us, and we are free to do with it as we please. Saying yes will take us in one direction; saying no will take us in another.

One of the key sections of Love Wins is the rather lengthy reflection on the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11-32), which more or less fills out his chapter, “The Good News is Better Than That.”

I read that chapter again last night and found myself quite moved—moved at the truly deep goodness of Jesus’s retelling our story. Whether we describe ourselves as undeserving God’s grace (the younger son) or too proud to bend to receive it (the older son), the Gospel is about believing God’s story more than our. When we say yes to God in Christ, we let God's story define us. Whether we self-abase or self-aggrandize, God re-narratives our life.

As Bell describes it, this is story of love, not of fear. I do love this line:

Let’s be very clear, then: we do not need to be rescued from God. God is the one who rescues us from death, sin, and destruction. God is the rescuer.

Not only do I love that line (and believe it's true), but overall I like Bell's Jesus. And that fact made me reflect: sometimes what I like is what’s true and good. But I’m not sure that what I like is always what’s best for me. I'm reminded of the Sermon on the Mount (in Matthew’s Gospel, chapters 5-7). Jesus's words there are fairly harsh. In many ways, I don't immediately press "like" when I read them. I'd prefer to keep thinking about God's rescue and meditate on that. But there's more to the story.  Here I have to quote St. Clive (aka C. S. Lewis) who was accused of “caring for” Paul’s theology of grace more than Jesus’s rigor ethics.

As to "caring for" the Sermon on the Mount, if "caring for" here means "liking" or enjoying, I suppose no one "cares for" it. Who can like being knocked flat on his face by a sledge-hammer? I can hardly imagine a more deadly spiritual condition than that of the man who can read that passage with tranquil pleasure. This is indeed to be ‘at ease in Zion’ (Amos 6:1).

So, yes, I quibble with Rob Bell's Jesus. And I submit that he picks and chooses to find the Jesus he prefers. (Admittedly, it’s a trait that we all fall into.) 

But I do not quibble with this final insight. What represents God's deepest nature ? "God is love" (1 John 4:8). So even though Bell lays out an incredible amount of reflections in Love Wins, the heart of what he believes about Christ can be found in the book’s title:

Love is what God is,Love is why Jesus came,And love is why he continues to come,Year after year to person after person.

And may you know,
deep in your bones,
that love wins.  

No more quibbles. I'll let Bell have the last word.

Bell and Lewis

Bell, being provocative

Something struck me today as I was lounging by the pool after a four-hour bike ride. (I mention the bike ride because the fatigue may have affected my clarity of thought.) In Love Wins, Rob Bell builds his apologetic (if that's what he's doing) as follows: "Hey, world, look at how silly and judgmental the church can be. You don't need to believe that." C.S. Lewis in contrast worked a different apologetic: "Hey, world, your views don't make nearly as much as sense as Christianity. You'd be wise to abandon disbelief." 

Lewis, speaking wisely

All of this as a result of a series of questions at Wednesday night class on Love Wins: "What's the difference between C. S. Lewis's and Rob Bell's take on heaven and hell?" Answer: in some ways not much. At least when Bell's at his best, he's leaning on Lewis. "Then why is Bell called a heretic and Lewis not?" Answer: Lewis is wiser and generally better at what he does. But even more, if Lewis was out to offend anyone, it was atheists. He didn't want to inflame divisions about Christian believers. Bell seems to be content with provoking overly conservative Christians. And that will definitely get you the "heresy" label.