The Evangelical Universalist Forum

"The End: Division" National Training Event promoting ECT/P!

vimeo.com/55907534
“Eschatology/The End: Division - Matthew 25:31-46” by William Taylor, from the series “The Last Days” | Dec 11th, 2012. An interesting talk, I certainly believe in judgement & some of the other things he mentions, but disappointing that he promotes Eternal Conscious Torment/Punishment, particularly because many of his points are so faulty – some even bordering on dishonest :frowning: Where do you even you start??

Possibly even more depressing is that this was at the National Training Event for the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students– I’m not sure I can continue to support (coincidently I got an invite to a fundraiser for them today) an organisation who promotes this so centrally. Although I have good friends who work for them, so I’m torn :neutral_face:

I haven’t watched it yet … Not sure I can even bring myself to face it.

Alex,

I guess you could point out that if they’re going to train people to support it they should at least be more accurate about it. :slight_smile:

Note that sometime before 6:15pm my time, Vimeo put the video on private subscription not public.

True.

That’s odd :confused: I’ve un-embedded it…

The link was working this morning, I noticed (10:45 my time).

Rather a rambling sermon, even by my standards. :laughing: (Talk of hell and damnation is too 19th century? What? Did he mean 9th century?)

It’s funny how he tries to call this “refreshing”, but dolefully spells out “the facts”. He doesn’t sound overly refreshed by it. I guess that’s a part of him (as he says) which would love to believe everyone is saved from sin into being righteous eventually. Too bad he doesn’t think this Parent will be competent at bringing “the very best” for all His children, unlike his own parents. :confused: But hey, if the scriptures teach God’s incompetency at parenting, what can a Bible-believing Christian do, amirite? (Fall back on God’s supreme competency at judging, I guess. :wink: )

Also funny how he decries “popular commentators” for teaching that Jesus rubber stamps people’s own decision to be in hell, five or ten minutes after basically teaching the same thing himself. (Citing C. S. Lewis favorably on that point along the way.) My guess is that what he really meant to decry was the second part of that popular teaching (though Lewis taught it, too) that people in hell won’t prefer to have been in heaven instead. (I agree with that criticism, btw.)

No mention of the goats being “baby” goats; no attempt at trying to reconcile his criteria for damnation with Jesus’ criteria in this judgment.

“Threaten the eternal punishment, lose the eternal life.” Nope, but he does make the expected argument there.

I agree, Rob Bell’s attempt at positioning “eonian” to only mean “intense” doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. (That was also one of my own critiques of his book Love Wins.) However, Bro. Taylor did miss examples where the term clearly cannot mean everlasting and even can only in some examples mean an intense experience (like Jonah in the stomach of the sea monster, which I seem to recall Rob mentioning, too).

The term(s) translated “eternal” do not on the other hand simply mean “age” or “eon” either, although I understand simplifying the details for his audience.

I suppose he doesn’t believe in a millennial age to come which isn’t eternal. :wink: But I fully grant that that age (and the ages of ages following) are part of one great Age of the Lord which is eternal. Still, things happen appropriate to that age which aren’t eternal. Hades and death, for example, aren’t eternal. :slight_smile:

“No indication in the Bible that the devil and angels are put in God’s equivalent of a correction center.” Untrue, but if no one has told him I guess it’s still news. He can only pass on what he has, not what he doesn’t.

His reluctance to believe God will not be able to save all sinners from sin, bringing them to honor God, “does not honor God [long pause, long pause]”??? Okay. Yeah you think about that for a minute before trying to convince people that believing God cannot or will not bring all people to honor God somehow thereby honors God. Can’t think of any way to “get yourself straight on that”, huh? Time for another observation of just how many people there are in the world! – there, I trust the connection has now been rationally made about how believing in final honoring of God dishonors God and vice versa. Moving along. I SAID MOVING ALONG, UNIVERSAL, IRREVERSIBLE, BINARY, MANTRA, MANTRA!! HERE IS A CHARMING INSURANCE UNDERWRITER FROM SEVEN OAKS, WHY ARE YOU STILL THINKING ABOUT WHAT I JUST SAID EARLIER!! I WANT TO SEAR YOUR MINDS SO THAT, BEING SCARRED, YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO ASK ANYMORE HOW HONORING GOD DISHONORS GOD AND VICE VERSA!!!

Yes, put your picture of a happy and successful extended family up on your desk to remind yourself of how unhappy and/or unsuccessful you think the Bible is teaching Jesus will finally be when He comes in His glory to honor Himself and His Father with ultimate dishonor. It’s hard to describe how clearly “refreshed” you are at that thought.

Remember Jesus’ failure or lack of evangelical care always, audience. Tomorrow morning, tomorrow night, when you go out evangelizing yourself. Yes, I am trying to frighten you with a hopeless punishment as the only punishment worthy of the honor and reputation of God, or perhaps with God’s inability to save people from a fire. Either a hopeless punishment or no punishment at all, that’s the only way; only final unrighteousness and permanent rejection of truth will suffice for a God Who “cares so much about righteousness and truth”.

