I suppose two things have been rolling around in my head the last few days (other than the many things on the American Religion final today). In Dr. Roberts' preaching class, we have continued our discussion on Rob Bell's book Love Wins. It's been a hot seminary topic lately, particularly for the evangelical people among us. The other is the far more recent question: How do we respond to the death (the killing) of Osama bin Laden?

NYTimes coverage

I think many people of faith can deal with, or answer in the negative, the question: Is Gandhi in hell? These include good Christians (mainline, evangelical, charismastic, etc.) willing to see Gandhi living in eternal life, through the grace of God, his only sin being his unwillingness to declare Jesus Christ as Lord. However, the question now rises: Is bin Laden in hell? The same good Christians say that's impossible. While I haven't read Rob Bell's book yet (did I mention it's finals week now?), it sounds like even Bell would say that people who reject preserving life and goodness are in their own sort of hell. Perhaps I am projecting, amidst the rumors and class discussion of Bell's book, because I generally feel the same way. If bin Laden lived only to reject the value of life, or of certain lives, and reject goodness as we read in Scripture (ours and his), as we see in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and as we see even in the life of Gandhi, he must have been in hell for a while already.

I still wonder what God thinks through all this. I doubt God is surprised by any of it (even if God didn't see and know everything from the foundations of the world- God still would have seen this coming), but I also cannot imagine God as unloving. Bin Laden was formed, even his inward parts, by God; God knit him together in his mother's womb; even he is fearfully and wonderfully made (Ps. 139:13-14a). How do we speak of this man, surely evil, though still part of God's good creation? The events of 9/11 certainly raised some issues of theodicy for me and many others, but I cannot help but wonder about how God grieves at the brokenness of this world- of the cheapening of the life once playfully and joyfully crafted by God, in which God once delighted- as murder is returned with murder.

A passage of Scripture bothering me endlessly the last few weeks seems somewhat relevant here: "Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven" (Matt. 18:18). Interestingly, this passage is approached by a discussion about what to do with a member of the church who sins against you, and then ends with that whole thing about "where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them." Also, Jesus launches after that into the parable of the unforgiving servant, who is shown mercy on his astronomical debt, but then shows no mercy to the one who owes him very little.

What's bothered me is how actions in this life, according to Matthew, seem to seal a fate in heaven that cannot be otherwise loosed. I always like to think that God is bigger than our worst moments.  Is God's grace bound when we bind terror on earth?  Perhaps God's forgiveness involves loosing those bonds, which can otherwise never be loosed. Maybe it's saying that repentance isn't for God, it's for us. We need to be turned around in our thinking completely, otherwise we will remain captive to the bonds with which we have shackled ourselves.

What then, shall we do, at the death of a man who bound much in his life, but who loosed very little?  Does he even look much like the unforgiving servant? What should we say when others call his death the completion of "justice?" He may be a symbol of terror, but he was still a human being. While I am timid about taking the wind out of the sails of my fellow Americans, elevating him to the symbol of terror makes your victory seem even greater, but it also makes him into a sort of martyr for those you oppose. I think he was just a human, broken and fallible, deeply disturbed and distorted, so that when he looked into the mirror dimly, he thought he saw perfect judgment. Yet we look into the mirror dimly as well, and we honor the perfectness of our own judgment. Perhaps we should ask Rob Bell, who might honor the dimness by asking, "How can we know that?"