Irrelevant Title. (Supreme Double Entendre)

Sometimes I have the overwhelming desire for my blog to mean something substantial and only write things that are serious, intellectual and/or thought-provoking. But, then I'm reminded that a lot (sometimes too many) of the things in life are serious/intellectual/thought-provoking, and I that's why I do things like habitually leave my t.v. on Comedy Central, avoid all things dramatic except for my crime shows, and attempt to blog about things only from my whimsical perspective in order to avoid slipping into the labyrinth of melancholy. Don't get me wrong; I'm not advocating denial or apathy or pollyanna-esque behavior, because I do believe that, sometimes, just like Claire Colburn (Kirsten Dunst) said in Elizabethtown,

you need "to get into the deep beautiful melancholy of everything that's happened;" because, sometimes, it's good for you. Besides, if you don't, and you just suppress it and bury it deep down inside, like statistically most middle-aged white men do, then you'll eventually erupt and go on a crazy, homicidal rampage and ruin your life. And no one wants that. Also, if this melancholy is a product of your own foolishness and its consequences, then, if you let Him, God can/will help you learn something from it and eventually get you back onto the narrow path you deviated from, with some newly acquired knowledge to apply this go-around. Believe me when I say this, because most of my significant life experiences have consisted of this, because God knows that my "spirit is willing but the flesh is weak". Jesus actually said that in Matthew 26:41 but Paul knows a lot about it too, and he wrote 2 really good chapters on it in Romans, hence I linked them. Anyyyyyway, all of this was sort of an unintentional lead up to a let down, because what I was supposed to blog about was Rob Bell's new book "Love Wins." I honestly don't even want to italicize it because it's so blasphemous, I fear drawing any attention to it; but, I guess that's inevitable seeing as how I'm writing about it. I wanted to wait until I had the chance to listen to my own pastor's sermon addressing this issue, but it seems that isn't going to happen due to "technical difficulties." So here goes my personal epistle on the matter.
  
     When I was in high school and participated in Young Life, one of the things we did was watch these Nooma videos by Rob Bell. Bell is artsy/hip/cool and very alluring with his thick-rimmed glass, platinum blonde/trimmed hair, trendy clothes, and intimidatingly precocious demeanor. So when I thought he was the coolest preacher ever and wanted to show my parents one of the videos we had watched, I was sort of surprised that they were not as captivated by him as I was. No, they didn't really like what he said at all, because they knew that I hadn't noticed what they had: a subtle, hidden deviance from truth. My parents knew 3 years ago that there was something shady about Rob Bell and the things he acts so sure of. From then on, if I watched one of his nooma's, I did so skeptically. I would like to clarify, also, that I don't think Young Life or my leaders at the time had any perception of Bell's clandestine nature and certainly did not foresee him writing a book that forsakes the basic principles of Christianity. I like that word (forsake) here, because it's eloquent in its divinity.
  
     The idea in this book that is under the most scrutiny is that of the notion that hell does not exist, which is absurd (it's in the Bible more times than I can count). The title itself is misleading and irrelevant to that specific (asinine) concept. Yeah, love does win: if you love Jesus, you won't lose your life (perish), but you'll win everlasting life. But that's not what Bell was trying to convey when he titled his book. I don't actually know what he was trying to say, because I can't possibly imagine what sadistic, twisted paradox he was trying to apply to that title. (Also I haven't read it, nor am I going to.) All I know is that he knew what he was doing when he named it that because he is gifted in the art of rhetoric and knows how to grab people's attention. I'm not trying to make Rob Bell seem like the anti-Christ because God loves him too, and I'm sure, is very upset about Bell's unfortunate divergence from truth. But I'm not going to let any pity I might have for him overwhelm my scrupulosity of his deceitfulness.
    Honestly, this is all just very sad, and I hope that if you were unsure before you read this, now you know.