On Pop Theology Podcast: Episode 37 - Dick Cheney Sounds Like the Devil

by Ben Howard

This week Ben, Sebastian, and Jesse dig into the terrible, awful concept of hell, but in a fun way with jokes. They'll trace the development and prominence of hell as it's been portrayed in pop culture, including the representations that don't fit at all with historic Christian theology. Then they'll play a rousing game of "Who The Hell Am I?" where they must chose whether a quote was said by Don Draper, Dick Cheney or the Devil himself. Finally, they'll tell you who they most want to meet when their heretical nonsense sends them to hell. We hope you enjoy and please forgive the terrible Jimmy Stewart impression.

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Peace,
Ben

If you have any questions, comments, or if you just want to say hi, you can contact us at onpoptheology [at] gmail.com.

You might also like:

• On Pop Theology Podcast: Episode 36 - Stand-Up Comedy and the Economics of Divinity School w/ John Thornton Jr.
• On Pop Theology Podcast: Episode 35 - Twitter Is Summer Camp For The Internet
• On Pop Theology Podcast: Episode 34 - On Women in Ministry w/ Jen Thweatt-Bates

A Sermon on Hellbound

by Adam Graham

Author’s Note—I’m not a blogger by any means; in fact, this is my first blog post ever. I am a preacher though, and I can craft a sermon about anything. Just ask me, then sit back and watch.

One system of plotting a sermon goes like this: a problem exists in the world; a problem exists in the biblical text; the text resolves its problem (or at least suggests one), and the preacher offers resolution for the problem outside the text. I’m going to use this plot as a way to review film and take the role of preacher again as to offer resolution.

Kevin Miller’s film Hellbound? essentially follows the pattern aforementioned. The movie has a problem outside the text. Many people believe in the existence of hell as a place of eternal destruction. He opens with a conversation with members from Westboro Baptist Church during the ten year anniversary of 9-11. These people are the same ones who protest military funerals as a means of informing America about the sin of homosexuality.

Miller asks honest questions concerning God, hell, and love. They respond by doubting his faith and likening it to the pansy (incidentally, one of my favorite flowers). One of the most vocal protestors asserts that 99.9999% of the population will spend their eternity in hell.

Miller meets exorcists and a church that operates a “Hell House” for the purpose of bringing teenagers to repentance. This belief in hell can bring out the worst in people and other commentators in the film cite its use by believers to act on their retributive justice and vengeance even if only theologically. Likewise, it paints a certain portrait of a kind of God that Miller (as well as I) is not sure exists.

His attempt to answer that question using the text brings the problems of the biblical text to light about this issue. While he consults with pastors and theologians, it quickly dawns that the Bible is not consistent about hell.

This is truth and not movie spin. The Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament if you prefer) casts little vision about the afterlife. All the writers fear the grave or sheol, but they do not speak of it as a place of consciousness. The eternal-torment-folks point to Daniel 12:2 for support, but the universalists offer another interpretation and I think that the book suffers from too much apocalyptic reading—look at Daniel (visions at least) in light of the Maccabees.

The New Testament should surely give succor to the torment camp. Jesus mentions weeping and gnashing of teeth and warns his followers to fear those who can cast the body into hell (Matthew 10:28, Luke 12:5). However, Jesus also says that when he is lifted up, all people will be drawn to him (John 12:32). The writer of 1 Timothy makes universalist comments when in 4:10 he states that the living God is the savior of all people, especially all those who believe.

Because of the problem in the text, no one can really offer a definitive answer and each camp that Miller interviews stand by their vision of the textual witness. Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill church in Seattle, compares the controversy to state borders versus national borders. His state borders include those matters where difference of belief can occur, but can still be recognized as Christian. Changing doctrine too much leads to a national boundary, and Driscoll et al view that as a departure from Christianity. (Then he lapses into some dichotomy between common and particular grace, but that’s another story).

Miller’s attempts to resolve the hell issue splinter into various paths. Each interviewee takes the problem in a different direction. Those subjects who support eternal torment find that any other explanation proves God’s revelation false. Or, God cannot practice God’s justice without the concept.

