BUGB gets mentioned occasionally in this blog

I have noticed that the number of hits on my blog increases significantly when it is mentioned on the BUGB daily E-news Sweep email. This often (but not always) coincides with occasions when I mention something specifically related to being a Baptist Christian. This tells me several things:

1. Lots more people read the BUGB E-news Sweep email than read my blog. This is not a problem to me at all. I have no delusions of grandeur or ambitions for world domination.

2. The people who read the links on the BUGB E-news Sweep emails are interested in baptist-related news, ideas and (in my case) daftness. This is possibly because Baptist Christians exist below the media radar unless something goes wrong.

3. The fact that the readership numbers decline after an E-news Sweep mention suggests to me that my blog is not something that attracts that many people. This is also not a problem to me at all. I still have no delusions of grandeur or ambitions for world domination. Indeed I write this blog principally as a means of my own reflections on my life and faith and as a feeble attempt at self-awareness.

Now the thing that fascinates me is whether this blog is sufficiently baptistic to merit a mention in the BUGB E-news Sweep. I think I have mentioned BUGB enough times that sirens will be going off at Baptist House in the Communications Department, but actually this blog entry might be described as ‘much ado about nothing’ so far.

So I had better add some meat to the gravy with an abrupt and unexpected plot twist.

I am incredibly disheartened at the responses by Christians to Rob Bell’s latest book: ‘Love Wins’. It has only just been released into the wild yet a lot of people seem to be getting their theological knickers in a twist about it. Presumably they have all had advance copies of the book and read it thoroughly in order to be so vexed about it. [laughs ironically]

I have ordered the book and when it comes I will read it with an open mind. If his views differ from mine I will accept that this is the case and not start saving for a visit to the USA so I can burn the book in front of his church, launch stones through the windows of his house and denounce him as a heretic who will burn in hell.

I suspect that the book will not offend. It will be thoroughly well researched, thoughtfully (if provocatively) written and will inspire a greater appreciation of God. If so, then ‘Hallelujah!’ If not, then it will be a shame. But I will not give myself a theological wedgy and my doctrinal knickers will remain untwisted.

A while ago Steve Chalke (a Baptist minister [note further mention of Baptists (and another sneaky one) to ingratiate myself with the BUGB (and another!) Comms Dept]) co-authored a book: ‘The Lost Message of Jesus’. In it he criticised the western Evangelical emphasis/bias on the ‘penal substitution’ model of the atonement. He did not declare it unbiblical or wrong, but he criticised how some Christians represent that way of describing what Jesus’ death means for us. He used a phrase to describe how that made him feel, which created a furore. And he had had the temerity to suggest that there were other models of the atonement in the Bible that we ought to explore and teach too. No wonder he was verbally lynched. [laughs ironically again, in case you had not picked it up].

I wonder how many of the people who criticised him had read the book from cover to cover. I did. I also had the opportunity to say ‘thank you’ to Steve Chalke for writing the book and renewing my appreciation of other ways of understanding what Jesus did for me on the cross. So in advance of Amazon delivering my Rob Bell book, ‘thank you, Rob’.

Now it may be that by writing this blog some of you will be finding that your ecclesiastical undergarments are becoming constrictive because they are twisting. Please pause, dear reader, and ask yourself if God is big enough to cope with people exploring him (and if he would prefer us to ignore him). Ask yourself if God is strong enough to withstand it when we write about him (even if we get it wrong). Ask yourself why you are so incensed. And if you still have a theological wedgy and your doctrinal knickers are still in a twist, bless you.