Rob
Bell continues to write about God more like a journalist for National
Geographic reporting on his travels to an exotic and seldom-explored land than
like a philosophical academic piecing together an exposition of difficult but
important concepts. Readers
expecting a theology of boundaries and rigid structures will be disappointed or
annoyed. Readers who are open to
seeing Bell’s portrait of a dear friend, painted in broad strokes, will find
here a record of love and joy.
This is a faithful and true record of walking with God rather than
dissecting him.
To
read this book as objective theology can lead to at least two errors: rejecting it as a sloppy amalgam of
sentimental heresies or accepting it as a rejection of careful orthodoxy.
Bell’s
service to academic theology here is at least twofold: 1) he puts the reader back into the
position of walking with God rather than examining him under a microscope; and
2) he describes dynamics of God’s action that more academic theologies often
ignore. Indeed, the central thesis
of the book asserts and expounds this gap in the usual treatments of God’s
character. That God is with us,
for us, and ahead of us (the theses of the three central chapters) forms the
basis of his case that many both inside and outside the church have badly
misunderstood God.
His
target is not standard orthodox Christian theology, but the distorted
impressions of it that non-Christians or burned-out Christians often have. One could complain that he is attacking
a straw man, but he gives us reason to believe that this particular straw man
is very powerful in our culture.
Read
Rob Bell’s work for what it is, not for what it isn’t. Listen to what he intends to do,
imperfect as it is, for he has a heart for God and for God’s people.
