Jonah…?  The guy in the belly of the whale?   Yup, him.  So why Jonah and why now?  In order to get there from here, there’s a bunch of background…

Currently, in the Christian blogsphere, there is a big uproar going on regarding Rob Bell, the pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, MI.  He is the author a some popular books, and he has a new one coming out soon called Love Wins.  Here is the promo video for the book.

Now admittedly, there are a lot of questions asked, but not answered in this video.  The description of the book is this:

A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.

Rob Bell addresses one of the most controversial issues of faith—the afterlife—arguing, would a loving God send people to eternal torment forever…? With searing insight, Bell puts hell on trial, and his message is decidedly hopeful—eternal life doesn’t start when we die; it starts right now. And ultimately, Love Wins.

Mysterious, tantalizing, provoking are a few of the words that come to mind.  Something to make us think, as well as hopefully buy the book.  But there has been such a harsh backlash from his critics.  Let’s  make no mistake, Rob Bell is no poster child for Reformed Theology.  His views have been under fire from the Reformed crowd for quite some time.  I have not yet had the privilege to read any of his books yet, but due to all the positive and negative hype about the upcoming one, I’ll be sure to pick that up.  As part of the “emergent church” group, there are a lot of criticisms that gets leveled at pastors like Rob Bell, and many of them are probably appropriate.  There’s a fine line between wanting to “be all things to all people, so that I may save some” and the consumerization of the church.  We can’t afford to water down the message of the gospel, but at the same time, there are many Christians today who hold their particular “systematic theology” in just as much reverence as the Bible itself.  A quote I read recently on that topic:

“As with any systematic theology, we must remember to view our system in light of and under the authority of Scripture and not see Scripture under the authority of the system.”

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