In it, he writes that it is:

“misguided and toxic [that] a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better.”

Interesting right? Especially since Bell is a popular, quasi-celebrity evangelical preacher who leads the Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan numbering 10,000 members.

Predictably, the blogosphere and Twittersphere are going crazy. Read the full article to see what all the fuss is about.

“Love Wins” is a nice title for a book, no?

The post Stirring Up the Hornet’s Nest first appeared on What He Said: The Words of Jesus Christ.

What have church leaders infused in their services and programs to appeal to youth? Coffee lounges, “the emerging church” with a cool, countercultural image, cutting-edge technology, even open discussion of sex. I found these paragraphs especially interesting:

“In his book, ‘The Courage to Be Protestant,’ David Wells writes: ‘The born-again, marketing church has calculated that unless it makes deep, serious cultural adaptations, it will go out of business, especially with the younger generations. What it has not considered carefully enough is that it may well be putting itself out of business with God.

‘And the further irony,’ he adds, ‘is that the younger generations who are less impressed by whiz-bang technology, who often see through what is slick and glitzy, and who have been on the receiving end of enough marketing to nauseate them, are as likely to walk away from these oh-so-relevant churches as to walk into them.’

If the evangelical Christian leadership thinks that ‘cool Christianity’ is a sustainable path forward, they are severely mistaken. As a twentysomething, I can say with confidence that when it comes to church, we don’t want cool as much as we want real.”

Here’s an idea: try teaching what Jesus taught. Love, tolerance, and peace never go out of style.

The post Hipster Christianity first appeared on What He Said: The Words of Jesus Christ.