Well, it took me a little longer than I expected it would, what with Easter and some other events cutting in to some of the time that I had hope I could have used to finish this book in a timely manner. It is a fast read, but with my self-diagnosed ADD and everything going on, it only took 7 weeks to read this book. I enjoyed it thoroughly, however.
When I wrote the post on the promotional video and the feedback from it in March, I mentioned that I thought it was silly to label someone as a heretic from a 2:30 min video that only scratched the surface of a larger work. It would probably be a series of 45 minute to 1 hour long sermons actually, the way that they are formatted. After having read the book from cover to cover, I still think this is a silly premise. My own theology doesn't have anything to say in disagreement with what Bell is trying to communicate. I believe that God is an all loving God. I believe that we get in the way of God trying to love us by not listening and not trusting what God has to say to us. I also believe that God's love is much bigger than we can fathom. The God seen in parts of the Old Testament is often one that incites the fear of retribution...but if you take a deeper look, the God that we read about in the Old Testament is really a God much like what we see in the New Testament in Jesus. We have a choice to make...accept God's love and trust the good things that God has in store for us or reject them and not trust the good things God has for us and create for ourselves a hell that is not that unlike what Dante describes in his Inferno, only in a figurative sense.
I'm not going to say much more than this because I believe that more people should read the book and form an opinion about it rather and take my word for it. But I will leave you with an excerpt:
"Hell is our refusal to trust God's retelling of our story.
We all have our version of events. Who we are, who we aren't, what we've done, what that means for our future. Our worth, value significance. The things we believe about ourselves that we cling to despite the pain and agony they're causing us.
Some people are haunted by the sins of the pas. Abuse, betrayal, addiction, infidelity- secrets that have been buried for years. I can't tell you how many people I've met over the years who said they couldn't go to a church service, because 'the rood would cave in' or 'there would be a lightning bolt.'
Flaws, failures, shame like a stain that won't wash out. A deep-seated, profound believe that they are, at some primal level of the soul, not good enough.
For others, it isn't their acute sense of their lack or inadequacy or sins; it's their pride. Their ego. They're convinced of their own greatness and autonomy - they don't need anybody. Often the belief that God, Jesus, church, and all that is for the 'weak ones,' the ones who can't make it in the world, so they cling to religious superstitions and myths like a drug, a crutch, a way to avoid taking responsibility for their pathetic lives.
We believe all sorts of things about ourselves.
What the gospel does is confront our version of our story with God's version of our story.
It is a brutally honest,
exuberantly liberating story,
and it is good news.
It begins with the sure and certain truth that we are loved.
That in spite of whatever has gone horribly wrong deep in our hearts and has spread to every corner of the world, in spite of our sins, failures, rebellion, and hard hearts, in spite of what's been done to us or what we've done, God has made peace with us." (pp170-172)
Enjoy!
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