Let me break it down and play Melancthon to his Luther.

Heaven and Hell are not places. Heaven is not up there, somewhere…that would make it a big spaceship like the deathstar. Up is not up. because up from the south pole goes for a trillion light years away from the up of the north pole.

I don’t know doug’s belief in atonement or soteriology.

but if a good muslim dies, in my belief, based on what Luke says…
if being a “good muslim” means that he “loved the Lord (allah is just arabic word for theos or god) with all his heart soul and mind, and his neighbor as himself, he shall be saved.

paul said that if you confess jesus as your master/caesar/king and believe in your heart he rose from the dead, you shall be saved.

telling people the story of Jesus and HOW he said to live and how he saw god is the fastest way I know to find God.

but I meet people who have pyscho-socially “accepted” the dogma of christianity but I see little of Jesus in some of them.

I have felt the spirit in a godly jew. I don’t know if it was the human spirit or god’s spirit but I think when a human is full of wisdom/light/love they are full of God.

there is a judgment…

I do not think God will force people into something. If they want hell, they get hell. if you love wickedness and yourself rather than others as yourself…you will be in a bad way on judgement day. real bad.

does God end your existence?
do you spend eternity in the presence of God and it is painful?

i don’t think it is literally a place with worms or fire.

you can’t have worms that never die (eating corpses) and fire….they would fry up juicy!

is the language of jesus descriptive? literal? symbolic? or is it motivational? or simply a word picture?

there is no lake of fire. there are no streets of Gold.
but there is the glory/love/presence of God.

doug may be a universalist.
way of the master is exlcusivist.
I am inclusivist.\

i refuse to believe that the lakota sioux indians, for example, are all in hell because christians were too lazy to get to the midwest until 1700.

Wow! I’ve missed a lot that last few days.

First off let me state that one of the things that I dislike about blogging is that you don’t get tone of voice and body language therefore it is hard to judge the demeanor of the person behind the writing. That being said we go forth.

benji Says:
October 27th, 2008 at 8:43 am
In fact I’d also like to find the verse where Jesus says anything at all about “going somewhere after you die”.

jasonbowker Says:
October 31st, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Sanctified By Grace: Benji asked you to provide biblical examples showing passage about “going somewhere after you die”, but none of your examples actually address the idea of heaven or hell being ’somewhere else’. I’m just not sure where we got the idea that “some glad morning” we’ll “all fly way”.

I believe that the scriptures I quoted were quite clear;

Mark 9:47-48; ESV
47 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, 48 where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.

“thrown into hell where…” describes a place.

John 14:2 – 3
In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

“And if I go and prepare a place for you…” describes a place.

These verses along with the others that I mentioned describe heaven and hell as places.

As to the question of my ranting…

benji Says:
October 30th, 2008 at 9:05 am
Maury,
maybe if you had people reading and commenting on your own blog you wouldn’t have to squat on this one using it to rant and rave about a group of people you obviously are too afraid of to actually have a conversation with. Seriously, move along…

I am trying to engage in a conversation with Doug on the topic off our theological differences and he will not respond. My concern is with the emergent lack of belief in accountability and lack of belief that the scripture is God breathed. All that myself and people like Todd want to know is where Doug stands on basic systematic theological grounds. We are simply trying to understand what he believes.

Personally my concerns stems from the fact that so many people out there are looking for answers to many questions and they are turning to the emergent’ leaders like Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones who basically tell them not to worry about anything we are all going to spend eternity where ever and it will all be fine. That is absolutely NOT true.

The Holy Bible has ALL of the answers to all of our problems and questions, but we are not privileged to those answers UNLESS we repent of our sins and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of all and died for OUR sins and God resurrected Him on the third day.

I agree that there questions surrounding some secondary issues within the Biblical cannon, but not with regard to heaven or hell or the fact that Jesus Christ is the way the truth and the life; and “NO ONE comes to the Father except through Me”

Lastly to benji, I do not hide who I am or what I am; I know my sin. I sign all of my posts because I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation for all that believe. Romans 1: 16.

I bear none of you ill will and pray that it is the Holy Spirit that speaks through me for God’s glory not mine.

Grace and peace to you all,

Maury

Thanks for posting this. I actually tried listening to the interview and had to turn it off after a few minutes. I found the interviewer to be so unloving that I became nauseated. Some would say that he was being loving by being relentless in his challenges to your position, but I beg to differ. He invited you on for a conversation about what it is you believe, etc. He did not need to agree with you, support your position, and he could have made it clear to his audience that he disagreed, but he could have done that while exhibiting the love of Christ towards you, and from what I could tell he did not. His tone does not come through in the text version you posted. I can’t blame him for his reaction. There are many who have come to the conviction that all theological questions, all doctrine, and all dogma has been figured out and are undeniably clear. Personally I think a great deal of what we have traditionally taken as givens are, in fact, interpretations with long pedigrees that are logically open for debate and evaluation. I do not believe in relativism, but I have come to realize just how difficult it is to wade through the theological givens in one hand and the Bible in the other. If we cannot say “but I might be wrong” then can we say that we really believe? I am inclined to believe Heaven and Hell are places somewhere, but I also recognize that much of what we picture of those “places” come to us from Dante, and he got many of his ideas from Islam – but I could be wrong. I have become increasingly convinced that what “the church” needs is another reformation. I have yet to be convinced that “emergent” means “relativistic” as so many claim. What I can say is that I would rather be wrong in my theology and show grace and mercy to others than be so convinced of my rightness that I actually see being unloving as what God wants me to be. As I understand it, that is what the Pharisees did. On the other hand, I do want to pursue truth, so I study the Bible, I read what others have to say (like your books and others who would disagree with you), and I seek out deep conversations with others. And I frequently say, “but I might be wrong.” Thanks again for the post.

Sanctified By Grace: Benji asked you to provide biblical examples showing passage about “going somewhere after you die”, but none of your examples actually address the idea of heaven or hell being ’somewhere else’. I’m just not sure where we got the idea that “some glad morning” we’ll “all fly way”.

Sorry if I only added to the arguement, as that certainly wasn’t my point. I just have more hope and desire for the church than to see it destroy itself through slander of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

Benji, you asked for verses where Jesus spoke on hell and they were given to you. Instead fo responding, you take a punch at Maury instead.

Doug started a talk and then left it. I do not see the chapter he said he was going to post. I am not interested in taking him up on his offer to buy his book. He has abandoned this instead of adding to the conversation. Fine, that follows suite and is no surprise but (and no I don’t know Maury) there is no reason to take the low road with someone who was and is ready for the conversation.

Listen, this is usual for the normal of how things go.

- An Emergent leader makes a post

- Others have thoughts and share on what could be a conversation (which is suppose to be what they stand for)

- Leader disappears or says some kind of comment of how the other voice is unfair, uneducated, or unloving

- Others left wondering what just happened

- Someone else who will follow that leader no matter what they say comes in and says the other voice is unfair, uneducated, or unloving as some sort of clean up crew since the original voice disappeared.

Doug invited a conversation. Others joined in. Don’t slam them for it.