Part II: Love Wins and The Shack – Rob Bell’s Traditional Inclusivism

Love Wins:

“First, there is exlusivity.  Jesus is the only way.  Everybody who doesn’t believe him and follow him in the precise way that is defined by the group doing the defining isn’t saved, redeemed, going to heaven, and so on.  There is that kind of exclusion.  You’re either in, or you’re going to hell.  Two groups.”

“Then there is inclusivity.  The kind that is open to all religions, the kind that trusts that good people will get in [but not by works he says], that there is only one mountain, but it has many paths [not many mountains as in the case of pluralism].  This inclusivity assumes that as long as your heart is fine and our actions measure up, you’ll be ok [examples he gives are the thief on the cross, the faith of the centurion, or the lame man's friends that lower him to Jesus].  This kind insists that Jesus is the way, but holds tightly to the assumption that the all-embracing, saving love of this particular Jesus the Christ will of course include all sorts of unexpected people from across the spectrum.”

“As soon as the door is opened to Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Baptist from Cleveland, many Christians become very uneasy, saying that then Jesus doesn’t matter anymore, the cross is irrelevant, it doesn’t matter what you believe, and so forth.”

“Not true.  Absolutely, unequivcally, unaltererably not true.”

“What Jesus does is declare that he, and he alone, is saving everybody.”

“And then he leaves the door open.  Creating all sorts of possibilities.  He is as narrow as himself and as wide as the universe.”

“He is as exclusive as himself and as inclusive as containing every single particular of creation.”

William P. Young’s The Shack:

Jesus – “Who said anything about being a Christian?  I’m not a Christian.”

“Those who love me come from every system that exists.  They were Buddhist or Mormons, Baptists or Muslims, Democrats, Republicans and many who don’t vote or are not part of any Sunday morning or religious institutions.  I have followers who were murderers and many who were self-righteous.  Some are bankers and bookies, Americans and Iraqis, Jews and Palestinians.  I have no desire to make them Christian, but I do want to join them in their transformation into sons and daughters of my Papa, into my brothers and sisters, into my Beloved.”

Mack – “Does that mean that all roads will lead to you?”

“Not at all,” smiled Jesus as he reached for the door handle to the shop.  “Most roads don’t lead anywhere.  What it does mean is that I will travel any road to find you.”

For the record, what I’m trying to do here is fairly describe and situate, not defend Bell.

Both of these authors fit into the category of traditional inclusivism.  This term was coined sometime after Karl Rahner and Vatican II with the idea of what’s called the “anonymous Christian“.  Official Catholic doctrine essentially affirms everything above.  At the same time, it didn’t just appear in the 20th century.  The idea was there even for Thomas Aquinas, probably the most significant systematic theologian in all of Church history.  Naturally, this doctrine later developed and took on more shape in the wake of many things that were changing in the post-world war world and that were bringing diverse people groups together like never before in history.

What this notion says is not that “good people are saved.”  Bell should have been clearer on this.  Rather, what it means is that Christians remain hopefully open to the belief that God will save more than just those who have explicitly confessed Jesus.  Indeed, maybe even many more.  On what grounds?  The posture and condition of their hearts, not their works.  This could be called implicit faith, and there are plenty of biblical examples of it, as well as missionary stories that attest to its validity.  Bell gives the very popular illustration of the missionary who hears Jesus’ story and name for the first time and then says, “Oh that’s his name!”  Yes, we have known about him for a long time . . .”

Bell is not trying to play God.  He’s just saying there’s sufficient biblical and experiential evidence to strongly suggest that God’s mercy is wider than certain sects of Christians seem to be saying.  Research clearly indicates that the majority of Christians in the world are inclusivists.  That doesn’t prove that it’s true of course, but it’s a very telling statistic nonetheless.

Bell has a very high christology – hypostatic union, eternal co-existence with the Father, etc.  Often liberals reject these things.  You’ll see and hear Al Mohler (today actually) say that Bell represents a new version of Protestant liberalism.  I understand why he’s saying this, but I don’t think this is accurate at all.  Unlike Bell, this tradition doubted miracles.  They usually had a low christology.  Scriptural authority was, well, kind of optional.  You might say some forms (not all) of process theology would be better examples of today’s “Protestant Liberalism”, but not Rob Bell.

Bell mentions “mobility in the afterlife” and what has commonly been called “postmortem evangelism” to merely point out the variety of views within historical orthodox faith.  He doesn’t subscribe to any of them.  He just wants us to “feel” the presence of these many “options.”

Bell is not as forthright with his answers (or lack thereof) as many would like him to be, but this is intentional.  He wants the paradigm of our modern minds to be challenged by the ancient worldview, which was much more comfortable with paradox, tension, and ambiguity.  And, so is the Bible, if you take it as a whole instead of only picking certain passages.  This is especially true with Jesus’ teachings and stories.  Of course that doesn’t mean some things aren’t more straightforward.

In this light, one can disagree strongly with Bell and say that he’s irresponsible.  That is fine.  But know that he’s one among many others within the tradition who uphold very similar beliefs.

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