A Quick Response to Rob Bell's Book "Love Wins"

This book deserves much thoughtful consideration and discussion.  I share Rob Bell's difficulty in imaging a god who lets circumstance and death hinder the reach of his redemptive love.  It is not clear to me whether Rob Bell is also a universalist.  Certainly evangelicals should not follow the trajectory of the old Universalist Church.  I tend to believe that some persons, unfortunately, are irrevocably wedded to their rebellion against god.  There is a danger that persons will presume on the possibility of a second chance for salvation after death.  We shouldn't even presume that we'll have a chance to accept God's love on the next day, let alone after death.  Rigid fundamentalists, of course, are not open to this discussion but I believe that their brand of fundamentalism is a heresy.

Memorial Services for an Absent God

Is it sacreligious or unfair to characterize most Nazarene services as memorial observances to an absent god?  Years ago an Episcopalian priest told my mother, "We have the cup.  You Nazarenes have what's in the cup."  Well, now we have the cup.  We need to examine whether we have what's in the cup.

If you go to a morgue you will find that everything is in order, nothing objectionable takes place because the people are dead.  Are we proud of our perfectly predictable, programmed services because they are as unobjectionable as that which takes place in a morgue?