Had I known that this was going to be such a dissenting issue I might have stayed away, I say might because I do not know that in the end I could have stayed silent on such an important issue as Gods grace and love. Our corps (which is still in it’s infancy as a church plant) is built on this understanding of Gods grace and love.
What really gets me is that with his book, Rob Bell makes a contribution to an ongoing conversation. He really isn’t saying anything that has already been said by the likes of Brennan Manning, Wayne Jacobsen, Marcus Borg, N.T. Wright, Brian Mclaren, Eugene Peterson, Jay Bakker and notably C.S. Lewis. But suddenly the evangelical beast has awakened and instead of entering into the conversation demands to know where you stand on the Rob Bell issue.
I agree with the image of God that Bell is portraying, I am not sure I agree on the specifics of Bell’s Hell. However, in the polemic debate that does not matter; You are either for Bell or against heresy. The conversation is thus silenced within the ranks of the “orthodox” evangelical church. If you want to stay in the conversation you must move out into the wild, outside of the box, outside of organised religion.
What if I want to discuss this? What if I want to be able to think outside the box even though I live inside it?
