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'These fragments I have shored against my ruins' (TS Eliot, The Waste Land)
Browsing All posts tagged under »Eschatology«
Rob Bell 8
Bell’s next chapter is entitled ‘Does God get what God wants?’ The title begs the question, of course: what does God want? As I said before, I take it that the real subject of the book is theology proper. Who is God? What does God want? We begin with statements of faith from church websites, […]
Rob Bell, Love Wins 7: hell
March 28, 2011
Chapter 3 of Bell’s book turns to hell. I have read this chapter several times, and I confess that I am struggling to see how it fits together. I think Bell is aiming at two, widely separated, targets, and so is in danger of missing both. On the one hand, he wants to take on […]
Rob Bell: Loves Wins 6: Heaven
March 22, 2011
Chapter 2 of the book discusses heaven. As various people have pointed out, the approach is very reminiscent of that of my colleague Tom Wright. I think Tom is just right on most of these questions (I’d say that even if I wasn’t with him and Maggie for dinner this evening…), but let’s hear Bell […]
Rob Bell, Love Wins 5
March 21, 2011
One more post on chapter 1, looking again at complaints about Bell’s ‘orthodoxy.’ The chapter begins with a story that Bell told in the promotional video, and which has therefore become famous. An art exhibition at church included an exhibit with a quotation from Gandhi; someone attached a post-it note reading ‘Reality check: he’s in […]
Rob Bell, Love Wins 2
March 19, 2011
The ‘Preface,’ entitled ‘Millions of Us’ contains one of the passages that has already become notorious – entirely wrongly, in my view. I’ll get to that. Bell begins with the comment ‘I believe that Jesus’s story is first and foremost about the love of God for every single one of us.’ (p. vii) I struggle […]
Rob Bell, Love Wins
March 19, 2011
Was ever a book so eagerly awaited? Well, yes, actually, quite a few. And most of the problem with this one is there was not much awaiting visible before people formed, and published, their views of it. So much easier to judge – in either direction – if you don’t have any facts to get […]
Divine generosity
December 23, 2009
To begin with, a little Christmas quiz. Who wrote the following? I am fully persuaded that the vast majority of the human race will share in the beatitudes and glories of our Lord’s redemption. I’ve noticed a few Methodist friends who blog following a meme asking them to post five things they love about being […]
Pushing the atonement to the limit?
September 24, 2009
(What follows is a summary of a paper I’ve been meaning to write for several years now, but never got around to. If anybody is interested enough to comment, I’d be happy to know if it would be worth actually doing…) The doctrine of limited atonement seems largely forgotten by mainstream academic theology today. Actually, […]
Pastoral eschatology
May 25, 2008
More thoughts on eschatology… I am fully convinced–and became so in pastoral ministry, performing funerals–that we cannot and should not speculate about the eternal fate of any particular person. God will judge, and (my other Spring Harvest soundbite) when we see God’s judgement we will be astonished by the depths of His mercy, and by […]
On the lack of eschatological regret
May 22, 2008
In a public conversation with Ian Coffey (at this conference), I hit upon a phrase, quite by accident, which I’ve been musing on since. A vital theme in Christian eschatology is an adequate account of ‘the lack of eschatological regret’. That is, it seems to me a necessary part of the experience of eternal life […]
Shored Fragments 
March 30, 2011
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