As a pastor, you get invited into the most poignant moments of people’s lives. Whether it’s a wedding or a funeral or a hospital visit, you get invited into the center of the event, whether or not you know the people.
Rob Bell | wedding Read More »
The myth of redemptive violence – Caesar, peace, and victory – is in people’s bones so deeply, we aren’t even aware of it. You crush the opposition that’s how we bring peace.
Suffering, it turns out, demands profound imagination. A new future has to be conjured up because the old future isn’t there anymore.
Rob Bell | imagination Read More »
My parents were both very intellectually honest, straightforward, and for them, faith meant that you were fully engaged.
Well, I affirm orthodox Christian faith. I affirm the Nicene Creed. I don’t think I’m doing anything terribly new.
If it is true, if it is beautiful, if it is honorable, if it is right, then claim it. Because it is from God. And you belong to God.
Quote from Rob Bell Read More »
Our tendency in the midst of suffering is to turn on God. To get angry and bitter and shake our fist at the sky and say, “God, you don’t know what it’s like! You don’t understand! You have no idea what I’m going through. You don’t have a clue how much this hurts.” The cross is God’s way of taking away all of our accusations, excuses, and arguments.The cross is God taking on flesh and blood and saying, “Me too.
Quote from Rob Bell Read More »
As we experience this love, there is a temptation at times to become hostile to our earlier understandings, feeling embarrassed that we were so “simple” or “naive,” or “brainwashed” or whatever terms arise when we haven’t come to terms with our own story. These past understandings aren’t to be denied or dismissed; they’re to be embraced. Those experiences belong. Love demands that they belong. That’s where we were at that point in our life and God met us there. Those moments were necessary for us to arrive here, at this place at this time, as we are. Love frees us to embrace all of our history, the history in which all things are being made new.