Oprah Teams Up with Rob Bell, formerly of Mars Hill Church

[Emme]

He's featured in O Magazine this month. Apparently he's developing a spiritual show for OWN. I didn't think anything of it until they mentioned Mars Hill, and then a bell went off. Mars Hill is basically a cult right? Was it as bad as it is now when he ran it? The article says "Bell has the uncanny magnitism of a cult leader, or a US President, tempered by the ernest humility of a seeker". He's also described as "a christian from birth".

Thought you guys might find this interesting. This is the same Mars Hill right?

[singsingsing]

Nooooo, Rob Bell's Mars Hill is a completely different entity than Mark Driscoll's. Rob Bell is a pretty liberal guy.

[Emme]

Nooooo, Rob Bell's Mars Hill is a completely different entity than Mark Driscoll's. Rob Bell is a pretty liberal guy.

Oh GOOD. I was going to say, he seems super liberal. So this is a GOOD Mars Hill? Not the same as the crazypants one?

Sucks that his church has the same name as the crazypants church.

Mods can delete this if they want. Since it's a different church. For some reason the googling I did didn't bring up the difference.

[dawbs]

VERY different mars hill, which I only know about because I have a sibling who goes there--definitely a liberal church.

FWIW, this is his book:

https://www.robbell.com/lovewins/

And why he's no longer at any mars hill:

http://www.christianpost.com/news/rob-b ... ure-85995/

(Googling his book "Love Wins" will get you more hits)

If it helps :)

[lilwriter85]

Didn't Oprah once team with Max Lucado?

Rob Bell like previous posters have mentioned is liberal and he is disliked by more conservative Christians. I can't remember who it was, but one of the fundie bloggers we discuss here bitched about Bell's support of gay marriage.

[freedomjesusfootball]

Rob Bell is a very well-educated theologian. He has a series of videos that go into different aspects of Christianity, looking at things in their historical context. He is FAR from a Biblical literalist. I have been to see him give a lecture and it was informative, historical, and interesting, FWIW. For context, I am a liberal Christian interested more in overlap between religions, and in reading the Bible within its historical context than I am in judging people.

[jlbturtle]

Rob Bell's Mars Hill is in Grandville MI. It's held in a former mall and is a pretty liberal church appealing to a lot of young families (it's about 20 minutes from our house).

[singsingsing]

I didn't know about Mark Driscoll's Mars Hill until long after I knew about Rob Bell's, and I was pretty pissed off on behalf of the Michigan Mars Hill that they'll have to be confused with that awful organization - even though Mark Driscoll's was, I believe, founded first.

[Mama Mia]

Mars Hill seems like an odd random name to have, I am assuming it has some sort of theological meaning if there are two of them?

[Janes Heir]

Mars Hill seems like an odd random name to have, I am assuming it has some sort of theological meaning if there are two of them?

Yeah, in Acts 17 Paul preaches at the Aeropagus (in Athens) on Mars Hill about " the unknown God whom [the Athenians] ignorantly worship". It's a good example of Paul's literary knowledge and rhetorical ability, so a popular model for apologetics, I think.

I could be totally off here, but is Rob Bell the one who wrote "Love Wins", questioning traditional interpretations of the fate of "the lost"?

[singsingsing]

Yes, Rob Bell wrote 'Love Wins' along with a number of other books, but 'Love Wins' was the most controversial and got him branded a heretic by many conservatives.

[Arete]

Yeah, in Acts 17 Paul preaches at the Aeropagus (in Athens) on Mars Hill about " the unknown God whom [the Athenians] ignorantly worship". It's a good example of Paul's literary knowledge and rhetorical ability, so a popular model for apologetics, I think.

I could be totally off here, but is Rob Bell the one who wrote "Love Wins", questioning traditional interpretations of the fate of "the lost"?

Aeropagus literally means "The court of Ares(Greek name for the god Mars). So the site and reference get literally translated as "Mars Hill"

Aeropagus is also the name of the modern Greek Supreme Court.

Back to your regularly scheduled program. :)