“Love Wins” and the Heidelberg Catechism Loses

Yes, I know. This is one more post on Rob Bell. But most of you can ignore this one.

I am writing specifically to all those with some background in the Reformed Church in America or in the Christian Reformed Church who are enamored with, intrigued by, or confused over Love Wins. Maybe you have long sense bolted from the RCA or CRC. Maybe for good reason. Maybe you left one of the hundreds of RCA/CRC churches in West Michigan and found your way to Mars Hill. Maybe you are still in an RCA or CRC church, but your friends and family love Bell’s new book and you aren’t quite sure what to think. Maybe one of the small groups in your old Dutch church is reading through Love Wins. Maybe you like the RCA or CRC and like the idea that all people will eventually be saved. Whatever the scenario, I want to address those who have a foot in two worlds: the world of the Reformed church and the world of Love Wins.

If you have a pinky toe in the RCA or CRC world you should know about the Heidelberg Catechism. Our ministers must subscribe to it. Our children learn it in their Sunday school classes (or used to). Our churches are required to teach its doctrines. Even if you’re long gone from the Dutch Reformed world (and perhaps you say “good riddance”), I bet you can recall a funeral where the first question and answer were read (“What is your only comfort in life and in death?”). You may remember that “true faith is not only a knowledge and conviction” but “a deep-rooted assurance” (Q/A 21). You probably haven’t forgotten the outline of the Catechism: guilt, grace, gratitude. In fact, even if you were hurt by your Dutch Reformed church (or more likely, bored by it); even if you transferred your membership years ago; even if you wish your RCA or CRC church could be more “progressive,” I imagine you’re still hesitant to throw the Catechism under the bus. It’s meant too much to too many people you love. It’s been too precious at too many gravesides.

A Modest Goal

My aim is not prove the Heidelberg Catechism is right and Rob Bell is wrong. I wrote a book on the Catechism and a long critical review of Love Wins, so you don’t have to guess where I land. But that’s not the point here. My aim is simpler. I don’t want to show you which is wrong–the Catechism or Love Wins. I only want to show they can’t both be right.

Take a good hard look at Love Wins. Study it; underline it; search the Scriptures. And then consider the Catechism. Does the theology of the Heidelberg Catechism fit in the world of Love Wins? Or is the Catechism an example of the traditional view that Bell labels “toxic” and “misguided”?

I submit to you that with Love Wins, the Heidelberg Catechism loses.

A Closer Look

Perhaps you’ve forgotten the language of the Catechism. According to your church’s (or former church’s doctrine), we are “born sinners–corrupt from conception on” (Q/A 7), unable to do any good and inclined toward all evil unless born again by the Spirit of God (Q/A 8). Because of our disobedience and rebellion, God “is terribly angry about the sin we are born with as well as the sins we personally commit. As a just judge he punishes them now and in eternity” (Q/A 10). God is merciful, but he is also just. And his “justice demands that sin, committed against his supreme majesty, be punished with the supreme penalty–eternal punishment of body and soul” (Q/A 11). Does this theology make sense if The Gods Aren’t Angry?

Love Wins asks a lot of questions. But does it ever ask one like this–“According to God’s righteous judgment we deserve punishment both in this world and forever after: how then can we escape this punishment and return to God’s favor” (Q/A 12)? When it comes to the cross, is the logic of Love Wins the logic of Heidelberg? Christ had to be man, the Catechism says, because “God’s justice demands that human nature, which has sinned, must pay for its sin, but a sinner could never pay for others” (Q/A 16). But Christ also had to be God, “so that by the power of his divinity, he might bear the weight of God’s anger in his humanity” (Q/A 17). Does this view of the atonement ever come through in Love Wins, or is it caricatured and derided?

Opposites Cannot be Equal

There’s more than could be said. We’ve only gone through 17 of the 129 questions. But I trust you get the point. If Rob Bell is right, your grandparents were dead wrong. The Catechism and Love Wins have radically different views of God, different understandings of the atonement, and different beliefs about heaven and hell. Try as you might to embrace both, if the law of non-contradiction has not gone completely out of style, you have to admit that’s it pretty difficult to keep your feet resting comfortably in both worlds. If you like Love Wins you really should be appalled by the Heidelberg Catechism.

Let me close with a final quotation and then a closing thought:

Q. How does Christ’s return “to judge the living and the dead” comfort you?

A. In all my distress and persecution I turn my eyes to the heavens and confidently await as judge the very One who has already stood trial in my place before God and so has removed the whole curse from me. All his enemies and mine he will condemn to everlasting punishment: but me and all his chosen ones he will take along with him into the joy and glory of heaven.

Read over the question again and you’ll notice Heidelberg’s theme shining through: comfort. The trouble is, the theology the Catechism finds comforting, Love Wins castigates. They can’t both be right.