rob bell

Culture

Hell Is (For) Other People

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Judgment is a process, a refiner’s fire, not a permanent condition. If people can’t abide the idea of Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot gliding right through the Pearly Gates, they don’t have to worry. But no one should ever say “never” about anyone else’s chances. The theological and ethical point is to try to have the mind, and more importantly, the loving heart of God. 

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(A)theologies, Books

Rejecting Blood Sacrifice Theology, Again

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What I started out writing, churlishly and petulantly, is that I could only surmise that the market for books like this consists mainly of somewhat innocent readers; of people who whose only previous conception of Christ’s atoning work is of the standard, unreconstructed, washed-in-the-blood variety. For them, discovering what Jones is writing about would come as manna in the wilderness, and in that regard Jones has performed a mitzvah by publishing this book.

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(A)theologies

My Lent: Ashes, Addiction, and the Reality of Hell (Pace Rob Bell)

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Those who are ready to send Rob Bell to the hell he purportedly denies have unwittingly confirmed the suspicion of skeptics who want nothing to do with a religion whose practitioners seem to relish every opportunity to squabble, berate, and condemn; who strike a contentious pose on every theological issue; and who have the profoundly mistaken idea that at the heart of the Christian gospel is the doctrine of karma rather than that of grace.

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