http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg-qgmJ7nzA
Bashir's first question is one most Christians have heard before: Given the tragedy we're seeing in Japan, which of these is true: Is God all-powerful and not loving? or is he loving but not all-powerful? My reaction as I heard this was "That's an easy one. Ask him something hard!" Not only was it framed as a logical fallacy--either or reasoning--it's also an easy one for any good, thinking Christian to knock down because there's a clear answer, a 3rd option.
So I waited for him to knock it down.
And I waited.
But Bell just talked in circles (the circles would take up the next 7 minutes). Then I realized something--that Rob Bell wasn't going to knock it down because he didn't have an answer, and he didn't have an answer because his theology had eliminated the third option. So in Bell's case the either-or question is not a fallacy at all but a real question that can't be answered because he's removed God's Holiness and Justice as the third - and correct - option.
God is love, and God is all-powerful, but God is also holy. When God intervenes in human tragedies and relieves our temporal suffering, he's showing us mercy--undeserved, as any mercy is. When he leaves us to our suffering, he's showing us his justice--rightly deserved, as all justice is. And he is sovereign over both. That was the right answer, but I think Bell gave up right answers a long time ago when he gave up an orthodox understanding of original sin.
I used to listen to Rob Bell. I went to his church for a summer. He seems like a really nice guy. I sincerely hope that he doesn't have to learn about God's justice the hard way, that God will show him mercy instead. Not the Rob Bell kind of mercy that goes out like halloween candy to everyone, but the sovereign God kind that loves and saves its own.
But either way, God Wins.
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