Sunday 27 March 2011

So I'm reading that controversial book.

UPDATE (March 2013) - I finally did the rest of the review on this book... even if it is two years later! Better late than never, right? Go and read it now!

Love Wins by Rob Bell
I ordered this a while ago and had been waiting in anticipation for it to arrive. "Love Wins: A book about heaven, hell, and the fate of every person who ever lived" by Rob Bell has been causing quite a stir on the interwebs various corners. I'm sure it's not new news to anyone who listens and watches these things that a few major church leaders quite openly condemned this book and its author because of its subject - before it had even been released and read!


Anyway, old news. What I want to talk about is what I have read so far. Right now I am half way through the book and still I'm not really sure what the controversy is about. All the nay-sayers were ranting about Rob Bell now being a "universalist" and that he'd thrown out hell and all that. Well I just read the chapter on hell and here's a quote from it:
"There is hell now, and there is hell later, and Jesus teaches us to take both seriously." (pg. 79)
So... where's the controversy? In that he says all the injustice, pain, torment, hate, tears, and death that we experience now in this lifetime is just as equal to hell being now as hell being a future place of such things? That when we give up all things good, humane, decent, moral, divine, that we have in some form or other just created a type of hell on earth scenario for people to live in?

I don't really see anything so controversial about that.

Jesus calls us to do the opposite of these things in the here and now - to bring justice, righteousness, peace, love, morality and goodness to this world now in the form of the Good News, as bringing the Kingdom of God to people around us right now in our very actions. Our actions bring a little bit of heaven and its principles and realities to this reality in this time.
Is it then so hard to think that the opposite can be true? That a little bit of "hell" can be brought to this present reality by our actions that remove those Kingdom principles?

Take a look at the world around us and ask yourself that question.


I'll write more once I've finished the book.

Sunday 20 March 2011

Another Shameless Plug

I'll cut to the chase:

My brand new, very first publication, The Three, is now available on Amazon for Kindle!

You can get it here (a free sample is also available): (or go to the US Kindle store: http://amzn.to/fFrqBG)

Now to fill this blog out with something else to make it seem like its not all about plugging my new eBook: a little background.
I've been writing stories pretty much all my life. I like to tell stories. When I was really young I'd write small stories and make little "books". That developed into comics and for many years I would draw a comic series that I began in about 1997 and continued until early 2000's, which I then turned into three PC RPG/Adventure games.
Then in 2005 I wrote this story (The Three) for an online short story competition - and came in first place! In 2007 I wrote another for another competition called Message in a Bottle which came in 2nd place. In 2009 I wrote another story, called 'Love, Ire and Alcohol'... and as I write this I'm seeing a pattern emerge of when I seem to write! Especially as the latest story (called 'Obsession') I am currently half-way through writing is being written in 2011!
Of course, all of these will be available on Amazon Kindle store. 'The Three', and 'Message in a Bottle' (the coming next story) have and are being re-edited and re-written in places as they were originally done with competition word-limit restrictions, so now I'm releasing them to the public I thought I'd take the opportunity to expand on the stories where I couldn't before.

So there you have it, a little background about me and my writing!

Shameless Plug

"The Three" - Available soon on Kindle



"Moving to a sleepy village in Cornwall was meant to be a nice new start for Katie. That was until a rainy day changed everything in a single moment, making her life change in ways she could never have anticipated. Now with secrets about the world around her being revealed, how will Katie cope with all the new information? Life would never be the same again."

Short Story: Action & Adventure, Fantasy - 6684 words.

Wednesday 9 March 2011

Organic Church

I was reading an article on Christianity Today (amongst other blogs) earlier on about the subject of "organic church" and its possible success and probable future failures. Now, I'll admit I didn't (don't?) know a great deal about organic church other than I've heard the name thrown about before. According to the article it includes " at least three ingredients" to be counted as "organic". First being "Frustration with the-church-as-we-know-it" - well I'm sure there's quite a few people who would fall into that category, I know I do! The second ingredient for this recipe for church is "a focus on people (vs. programs)" - now this is another point I reckon a fair few church-goers could relate to. I know we like to say the focus is on people, but there are times that come to mind where it's meant to have been about the people, but the project became the focus. With phrases like "it's our baby" and taking all the ownership of a project too heavily. Not that feeling a sense of ownership is necessarily a bad thing, but maybe when having a project means more to you than the impact it's having on the people it was initially intended for, then maybe it has become a bad thing and the program or project defines you rather than the other way around. We all like control and the feeling of our own little empires, but I believe Jesus was more about giving up those desires to follow the Kingdom and its principles - which is definitely people focussed. If a program isn't reaching people in a positive way, yet we cling onto keeping it alive and running, then we have lost the focus and care more for our own thing than for people.
I'm not saying all churches are like this, far from it, just that we ought to be aware of such things happening. Especially if we are serious about "doing" church right, doing it "the Jesus way" (if there is such a thing), expanding the Kingdom, being people focussed - being organic.
The third ingredient for this church-pie is "mission (vs. institutional maintenance)". Again, another heavily focussed people initiative, which is very similar to the second point, but at the same time much broader. Whereas programs are internal structures for members and maybe external but select groups of people, mission should be global. However local, local church may be, the mission field is still all the places outside of the church doors, and therefore global and not confined to a particular group of people. Yes, I'm aware that mission trips etc are often focussed in a particular area, or people group, but that doesn't take away from the fact that mission is a global endeavour - Jesus' words "to the ends of the earth" should echo through the very core of mission, and indeed, the Church as a whole in terms of where we should be going and aiming for.
Now contrast this with "institutional maintenance" - however you define that, it definitely doesn't sound much like "mission". Should we really be trying to maintain an institution? Is that really what people want in or as a church? But the real question I think is this: do non-church people want an institution?
The Church, the spiritual movement, that Jesus began and that was continued through the apostles should be transformational to people's lives. The love, grace and healing power that comes through Jesus is what should define and change people in the Church and those that come to be a part of it. Institution breeds apathy and comfort that's easy. A place that we can proclaim to be a part of and attend each week, and maybe on a Tuesday and Thursday as well for Bible study and prayer from 7.30 until 9.30pm. If we're honest with ourselves, after reading the Gospels and Acts and then looking at our own church, and maybe the Church as a whole (at least in the Western world), does it match up, even slightly? Is what we have really what we want for Church?

