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2 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Rob Bell takes a risk in writing this book, but I appreciate how he lays it on the line. This would make for a lively small group study... First the positives, then the problems (for me): Positives: Bell writes like he's speaking to you. His language dances and confronts. He evokes. He opens the critical issues and takes us below, to the deep waters: What do our beliefs about heaven/hell say about what God is like? Without referring to Luther, his working definition of 'god' fits tightly with Luther's commentary on the first commandment in his Large Catechism. That everyone has a god (or gods) - that which you fear, love, and trust above all else. Bell says it like… Read more
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My old friend, Lanny Berg, makes an impassioned case for the congruity between God's timeless Word in scripture and how we ought to live in today's world. Many people of faith are good at giving their tithe or their time, but how wisely do we steward our consumer dollars? Berg takes a shotgun approach to building his argument: he begins with a bold thesis that God's 'model' for the flourishing of life is obvious in creation/scripture and able to be imitated. Next, he lays out five guiding ideas that shape the trajectory of the thesis. Finally, and throughout each section, he offers numerous examples and statistics. These examples are diverse and spread like shotgun fire, but in… Read more
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Andrew Root confronts us with the hollow sentimentality that surrounds so much of our culture both outside and especially inside the church. In this challenging book, Root calls for a church that bleeds, a church marked by the cross of Christ, honest about the reality of death and willing to face the myriad of cultural deaths in late modernity (deaths of meaning, authority, belonging, and identity). His argument rests on Luther's understanding of a "theology of the cross," by which we learn to utterly despair of our own ability before we are prepared to receive the grace of Christ. Part One works through the reality of four deaths (see above) under which we live. The… Read more
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