attempts to complicate

Despite the fact that I know that it's big time of controversy was a few years ago, I've recently started reading Rob Bell's "Love Wins", mostly because I found it at a library so didn't have to pay anything for it. Truth be told, I've only read the first few pages of it, but those pages have told me quite enough about what he's trying to do.

Let me try to explain...

In the game of Go, there is a certain principle. In Go, the aim is to arrange stones in such a way as to control points of territory, and the player with the most territory wins the game (to make it fair, the player with the white stones is given some extra points, to make things interesting, but the general idea is still the same). Although capturing an opponent's stones and making sure your own are secure does play into it, the main thing is territory.

Now, as a game progresses, territorial frameworks will develop. Players will arrange their stones rather like fenceposts, marking off certain areas that they exercise a degree of control over. It may not be perfect control, it may be better to think of it as potential territory until it has been completely secured, but it is enough for the time to claim the a player has X points of territory under control. After a while, both players can determine which may have more potential territory, and which has less.

The principle I mentioned before is this, that the player with the great amount of territory will want to play in a quiet and secure way, because if all goes quiet that player will win, while the one who is behind will want to complicate things, attack and exploit weaknesses in the opponent's frameworks, and so make up lost ground, cause the opponent to make mistakes, and gain territory for himself or herself.

What Rob Bell does in "Love Wins" is to try to confuse and complicate things. In those first few pages, he attempts to pile question on top of questions, exploit real of imagined faults in his opponent's teachings, claim even that the questions that cause the confusion are what are important.
He is, in fact, acknowledging

that he is

playing

from behind,

in the

losing

position, that, really

all he can

do is to raise a ruckus

and hopefully cause people

to question

and not worry about an

swers.

Oh, and he does weird things with paragraphs, like that. Not sure why. I guess it's suppose to be cool, or something.

In fact, coming right down to it, it seems like Bell's confusion tactics pretty much sum up the whole postmodern and emergent way of thinking and arguing as a whole.
Why else would they be so much against answers, except that they know that the answers would not be what they want them to be? Of course, it's a trick on their part, because they very much like the answers they themselves create. The only time they are all into the exercise of confusing people with questions is when they don't like the answers.

And so, because the Bible teaches quite a bit about Hell, and because Jesus Himself tells us about the reality of Hell, and because Rob Bell doesn't like the idea of Hell, Bell spends the first few pages of the Book trying to confuse us, even to the point of implicating God if He should dare to have some place like Hell where He would dare to send unbelievers to.

And hasn't complicating things been one of the Devil's big tactics? Instead of one transcendant and imminent God, why, give people pantheons of gods, gods in every tree and every creek, gods in the sky and gods under the earth, gods who are nice and even more that are vindictive and nasty, gods that are far away and gods that are causing your neighbor to acts really strange. Instead of believe in one true God who has revealed Himself to us, why, give people all kinds of religions, ones that are about the here and now and others that are about the next life (even if that next life is in the here and now again), ones that are calm and others that are chaotic, ones that focus inward and others that focus outwards. Heck, even ones that have no god at all, or rather that make man or chance (for what else is evolution but the enthroning of chance in the place of a god) the object of adoration and worship.

Bell claims at one point that orthodox Christianity is on the side of people like himself, which is like saying the orthodox Christianity is on the side of the heretics. I give him credit for brazenness, but that's about it.

mclaren's idea of a good question?

Q & R: Shake your hand at Wild Goose Festival, guilt/cynicism, maybe the best hell question I've received

Your hell question is, I think, among the best I've ever received.

Well, high praise indeed, I suppose, from McLaren. What, we may right ask, was this highly-praised query?

Why do you think all of those who vehemently defend eternal concious torment in the afterlife for the vast majority of humanity never live like they believe it. It seems to me that if they really believed it, they would never have kids (to spare them the large chance that they would experience ECT) and that they would spend every moment of their life screaming and frantically running around trying to rescue people. I've heard of these logically consistent people, but have never met one. Why do you think this is?

That's it? That's the question McLaren things is so good?

So, let's see--if you believe in Hell, and that it's eternal, you shouldn't have children? And you should go about like a maniac all the time, trying to rescue people?

First, upon what basis are Christians who believe in eternal punishment in Hell suppose to not have children? Upon the basis of fear? That's logical? No, this is asinine, silly, pathetic.

Children are a gift from God. Children are a blessing. They are also a responsibility. They will not raise themselves, but godly parents are to raise them to respect and love and fear God. Yes, even the aspect of their eternal destiny is a responsibility, and they are the ones who have a great say in that themselves, but Christians are commanded to live in faith in God, and not to cave in to fear and the nonsense behind this person's question.

Much the same could be said about the second part. There are many Christians who have gone to places where the Gospel has been little known or not known at all, and have presented the Gospel to those people.

But running around like a chicken with its head cut off will not work. There is a point at which we have done out duty, the Gospel has been presented, and after that, it's time to stop playing umpteen-zillion chorus during the altar call, to stop trying to manipulate. We may pray that they will respond differently later on, that perhaps God will grant them repentence, even an apostate like McLaren. But antics and theatrics on our parts will do no good.

So, I find McLaren's 'best' question to be little more than rubbish.