Rob Bell, Love Wins

[Molly]

You'll be greatly blessed by it, it's still my favorite one.  How'd you download the entire thing???

Friends in high places. :winkgrin:

[shawn]

I don't think you can listen to this guy out of context.

Here's an 80 min video--I haven't listened to it yet.

Everything is Spiritual

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=77024018179262526#

Thank you for the link Molly.  I just watched it and was floored.  He articulated well things I have tried to articulate for years.  Considering I am a student of science and a man of faith I have always known the two were one, but couldn't fully explain how.  And, with all the wonderful new thoughts I can play with in my brain, I was left with one particular thing for my spirit...slow down...be.  The depth of that concept is mind boggling.  Every interaction is a spiritual act...wake up...experience...see...be.

I was richly blessed.

If you all have anymore links like that one please post them.

[Molly]

He's found his calling, that's for sure.

From Quantum Physics:

"The universe at its core is unpredictable."

"The universe at its core is some sort of relationship of energy--"


Relational energy--Sounds like this is where miracles come from..


This should make you happy, Shawn,  and, actually I am coming to this conclusion myself:

In his writings, Bell affirms things as truth regardless of the source, saying "I affirm the truth anywhere in any religious system, in any worldview. If it's true, it belongs to God."[14] However, he acknowledges Scripture as the authoritative source of truth by which to compare all other truths in the Mars Hill Bible Church statement of narrative theology.[15]

--Wikipedia


Here's one from his NOOMA series: Rhythm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQCj3UT3YH0&feature=related



This guy reminds me of Nathan. :icon_king:

[Molly]

NOOMA: Rain

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_kJpVjLwVY&playnext=1&list=PL659BC2970DBA95A1

[shawn]

Thanks for the links Molly.  I will be sure to check them out.  And yes, that does make me happy.   :bigGrin:

[Nathan]

SEE?????  I kept tellin' ya but cha wouldn't listen!!!

Molly, I want to thank you for posting that as well . . .even though I "have" seen it over and over, I have not had it so easily accessable until now . . .and I LOVE being able to get to it from work . . .and to be able to now email it out . . .thank you very much!!!

[Molly]

NOOMA:  Breathe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hm2KNXCLzqU

[thinktank]

I have heard some people say there is no v pronounced in Hebrew.


Nice clean subway he is in, makes it feel safer somehow as well.

[shawn]

NOOMA:  Breathe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hm2KNXCLzqU

When a baby is born, what is the first thing a baby must do, or this baby isn't going to make it?  Does the baby have to take a breath, or say the name of God?

I love that.

[Molly]

Rob Bell: Resurrection

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjXYlwvS5LY&feature=related

[jabcat]

So is he, or isn't he?   :scratchhead:   My conclusion;  he doesn't know for sure and he's leaving it sit there for now.


Rob Bell Denies Being a Universalist

By Lillian Kwon|Christian Post Reporter

Christianpost.com

Author Rob Bell speaks in New York City at the launch of his book tour, Monday, March 15, 2011. Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived releases Tuesday.

Just a day before the release of his controversial book on hell, Michigan pastor Rob Bell denied that he was a universalist.
Answering the straightforward question "are you a universalist?" posed by Newsweek's Lisa Miller Monday night, Bell said, "No."
"No, if by universalist we mean there's a giant cosmic arm that swoops everybody in at some point whether you want to be there or not," he elaborated.

....he has been accused of being a universalist and moving far away from traditional Christianity.
 
When pressed several times on whether he believes there is a hell, Bell only spoke of a hell on earth and provided no indication that he believes in an eternal place of punishment.

He admitted that Jesus was "unbelievably exclusive," pointing to famous statements like "I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but through me."

But Bell pointed out, "He's also fantastically inclusive," pointing to other statements Jesus made such as "I, if I am lifted up, ... will draw all people to myself" and there will be a "renewal of all things" (emphasis added).
"How exactly that pans out, that's God's job."

The Michigan pastor expressed his struggle with the concept that only a select few would make it to heaven and that billions of people would burn forever in hell.
The fundamental way most people were told about Jesus, he noted, was "God loves you, God has a wonderful plan for your life, He loves you so much that he sent Jesus because God wants a relationship with you. All you have to do is accept, trust, believe."
"If tonight, you reject what I'm saying to you and you were hit by a car on the way home, God would have no choice but to punish you eternally with torment and fire in hell. God would, in that split second, become a totally different being," he said.
"If there was an earthly father who was like that – this one moment, this the next – we would call the authorities, correct?"
"My experience as a pastor is lots of people have really toxic, dangerous, psychologically devastating images of God in their head, images of a God who's not good."

