Rob Bell, Love Wins, and what Bell isn’t saying

The rapture in Dallas
The rapture in Dallas | Via boingboing.com

With Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person who Ever Lived (available in hardcover, Kindle, audio version) creating such a stir, and pastors across the country rushing to warn their congregations about the book, I thought it would be worthwhile to take a look at some of the major accusations I’ve heard and give a little insight into what I believe Bell is really saying.

(You may want to read my first post – Rob Bell, Love Wins and why I hope he’s right before continuing.)

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that this isn’t a full scope of what Bell is or isn’t saying — but perhaps it will encourage those of you who are getting over your certainty to take the time to read the book for yourself and make your own opinions about what’s inside it.
Continue reading Rob Bell, Love Wins, and what Bell isn’t saying

Rob Bell, Love Wins and why I hope he’s right

love wins
love wins

So Rob Bell has a new book out. It’s caused a firestorm of controversy and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it and read it for myself.

And now I have.

But before I give you my overview of Rob Bell’s latest book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person who Ever Lived (available in hardcover, Kindle, audio version), perhaps it would be fair to give you a little perspective as to where I’m coming from.
Continue reading Rob Bell, Love Wins and why I hope he’s right

22 songs about Heaven

Gunn's Camp

Artists always have a great way of bringing out theology through their art.

I always love art that makes me asks questions. That helps me wrestle with life and the tough stuff, the muck and the mire.

Art forces you to re-consider. To look at all of life differently.
Continue reading 22 songs about Heaven

How I found heaven at What-a-Burger (hint – it’s in me)

Me in the morning :: Wednesday's Whatastudy

As part of our weekly What-a-Study men’s group on Wednesday mornings, we’ve been chewing on Ephesians for the last several weeks.

We’ve been taking it chunk by chunk, roughly 10-15 verses at a time and chewing on the passages with the symbol study that Aaron suggested a while back.

So this past week we were focused on the first portion of Ephesians 2 (Eph 2:1-10).
Continue reading How I found heaven at What-a-Burger (hint – it’s in me)

Monday Briefs

briefs1

Highlights of the week ::
Well it wasn’t anything we originally planned, but Laurie and I were able to celebrate our second anniversary on Friday and Saturday night. Friday night we made our annual visit to Outback Steakhouse and enjoyed some great steak, a bloomin’ onion, a large Foster beer (for me) and a desert sampler (for her – even though I probably ate more than her). We then came home and watched Bride Wars while snuggling on the couch (in case you wanted to know).

Saturday we had plans to go to Fort Worth for the day, but because of the forecasted rain, I did yard work and she did a few things around the house, like ironing some shirts for me (THANKS!). Then we decided to enjoy some Royal Burgers at Red Robin. Then we came home and snuggled on the couch again, watching Slumdog Millionaire.

Hopefully we’ll be able to make our planned day trip to Fort Worth before too long.

Quote I’m diggin and chewing on ::
“A Christian should be able to go to the White House, a crack house, their momma’s house or any house and come out with their integrity, vision, compassion, and commitment to justice intact.

If the Kingdom of God is within you, then everywhere you go you should leave a little heaven behind. People will know you to be a heaven leaver. You can learn to love your crooked neighbor with your own crooked heart because you’re connected to a power and grace greater than your ego.”

Dr. Cornel West

I’m wondering and chewing on this: I leaving a bit of heaven or hell online, offline, in your house, in my house, in my car, in my marriage, in my relationships, in my family, in my job, in my church?

Movies of recent days ::
Three movies in three days?! That’s just unheard of around these parts! But as I mentioned above, we watched Bride Wars and Slumdog Millionaire this weekend and then I watched The Wrestler on Sunday afternoon.

Bride Wars was as expected, a “chick-flick.” I think Laurie liked it but said it wasn’t one she’d go out and buy.

Slumdog Millionaire was really good in my mind. Something different and challenging. Showed a side of India that we don’t typically see and also challenged me to continue thinking about how we so often slap labels on people far too quickly.

The Wrestler was OK but as I mentioned on Facebook, not one I’d watch with my parents :-). It was a bit crude at times and having one of the main characters working at a strip club didn’t help the matter. From the little I know, it was pretty accurate to the story of the indie wrestling scene. I think I kept waiting to see the redemption story in the movie but I don’t feel like it ever came. Perhaps (for those who’ve seen it) Ram’s redemption came in pushing through and living out his passion, with a finger to the rest of the world or maybe there was another sub-narrative I missed. Or perhaps there was no redemption story. What’d you think?

#nanowrimo update ::
I finally finished the first edit of my novel, St. Peter’s Brewery. I still have a couple spots I want to re-work, but now I can start making the edits from my read-through as well as the others several other folks submitted. If I can stay on task, perhaps the book will be ready for release by July? We’ll hope so.

Looking forward to ::
I can’t actually think of much right now that I’m looking forward to. Seems a bit depressing? I’ll keep you posted if I can think of something.

Till next week….

God’s dinner party

dinner

God, who gets invited to dinner at your place? How do we get on your guest list?

“Walk straight, act right, tell the truth.
Don’t hurt your friend, don’t blame your neighbor; despise the despicable.
Keep your word even when it costs you, make an honest living, never take a bribe.
You’ll never get blacklisted if you live like this.”

(Psalm 15)