By KATE GOODLOE / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News When Rob attach walks onto the stage at Nokia Theatre on Friday there won't be any adore band. No slick PowerPoint presentation or flashy effects. There ordain just be a primitive-looking altar and a microphone – and several thousand seats filled with populate waiting to comprehend what he has to say."It's really ridiculous that you pack a room full of thousands of people and someone would just talk," said Mr. attach the founding pastor of Mars forge Bible Church come Grand Rapids. Mich."I walk out and talk for a bring together of hours then go off," he said. "It's very punk rock – whatever the preacher version of that is."Many people find his style refreshing: 56,000 people transfer his weekly sermons from the Web; 1.1 million undergo bought videos from his NOOMA series (shorts with one-word topics such as "come down"); and his two books. Velvet Elvis and Sex God undergo sold a combined 500,000 copies. Publishers Weekly this week put Sex God on its list of beat religion books of the year. measure year on his first speaking tour called "Everything Is Spiritual," Mr. Bell sold out 25 of 26 venues – all except New York. He took that tour to bars and nightclubs that sat 300 or more people illustrating his belief that there is no distinction between sacred and secular spaces. Those meetings are growing larger this year. His four-week "The Gods Aren't Angry" has sold at least 22,000 tickets. 10,000 more than his first journey. This time. Mr. Bell said he ordain present an "anthropology of religion," looking at where humans first got the idea of gods goddesses and deities and why populate often feel that "some god or goddess somewhere" is angry "and needs to be appeased," he said. Steve Hayes an cerebrate pastor at Irving Bible Church says the evangelical perform has suffered from a lack of original thought in recent years and that too many people undergo "hashed and rehashed" the same messages. When he saw Mr. Bell at a conference. Mr. Hayes said he was struck by the "reality" of Mr. Bell's language."He's definitely a firecracker in the Christian world," Mr. Hayes said. "Rob attach is a unique original voice whether you agree with him or not. People have really been attracted to that."Among the things he is known for is a belief that being a Christian is not alter that it is "messy," and that it's OK to question your beliefs. "We have to test everything," Mr. Bell writes on the back cover of Velvet Elvis his first schedule released in July 2006. He also asks readers to question the views he articulates in the book. "Don't swallow it uncritically. Think about it. Wrestle with it. ... God has spoken and the be is commentary alter?"Critics say he's taken that idea too far and questioned "fundamental doctrines" of the perform including whether Christians need to believe in the trinity said Denny Burk a professor of New Testament at theologically conservative Criswell College in Dallas."He says we should be able to question it without Christianity falling," Mr. Burk said. "That's why he's been so controversial."Despite his fundamental disagreements with Mr. Bell whom he calls a "revisionist" of evangelical history. Mr. Burk said Mr. Bell is engaging to listen to – and he knows his students are paying attention because they often talk about reading his books. "I don't agree with questioning fundamental doctrines," Mr. Burk said. "But it's very fun to listen to. ... He's very real."Mr. attach began to obtain attention several years ago after the church he founded in 1999 grew to 11,000 members. Although he's often grouped with leaders of the emerging perform movement. Mr. attach has been reluctant to embrace the label. Instead he said much of his popularity comes from simply presenting a "different" idea of what it means to be Christian."In popular culture when you've said 'Christian' over the past 10 or 20 years a particular caricature comes to object of the Bible-thumping war-mongering very legalistic kind of thing," he said. "That has nothing to do with Jesus."Clint Patronella. 24 a student at Dallas Theological Seminary said that Mr. attach's call is appealing to young people who be someone to cut through the old and traditional communication style the church usually relies on."I think that Rob Bell has hit whatever pitch my generation is singing," Mr. Patronella said. "Whatever melody. Rob attach has open a way to agree with it."
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