Review: Love Wins by Rob Bell

I know this book has been out for a while and I am late to the party as usual but this is what I have to say about the book after reading once through.

I really didn’t expect anything different from Bell. I have read his previous three books and this one just fits in well with the others. The only difference is that this one hit a lot of buttons with people. It makes me wonder if whether someone is going to Heaven or Hell is more important than Jesus. It was a quick read, roughly took me around three hours to complete over a couple of days. I really didn’t have issues with a lot of what he was saying though I haven’t gone back through a second time to look over the scripture references he gave for his views.

I read a review of this book where the reviewer mentioned that Bell seems to just want to have a conversation with people and is not laying this out to be obeyed. I would have to agree with that point. Bell is just asking questions about how the gospel has been presented with regards to heaven and hell. He asks good questions and is trying to give a different response than what’s already been given. Though his responses are not new because as he says Christianity is very wide and deep and there are lots of other ways of thinking about Jesus, and life lived through him, than just from a Western perspective.

I wonder about how much emphasis we put on life after this one. It’s as if the only reason we accept what Jesus did for us so that we can reap the benefits once we leave this life. Or maybe it’s because we believe that there will be some justification for our belief in Jesus and what we have done in his name that heaven will be our reward and those that didn’t will receive punishment. Because how fair would that be if I did all the rights things, or jumped through all the hoops, and yet those who didn’t do all that received the same reward? It is almost like the whole heaven and hell debate is a retelling of the story of the two sons in Luke 15:11-32.

I think this book is the beginning of a conversation we should be having on this subject. There are a lot of things that I think Bell left out. For instance he doesn't get into all the messy details in the First Testament when God punishes people with death, either when God does it himself or wants Israel to do the violence. Things aren't black and white and so we need to have conversations over the gray areas. Bell addresses the overall perspective that is prevalent in the West and addresses it at the metanarrative level. Also, it would be nice if he would have referenced some of the quotes and sources he uses to defend his perspective. Though I think we would have to look into the books he list for further reading for that. Still it's not an excuse for saying someone believed or said something without leaving a marker for us to read and learn from ourselves. This isn't a scholarly 8oo-page dissertation on the subject and we need to keep that in perspective. As a conversation starter it fits the bill and we should read it as such.

Review: A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life by Parker J. Palmer

A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life by Parker J. Palmer

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


In A Hidden Wholeness Parker Palmer explains that to have our divided lives become whole we need community. This view of community has a particular shape to it. First is to understand and acknowledge that we live divided lives. Second, we look at how we started out as children living an undivided life that became divided when we started to ignore our own truth. Third, we realize that to rejoin our soul with our role in life we need to combine our solitary journey with relationships to others. Fourth, we need to create spaces between us in our communities to allow the soul to show up on its own terms. Fifth, through this process we will be able to walk the path of nonviolence in our everyday lives.

One of the main strengths of this book is that Palmer shows us how often we stifle ours and other's souls because we use our words and gestures to manipulate the situation in our favor. It is hard work to leave debate at the door and to ask open ended questions to allow their inner teacher to speak without us trying to fix or save them.

A weakness I find in this book is the absence of God. Speaking of soul, which is a very spiritual/religious word, and not speaking of the relation between the soul and God is a missed opportunity to me. I know that 'inner teacher' is a Quaker phrase that refers to the Holy Spirit that resides in us, but for Palmer not to mention that makes the journey spirit-filled but not God-filled. Being part of a community that is a part of Christianity as a whole means that Quakers have something specific to say about a specific God and not 'spirituality' in general. Without Christ's incarnation and death and the subsequent sending of the inner teacher Palmer would have nothing to say. Without this specification our inner teacher is nothing more than our conscience.



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Review: New Monasticism: What It Has to Say to Today's Church

New Monasticism: What It Has to Say to Today's Church by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Wilson-Hartgrove is telling us about a movement of new monasticism happening in America. He points out that this is not really 'new' because this type of living and doing has been happening here in the States for a while. It just hasn't been hitting the media radars so that is why it comes across as an underground movement.



This time though is a little bit different than the other monastic movements that have been happening. This time they are relocating to the edges of the Empire, sharing a common rule of life and economic goods, giving hospitality to the stranger, caring for the earth, and being peacemakers in a world of war. They are not making a big deal about the choices they are making to live, but are trying to follow a different way than other Christians are living. Wilson-hartgrove does not say that we are all to live the way he and other new monastics are living, but to think, really think, about it. There are a lot of good morsels to chew on and is well worth a second and even a third read.



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Bill Ford on Innovative Cars

So, at first I was interested because I wanted to know what someone in the auto industry was going to say about automobiles in the future. When he finally got around to his point I was disappointed. If we are going to have an explosion of people within the next generation or two I don't think having smart cars is going to help any of the problems with limited space that we will be running into. I understand that cars play an important part of a lot of people's lives (I for one have to drive thirty miles a day to work. I live in the Mid-West), but maybe looking at transportation differently would help. Are making more cars necessary? (The irony is that I work for a company that makes parts for Honda vehicles) I can understand that certain parts of the world, and this country, need vehicles because things are more spread out, but do we need more cars clogging up streets in major cities? Bill mentioned a traffic jam in China that took 11 days to clear out! Obviously something has to change.

Now I do not have any answers to the questions we need to be asking concerning transportation in the near future, but we must think of different forms of transportation instead of using our current forms and tweaking them. Henry Ford came up with a different form of transportation that revolutionized the transportation industry. We need another idea like that today.