Christian author's book sparks charges of heresy

By Eric Marrapodi, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor
http://tinyurl.com/4564pjl

Rob Bell, a pastor and author who has achieved rock star status in the Christian world, is preaching a false gospel, his critics say. And some of those critics are Christian rock stars in their own right.

The pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Bell has authored a book called Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, which ignited a firestorm of controversy over the weekend, weeks before it arrives in bookstores.

On Saturday, in a blog post on the popular Christian website The Gospel Coalition, Justin Taylor blasted Bell's new book, out March 29, for teaching "false doctrine"

The Biggest Temptation of the Modern Christian is Self Righteousness

by Donald Miller
http://tinyurl.com/4tsbv94

"Did Jesus have enemies? Did some people not like Him? Yes. People who used the ancient texts to lord over others with the tools of fear and shame and public humiliation and accusation were the enemies of Christ. To think those enemies of Christ do not still exist today in an evangelical context, even using Christ’s name and hiding behind His cause of the gospel, would be naieve. Jesus never controls anybody. He states truths, and is okay with the chaos it creates. Control is the enemy of relationship, and of love. The Gospel is about relationship and love, not force."

John Dominic Crossan's 'blasphemous' portrait of Jesus

By John Blake, CNN

"One of his first fan letters came from someone who declared:

"If Hell were not already created, it should be invented just for you."

Other critics have called him "demonic," "blasphemous" and a "schmuck."

When John Dominic Crossan was a teenager in Ireland, he dreamed of becoming a missionary priest. But the message he's spreading about Jesus today isn't the kind that would endear him to many church leaders.

Crossan says Jesus was an exploited "peasant with an attitude" who didn't perform many miracles, physically rise from the dead or die as punishment for humanity's sins.

Jesus was extraordinary because of how he lived, not died, says Crossan, one of the world's top scholars on the "historical Jesus," a field in which academics use historical evidence to reconstruct Jesus in his first-century setting."

 [Full Article]

Faith In A Greater Reality - Hope That You Will Survive

THOUGHTS ON FAITH AND HOPE
by Martha Woodroof

"Now, I don’t mean to imply that Thomas Merton offers this story as anything other than a casual, back-ward glance. Yet while reading it, I had what I think of one of those light bulb moments of faith, a jump in awareness of what it means to me (or you or anyone) to live in partnership with God. Reading this slight anecdote from a monk’s childhood, it came to me that one of major gifts of faith is the persistent presence of hope in one’s head and heart. And by hope, I mean a kind of blessed, essential calmness—a deep certainty that what’s truly indispensable to one’s sense of well-being is fundamentally unaffected by what happens; that it has to do, instead, with rooting one’s life in a partnership with God. And so, it came to me while reading that paragraph written by Thomas Merton, that I was now a truly hopeful person, because I feel certain that no matter what happens to me, I—as a person of faith—will go on feeling comfortable with who I am in the world as it is. "

[Full Article]

 

Study: Top 5 religion stories of 2010

By Dan Gilgoff, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor

"Four of the top five religion stories of 2010 - the ones that got the most ink - involved Islam, according to a major study out Thursday about faith coverage in the news.

Another headline from the study, conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life: For the first time since 2007, neither the Roman Catholic Church nor religion’s role in U.S. politics were the No. 1 topic of faith coverage among major news media.

Here are the top 5 religion stories from 2010, according to the study, which examined more than 50,000 stories from newspapers, news websites, newscasts on network and cable TV and radio programming.

1. Controversy over a proposed Islamic center near New York's ground zero (23% of coverage)
2. The abuse scandal within the Roman Catholic Church. (19% of coverage)
3. The Rev. Terry Jones' threatened Koran burning in Florida (15% of coverage)
4. Religion in the Obama administration (6% of coverage)
5. Commemorations of the September 11, 2001 attacks (5% of coverage)

What do you think? Are there any religion stories that deserved more attention in 2010 than these five?"