"In some sense, God being good is such a fresh, radical, new idea."
Christians, he suggested, need to return to sharing about God's love.
He asserted, "I believe there are moments when we have to return to our roots and we have to acknowledge that perhaps in some ways we've lost the plot along the way and that we need to return to the simplicity of God is love and God sent Jesus to show us this love that we might know this love, that we might extend this love to others."

But "can God be both loving and just?" one audience member asked.

"Yes," Bell responded.  "There has been this human longing and desire for God to fix the world essentially. ... There has been this longing for justice, for a day [with] God saying 'if you want to do that, out.'"
"You also have this side by side [with] God's endless affirmation; God wants everybody to be saved," he said, citing Psalm 22.
"So you have the possibility of every single person being rescued – you have this longing. And then you have this longing for justice. And they sit side by side. And if you get rid of that tension, the modern mind loves 'it's either this or [that],' ... the Hebrew mind is okay with these things being true."

In Revelation, the last book in the Bible, it describes a restored city, heaven and earth coming together and the dwelling of God being with the people. And there are people who aren't in it, Bell noted.
Yet, "there's this beautiful thing, it's almost like the writer [saying] ... wink wink, there's a gate in the city and it never shuts."
"Huh?"
"It just doesn't get resolved. It sits there. I think it's important that we let it sit there side by side."

As for heaven, he warned against turning speculation about heaven and the afterlife into dogma.
"I think it's very important for people of faith to yes, I believe in heaven; yes, I believe it's real; yes, I believe that it's somehow intermingled with this reality and yet separate in some sense in this reality. How exactly all of that works out, I don't know."

"What I find really fascinating is Jesus turns the whole discussion upside down because he comes from a very first century Jewish worldview and he keeps insisting [that] actually God is interested in restoring and renewing this world," he highlighted. "He speaks of it as sort of a real place and yet it's always heaven and earth becoming one. As opposed to how do we get there, his interest is how do we bring there here?"

In the end, Bell acknowledged that he stumbled and wandered in his attempt to answer questions.
"I'm not very smart but I do know that there is good news."

[jabcat]

Maybe he doesn't know what true Biblical UR is, i.e., everyone must eventually come through Jesus to be saved.  :dontknow:     Because although he denies being some version of universalist (Unitarian Universalism perhaps) he still says other things that sound like the door's WIDE OPEN to the possibility of Biblical Ultimate Reconciliation (the kind Apostle Paul described :). 

[Molly]

yeah, he's either sly like a fox and knows or he's gettin' there.

In Revelation, the last book in the Bible, it describes a restored city, heaven and earth coming together and the dwelling of God being with the people. And there are people who aren't in it, Bell noted.
Yet, "there's this beautiful thing, it's almost like the writer [saying] ... wink wink, there's a gate in the city and it never shuts."

[jabcat]

there's a gate in the city and it never shuts."

Exactly :)

[Nathan]

Two things . . .
I think one of the reasons why he's coming off as uncertain or unsure is because from other interviews, he's stated he hates it when people try to tag him under any certain movement.  I think this is the same thing.  He's not denouncing UR.  He's actually stating things that we beleive also.  He just doesn't see the necessity for the labeling. 

And two . . .and this one may be a bit more sensitive . . .
In growing up in an ET environment, it was ESSENTIAL back then, for us to get people to say "The sinners prayer" . .they HAD to say the magic words before we would openly profess their salvation.  It didn't matter that they agreed with our interpretation of things, but they HAD to SAY the words . . .

And now, with all of that behind us . . .it feels like we're going through that part of it all over again.  "I realize that you believe hell is not eternal . . .BUT ARE YOU UR???? 

Seriously?  If you think this through . . . if one does not believe the world is going to hell forever . . . where would they then go?  it leads to the same exact conculsion that UR is known to believe.  Are we wanting Rob to proclaimi UR as his banner so we can put a feather in our cap?  The fact that he's professing hell is not a place of eternal torment should be a celebration in and of itself because it's all connected.  Outside of that, UR is just a label and nothing more really.

