Since Rob Bell wrote his new book, Love Wins, there has been quite an incredible amount of conversation about heaven and hell (which I conclude is a good thing). For many Christians though, this book also became the reason to label Rob as a heretic.

So what exactly constitutes heresy? I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I found the following list elsewhere on the internet:

1. Denying the divinity of Jesus Christ.[ Jehovah's Witness]
2. Denying the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.
3. Denying the incarnation.
4. Denying the doctrine of the Trinity [one GOD, three persons].
5. Denying the human nature of Jesus Christ [one person, two natures]
6. Denying the necessity of the death of Jesus Christ as atonement for our sins.
7. Denying the efficacy of the atoning death of Jesus Christ.
8. Denying the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.
9. Denying the visible return of Jesus Christ in the Power and Glory of the Godhead.
10. Denying the bodily resurrection of all the dead.
11. Teaching that there are multiple god's in the universe. [Mormonism]
12. Teaching there are multiple ways to heaven (other than through Jesus) {I added this one}

Now of course I agree with this entire list, but here’s the thing – as far as I can tell – so does Rob Bell. What Rob is saying is that we might not be aware of all the possible ways in which someone can “come to Christ”. He brought up the OT, apostle Paul, (others too) and suggested that none of them ever said a sinner’s prayer. Check out this quote from page 115:

“Will everybody be saved, or will some perish apart from God forever because of their choices?
Those are questions, or more accurately, those are tensions we are free to leave fully intact. We don’t need to resolve them or answer them because we can’t, and so we simply respect them, creating space for the freedom that love requires.”

Basically he is saying, “you don’t know who’s going to heaven or hell, so quit being judgmental and starting acting in love.” He then goes on to suggest that people might get a 2nd chance after death (something I don’t personally believe), but that you could continue to reject Christ eternally. Does that make him a heretic? One of the damned? “Farewell Rob Bell”? Where exactly is the line you cross that makes your heresy damnable? If you choose to deny #2 or #8 on the above list, is that enough?

The average Christian is not an avid reader of philosophy. Even fewer Christians would bother to read atheist books, blogs or articles, and unfortunately sometimes we miss things that should be grabbing our attention.

One of my heroes is Dr. William Lane Craig who is probably the most feared Christian apologist in atheist circles. Richard Dawkins (who wrote The God Delusion – a NY Times best seller) has refused to debate him so many times it’s really embarrassing to their side. Finally on Friday night at Notre Dame, Sam Harris (author of The Moral Landscape and another giant in the atheist field) agreed to debate Dr. Craig regarding whether you can have objective moral values and duties if there is no God.

You probably didn’t hear about this in church, none of your friends were talking about it, it wasn’t going to make the news anywhere – but I can tell you – in the apologist/atheist/philosophy circles this was a big deal.

Dr. Craig absolutely annihilated Sam Harris on this. Seriously – it wasn’t even close. Sam finally abandoned the topic altogether and started trashing the God of the Bible, the problem of evil, etc – none of which had anything to do with the topic at hand. What was so awesome was that Dr. Craig knew he could not lose this debate, reasoned that Sam would just use it as a platform to trash the Bible, and pulled out a copy of a book called Is God a Moral Monster by Paul Copan and suggested everyone read it if they wanted answers to what Sam was saying. He was then able to say that none of this had anything to do with what we were debating, reinstated both premises in the argument and easily triumphed.

We need more people like William Lane Craig that understand physics, logic, theology, and academia every bit as well as our atheist counterparts do. How many kids at Notre Dame left that debate with a renewed faith in God? How many atheists, agnostics and enemies of Christ are doubting their position after such a thrashing? All I know is that I was personally blessed watching that debate and found myself thanking God repeatedly for Dr. Craig.