The controversy was to be expected, since the outspoken minister calls for nothing less than a radical revision of traditional Christianity.
There are two aspects of it that Gulley finds objectionable: A God who would damn and Jesus as the only way.
"For many, the concepts of original sin, a God who sends people to hell, and Jesus as the only path to God can no longer be stomached," reads the flap jacket.
Gulley's struggle with these doctrines is neither unique nor new. Theologians and lay people have grappled with them for centuries.
Tellingly, Gulley's work seems to be part of a growing trend. In recent past there have been several books by Christian ministers who openly call into question the notions of hell and Christian exclusivity.
Three months ago Michigan pastor Rob Bell published
Love Wins. His book not only rocked the Christian community, but also seized the imagination of the wider culture. It debuted at number two on the New York Times bestseller list and earned its author a favorable profile in Time Magazine.
In
Love Wins Bell implies that everyone may eventually make it to heaven regardless of what we do or believe in this life. That so many find Bell's comforting position attractive is understandable. The question is how sound it is.
There are good reasons for why the doctrines of hell and Jesus as the only way have remained at the core of orthodox Christianity.
"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me," Jesus
says in John's gospel. In another gospel he
warns about a place where " the worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched."
Given how central these two doctrines are to the New Testament, doing away with them would cut out the heart of the Christian faith.
The Bible teaches that Christ took on human form and sacrificed himself in order to redeem us from hell. But if there is no hell, then there is no need for a redeemer. And if there is no need for a redeemer, then Christ's sacrificial death was in vain.
The implications of this are staggering: Christ was a wise man at best or a deluded megalomaniac at worst.
Even if the former is the case, we don't need a religion bearing his name. We do not pray to and worship wise men, because this would amount to idolatry.
Needless to say, the unorthodox positions staked out by Gulley, Bell and others like them run in direct contravention to biblical Christianity.
The ideas they put forth sound very pleasant to our ears, to be sure. Most of us -- including this author -- wish there were no hell. The prospect of people undergoing eternal torment is one of the most difficult to come to terms with.
But it does not matter what what we wish or think. What ultimately matters is what God thinks. If you believe that the Bible is God's word -- as these authors claim they do -- then you cannot reject its foundational teachings. And whether we like it or not, hell and Christian exclusivity are certainly among them.