[Molly]

He's calling people into a relationship with a God of love [from what I've seen of his talks].  His goal is not theology, although I heard him claim he is orthodox historically accurate Christianity.  That's why he says things like 'wink wink, there's a gate in the city and it never shuts.'  He doesn't want to get sidetracked by theology while still pointing out that God has both hands out to us all the time, even into eternity.

[redhotmagma]

I like that "orthodox historically accurate Christianity" I'd add biblically in between historically and accurate.  That sounds better than universalist, at least its more a description than, a label.  We don't want to be another denomination.  I agree with not wanting to be labeled, its just hard because thats what we do as humans is categorize.  We need to forget the ism's and ist's.

[Paul Hazelwood]

So is he, or isn't he?   :scratchhead:   My conclusion;  he doesn't know for sure and he's leaving it sit there for now.


Rob Bell Denies Being a Universalist
Answering the straightforward question "are you a universalist?" posed by Newsweek's Lisa Miller Monday night, Bell said, "No."
"No, if by universalist we mean there's a giant cosmic arm that swoops everybody in at some point whether you want to be there or not," he elaborated.

I think Bell answered the question just fine. The vast majority of people who come to tentmaker to challenge universalism think exactly what Bell says he is not.  The same goes for any traditional Christianity based forum,  the second universalism is brought up.

It is the same thing that CARM has done in the refutations of universalism made the case against it exactly in the way Bell says he is not.

I don't take on the label because when I do I spend 3 times as much effort simply trying to break down someones misunderstanding of the term.  While Bell can be accused of being one, he can simply spend his time detailing what he believes, everyone will make up thier mind and call him lots of things, no sense in making their judgments for them.  lol

[Nathan]

Paul I can't agree with you more!  The moment we use a label, we spend the next 10 minutes giving our definition of that label . . .I can soooo relate to that!!

[Nathan]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2011-03-14-hell-book-love-wins_N.htm

a storm is brewing . . . this is so exciting!!!

[thinktank]

Yes I think that Universal salvation is a bad term to use myself, it sounds too similar to new age eastern philosphy, that is where a lot of attacks are directed at, also universalism does not regard the death of Christ.

[Molly]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2011-03-14-hell-book-love-wins_N.htm

a storm is brewing . . . this is so exciting!!!

"But Richard Mouw, president of the world's largest Protestant seminary, Fuller Theological Seminary based in Pasadena, Calif., calls Love Wins "a great book, well within the bounds of orthodox Christianity and passionate about Jesus.

The real hellacious fight, says Mouw, a friend of Bell, a Fuller graduate, 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.""

[legoman]

There are several advanced reviews of Rob's book out on the web.  Here's a "negative" review:
http://www.bloggingtheologically.com/2011/03/09/book-review-love-wins-by-rob-bell/

Select quotes from the above review:

"You may want to read that again.  It really says that. And it really means what you think it means."
"Does Rob Bell deny the existence of hell? He would say no. We would say yes."

The reviewer is obviously of the ET tradition.

According to what I read I think its safe to say that Rob believes in universal reconciliation/salvation.  For example He talks about Matt 25:46 and says it is not eternal hell but an "intense period of pruning".  He also gets into the aion/aionios thing. 

He may not wish to present himself as and even deny being a "universalist" because that is a label that comes with a lot of different baggage.  But he is definitely presenting ideas of UR that are discussed daily here on tentmaker.  Whether he can present the message of UR in a strong and convincing manner remains to be seen, but the exposure will be awesome.

[legoman]

IMABHO (In my admittedly brief humble opinion) looking into this he is full UR, doesn't want to be labelled a "universalist", and is strategically trying to bring this message out so as not to lose the moment of opportunity (look what happened to Carlson Pearson - was that his name?). 

Granted even within UR there are different views on what "hell" is - metaphorically speaking this world could be called a type of "hell" which I believe is what Rob is suggesting.

[Miriam]

Yes I think that Universal salvation is a bad term to use myself, it sounds too similar to new age eastern philosphy, that is where a lot of attacks are directed at, also universalism does not regard the death of Christ.

Please could you and maybe some others explain why you think universal salvation is a bad term to use and what term we should be using instead and why? What's the difference between universal salvation and universal reconciliation?