The movie presents a brief treatment of annihilationism without having anyone in the film who espouses the concept. Annihilationism contends that the righteous will live with God in the eschaton, while the unrighteous simply cease to exist.

Universalists that appear in the film resolve the issue in various ways. Some approached from the justice issue and see God’s justice as restorative as opposed to retributive or punitive. Michael Hardin, founder of Preaching Peace, views hell as problematic since it points to a God who is a violent god and turns every human being into a ha-Satan, the Satan who acts more like a prosecuting attorney than as Lord of Darkness.

Frank Schaeffer, son of evangelical extraordinaire Francis Schaeffer, disavows the question and moves to what we can know and his experience of love in his grandchildren’s eyes. At the end, Miller’s film does a better job of asking questions than providing answers. This means he does not resolve the issue inside or outside of any text. So much for this sermon.

Sermons in my tradition end with an invitation mostly because most of the people want to avoid hell. Therefore, I end this review with an invitation, but fear not, this is no proselytizing.

This film uncovers more than just hell. It launches into the questions of what we know and how we know it. It even moves into the realm of how our beliefs shape a particular God-image.

See this movie.

The reactions of groups like Westboro Baptist and even the universalists to the other side show the communication breakdown that exists in contemporary belief. Fundamentalists exist among conservative and liberal camps alike. Moderation loses ground in our society. What can we do to alleviate the polarization?

Watch this movie and be willing to reflect on the core of belief.

Adam Graham is a preacher and a student at Vanderbilt Divinity School. He has a glorious beard and is a former parade Grand Marshal.

Also, you can subscribe to On Pop Theology via RSS feed or email on the top right corner of the main page. 

Review of Hellbound? by Director Kevin Miller

by Ben Howard

When I first heard about the movie Hellbound I was worried that it was going to be yet another conservative response to Rob Bell's book Love Wins. I mean if Christian culture is good at anything it's mobilizing all it's creative forces in the face of an “attack” against “traditional values.” For instance, the number of anti-Da Vinci Code books probably numbers a hundred or so.

However, I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that Hellbound was actually titled Hellbound?. Never has a question mark carried such interpretive significance.

Last Wednesday, I was lucky enough to be able to attend the cinematic premiere of Kevin Miller's documentary Hellbound​?. In the film, Miller explores prevailing views of eternal damnation and the afterlife through a vast array of interviews from all across the theological spectrum. He delves into the beliefs of neo-Calvinism, explores Jesus cultural understanding of hell, wrestles with the theological issues of a God who may or may not damn people to eternal torment, and even lets members of the Westboro Baptist Church yell at him.

Over the first third of the movie, Miller lays out the classical position on hell beginning with the absurdist beliefs of the Westboro Baptist Church and slowly progressing into more mainline evangelical and Calvinist positions.

He then transitions into a deconstruction of this classical view. Miller and his interview subjects point out the historical background for a belief in hell and provide significant context to biblical references to Hell, especially Jesus' references to Gehenna. They also discuss the problem's inherent in referencing a

biblical idea of hell as the Bible makes references that point towards views favoring eternal torment, as well as annihilationism and universalism. To believe in one view is to deny or sublimate verses referring to other understandings of the afterlife.

The final third of the movie lays out a belief and an argument in favor of Christian Universalism including references to historical Christian figures, like Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, who held such a view.

It's important to note that from all appearances Miller began this project with an open mind; a mind with a list of questions and concerns, but far from convinced of one view or the other. However, it becomes clear over the course of the film that while Miller may not be entirely convinced of the fact of universalism, he is at least convinced by the function of this belief.

Though the interview subjects are treated with respect and dignity by Miller, many of their statements come across as at the least comical and occasionally terrifying. When Miller asks one of the Westboro Baptist protestors how many of his children he loves the man pauses and is unable to formulate an accurate response. Again, when Miller asks noted “evangelist” Ray Comfort how many people he has converted using his questionable techniques, Comfort is forced to awkwardly pause before saying that his accomplishments “will be in the Lambs Book of Life.”*

*For a fuller examination of Comfort's tactics, pick up Kevin Roose's book An Unlikely Disciple, which includes a chapter about a spring break trip with Liberty students to convert people using Comfort's methods.

