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    What We Talk About When We Talk About God
    What We Talk About When We Talk About God
    What We Talk About When We Talk About God
    Audiobook4 hours

    What We Talk About When We Talk About God

    Written by Rob Bell

    Narrated by Rob Bell

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    New York Times bestselling author Rob Bell, whom The New Yorker describes as “one of the most influential Christian leaders in the country,” does for the concept of God what he did for heaven and hell in his book Love Wins: He shows how traditional ideas have grown stale and dysfunctional and how to return vitality and vibrancy to lives of faith today.

    Pastor Rob Bell explains why both culture and the church resist talking about God, and shows how we can reconnect with the God who is pulling us forward into a better future. Bell uses his characteristic evocative storytelling to challenge everything you think you know about God. What We Talk About When We Talk About God tackles the misconceptions about God and reveals how God is with us, for us, ahead of us, and how understanding this could change the entire course of our lives.

    Editor's Note

    Compelling argument…

    In down-to-earth terms — full of pop culture examples and new interpretations of old scripture — Bell compellingly argues that God isn’t outdated, but that our ways of thinking about God are.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateMar 12, 2013
    ISBN9780062237705
    Author

    Rob Bell

    Rob Bell is a New York Times bestselling author, speaker, and spiritual teacher. His books include Love Wins, How to Be Here, What We Talk About When We Talk About God, Velvet Elvis, The Zimzum of Love, Sex God, Jesus Wants to Save Christians, and Drops Like Stars. He hosts the weekly podcast The Robcast, which was named by iTunes as one of the best of 2015. He was profiled in The New Yorker and in TIME Magazine as one of 2011’s hundred most influential people. He and his wife, Kristen, have three children and live in Los Angeles.

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    Reviews for What We Talk About When We Talk About God

    4.5/5

    75 ratings9 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Rob Bell reminds me of one of my first camp counselors at Camp Wesley Pines who told me you can be a Christian and still have fun as he proceeded to put gummy worms up his nose. He' also creatively shared life, love, and gospel, which is exactly what Rob does in his books. Bell creatively communicates a basic introduction of a God we can all understand with some brief words. The first two are Be Open and Both describing the current tension of a surface level understanding of science and religion with a richer undercurrent of both science and religion while also reminding the reader to be open to the possibilities. At the end of the largest section of the book he has a reminder that it doesn't have to be either/or. It can very well be both/and. Next he teases with an excellent overview of God by reminding us that God is With Us, For Us, and Ahead of Us. Lastly, he invites the reader into this exploration of seeing and experiencing God in this new framework with an afterword called So (think So What). What he introduces is not new or cliche in fact I've used and heard many of these in sermons/messages in recovery and church for quite some time; however he does craft the message in a way that is inviting and inspiring to seek God now and always.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Rob Bell dares to imagine a God that doesn’t just care about a select few, but loves all the creation that He called ‘good.’ Perhaps it’s time for you too to question the rigid, modern and western ways of viewing the Creator that we treasure so dearly, and embark on a journey to find whom this God really is. If you are questioning dogmatic faith but still feel a pull towards the Divine, this book is a must read!
    • 2/5
      The author's intent is clearly very positive, and I loved the book for that inspiring energy, but, based on what I was looking for, this was not the book for me. The theologic reasoning doesn't even scratch the surface of the main themes around "God" already handled centuries ago by the great spiritual thinkers, not only Christian ones like the Fathers of the Church, but Muslim and Hindu too. After reading "The experience of God" by David Bentley Hart, I have to be honest, this felt like drinking watered-down Pepsi after having had a glass of Chateau Brion Graves 1975.

    • 5/5
      Is God like an Oldsmobile? Outdated? Behind the times? A relic of yesteryear? This book concisely answers this question. Great read for the skeptic and believer alike.
    • 4/5
      I believe what Rob Bell has to say is so important for anyone to read regardless if they are from the traditional school of religious thought (as I am) or are acknowledged non-believers. Bell provides so much food for thought. I've heard some call Bell "dangerous" and others call him "a modern day saint." Probably somewhere in between, but he is nonetheless provocative. And, I think that whatever you believe, it should be questioned on a regular basis; perhaps that will make your belief stronger, or it may steer you in a different direction completely. It's the search that should never be forgotten.Actually what Bell has to say isn't that new to me. Many years ago, I took a very insightful Bible course called the Bethel Series [...], a non-denominational series which uses the Bible as a textbook and uses an historical approach to the Hebrew-Christian heritage of faith studying the Bible in the historical context in which it was written. It doesn't assume that you have give up your reasoning in order to be a Christian. We learned to "think like a Hebrew". Bell also wants us to learn to think in new ways, to recognize that not everything can be explained by logic, and that things are much more than a sum of the parts. The God that Bell wants us to meet anew is one that has always been with mankind and will always be regardless of time, location, culture, or theology.I am a life-long "traditional" Lutheran church-goer. To me, this book is not a condemnation of traditional belief, but it is an invitation to explore and think anew.I give this 4 stars rather than 5 due to what I would call a "flippant" writing style in some places. The book reads more like a conversation or speech interspersed with attempts at humor. But I am that traditionalist who likes nice neat structured paragraphs. But I realize that Bell is attempting to reach a much broader audience than old English teachers. However, the message is strong enough for me to easily overlook that modernistic approach of writing.
    • 5/5
      WoW! I will have to listen to this again. I got a lot from this book, a lot and there is more to go back and listen slow and pause to give thought to. It will take you way out beyond space and time and bring you back to the here and now. Summation; God is everywhere, everyday, all around us, in the large, the small, the mundane and the highlights of life, he is as close as our breath.
    • 5/5
      Awesome book! Very thought provoking
    • 4/5
      Bell writes in such a straight-forward manner that leaves little question or debate on what he's really saying. That's one of the things I like about his books. While nothing in this book is as radical as the material in 'Love Wins', this book covers and important subject that, I think, often gets overlooked. It was an enjoyable read that asks some good questions and makes some good points.
    • 4/5
      There is plenty to chew on in this book but I do have to say it is probably not as good as "Love Wins." Still there is food for reflection and I especially enjoyed the sections where he marries spiritual understandings to quantum physics. He is not the first theologian I have read who has broached this subject and favorably compared understandings of quantum physics to a deeper understanding of God and creation but he is probably the most readable. Definitely worth a read.