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There is so much wrapped up in the video, it is like a tornado of presuppositions. But I found the part about the basics of the gospel the most interesting. Bell says, “The real question is what is God like? Because millions and millions of people were taught that the primary message, the center, of the gospel of Jesus is that God is going to send you to hell unless you believe in Jesus. So what gets subtly sort of caught and taught is that Jesus rescues you from God. But what kind of God is that that we would need to be rescued from this God?”

Of course, a proper trinitarian theology transforms the statement, “Jesus rescues you from God” into something closer to “God rescues you from God” and this leads you from a dualist sort of evil-God vs. good-Jesus into an all-loving God balancing perfectly mercy and justice. I wonder if Bell is going to talk about that in his book or if he is just going to retreat to the shallow pop-theology of “Loving God can’t hate so nobody goes to hell” that he seems to be leading towards.