Good Morning
I have been reading about Pastor Rob Bell - Pastor Bell has written a book in which he asserts that there IS NO HELL - while quoting scriptures out of context [and very fluidly] to make his point - Below is a link to a NY TIMES article about him [TIME magazine made it the cover story a week ago].
This stands out for me as one of the greatest problems for the Dialogue, and society; how to approach examples in which a newer "form" of Christianity becomes popular but in total disregard for traditional and even explicit, foundational, Church teaching...there appear to be, in the mind of many, no Essentials to anything...Will science be next?
See:
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College-bound high school students typically do confuse hell with science, finding the study of the latter to be a kind of confirmation of the former.
Belief in either one can produce positive results. Without science this conversation would be taking place around a fire, or not at all. Without hell people who have not studied moral thought and formulated beliefs that are consistent with good social cohesion and good conscience would tend to behave in ways that are destructive to themselves and to others. Both science and hell are useful ideas within certain realms.
But both break down outside their realms. Belief in science where science does not illuminate the path makes us believe we can see where we are blind. That makes us stumble more confidently that we should, leading to more painful failures. Belief in hell that draws the line in the sand too brightly leads to religious intolerance, crusades, inquisitions, purges, beheadings, tortures, thirty-years wars, intifadas, terrorism, and more cruelty than a person should imagine.
The devil is in the details.
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