Who's God : Who's gospel?

There Can Be Only One

Mikhail Gorbachev said:"Peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences"


I've recently bought and am thoroughly enjoying Rob Bells "Love Wins" book published earlier this year.


I often like to get some idea of folks reviews before reading stuff to give me an idea of the kind of ride I'm going to get when the reading begins. It's been interesting to look at these reviews as an "outsider", as a christian who no longer conforms to the norms of christian behaviour like going to church or believing in the plenary truth of the Bible.

Bell is something of a hot potato - some love him - some despise him and go as far as condemning him as an evil subversive. He gets the heretic label too. Such polar differences are nothing new in reviews whether it's a new book, play, film or record. You can't please everyone goes the saying.

However, one review that caused me to itch was titled "why does Rob Bell have such weird theology?" It was actually an old review and nothing to do with Bells new book. I think what the reviewer was saying is "why is Rob Bells theology different to the hermeneutic that I believe in"
Each to their own is another saying but the person who posted the critique didn't even have the nous to disguise his attack. His review was nasty and personal. Nothing more than a self righteous bigoted rant. No substance, no class. It exposed the failing in his own traditional theology and would stink of hypocrisy to any neutral exploring 2 sides to a discussion. To the outsider, Bell would win any argument by default regardless of his different opinions due to the crass arrogance of the reviewer. The arsehole by the way was called Todd Friels an American DJ on a now defunct god radio station- enough said.

One of the major concerns of the negative reviews was the probability as they see it that Rob Bell is professing Universalism or salvation for all regardless of your faith, flavour of that faith or indeed lack of it. Personally I don't have a problem with that concept. I don't necessarily embrace it either. The fact is that I just don't know where I stand on the argument as I reckon it's God's job to worry about judgement of believers and non believers, or good people and bad people not mine. It's certainly not the church's place to be judge and jury and certainly not theologians or big gobbed DJ's. What I do believe in is a Universal God of Love not a god of damnation. I'm hanging onto that.

I've recently acquired a new good friend. A Catholic Priest called John. He's got a great view of life and where his faith fits in. He tows the party line in terms of how he leads his catholic flock but he's got a wonderful certainty of a God of Love and his compassion for all. He turned me onto a book by the late Roman Catholic leader Cardinal Basil Hume - “One in Christ: Unity & Diversity in the Church Today”. I've looked through some of the stuff he's selling and above all there's a great quote: "Christian unity is a gift from God ... It is also a process of growth. I would distrust anybody who tries to indicate to me what the end of that process will be. One step at a time...".
That resonates with me because it contains a great honesty in admitting that his church is on a journey and although they have an ultimate destination, they don't have all the directions yet.

Will they or any of us ever get to the prize?


I used to criticise the catholic church a great deal, I'm embarrassed to admit. There's still loads I don't necessarily agree with (and one or two major issues that could bring the whole church crashing to their knees in my opinion),nor do I profess to understand much about their practices but that doesn't give me the right to crash their party. I do actually think that in terms of ecumenism and their desire to see christians unfied in diversity they should be applauded.


“There Can Be Only One” is the tag line from one of my all time favourite films “Highlander”.


I'm not going to give any clever illustrations on how it helps to support my faith as in the main I just love the story and the action, despite the terrible accents of Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery.

There can only be one God. Whether it is Jesus or Allah or who ever - There can only be One supreme “being” right?

If it is the God that I believe in as a Christian, then there can only be One Christian God – not a job lot of demi gods of Methodism or Anglican or Presbyterian.

One God – One Love

Criticism from one brand of christians to other kinds of christians gets on me tits – These people are spending too much time on the defence of their flavour of religion than in practising what they believe. There is far too much scaremongering, too much finger pointing too much hysteria , too much fear and pseudo do-gooding in warning the world against the heretics who dare to espouse something different to their own beliefs.

I believe that in Jesus there is Universalism, there is a universal gospel. It is practised in different ways by different types of believers but ultimately there is a Gospel that comes from and points to Him.

As an aside. The patron of my charity  Codia, Tony Campolo has often been attacked and critiqued for his "alternative take on the bible". He was even tried in a Christian court ( is there legally such a thing?) for being a heretic! He was cleared of "the crime" but people were warned that he is dangerous because he takes the Bible too literally. Bloody Hell! What's a lad to do? You are damned if you do you are damned if you don't.
A couple of years ago we were able to host an event for Tony and his lovely wife Peggy. I found them to be wonderfully normal. Wonderfully flawed (and aware of this), and totally inspirational as agents of the message of Jesus. I couldn't give a toss that many of their enemies criticise their crusade of Social Justice or their support of the rights of homosexuals to be part of the church family. I only trust what I saw and listened to first hand and in them I saw and heard Jesus.
My wife, a non christian also spent some time with them and although she didn't get off on the “god stuff”, she couldn't help be touched by their genuine spirituality. That meant a lot to me. You see, well meaning folk have been telling me for years that “God is on Audrey's case”. I clung to that with dreams of how we would make a great team in leading a church together one day. We had a lucky escape.

However, I do believe that Audrey is on a spiritual journey and that is possibly more important to me now than she believing in the same things that I currently do.

A spiritual awareness that God IS (and that if He or She IS), is far more important as a starting block to meeting with the creator than a shed load of doctrine, dogma and hypocritical arrogant rhetoric ie my God's bigger than your God.

It saddens me that we live in a society where our differences of opinion (even amongst professing believers of the same god) are seen as primary reasons to keep us apart. What happened to inclusiveness? What happened to tolerance? What happend to Love, Acceptability and Forgiveness - No strings attached.?

I suppose my question is; "do we have to be compatible? do we have to be all conforming to believe in God.

Another friend (the Naked Pastor) posted on his blog recently; "compatibility can be the counterfeit of unity". That's a great statement.
I'd love for us Jesus believers to be unified in our acceptance that There Can Only be One. But until we all realize that it doesn't have to be the one that I personally choose to follow (i.e. "I COULD be wrong" ) then we'll never convince non believers that we have even got have our own shit together never mind that we might have an amazing story to tell that might just change their lives!

Like Mikhail Gorbachev said "Peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences" - would that there was real peace between not only different faiths but peace between different christians. Then we might all learn to see the same Jesus who does not see the different badges we all wear.Shalom.  And Rave On Rob Bell.