“The question is how could a loving God not send a person to [a finally hopeless] hell.” Um, by continually acting toward saving all sinners into righteousness and love and not giving up until He gets it done, even if that takes some hell for impenitent sinners.

I realize he thinks the scriptures are teaching this, but his attempts at principle justification are failing so hard he ought to be proportionately suspicious that maybe he’s misreading the scriptures and perhaps hasn’t found enough data there yet. He clearly isn’t comfortable with what he’s teaching and is trying to talk himself into accepting it.

Oh wait, the answer to the question of how a loving God could not send a person to a finally hopeless hell was to send His son to bear that judgment instead? So Jesus (clearly not God Himself in any way on this theory) went undeservedly to a finally hopeless hell so that some other people who actually deserve to go there wouldn’t have to? And “we all know” this? Really? Because I’m pretty sure we all know He didn’t go to a finally hopeless hell, unless “we” are some kind of non-Christian Jew (and not even every kind of non-Christian Jew). Even Muslims generally don’t think Jesus went to a finally hopeless hell (or to any hell at all actually, or was judged against by God at all). Or was that not the “judgment” you were talking about?

Still, I guess in a way “the punishment fits the crime” if the punishment is to forever refuse to yield to God, in which case God authoritatively ensures permanent continuation of the behavior for which the person was punished in the first place. Like a judge who punishes a murderer by ensuring he will forever after commit murder! – surely that punishment also fits the crime, yes? (The murderer won’t enjoy continuing to commit murder forever? Then the punishment didn’t fit the crime after all. Huh. “You haven’t even begun to think about the crime,” indeed.)

“Does [not talking about hell enough] explain our lack of passion?” Well, that might explain your lack of passion in being refreshed by a doctrine of finally permanent dishonor of God. But I suspect your evident lack of passion in talking about it stems from other reasons.

When I said earlier “no attempt at trying to reconcile his criteria for damnation with Jesus’ criteria in this judgment”, I meant his criteria for damnation up until he introduces his third point. Before then the criteria for damnation is not accepting and following Jesus as Lord – which the sheep hadn’t been doing or they wouldn’t be asking when they ever had served Jesus, not incidentally. Now the criteria is how people treat Jesus’ servants when the servants are in trouble.

Brother Taylor does notice that the sheep are surprised they haven’t been serving Jesus by serving His servants, but doesn’t notice what’s so surprising about this surprise (although he says the surprise is that this is a surprise). The surprise is obviously that these people weren’t formally Christian, since no Christian should be surprised about this! Moreover, Bro. Taylor, in painting this as only helping people who belong to the Christian family already, interprets this surprise entirely against what Jesus said earlier in the Sermon on the Mount: if you do good for those who love you, what are you doing more than pagans and traitors do? Being perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect, requires doing good to our enemies. Which fits with the fact that the baby goats in this judgment are literally the least of Christ’s flock. Bro. Taylor does seem to vaguely recognize that these must be pagans like the Canaanite woman or the Magi (his examples), but still positions them as people who have already become Christians before helping “the family”.

So on his theory it comes as a complete surprise to these highly dedicated Christians that they had been serving Jesus by serving other Christians, because they didn’t even notice what they were doing, and “they didn’t even notice what they were doing because they were part of the family”. That may be literally the most retarded description of Christians I’ve ever heard a Christian give about faithfully obedient Christians.

But it’s important for him to make nonsense out of the data, because the implications would be that Jesus saves people who don’t even know they’re serving Jesus. C. S. Lewis, whom he likes to quote, specifically used to say about this judgment “there will be surprises”, and that’s one of the things he meant by it.

It doesn’t help his presentation that he can’t think of a third surprise to make a nice trinity of surprises, so simply repeats surprise number two as though it’s also the third surprise. I can think of a third surprise he totally skipped over, right there in the text: when were we not serving you, Lord?!

He does at least (finally!) recognize toward the end that the goats are also part of the flock, cared for as part of the family.

Now THAT was a searing critique. :slight_smile: You’ve got some serious chops there and really nailed the issues his talk brought up. My guess is, he would not want to debate you. Neither would I for that matter :slight_smile:

I managed to keep my patience until he suggested that people who hope and trust that God will bring all persons to honor Him are somehow dishonoring God by doing so, and vice versa. :angry:

To be fair, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t thinking that out far enough. Though he still ends up teaching it anyway, there’s a good chance he doesn’t realize what he’s saying. (Except I could literally watch him mentally stumble after suggesting that even implicitly! :unamused: )

Thanks Jason! Possibly slightly too harsh in one of two places, but you certainly make some very valid points that I didn’t think of. I watched it all again but took notes this time.

First 8:45 seem ok, but then he starts to make assertions “No second chance, no reconsideration of the terms of the sentence… Because God is perfect, His perfect judgment is irreversible” I don’t see how perfect implies irreversible :confused:

“There’s no purgatory” Just because this passage doesn’t mention it, it’s a bit presumptuous to imply there’s no others that do.

