In Ken’s latest hit piece against Rob Bell, he writes this

According to his myth The gods Aren’t Angry, Rob Bell would have us believe God says, “I will be calm and will no more be angry.”

But here is what the LORD God Almighty actually says: “I AM a righteous Judge, a God Who expresses My wrath every day.” (see—Psalm 7:11)

I am wondering if Ken missed these verses in his morning conversations with the Divine

Psa 36:5 (NIV) Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies.

Jer 31:3 (NIV) The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.

Lam 3:22 (NIV) Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.

Zep 3:17 (NIV) The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”

1 John 4:16 (NIV) And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.

John 3:16 (NIV) “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

1 John 3:1 (NIV) How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

I wonder if the ODMs just skip over verses like these. They certainly don’t jive with their theology.

From the Christian Post (HT: Ken Silva):

Younger generations are not bound by traditional parameters of the Christian faith and instead are embracing values that are not necessarily based on biblical foundations, according to a recent analysis by The Barna Group.Although faith is an acceptable attribute and pursuit among most young people, their notions of faith do not align with conventional religious perspectives or behavior, the research group reported on Monday.

Young Americans have adopted values such as goodness, kindness and tolerance, but they remain skeptical of the Bible, church traditions, and rules or behaviors based upon religious teaching.

When goodness, kindness and tolerance are seen as counter to the culture of American Christianity perhaps its a movement of God that younger generations are not bound by traditional parameters of the (American) Christian faith.

Interestingly enough the same research group (Barna) released a study that found the church’s image has taken a beating. Check it out:

This battered image is the result of a combination of factors: harsh media criticism, “unchristian” behavior by church people, bad personal experiences with churches, ineffective Christian leadership amid social crises, and the like

Notice that of the four specific factors listed three of them are self-inflicted, and are the result of being, well, unfaithful to living the gospel. If that is representative of the experience of the church thank God that younger generations’ religious notions “do not align with conventional religious perspectives or behavior, the research group reported on Monday.”