Judgmentalism

So while I am under-impressed at the amount of blog hits I've gotten from my "controversy" blog post, I press on in my new quest for being more authentic in my posting.  As I've already hinted, I have a few things on my mind about Rob Bell fiasco.  If you're not familiar with the story, I think this post that appeared last week in the Huffington Post is a good summary and I will also summarize a bit here for the sake of context.  Basically, Rob Bell (a leader of the emergence movement, who also appears in the Nooma video series) is releasing a book later in March called "Love Wins."  From his publicity video (view here) you get the sense that he may be challenging some of the fundamentals of the Christian faith and is possibly dancing around universalism-- the all people regardless of whether they put their faith in Jesus can go to heaven. 

One thing I love about Rob Bell is that he isn't afraid to ask the hard questions.  Regardless of any doctrinal positions he holds, what I find refreshing is his uncanny ability to articulate the questions people are really asking (or not asking, for that matter).  We watched several of the Nooma videos in our small group last year and he doesn’t actually come out and tell the answers most of the time.  It takes a lot of discipline to take those issues back to Scripture and figure out what the Bible does teach.  Still, I think a lot of people misinterpret his questions as being leading questions or rhetorical questions when he’s just trying to expose more sides to an issue. 

I love Piper as well.  He's one of my all-time favorite pastors and I've heard him preach in person as well as in numerous sermons from his amazing website.  He responded to some of the initial publicity about Bell's book with a tweet, "farewell Rob Bell."  Or so I've read.  I'm not on twitter, so I actually don't even know this for sure.  But it seems fairly undisputed on the web and we all know that anything on the internet is complete truth (*insert sarcasm here*).

Anyway... I still haven't gotten to my point, which is:  I wonder what the book is about.  I will probably read it, but as I speculate on what sort of issue Bell could be addressing, I have to wonder whether it's judgmentalism itself.  We judge people all the time.  We all like to think that we have a right or even a responsibility to judge others.  There's probably even some truth in that.  In Matthew 7, Jesus talks about removing the plank from your own eye so that you can remove the speck from your brother’s eye (Matthew 7:5, italics mine).  So there is a very real sense in which we are supposed to be judging others.  But how and why and for what purpose?  Is there any context in which I can judge a person's eternal destiny?  Is it even possible for anyone other than God to do that? 

We can only judge the fruit from the tree, so to speak.  If the fruit is good, then the tree is good and if the fruit is bad, then the tree is bad (Matthew 7).  But what about the scenario with the criminal on the cross?  Jesus told the repentant criminal that he would be with Him in paradise (Luke 23:43).  Is there any fruit in that man's life that would suggest that he was going to heaven?  No, I would say not, unless maybe someone was eavesdropping on this conversation.  Jesus judged him.  And his judgment was that this man’s heart had changed and Jesus assured him that he was headed for paradise.   

I guess my question is whether reserving God's right to judge people is the same as holding to Universalism?  And if asking these questions is a way of understanding God and His character better, then is it wrong to be asking the questions in the first place?   

You know, if Bell’s book IS about judgmentalism, I have a sneaking suspicion that this might be a ploy to get a lot of interest generated about his new book… it has definitely caught my attention!

-JLR