Dr. Hessert

December 30, 2017

Dr. Paul Hessert was professor of Systematic Theology at Garrett-Evangelical seminary back in the mid-seventies when I was a student there. I can still see him, a small gnome of a man with wavy grey hair and beard and a constant smile, sitting crosslegged on his desk, sandaled feet peeking out from beneath his trousers. Garrett was, and remains, one of United Methodism’s liberal seminaries. How I landed there is a story for another time; suffice it to say that it wasn’t my idea. God planted me there, much against my wishes.

Systematic theology in a liberal seminary is quite a different critter than what I encountered in college and at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, a conservative seminary a few miles down the road from Garrett which I attended during summer sessions. One of the earliest assignments Dr. Hessert gave was a short paper outlining our doctrine of God. A piece of cake, I thought as I wrote down the talking points I had learned in college. The paper came back bleeding red. In the margin, the professor wrote, “I don’t want to know what someone else says about God. I want to know when you say the word “God,” what do you mean?” That single question launched me on a theological journey that continues to this day, a journey that refuses to allow me to simply parrot what others have said.

I’ve been reading lately in Ezekiel, and am intrigued by how often God tells Ezekiel to announce some disaster. “Then they will know that I am the LORD,” is the formulaic conclusion of these rather unpleasant announcements. I’ve noticed a distinction, however. God may bring disaster on his own people, but in the end, he promises redemption. For the oppressing nations that surrounded Israel however, no redemption is offered. Different outcomes, yet the same conclusion: “Then they shall know that I am the LORD.”

It is this formula which takes me back to Dr. Hessert. In trying to make sense of the judgment God visits upon the nations, he posed a hypothesis. “What if, in the end, we all end up in the presence of God?” At first, this sounds like Universalism, where somehow, everyone “makes it,” irrespective of what they did on earth. Universalism sounds nice and unjudgmental, but deep down inside, none of us really want that. We want evil to be destroyed, and evildoers to be punished. Letting a Hitler, Stalin, or Bin Laden off the hook violates our sense of justice for the oppressed. 

Hessert went on, “For someone who has tried to avoid God in this life, who has chosen evil, being in the presence of Divine Holiness is not a pleasant prospect. Being in the presence of God is good for those who love him; not so good for those who don’t.”

I’m still not sure what to think of Dr. Hessert’s musings, but they do give me food for thought, especially in light of Ezekiel’s pronouncements of destruction to God’s enemies and deliverance to his followers, both of which are designed to make people know that “he is the LORD,” a prospect of joy to some, but of despair to others.