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Rob Bell, Christianity Popular and Out of Context...

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:

Comments

Colleen said…
What do you mean by "will science be next?"
...I wonder when the current generation of Americans will start to descend into a kind of heretical approach to science, much like in the years before Frazer penned the Golden Bough; I think even the scientific understanding of the average person could become so altered by guess and convenience to become not essentially true for people...things that were fading away [like the wives tale that you cannot get pregnant the first time you have intercourse] could come back and become even stronger...superstitious thinking could one day again abound!
mtspace said…
Sometimes there's a great deal of truth in falsehood. Fully half the people who engage in sexual intercourse for the first time will not get pregnant. And a good portion of the remaining half won't either. Humans can be pretty bad at reasoning about things for which there is low probability, about things for which there is no evidence, and about things that have not yet happened.

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.
...While I agree that it should NOT be a line of disagreement or warfare, I feel strongly that what traditional [apostolic] Christians are getting at [myself included] is that we believe in a hell and a judgement...But it is God's judgment, and not ours...we are trying to teach others and encourage them to follow Jesus, because there is no other way out of the problem...others can disagree--but we should never fight with them or wage war over such a disagreement...its like what Yuri Zhivago says in the David Lean film version, "I disagree with what you say but not enough to kill you for it!" I think Christians who are convinced of "Hell's" realities [And, really, it is not hell that anyone should fear--its eternal separation from God and the lake of fire...one wonders if Rob Bell really has read the Bible]have a hope that others will be able to avoid it!
James said…
Hey! I posted a comment about Rob Bell, but I can't find it here. I guess I really don't know my way around here yet. Can anyone enlighten me?
James said…
I wonder if I forgot to click a final time.
Jim
Maybe the system was down...I could not find a comment that was not processed..you could
try it again...

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