Confessions of a Quirky Christian Artist

I bought Rob Bell’s scandalous new book titled Love Wins because my wife was interested in reading it. It’s causing a ruckus because it directly questions eternal hell doctrine, though Bell insists that he’s not a Universalist. Well, since I passed that point a long time ago this book really doesn’t hold much interest to me. From what I’ve read, and heard from others, this book is not aimed at my demographic. I own 5 or 6 books on Universalism that do what Love Wins apparently does not. Which is to lay out an argument for a particular theology, present the verses that support it, present the ones used to dispute it, explain why those ones don’t actually mean what opponents say they mean, talk about the history of the idea and explore its ramifications. Since I’m past the timid questioning of inherited-doctrine stage I don’t have time to retread it in Bell’s book. I just wanted to note that the title is brilliant. Besides being short, memorable, and explanatory enough to...

I was mining an old blog for this, but added enough content to consider it worth posting. http://www.examiner.com/x-19272-Seattle-Faith--Agnosticism-Examiner~y2009m9d2-Out-on-a-limb No one knows anything. At least that’s my belief. (It obviously can’t be known.) I’ve been building a case that we human types can’t attain absolute certainty in anything. This is a form of skepticism that has always been with us. My basic assertion is that I believe in ultimate Truth, but doubt our ability to apprehend and interpret it perfectly. That is: there are facts out there, and we intuitively feel that we know them… Stuff like the weather, the color of things, how old we are, etc. When I say that I doubt our ability to apprehend these sorts of things I’m not saying that I think all our assumptions are untrue, or that the chances are high that we are wrong. No. I think that when it looks and feels like it’s raining, it really is raining. I’m only leaving the door open for the possibility that we are...