Can Modern Christianity Be Too Loving?
Is is possible that a Christian can be too loving? Can a follower of Jesus emphasize the love of the Lord so much that he or she leaves out other essential qualities of the Lord in their theology?
In Lynne Hybels’ recent blog on God’s Politics she asks, “What is an evangelical?” In one of her summary statements, Hybels notes:
I am a Christian today because of what I found in Jesus.
In the lover of my soul and the radical activist, I found the Christianity my mind and my soul had longed for.
In my humble opinion this is what it means to be an evangelical.
But whatever the label, I believe it’s the Christianity that our world desperately needs to see.
Hybels focuses on God’s compassion for others and the compassion of Christians towards other people as the true meaning of what it means to be a Christian. In essence I agree with her. Still I question any Christian writer who focuses mainly on love as the main description of Christianity.
Focusing Only on God’s Love Can Be a Formula for Theological Disaster
If the most important expression of God is love, then what shall we make of the afterlife? Will a loving God go so far as to express His love in such a way as to make sure everyone enters heaven? If God’s chief character is love and His sense of holiness and justice is ignored, then what else can one conclude? If that’s what a person believes, that person is a universalist. He or she believes everyone will be saved. There is no other alternative. How can a God who is all loving send anyone to hell? 
Rob Bell, in his book Love Wins is a universalist as I understand him. In the fourth chapter of his book, he asks whether God gets what He wants? If God wants everyone to be saved, as Bell asserts, then the all powerful God will make sure everyone will be saved. If not, then either God is powerful enough to save us all despite His loving desires or He is not truly loving if He refuses to exercise His power to guarantee everyone a spot in heaven.
Since the Bible does not teach universalism, I interpret this belief as one in which the Christian ends up being too loving.
Since ScriptureSolutions is committed to biblical teaching and preaching, it is important that Christians are hearing the truth being taught from the pulpit. If one’s pastor is teaching universalism then the congregant has every right to ask whether their minister is being faithful to the Word of God.
Salvation Calls For a Personal Decision to Drink the Water of Eternal Life
To prove his position on universalism, Pastor Bell gathers together all the passages that refer to the Lord’s intent to ultimately restore “everything and everybody” (pg. 107). For instance, he quotes from Colossians 1:19-20: “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” To Bell this verses and others like it provide us the evidence God will be reconciled with all people. (more…)
