[Dialogue] Gandhi Burns in Hell? The hell you say!

[steve har]

 There was a provocative article in the NYTimes last week  about mythology,
personal or otherwise that sparked some collegial back and forth...
---
The other world located in this world or... in the other-other world? Gandhi
Burns In Hell?
in recent NYTimes
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/us/05bell.html?sq=albert%20mohler&st=cse&scp=1&pagewanted=print
---
Rev Mohler vs Rev Bell on Heaven and Hell; who is it for anyway?

NyTimes talking...
in this corner:
Mr. Bell, who [is] part of the so-called emerging church movement, which
caters to younger believers...has challenged theological boundaries as well
as pastoral involvement in conservative politics.... vs...
In this corner:
R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary,
said in a blog post<http://www.albertmohler.com/2011/03/01/universalism-as-a-lure-the-emerging-case-of-rob-bell/>
that
Bell's view that people who do not embrace Jesus may still be saved...was at
best toying with heresy.  He called Bell's promotional video the sad
equivalent of theological strip tease. In the video Mr. Bell pointedly asks
whether it can be true that Gandhi, a non-Christian, is burning in hell.
There is a quote some where that ML King that says something like he  never
would have believed Christians [like Mohler?] could involve themselves in
anything except their own self-serving terminal certitude without the
example ofGandhi. [Wish I had that quote!]
---
Compare with James Hillman's point on Freedom
*Hillman*: I'm saying that we haven't thought about the idea of freedom
enough. It needs to be internalized as an inner freedom from "demand"
itself: the kind of freedom that comes when you're free from those
compulsions to have and to own and to be someone.

For example, think of the kind of freedom that (South African president) Nelson
Mandela <http://www.nelsonmandela.org/> must have experienced when he was
imprisoned. He completely lost his freedom in the outer world, yet he found
freedom within.

That's an example that broadens our current limited idea of freedom: that I
can do any goddamn thing I want on my property; that I am my own boss and
don't want government interference; that I don't want anybody telling me
what I can and can't do; that we've had too much regulation, and so on. This
is the freedom of a teenage boy.

Hmm..
outer world, inner world, other world in this world,
this world now the other world later [the good one if you follow Mohler's
Jesus, otherwise too bad news for Gandhi, how about you]?

Wonder what Bultman or Mathews would say about this kind of category
confusion?

Thoughts? Any useful quotes from the masters, old or new,  here?

By the Way, I looked up JWM's paper on Recovery of the Other World; I've
been making detailed 21st C notes. Happy to share if you ask [also quotes
and links]


Steve Harrington
stevehar11201 at gmail.com
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