The more painful moments of the film come predominantly from Miller's interviews with Mark Driscoll and Kevin DeYoung, both prominent neo-Calvinists from the mold of John Piper. Miller juxtaposes many of the statements concerning God's love made by scholars and writers in favor of universalism with angry, fire-breathing screeds from Driscoll. In the most painful scene of the movie, Miller asks Driscoll if all people are children of God, and Driscoll proclaims that they are not.

This is not a flawless film. The last third drags of the film drags in comparison to the first hour, also while there are mentions of annihilationism, it does not seem to be discussed by anyone interviewed in the film. Additionally, as one audience member pointed out in the Q&A after the premiere, the interview subjects were predominantly white males, Sharon Baker being a noted exception.

However, while it is not a flawless film, it is an important one. Though many may view this as propaganda in support of a universalist position, I don't believe that is the intent. Ultimately, this film is not concerned about where people go when they die, but how a belief in the afterlife affects how they deal with people today. The film's argument in favor of universalism is predicated on representing the beauty and love of God to a world in pain.

If anything, this film is intended to free people to think about what they believe, but especially to reflect on his there beliefs affect the way they deal with the world in the present. The problem is not with a belief in hell, the problem is a belief in hell that allows people to feel superior and rain down violence and damnation on those who they believe to be beneath them.

Maybe Sartre was right and maybe hell is other people. Dear God, save us from ourselves.

Peace,

Ben

To see where Hellbound? and Kevin Miller will be headed next visit their website or follow them on Twitter @HellboundMovie.

If you want to contact me, you can follow me on Twitter @BenHoward87 or email me at benjamin.howard [at] gmail.com. 

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There's a Thin Line Between Heaven and Here

by Ben Howard

The title of this post is a taken from a show called The Wire. It's a really great show, and I expect I'll write about it at some point in the future, but today's post isn't about the show. This post won't be about pop culture at all, it's just something I need to write. It's about that line and it's about what that line means.

As a lot of you may know, I live in a not so great neighborhood. It isn't necessarily dangerous, but it does have it's seedier elements. In the time I've lived in my apartment I've been broken into three times. Needless to say, that can be a bit frustrating, but such is life and things are just things. However, the last break-in brought about a new experience. A few weeks after the house was broken into, we received word that the perpetrator had been arrested. We're still awaiting word on the outcome of the case, but the prosecutor is convinced he'll go to prison for at least a few years.

Ever since the arrest, I've felt strangely about the entire situation. Since I had the guy's name, I visited his Facebook page. I found out he has a girlfriend and a young daughter. At first, I thought I might be feeling guilt for my role in his probable incarceration, but that wasn't it. He chose his course of action, I never had any control over the situation. I don't feel guilt, but I do feel sadness.

I'm sad for people who feel like they have to steal in order to survive and I'm sad for children who have to grow up without fathers. I'm sad because of a system that treats people like nuisances and rap sheets and robs them of their humanity while simultaneously saying that it's all being done in the name of justice. I'm sad because of that little twinge I feel when I see a lonely black man walking down my street at night, and I'm sad because, while I know it's wrong, I know plenty of people will tell me it's right. I'm sad because it's so easy to see just how broken things are.

There's been a lot of talk about hell in the evangelical community in the last year. In my mind almost all of it misses the point. Why do we worry so much about where everybody will go after they die, yet we have no problem avoiding the very hell that ensnares so many among us? Yes, hell is real. Hell is addiction and pain. It is violence and abuse and depression and that glazed over look of defeat, the loss of hope. Hell is the place where we throw those we no longer know what to do with. Hell is all of the brokenness that batters us on every side. It is the destruction of our very humanity. Hell is here.

The church's task is not about defining where we go when we die. Our job, our mission, the reason we exist is to join with the work of God and the Spirit to bring heaven to the places where hell has infected our day to day. We are in the business of redemption and salvation, not prognosticating about the afterlife. We are being called to bring about the abolition of war and poverty; to stand with the isolated, the hated, and the miserable. We are called to bring reconciliation between the oppressed and the oppressor, between the victim and the criminal. There's a thin line between heaven and here.

Peace,

Ben

You can contact me on Twitter @BenHoward87, leave a comment or email me. I'd love to hear your thoughts.