I haven't read lots on the subject of organic church, but from my brief reading today of websites and blogs from church leaders who advocate this style of doing church, but what I've wrote here is what I can gather organic church to, at least in a small part, be like or aiming to have these qualities.

And this is the kind of church I'd like to be a part of.

Friday 4 March 2011

Hell and all that damnable stuff

So on light of all the Rob Bell controversy, it resparked my desire to look into the traditional doctrine of hell. My thoughts on it all began long ago before I went to study theology about 5 or so years ago now. A good close friend of mine was struggling in her faith over the traditional hell concept and found it hard to rectify or justify in her mind. It was the usual question of "how can a loving God burn people forever?" infinite punishment for finite crimes. I had thought about it before then but never in any great depth as I just didn't know where to begin, being a fairly new Christian at the time. I did my best to try work out an answer with my friend as we talked over Scripture, Jesus and God's nature but ultimately she lost her faith (though what her spiritual state of mind is now, I don't know). I don't know for certain if this was the cause or just one of the main deciding factors, but regardless, it damaged her once very passionate faith in God. And it was sad, I was quite upset and mainly at my own failings in being able to help more despite not knowing much in detail about the faith back then.
Nevertheless, this has always stuck with me all these years. I've never stopped thinking about the concept of hell and it implications and whether it really is as clear cut in the bible. I wasn't sure but in the times where i didn't understand fully, I just left it to God and decided that I'm sure he knows what he is doing with people once they passed on.
Then I went to Mattersey Hall and studied theology and biblical studies for 3 years. To be honest this didn't help much with the problem of hell. I studied the afterlife in the Old Testament as part of one of my courses and that just added to confusion. The afterlife is a vert strange concept in the OT. But I never got to study the New Testament concept of hell.
Now I'm taking the opportunity to really study it all properly and find what the Scriptures do teach rather than me just thinking of all the people who have said "well the bible says ... Doesn't it?" and never really being sure of what it really DOES say. I mean, obviously I known of the places where Jesus does speak of the afterlife but what I'm doing now is looking at everything as a whole rather than isolated verses and incidents.
A few months ago I had begun to think about it all again properly and have some discussions with friends on the subject but that's about as far as it went. Now all this Rob Bell stuff has made me begin to question it all again and now I've decided to actually write down my research and really look into the history and context of first century beliefs, rabbinic traditions, the apostolic and early church fathers writings and anything else that seems relevant, all to see what I can find and to see where our doctrine has come from and how it got to be what it is today.

And so far what I'm finding is surprising me! I'm coming from the approach that the earlier beliefs in the Church were possibly closer to the original Christians views. The early church seemed to have much different views on hell than we do now, possible more in line with later Jewish rabbinic traditions from the Mishnah etc and almost closer to Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory (but not quite) and maybe not as eternal.

Now, I haven't completed my research yet so there is still more to discover. I'm not set either way yet on what I think about hell, so I'm open to discover and learn whatever I can. If I come out believing the traditional view, then so be it, at least I've studied it for myself to feel confident and what I believe and have some conviction about it. But should I come out with a view that's not the "orthodox" in today's churches, and at the risk of being branded a heretic, well I'm happy with that too.

I'll write more about it once I've researched more to talk about properly.

Tuesday 1 March 2011

The law is an ass

Today I read some articles on a court case against a Christian foster couple. They were apparently banned from fostering because if their beliefs against advocating homosexuality, despite them saying they would still look after and care for someone who was gay.
Now as annoying as this kind of "new" persecution against Christians can be, it's not really that which annoys me most. What gets me is that in one article it was quoted as saying that matters of sexual orientation take precedence over matters of conscience on the basis of "equality".
When.. Or rather, how, did the law end up like this? How has it become that having a clear conscience of your actions is second to whether you like men or women? I understand there are lots of issues with homosexuality and prejudices and hate towards people, but I still can't see how defending who people want to be with has become more important than some form of justice.
Plus, it's meant to be about being equal etc - well how is it equal to those with differing moral standards? This is why I think human rights and equality can't always work together; one way or the other something has got to give in order to let the other "right" be exercised. And once it does, the balance is tipped and it's not so equal anymore. But with homosexual rights being pushed so much by the govt., it doesn't matter who else loses their right to their freedom of expression and life or morals, as long as gay people don't feel marginalised.

Sometimes I think the law cares more about protecting peoples feelings than anything else these days...

Article Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/8353180/Foster-parents-defeated-by-the-new-Inquisition.html