Every time I think that I may have an original thought or at least a new slant on an existing thought, Brian Mclaren publishes a book about it before I can even write it in a blog post. He did it again with his latest book “The last word and the word after that”. I read it this weekend and I think it really brought home some ideas I had been wrestling with for several months. The book is the last chapter in the trilogy he began in “A new kind of Christian” and although I loved the 1st book, this latest one was much more applicable than either of the first two books. I got a bit bored in the 2nd book “The story we find ourselves in” mainly because it dealt with creation / evolution and I had no real problems accepting evolution the way many Christians here in the Bible belt continue to struggle. I had been having several conversations the last few weeks about the “after-life” and I was shocked to get this book in the mail (I pre-ordered it) and realize that it is all about hell and the warped theology that has evolved about hell through the history of the church.

Of course the book is true to the writing style of Mclaren that wraps his thoughts about theology into story form. Although I am “post-protestant” in my personal theology (to borrow a Mclaren term), I am not very post modern in my line of thinking. I am much more scientific and would prefer a bulleted list of concrete conclusions, so wading through a “story” to get the answer is not particularly intriguing to me. I do however love these characters which he creates to help the story unfold. I really appreciate that I now have several books that represent how I think theologically that I can recommend to friends and family who could never read a dry scientific presentation of facts and conclusions.

The more I think about hell the more I realize how central it is to how we approach our lives. Letting go of a literal belief in hell frees us to see that the reason for following the way of Jesus is all about the “here and now”. Understanding the kingdom of God as God’s dream or vision for things here on earth changes everything. I was afraid that letting go of a good fire and brimstone view of hell would introduce a sort of “anything goes” type of mentality, but I think I can now see how it has a complete opposite effect on my life. I can no longer live this life as practice for something else or hold on to the hopes that whatever is wrong now will get fixed next time around. Instead I am left with a sense of urgency that was missing before. I’m not sure how this will play out in my life, but I know I would rather face tomorrow with a sense of urgency to follow the message of Jesus than a sense of complacency.