By Alan Bean

Megachurch pastor, Rob Bell has a new book coming out that claims hell is freezing over.  “Eternal life doesn’t start when we die;” Rev. Bell asserts, “it starts right now. And ultimately, Love Wins.”

Not surprisingly, Pastor Bell is being trashed by the evangelical establishment . . . and the book hasn’t even come out.

Have you ever noticed the strong correlation between a stout belief in hell and support for mass incarceration? I doubt anyone has done any polling on this, but there is a powerful narrative connection between hell and prison.  If God plans to toss the miscreant into the lake of fire at judgment day, why should we be concerned about rehabilitation here below?  God gives up on people; why shouldn’t we?

This goes to the heart of Brian McLaren’s “Is God Violent” question.  If the Bible is our guide, God has infinitely high standards.  God wants all of us to advance in holiness, to mature, to blossom.  And God can be a harsh taskmaster–we grow in spirit as we suffer the consequences of our stupid decisions.  (We are not punished by our sins; our sins punish us.)  But redemption is always the goal.

I have never been in favor of “coddling” criminals, but punishment must always have a purpose.  What is the point of holding a woman like Donna Stites in detention after she has spent a quarter century rebuilding her life and her spirit?  When incarceration has served its purpose, it should end.

What is the purpose of incarceration?  Are we trying to hold people accountable for their actions, or are we merely warehousing an undercaste of our own making?  There should be a public safety dimension to the criminal justice project, no question; but when rehabilitation is removed from the equation we have gone off the rails.

In an earlier post, I mentioned the two mythic components of the American Dream identified by sociologist Robert Bellah.  The materialistic myth emphasizes hard work, personal responsibility, rugged individualism and success.  The moral myth reflects the E Pluribus Unum side of the American equation: all persons, no matter how troubled or traumatized, are part of the family and are thus due respect.  

Americans don’t choose between these two sides of the American Dream, even though they often appear to conflict); we live in the creative tension between them.  If we lose sight of the materialistic myth, we become lax, flabby and unproductive; if we abandon the moral myth, we become harsh, cruel and vindictive.  What happens to those who don’t work hard, those who are irresponsible, those who fail?  Do we simply throw them away forever?

Bellah’s moral myth claims that we are more than a gaggle of competitors engaged in an unending game of musical chairs; we are also a family.  When some of our children go off the rails, we are dealing with personal failure, but we are also dealing with family failure.  If large numbers of young men can’t read and write, have no skills, ambition or professional direction, prison is no solution.  These kids have failed; but we have also failed them.  They are responsible for making things right; but so are we.

This sheds light on Jesus’ Parable of the Prodigal Son.  Why is the Loving Father so willing to welcome back the young man who has squandered his inheritance in the far country?  Shouldn’t our sympathies lie with the elder brother who boycotts the homecoming celebration?  Shouldn’t the prodigal be forced to prove himself before being welcomed back into the family?

The Loving Father hasn’t gone soft in the head, he just understands what theologian Miroslav Volf calls “the one fundamental rule: relationship has priority over all rules” (Exclusion and Embrace, p. 164).  We have a relationship with the kid slinging dope on the street corner–he is our child.  If we don’t believe that (ala the elder brother in the parable) we are no longer holding the materialistic and moral myths in creative tension.  When incarceration becomes a one-size-fits-all solution to every problem, we are all materialism and no morality.  In such a world, E Pluribus Unum becomes a laugh line.