…the Bell Tolls

The kind of pro-Hell-anti-Bell spirit I’ve been seeing among some on FaceBook worries me far more than whatever Bell wrote in his book.  I might be wrong, but isn’t it rather hellish in itself when “fellowship” consists  of  communally gnashing teeth over a book, and high-five-ing each-other’s clever criticisms? These “Christians” advertise this way:

“Heaven: where all the people are Right, and congratulate each-other for it.”

Some fun.

One young thinker writes that at least Bell has forced Christians to evaluate and publish their own position on the doctrine of Hell.  Perhaps, …I’m not sure the world needs more position papers on Hell…  But what I see more of is Christians rallying around those who already have a position on the doctrine of Hell, like wolves around the Alpha. This rallying is not limited to Bell-bashers, either.

I read somewhere that John Piper posted on Twitter, “Fare well Rob Bell.”  Alpha male tweeting like Pro-Wrestlers before a game?  Quite a bit of speculation has gone on, apparently, on what Piper meant. I know about as much of his motivation as I know what Bell wrote in his book. But I was reminded of some famous lines written by John Donne:

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

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