He then says something along the lines of it’s tough luck for anyone who hasn’t thought through the decision but then says, “He gives each of us supreme dignity” Not sure letting someone accidentally choose hell is very dignified (assuming God’s even given people the ability to choose!) – surely at least give people an informed decision.

20:26 Where does the Bible say that Jesus died to save us from hell? I thought the focus was on saving us from sin & death??

24:05 “Lazarus is in torment in Hell” not true but I assume that’s just a slip of the tongue??

25:20 I’m not an annihilationist but I don’t think he accurately describes their view.

26:58 “Rob Bell argues that the word eternal simply means intense, quote, ‘Hell is an experience of intense correction’” That doesn’t mean Bell doesn’t think it’s eternal too…

27:33 “It can not refer to an age to come without it meaning an eternal age. The age to come is eternal. The age to come is always in Biblical thought to be eternal because God is eternal.” I think there are more than one age to come…

27:42 “There is no suggestion anywhere in the Bible that the devil and his angels are put into God equivalent of a correctional centre. It just doesn’t make sense.” What about the passages that say God will restore all things??

28:00 “There is a part of me that would love to believe what Rob Bell has to say but it simply does not stand against the biblical evidence. Nor does my reluctance to believe honour God.” :neutral_face:

32:45 “How could a just God let the wickedness & evil of this world to go unpunished?” He didn’t & won’t! How could a just God let the wickedness & evil of this world continue for eternity in hell??

36:08 “A brother or sister of Jesus is always one of Jesus’ followers. It’s never a reference to humanity at large.” See p197 of “666 And All That” & meetjesusatuni.com/2012/12/30/th … snodgrass/

True, I could put some of those points less… pointedly. :wink:

Yes, by the way, that part I bolded reminded me I wanted to ask you (since you were there): was this guy supposed to be Calv or Arm? Because most of his presentation was strictly Arminian in the language and concepts of its justifications and explanations, but every once in a while he would talk about God having a privileged choice for the people He saves, and some of his talk about the sheep would make slightly more sense if he was trying to say that they are the people God granted the ability to become Christian and repent and accept salvation eventually.

I noticed several slips like that, but I gave him a pass because I knew he couldn’t possibly have meant them. :wink:

I thought he did okay up until he neglected to mention how they handle the parallel eonians in life and judgment/punishment. God forbid he actually discuss details of what his opponents believe in his 45 minute sermon/lecture, when he could be trying to impress people over and over again with how many people exist on Earth and repeating his mantra points repeatedly.

Rob was highly inconsistent about this, as I discussed in critical detail in my small-book-length review last year. I don’t blame people jumping up and down on him for that. (Was it last year or the year before…?! Am I about to feel old again!?)

True, but I allowed him credit on that because in another real and scripturally attested sense those ages are part of one big never-ending Great Age. Which we’re even partially overlapping into already now.

Yes, this is where I started to WHHAARGARGLE. :stuck_out_tongue:

The blogger is summarizing Snodgrass’ notes from Stories With Intent (which I own and have read and appreciated by the way). Some of his summmarized reasons for why “brothers” and “least of these” don’t always refer to one of Jesus’ followers are vague, but I’d say the most important and demonstrable in the list is:

(Title being the operative word.) A Calvinist would be much more likely to argue from their soteriology that brothers always refer to fellow disciples, of course; but that would be arguing from a soteriology developed on other grounds, not from the textual evidence. Whether Bro. Taylor is a Calvinist talking to a (largely?) Calv audience, I don’t know, but that would explain his insistence on this point.

I would adjust a couple of the blogger (or Snodgrass’) points to something stronger, too:

Even more pertinently, the descriptions of the needy mirror traditional lists of punishments from God. When Jesus says in Luke’s report of His first sermon in Nazareth that He has coming to fulfill the Isaianic healing prophecy, for example, what was prophesied was that God would heal and restore Israel whom He had punished for their impenitent sinning. (Which was a point Jesus had to eventually push into the faces of His audience because they didn’t like the implications! – unofficial rule #2 of being a guest speaker at a synagogue, never criticize the nation of Israel!)

While I appreciate the attempt to call attention to the goat side of the judgment thereby (as being Christians who thought they’d been loyally serving Christ but are surprised by the rejection and punishment–a point Bro. Taylor seemed to go out of his way to avoid talking about!), I couldn’t in good conscience call this a “parallel passage”. Not compared to, say, Ezekiel 34, where God judges the sheep and the goats through the coming Son of David – but comes to reconcile the sheep and the goats together while cracking down on religious leaders who misled and abused the flock! Jesus repackages this judgment to combine the judgment on misbehaving servants with the goats, but both sides of the flock are slated to be saved and reconciled to God.

Good question… I just assume Calv but now you mention it, I’m not so sure :confused: