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Tuesday, March 15, 2011

What the "heck"?

Unless you've been in an isolation cell, you are aware of the huge controversy surrounding Rob Bell and his new book. (For a lengthy review of the book, CLICK HERE)

I used to think homosexuality as sin was going to be the huge dividing line, but now I am convinced the dividing line between professing Christians is the exclusiveness of the Gospel and the reality of separation from God in a place that Jesus referred to as "hell." (although it intrigues me that the majority who side with Bell also dance on the issue of homosexuality)

Yet here is what the President of the world's largest Protestant seminary has written:

The real hellacious argument is between "generous orthodoxy and stingy orthodoxy. There are stingy people who just want to consign many others to hell and only a few to heaven and take delight in the idea. But Rob Bell allows for a lot of mystery in how Jesus reaches people."

Two observations:

1) "a lot of mystery" sounds suspiciously like the "gospel" according to Oprah who declares it is ridiculous to say there is only one way to heaven when "in fact there are many ways to whatever you consider god."

2) Like God, none who believe in "hell" should take any joy in the fact that people are going there. God "takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked." I can't "consign" anyone to hell (or heaven). As far as the word "few" is concerned, "wide is the road that leads to destruction and narrow the path that leads to eternal life and few there are that find it."


 

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