I’m a Christian. I believe in God the way the protestant Christian church describes him to me. I believe He loves me, wants the best life on this earth for me and despite knowing better than me, would never take away my power of choice no matter how much I might hurt myself or others with those choices.
That being said, I have read Love Wins and although I don’t believe in every part of the books presumptions, I believe what I think is the strongest message in the book, that God cannot be limited. He cannot be contained by any description or theology. He is bigger than anything we can imagine and He can present Himself to those who may never know His name (do we even really know His name?) or His form or His church. I believe that there will be atheists in Heaven. I do absolutely mean those who identify themselves as atheists in North America where there is infinite information available via the internet and were we have unlimited access to churches and complete freedom to believe how we want. There are people, in this country, world… whatever, who have been presented with the idea of the Christian Jesus Christ in such a distorted way at an impressionable time in their life that they are not able to accept that idea of Him that way. I believe that only God Himself knows who will be happy in Heaven, which is an idea so far from what we know, that we cannot even fathom it. He alone can determine who will be in eternal bliss or in eternal hell in the Heavenly setting and we have no idea who He is working on and who He has already touched. Is it hard to understand that? Is it hard as a Christian to accept that we don’t have a guest list in hand? Yes. We think we have at least some of the answers and that we know who will be there with us but we really don’t. We don’t even know for sure who WON’T be there and that is an even harder concept to accept. It is easy to think we know who might be there but is it easy to accept that we don’t know for sure who won’t? Can we accept that? Can we, as Christians, be ok with what God decides at the end? I hope so because He is God! and we are not.
Life and Photos by Andy 
… Because he is God and we are not… I will remember this when I act like I have all the answers… Thanks!
Like the post…don’t agree with a lot of your suppositions, being an agnostic on most days, and an atheist on a few days. Well put though. My favorite writer, and maybe human, Kurt Vonnegut, was the president of the Humanist Society…and he was always advising people to join a church for the fellowship and feeling of an extended family with a similar belief system. Can be troublesome though, when that group of believers start thinking their “right” should be everyone’s “right” and end their mortal life to prove their point. You don’t sound like one of them…See ya in the afterlife.
Later…
I remember being about six and asking my parents if my best friend, who was Jewish, would go to hell. They passed on having all the answers and took me to ask our minister at church instead. His eyes watered a little and he said “One of my best friends is our local Rabbi. He and I disagree on the biggest religious questions in the world, but I love him for his goodness. I cannot believe that my God would send such a kind man who has done such good works on this earth to Hell, just because he’s misunderstood His message.” That moment stuck with me and formed a lot of my fundamental religious outlook, and your post here seems to resonate with much the same idea.
Interesting. I know Rob Bell has been lambasted for this new book, but I haven’t read so I’m not sure what all the fuss is about.
The real issue here surely isn’t who we think is or isn’t going to get to heaven, but whether we accept the claims of Christ on our lives and choose to follow him.
It all starts when the Holy Spirit nudges us into accepting we aren’t up to God’s divine standard, realising that Jesus died to atone for my sins, and then we sincerely repent.
The follow up is (perhaps) a toughie, we don’t just sign a contract and walk away, the whole weight of scripture leads me to believe MY life now needs to different, Christ centred, faith in him and visible good works, not lip service to an awesome God.
Otherwise we’re like the seed that fell on stoney ground.
Now I must get a copy of that Rob Bell book…..
I judge God by what He does, not by what I’m told He did or will do.
And yes, I do reserve the right to judge. I’m happy to use my God-given intellect—for which reason I am an atheist.
An atheist in Heaven? Possibly Hell will freeze over first (even we atheists have standards).