Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. (1 John 2:15-17 ESV)
The rage right now in the church visible is what is called Christian Universalism. This is the theology of Rob Bell as revealed in his book Love Wins. Of course he plays his usual game of never being doctrinally definite about anything so it is impossible to pin him down to anything, but as this fellow says, Rob Bell is a Universalist. He should know because he is as well. I was at a second-hand bookstore about a month ago or so looking for a Greek-English Lexicon. Before I went to where the really special books were I decided to look first in the “Christian” book section, hoping that, perhaps, some seminary dropout had sold his Mounce Greek reference books and I would be the first to pounce on them. But, instead, I encountered two women excitedly talking about a book one of them had pulled from that stack by Rob Bell titled Velvet Elvis. One of the women was trying to convince the other how special it was and why she should buy it. I did not mean to listen, but I kept waiting for some sort of sound Biblical or Orthodox Christian reason that the other woman should buy that book. All I heard was that it was “really cool” and made the first woman feel “special.” I just shook my head, walked over to the reference section, and found a great buy on a 1999 edition from Oxford Press of Liddell & Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon for $12.00. I think I got a better deal.
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